225.4 -Weigh In

Cleaning it up! This morning’s breakfast – Eggs, Oatmeal, & Water. Check out my nutrition under the Diet Hawk link

My weight is surprisingly high this morning. I’m not surprised that it’s up, but am surprised at how much. Yesterday I was up to 223.6. Why is my weight so high? I have to disclose that I haven’t been trying to hard lately. Back to half-assing things – diet, exercise, dedication… I went for broke on Monday and had Panda Express for lunch. I added up the calories based on their website nutrition to see exactly how bad it really was…. Wow it was really bad. Over 1700 calories! just for lunch! I only have around 1750 total daily calories allotted to me. Last night we had pizza and soda for dinner. Nothing but crap…

A major problem that I have is that I have a “Perfectionist” attitude. You’re probably thinking, “Some one with a perfectionist attitude would strive for perfection and lose weight, not gain it” right? My problem is that I’m all-or-nothing, which is bad. You see, I can eat well in the morning, maybe even eat well for lunch, but if I screw up and eat something crappy later, then my mind thinks “Oh well, today’s shot – You might as well eat whatever you want and don’t exercise because it won’t matter. Try again tomorrow.” It’s what kept me fat for so many years.

In addition to that, I’m heading back down to Hogtown this weekend for the Tennessee/Florida matchup for a guy’s weekend with my buddies Rick and Will. I know, as it always is, this weekend will be rife with beer, chicken wings, and who knows what else. Yes, it’s going to be hella fun, but then my brain goes into overdrive again…” Hey you’re going down to Gainesville for guy’s weekend. You’re going to ingest a shit ton of calories. Why even worry about getting back into shape and losing weight until that weekend is over.” It’s quite defeating.

Rick and I spoke about it. He uses logic – “eat well until that weekend, then get back at it afterward. That way you only have one bad weekend.” (I’m paraphrasing here). As much as the devil on my shoulder tries to justify my weak ass approach to procrastinating, I can’t win this argument. Remember… Tomorrow Never Comes. There will always be something else coming up. I must persevere. So I’m forcing myself to clean up my diet, even if it is just for the next couple days before Guy’s Weekend.  I restarted Focus T25 (a Beachbody Fitness Program similar to Insanity) on Monday, but I haven’t run in three weeks! Three weeks! I can’t believe it. My wife started a new job recently and she’s working longer hours. She’s pretty tired at night, so we don’t always see eye-to-eye about me leaving for an hour to run the neighborhood while the kids are still awake. I have to work on getting them to bed earlier or simply sacrificing sleep and running late at night like I used to. I must get that type of dedication back.

By the way, for those of you who have noticed me calling Gainesville “Hogtown” every once in a while but don’t know why… here you go.

Hogtown. Click to enlarge pic.

221.6

Per the rules of FitBet II, I have to post my weight each M, W, And Saturday. So here is today’s weigh in. 221.6. About the same as yesterday.

I ate clean all day except that I did have one Coke with my lunch yesterday. So nothing else to report.

Officially started Focus T25 yesterday. It’s a home boot camp style workout similar to Insanity or P90X. The beautiful thing about this workout is that it only takes 25 minutes. However, there are no “official”breaks so it is tiring and you do sweat a lot. But it’s fun so far. 5 days a week, for a total of 10 weeks.

218.8 – A New Beginning?

My weight has remained stagnant for several weeks now. Just teetering below the dreaded 220 mark. I’ve done just enough to make sure to not cross that barrier again, but not nearly enough to start losing the fat on a regular basis like I was early on in my Fit Gator journey. I really wanted to get under 200 lbs for my trip to Gainesville, but that is fast approaching in only 15 days. Blink and it will be here before you know it.

I wasn’t really sure why I’m not losing weight. I mean, yeah, I know physically it’s because of poor nutritional choices and not exercising as much as I should. But I was trying to go deeper. To figure out what mental block has been holding me back. Where is the drive and determination that I used to have? Where has that desire to be the Fit Gator gone?

Some days I have it – that spark. I’ll eat well and exercise my ass off.  I’ll lose a couple of pounds and breathe a sigh of relief, “I can still do this.”, Other days I don’t have it.  I don’t get enough sleep and I get super lazy and complacent. I don’t prepare or plan out my meals so I eat crap like Subway or Chick-Fil-A. And because I’m so sluggish, I’ll down a Coke in hopes that the caffeine will perk me up. But the sugar rush usually gets me crashing about the time I’m home from work and need to do my Insanity workout. I do the workouts, but often I’m so lethargic that I’ll half-ass them, taking unauthorized breaks when I probably don’t really need to – definitely not ‘digging deeper’ as Shaun T yells at me to do. Then I’ll skip my late night cardio sessions. All this usually leads to a small weight gain the next morning. I see 220 approaching and I force myself to dial it back to make sure I never weigh that much ever again.

On a positive note, I guess that’s better than it was, when there were many more days that I didn’t have any motivation than when I did.  But “better than I was” is far from where I need to be. It’s not good enough. It’s still shit. Ah, but there is light at the end of this tunnel…

I had a good talk with my wife Rachel the other night. We analyzed the mental barriers that have been holding me back and how to break through them. We acknowledged that deep within me, that flame of desire still burns. The Fit Bet, the side bets, all of that was there to help motivate me, but they’ve come to discourage me. The countdown of days until the deadline, which was supposed to create a sense of urgency, has ultimately backfired.

Inside my mind, knowing how far behind I got on my weight loss after my mother passed, has caused me to think very negatively. Like “Why even try? There’s physically no way a 40-year-old man can lose that amount of weight in this remaining amount of time.” So I talk myself out of exercising. I talk myself into eating fast food. “I can’t win the bet, so why try?” But Rachel helped me see the big picture. This isn’t about buying Rick some beer or wearing a stupid t-shirt. This isn’t about just hitting a goal weight. This is about getting healthy. This is about adding years to my life. This is about being a role model for my kids. This is about a lifestyle change. This is about living!

SDV.

216.8

Rise and shine. You know I’m kind of sick going round and round on my weight here. The other day I lost 4 and a half pounds in one day by combining calorie restriction and hella amounts of cardio.

Then I made the mistake of going out with my buddy Will for beers on Saturday night. Sunday morning I went golfing with another friend and knocked back tons of soda due to the heat on the links. Weight was up to 217.6 yesterday morning. In addition to my Insanity workout, I only got in that little amount of cardio while sleep running last night (see my last post) and now am down just shy of a pound.

There are now 24 days until Gainesville. As I mentioned in earlier posts I’d really like to get down below two bills by then. If I shoot to lose a pound a day (on average) from now until then o think I can do it. I’ll really to need to focus on my diet. I’d also like to get in two full cardio sessions each day.

So for the next few weeks, I’m not going to worry about any fitness bets or ultimate goals, I’m just going to focus on that magic number, 199. Put all my energy into reaching that by August 30th. It will be my lowest weight to date and the first time in 14 years that I’ve weighed less than two hundred pounds. A milestone.

213.2

Ok, so I’m back on track after Hurricane Will struck on Saturday.  Down about a pound from yesterday. The second half Insanity workouts are going to be tough. Had to do the Fit Test AND the workout which has been upped from 40 mins to about an hour now. Admittedly, I had to take a ton of breaks. I did that on top of mowing my yard and running/walking 4 miles yesterday. I did have about 500 more calories than I was shooting for, but still lost some weight.

Going to focus on hitting my calorie mark (or less) the next few days and see where that puts me. Thank goodness Rick extended the FitBet until the end of September, otherwise I’d have to lose 40 lbs in ~ 40 days. Ugh.

213.2

Ok so no real change in weight from yesterday to today. Rachel and I had “taco night” last night. And although I made myself chicken soft tacos, I also ate some tortilla chips, salsa, and queso. I didn’t track my calories at dinner and likely had too much sodium which kept my weight stagnant.

I did do my Insanity workout in the afternoon but was too tired to do an evening cardio workout. Hoping to make up for that today and even more so this weekend !

213.0

Three steps forward, no steps back. So far so good. Nearly down 3 pounds in as many days.

So next week Rick and I start the second half of Insanity. Workouts get longer, tougher. Currently in the middle recovery week, Core Cardio and Balance. Like the workout but getting nervous about the workouts to come. I still wasn’t able to do all the prior workouts 100% without taking breaks so I can only imagine what next week will bring. Guess I really will have to “Dig Deeper!”

This $#!+ is insane, yo !

3 days of Insanity in the books. Only 57 more to go. Ugh. On a positive note, looks like I’m beginning to get some definition back in my arms due to the weight loss. Yea!

209.4

Moving back in the right direction. Hoping to keep it going all the way until I get below 200 lbs finally without “Ponging”back up.

Rick and I started Insanity yesterday. Yesterday was just the Fit Test. Based on how I felt a bit queasy and spaghetti-legged afterward, I guess it’s safe to say that I’m not fit. But that’s okay, that’s why I’m doing it – to help me get fit. Here are my Day 1 Fit Test results.

I was worried that Rick and Denise may find it to easy as they do it down there in Gainesville because of all the running they’ve been doing the past few years, but he assures me that it’s definitely going to challenge them as well. Today is the first official “real” workout. It’s going to be tough.

207.0

Since I only got in a mile and a half on my run yesterday, I made sure to get an hour on the elliptical last night at YouFit. Kept my calories clean and low. Also made sure to drink lots of water to hydrate and stave off hunger.

Pleased to be back down in the single digit 200’s, but still have a long way to go to catch up.

Rick informs me that he just purchased Insanity. I was only a few workouts into it this round, so I’m going to wait until he gets it, then restart it when he does. That way we can motivate each other by doing the same works on the same days.