To lose weight, you need to do something about it everyday.  Take me for example.  On Valentine’s Day I did nothing related to losing weight, really.  We shared a chocolate fondue for dessert with strawberries, pineapples and sponge cake (yummy).  No exercise, nothing.  Yesterday, instead of the whole fang dang family going to the local YMCA, just my youngest son and I went there and played basketball.  No real athletic output involved.  Though I do consider the time with my son more important than the erg workout that I was planning.

As a result, I weighed in at 181.8 lbs this morning.  Don’t forget that I have a new digital scale, hence the reason I am showing results out to the tenth of a pound.  Now I need to get back on the wagon and do something everyday to help lose weight.

I brought my workout clothes with me today so I can go for a run after work.  Sometimes it is to easy to drive home after work and “relax”, eat dinner then “relax” some more and before you know it you are “relaxing” yourself into not exercising.

A little over a week ago I setup a mini seven day goal of no desserts and no snacks, period.  I completed that goal successfully as of Valentine’s day.  Last night as I was munching on chips and reflecting on my successful completion of the mini goal, I couldn’t help but notice the irony of my behavior.  Here I was all proud and happy about my accomplishment and what was I doing to reward myself?  That’s right, snacking.

I’m not going back on the no snack/no dessert regime, but I am going to cut back on snacking specifically for the remainder of the month.  Dessert in moderation is fine, but seeing that I have no control in the snacking department, I need to cut myself off from the goods.

Technorati Tags: weight loss, dieting, daily exercise

If you're new here and plan on visiting again, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!

Other posts related to "Lose Weight Every Day"

I Did It

I Stopped Losing Weight

Why You Should Drink Water To Lose Weight

Waiting For The Weight Loss

Before I get starting, let me answer a question a reader had.  How many miles are in a kilometer? 0.621371192 miles per kilometer.  The actual question was how many meters are in two miles?  That answer is 3219 meters which is the equivalent of 2 miles.  In other words, 2 miles is farther than 3200 meters (which is 8 laps around a 400 meter track).

Now that that is out of the way, I’m wondering if this drinking thing I have going is what is causing the weight increase.  I’m up another pound this week.  At least that is the excuse I am working on.

And that is all it is, an excuse.  It’s more than likely that I need to up the effort.  More exercise, more water, more sleep, less eating, less worrying about losing weight.

As long as I am making progess to my 23 pound weight loss my the end of 2007, then everything is good.  Two steps forward, one step back - that works.

The weather has warmed up significantly here in the western part of the United States.  Might be time to get out in the evening again for a walk with my wife and the dog.  Of course, I won’t have my three week old pedometer that I lost this past weekend, arrrrhhh.  More importantly, I’ll have a chance to talk with my wife.  Today we closed on another home and will take possession tomorrow.  I’ll be honest and tell you that this has been a little bit stressful.  I don’t think I have ever signed my name so many times as when buying this house.  Everyone at the closing, except for us were calm, cool, and collected.  An evening walk will do us both some good.

As I have already mentioned, I think it is time to up the effort in some shape or form.  I might go for another “hell week”.  Last year about this time, I did a hell week - for me, a hell week consisted of running twice a day for seven days straight.  The discipline is the biggest benefit from the hell week.  Probably even more appropriate for what I am doing is to cut back on the food intake for a week.  Maybe I should cut out any snacks and dessert for a week.  I think keeping the time to a finite amount makes it easier for me to accomplish this goal.

There we go, the goal for the next seven days is to cut out all snacks and desserts.  I’m going to time the 64 ounce water drinking to line up with the meals, in particular dinner.

Technorati Tags: eating, water diet, exercise

Other posts related to "Raising The Bar, Less Eating"

My 30 Day Challenge

Why Am I Gaining Weight

My Brother Will Lose Weight

Losing Weight By Exercising In The Evening

It’s the holiday season. I have enjoyed taking some time with the family to do the family things that we like to do.

Our family spent a good portion of the last few days outside with the kids, wife, and dog. The weather has been unseasonably warm recently and has melted most of the snow. It is now that sloppy, wet type of weather that is less than inspiring. Getting outside and exercising feels great.

Well, I broke my thirty day goal of not eating anything after dinner. I had a chocolate ice cream, diet coke float with the rest of the family on Christmas Eve. We were all piled up on the couch watching some Christmas show. Oh well, I’ll survive.

It is time for me to get back on the exercise wagon. I’m going to resume running after I get home from work each day. Will need to make an effort to leave work early enough so when I go running it is still light out. I’m also toying with the idea of a “hell week” like I did this year. In January 2006, I committed to running twice a day for seven days straight. Wanted to do it to shock the body into accepting the training effort I was going to put in for the Robie Creek half marathon in Boise. I did run twice a day for seven days. After that, the only half marathon specific training I did was to run every Saturday at a longer distance than the previous Saturday by 15 minutes. The last long Saturday run I did approximately two weeks before the race was for 2 hours and 25 minutes.

My weight has bumped up to 189 for the last few days. This is really no surprise as I have been at home and have enjoyed the food that goes along with the holidays. It doesn’t help that the kids have plenty of chocolate.

My wife bought me a pedometer for Christmas. I have recently thought about getting another pedometer and surprise, I get one for Christmas. I previously owned a pedometer and the motivation to log 10,000 steps in a day got me off my duff every day for a walk ro two. Another great thing about that pedometer was that you could download the daily stats to a website that tracked your results - very cool.

I should tell you that I lost that pedometer. I’ll spare you the details and just say that I accidentally flushed the pedometer down the toilet.

As the month and year draw to a close, it’s time to reflect on the accomplishments and highlights for this year, 2006 and plan ahead for the new year, 2007.

Technorati Tags: robie creek, running, diet, exercise

Other posts related to "Leaving Weight Loss Alone For The Holidays"

Back Pain - What A Pain

Will Drinking Water Help Lose Weight?

Your Own Mortality: Antonio Puerta

Long Run For Weight Loss

I have a confession to make.  Friday’s are not a good eating day for me.

What I mean is that Friday’s are donut day at the office.  One person brings in bagels and cream cheese and donuts.  And I sampled all the goodies yesterday.

Now it is time to put that to an end.

On Friday’s, instead on munching on the goodies, I am going to bring an extra piece of fruit to work.  That will be my weekly treat at the office.

So why do I snack at work?  It’s not like I am hungry or anything.  I have the same breakfast on Friday’s that I have on any other work day of the week.  Maybe it is the idea of “free food” - the caveman instinct of eating when food is available in case nothing is available later.  I know that sounds far fetched, but is it?  I don’t now.  All I know is that when the email arrives stating that donuts are available at the normal location I feel this urge to get up and walk over and get something good to eat before everyone else does.

Even better is if I get the scoop on the arrival of treats before someone else does.  Then I feel like I scored big time.

Back to the question, why do I snack at work like this?  I think we can agree, this can’t be good for me.  Maybe I feel like I need to cheat on my efforts to lose weight.  Maybe its an escape clause on why I haven’t lost the weight I expect to.  It makes for a perfectly good reason why I wouldn’t lose 23 pounds in 13 months.

I have recently thought about the 23 pounds I am planning on losing.  Recall that I calculated I needed to lose about 1.77 pounds per month to hit my goal by the end of December 2007.  I also thought that the first few months I had better lose more than 1.77 pounds per month if I am serious about this.  I suspect that as time goes on and I lose weight that losing weight at the same absolute rate while weighing less will be more difficult.  Think of it this way, who do you think could lose one pound easier, a 200 pound person or a 100 pound person.  All things equal, the heavier person would likely be able to shed weight than the lighter person.

Let me let you in on some more personal information.  A couple years ago, I had my cholesterol level checked.  The results were not good.  My total cholesterol was over 220 and my LDL was 162. For reference, the maximum recommended numbers at that time were total cholesterol less than 200 and LDL less than 100.  Right away, I stopped eating any kind of cheese in slice form.  Sure, I still had cheese with a meal, like with a burrito or on a pizza, but I went cold turkey on eating slices of cheese.

I also started exercising more, bought myself a pedometer to keep track of the distance I walked each day - in case you can’t tell, I like gadgets.  Having the meter tell me how many steps and how much distance I covered each day works on motivating me to get a minimum amount of exercise each day.

Finally, I started eating oatmeal more often - as a replacement for breakfast and as an occasional afternoon snack.

Over the course of a year, I had my cholesterol checked four times.  That is an expensive thing to do, getting blood work done every time I visited the doctor.

After about a year, my cholesterol did improve, the total cholesterol dropped from 220+ to 188 and my LDL went from 162 to 124 - still high, but much improved.

I am telling you this because during the year after my first cholesterol test, my cholesterol readings improved every so slightly at each checkup.  To say the least, the marginal improvements were a little bit discouraging.  But I kept on with the cheese elimination diet, an increase in exercise, and oatmeal.  It wasn’t until the last checkup that I say the most improvement.

It won’t be a surprise if these first few months result in just a little weight loss.  My body (or mind) will probably fight me along the, trying to get me to eat some more.  But if I an consistent with my efforts to lose weight, then I see no reason why I won’t meet my weight loss goal of losing 23 pounds.

Technorati Tags: weight loss, diet, cholesterol, snacks, pedometer

Other posts related to "Time For Another Weight Loss Change"

Garmin Forerunner 305 Graph

Why I Weigh The Way I Do

Weight Loss 2007

Top 5 Reasons For Losing Weight

That’s right, I lost one pound today.

At least that’s what the scale told me when I looked at it this morning.  Maybe my vision was blurry first thing in the morning.  I have no illusions that tomorrow I will have lost more weight.  Rather, I’ll be happy if my weight stays exactly where it is right now.

Nor will I be disappointed if I weigh a pound more tomorrow.  I’m focusing on the fact that I am in this for the long haul - the rest of my life.  Heck, it is very possible that the scale is out of whack.  It’s an analog scale.

What I am excited about is that for the last five - count em - five days I have followed through on what I said I would not do.  I have not had the afternoon candy bar.  I really haven’t missed it to be honest.  This afternoon I did have a very small cup of old fashion oatmeal with a few raisins.  And second, I haven’t had any after dinner snacks.  This has been a little bit tougher though.  I have done a few “walk bys” to see what was in the pantry.  You know, just to make sure the food was still there; wink, wink.  Now on the other hand, I have gobbled down a number of carrots.

I must say that writing down my intentions, like I am doing here, is what keeps me focused on my goal of reducing my weight by 23 pounds by the end of 2007.  A couple of pounds a month for the next thirteen months and I should be at 167 lbs.

Over the winter months, my wife and I make an effort to take an evening walk.  This year we have a puppy, a nine month old yellow lab, that shares the walks with us.  It is on the cold side now, 29F, and this will make for a brisk walk with the dog.  One of the great thing about a walk like this, besides getting exercise, is the time we get to talk.  In case you are wondering, we have two wonderful sons, ages 9 and 11.  They do take a lot of time and attention - and rightly so.  Getting a chance to unwind together in a peaceful evening walk gives us a chance to reconnect.

I’m bouncing around this evening with my thoughts.  Getting back to the losing weight idea, not allowing myself the after dinner snacks gets me to appreciate the evening dinner even more.  I noticed this evening that I took a longer time to eat my meal than usual.  I wanted to savor every last bite.  I can still taste the lightly salted pesto pasta and the burnt garlic bread that is a signature of my wife.  Seems that in her family, everyone who has every used the broiler to toast bread ends up scorching the bread so the edges are charcoal black.  I prefer the slightly soggy, but highly garlic, toasted bread.  But that’s just me.

It’s time to get outside and get that evening walk under our belts.

Technorati Tags: weight, exercise, diet

Other posts related to "One Day One Pound"

Snow Running

10,000 Meters Maybe More

Raising The Bar, Less Eating

Taylor Body Fat Scale