I think my thirty day goal of not eating any desserts for the month of May 2007 is working.  I’m actually down a few pounds from April.  If you recall, April was the first month in five months that I didn’t lose at least 4 pounds.  Now that I have made the conscientious goal of refraining from that after dinner delight called “dessert” I am finding myself able to “go hungry” for longer.

It’s not that I “couldn’t” go hungry for an extended period of time, it’s just that it wasn’t at the front of my memory.  My thirty day goals tend to bring out the best - simply because I know that after thirty days I can toss them out if I want, like the sit ups and push ups I had to do for March and April of this year.  I’m sure I will add those back into my routine, just not with the daily monotony that I scheduled them to be.

If you have been reading this online weight loss diary of mine for any length of time, you realize that I am big on having goals.  Not just any goals, but ones that are specific and measurable AND public for the same reasons mentioned as number 27 here - accountability.

What’s your goal?

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What has happened in the four months since I made an effort to lose weight? I’ll tell you what’s happened, I have lost 16 pounds. 4 pounds a month, 1 pound a week on average.

I didn’t think it would go that way. My thinking was more along the lines that I would lose most of the weight I wanted to in the first few months (maybe I am still in the first few months?), then the weight loss would slow down. Hasn’t happened yet.

I set a goal of losing 23 pounds (hence, the name of this site), in 13 months. By the end of December 2007, I wanted to weigh 23 pounds less than what I weighed at the end of November 2006. If my four pounds per month rate keeps up, it looks like I will hit my target before the summer of 2007.

What have a I done to make this weight loss goal a reality? Not much recently. For the past few weeks, my wife and I have been painting the house we are selling. This has detracted from getting much if any exercise for me during the work week. I come home from work, eat dinner, and then head out for a few hours with a paint brush or roller in my hands.

What I have done consistently is to keep going with my 30 day goals. The first 30 day goal was to not eat anything after dinner. This goal is probably the one that has had the biggest impact on my weight loss goal. Two reasons I think this, one, it is the goal I have stuck to the longest - more than 120 days and two, think of how much less food I am consuming by restricting a certain time of the day to not eating. I think that going to bed with a full stomach is not a good idea. No medical proof from me since I am not a medical professional.

This past month I didn’t miss a day of doing 100 sit ups. And for this month, April, I am doing 50 push ups per day. Today’s pushups along with sit ups were tough. I did ten pushups, followed by 25 situps and repeated that sequence. Then I added the last 10 pushups at the very end. I was getting shaky arms by the last couple of sets of pushups. By the end of the month, I should be able to do 50 pushups without taking a break.

Technorati Tags: weight loss, sit ups, pushups, 30 day goal

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Sex Life Improves With Writing

I didn’t see this one coming and I sure didn’t think I would be writing about this.

This story isn’t about losing weight per se. It does mention a method that I have used, successfully I might add, to lose weight.

The important point is here:

For example, researchers asked people to write essays in support of a random point of view they did not hold. Months later, when surveyed, the majority held the opinion they wrote about, regardless of the topic. Once a person commits an opinion to writing – even an opinion he does not hold – it soon becomes his actual opinion. Not every time, but MOST of the time. The people in these experiments weren’t exposed to new information before writing their contrived opinions. All they did was sit down and write an opinion they didn’t actually have, and months later it became their actual opinion. The experiment worked whether the volunteers were writing the pro or the con position on the random topic.

This is what I am doing with this blog, writing down my intentions and making them come true.

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I did my 100 sit ups for the day. My 30 day goal for March 2007 is 100 sit ups per day. I knocked those out first thing this morning. It took my two sets of 50, but I did them. Once finished I thought to myself that this is too easy of a goal for the next thirty days. Then I thought of the bigger purpose - I want to establish healthy habits that continue beyond the 30 days. If I make a goal to hard to accomplish, it would be easy to give in when it gets tough and just bag the whole idea. I’m planning on making this a long term habit that will grow to a larger quantity of sit ups over time. By the end of this month, I should be able to do 100 sit ups consecutively, no breaks.

I also used the old analog scale along with the new scale today. Recall that I mentioned I have been losing weight even though I haven’t been doing much exercise recently? I suspect the weight loss is the result of my recent bout with the flu. I thought that the new scale might be out of whack - you would hope not since it is a brand new Taylor digital scale. I’m happy to report that the old and new scale gave similar results. Today I weighed 177.4 lbs. on the new scale and somewhere between 177 and 178 lbs. on the old analog scale. Yeah!

One area I need to improve on is the exercise. Last week I didn’t exercise at all because of being sick. Now I need to step back up the effort and exercise on a regular basis. Today is family Y night in our house. On Thursdays we all head over to the local YMCA. One of these times my wife and I are doing a yoga class. The kids usually either play basketball or racquetball.

It has been three months since I started this blog and the purpose of this blog is to get me to lose 23 pounds by the end of December 2007 - mainly through publicly stating my intentions and documenting my results. I weighed in at 190 pounds at the end of November 2006. At the end of December I weighed 186 pounds. December’s 30 day goal was to cut out candy bar snacks in the afternoon and no eating after dinner (this has probably been the biggest contributor to my weight loss to date). January I lost another 4 pounds and finished the month weighing 182 pounds. My 30 day goal for January 2007 was to exercise every day. I missed one day of exercising in January, while we were in Hood River Oregon for my brother’s wedding. February showed additional weight loss, almost 5 pounds, today I weigh in at 177.4 lbs. My 30 day goal was to drink 64 ounces of water every day. I missed doing this twice last month. At the beginning of the month, drinking that much water - in addition to whatever else I consumed during the day - was difficult, I felt bloated. Feeling bloated from drinking that much water is what I wanted to accomplish, that way I wouldn’t feel like eating too much. By the end of the month, if I wasn’t drinking that much water, then I felt thirsty. Funny how your body adapts to changes.

February’s results surprised me. I exercised less because of being sick. I actually gained some weight back in early February when I went on a cookie binge one weekend; I lost most of the weight in the last two weeks. So, is it the water drinking and the appetite suppressing effect that feeling bloated has that helped lose the weight? I don’t know, but I am planning on drinking at least 64 ounces of water every day.

Technorati Tags: sit ups, digital scale, 30 day goal

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Let me start by commenting on 2006.

If you have followed this blog, you will realize that this blog is only one short month old.  I set this site up at the end of November 2006 and starting talking about getting rid of some things, in particular candy and after dinner eating, with the purpose of losing weight.

My goal by the end of 2007 (not 2006) is to lose 23 pounds, hence the name of this domain.  When I started this blog, I weighed 190 pounds.  From when this blog started to the end of 2007, I need a little less than 2 pounds per month.  As of the first day of 2007, I weigh 186.  I have lost about 4 pounds this first month.  I am pleased with the results to date.  Mostly I am pleased that I followed through with the 30 day challenge of not eating after dinner.  This will be my springboard to further success.  I know that I can set a goal and expect to achieve it.

My goal for January 2007 is to exercise at least 30 minutes every day of the month.  I will have no problem hitting that goal today.  I have the day off from work.  Last night it snowed a little, I plan on taking the dog out for a run today in the foothills of Boise for at least an hour.  It’s the workdays that will be more of a challenge.

Something I have done different this year compared to previous years is what I call “Dave light savings”.  When the clocks changed back from day light savings time to standard time this past fall, I didn’t change my mental clock.  Instead of arriving at work around 8AM in the morning, I arrived at 7AM.  In other words, I didn’t make a change to my schedule based on the rest of the world’s (at least most of the world’s) time adjustment.  The biggest benefit to me is leaving work early.  I usually leave work sometime after 4PM instead of after 5PM and that means I get some day light to play with.  That daylight is when I get to exercise.  See how this works?

For “Dave light savings” to work properly for me, I need to make an effort to get out of work at a time that allows me to get home early enough to go running in the daylight.  As a backup, I am planning to bring my exercise clothing to work so I can change and exercise at work if I can’t make it home early enough.

Along the same lines, the family is having a once a week YMCA outing.  The whole family goes to the Y and my wife and I hit the aerobic and weight lifting machines for at least 40 minutes.  The kids either play racquetball or basketball for that time.

2007 looks to be a promising year for losing weight.

Technorati Tags: weight loss, goals, 2007, YMCA, running, exercise

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