Weighing in, and the New York posts are done

First of all, I have finally finished writing up our New York experience over on our family blog. It took two posts, which you can find here and here.

I finally weighed myself after New York, and I was right — no gain, no loss. Pretty successful vacation, all things considered. But that was a week ago. As of Saturday night, I am sitting at 359.2 pounds. That’s right, I’m below 360! That’s a total of 42.6 pounds, which is quite the accomplishment for me, and I am pretty pleased with the way things are going. I’ve been amazed at how much self-control I’ve had — at times when I used to would have slapped together some nachos or made some mac & cheese or something, I’ve instead had a small bowl of healthy cereal or a banana or a low-carb Slim-Fast or — most groundbreaking — nothing at all. Of course, it also helps your self-control when you don’t keep the crap around the house, because life’s easier when nachos aren’t an option. But I have two small kids, so there is ALWAYS mac & cheese available to be made, and I’ve been very good about not making it. (I did make it once this week for lunch, but I used whole-wheat pasta and fat-free cheese and made a very small serving, which is still an improvement.)

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Back from New York

Well, the New York trip was a success, both in that it was amazingly fun and wonderful, and in that I didn’t do anything stupid food-wise. Our biggest problem was that we never had time to eat until late at night, and we all know that eating late at night is the worst thing you can do (especially when the only thing available is Papa John’s pizza). I also only had half a hot dog at the game Friday night, but then the game got rained out so we went back to the stadium on Saturday, and we each had a whole hot dog. But still, one-and-a-half hot dogs and a few late-night slices of pizza aren’t bad over the course of a three-day vacation, especially when you consider the 8,000 miles we walked. So while I haven’t weighed myself yet, I expect that I came home roughly the same weight as when I left, which is good enough for me.

By the way, I could totally see myself living in New York. Not forever, and probably not if I had a stupid job I had to go to, but when I am wealthily retired, I would LOVE to live for a year or two in Manhattan, and just spend my time going to Broadway shows, using my season tickets to the New Yankee Stadium, and learning how to spit. It is a wonderful city where no one obeys traffic signals, random black dudes shove their hardcore rap CDs into your hands and then ask for donations (all the while flirting with your wife and signing her CD “To Babycakes”) even though they totally KNOW you’re a white dude from Utah, and crazy cowboys run around playing guitar in nothing but briefs and a cowboy hat. I will be posting more on our family blog about our experience (and there’s already some there about “Wicked” and the Yankee game), probably later tonight.

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Lead me not…

Well, we’re in New York, and today we headed over to Times Square, among other places. For some crazy reason, we ended up spending quite a while in both the M&M store and the Hershey’s store. I guess we’re gluttons for punishment — which is better than other kinds of gluttony the situation could have inspired, I guess. We walked out with only the three little sample chocolates they gave us for buying a t-shirt, so I guess that’s a little victory.

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Are you reading this?

This is just a shout-out to anyone reading this. Please post a comment so I know you’re reading. As I’ve said before, this blog is my own personal accountability, so the more people I know are reading, the more pressure I have.

So if you’re reading this, tell me! And then come back and comment often. Add me to your Google Reader or whatever RSS reader you use and keep track of me! NOW!

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Vacations

Vacations are hard when you’re trying to eat right. (They’re a lot of fun when you don’t care what you eat.) Beth, the kids, and I spent a little over a week on vacation last month, with five days at a family reunion in Arizona and a few days in California for my cousin’s wedding. Generally, when we go on vacation for a week or more, we both come back significantly heavier than when we left — usually around 7-10 pounds for me and 4-5 pounds for Beth. We like to eat out when we’re on vacation, because we don’t have Jack in the Box or In-N-Out here in Utah. We eat to alleviate the boredom that comes from sitting around houses that aren’t our own. We eat because there are NO RULES when you’re on vacation!

So this last vacation, coming as it did only ten days or so after we started this current endeavor, had us both worried. Would we stick to our goals, or would the vacation kill our momentum and be a setback for us?

Without our scale, neither of us knew for sure how we were doing. We bought a lot of healthy food to snack on. But we didn’t exercise much (treadmills are kind of bulky to take on vacation). But we resisted the urge to eat pizza when it was readily available. But I did have half of a Coldstone ice cream at a Diamondbacks game. But I didn’t even touch the ice cream at my parents’ house. So by the time we got home, we weren’t sure what to expect. Did the good outweigh (I never get tired of that pun!) the bad?

Yes, yes it did. When we stood on the scale upon our return, we were pleased to see that we had each lost a little over a pound. Sure it’s not much, especially when I had lost nearly twenty pounds in the two weeks before the vacation. But when the usual result is a gain of ten pounds, I will take a loss of one any day. It reinforced my confidence that I really can do whatever I set my mind to.

Why am I writing this now, three weeks after the fact? Because in 14 hours, Beth and I are getting on an airplane and flying to New York for a fun little weekend trip. We’ll be sitting in Yankee Stadium on Friday night — which means temptation of nachos and hot dogs. We’ll be on Broadway on Saturday to see “Wicked” — which probably means eating out at a nice restaurant. And we’ll be spending three nights in a hotel, which means cooking healthy meals won’t really be an option.

I’m not really nervous, necessarily, but I am definitely realistic enough to recognize that I need all the extra motivation I can get. So I’m posting it here, for all the world to see, and when I get back on Sunday, I will have to be accountable for what I have done over the weekend. This blog is my own personal WWJD bracelet, except it’s WWASGD (What Would A Skinny Guy Do?).

Wish me luck!

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Another weigh-in, and talk of goals

Well, now that I have actually given out the URL to this place, it’s time for me to start keeping up over here. I’ve felt myself stall lately, so I need that extra motivation anyway.

As of this morning’s weigh-in, I am at 365.6, for a total of 36.2 pounds lost. After dropping 19 pounds in the first two weeks or so, it’s been 17 in the last five weeks. Obviously, it’s not healthy to consistently lose 10 pounds a week, and I think at my size 3-4 pounds a week is a realistic, healthy goal. As I get closer to the ultimate goal, it will slow down, of course; I just need to get into as many healthy habits as possible, so that even slow weight loss at that point will still be real progress.

Speaking of goals, one thing I thought of is that I need intermediate goals. My ultimate goal is to get to 240 pounds, but that is far away, so it’s not the proper motivation at this point. Especially because the lightest I’ve ever really been at this height is 280 (and that was when I was still a 17-year-old kid, when my bones and everything were still growing), so I don’t have any idea what I will look like at 280, let alone 240. I may get to 250 and realize that THAT is my perfect weight, or I may get to 240 and decide to keep going to 220. All I really know is that “only 125 more pounds!” isn’t the right motivation for me at this point.

The first goal I can really think of is to get down below 300. I’ve never in my life weighed less than my drivers license said, so that will be a big deal. But even that might be too far out for a preliminary goal.

I could just do goals in 20-pound increments, but that seems to fabricated to me. I want my goals to actually mean something. I think I will go with 329 as my next goal, because back before Lindsay was born, Bethy and I were doing really well working out and stuff, and I got down into the 330s, but never into the 320s. So when I get there, this will officially be the most successful weight-loss effort I have ever had, which will reinforce the fact that THIS is the one that’s actually going to work. So my next goal, I guess, is 329.

Anyone out there have any feedback on goals and how I should go about setting them? Is 36 pounds still too far away for a preliminary goal? What think ye?

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