Posted October 23rd, 2008 by Jeff J. Snider
As you all know, drinking water is healthy. It helps keep your body cleansed, it helps fill you up so you don’t eat as much at meals, etc., etc. I’ve always liked drinking a lot of water, but as part of my effort to get healthy, I noticed that I didn’t drink much water during the work day, which obviously meant I drank less water overall. So I bought a water bottle a month or so ago, and I keep it here on my desk so I can drink as much as I need to. It’s a one-liter bottle (about 34 ounces), and I probably empty it about eight times a day. So that’s over 250 ounces of water, which is a lot, but it’s also probably about right for my weight.
But you know what the experts don’t tell you? It’s a simple little formula:
Water + bladder = gotta pee a lot
Gotta pee a lot = gotta wash your hands a lot
Gotta wash your hands a lot + cold, dry Utah autumn air = extremely chapped hands
Extremely chapped hands = gotta put on lotion like a blasted girl about a hundred times a day
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Posted October 19th, 2008 by Jeff J. Snider
Sometimes you just hit a lull, ya know? For the last week or two, my weight has been hanging out right in the 351-353 range. I’m not gaining anything, but if I’m losing anything, it’s coming off VERY slowly. There are a couple things I think might be contributing to that:
- Coming down off the emotional high. I am still committed to losing the weight, but the raw emotion of when I originally got fired up is gone. I don’t think that’s a bad thing — it’s hard to live a balanced life if you are too focused on one particular thing — but it’s definitely something I will need to overcome.
- My body is demanding more effort. In the three months I have been losing weight, I’ve also been facing a lot of medical problems. Nothing major, just a couple sinus infections and some very severe allergies. As a result, I haven’t been able to exercise much. A couple treadmill sessions, one weightlifting session with a friend, and that’s about it for formal exercise. It’s just hard to get motivated to get on the treadmill or the elliptical when you can’t breathe.
So anyway, the vast majority of the weight I have lost has been due to eating better, and I think my body has reached the point where it’s like, “Okay, dude, that’s great, but it’s time to get off your butt and get healthy!” Just eating right may not be enough anymore.
So I have a couple things to overcome. The second one is easy — just start exercising. I worked out last night after Beth went to bed, and it felt really good. Back when I used to make excuses for myself, I used to say, “It’s hard to exercise when I feel so unhealthy, but I’ll never feel healthy until I lose weight, and I won’t lose weight until I exercise. Wo is me!” Now that I HAVE lost some weight — and no matter how big you start, 50 pounds is significant enough to feel it — exercising is starting to get easier. I feel about a million times better than I did at 400 pounds. It’s actually really encouraging to feel so good right now, considering that I am still unhealthily large — I can only imagine how good I will feel at 300, and 275, and 240. Last night, I actually got bored before I got tired, which means I just need to get some better stuff on the DVR down here in the exercise room.
The first issue is not quite so easy to tackle. (One thing I’ve noticed in this endeavor: like most things, the physical parts are SO much easier than the mental parts.) I don’t know if that initial emotion will ever come back, and like I said, I don’t think that’s a bad thing. What I need to do is find little things that supply a bit of that emotion, a little extra motivation.
One thing we have found it “The Biggest Loser: Families.” We had never watched the show before, but we thought that since we are working as a couple to become healthier, it would be a good show to watch. If you haven’t watched it, the basic premise is this: it’s a reality show where whoever loses the most weight wins a crapload of money. This season, everyone came on in pairs — some are husbands and wifes, and others are mother/father and son/daughter combos. People get eliminated based on a combination of weight and voting (depending on the week). But what I REALLY like is that even after you’ve been eliminated, you still have a chance to win, because the biggest loser of the losers wins a slighty smaller crapload of money!
And the best part for me — the part that inspires me the most — is that, since the show was filmed several months ago, they can show us real-time-ish updates on the people right after they get eliminated. A couple weeks ago, an old man named Jerry went home, leaving his daughter behind to continue the competition. Jerry was old, fat, and near death when he came on the show. When he left, he was a little bit older, a little bit thinner, and a little bit further from death. But then they showed us the update, and he has lost like 80 pounds, and he runs a couple miles a day, and he is off almost all the medications he had been taking. He looks GREAT. And when I see him, I think, “Wow, if he can fight through all this adversity, I can definitely take my body that still works far better than I deserve it to and do at least as well as he has.”
Last week, a guy named Ed went home. I liked Ed (other than the fact that he sounds like Forrest Gump), because he reminded me the most of myself (in size, athleticism, etc.). So I was very excited to see his update, and I was extremely pleased to see that he has lost 85 pounds and looks absolutely great. Seeing him thin made it much easier for me to visualize myself thin, which is something I’ve had a hard time doing because I’ve never actually been thin before.
So that show is helping me get re-inspired. Bethy is, of course, a huge support for me. And I am always on the lookout for other ways to get inspired. Anyone have any thoughts or ideas?
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Posted October 9th, 2008 by Jeff J. Snider
As promised yesterday, I thought I’d post a little visual evidence of the progress so far. I can’t really see the difference day-to-day, because I see myself in the mirror all the time. But there’s already a noticeable difference.
This is us in Cancun at the end of June:
And this is us in the canyon yesterday:
Obviously, I still have plenty to go. I hope you weren’t expecting me to be ridiculously skinny (I did mention that I still weigh 350, right?). But I love being able to see actual progress, and I see it, especially in my face. Take a look at this comparison, with two photos from Cancun and one from yesterday:
I tried to get the faces on the same scale, based on the position of the hairline, the eyes, the nose, and the chin (the main chin, that is). Looking at those pictures from Cancun, I look terribly unhealthy. I remind myself of the fat guy in “Remember the Titans,” the guy who plays Randy on “My Name Is Earl” but before he lost 200 pounds or whatever, with the deep shadows on the eyes and stuff. And look at those chins! My face almost had no shape at 400 pounds, but that shape is starting to return.
Things like this make me happy and motivate me to keep going. Thanks for all your support.
P.S. — By the way, doesn’t Bethy look great? She’s been SO supportive of me, and it’s been benefiting her too. She’s lost 18 pounds, and while she obviously looked great before and didn’t have nearly as much to lose as I did, she looks great in these pictures from yesterday. I didn’t know you could improve on perfection, but there you have it.
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Posted October 9th, 2008 by Jeff J. Snider
I wore my jeans to our photo shoot today, the first time I’d worn them in a couple months. As I put them on, I realized that they were the only pants I hadn’t worn recently. Then I realized something else: I now officially own ZERO pairs of pants or shorts that I have to unbutton to put on or take off.
Know what I love? Belts. Know who oughtta love belts? Anyone walking behind me.
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Posted October 8th, 2008 by Jeff J. Snider
We’re heading up the canyon to take some family pictures today, and I’m pretty excited about it. We had family pictures taken in Cancun about three months ago, and I was hovering around 400 pounds at the time. It’s hard for me to see the day-to-day difference my weight loss has made, but seeing a picture of me 50 pounds ago and comparing it to what I see in the mirror, I can totally see it. I’ll be posting some “Before and So Far” pictures in the next day or two.
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Posted October 8th, 2008 by Jeff J. Snider
Guess what, Gas Prices? I’m callin’ you out! A couple months ago, I was about 400 pounds, and you were about 400 pennies a gallon. Now, I am 352 pounds, and you are 337 pennies a gallon (here in Eagle Mountain as of this afternoon). Do you have what it takes to beat me in the long term? Bring it on!
I’m not stopping until I get down to 240. Can you, Gas Prices, get down to $2.40 a gallon? I’m watching you. First one to 240 gets an ice cream cone!
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Posted September 22nd, 2008 by Jeff J. Snider
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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Posted September 15th, 2008 by Jeff J. Snider
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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Posted September 12th, 2008 by Jeff J. Snider
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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Posted September 11th, 2008 by Jeff J. Snider
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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