Posted September 11th, 2008 by Jeff J. Snider
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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Posted September 8th, 2008 by Jeff J. Snider
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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Posted August 4th, 2008 by Jeff J. Snider
I’ve got a great life. I grew up in a very happy home with awesome parents and five wonderful siblings with whom I got along just fine. When I was 26, I married the most wonderful girl in the whole wide world, and five years later she inexplicably still loves me like crazy. We have a beautiful daughter and an adorable son, to go along with countless good friends and just enough great ones. I can’t imagine being happier.
But I sure can imagine being healthier, and while that in and of itself wouldn’t make me happier … well, let’s just say the peace of mind that comes from knowing you won’t leave your wife a young widow will be a wonderful thing.
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Posted August 3rd, 2008 by Jeff J. Snider
We are in Arizona for a family reunion, and when we got back to the condo tonight, the whole family was eating pizza. I think I should immediately lose ten extra pounds just for not having any, right?
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Posted July 31st, 2008 by Jeff J. Snider
Like I said in my introductory post, the first sign of trouble was when my scale started throwing an error instead of telling me how much I weighed. (In retrospect, the first sign of trouble should have been when I had to buy a scale that went up to 380 … or maybe earlier.) I didn’t find out until a visit to the doctor that I had topped 400.
Yesterday, on July 30, 2008, I stood on my scale, expecting to see “E” again. But glory be and the saints be praised, it worked! As of yesterday afternoon, I weigh 383 pounds. That’s 19 pounds in nine days, which probably seems like a lot to you skinny people out there. But at my size, two pounds a day is a perfectly healthy way to start.
I could not be more pleased. I’ve been very food-conscious over the past nine days, focusing on three things:
1) Limiting my portions.
2) Choosing healthier meals.
3) Choosing healthier snacks.
Because I’ve still been recovering from the sinus infection that sent me on that fateful doctor visit in the first place, I haven’t gotten into the exercise stuff too much yet, so my entire focus has been on the food. I have made great progress on all three of those items, and I am confident that as I continue to stay vigilant, the weight will continue to fall off. It’s not as easy as the little 1-2-3 list makes it seem, but the concept is definitely that simple.
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Posted July 31st, 2008 by Jeff J. Snider
I remember the first time I realized I weighed over 300 pounds. I was a senior in high school, and the next-largest guy on the football team weighed about 250. I was a lot bigger than everyone I knew, but I wasn’t what I thought of when I thought “300 pounds”: grossly obese, smelly, all that stuff.
After a while, 300 didn’t seem so bad. I was still a very good athlete, and I took pride in the fact that I didn’t look like I weighed 300. I could tell people I weighed 260, and they had no problem believing me. When I went to renew my driver’s license just before I turned 19, the lady at the DMV recognized that I had grown taller since I turned 16 — 5′9″ to 6′3″ — but she didn’t mention the “235″ next to “Weight.” In retrospect, she was probably just being polite, but she didn’t seem to have a problem when I put “299,” even though at that point I was around 330.
Over the years, I have accepted 300. My driver’s license still says 299 — 11 years later — but other than that, 300 has become part of who I am.
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