Week 7: 14.7 pounds down!

I was greeted by the scale reading 208.2 this morning! I'm almost 15 pounds down at this point and am starting to feel amazing! I've noticed that I've developed an odd habit of constantly feeling my stomach because I can tell it's getting smaller. This week was filled with a lot of diversity. I went to the physical therapist to get work done on my hip flexors, my wife's birthday was on Sunday and I've committed to running a few races over the next year. With that being said, again this week I find myself all over the place. I repeatedly point out that this blog should not be viewed as a "how to lose 50 pounds" instruction manual, but instead should be viewed as a "how to stay consistent when life happens" manual. That's what all of this is about. Consistency.

Smoothie, cheese and bacon (microwaved bacon at that) for breakfast. Yummy! I don't take many pictures of what I eat, but I like to show a little of how I'm achieving weight loss success. I thrive on simplicity. Feel free to view my food diary on My Fitness Pal. My username is brandonfitwin. 

The lovely wife on her birthday. What's not in this picture is the biscuits and gravy we ate. Mmm.

Mmmmm kale. I love it in a smoothie.

Side shot of the smoothie before the blender dismantles it. From bottom to top it's one apple, a handful of baby carrots, three celery stalks and a handful of kale. 

Again, simple things to eat. Smoothie, bacon and beef. Simplicity is key to my weight loss.

 Exercise Log:

Wednesday: I cannot remember for the life of me.

Thursday: Lots of stretching. 10,000 steps.

Friday: 2.19 mile trail run by myself in 26:18 (12:01 pace). I made sure to warm up before and stretch afterwards in order to take care of my hip flexors. It felt great!

Saturday: I hiked with two different groups in the morning and had 10,000 steps by noon. In the evening, I did some strength training which consisted of 3 rounds of squat to press and back extension super sets for 1 minute each with no rest in between. Then I did a super set of rear cable flyes to ball leg curls 10 reps a piece with no rest. Lastly, I did super sets of incline walking (3.3mph/incline 10) for 2 minutes into 30 seconds of plank with no rest in between. Ended the day with over 20,000 steps. :)

Sunday: Megan's birthday. Ate a lot. :) I mean, that works my jaw muscles, so that counts right?

Monday: 1.56 run in intervals with the NOBO group. The intervals were 4 minutes running to 2 minutes walking. Average pace was 12:54, so total time was 20:08. Then I went to the gym with Megan to spot her for her bench press and I did 3 rounds of 2 minute incline walking (3.3mph/incline 10) into 10 reps of single leg bridge on my right side, then a 30 second plank. No rest in between. Finished with over 15,000 steps.

Tuesday: 3.31 mile trail run with Jan Marie and Jodi. It was a slow pace as I waited for them at trail heads, but everything felt really good. I warmed up and stretched afterwards like a good boy. Or like an aging guy who's scared of not being able to run again.Finished the day with over 16,000 steps.

Approximate Total Exercise Time:  220 minutes? 7.06 miles run this week. Yay! I'm so happy to be running again! My goal this coming week is to run 8-10 miles.

The weekend was off but everything still looked good.

Day 48: I lost 4 pounds from yesterday. Don't give up... You might surprise yourself...

After eating a lot of food on Sunday, I settled back into my weight loss comfort zone of eating yesterday. My MFP food diary said I ate 1,966 calories which felt about right. It's certainly not too much food but I didn't go into a starvation mindset either. This amount of food, coupled with a lot of walking, a little run and some quick but high intensity exercise, made for a startling scale reading this morning. 210.8. That's almost a five pound lost from yesterday morning. Do you remember what I said about how fast weight gain for me also equals fast weight loss? Well, here ya go. I'm almost a textbook endomorph. I gain and lose weight very fast. You might think that's a good thing, but actually it can be a bit difficult if you're trying to just maintain a certain weight or level of aesthetic. I always fluctuate because that's how my body is set up. Now, I think I might've been a little dehydrated because I didn't drink much after I left work, but that means I still lost two or three pounds in one day. All of this to say, I think it's important to not get down about one day. If I would've eaten crappy yesterday because of my eating habits on Sunday, then I never would've seen this scale surprise. From my experience, the people that achieve and maintain their health and fitness goals are not the ones who are perfect, they are the ones that do a good job about 80% of the time. They are the ones who don't let one day of eating too much turn into two, three and a week. Those that focus on trying to be perfect normally set themselves up for disappointment and eventually completely give up. It's not about being perfect, it's about being consistent.

My interval run with friends at the No Boundaries running group through Fleet Feet.

I do fully expect to be at a higher weight tomorrow morning due to drinking more today, but I know that I'm doing my best to achieve my weight loss goals and enjoy life. My wife's birthday only comes around once a year, and I'm going to celebrate it every year with food, drink and spending time together. 

Day 47: Celebrations and weight gain...

Yesterday was my wife's birthday, so we've been celebrating all weekend. By celebrating of course I mean eating, drinking and being merry. The being merry part has few calories but the eating and drinking can add up a bit. I got on the scale this morning at 215, 2.5 pounds over last Wednesday's weigh in. This doesn't bother me because I didn't say I wasn't going to indulge this weekend and normally fast weight gain means fast weight loss for me, but I must say that I'm glad I didn't advertise this blog as a "how-to" as far as weight loss goes. I'm giving myself a year to take this weight off because I understand there needs to be a balance for me. I have no desire to not indulge during celebrations and holidays as long as I'm making progress. If that progress ever becomes stagnant, then I'll change my actions, but that hasn't happened yet.

Bittercreek Alehouse is our favorite bar in Boise. We went there on Saturday night where I had chips, salsa and french fries. You know, basically carbs, carbs and carbs. Megan had whiskey and beer carbs. :)

I ate homemade chicken enchilada casserole on Sunday (Megan's favorite). I stole this picture from the internet because I'm dreadful at remembering to take pictures for this blog, but it did look a lot like this and was completely delicious... All 1 million calories of it.

I harp on this point in many blog posts, but it's true. You can't get upset about not meeting your expectations if you never had CLEAR expectations to begin with. I never gave myself a caloric goal this weekend therefore I can't be upset that I went overboard. Many clients of mine have a bad habit of giving themselves a hard time when they shouldn't. They'll have a celebration coming up, they'll stress about it, not make a realistic goal in relation to the celebratory time, feel horrible about their actions and then continue to eat poorly for a week. What a horrible downward spiral to fall into. I know I cannot be upset for eating more than I should because I never said how much I'd eat this weekend. Also, it doesn't make sense for two days of indulging to become a week of indulging just because I feel bad (which I don't) about those two days. Does that make sense? It seems to me that people are really hard on themselves. I'm not an in-season bodybuilder so I don't set unrealistic expectations that I know I can't reach and maintain. I have a year long weight loss goal of losing 50 pounds and I'm well on track to making that happen. It took me eight months to put this weight on, so I know it should reasonably take me about that time (or a little more) to take it off.

So, let's sum up this post. Don't be hard on yourself. Life's too short to feel bad, so make your goals realistic and really think about what you truly want out of life. For me, I'd rather indulge a bit more and worry about my food a bit less, than have this experiment overtake my life. It's just not worth it to me. Spending time with people I love and care about far outweighs having visible abs at this point in my life, but that's just me. 

Day 44: No more fast food?

After laying on the couch for no less than three hours yesterday evening, I figured it was time to stop eating junk food for a while. I shouldn't be too hard on myself because I am nursing some tender hip flexors on my left side, but come on... I'm a health coach and I spent my evening laying down watching Family Guy and playoff hockey for three hours? So much of this still comes down to expectations and having a plan. Throughout this journey I've learned that for me, a lack of structure breeds self destruction. I'm a bad balance of all in and all out which makes experiments like this tricky, but creates tons of empathy for those like me just starting their weight loss journeys. It's a bitter pill to swallow when you know you've made great progress by losing 10 pounds but you still have 40 to go. Maybe I felt like I needed to stop and rest for a few days before the next push. Losing 50 pounds feels like climbing up a steep mountain. The trail is 6 miles long with 3,500 feet of climbing and needs to broken down into little pieces. Well, I'm a fifth of the way to the top, let me stop and get my breath for a minute. Okay, now I'm ready to make it to that next goal which will be 202 pounds (or 20 total pounds lost.)   

Breakfast chorizo burrito.

Yesterday I ate a chorizo burrito for breakfast, pizza for lunch and early dinner, a brownie for a snack and half a cheeseburger and fries from McDonald's for my late dinner. After eating junk food for a few days now, I can honestly say I'm done for a while. I looked at my McDonald's food last night, ate a bit of it and threw it away (sorry to the starving kids in Africa). My mind and body are disgusted with it. While I haven't gained any weight, I haven't lost any and I feel like I'm not investing enough time and effort into my health which is translating into more day fatigue and a lack of desire to exercise. Again, all in or all out. It's a dangerous mindset, but I appear to be wired this way. I plan on going for a trail run and hike today to see how the hip flexors are holding up. I WILL warm up before hand and I WILL stretch afterwards. Hopefully my right glutes will activate more since I've been working with them every moment I can whether that's squeezing them right now as I write this blog or as I take each step up the stairs in our office building.

Pizza from Pie Hole in downtown Boise. Taste was great, but the feeling in my gut was not.

Cookie dough brownie. Again, taste was great but the feeling was blah.

Something happened yesterday that instantly created a blanket of quiet among my co-workers and myself. We found out Prince died. The great musician died at age 57. The initial rumors are that he was struggling with a bad flu, wouldn't cancel shows and obligations to recover and it progressively got worse and killed him. To some this might be sad and truly his death is sad but I don't think the method is. He went out of this world doing what he loved to do. He went out being himself and to people like me, that's inspirational. 

This is how much I ate of my McDonald's meal before throwing it away.

Most publishers or editors want there to be a "take-away" at the end of each book or post, so I'll oblige with this statement: I know who I am. I'm all in or all out. While this may not be the healthiest thing mentally, it's me. I'd rather die at 50 having lived a full life than die at 100 having lived a mediocre life. How will this translate to my eating and fitness? I'm going to be the guy at work that stretches every hour, the guy that does chin tucks while his boss is talking to him, the guy that warms up longer than everyone else, stretches longer than everyone else (well, within reason) and the guy that will lose this weight, create a fit body and go on to do amazing things. That's me. That's what I want. "I'd rather be dead than average."

Day 43: Fast Food, Physical Therapy & the Like...

Yes, I had two of these yesterday and no I don't feel bad about it. :)

Up until now my blog has been a weekly endeavor, but I have something to write about today so I thought I'd break the trend. Yesterday I went to my physical therapist to assess how bad my hip flexor injury was and luckily it wasn't anything crazy. My right glutes are not activating so my left side is taking a beating when running and exercising. Also, having an office job isn't helping my hip flexors become less tight. For the next few months, I'll need to work on activating my right side so it can take some of the work back from my left and stretch my hip flexors multiple times a day.

Great picture from PopSugar of a hip flexor stretch. I do a simpler version since my flexibility is a bit lacking.

I already stretch a lot at work and do strengthening exercises. In fact, in a given day, my co-workers probably get tired of me on the floor or working with bands for two minutes here and there, but I know it's what I need to do in order to stay healthy and achieve the goals I have for myself.

Here are some stretches I do in the office: http://www.acefitness.org/acefit/healthy-living-article/60/3458/the-3-stretches-you-should-be-doing-if-you/

Often times people talk about the work they do in the gym, on the pavement or wherever they're exercising but they don't talk about the amount of time they foam roll, perform mobility exercises and stretch. These extra things are what will keep you exercising long-term. As I'm getting older, I'm learning the exercise I do in the gym and on the trails doesn't mean shit if I'm not fully taking care of my muscle imbalances, posture, flexibility and other key factors that don't get a lot of publicity. For example, I haven't been warming up before I run lately because I'm so excited to run that I've completely forgotten everything else. If I want to continue running I have to put in quality time warming up, stretching and foam rolling. The behind-the-scenes actions are far more important than what people see on race day at a 5k, half marathon or 50k.

Here's a great, quick article about hips and hip flexors in particular: http://www.bodybuilding.com/fun/flex-those-flexors-3-steps-to-powerful-hips.html

Yes, I had one of these yesterday too. It was delightful. :)

As far as nutrition goes, yesterday was "interesting". I basically ate fast food and junk food all day. I stayed within a decent calorie range, but my decisions were all over the place. I think I need to focus on eating more whole foods in order to stave away cravings, but is that realistic? I'm not sure if a strict style of eating is for me. I guess I should try it for a longer amount of time to see if the cravings really do go away, but then again there's always some party or get-together once a month where I will have cake or something homemade that will offset not having cravings, so maybe it just makes sense to understand that cravings will always be a part of my eating habits and I don't always have to indulge them. It's similar to energy levels for me. I always want a nap mid afternoon and have been this way for a long time. This hasn't changed when I've had a strict eating regiment and when I haven't, so I guess I just need to learn to deal with this and do the best I can with it. It doesn't mean I don't get work done, get in my exercise or anything else, it's just uncomfortable. Being uncomfortable is okay though. A lot of greatness comes from being uncomfortable: people run 100 miles, start up companies flourish from founders who sacrifice sleep and relationships, people fight evil dictators in war, etc. There's a quote I always think about when it comes to comfort:

All of this to say, if I'm wanting to be a great trainer, the best runner I can be for my 50k next year and lose this weight, being comfortable can't be my goal. It's more like my enemy. So, where does that leave me? It probably makes sense to go with an 80/20 rule. Eighty percent of the time I'll eat whole foods, and twenty percent I won't. Again, a lot of this experience comes down to figuring out what makes sense for me and hoping this translates for to my readers as well. There is no perfect diet and there is no perfect exercise plan. Everything has to be tailored to each of our bodies, interests, genetics and so on. In fact, a co-worker of mine found out yesterday that their body doesn't respond well to spinach, strawberries, avocados and a few other foods that most people consider "healthy". Just because it's healthy for me doesn't mean it's healthy for them. These are important lessons to learn and I continue learning them on a daily basis.

By the way, I know you're looking at the pictures of cheeseburgers and doughnuts wondering if I gained any weight yesterday and the answer is no. I walked over 15,000 steps and didn't let cravings turn into overeating. There's a big difference between the two. I can indulge without losing track of my goals.

And yes, I had a slice of this too. :)

 

Week 6: Down 10 pounds!!!

This morning the scale said, 212.6. That's 10.3 pounds of weight loss in 6 weeks! Here is my starting picture and current picture. I probably should've smiled, but it was early. Here, I'll throw in this smiley face to make up for it. :)

Starting picture at 222.9. Refer to my first blog post: http://brandonfitwin.blogspot.com/2016/03/some-ten-years-ago-i-found-myself-at.html

Perhaps I should smile or something. I mean, I did lose 10 pounds. What I can see so far is that my face is thinner and my torso seems to be carrying less weight. The separation between my pecs is more visible now and everything is just less "blobby". 

Trail running brings me more joy than any other type of exercise does. On a pretty day, there's nothing like power hiking a steep climb, bombing a downhill, jumping off boulders and having conversations with friends. Now that I'm down in weight, I can trail run again and it absolutely fills my soul with happiness. This week was a reminder in how much difference ten pounds can make. At 222 pounds, I felt awful. I feel for people my size and bigger who make the effort to run or hike in order to lose weight and change their lives because frankly, it hurt. It still hurts, but not nearly as bad.

I'm about a quarter of the way through my weight loss journey back to having a fit body and I'm starting to feel "normal" again. It's a beautiful thing. I love feeling my body become strong again. I still have a long ways to go, but I'm loving finally having some sense of my fit body back.

I try to only run in beautiful company. :)

My first trail run in a while. It felt so good! 

What's a hike without a group selfie?

Such a fun trail with trees down and beautiful patches of snow.

We're hiking in the trees!

Exercise Log: 

Wednesday: .77 mile run at park at 8:42 pace. Walked another lap at a fast pace afterwards. I'm still not keen on running a lot on concrete at this weight. Over 10,000 steps for the day.

Thursday: 3.04 mile trail run on Eagle bike trails. It was at a 14:23 pace so there was definitely some hiking, stopping to take pictures and some jogging/running. Over 10,000 steps for the day.

Friday: Home strength training with 10 pound dumbbells (All rounds with no rest).
3 rounds of 15 push presses, 10 one-arm-one-leg dumbbell rows each side, 30 second planks, 20 heel touches, 20 marching bridges
3 rounds of one arm tricep extension and single leg alternating dumbbell curls
9,000 steps for the day.

Saturday: Lots of walking and an afternoon hike. Over 14,000 steps for the day.

Sunday: AM Strength session. All exercises for time. I did as many as I could in a minute, then went on to the next exercise. No rest at all, well no scheduled rest. :) 3 Rounds total. Step up to press with 10 pound dumbbells, cable rear delt flies or face pulls, back extensions, crunches and stair lunges.
Afternoon hike: 9.33 miles, over 1,500 feet elevation climbing at Stack Rock. Slow pace, lots of stopping for bathroom and photo sessions. Over 30,000 steps for the day.

Monday: Active rest day. I tried to walk a lot. Over 14,000 steps. I think I might've pulled a hip flexor muscle by jumping back into running too early.

Tuesday: Rest day. Over 10,000 steps. Nursing some kind of hip flexor pull or tenderness from falling back in love with trail running too quickly. :) 

Approximate Total Exercise Time: 4 hours. I separate deliberate exercise from physical activity. Meaning, I don't count my walking because I feel like I should be getting in 10,000 steps no matter what. It should be what I do as an active individual.

Calories were pretty on point this week. Sunday was high, but recovering from a 9 mile hike/run will require more food.

Week 5: Hiking and eating in Portland

This week was fun! Megan, Jodi and I all went to the Portland area for the weekend to hang out and help with Megan's ultra marathon race. The race is The Gorge 50k and it's beautiful! This week's workouts consisted mainly of hiking and a hotel fitness center workout. Wow, that place was SMALL. Also, since we were in Portland, I had to eat a Voo Doo doughnut. I love doughnuts and Voo Doo's O Captain My Captain in particular. Again, it's important to fit in life's adventures into your weight loss goals. In my opinion, life is too short to be on an extremely regimented diet, but to each their own. I think I gained a pound or two, but I've already lost them and more. For me, fast weight gain can be fast weight loss. Here are some pictures from the weekend:

There were so many waterfalls! It was gorgeous!

What a great picture. More waterfalls to hike near!

Jodi and I after our hotel fitness center workout. 4 Rounds of 1 minute lat pulls, 1 minute hard pace on elliptical, 1 minute kettle bell swings and another 1 minute of hard pace on elliptical

Voo Doo Doughnut's O Captain My Captain. My absolute favorite doughnut in the world. 

Exercise Log:

Wednesday - Circuit training. 6 Circuits of 1 minute of jump rope, wall balls, ball throw downs and fast pace on the rowing machine. I did each round at high intensity and then rested for 2 minutes.

Thursday - Rest Day

Friday - Circuit training with Jodi at the Comfort Inn fitness center. Refer to picture above.

Saturday - Hiked 2 miles of trail. Easy pace.

Sunday - Hiked 2.5 miles of hard, steep incline trail.

Monday - Rest Day

Tuesday - Rest Day *I didn't get much sleep on Monday night due to a really weird dream, so I didn't have energy to exercise. Not to mention, I don't believe in exercising whenever I've had minimal sleep. A lot of research shows you burn more muscle than fat when you exercise without sufficient rest.*

Approximate Total Exercise Time: 220 minutes

Um yea. Tracking was horrible this week. Sorry folks.

Food. I'll be sure to log my food more consistently on My Fitness Pal. I got out of the routine during my birthday week.

5 weeks down, 47 to go!

Week 4: Birthday cake, cravings and a 5k PR?

This wasn't my cake, but it looked a lot like this. Thanks Martha and Naomi!

This week is one of only a few weeks out of the year when I really celebrate. Birthdays are great because they are holidays that aren't disputed, they don't involve invisible heroes and aren't somewhat related to religion. They are a celebration of our lives. With this in mind, I didn't really focus on my nutritional habits too much this week and instead I celebrated. By celebrating, I don't mean that I deliberately overate, but I did eat foods that are out of my "healthy comfort zone" and I stayed up later than usual. The bad thing about this is that my cravings for continuous carbohydrate-laden foods have been really strong and my energy level is so low this week. In monitoring how I feel and look, I"m pretty sure I gained one or two pounds this week. It's not the end of the world, but it does help me understand how difficult it must be to start making changes if you're coming from an obese background that consists of being sedentary and eating a lot of processed foods. I can't put into words (which seems ironic since I'm blogging) how bad and fatigued I felt yesterday. I had so many cravings for things such as pizza, cookies and doughnuts. Basically, I'm learning that food addiction is a big deal. It's easy to eat these processed foods, become addicted to them and then continue to eat them in order to "feel good".

I don't have many things to post about my exercise this week because I didn't log the few work outs I completed. I did run a 5k on Saturday and hiked/ran a really tall hill on Sunday. After not running more than a handful of times over the last six months, for some reason I decided to run a 5k on Saturday after a friend gave me a complimentary registration. I ran it and miraculously ran the fastest 5k of my entire life. It helped that the course was shorter than it should've been, but even with correct math, my pace was still faster than ever. I guess this just shows how competitive I am, which is super competitive. Between this and the hike on Sunday, I now have runner's knee. Again, this just points out how difficult it is to not get injured while trying to exercise vigorously and being obese. I'll probably not run again for a month and focus on other exercises instead.

My 5k time on what turned out to be a short course. There's no way I could run this fast at this weight. 

Exercise Log:

Wednesday: Don't remember. 

Thursday: Um yea, still don't remember. 

Friday: Definitely don't remember. 

Saturday: 5k ish run. 22 minutes. 

Sunday: Table Rock hike and run. 60 minutes. 

Monday: Probably sat on my butt.

Tuesday: Probably sat more on my butt. 

Approximate Total Exercise Time: 82 minutes?

I only tracked my food 4 days this week and trust me, those other days had plenty of calories to track.

I feel like I let everyone down this week. I set out to celebrate my birthday, and I did, but I went overboard. It's easy to go overboard when you don't give yourself specific guidelines. This is why it's so important to set goals, even very short-term goals. I was arrogant and thought I would be past the food cravings at this point, but I'm not. Eating junk food makes me want to eat more junk food. There's certainly some chemical-science that goes into making these foods because the cravings and addictions are real. I ate no less than six slices of my birthday cookie cake and that's not alright. Luckily, it's a new day and I'm mindful of where I need to be and what it'll take to get me there. 

4 weeks down, 48 to go!