Wake Up: 5:40am
Felt: Tired and Indecisive
Starting Weight: 233.2 lbs (-1.8)
Calorie Intake: 1370
Read: Yes
Exercise: Not Yet!
No Sugar: Yes

Day 2 was a little bit of a struggle. I felt really good about seeing a loss already. I had several moments of weakness. For example, one of the kids had left an open pouch of skittles on the kitchen counter. Without even taking a second thought I grabbed a skittle and begin to put it in my mouth. Just as it hit my tongue and I got a quick zing of sweetness I remembered I’m not eating sugar! It just so happens that my wife walked around the corner just as I pulled the skittle away. I threw the skittle in the garbage and she gave me a hard time because she thought I only stopped because I was caught. Little things like this will make a big difference. This is how you reprogram your brain. My brain is still trained to see food and eat it, whether or not I’m hungry. After 90 days I will have installed new software in my noggin. It may not be 100% stable as traces of my current software may still exist.

Leave me your best tip for re-wiring your brain to create healthy habits.

Thintopia, 2012. | Permalink | Comments | Tweet

This is where I am keeping track of everything on a daily basis. I am also calculating and tracking calories on a smart phone app.

You know the saying, “Today is the first day of the rest of your life.” That is ringing true to me today.

My Notes from Today

• Wake Up: 5:41am
• Felt: Optimistic and a little overwhelmed
• Starting Weight: 235 lbs
• Calorie Intake: 1330
• Read: Yes
• Exercise: Yes
• No Sugar: Yes

Day 1 was a success! I feel really good. I’m happy with what I accomplished today. I was also more productive at work than I have been lately. There is a long road ahead through the holidays but I’m up for the challenge. Holidays tend to be a time for me to get out of routine but I want to stay in control. I have a notebook that I am recording everything in. My weight, food journal, thoughts, tasks, scripture study and more. I want to stay accountable to myself and to anyone out there willing to check in on me. If I miss a day please message me.

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How long does it take to change? In some cases, I think you can change in an instant. Some addicts have been able to kick habits cold turkey. I really do feel like it is possible to change any time you decide to. That is a pretty intense concept, but, the truth is this is very rare. Humans are creatures of habit.

I learned once that our brains are designed to be programmed to operate on auto-pilot whenever possible. Habits are essential our brain on autopilot so we can focus on other things or conserve energy. Some experts have found that it takes roughly 21 days to create a habit. If you do something every day for 21 days I don’t think it really becomes automatic but I do think it starts to get easier to do.

I think to make a real change it can take a lot longer. From my experience and observations, I think it takes at least 3 months to really change. I think 1-2 years is required for permanant change. Think of what you can accomplish with 90 days of focused and consistent effort. Lose 30-50 lbs? Increase strength, muscle tone, increase speed. How many books can you read in 90 days? What new skill could you learn?

The magic number of 90 days pops up often. Several popular workout systems are 90 day programs. On reddit there is a 90daygoals subreddit for weight loss. 12-13 weeks is also a common length for any challenge especially here on Thintopia.

So I decided that if I want to change anything I need to commit to 90 days. Honestly, it needs to be a lifetime commitment but first 90 days. I have a lot I want to change but I am willing to put in the effort. I want to get under 200 lbs. I want to prepare for a 1/2 marathon. I want to have several daily habits that I form and weekly habits. I want to be social and be a better friend. I want to perform random acts of kindness. I want to control my spending and internet usage. I want to get more done at work.

My plan to succeed is going to be accountability through this blog, journaling and closely tracking my progress. Follow along and watch the change happen. I plan to share EVERYTHING!

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Last week I started the journey weighing 234.8 lbs. Today I weigh 230 lbs!

This week I need to lose 5 lbs to make my goal. If I had to, I could do a long run on an empty stomach today and reach my goal but the point isn’t to trick the scale but to actually make changes. This mindset is hard to keep when participating in weight loss competitions. I hope thintopia users realize this and don’t rely 100% on the competition to lose weight. Competitions are a great way to find motivation and support and whether or not you win the competition as long as you make positive changes to your diet and fitness you win!!

I started this week thinking I would cut sugar and white carbs from my diet for the rest of the month. The problem with doing something like this is that it is temporary. I have no intention of giving up sugar for the rest of my life. The smarter thing to do is to decide how much and when sugar will fit into my diet and stick to it. I also believe it is important to learn to be picky with the sweets and junk food we eat. I have a theory that skinny people tend to be food snobs. If they’re going to eat ice cream they go for Ben & Jerry’s not the gallon discount tubs of generic store brand ice cream. Fat people are cheap and tend to consume more high-fructose corn-syrup. I’m one of the cheapest people I know.

If you’re only going to bake chocolate chip cookies every other month or on special occasions then go ahead and get the premium ghiradelly’s chocolate chips and use pastry flour and real butter. Enjoy life! find balance.

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I should have hit this point 10-15 lbs ago. Better late than never. After successfully dropping 30 lbs in 2010 I maintained the loss and even lost another 5lbs during 2011. I was as low as 212.6 in 2011.  I thought I had my weight under control and that I would never let it get out of hand again. I really did maintain for 11 months! Well, then I guess I got a little too confident.

In November my wife gave birth to our 4th child. With the combination of no sleep and holidays I packed on 10 lbs. In January I made a feeble attempt to get back down then again in February. March is Birthday month so I punished myself as we celebrate Birthday weeks instead of birthdays. By April I was so far off the wagon that I didn’t really even try.

I tell myself that at some future point I will hit a breaking point and THEN I will decide to get back on the wagon. Let’s be honest, I have been enjoying the lack of discipline. At least that is what I tell myself. Every time I over eat I am in pain. I feel uncomfortable, my clothes are getting tight, I don’t have much energy and I really just don’t feel very good about myself. For the past several months I’ve been waiting for the breaking point to happen but it hasn’t happened yet. I’ve had a few false alarms followed by a 3 day diet and 1 or 2 jogs but nothing has lasted more than a week.

I am fully aware of my potential to gain weight. My highest wait is 252 lbs. Today I weigh 234 and show no signs of stopping!! Reality check time!!! Time to slam on the breaks. Time to be honest with myself. Time to create my own breaking point.

Right now 234 is my breaking point. I will not rest until I am below 230 which will become my new breaking point until I get below 225 and so and and so forth.

I just read a success story from NerdFitness. Some of you might remember I interviewed the owner of NerdFitness last year. The success story, along with Shaycarl’s weight loss success have been a huge wake up call to me that life keeps moving so you’re either progressing or losing valuable time. Life is too short to put it off until tomorrow.

Goal
First step to success is to have a good goal. Specific and measurable. Let’s see today is May 14th. I will commit to reaching 225 lbs by June 1st. That is a serious goal and very short term. I may be setting myself up for failure but even if I fail as long as I work hard for the next two weeks I will be satisfied with whatever the result is. Let’s be real though. I KNOW I can do it.

Plan
Cut out starchy carbs. My weaknesses at the moment are breakfast cereal, homemade wheat bread, other packaged snacks we have on hand for the kids. My plan is to move toward more of a Paleo diet. I will commit to running twice per week and walking 5 times per week. I will also commit to doing a body weight exercise 3 times per week.

Accountability
I will report my results every week until I reach 199 lbs. I am also considering vlogging the journey on my youtube channel. Please hold me accountable. If you would like to join me I would love to support you as well as receive your support. Leave a comment and i will expect to see your comments every week. Otherwise, I may have to hunt you down.

Let’s hear it. If there is anyone still following this blog have your reached a breaking point? Are you ready to create one? Evaluate all the reasons why you want to change.

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The app I chose to try is the Calorie Counter by FatSecret. The app has you create an account and enter your stats (gender, age, weight, activity level, goal). It uses the stats to determine your RDI or recommended daily intake.

My goal is to lose 52 lbs and the app recommends I eat less than 2800 calories per day to do that. That number seems very high to me. I have been able to keep it under 1800 fairly easily.

Once you have your account setup you can easily add food in a number of ways.

1. Search – you can quickly search the database of foods to find to add to your journal. I tend to use this feature for produce or anything that doesn’t have a label.
2. Barcode Scan – if your food has a label you can scan the bar code with your phone’s camera and it will automatically import all the nutritional information into your journal.
3. Quick Find – which is basically a categorized listing. I haven’t bothered to use this as I think Search has been good, so far.
4. Recent Food – If you’re eating the same breakfast two days in a row this makes it easy to add the same foods to your journal.
5. Frequent Foods – I eat the same 5-6 snacks so this feature makes it easy to find those snacks and add them quickly.
6. Saved Meals – I haven’t used this feature yet but one of the troubles with tracking calories is when you cook family meals. You have to get out your calculator and start adding up all the ingredients and calculating the serving size. This feature makes it so you can save those meals to use again in the future.

No tool is worth anything if you don’t use it. Time will tell if I can keep this habit of calorie counting up. The app also tracks your weight and adjust your RDI. As you add your food each day a box representing your RDI fills up and the app shows what percentage of your RDI you have reached. You can also enter exercise to increase your RDI.

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I also learned that our brains are mostly fat cells and thus we need fat in our diets to help us lose weight (sounds like an oxymoron, right?) . I highly recommend you get the book and learn more about the diet created by a pediatric brain surgeon! Oh yeah, and don’t forget to watch the interview.

Thintopia, 2011. | Permalink | Comments | Tweet

1. Set a goal weight range and weigh yourself daily even after reaching goal so you know when you start slipping.
2. Chart, Monitor, Log, Report (daily!)
3. Find a partner and don’t do it alone.
4. Eat simple foods and eat the same foods when you really want results.
5. Don’t bring domino foods into the house.

I really like the idea of keeping it simple.  The simple meals should contain a healthy/lean protein and vegetables.  And snack on nuts and seeds.  Drink lots of water.

Once you reach goal you can ease up on the diet and enjoy life but continue to chart and monitor so you know when you need to get cut back for a couple weeks.  There is a lot more to learn from this interview so you’ll just have to watch it.

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Josh’s audio gets quiet in some parts and I should have tried to fix that in post production. Here is the basics of what I learned. Focus on weight training and diet. The best weight loss diet would consist of lean protein, healthy carbs such as beans and vegetables and healthy fats like olive oil and nuts. It really shouldn’t be rocket science. Put the work in: lift weights 2-3x per week and eat nutritious foods. The results will come.

Enjoy the interview!

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