Chris Reimagined

Wow, it’s been three day since my last post.  That’s too many by far.  The whole point is for me to post here so I can be accountable and I’ve done a poor job of that.

The good news is that my lack of posting here has been due to work rather than lack of performance in the gym or in eating.  It, sadly, has been due to my pursuit of Professonal betterment.  Or more to the point, the fact that my Professional goals have been dependent on putting in some CRAZY hours at work and my son is back from grandma’s so my schedule has gotten all out of whack.

However, in the last couple of days, some interesting stuff has happened.

First Health Report

In my intro post, I mentioned that Darya Pino at SummerTomato.com was coming on board to help me out with nutrition.  Using Google Wave I’ve been keeping a daily food journal in which I record what I ate, when I ate it, and how I felt afterwards.  If you are considering losing weight, I recommend trying it.  If you are honest about what you eat, you can be surprised how poorly your diet can be before you try to clean it up and how great it can be afterwards.  At least I was.

With Darya’s permission, I have posted part of the health report here:

Observations:

Hunger and snacks are primary concern that should be easy to address. Agree that calories might be too low, so fixing that should help with hunger issues. Chris could possibly be helped greatly by cutting back more on processed grains and adding more protein/fat.

 Positives: Good about sugar! Good integration of whole grains. Great attitude, committed to healthy eating. Awareness of “bad” choices. Integration of beans. Soup eating

Obvious places for improvement: I’d like to see more, varied vegetables. Improve nutritional value of snacks. Continue to cut down on processed grains. Replace with intact grains. Continue education on good nutrition.

First round of suggestions:

-Get snacks on track
-Add more healthy fats, especially at breakfast and snack
-Possibly switch breakfast cereal to muesli
-Banish pretzels
-More meal planning. Let’s talk about shopping…
-Eating out less. Let’s discuss reasons/options… 

I post this not to toot my own horn that I’ve done some things well, but to highlight my shortcomings in the hope that it will be helpful.  What I took away from this was that I need to change my snacks.  I’ve been trying to eat 5 meals per day: breakfast, lunch, dinner, and two smaller “snacks.”  For the first two weeks, those “snacks” have been pretzels and Triscuits.  Both are low calorie/low fat, but they’re also processed like crazy.

So, now that I am getting the hang of 5 meals, I am going to try to do better.  That means fruit, nuts, and more yogurt.

Protein…And Fat?!

One of the things I mentioned to Darya was that I was usually hungry.  Towards the beginning of the week, my hunger was becoming overwhelming.  I spent most of Monday starving and after I went out to a nice dinners with my wife, I wanted to KEEP eating.  Like, I seriously wanted fast food because I was starving.

So, another thing I wanted to highlight from the report was that I need to eat more protein and fat.  Yes, fat.  Let’s tackle that one first.  Darya and I talked about this for a while.  In fact, she noted that I was doing a good job at cutting out the fat, though I might not be getting enough of the good fats (from say, nuts) and that were I to increase the amount of nuts I ingested, I might feel more full.  Darya’s recommendation was for me to try to eat about 10 nuts as part of a snack.  She is also pro-peanut butter as long as there is no sugar added.  (Yes!  Apples with peanut butter = crazy delicious.)

The other thing that really became apparent is that I am not eating enough protein.  I am weight training 3 times a week and hitting the Wii 3 times per week.  After the gym, I would make a protein “shake” (1 scoop of protein + water) and other than that, I would avoid most protein sources since they are often full of calories and fat.  However, like I said on Monday I was dying.  DYING.

So Tuesday, instead of my normal Fiber One cereal, I put two scoops of protein in water and drank my breakfast.  Later that day I had chicken.  Since then, I’ve made it a point to eat protein every day, even if it’s just a shake.  I haven’t been HUNGRY since.

My Gym’s Weigh In

So my gym is doing one of those fitness challenge things.  It’s free to enter and if I lose more weight than anyone else, I get some prize like free tanning or something.  I don’t really care about that, I just like the competitive nature of it.  Me versus the world.  I can dig that.

There’s only one problem.  They weighed me.  And while my home scale says that I am at 378.6, the gym scale read 397.  I was not pleased.  In fact, I was really not pleased.

Though the trainer was really encouraging.  When I mentioned the discrepancy, I was cheerfully reminded that this scale would still go down if I worked out.  That trainer is off my Christmas card list.  Grrr…

In Need of a Sign

Fresh off a 397 weigh in, a rough week at work, when I got up this morning, I was in need of a sign.  A sign that maybe I’m doing this right and that I won’t be 370+ the rest of my life.

Sometimes signs come from add places, like the laundry.  I put on one particular shirt this morning.  It’s red with black stripes.  I like it.  It used to not fit to the point I almost threw it away. 

It fits now!  Whether that is because I am losing weight or because I am working on my abs, I don’t know.

But it was  a sign!

Tomorrow’s Weigh In

Tomorrow is Friday, which means it’s weigh in day.  As of January 15th, I weighted 397.6.

Tomorrow…tomorrow I have no idea what I am going to weight in at.  Absolutely none.  I might be up 100 pounds.  I might be down 100.  I don’t have a good feeling about it, but we’ll see.

I mean there’s a big part of me that wants to treat tomorrrow like a fighter trying to make weight.  For a good second I considered waking up tomorrow at 4am and doing Wii Active in sweats and a heavy coat so I can sweat off a few pounds of water.  And as tempting as it sounds, I am not going to do it.

I will face whatever the scale tells me tomorrow and if I don’t like the results, then I’ll just try harder next week.  Eventually I will reach my goal.