Whoa is me, I have been remiss...

First and foremost, let me say that I won the bet. Four of the five months, I lost more than my co-worker. As a matter of fact, I have dropped a clean 20 pounds since March. And I have to say that although it has been a bit slow in vacating my body, at least the fat is heading in the right direction, down and out!

I'm finding that eating my biggest meal in the morning and eating progressively lighter meals over the course of the day seems to be helping. So my suggestion is this. Eat what you normally eat, but reverse the times when eat. Let me know how it works for you.

Betsy

End of the first 4 weeks!!!

Here we are, and the first of the five, 4-week challenges with my co-worker has ended. Each 4-week session requires the one who lost the least amount of weight to pay the one who lost the most weight in that 4 weeks a whopping 10 bucks. I am happy to announce that I am 10 bucks richer!! And that was after gaining back a pound in the aftermath of the superbowl party I attended.

In an attempt to negate that little aberration, I spent 6 hours yesterday walking up and down every single aisle and taking in every display at the Home and Flower Show in the I-X Center in Cleveland. I have to admit, 6 straight hours was almost enough to do me in! It had to have been a good 12 miles! I came home and bathed my aching limbs in Icy Hot and downed Tylenol and still had trouble falling asleep. Today even my glutes are sore! This indicates to me that I am NOT exercising enough and I'm not in adequately good shape. I WANT to be able to do such things like I could when I was younger. I don't think wanting to walk around a large exposition is an unreasonable desire. I also think that getting into that kind of shape is achievable, even at my age. So, I will be concentrating on cardio that is leg intensive and strength training for the lower body. After all, I don't want to flatten the other 3 tires!

How are you all doing? M.E.

And the beat goes on....

No pun intended, but starting this week I'm replacing my intended 30 minutes of cardio with a dance routine. It has snowed like the devil here, and walking in my neck of the woods with snow on the roads is more than just a tad dangerous. I want to be thin, not dead. So I'm finding a nice hip-hop station and bouncing my brains out instead. The point is, do whatever you have to do to keep moving! No excuses! You're not fooling anyone but yourself.

As for this week's results, I am down 7 pounds since the beginning of the year! Not too shabby. The competition at work is heating up as well. So far I'm about -4.2 pounds down compared to my competitors -2.0 pounds. He swears he'll be bringing on the heat this week, so I may have to hip-hop my way to victory. Our first official weigh-in is February 8th. I plan to pocket his $10 for the first round. We'll be having a face-off every 4 weeks at $10 a pop...or a potential of $50 total by the end of May.

If you have a truly competitive spirit, making a public bet on who can lose the most weight by a certain date has a really motivating effect on your efforts. Try it!

My meal tip of the week: If you're hungry and cold, try a quick stop at Panera Bread or St. Louis Bread Company. Order the low-fat black bean soup with a side and a low calorie drink. The 8-oz serving of soup is delicious, hearty and filling with 160 calories, 9 grams of protein and 11 g of fiber. If you get the whole grain baguette for your side, that's another 140 calories, 6 g of protein and 3 g of fiber (and you can dip it in the soup...) Talk about a stick to the ribs meal, this one will stay with you for hours and if you don't suck down a bunch of calories in your drink order, then you've had a great lunch or dinner for only 300 calories, but with 15 g of protein and 14 grams of fiber. Sounds like a really intelligent plan to me! MEM

A wise man once said...

...if you continue to do the same things, you continue to get the same results. What a great argument in favor of change! How are you doing with your strategies? Mine are working pretty well so far. The scale is down 4 pounds! And I am thrilled with every ounce. I managed to completely avoid the dreaded candy basket at work today, not to mention the cheesecake, brownies and other desserts offered at a work open house. I should lose weight just from the effort at calorie avoidance!

Isn't it annoying that even thinking about food seems to pack on the pounds? Too bad it doesn't work as well in reverse. But that is why we have to make changes. We have to think differently and act differently to get different results. Can you do it? I think you can! M.E.

Round up of Week 1...

You know, it wasn't altogether bad! I'm down 2.8 pounds, and frankly it's better than I expected. I've decided that cumulative strategies may be what works best. My most important strategy for Week 1 was to cut down on work eating. I'm not talking lunch, I'm talking about snagging a mini-Twix or bite-size Milky Way Dark when I happen by the room that houses a candy basket the size of Detroit!

Cutting out that kind of mindless eating takes a good deal of awareness. I wasn't perfect by any means, but I kept working at it. This coming week, while keeping the first strategy in place, I will be eating a large, healthy breakfast every morning and cutting my Diet Pepsi consumption in half. My Pepsi strategy will be to go ahead and drink that first bottle of Pepsi, but then to drink a bottle of water before having another Pepsi. This will keep the feeling of fullness going while cutting the amount of sodium and carbonation I'm ingesting. I hope to be off the "sauce" in a few weeks.

My fourth strategy is head-to-head combat. I publicly challenged a weight-loss nemesis at work to a weigh-in every four weeks until the end of May. We'll each step on the scale in the presence of a neutral third party who will declare the winner every 4 weeks. The loser pays the winner 10 bucks. So there is a $50 winning potential over the course of the wager.

To summarize strategies:
1 - Conscious effort to avoid mindless snacking
2 - Breakfast - large and healthy (egg whites, oatmeal or whole grain toast, fruit)
3 - Cut ingestion of diet soda
4 - Challenge someone! Not only will it give you motivation; it may also make it fun.

Let me know how you're progressing! M.E.

So what is your strategy?

What is your plan? As a personal trainer, you would think that I could help out my own family members if nothing else. But my daughter has repeatedly refused to be my training guinea pig! More concerned about her health than my miffed feelings, I sent her a link about the National Body Challenge. If you're having trouble deciding what kind of strategy to use, you might try it out yourself. One of the perks of signing up for the NBC is 8 free weeks at a Bally's Fitness Club. I can't stress enough the need for movement. It doesn't have to be regimented as long as it's done regularly. My daughter is now hitting Bally's several days a week, working out on the exercise bikes, doing some strength training and swimming in the pool (followed of course by a soak in the hot tub). And she's enjoying it! You can too.

But you don't have to go to a healthclub to make progress. Taking a walk, even for 15 minutes a day, can make a huge difference in the state of your health. What have you got to lose? (That was a rhetorical question! You wouldn't be here reading this if you didn't hope to make strides regarding your health status and weight issues.) Trust me when I say that walking can take off more weight than you can possibly imagine. You don't have to go fast, you just have to go and go consistently.

So when are you going to start moving, moving toward your goal? M.E.

The nice thing about the New Year...

...is that we all get yet another chance to do it right! That applies to me as well as to all of you. And so after berating myself for any of last year's failures and saying all the appropriate "mea culpa's" I have returned to the blog! We won't discuss the extent of the commitments that kept me away for the last 2 1/2 months. No slashing of the tires, just fix the bad one and move on down the road.

So, in a effort to maintain progress already made and make strides toward improving my health, I'm back on the wagon. I could use some company! I weighed in on New Year's morning, and thankfully, the poundage was the same as it was before Christmas...a small miracle in itself. I'd lost 1 pound as of this morning. I know that's not much, but it is at a healthy rate of loss.

The death march starts tomorrow morning. I may actually take it outside in the coming week as the temps are supposed to hit the 60's by mid week. My goal is 30 minutes a day to start. If the weather is bad, the 30 minutes will be on t=my rebounder. After a week of sticking to it, I will be adding strength training three days a week.

Nutrition-wise, I will be doing 1200-1500 calories per day. And I have some great ideas about smart eating to share with you in future blogs.

Let's get after it people. We'll all feel better for the doing! M. E.

Back in the Saddle Again...

Hey everyone! I'm back. Sorry for the lapse in postings, but my mother was visiting from out of state and I just didn't have much time for anything beyond the scope of work and the visit. Not only was my time consumed, my routines were completely trashed!

So, in the spirit of my last post, and barring torrential rain, I will be out on the death march at 6:30 in the morning. No more slashing of tires. It's time to change the flat and get back on the road. Won't you join me? M.E.

Back from the Road, yet again!

Well, sports fans, I'm back from a 4-day trip to Detroit. And I fared pretty well, considering I was at a regimented class and eating out with others from the class. But what I really want to share with you was the wisdom I learned in the class.

I will be the first to tell you that I fall off the wagon and get off track, just like everyone else. That goes for diet AND exercise. So when the instructor in the class began talking about staying on track, even though it had nothing to do with diet or exercise, I listened.

Usually I expect wisdom to come from those who are older and wiser than me. But Andrea was young and cute and extremely bright. She said to the class "Close your eyes and imagine that you are taking a trip to a really wonderful place. It is a place that you really want to visit and you can't wait to get there. But as you're driving along, you suddenly get a flat tire. What do you do?" Someone offered "Call AAA." But she continued.

"You stop and change the tire. You have to approach everything in life in that way. But a lot of people get off track and give up; instead of changing the tire, they get out of the car look at the tire and tell themselves they have failed to get to the destination. Then they proceed to slash the other three tires. You don't fail if you change the tire and continue on down the road."

I've been thinking about Andrea's analogy ever since. She is absolutely, 100% on the money with her observation. So the next time you fall off the wagon, be it diet, exercise, education, job or life in general, make sure you change your tire and get on with it! M.E.

Home Again, Home Again

Well, Week 4 is over, as is my road trip. And it was a wonderful trip. I didn't lose any weight on the road, but I didn't gain any either, and that is a very good thing! Half the battle is not eating fast food while driving. In order to combat that eventuality, I kept a small cooler seat-belted into the front passenger seat loaded with bottles of cold water, fresh fruit and Kashi Go-Lean bars. It worked. I ate small normal meals where I was staying, but on the road, it was fruit, water and Go-Lean bars. I was even able to have a few glasses of wine on the trip with no deleterious effects! Works for me!

Total loss remains at 7.7 pounds. Hopefully I will get back on track quickly now that I'm back to the day-to-day routines. How are you all doing, now that we're four weeks into the challenge? I hope to try a few new things this week and I will share how they are working. M.E.

end of week 3

Today is the last day of week 3. I was doing quite well up until Wednesday. All my friends at the office brought in a relative birthday feast! Although much appreciated and enjoyed, it was highly injurious to my progress. And of course there was enough for TWO days of gnoshing. This was complicated by a birthday dinner invitation I had already accepted AND a summons to escort a Board of Directors member at a company BBQ the following day. Talk about a major hindrance to my weight loss! I am happy to report I still lost 0.2 lbs. Needless to say that could have been 2.2 or 3.2 had not the demon birthday and event feasting gotten in my way. Sigh. But tomorrow starts another week...Week 4. To summarize, my 3-week total loss is now 7.7 lbs.

Week 4 will likely have some pitfalls as well. I leave Wednesday morning on a road trip...Nashville, Huntsville, Bremen, Atlanta and Chattanooga. I'll attempt to stop along the way and report on what I'm doing to defeat the food demons on the road! Stay tuned for more! M.E.

End of Week 2! A very good week!

I lost quite a bit of weight this week! 6 lbs as of this morning! My two-week total is now 7.5 lbs. This is an unusual loss for me. I am going to chalk it up to going raw for the most part and giving up the Diet Pepsi. Such a complete lack of sodium means no water retention. I can see my ankle bones!

I am very encouraged by my results, so far. Of course it is easy to eat fruits and veggies in the summer when everything is fresh and new. I am eating high protein lentil soup (homemade) and 2-4 oz of chicken or other meats for dinner. I'm also taking two teaspoons of cold-pressed coconut oil per day. But because I'm encouraged, I have no doubt I'll be eating raw next week as well. I'll be giving a new total loss next Saturday. Stay tuned! M.E.

Week 2, Day 5...things are progressing

Just to let you know...the scale is going down! I am starting to get excited over the prospects of a major drop on the scale at the end of Week 2...Saturday morning! Okay, what am I doing? A 16 oz glass of water with lemon when I get up in the morning. Raw foods all day...Fresh fruit for breakfast, hearty homemade lentil soup and fruit for lunch, fresh fruit or raw baby carrots or both for snacks, fruit, salad and protein for dinner...tonight it was scrambled eggs (one whole egg plus one egg white). I also had a Breyer's frozen fruitcicle. They taste great and are only about 50 or 60 calories each.

I'm drinking LOTS of water and today, finally, not one drop of Diet Pepsi! It has taken me a week to get off the demon caffeine and aspartame. I have to admit, I have had a headache every day...but they are getting less as I work through the withdrawal symptoms.

If you're working along with me here, make sure you are getting at least 1200 calories a day. Less than that and your body will thing you're starving it and slow down the weight loss to compensate.

Keep up the good work! M.E.

Week 2, Day 4...Diet Pepsi loosens its hold!

Things are looking up! I am still ingesting one Diet Pepsi per day, but my interest and craving for it is diminishing. Tomorrow I will attempt to go Diet Pepsi free. I have also gone to about 90% raw eating. Fresh fruits and raw vegetables, homemade soups high in protein and plenty of water. I am doing amazingly well, without any gnawing hunger pains. Normally I am eating even when not hungry. It is emotional, stressful, anxious eating as though if I don't imbibe, there won't be any food left when I need it. But I think I have found the cure for that, at least for me. I was introduced to Callahan's Technique. It is a system of tapping accupressure points to allay anxiety and cravings. So far I have refrained from eating between meals, eating after dinner or going after sweets. I will let you know if it continues to work! M.E.

Week 2, Day 2...How does conspiracy sound to you?

I'm getting to the point where I'm beginning to believe those people that are sometimes labeled as conspiracy theory nuts.

Once again the NIH has lost its collective mind. The National Institute of Health (NIH) has now stated that losing and regaining weight in yo-yo fashion is healthier than staying at a stable overweight. Are you kidding me? If I had never gone on that first crash diet, I might still be at that stable weight, which is 40 lbs less than I am right now! Instead, I attempted repeatedly to lose weight and drove myself to morbid obesity in the quest. I have 40 years of experience that tells me every time I diet, I gain it back and a few pounds more. The next diet is more difficult. The metabolism seems to slow down more with each successive diet. Hundreds of thousands of obese people have yo-yo dieted their way UP the scale.

Think about this. In Europe, the vast majority of the population is NOT obese. They eat late in the evening with meals loaded with high fat cheeses, whole milk, real butter and many other foods we would consider to be fattening, yet they don't seem to have the same health and weight issues we have here. In China and Japan, obesity started affecting those populations when American foods were introduced.

What makes our food different than theirs? Chemicals, preservatives, additives and growth hormones are simply overused here in the processing of food. But it is the disinformation that makes me believe what Kevin Trudeau is saying about the food and drug industries conspiring to make us fat and keep us fat, just like the tobacco industry conspired to increase addiction to nicotine. After all, if the public actually got to normal weight, the diet industry, the fast food industry and the drug companies would have no customers left, except the ones that needed help for an illness not caused by obesity, food additives and growth hormones in the food supply.

Think about it! M.E.

It's a Brand New Week!

Here we are on Week 2, Day 1. It's a brand new week, so if last week didn't go too well, you have the pleasure of starting over again. I am doing quite well on the Diet Pepsi front. I had one 20-oz bottle Saturday and two today. But I am sucking down water like there's no tomorrow. I also managed to lay in a supply of yerba mate tea and started downing that today as well. I took a very hot walk on the beach...long enough to produce a sunburn. And if I sleep tonight, I may actually get my rear in gear and do the Death March in the morning. I need to deliberately walk a minimum of two miles per day above and beyond my normal routines in order to start losing weight with any continuity.

I also need to have more control over my craving for carbohydrates. I am completely addicted to Craisins, dried cranberries. I know they are loaded with antioxidants, but they are also loaded with sugar. They are only marginally less sweet than regular raisins. And if I could restrict myself to one serving, that would be great, but I can't seem to do that. So for the foreseeable future, they will not be allowed in my house. I am also no longer going to use Zone Bars as meal replacements. I tend to over do it with things that taste like candy. When the current supply is gone, no more Zone Bars.

And I will be trying a new-to-me technique to eliminate food cravings. It is called The Callahan Technique. I will report to you on how well it works. M.E.

Day 3, progress is a daily struggle...

I started out the day right! I got up early and did a 45-minute walk. I managed to keep my calorie intake at about 1500. I'm still drinking the Diet Pepsi, but I should be out of that by the end of the day tomorrow. Tomorrow I plan to add a lower body workout after the morning walk.

Do you have a hard time staying focused during exercise? I have found that if I listen to music or audio books I have no problem completing my walking tasks. I often take 3 or 4 audio books out of the library, download them, one at a time, onto my mp3 player and delete them when I am done listening to them. My player will hold about 10-11 book discs, so I can pretty much load an entire book on it. I so look forward to the time I am listening, that what I am doing while listening is imatterial. So if I listen while I walk, the time passes quickly and it takes the pain out of the task. Try it! M.E.

Day 2 - July 2

So, how am I doing so far? Could have been better today. I started out the morning by oversleeping. That did not help my plan for the day! However, I made up for the lack of walking by rebounding additional time before bed. Twenty minutes on the rebounder burns more calories than 20 minutes of running. I also have not cut out the caffeine quite yet. When the current supply of Diet Pepsi is gone...well, I expect to be downing acetominophen for the headaches and caffeine withdrawal. I know those caffeine-laden drinks are very hard to give up! And the withdrawal is physically painful, but it can be done! Don't forget to drink at least 8 glasses of water per day!

I will be back tomorrow to report on my progress! And don't forget to go back to archives and read the blog on holiday and picnic eating! M.E.

Today is the first day of the next 5 months!

Today is July 1st. Although I’ve lost a great deal of weight over the past several years, like most people out there, I still have a way to go. Eventually, I plan to have reconstructive surgery…which will probably entail excess skin removal from most of the major structures of my body. I need a butt lift and a gut lift, likely a breast reduction (with a definite lift there), then there is the thigh lift and lord knows I need a bat wing removal. As long as I’m at it, I might as well throw a face and neck lift in as well. But before I bite the bullet on what will amount to extensive, major surgery, I want to lose at least another 50 pounds. Between that loss and the skin removal, I hope to finally attain normal size and proportions for my height and frame. My mother is convinced that if I exercise enough, I won’t have any hanging skin. That is completely unrealistic. I used to weigh 450 pounds. Even if I had the resilient skin of a teenager, that kind of major loss would require some reconstruction. I would have to have arms like Gov. Arnold to fill up these bat wings!

But, in essence, I want to document this journey for you on the blog. I will be reporting weekly on what I am doing, what I am eating and what kind of success I am having in the process. I will be doing things as simply as possible. I will be walking 45 minutes every morning, rebounding every evening to the news, using the exercise ball as my computer chair to improve balance and core strength. I will also be doing a strength-training routine six days per week, three days of upper body, three days of lower body. That should take about 20 minutes per day. I will be trying to stick to a 1500 calorie per day plan. I will be using natural products such as yerba matte tea, green tea, pressed coconut oil and plenty of filtered water. I will be avoiding caffeine, artificial sweeteners and empty carbs. My goal is to lose the 50 pounds by December 1, 2007. (I put the year in there just in case there was any doubt.)

I am inviting any and all readers to join in the journey. Don’t be afraid to share your tips, your do’s and don’ts, your successes and failures. I will do the same! M.E.

It is sad but true...

Repetitive dieting trains your body to gain weight more quickly, to be more efficient at absorbing calories from what you eat, to increase your fat stores and to hold on to the fat you already have stored. All this time, you thought you were doing yourself a favor by dieting when what you were really doing was teaching your body to gain weight faster and better than ever before and to resist each new effort to lose weight. It took me far too many years to realize what I was doing to myself.

I’m not saying you shouldn’t watch what you’re eating. I’m saying you should make intelligent choices designed to promote your health and well being. If you consistently eat intelligently, rather than emotionally, you can live with it over the long term. You won’t be dieting, and that will go a long way toward defeating your weight problems.

I’ve tried almost every diet plan on the planet. In every case, attempting to remain on any of those plans for the long haul was an unattainable goal. Yes, I lost weight, but when I was no longer able to stick with those programs, I regained the lost weight PLUS additional pounds.

In essence, I dieted my way UP the scale.

It took a long time to learn that successful weight loss and long-term maintenance only come from a combination of healthy eating and increased movement. I regularly eat 1200-1500 calories per day. But, if I don’t move, if I don’t get out there and do some deliberate calorie burning, I just don’t lose weight. Years of repetitive extreme dieting have ruined my metabolism. My metabolic rate is so slow that I gain weight on 1500 calories if I’m not extremely careful. I can occasionally take in more calories if I am burning off a lot of calories through aerobic exercise and strength training. In my next post, I’ll tell you what combination worked for me…to the tune of 270 pounds lost! M.E.