Ding.... "RUN."

So I'm grousing about my weight, and I have come to the conclusion that I am going to have to start running. For real.

 

I hate running. I hated it when I was a kid... I hated it in college... I hated it during Augusta's Biggest Loser. Now I'm not talking about interval training on the treadmill... I don't mind that so much. But running out on the road (or in a parking lot) -- I'd just as soon not. But if I don't get some serious calorie burning going on, I'm going to be in trouble.

 

I've seen some of these "Couch to 5K" programs before, but I never really paid them any attention. After all, I wasn't "on the couch". But has time has moved on, and without the support of a team, I've been moving closer to "couch" than to "5K". I've never run more than a mile, and I could barely do that. I did better sprinting during our workouts than distance/time running. But there is that motivation to get moving.

 

One of the things I said during my interview with CSRA Active magazine was that before Augusta's Biggest Loser, my life was about "I can't". I can't fit into a seat; I can't climb much; I can't find clothes to fit; I can't, I can't. After our finale, I said that now, my life was about "I can". I guess it sounded like a good quote, because they printed it as a pull quote. A year and a half later, I find myself questioning my ability in many different areas.

 

So I set to work finding out all I could about the Couch to 5K (C25K) program that, if all goes according to plan, will have me running a 5K by Thanksgiving. Isn't there a Turkey Trot or something? Anyway, I found an iphone app that does it all for you. (Except for the running.) Not having an iphone, I went to the android market and found an equivalent app. I set it up, got dressed to run, and headed outside. I turned it on, hit "Go" on day one, and the guy said, "Warm-up." Five minutes later... Ding... "RUN". So I ran. When it said "WALK", I walked. And around and around the parking lot we went, "Michael" and I. (I discovered later the female voice -- "Allison" -- was British. No thanks; it kinda felt like that gal that used to host "The Weakest Link". Wasn't interested in that.) I lost count a few rounds in, but it wasn't that long before he said, "you are halfway done".

 

The second half went pretty much like the first half, including sore knees, a gimpy ankle, and knives piercing my lungs. (Did I mention I hate running?) And then, the words I was longing to hear: "Cool down."

 

Day one, done. Three days a week for the next nine weeks means I have 26 more days of this routine. Wednesday and Friday are a repeat of today, and then next Monday, we bump up the running and reduce the walking. This is exactly the kind of program that I have traditionally quit after about a week and a half. But I'm going to give it my best, and we will see what happens.

 

All this, coupled with proper nutrition... I hope to be back down in my goal weight range by Halloween.

Getting back on track...

If this seems like the hundredth blog post I've written about getting back on track, it's because weight maintenance is a life-long, never-ending battle. Anyone who says, "I'm going on a diet" is already doomed to fail, because they have already established in their mind that there will come a time when they can go back to "normal" eating. While there is a place for treats and indulgences from time to time, the "new normal" knows they have to be few and far between. When "few and far between" becomes "more often than I should", it's time to get serious.

 

I'm going on vacation in 3 days -- the first vacation I have taken since I started my weight-loss journey 20 months ago. This may seem like an odd time to clean up the diet; the old me would have rationalized that I'm going to be eating out a lot next week; worry about the calories when I get home. But I want to make sure that when I AM eating away from home, I'm careful and diligent. And frankly, my waistline can't wait another week! So.... lots of protein, minimal carbs, upping the exercise, and hopefully some time to learn how to rest again.

Wow -Two Months....

Well, it has been two months since I last penned a blog entry; but writing about my weight loss journey kept me motivated, and so I decided to take my digital "pen" in hand and write something...

 

As I write this, it's about 6:45 AM on Tuesday morning at youth camp. Thanks to the marvels of technology (with a D-minus to T-Mobile for failing to deliver a decent data signal out here in the middle of nowhere), I am able to read, write, etc., and share with you who may be reading.

 

This week, I am getting a fresh remembrance of the power of shared experiences. We have a camper with us this week who is a PHC client. Those of you who followed our journey in the media know that PHC is the weight loss center that held my hand every step of the way until I reached my finale weight. When I saw that we had a teen who was a PHC client, I realized that it had been a very long time since I have talked to someone who was going down the same road I had been down. I am watching my p's and q's this week, conscious of what I eat (mostly!), and running/walking every chance I get. I normally log about 17,000 - 20,000 steps per day at camp, and have been looking forward to this week. When I am tempted to just let my guard down and eat whatever I want to, rationalizing that I will "walk it off", I look across the way and see Katie sitting there, sipping on her water while her friends are scarfing down Yoo-Hoos and ring pops. As a leader, I have access to eat what I want, whenever I want it; very thankful that in spite of all the "kids" food we have here, we also have fresh veggies, fruits, wheat bread, and other items to keep me (and Katie) on track!

 

Getting ready to go back on TV for Biggest Loser; Nandy's "where are they now" story airs tonight. Sometime in August they will come knocking on my door for a follow-up interview; THERE'S some motivation... if the camera "adds ten pounds", then I have a lot of work to do!

 

Praying today for my friends who have shared my journey with me: Linda in south Georgia; Stephanie in Missouri; Eric in Wisconsin; and most of all, my new little PHC friend who is trying to fight the battle of a lifetime at the tender age of thirteen...

One Year After Finale...

One year ago today (well, the actual date would be Saturday, but it was the third Friday in May), I stood on a scale and set an Augusta's Biggest Loser record with a 143.4-lb weight loss. Others lost more, both in season 2 and season 3 - but no one had surpassed losing 41% of their body weight. There was a lot of pressure (including some from myself) to push down below 200 pounds by weigh-in time on that Friday night. The last eleven days were a furious push to the finish - my trainer gave me a four-hour per day workout routine; the weight loss center had me on about 600 calories per day. I started that eleven days at 208 pounds, and lost 9 pounds by the final weigh-in.

 

Extreme? Yes. Recommended for everyone? Categorically, no. But for me, in that moment, I learned that I could do anything that I set out to do. And that was totally worth it!

 

Where am I at, one year later? Well, to be quite honest, I weigh about 18 pounds more than I want to weigh. I'm fighting the "spare tire" along with all of my middle-aged friends. I don't exercise as much as I was exercising last year; I'm not quite as strict with my diet. Last year I bought several pairs of denim shorts with a size 34 waist, and I am still wearing them this year. (Before ABL, I was wearing size 48, with elastic or drawstrings, and that was a stretch.) In November of '09, my shirts were a 3X, and my girth at my navel measured a staggering 59 inches. When I began writing about my experience, I wrote a list of things I couldn't do when I started. These included rolling over in bed without running out of breath; squatting down to pick something up off the floor; and climbing the stairs to my office without getting winded. It has been so long since those things have been hard that I don't even remember what it felt like to live life so restrained. The only thing on that list that is difficult is the squatting, and that's due to creaky knees!

 

I keep mementos of my weight loss journey around me all the time. I still have the pictures on my desk of myself and my teammates; on the wall is a copy of the article in the Augusta Chronicle about ministers and obesity, which featured my picture on the front of the religious section; and I still have the notebook that I put together with photos, my blog entries, and other things that remind me of where I was and what I did. (I also still have half a box of CSRA Active magazines with Nandy and me on the cover, if anyone wants one!)

 

I'm always conscious of what I eat; if I cheat, I'm aware of what I'm doing, and I try to compensate for it. I am still very careful with carbs, sodium, and red meat. One of the things that surprised me when I was finished with ABL was how much I had learned without realizing it. During some of our sessions at PHC Weight Loss Center, we were given a lot of information - almost too much to absorb in one sitting. I still have notes from those sessions, but I no longer need to refer to them. One year later, much of it is just second nature. I have a whole new set of "defaults" - things that I do automatically. If I'm at a restaurant, I'm looking at salads and grilled chicken. I have not eaten a fast-food burger since October of 2009. I don't think in terms of "going on a diet" - to me, going on a diet meant putting myself on a self-depriving regimen of specific foods in order to lose weight, and that at some point in the future, I would no longer have to be "on a diet". Everyone is "on a diet" - your diet is simply what you eat. There are just certain foods that my diet no longer includes, as well as some that it shouldn't include, but that I still sneak a little of, anyway. My weaknesses? French fries, candy, and portion sizes.

 

I had a conversation with a friend recently about body image - for a very long time, there was a huge disconnect between the "me" I saw in photographs, and the "me" I saw in the mirror. The guy in the pictures was skinny; the guy in the mirror was fat. I wrote about this in my blog last March or so... since then, I have learned that body dysmorphia is a common condition in those that lose large amounts of weight. I "feel" fatter at 230 pounds than I did at 350 pounds.

 

Many of you who followed my journey and read my blogs last year have said to me that you don't have "the willpower" to lose weight. Overcoming bad habits is NOT easy - in any area of life - but it's totally worth the effort! Don't give up. On the night we all found out that we had been selected, they had the previous year's winners talk to us about the competition. Bernard got up and said, "if I can do this, ANYONE can do this." I thought he was crazy - but he was right, and I extend the same advice to you: If I can do this, you can, too.

 

 

Thoughts on Starting Over...

After 6 weeks of either my wife being sick, or of me being sick, the weight is up. It happens - it's not a huge deal.

 

In the book "The Biggest Loser Success Secrets" (which I highly recommend), Pete Thomas offers this bit of advice: everyone is in one of three phases with their weight - they are either gaining, losing, or maintaining. Those who are successful at keeping their weight off are those people who are able to shift easily from one phase to another. I've just gone through a phase shift - losing again.

 

A lot of people can maintain their current weight without too much thought or effort; I am not one of those people. Just as a diabetic  who is serious about controlling their diabetes has to monitor everything they eat, I have discovered that I have to be that diligent about what I eat.

 

The battle is fought in the mind. If you can win the battle of the brain, you can win the battle of the bulge. Fortunately, I'm currently in the right state of mind - throwing out the bread from a grilled chicken sandwich, skipping the french fries, accurately recording everything I eat, and putting into practice everything I learned during my weight loss journey. Now the trick is to stay in this mindset until those 20 pounds are gone.

 

I'm looking forward to the "snug" clothes becoming loose-fitting again!

Something different... (this is about Bible translations - if you aren't interested, skip this one.)

This post isn't about weight loss. I'm very sick this week, my weight is up, and when I am able to get back to it, I will get back on the straight and narrow. I promise. My doctor and his nurses were impressed that I am still within 20 pounds of where I was at my Biggest Loser check-up last May.

 

When I am lying around doing not much of anything, my mind tends to race. One of my facebook friends (and college classmates) posted a link about how horrible the publishers of the NIV are for releasing a fourth corrected version, and about how all the modern Bible versions have caused 21st century Christianity to descend into a morass. And on many levels, my friend is correct. There are  versions that are translated from faulty manuscripts (including the NIV), and there are versions that are translated with sketchy methods (also including the NIV). But staunchly defending the "Authorized Version 1611" is asking for trouble, because the logic of doing so defies logic (intentionally redundant). The AV 1611 is written in an English that in many ways, is foreign to us. The average English-speaking person would be hard-pressed to make out Psalm 23 without already knowing what it says. The AV 1611 also included the Apocrypha, a collection of books that almost no one outside of the Catholic church would even consider to be scripture, much less interpreted correctly.

 

Those that would argue in favor of the modern translations usually argue from the standpoint of them being more easily understood, from the standpoint of churches that use them are alive and seemingly thriving, and from their massive popularity, especially among younger people. Bibles have been made into comic books and canteen/tin-shaped devices, and every other way has been tried to make it "cool" to carry a Bible with you.

 

I read from the King James Version (1769, not 1611 - word spellings were standardized in 1769); I study from the King James Version; I teach and preach from the King James Version. I have reasons for doing so, because of not only how I was raised, but because of the several studies I have done on my own.

 

And then I run into Romans 1:20 - "For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse." Ask any 5-year old to draw a picture of "outside" - you will probably get a pretty standard-looking landscape of a blue sky, a yellow sun, white clouds, a green tree, and green grass (unless you live in West Texas or one of those other states, which have their own unique beauty). If I can take the liberty of paraphrasing a little (OK, a LOT), I see God saying this: "If all I gave you was a starry sky at night, rolling clouds, incredible sunrises and sunsets, trees that rustle in the wind, majestic mountain peaks, and a world full of unexplained mysteries, then I've given you enough information to know Who I am, what I expect, and how much I love you." In a nutshell, that's exactly what God told Job after 39 chapters of Job's wondering, "Why:"

 

Even in our enlightened age, there is evidence of God in the things we are discovering. A report came out late last week that said that currently, humanity has produced 295 exabytes of information. To break it down more simply, if every bit of information we have on computers and other storage devices were all burned onto CDs, the stack of CDs would reach past the moon, or enough information for every person on the planet to have 15 personal libraries. Pretty impressive, right? Not so fast. That is only equal to approximately 1% of the amount of data in the DNA of a single human being.

 

Do Bible versions matter? Of course they do. But I have a sneaking suspicion that God is interested in more than who has the smartest scholars on their side to support their position. I think His questions for us will be more along the lines of, "how much did you love Me, and did you love others as you would love yourself"?

 

Sound familiar?

 

My Favorite Things...

Was thinking earlier about my favorite things that help when I'm losing weight. In no particular order:


Sugar-free/fat-free jello and pudding. Hard to find sugar- AND fat-free pudding, but I use fat-free jello puddings when I want something really sweet. Only 60 calories each (but you have to make sure you watch your carbs). The sugar-free gelatin cups are 5 calories each, and are really good - even the generics at Walmart and your local grocery store.


Barbeque sauce. There is a brand of barbeque sauce that is low calorie, and super-low in sodium, called Wing-It. One of our Walmarts carries it - look in the specialty area. It's great with chicken, and even in tuna.


Lowfat cheeses. Laughing Cow is famous for their lowfat cheeses, but Sargento makes a reduced fat line that is really good, especially the Colby Jack sticks. Their products are 50-60 calories per serving.


Arnold Round Sandwich Rolls. These are 100 calorie mini-buns, wheat or multi-grain. Another good choice is Nature's Own Whitewheat Hamburger buns taste like white, but are really wheat, and while not as fibrous as other wheat breads, they have the same calories, carbs, and sodium as the Arnold rolls.


Apples. PHC taught us that apples are a dieter's best friend. My favorite? Plain old Red Delicious apples.

The Prodigal Returns Home...

I told myself that I could eat pretty much what I wanted to through the holidays, and then, after normalcy returned, I would just "drop" the weight I had picked up. I'd always been able to do it before; my pattern for nearly 4 months had been to go up a little bit, but be back down to my 216 pounds by time for weigh-in. That worked for a long time... but after I got through the holidays, I realized that it wasn't just "coming off" like it had before. A few fast food biscuits here and there - stuff I knew better than to eat - a dessert every now and then... and I looked in the mirror and didn't like what I saw. Worse, I had pushed up to a weight that was close to a plateau for me in the past.

I had delayed a visit to PHC, because I was feeling the pressure to be "good enough" before I went back to see them. I was actually supposed to go the week between Christmas and New Years, but I couldn't go then - there was still too much dessert at home that I had to eat my way through! I got on the scales, and when I was pushing 236 pounds, I realized that I was at a turning point. My clothes weren't fitting properly, but I couldn't get rolling again.

I just had a choice to make of whether to let it continue, or go get some help. Honestly, I am not a "go-get-some-help" person. I am the stereotypical male who won't ask for directions, won't ask a store clerk where something is, and won't accept help for anything in my life. I chose to go back and get some help. So Tuesday afternoon, I went back to PHC.

Of course, the folks at PHC were very glad to see me, and they were not condemning or panicky at all. I found out later that Donna had been in a bit of a panic, because I had emailed her and told her I was up, and asked how much would they charge me to put me back on a plan. I got on the scale, and their reading was a little less than mine had been at home.

The bottom line is, my target weight for maintenance is 215 pounds. My official weigh-in had me at 231. Sixteen pounds to go.

For those of us who have been 100+ pounds overweight, sixteen pounds sounds like a drop in the bucket - a couple of deck chairs on the Titanic. But go the dairy section of your local food store, and pick up a gallon of milk in each hand. Or, to get the full effect, arrange the handles so that you are holding both gallons in one hand. THAT is roughly sixteen pounds. That's what I need to lose.

I have not stopped to think whether it's been emotional eating, habitual eating, or convenience eating. Probably a little of all that. I have documented my new-found chocolate addiction (which I have given up); overall, just too many carbohydrates and too much eating out.

Savannah put me on 1200 calories a day - 3 proteins, 3 dairy servings, 3 vegetables, 3 fruits, 3 starches. She gave me the dreaded "green sheet" - the food diary that I have to report with. I always hated filling those out, but the accountability is crucial. She took my blood pressure (which could not have been accurate - she came up with 167/110), and sent me on my way. Some of you who are reading this and are trying to lose weight, I would seriously re-consider the advice of those who are telling you to eat 2000-2500 calories per day. If you need to lose 200 pounds, a rate of one to two pounds a week is not sufficient, unless you think you can maintain a weight loss plan for three years. (I'm not a nutritionist or a dietitian , I'm just a guy who lost 140 pounds in 6 months.)

That night on the local news, they featured the founder of PHC in 26's "26 Women to Watch", a series of stories about women who make a difference in our area. In nearly every camera shot, there is either a picture of me, or our Biggest Loser team, or the posters they made up for our finale with our weight loss on them, or the T-shirt we all signed. And I realized that I have a lot to live up to, still! Hopefully their clients can find some motivation in seeing our stories.

I have not strayed from the plan, and so far, so good. I have lost 4 pounds in 3 days. And it's not "just water", because I was already doing all the stuff to get rid of water weight. I'm hoping to be around 225 when I go back to PHC - that will leave me with just 10 pounds to go, after one week.

Stay tuned...