One Month In
June 30, 2008
Good god, time flies. Four weeks have passed already. So far the diet is going pretty well. Wait… it’s not a DIEt, it’s a LIVE-it! No… wait… I was right the first time, it’s a diet. Time for some self-assessment. I haven’t had any major problems with the eating plan I’m following. I’ve found that I’m comfortable being a little hungry, much more comfortable than I am when I’m full. I’m gradually adding more and more exercise to my daily life, but at this point in time it’s too insignificant to matter all that much to my weight loss. So everything is good. It’s challenging enough to be fun and worth doing, but it doesn’t consume my life and I don’t spend my days longing for my next meal.
Starting weight: 316
Current weight: 297
Pounds lost since last weigh-in: 5
One month in and 19 pounds down. These methamphetamines are working like a charm! Just kidding, no drugs. This is all natural. I’ll outline the very basics of the plan I’m following in my next post. Get ready to be disappointed at how lame it is!
Murder Weapons – Scale
June 28, 2008
Murder weapons. Get it? Dead weight. Killing your fat. Murder weapons. These are going to be things that I think are helpful to have if you’re trying to lose weight. I won’t go over the super-obvious stuff. You don’t need me to tell you that you should own a calorie-counting book or a pair of dumbbells or something like that. And you don’t need me to tell you to get a scale either, but I’m going to recommend a particular one to you which is the purpose of this post.
First, there’s something you should know about how most modern digital scales work. I thought this was common knowledge but I was in a room with 10 people who are trying to lose weight a month or so ago and none of them knew what I was talking about so maybe it’s not as well known as I thought. Or maybe I’m surrounded by morons.
The problem with digital scales when they first came out was that they were so unreliable. You could step on them one minute and weigh 204, step off and step back on and weigh 202. You, as a rational human being, realized that the likelihood of you losing 2 pounds over the course of 6 seconds is remote enough to not warrant further examination. So, like most people, you just resigned yourself to the fact that your digital scale was unreliable.
But then the scale makers did something clever. They programmed the scales so that they will always display the same weight they did the last time you were on the scale unless there is a significant difference in what it registers your weight as this time. With most of the scales I’ve tested you need to register a weight that is +/- 1 or 2 pounds before your scale shows you a new weight. This makes the scale seem a lot more consistent and accurate, when really it’s neither. So now if you want to weigh yourself a couple times in succession you need to drag your laundry bag or something else with you on the scale so it will read much higher than normal (wiping out your old weight) then drop the bag and weigh yourself again.
Fortunately there is now a scale that I’ve found to be remarkably accurate and it also takes into account how your weight is balanced so you don’t throw off the measurement by leaning forward or back or whatever. It doesn’t lie to you and tell you your weight is the same as it was five minutes ago, even though you know you took a good long piss between the two weigh-ins. And you can downhill ski on it.
That’s right, it’s the Wii Fit and it’s pretty great. It’s like 80 bucks or something which isn’t a whole lot more than many digital scales that are already out there. And as I said, it’s much more accurate at coming up with what your weight is. Of course, you’ll need to have a Nintendo Wii in order to use a Wii Fit, and that’s going to run you $250. So if you don’t have a Wii, this whole package would cost you $330 for what is essentially a scale you can play Mario on. Is it worth it? For me it definitely is. I like being able to track my weight with a very accurate scale. And I like that the Wii fit keeps track of your weight and BMI for you in a way that makes it easy to see your progress. It also has many balance and aerobic activities that are relatively enjoyable and give you feedback as you get more adept at them. I know what you’re thinking, “Andy, couldn’t I save 300 bucks and just superglue an old Atari to my bathroom scale?” No, dummy, you can’t. Why do my hypothetical readers have such stupid questions?
I know $330 isn’t cheap, but you can justify it by telling yourself that it will not only help you lose weight but you can play video games on it and increase your hand-eye coordination, your problem solving skills, and all those other lies people who play lots of video games tell themselves. For instance, I’m about to go increase my cognitive skills, relieve stress, and increase my problem-solving ability by playing a guitar with buttons instead of strings to shitty 80′s songs.
Ignore This
June 25, 2008
It’s really hard to write a weight loss blog, especially if you plan on doing something unconventional and not have it come off as sounding like advice. I’ve been hesitant to say exactly what I’m doing because I don’t want it to seem like I’m coming off as an authority on anything, especially when I’ve just started. So I’m going to encourage you to ignore anything that may sound like advice over the course of this blog. It’s not for legal reasons — it’s not that what I’m going to recommend is dangerous. I just feel that there are certain things in life that are harder to do when we look for advice outside of ourselves, and I think we often devote so much time and energy to finding the “right” plan we end up not doing whatever we’ve set out to do
We all know that to lose weight you need to expend more energy (in the form of calories) than you take in. With that knowledge you’re all set to lose weight. Go sick. I know we enjoy the search for the perfect weight loss plan for each of us, but is it possible that the search for that plan ultimately sets us back in trying to reach that goal? I think the diet that will work for you is so peculiarly detailed that only you could write the diet book you need. So write it and ignore what I or anyone else has to say.
You see a lot of contradiction in diet books and on diet blogs and message boards. Some people will tell you to eat certain foods, others tell you to stay away from them, eat six meals, or maybe just three meals, do aerobics, avoid aerobics, take these pills, don’t take any pills. Nobody’s right. Everyone’s right. You have to think of a diet as a trip home for Thanksgiving — it’s a personal destination and you should know better than anybody how to get there. If you’re driving east on the highway heading home for Thanksgiving, you’ll see a lot of cars driving west. If the person in the passenger seat said, “There’s a lot of people heading home for the holiday,” you wouldn’t turn to that person and flip out and say, “What the hell! What a bunch of retards! Don’t they know home is this way?” But that is what diet writing often is — people arguing over how to get home.
So try and wean yourself off of diet books and blogs and messageboards as anything other than pop-entertainment. Trust your judgment and be honest with yourself. You don’t have to stop reading this blog, of course, because although I am offering advice you’re under strict orders to ignore it.
Darkness Falling
June 23, 2008
We’ve just past the first milestone of summer (as I think of the year). You see, I hate the summer. Except for those rare occasions where I’m near a body of water, I don’t know what summer has to offer. Girls can at least wear dresses, but the best option for a guy is a pair of shorts and unless you’re playing basketball, guys look ridiculous in shorts. There’s only lame holidays. The best tv shows are on hiatus. It’s just a bad time all around. I know a lot of people who love the summer, and I’ve found that the dumber they are, the more they like it. That’s harsh, I know, but look at a map of the world sometime and tell me how many advancements in science, technology, philosophy and the arts have come from anywhere near the equator. I mean, you could go to Uganda for your cancer treatment, but they still haven’t figured the correct proportion of chicken feet to goat’s blood in their remedy.
The good news is that we’ve just passed the summer solstice which means the days are going to start getting shorter and we are slowly approaching the greatest time of the year: autumn and early winter. Good.
I am now 3 weeks into my diet.
Starting weight: 316
Current weight: 302
Pounds lost since last weigh-in: 3
Two Weeks In
June 18, 2008
A quick post today. I had my second weigh-in this weekend. There was a considerable decline in the rate of my weight-loss from the first week, but that’s to be expected. I think I’ve finalized the details of the diet I’m going to follow and I’ll get into the specifics at some point in the future. I’m hesitant to lay it all out because I don’t want it to sound like I’m giving advice. I’m definitely not. But I think anyone reading this would expect to know the details so I’ll certainly discuss the basics of it soon. As for now:
Starting weight: 316
Current weight: 305
Pounds lost since last weigh-in: 3
Start
June 14, 2008
Here’s my first suggestion I can give you for dieting. Start. And
by that I mean start now, don’t wait. The temptation is always to put
dieting off. To start on Monday, or on the day after your birthday or
New Years. This seems logical, “I’ll start off a new Year (or week)
with a new me!” Of course the problem is that as soon as you mess up
you figure, “Well, this week has gone to shit. I’ll start again next
week.” This idea that you need to wait until the beginning of the week
is a bad thing to tell yourself. You don’t want to be one of those
perpetually fat ladies downing a bag of Doritos on Sunday night because
they’re starting their diet the next morning. Instead, start your diet at 5:30 PM on a Friday. That’s a power move. Start your
diet when you’re half-way through a piece of cake. Nobody does that. Imagine what a ballsy move that would be. You’re out with your friends at a restaurant. You order the peanut-butter cup cheesecake. You take two bites then look at your watch and nonchalantly say, “Oh, it’s 7:15, that’s when I was going to start my diet. Does anyone want the rest of this?” Please, someone do this. You’ll look like a rockstar and drive those old biddies in your book-club out of their mind.
The Heat Was Hot
June 11, 2008
As that song by America, “The Horse With No Name,” so strangely put it, the heat was hot in New York City these past few days. Not just heat but stultifying humidity too. Bad times. There’s a sad dichotomy with the super-hot weather in regards to weight loss. First, there is nothing that makes you want to lose weight more than really hot weather. I’m not sure how much of my discomfort was due to being overweight, but it feels like some of it must have been, right? I mean, essentially I’m always walking around wearing a hoodie made of fat; that’s the way I look at it. So humid, hot weather is a great motivator for making you want to lose weight. But at the same time the last thing you want to do in this weather is get out and exercise. I just want to lay in an air-conditioned room, drink root beer floats and watch Celebracadabra on VH1. Of course I wouldn’t want to be exercising if it was super cold or raining out either. In fact there’s really only one week in late October where I find myself thinking, “It would be nice to take a quick jog around the park.” When that week rolls around, I’ll let you know how my jog goes.
Slow is Smooth and Smooth is Fast
June 10, 2008
I had my first real weigh-in Saturday night. I say “real” weigh-in because technically I am weighing myself every night, but I’m only recording the weight on a weekly basis. My goal, as I’ve mentioned, is to lose about 130 pounds. I plan to accomplish this over the course of the next 18-24 months. That means at most a couple pounds a week. Some people suggest that if you lose more than a half pound a week you won’t be able to sustain the weight loss, but I’m not in that camp. On the other hand, I’m not shooting for 20 pound losses each week like on The Biggest Loser. I don’t like that for a few reasons:
1. If you take a couple years to lose 100 pounds rather than 3 months, then you have 21 more months of practicing the habits that will keep you at your new weight. I have a lot to say about this actually, and I’ll devote some posts to this idea later.
2. It takes far more time and energy than I’m willing to devote to it to lose double digits every week.
3. I think it’s probably smart to give your body a little time to adjust as you lose weight. Now, anyone who drops 250 pounds is bound to have some excess skin, but I’m guessing (and no, I don’t have any proof of this) that they’d look better if they lost that weight over the course of a couple years then if they lost it over the course of 6 months. Ever wonder why the contestants on the Biggest Loser weigh-in at the start of the series without a t-shirt and then in the later stages start wearing a t-shirt at weigh-ins? I’m guessing it’s because their flabby skin is none-to-appealing. All the Extra Sugar-Free gum and Subway subs in the world can’t help that.
So that’s why my goal is just a few pounds a week. I live by the philosophy that slow is smooth and smooth is fast. This is a good outlook to have in any project. I know people who have talked about writing a novel for 5 years but never actually did it because the task seemed so daunting. If they had just committed to writing a half-page a day five years ago, they’d be through their 3rd novel by now.
That being said, here are the details after one week:
Starting weight: 316
Current weight: 308
Pounds lost since last weigh-in: 8
Dead Wrong – Hunger and Thirst
June 6, 2008
There is a lot I don’t believe that I read in the diet literature. Many diet books and most of the diet writing on the web is written by people who have no science background whatsoever. This would be fine if they were talking about weight issues from a personal perspective, but they tend to make a lot of broad pronouncements about how weight loss works and how metabolism works and how exercise works. Now, these same people wouldn’t dare to tell you how a carburetor works, but the workings of a carburetor are much simpler and better understood than the workings of the human body. If you don’t know the fundamentals of mass and energy, I can’t put too much faith into your diet and exercise expertise.
This doesn’t mean that I won’t be making my own broad pronouncements, I definitely will. But I don’t contend that things I find to be true for me will be true for you too. There are things I find written in diet books and diet websites and especially diet message boards that seem to have no basis in reality or are at least poorly thought out logically. They make assumptions about how the body works and how dieting works and I think sometimes the only reason they write these things is because they’ve read them before. Or maybe these things are just not true for me. Things like:
Sometimes when you think you’re hungry, you’re really just thirsty, so you should drink a glass of water and your hunger will go away.
What? Really? Is this true for anyone in the world? I’m sure there are some people who have convinced themselves it’s true, in which case, more power to them. At no point in my thirty years on the planet have I ever said, “What I want is a big hunk of lasagna. Wait — no… that’s not it. What I really want is a glass of water.” I wish that happened to me. Instead it’s usually, “What I want is a big hunk of lasgana. Wait– no… what I want is two big hunks of lasagna.” If you believe it to be true that you sometimes confuse thirst with hunger, do you also do it the other way around? Do you ever say, “I thought I was completely parched, but it turns out all I really wanted was some shortbread cookies.” I mean, I realize that we sate both desires by putting something in our mouth, but I don’t think that means your body confuses the two. How poorly calibrated does your body have to be before you start confusing hunger and thirst? What other sensory mistakes do you make? Let me guess:
- “I thought I wanted some cocaine, but really I had to sneeze.”
- “I thought I was horny, but actually I just had to pee. This made for an unfortunate (and messy) moment with my girlfriend.”
- “I thought I was tired, but it turns out I was dead.”
Notes on a Schedule
June 3, 2008
It is my intention to work up to posting on this site three times a week. I’ve written a few other blogs and I know what I’m capable of writing regularly (assuming I’m not getting paid for it), and three times a week is about it. The posts won’t be very long, probably just a paragraph. So that’s it, three paragraphs a week in total.
I figure if I go into this project with consistent, achievable goals I’ll be much less likely to abandon it part way through than I would be if I said, “I’m going to keep a diary of everything I eat everyday and take pictures of it and post it up here for you to see. Then I’m going to talk about my feelings about every bite I had. And I’m going to record every time my body moves so I can have a rough idea how many calories I burned. I’m also going to weigh my bowel movements so we can gauge….” And that sort of thing.
One post a week will be a weigh-in post. I started my diet on a Sunday so I will likely weigh in every Saturday night to give you a status report on Monday The other days will be filled with… I’m not quite sure yet. We’ll see.
