I'm Not OVERWEIGHT!

Its been over a year since I wrote. I am now officially no longer overweight.

I temper this good news with the fact that I am officially obese. Given my height and weight my BMI (body mass index) is 30.5, Obese Class 1! Not to worry. I am back on it. The good news is if I can either grow 2 inches taller or with 5 pounds of weight loss I return to being simply overweight. That sounds hot. I will shoot for that

Back on Track

Got off "my Platue" and started down the path to a good healthy wieght again. Walking is tremendous exercise. Here is a calorie burning chart.

http://www.coolnurse.com/calories.htm

A 200 pound man walking quickly can burn 6.8 calories per MINUTE!

I weigh almost 250 pounds, at 4 mph I was burning over 8 calories per minute. I walked for 45 minutes in the morning and 35 at night. Besides the 640 calories I burned look at that view. Its not only free but beautiful. Walking is a low impact activity minimizing risk of injury. Remember consistency is the key.

Plateau

I have neither gained nor lost weight in the last 10 days. Commonly know as a Plateau.

This is a good thing to know, as when I reach my goal I will know the balance of exercise and food that will maintain my weight. But I have not come close to my goal so I need to make changes. As I look at the last couple of weeks my resolve has weakened. I still walk but instead of the two times a day for 14 walks per week I have been at 8 walks. I am the household cook and I have been snacking while preparing my meals. I have still avoided high fat high sodium foods more than before but I am having seconds at dinner and large lunches. I have had cocktails several times which are not conducive to weight loss or motivation. Its amazing with all of that and eating 4 meals per day I don't gain any weight.

I have a goal. Twenty pounds by the fourth of July and forty pounds within a year. It is comforting to have a goal because it keeps me on track. So with renewed resolve I am climbing down from the plateau and continuing my Journey to a Healthy Weight. Hope to see everyone there

A Good Product

I am not paid to recommend anything but I thought I would pass this one along. There are plenty of ZERO calorie dressings on the market and lots of low cal but this one is great. My family often uses blue cheese dressing on our tossed green salads, often the Marie's or Lighthouse brands. Both of those dressing are delicious but contain 160 calories per serving. This dressing tastes as good as any I have tried at only 50 calories, 40 from fat. We have green salad two or three nights per week. Over a year this dressing will save me over 14,000 calories without any sacrifice. That's almost 4 pounds of body mass less per year. Amazing. Weight loss is FREE and often times quite tasty. Try Bolthouse Farms Yogurt dressing, their juices are good too.

Waterboarding or My Bicycle

Water boarding or My Bicycle?

Trying to become more fit and having such a perfect day I decided to ride my bike. BAD IDEA! The seat position is such that it is fortunate I am not going to father any more children. To sit comfortably I lean way way back on the saddle. I can't adjust the seat, its fastened by a weird screw that the only known driver is owned by a bicycling monk in Tibet. At 6'6" my knees are in the wrong position and riding the hills is tortuous. I get to the big downhill leading back home. I pedal fast and go to stand on the pedals to enjoy the wind on my face. my reward for climbing all those hills! That's when I realize my right knee has locked up and I almost fall. I was safer eating potato chips and watching TV

But I will persevere. Twenty pounds by July 4Th and I am halfway there.

Back to walking tomorrow

Small Changes a big difference

We go out to Carrows about once a month. I usually get the following:

Salad with Blue Cheese, Garlic Bread
Large Prime Rib (12 oz), Vegetable,
baked potato with butter and sour cream
Glass of Red wine

Truth be told I would sometimes order a full one pound cut but for now we will go with this menu.

The big difference is I checked Nutrional information on-line Before I went to eat.

I ordered the following

Salad with a little oil and vinegar
corn bread with no butter
Salmon, Baked potato w/ sour cream
vegetables and water

I am just as full and just as happy. And even my improved dinner has too much sodium (over 1200 mg) so next time I will cut out the corn bread. It was surprisingly a major contributor to the total sodium. These small changes netted tyhe following differences

1305 Fewer Calories

49 Grams less fat (441 fat calories)

1057 mg less sodium

Little change make a difference. Over time a HUGE difference

Guilty Pleasures

I am not feeling the deprivation one normally gets with dieting. that's why I call it a lifestyle change. Today instead of being vegetarian I had meat at both lunch and dinner. Yet ate healthy! I was working at lunch hour when we stopped at Pollo Loco. I order a chicken breast and a cup of pinto beans and rice. I normally get a breast and a thigh and order the bean, rice and cheese burrito as my side. That meal has around 1000 calories with lots of fat. The way I ate yesterday including removal of the skin on the chicken brought my meal to barely over 400 calories. A savings of 600 calories in one meal! I went ahead and cooked steak for dinner. These very thin New York's weigh around 5 ounces each before cooking. The are higher in saturated fat than I like but the meat portion of my meal had No added sodium and contained less than three hundred calories. Add a baked potato, no butter, and some peas with pearl onions and I was completely sated and had a low fat meal. Weight loss is not only free, its cheaper.