An Unplanned Hiatus

Well, folks, here we are--the end of July and the conclusion of my summer "vacation". As you might have surmised in light of my absence, the last two months have challenged me in my weight loss journey. To be honest, they've been challenging in general. The "second nature" I referenced in my last post was put to the test. Little did I know how deeply connected that "nature" was to routine. Work has been different over the summer and so has my mood--both have thrown off the equilibrium that was so important to my maintaining success. Balancing a more challenging workday with a difficult class and less sleep have made the last two months difficult on me, but June and July are done. August is new. I'm done with school until October, working is going back to normal next week (at which point I get to go back to 8am start times), and there's still plenty of sunshine left in the summer--things are looking up!

Too much to try to explain in one paragraph, but I needed to get something out there. Oh, and in case you were worried that I have ballooned since May, I'm actually down 101 pounds in total--I've crossed the century mark. For those worried about the math, yes, that's a much slower pace, but that's not really what matters. What matters is that we're back and ready to finish strong.

Hope you're all having a great summer, and thanks for your continued support!

Steve

In lieu of more words...

4 months. 86 pounds. Almost 5 pant sizes. Feels like second nature.

What a Slouch!

Thank you to everyone who has bugged me to post more frequently. The fact is that I have had so much writing to do for class the last few weeks, I rarely feel like doing MORE writing in my objectively diminished free time. However, as I have been so moved by all of your support and interest, I will try to get on a more frequent schedule. Even if they are shorter posts, I get the feeling people care enough to appreciate mini-updates.

Today is April 21 and I started SlimGenics on January 7. At today's weigh in, the number on the scale was some 78 pounds less than the day I started. I've lost a fifth grader and I feel tremendous. The experiential benefits of my weight loss are the same, but are compounding in degrees. My body simply doesn't tire like it used to; nothing is as difficult as it was. My friend and I walked 18 holes on Saturday without experiencing any foot pain (which would have been utterly debilitating last summer). The only thing that pulls me off of the stationary bike is boredom. My resting heart rate has come down something like 25 beats per minute. I still don't sleep great, though it is not much of a stretch to blame that on my lingering caffeine addiction (the next thing on the list...). The pants I purchased this weekend are four sizes smaller than what I would have purchased in December. Needless to say, things are going pretty well.

I'll tell you about my Easter and how wonderful my family is later in the week. For now reflect on this fact: I ate at Red Lobster on Saturday...and ate one Cheddar Bay Biscuit. ONE! I think I'm a changed man.

Steve

2-XL

I'm sorry for not posting more frequently. School has ramped up in a big way, so it's hard to justify doing much writing of things that haven't been formally assigned. Regardless, what follows is a brief update on my progress.

Things are going well, though not at the torrid pace at which I started. What's been most interesting, though, is that, while the poundage hasn't been changing as quickly, I have noticed the greatest change in my body during this time. I don't have a good explanation for this experience, but it has done wonders for keeping up my motivation despite a (relative) stall on the scale. I learned this week that the fruit servings that I had been omitting are actually of the utmost importance to turbo-charging my metabolism, so I've started noshing on apples and berries like a madman. At this moment, still less than three months since deciding to murder Fat Steve, I am down (approximately) 63 pounds, 3 pant-sizes, and at least one shirt size. The usual caveat applies (I still have a long way to go), but I must say, it really feels good to not have to go to the Big and Tall department for clothes anymore! It seems silly to be excited to fit into XXL shirts, but that size was so far from fitting three months ago, it's actually a pretty big deal.

As far as the day to day goes, my struggles look very much the same as they did before, though I think I understand them better now. When it comes to foods that are obviously off-plan (your fried foods, sugary stuff, CheezIts, etc.), I am not even tempted anymore. In the past two weeks I have sat in a room in which cookies were being baked, ice cream cake devoured, and french fries gobbled with nary a slip-up. It's the borderline foods (or even more so on-plan foods in larger quantities than recommended) that get me. Cheese on a sandwich, an extra tortilla as a late-night snack, whatever. In isolation, it seems like these extra 100 calories are no big deal (and they probably aren't), but I guess I don't fully understand what effect they may be having on my metabolism itself. SlimGenics' whole thing is using food to maximize the heat of my engine--am I torpedoing that effort without even knowing it? I mean, the results, while not quite as electric as at the start, are still really good, but I wonder if this kind of line-blurring could come back to bite me in the butt in the long run. Even on my worst day, though, my eating is 10000% better than before I started SlimGenics. In any case, I'm working on cutting down on the "good enough" choices when ideal is less feasible.

Steve

Roswell

In short, readers, things are going great. I just came from SlimGenics--I weighed in 51 pounds below my starting weight. My pants are falling off, my shirts are all baggy, and my feet are always cold--I MUST be losing weight! Bigger than that, though, I feel my self-image turning around. When I look in the mirror, I've really started to see how far I've come instead of how much further I need to go. I see accomplishment and success instead of years of tacit failure. Now, that's not to say that I would be content to stop here--not nearly--it's just an emotional component of the weight loss journey that I feel blessed to enjoy. You skinny people don't understand how deeply obesity buries into your self-concept--it affects so much more than just what you see in the mirror. It affects every aspect of how you value yourself in one way or another. I will explore that topic more deeply sometime when I'm not on my lunch break.

Oh, and I've started exercising again! I've discovered that the stationary bike is a great place to read my textbooks because it is doubly productive and makes the time go WAY faster. I am amazed at how much less pain I feel when I exercise. Don't get me wrong, I sweat HARD and my body fatigues, but the aches and pains that were CONSTANT 51 pounds ago are not even worth mentioning anymore. At this point, the only thing that pulls me off of the bike is boredom. Sooner or later I'm going to start incorporating weight lifting to fill out the space the fat is vacating, but for now I'm just trying to give my heart a chance to benefit from this diet as much as the rest of my body is.

51 and counting. God is good.

Regarding Plateaus and Inches

Plateaus are an expected part of the weight loss process. My first plateau came this week, 38 pounds down. For three straight weigh-ins, I was 38 pounds below my starting weight--no increase, no decrease, just stagnant. Fortunately (though I'm sure SlimGenics would like to take credit for this) this plateau was timed perfectly with the detox/cleanse/boost week that I will do every month and a half. During this week, my diet has been roughly the same, with the exception of fewer starches and the addition of a protein/vitamin-rich shake twice daily. Even though the number didn't change between Monday and Thursday, I was feeling way better.

Supposedly this cleanse week is targeted at getting rid of the stuff that may be lingering in my system, as well as recharging my metabolism. To be honest, I don't fully understand what that really means, but I know that SlimGenics has definitely earned my trust so far. And I do really feel good. My mood is improved, my energy has increased exponentially, and my body only aches from shoveling--not from the normal pains that plagued me before. Seeing change on the scale is great, but FEELING weight loss is an even better motivator. For this reason, my resolve is as strong as ever, despite the stall on the scale.

On top of that, we took my measurements to compare them to when I started 6 weeks ago--I'm 25 inches smaller. That number doesn't really mean anything to me--but it does lend some credence to the fact that I am actually shrinking. It feels really good.

Oh, and when I weighed in on Friday, I had lost 7 more pounds. So I guess the plateau is over...

45 and counting.

One Month(ish) Update

If my math is correct, Thursday will mark one full month on SlimGenics. At my visit yesterday, I weighed in 33 pounds lighter than when I started. I cannot tell you how good that feels to say.

I don't have a whole lot new to say about my diet experience. Four posts a week. HA! I mean, I could recount what I have been eating each day, but that would be as repetitive and uninteresting for you all as it is beginning to become for me. I will say that I have discovered that I can build a bowl at Chipotle that matches my current daily menu (split into two meals--my stomach can't really handle a whole one anymore anyway) and that I eat a Popeye-amounts of spinach everyday (I can add it to basically anything), but the experience really boils down to one fact: the less I think about food, the easier it is to not eat what I'm not supposed to. The challenge is, if I'm going to always eat exactly what I AM supposed to, I kind of need to plan my day's worth of meals in advance.

This gets back to the very birthplace of Fat Steve. When I didn't bat an eye at how much crappy restaurant food I was eating, I never had to think about what I was going to eat in advance--I didn't have to plan at all. I knew if I felt hungry, the golden arches were ready and waiting. Now I have to consider several times each day what challenges may present, and how I can affect my current food choices to leave myself in the best position for later. Super Bowl Sunday, for example, forced me to save most of my treat(ish) food all day so that I could munch on SOMETHING fun during the (ultimately uninteresting) game while my buddies ate chips and dips and cookies. The thing is, I wasn't hardly tempted by the crappy food, I was just so unenthused by what I did get to eat by the time it was all said and done. Again, less difficult the less I think about food.

Anyway, if my enthusiasm sounds mellowed, I suppose that is partly true, but only because I don't know how to enjoy the work part of this process. I'm basically just living off the results. To be honest, that kind of scares me because I know that I WILL hit plateaus (which SlimGenics accounts for and is ready to bust), but I don't want to lose my resolve when the numbers start slowing down. Admittedly, 33 pounds in a month is a torrid pace, but it is easy to do the right thing when I know it will show on the scale in the not-so-long-term.

But I know this is working. I mean, it feels so good to hear that the staff at SlimGenics is eavesdropping each time I weigh in. I'm still totally in on this. Fat Steve doesn't live here anymore. Steve is shrinking.