Coming back to the fold

Yet again it's been a while since I posted. Predictably, it's because I fell off the wagon. I graduated. I moved to Colorado. I spent a very long time sitting in a small apartment in a suburban corner of Denver, watching TV, playing lots of video games. Then I got a job, rode the train, and ate lunch at the many excellent eateries downtown Denver has to offer. I got big. I ballooned up to 240 pounds. 240. That's a big number for me. That's as heavy as I've ever been. I've only hit that number once before, and I was in a very bad place back then. I wasn't in as bad a place this time around, but it was close enough. I was exercising in 2-3 week spurts. I was eating anything and everything under the sun. I was eating four to five full-size meals a day, and that often included fast food on my way to and from work, in addition to breakfast and dunner at home, and lunch at work. I was smoking a pack and a half a day. That's a lot of money and a lot of cigarettes.
So, once day, I quit. I was out of town, and on the way back home, I smoked two packs. Those were the last two packs until I had to buy some more, and I just didn't buy any more. That was the beginning of June, and I haven't smoked a cigarette since.
I started keeping track of my calories, and that worked. I moved to a new apartment and started biking to work, and that worked. So far, what's worked for me has been MyFitnessPal. It's convenient enough that I can track my calories, but customizeable enough that I can use it over the long term. I'll write about MFP in another post, and about the general food guidelines I'm following. For now, I'll tell you that I've been watching what I eat, exercising very little, and I've been fluctuation between 190 and 192 pounds for the last two weeks. What I've been doing, it's working. I'll go into more detail later on this week, but I just wanted to check in with those of you who are still reading. See you guys soon.

Not thinking about food

I am hungry. I'm starving. I'd kill for the tiniest bite of a hamburger, or a couple of oil-and-salt-drenched fries. I want the feeling of an over-processed calorie bomb of a milkshake sliding down my throat. No junk food until I reach 190, though. I stand on the scale and wait for it to stop beeping. I consider shaving my beard to lose a few extra ounces.
I've stopped drinking, but only recently. In fact, today is my first day. No, I didn't have any alcohol yesterday, but we'll still call this the first official day. Because I said so. 6 months without a drop. This post is my reminder a lot more so than my announcement. I'm going to read it again and again in the coming months and think "what the hell was I thinking," or "maybe if I convince myself that a rogue blogger hijacked that post and I never promised that, maybe then I can have a martini."
I've found alternatives for eating. I exercise. I work. I sleep. I play video games. I do anything I can to take my mind off of my growling stomach. I've done this before, and after a week, the growling has gone away, and so has the hunger. The question is, did I get used to it all those other times, or did I start lying to myself about how much I was eating. Maybe I was hallucinating that there wasn't an entire box's worth of pasta in that bowl.
All those other times. Those are some scary words. I have a wall of failure looming behind me, parts of it built with the photographic evidence in this very blog. I have every reason to give up. All of the men in my family are overweight, as many generations back as there are pictures. One problem, though, they get that way in their forties. I'm twenty four. At twenty four, they are lean, mean, strong, and mustached. I am a wreck of a man who gets winded going up a flight of stairs, sweats uncontrollably when lifting his backpack, and considers his daily easy 2-mile bicycle commute a feat of extreme strength and endurance comparable to the Ironman triathlon.
My friend and one-time roommate, the one who convinced me to keep riding when the weather got crappy and the temperatures dropped below zero (thank you) once gave me some advice on getting better in a sport. Not to say that this is the only time he gave me advice, it's just likely to be the only time I really listened. He said that if you keep riding one speed day in and day out, you'll never get better. You have to push yourself, make it hard to make it home. Add a mile per hour and when that gets bearable, add another. I never really thought about that seriously until I started thinking about this post. So I'm going to push harder, not just when I ride, but in how often I ride, bike, swim, lift, diet, cook, clean, everything. The intensity has to stay level in everything I do, or I'll never make it. Next time I'll write about something more pleasant, like how Olivia Munn keeps me motivated. This time, though, it's the cold hard truth. I am going to sign up for the 2011 Hy-Vee triathlon, whatever fitness level I manage to get to. I am going to finish it.

Let's lay off the food and exercise for a second, and talk about why I'm doing this to myself. As I write this, I'm acutely aware of the fact that I can't feel my legs too well, and I seem to still be sweating, in spite of the fact that I just got out of the shower. I just got home from my first attempt at a run of this particular "give-up-then-start-again" cycle of weight loss. I'm at the "start again" phase, and let me tell you, it sucks. My shins feel like a degenerate gambler half an hour after his bookie's goons caught up with him to settle a debt. My lower back is begging for reprieve and my lungs... well, let's just say that my lungs are letting me know that while quitting smoking was a great idea, never starting would have been a much better one.
Lugging around 220 pounds of heft on bad knees and a weak will is no easy feat. It's gotta be done, though. My waist has expanded out to where they only make pants in every other size. You think you're a 35? Think again, tubbo. No such thing exists. I've started considering how much my chest looks like a pair of breasts when I pick a shirt in the morning. I've started noticing that standing next to the fattest guy at the party to look slimmer is no longer an option, since I'm usually the fattest guy at the party.
Vanity, however, is not the cause for my misery - it's not good enough. If it were about looks, there are much easier ways - I could've gotten lipo, some muscle-simulating implants, and an orange tan. No, this is about pride. I need to know that I can endure this. I never want the pain to end, because it will mean that I have stopped pushing my own limits. I want to know that I'm working twice as hard, getting half the results, falling behind, choking down the agony of screaming muscles, and still going out to do it again the next morning. My run is over, and this is how I feel right now, high on endorphins and the adrenaline of having made it home instead of passing out on the sidewalk like I wanted to, with at least a solid 15 hours until I have to start thinking about oing this again. If you want the truth of what it is to drop weight, ask me how I feel about doing it all again tomorrow morning.

Waking up from Hibernation

I'm not here to talk about why diets fail. Everyone has their own excuses for that, and they're within google's reach, so I won't put words in anyone else's mouth but my own in this blog. What I will talk about is why my diets fail - I find it in the foods I eat afterwards, the self-indulging binges and near-sexually gratifying fests of gluttony and satisfaction. It's flavor. It's variety. It's the forbidden fruit. Starches, fats, carbohydrates, and ingredients reprocessed into oblivion, made that much sweeter by the fact that I can not have them.
Screw the traditional diet. No more denying myself flavor and variety int he name of being skinny. What's the point of living longer if all you eat is rice cakes and lettuce for the rest of your life? At the same time, there's no point to sacrificing my life at the altar of bad, starchy, Americanized Chinese food. You have to pay to play, but make sure the game is worth the price. No one should spend two hours on a treadmill for a McDonald's burger, molested by a pimply-faced teen who cares more about sneaking a sugar high straight from the slushie machine than making sure your meat has any flavor left. It's simply not worth it.
So, from here on in, here's what I'm going to do, I'm not going to diet. I am, however, going to continue experimenting with weight loss methods that are more likely to fail than work. Having said that, what have we learned so far? Portion control is king and denying yourself any one kind of food will lead to a binge that Bacchus would be envious of. Eat everything, try everything, just don't overdo it. These are my principles for this stage of the experiment. I fall into a routine and get bored, which is why I'm never going to eat the same thing two weeks in a row. I'm going to try Thai soups and Indian curries. I'm going to eat Argentinian meats and Italian pastas. I am going to deny myself nothing and still lose weight. Sound crazy? We'll see.

Still fat, still a guinea pig

Alright readers, let's start this post up right. I try to post once a month, but it's harder to do some months than others. Besides, it takes a considerable mental battle to take these pictures, versus sitting down on the couch and cracking open a pack of pringles.
So, diet update. The diet is mostly unchanged. I've taken some of the cooked veggies and the soup out of it, and substituted more whole grains (like a bit of brown rice) and fresh veggies (salad, minus the egg, minus the dressing). I'm having lots of fun coming up with new recipes, and all told, with a few simple ingredients, like balsamic vinegar, dijon mustard, some spices, a few fresh greens, olive oil, lots of veggies, and a bit of chicken, I've been able to come up with some pretty interesting dishes. They're occupying my tastebuds well enough and keeping me full while keeping the calorie count down. The weight is still standing steady. I had a few breaks in the diet during spring break, mostly because a few good friends took me to the Purim feast and a Shabbos dinner. If you've never been to either, I highly recommend it. It's a gastrointestinal pleasure, and you will end up overeating, no question. But you won't mind it, and will likely be more than willing to repeat it the next day.
Remember, now, this is the "getting fit" blog for normal people, not crazed celebrity fitness types. thus, delving into exercise. Now that the weather is above freezing (but not by much), I've gone back to running. On spring break in Florida, I got in a few good runs (one on the beach, the most grueling mile of my life, but also one of the most enjoyable ones), and a few good sessions of the regular body weight stuff. One session in the gym reminded me of why I don't go - the other people in the gym. This one was empty and I absolutely loved it, just my cousin and me for about an hour - just enough to both try out new machines and do a good all-over circuit.
Alright, before I post the pictures, one thing that I've noticed in the mirror. It seems like before a workout, my stomach will look smaller than after one. It doesn't show up as a sixpack, just the expanded keg. I'm not sure how much I like it, but it takes it a little while to deflate. Same thing with my chest, but I can take more pride in that than a keg stomach. So, having said that, on to the murdering of unsuspecting eyeballs.

Holiday Dinner and Post-Holiday Breakfast

This is a marinated skirt steak with grilled mushroom/garlic/onion toppings. This isn't a usual dinner. Pasta is pretty much never on the menu, and neither is a hunk of meat this big. Although, with all that, this meal clocks in at about 650 calories.


The sandwich is the next morning, onion/mushroom egg-white omelet.



More updates to come later. I'm also going to start putting up general ingredient prices and how long they last, just because it's useful stuff. Finally, the mile morning runs have gotten dropped by the wayside since it's 5 degrees outside, so I'm substituting other cardio exercises in. More details to follow.

So, for the most part, the diet is going swimmingly. I was down to about 193 on a digital scale, but I have no idea where I am now, as my scale seems to add and subtract weight when it seems fit. For example, before breakfast, I'll be 191, and after breakfast, 205. Mind you, that's one small sandwich and a small cup of tea. Clearly not 14 pounds' worth. So I'm just using it as a motivational tool, and not as a measurement of my weight. When the weight is high, I tell myself that I need to stick to the diet more and lose it. When the weight is low, I tell myself that it's all progressing as it should and that sticking to the diet and exercise will keep it going down.
The hardest thing with exercise that I've found is forcing myself to go outside and do cardio when it's below freezing. It's hard, but doable, I've found, with the right clothing. So, other than that, no big news, so here are the obligatory pictures.