I was really close two weeks ago, and then my wife and I went on vacation to San Francisco. In my hubris, I was planning to try to lose weight while on vacation, but the best laid plans often go awry when you’re faced with eating every meal out. I figured that I could eat an extra 500 calories a day without gaining weight, since I usually maintain a deficit of 800–1000 calories. Sounds easy, no? I started out okay, but those bowls of cioppino, loaves of sourdough bread, and mission burritos aren’t going to eat themselves[1].

So I can’t say that I did my best. Sure, I continued to log what I ate and count the calories, but after the first few days I stopped worrying about it. When I came back I logged my weight and found that I’d gained three pounds (although I lost the first pound a day later after I flushed out all the salty restaurant food and lost the water I was retaining).

It took me a few more days to get back into the swing of Clean Livin’, but as of this morning I weighed-in at 261.8 lbs, which put me down below the ¾ mark.

You’re in my sights, 250 pounds.

Of course, there are some BMI range and personal history milestones left to come:

• 262.5 pounds – 3/4 of the way down from my starting weight of 451+ pounds
• 250 pounds – over 200 pounds lost, and a nice round number
• 240 pounds – dropping from “obese” to merely “overweight” on the BMI scale
• 200 pounds – my base goal for now – will need to re-evaluate once I reach it – but also moves me into the upper range of “normal weight” based on BMI

Getting my weight down to below 275 feels almost as significant to me as being below 300, but maybe only because it’s been so long in the making. I reached my previous weight-loss milestone post a little over two years ago, although what really happened is that I maintained a weight of around 300 pounds for two years, and then gained 15 pounds back, and now have lost 40 pounds in the past four months. So here I am 27 months after my previous milestone celebrating another 25 pounds lost.

A Little Perspective

According to Wikipedia, a Scottish caber weighs about 175 pounds. While I’ve never picked up a caber, they sure do look heavy. I suppose that from now on whenever I reach a milestone and say I’ve lost the equivalent of [blank] that most people will have no real idea of how much that is exactly.

Since people rarely lift things that weight more than just a few pounds I’ve run out of reasonable comparisons. I know that 175 pounds is more weight than most whole persons, so maybe I should just pose for photos with people weighing what I’ve lost so I can point to them and say “There. See this guy? I’ve lost this much.”

What’s Next?

Weighing under 275 pounds was my goal for Labor Day so now that I’ve reached it five weeks early, I’m re-setting my weight loss goal to 262.5, which is 3/4ths of the way to my overall weight goal. It’s a little ambitious, but even if I miss it, at this rate it won’t be by much. I’m losing about ten pounds a month, so losing 12.5 pounds in five weeks isn’t that unreasonable.

Because everyone loves before & after photos, here’s one of me playing pool (badly) about a month into my Clean Livin’, back in July 2008:

And then to contrast and/or compare, here’s one from July 2012 (last week):

In the interim I got busy with life, stopped writing here, continued to remain active, but otherwise stagnated for almost two years. When I started trending upwards again I decided to redouble my efforts, get back to basics, and work the program that I know is effective… when you actually do it.

Some things I do every dang day:

• Walk on the treadmill (okay, I do this almost every day).
• Ride my bike to work during the week (most days, about 8 months out of the year).
• Weigh-in and record my weight.
• Log everything I eat or drink that isn’t water.
• Assess my caloric intake at the end of the day.

Stat Me Up

Anniversaries are good for celebration, but also a good time to reflect on pass successes and stumbling blocks. Since life is a continuum and every day is a new Start Date you can’t fail, just not succeed as fast. As long as you’re alive, you can be a bit healthier than you were yesterday.

Here are some numbers to consider on the fourth anniversary of when I made the decision to improve my body, get healthy, and help others do the same:

• Weighed-in just over 1,200 times (which means I missed about 250 days due to travel, or missing a day or two here and there).
• Since I got my Fitbit in February, 2010, I’ve walked over 3,500 miles.
• Starting weight: over 451 lbs (since that was the max of the scale that couldn’t weigh me when I started – but considering that I was measurable less than a week after I started, I couldn’t have weighed that much more than 451).
• This morning’s weigh-in: 287.2 lbs. That means I’ve lost 163.8 pounds, or a 36.32% decrease from my former body weight. That’s about the weight of a full keg of beer[1]. Have you ever tried to lift a full keg? They’re heavy. Now imagine wrapping yourself with that much weight and carrying it around every day.
• My current goal weight is around 200 pounds. I’ll re-adjust when I get closer. If my calculations are correct, when this body drops 88 pounds you’re going to see some serious shit.
• At an average of –1 lbs / week, I should hit my goal by the beginning of 2014, which is a bit later than I’d originally planned, but of course if I can lose more faster I will.

It’s still a little shocking to me to see pictures of how I looked four years ago. I wish I thought of taking progress photos, or at least a “before” picture, when I started down this road, but here’s a photo of me from Thursday, 19 June 2008, three days into Clean Livin’. I’m in yellow, sitting on the steps at Daley Plaza by the fountain with some of my co-workers at the time (I wish I had a better quality image, but I think this was taken with someone’s old cell phone):

And to contrast and compare, here’s a full-body photo of me from our trip to the Milwaukee Art Museum last week (wearing, now that I see the picture, a shirt that’s too big for me):

While it’s not nearly as cool, I did compile a few photos taken of me over the past two years (and a couple of months) so you can contrast and compare. The first photo is from March 2008 (in front of Faneuil Hall in Boston), when I was actually a bit heavier than I was even when I officially started my Clean Livin’ program, and the last photo was taken a week ago behind our house in Chicago, with me wearing a white tuxedo because we were going to my company’s “Prom” party.

Rather than trying to show how heavy I was I figured I’d show photos that I considered flattering at the time they were taken. So many before-and-after photos show horrible before photos with professionally posed after-shots. I figured I’d make an effort to do my best to show me looking my best.

Click for a larger image.

The first half of the year marked some major fitness milestones for me; the most notable of which was getting down below the 300 pound mark. I went back over it a few times, and I didn’t help myself in trying all of the unhealthy foods that Seattle and Portland had to offer (see photo). I gained 2-3 pounds during a ten-day vacation, which I quickly lost again to plateau at just under 300 again. These are things that happen.

Plateaus are part of the process, and shouldn’t be too discouraging, but it’s always nice to see the numbers decrease on the scale, especially if it’s a personal best.

What have I learned in the past two years? Mostly that I know I can do this (and you can too) and that I don’t have to eat healthily all of the time; just most of the time, and I’ll still lose weight.

I’m glad my original goal was to be fitter and lead a more active lifestyle rather than just trying to lose weight. With the weight loss being a necessary side-effect of Clean Livin’, there’s been less internal pressure on the process, and I don’t have to fret about my weight training slowing down my weight loss since the number on the scale isn’t what defines my fitness (although it’s the easiest number to talk about).

Into year three I still have a little over a hundred pounds to lose, but it’ll come off slowly and surely, I’m sure of it.

My progress so far: I’ve lost 112 lbs. (based on my average weight over the past two weeks, or what I call my “true weight” which smoothes-out the daily fluctuations in my weight).

I’ve been weighing-in and tracking my weight and exercise just about every day over the past year, and that constant feedback has been invaluable.

Thanks to everyone who’s supported me over the past year. I still have a ways to go (I’m still less than halfway to my goal) but I’m pretty confident that I can lose the weight, keep it off, and get healthy. I can see the light at the end of the tunnel.

This heavy bag weighs 100 pounds.

I should’ve posted this a week ago when my average weight over two weeks (what I’m calling my “true weight”) dipped below 350 pounds, which means I’ve now lost over 100 pounds since 16 June 2008.  My weight loss has been slow but steady as of late, although I can’t honestly say that I’ve been doing everything I should to lose weight and get fit as quickly as I know I can.  I think my weight loss pace will quicken when the weather gets warmer and it’s easier to get out and walk places.  I’m really looking forward to getting another running go at fitness this Summer.  The Winter has been particularly brutal this year and made it harder to go out and exercise.  I still go to the gym regularly, but I find that I tend to lose more weight when I walk outdoors a lot than I do from lifting weights or even from walking on the treadmill.

For those too lazy to do the math, it took me just a little over nine months to lose this first one hundred pounds.  I’m posting a picture of a “heavy bag” because I like the metaphor, but the next time you’re in the supermarket, pick up a pound of butter and try to imagine a hundred of them.  That’s how much weight I’ve lost.  With this milestone I’m about 40% of the way to my goal, with my new milestone being 125 pounds, or 50% of my goal weight.  Ideally I’d love to get halfway there by the one-year anniversary mark of my new Clean Livin’ lifestyle, but even if I miss it by a few weeks I’ll still be doing great, and I’m well on my way to being consistently fitter than I was last week. Every time you see me I’m a little healthier and in better shape than the last time you saw me.  That’s something to celebrate!

The warmer weather came at a very opportune time for me, as I was >this close< to hitting the 700 mile milestone since I’ve been keeping track of my walking (other than incidental walking at work, in stores, etc.).  I figured I’d probably be able to get out and walk the nine miles I was shy of this milestone over the weekend. Since the weather was so nice, and I’d been cooped-up for so long, I actually crossed that milestone on Saturday alone, walking a little shy of twelve miles in about four hours (an average of 3mph over that length of time is pretty good for me – it means I probably started out at closer to 4mph for the first mile or two).

I was exhausted at the end of my long walking.  I also walked another mile home after meeting some friends, putting me at 704 total since the end of July.  To put that into perspective, that’s about the distance from Chicago to Philadelphia, or like walking from my new home to my old home over a period of six months.

One of the tools I’ve been using to track how far I walked when I don’t start out with a pre-fab route is Walk Jog Run, run by (excuse the pun) a couple of friends and co-workers.  I had checked out their site when we first met, and then didn’t really use it again until I started on my exercise routine and wanted to see how far my walk to work was (it was ≈ 2.5mi). Now I find it invaluable for logging my progress and seeing how far I’ve walked, which sadly is never really as far as it feels while I’m walking it.

An early Google Maps mashup, Walk Jog Run incorporates Google maps with custom pins and overlays to allow you to place markers on a map and show the route you’ve travelled (or are planning to travel) along with a tally of the distance of each leg and total distanced walked, jogged, or run.

One of the things I love about it are the mile markers (the yellow diamonds on the map) that make it really obvious exactly how far you’ve traveled.  You can save a route you travel often (like I do with my walk to and from work) or take a look at other people’s public routes to get an idea from other users of the site. I’ll definitely be taking a look at more public routes in the future. Right now I like to just go to a new neighbourhood and get my wander-on.  I’m still relatively new to Chicago, so it’s nice to get to know a place by walking around it.  I also have my iPhone to keep me from getting too lost when I’m in a new place.

Walk Jog Run doesn’t really work on the iPhone unfortunately, but there is a native iPhone app in the works according to the site’s Twitter stream.

Another feature I like is the overlay at the base of the map showing you how long your current route will take to travel given your velocity (I pick an average of 3mph) and how many calories you’ll burn (approximately) based on your body weight.  I know the caloric data isn’t that accurate, but it’s pretty close, and good enough for a quick evaluation.

Today marks the six month anniversary of my current diet plan.  I’ve lost about 78 pounds since 16 June 2008, and still have a lot to lose, but I’m pleased with my progress so far.  My weight loss was going a bit faster in the Summer, which is to be expected, but if I can weather the holiday season I’ll be looking forward to losing about 60-70 pounds before next Summer.

The 2005 Ford Mustang engine weighs 75 lbs.

I crossed another small milestone this week by losing more than 75 pounds.  I’m calling these “small” milestones but really I’ll probably celebrate a little every 25 pounds.

I’m a little nervous about Thanksgiving and the holiday season coming up. I think I can do okay portion-wise, but let’s face it, come Thanksgiving I’m going to have some stuffing, candied yams, and maybe even a slice of pumpkin pie for dessert.

Still, I’ll be celebrating by getting a KitchenAid stand mixer so I can make my own healthy bread.  The stuff I can find in the store tends to have a lot of sugar or high-fructose corn syrup in it, and even with all the bad stuff tends not to taste very good.  Of course, I’m eating a lot less bread these days, but I’ll still have a few slices per week, and the KitchenAid is something I’ve been wanting to get for a while and is another device that will help reinforce my fitness goals.