The cup is here, the cup is here!

My "Onesville" cup has arrived from Zazzle.com. This may not seem like a big deal to you, but it is to me. I have been doing very well on this diet, so far. In fact I am ahead of the weight loss schedule because the self tracking of all that I eat and thinking about being proactive about the weight loss.

Designing this cup was very easy and putting it together took a grand total of about 30 minutes from the time I came up with the idea (as I was drinking my latte, writing one of the first blog submissions) until I hit the order button.

Visual motivation and completion of a plan are very important for me in doing this, or any goal for that matter. By having this cup stare me in the face (as well as having this graphic on my computer as my desktop image), almost every day as I drink my morning cup of Latte helps keep me motivated. The questions I pose are these:

1. Is $20.00 too much to pay for a single coffee mug? Answer: Yes, $20.00 is wayyy too much!
2. Is $20.00 too much for a tool to motivate you daily to lose weight that will save your life and make your life much, much more enjoyable for the next 20-70 years? Answer: That my friend is an incredible bargain

So choose your question carefully to see what the true value of something is to you.

If you want a little bit of inspiration, consider making something like this for yourself. It can be as simple or complicated as you like. You could spend nothing on it and make it with crayons and paper or you could have the local city bus have it plastered on the side in a screen printed advertising sign. Maybe ask for the bus that goes past your house every morning as you walk out your front door.

Possibly, take a picture of the scale, like I have in other posts, and print it out, and stick it to the wall near your scale, so that when you get on the scale and maybe, perhaps, just possibly, you have let that extra pound slip back on, you have a visual reminder that you have lost that pound before and you can do it again. Call it self accountability if you will.






This may work for you, it works for me.

Very Best,

"Onesville"

Who-hoo 264!

Working hard at keeping it off and figuring out that I need to be at a deficit of 700 K/cals per day to make my weight. I know that the beginning is going to be easier and there will be plateaus so I am trying to keep the accelerated weight loss going for now.

I also have been keeping a detailed, but very simple system of keeping track of my daily caloric intake. I put them on post-it notes and as soon as I eat, I write it down and estimate my calories taken in. It does two things at least.

I have cut down my intake from about 3200 calories a day to about 1800, just by being mindful of what is going in my mouth. It has helped my focus on not just putting food in my mouth if I am even the slightest bit hungry.

Start Weight: 270.0 lbs.
Last weeks Weight: 270.0
Today's goal Weight 267.2
Today: 264.0
Lost last week: -3.0 lbs.
Total lost: -6 lbs.

Ahead of schedule -3.2 lbs

Eeee-gads, double whammy today.

Well, about two days ago, the little lithium battery in my bathroom scale went dead, so I have not had a scale in a few days. I have been good on the food and at the very moment I know I am hungry and let's just say the water table is low. In other words when I put the new battery in the scale I was expecting that I should be around 266 or possibly 265 if I was lucky. I guess I wasn't lucky, the new, fully charged scale says that I weigh about 268, not that much of a gain, but a gain all the same. I don't really want to weigh in so to speak until Sunday, but you know about curiosity and the cat.

So, earlier today, I found an interesting plug in to do a countdown to Easter 2010. I couldn't remember the exact day so I looked it up, it turns out it is April 4th, 2010, not April 12th, 2010, about a week earlier, so I have a little less time to lose the weight.

I know this seems trivial, and it is but hey, I was moving along well, and these two speed bumps show up. Not to worry (as if you would be worrying... ) I just have to recalculate the spread.

Turns out that I now need to keep the pace of almost exactly 1.4 pounds per a week. I can do this. No, I will do this.

That works out to having a calorie deficiency of (-3500*1.4lbs)/7 days= -700 Cal/day

Totally doable with a fairly good diet and either walking, biking or swimming on most days.

Here I come 199!

Very Best,

"Onesville"

Time to stretch

I am a late to bed, late to rise kind of person. I have been most of my life. When I was young my sister bought me a little plaque that said "The early worm gets eaten by the bird." I thought it was so funny. In thinking about it I would say that staying up late is the time when it is most peaceful and the time that I am able to spend with my lovely wife, even if it is only sitting on the couch watching TV.

Now the thought of staying up late is starting to dawn on me (pardon the pun) that this could be part of my weight issue. I watch too much TV, and in doing so, I don't use my body and keep myself limber. IF I were to get up much earlier, even before my family and use the time to workout, time would not be taken away from them and the chance to workout would be there.

One of the reasons I am so motivated in losing this weight is that in the past year I have seemed to lose some mobility in my back. Swimming could help me in that department. I enjoy swimming, it is low impact and if you do it correctly can really get your heart rate up.

Last night there was an infomercial about how the spine works, ruptured disks, degenerative disk issues and the use of Spinal Decompression Therapy. The doctor "interviewed" spoke about how when we get older, it is very important that the spine flexes in order to get nutrients to the spinal disks.

Here is the video online if you are interested.

Dayton Spinal Decompression Therapy, Dr. T.J. Poelking
	30 min - Feb 11, 2008 Dayton Spinal Decompression Therapy. Dr. T.J. Poelking is a guest expert interviewed on the nationally syndicated television show, Incredible...all ... video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-2741320636036272632

There was some great information about the workings of the spine.

Some things I surmised from watching this. Any extra weight on a persons midsection is going to do to have ramifications on your spinal, and therefore, overall health:

• excess body fat will add extra pressure on the spine
• excess body fat will constantly pull your spine in directions that it probably shouldn't be pulled
• if you are out of shape, by definition, wouldn't your core muscles of your stomach not be in the shape that are holding the lower back in alignment?
• proper nutrition (while losing weight) will help any part of your body in healing.

Having had back pain since I was young due to stupidity in picking things up, my children and wife now get harped on whenever I see them picking something up the wrong way.

( just searched on Google to give you a link on how to properly pick things up, and all I got was sights trying to explain how to pick up "girls" or people writing about picking things up with their toes. Looks like you will have to do your own search on the subject.)

One of the things the video was explaining is that as you get older the spine does not get it's nutrition from a blood supply but relies on bodily movement to basically squish out the waste products and suck in the new nutrients, so if you are less mobile, then it is a good possibility to have the disk degenerate due to the nutrition not getting to where it needs to go.

I would think that anything that includes movement, be it stretching, or activities or working out in the proper way is going to help you spinal health. Yet another good reason to lose a great deal of weight for me or anyone else for that matter.

Very Best,
"Onesville"

First Official Weigh in

Good Morning, I am going to set the schedule to weigh in every Sunday morning. and I exceeded my first expectations.

Why Sunday mornings, my theory is that my most likely time to blow of my diet is on Friday and Saturday, so hopefully this will keep me thinking about it knowing that Sunday morning will be the weigh in and it might just give me that little bit of extra will power.

Unfortunately, that was not the case last night, because I stayed up late to watch SNL and started eating about another 1200 calories I didn't need at all.


I recalculated how much weight I must lose to reach my goal of 199 pounds by Easter morning, 2010. It turns out it is actually 1.365 pounds (1.4) per a week.


Start Weight: 270.0 lbs.
Last weeks Weight: 270.0
Today's goal Weight 268.6
Today: 267.5
Lost -2.5 pounds

Ahead of schedule 1.1 lbs

I have decided that I am going to try very hard to keep ahead of schedule, because I am sure that I will hit a plateau of weight loss. That way I can stall a bit. and it not be de-motivation. But at the same time I am going to try to lose that 1.4 pounds no matter how far I am beyond the schedule, also I am going to try to lose whatever weight I can, without it being drastic, making 1.4 the minimum I am going to lose per a week.

That's all for today, looks like a good start and doing the blog thing really works for me. I hope some others read this blog, but if I do nothing else but use it as a measure for myself and put some effort into the blog, it will keep me in the moment of my goal.

Thanks if you are out there reading it, please leave a comment so I know somebody is out there!

Very Best,

"Onesville"

Watch what you eat

I love crab legs, and I started buying the fake crab at the store. If you ever taste the two together, you know they are not the same, but I still like the fake crab and it is reasonably priced. It is usually made from fish and formed. So I thought, "Hey, good source of protein, I'll eat that" Well, I got about half of the package down, that is how much I was planning on eating, and then I looked at the package. It turns out that since they use lots of other stuff to make it, it is mostly carbohydrates, and only 6 grams of protein.

Maybe I will read the package before I eat, next time.

Very Best,

"Onesville"

Carbs, the addiction to them

I have picked up several books over the years and one of them was a best seller about being addicted to carbohydrates. It seems when you have metabolic syndrome that your body probably has a tendency to crave carbs.

When you succumb to eating carbs, especially the kind that hit your bloodstream quickly, like corn syrup in cola drinks, orange juice, white bread, and mashed potatoes to name a few, (don't expect the exact details here) your body's cells take and make the insulin too quickly and you end up storing it more as fat, and seems at least for me to accumulate around my torso, I don't think I have fat legs but I do have a beer belly. But since I don't drink that much, it is from food more than anything else. It is much more complicated a process than I am explaining here, but then at the end of the day, your body craves MORE carbs, not less. The simple answer, focus on a lean source of protein to give you energy, maybe a little Olive Oil to add some good fats that help your body, instead of a saturated fat like animal fat, or a hydrogenated fat, or transfat like the stuff in most margarines.

Today I have been good, I ate a modified South Beach Diet meal. I did eat grapes, that definitely is not on the diet. I am doing good, until later in the day.

I walked about a 3/4 mile very leisurely this afternoon and then came home and ate too much ham and a piece of bread and cheese. I don't have my calorie counting down yet, but I think I stayed below 1700 calories today.

I promise you, I will not try to make this blog about what I eat, every day for the next year, but it is helping me think about what and when and why I am eating.

One help is that I use my small salad plates and I am trying to always plate my food before I eat it. Put it on a plate, sit down, have a drink, and slow down on the eating. It is allowing my brain to think "I have a very full plate of food" and not have 2000 calories on one huge plate.

Just a short side note. I was furnishing an office, and there was a small kitchen in it. So I went to wall mart to buy some cool plates to use. I brought them back and when I went to put them into a normal sized dishwasher... they barely fit! These were the standard sized plates. The next day, we made lunch at the office and filled it with spaghetti. Neither of us big guys could finish our plate full of food, and on the plate, it just didn't look like it was that much food since it was on these enormous plates.

The moral of the story, find some smaller plates, plate your food, slow down and your brain will start to allow you to eat less and not feel cheated.

Any comments on the Carbs? Please post a comment.

Getting my Joe on the way to Onesville

Is there nothing you can't make on the Internet? I figured if I had my morning coffee in this, it would keep my mind thinking in the right direction.

Less than 20 bucks manufactured, packed up and delivered to my front door step. Probably in less than a week.

If you want one, I think there is a way for me to make it available on Zazzle, but I am not sure.

Here's to you and me keeping on our goal. If you are going to try to get to Onesville, let me know in the comment section below.

Very Best,

"Onesville"

A Picture is worth a thousand words

A picture is worth a thousand words. 267.5 Pounds

Thanks for the props "Slim Cache"

Well, I have done lots of things online, but never have I had such a quick response as this.

Slim Cache did a nice, and very humble post about my new journey to 199 lbs., or as I have heard it called, "Onesville" (probably on Jason's blog)

• "On the way to Onesville"

It is sometimes hard to understand how we impact others lives, and yes Jason, you know about this one because of my new blog. But I would suggest to you, that for every person you know about that you have impacted in some way, there are dozens or hundreds that would never mention it to you. If you are lucky, sometime in the future you will find out. So my best guess is that I am not the only one you have inspired to work toward better health.
Very Best,
"Onesville"

268 on a Wednesday.

Well I am starting off a bit irregular. I think I will put this in and tell you that I am down to 268.

I told you on the first post that I would tell you about the best weight loss for me ever was 15 years ago. I did an extreme diet trying to drop 30 pounds in about 2 months, I did it, but it was all consuming and I had a very good reason to do it, besides good long term health.

I would never suggest anyone to do this kind of diet, it just is not healthy. It drained my body, I lost the weight but it was also partially from muscle loss, much too rapid, and it was not good for my health. When I went for my physical (the purpose of my weight loss) I still looked heavy for what I needed to be at, but I met the top of the qualification just by 2 pounds on the high side of the scale. So the tech was not expecting much from me in the physical side of the evaluation.... I blew their minds because after a 2 minute jumping jacks session, my pulse went up 2 beats a minute from my resting rate. I was in fighting shape, I just didn't look it.

At that time I ate probably 500-700 calories a day, swam, jumped rope, ran, (thought about food all day and all night long) and then drank prodigious amounts of water. I ate a horrible diet, but it got the final (albeit temporary) results I needed quickly.

When the final doctor saw me and looked over the extensive testing results, he said everything looked great except that my "keytones" were too high, very high.


I had no idea what that meant so I asked politely, "May I ask what that means" I was worried. His response was a question to answer a question. He asked me "Son, do you eat at Taco Bell alot?"

I was stunned" as it turned out that was where I would eat almost everyday, a chili-cheese burrito mid day (what a diet, thank God I was still young and didn't end up starving to death).

This doctor is good I thought to myself. What the hell do they put in taco bell stuff, is it the cleaner for the grill, some exotic chemical? Before the age of google where you can find out prodigeous amounts of information quickly, I had no idea what that meant, and didn't for another almost ten years. I finally realized that because I was losing so much weight so quickly that I was also losing muscle weight, not just fat, and when your body breaksdown muscle, it leaves a chemical keytone, a condition known as Keytosis, not horrible, but not great for you either (BTW, I am not a doctor so I can not say for sure that this is all medically correct).

So after all that experience, I think that losing approximately just over 1.3 pounds a week for a year is very doable and very healthy, assuming I eat correctly.


I have thus far lost 2 pounds, mostly water weight I am sure, getting me going in the right direction, but I ate too little yesterday, making me very hungry and before I went to bed I ate too many chips and salsa, at least it was a vegetable but I am sure my body could have done with out the carbs and salt from the corn chips.

I did very well with my South Beach diet last year, so I think I am going to start with that process in mind but modify it. I don't really have a great plan but I believe in the quote.

Do not wait; the time will never be "just right." Start where you stand, and work with whatever tools you may have at your command, and better tools will be found as you go along. -Napoleon Hill

So I will do that, plus I need to start walking, swimming and doing some strength training.

Right now, I think I will get my kids to do a short bike ride.

Dinner, I think I will try to concentrate on vegetables and a little protein from fish.

Start Weight; 270, today 268, -2 pounds so far.
Goal Weight; 199 pounds by 4/12/2010= 69 pounds to go.

I will try to weigh myself on Sundays from now on and report back here.


Anyone have suggestions at weight loss goals or the pacing of doing it?

If I get ahead, should I allow my self to stabelize, or back off, or should I go for the 1.3 pounds a week, no matter what?

Very Best,

"Onesville"

Easter is the start, 270 and counting down to 199 lbs.

Hello,

I have been very inspired by the gentleman who lost over 100 pounds between his birthdays, Which happen to be on Easter Day, April 12th. He achieved the weight loss and recording it on his blog called "slim cache" Check it out.

He really went all out to do the right thing by getting down to a proper weight, in the past year he reached his goal weights on time and did a photo journal of himself. I suggest you check out his website.

As everybody else in the world has seemed to be on the yo-yo diet, so have I, back and forth, but the forth, as in moving steadily heavier over the years and has seemed to prevail by a couple of pounds every time.

Time to turn the tides.

I am also going to do an Easter 2009 to Easter 2010 weight loss, On Easter Day I weighed 270.0 lbs. and I hope, No scratch that, I will be at 199 pounds by next Easter morning, while my children, wife and I look for Easter Eggs, on Easter Morning 2010.

How am I going to do it? The best weight loss for me was 15 years ago. I did an extreme diet trying to drop 30 pounds in about 2 months. I'll tell you more about that on the next post.

Last year I dropped about 20 pounds down to 250 and felt great, lots more energy and lots of enthusiasm. But I put it all back on this last year and was about to keep going... time to stop. I have a ton of great clothing that would fit at 250, so I can lose that weight and have the nice clothing until that will become too big, then I can buy some nice clothing and get rid of all this old worn, way too big (but getting smaller on me) clothing.

So here is a start. I am a not too much of an exhibitionist so I think I will keep this to text and void of any real personal information. At least for now.

Male, early 40s, mildly athletic, or at least used to be, have great endurance but doesn't like running but likes walking and love to swim.

Swimming has been very easy for me as I was training for 4.0 mile outdoor swim. I trained all winter and the week before I did a 5.0 mile swim in 3.5 hours nonstop (and I mean to say, I stopped one time to adjust my goggles, that's it) I was in great shape but for some reason I couldn't drop weight. Swimming has challenges to be used for weight loss, but I'll touch on that in a later post.

On April 12, 2009 I weighed 270.0 Weight loss goal 199.0 (to get me to "Onesville")
Goal weight date is 199.0 on April, 12, 2010.

Some other benign stats. My waist 40 pants are getting very tight. I wear an XL shirt and they are tight. My fitted Shirts are getting tight around the belly, and that has never been a problem for me before.

Any comments would be appreciated.

Very Best,

"Onesville"