I've Been A Bad Boy

I haven't done well at all through Christmas week.  I've been eating too much and too much bad food.  To top it off, I sprained my back and I haven't been able to do much jogging or hiking, but I have stayed busy working in my backyard.

Today I've started a fast, eating nothing and drinking nothing but water for the next four days.  I'm actually engaging in this fast for spiritual reasons, but doubtlessly I'll lose some weight during this fast.  To be honest, I haven't weighed myself since before Christmas week so I don't know how much, if any, weight that I've gained.  I will not weigh myself again until January 1, which is the day I'll be coming off my fast.  I'll use that weight as the baseline to mark my progress until October 31, 2010. 

I've found that the more I exercise, the better I am to control my appetite.  In that my sprained back has limited my exercise, I think it has caused my appetite to more active than it has been in the past.

Verse of the Day: Gal 5:22-23
22 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 23 gentleness, self-control . Against such there is no law.  NKJV

New Low

Hey, I dropped significantly yesterday.  This morning I weighed 221.8.  I'll be in the 2teens before the end of the month.  I didn't work out yesterday, but I did get a good workout the day before. 

Yesterday I had another Christmas luncheon and I ate smart.  It was at The Old Spagetti Factory in Atlanta.  I had whole wheat spagetti with marinara sauce.  I also had a side salad and a quarter cup of ice cream.  To be honest, the spagetti did not taste good.  I would rather of had the lasagna.  The lady across the table had it and it looked good.  It was huge too.  Looking around the table at those who ate the lasagna, it was obvious why they were all so large.  Sweet ladies and wonderful people, but very large.  I think if I went there with my wife I would buy one piece of lasagna and split it with her, and maybe one of my kids. 

So I made the sacrifice and ate the spagetti that tasts like sticks.  For dinner my wife bought a cheese pizza.  I was hungry, but I decided not to eat any of the pizza, so instead I ate an apple and had a diet coke for dinner.  My stomace was growling as I drifted off to sleep, but I knew the sacrifice would pay off in the morning--and it did.

Tonight we have another Christmas eating meeting.  It is a Christmas dinner with the staff.  My wife is cooking, and she's and awesome cook.  However, once again, I will exercise extreme self-control and probably only have a salad. 

Verse of the Day: 2 Peter 1:5-8
5 But also for this very reason, giving all diligence, add to your faith virtue, to virtue knowledge, 6 to knowledge self-control , to self-control perseverance, to perseverance godliness, 7 to godliness brotherly kindness, and to brotherly kindness love. 8 For if these things are yours and abound, you will be neither barren nor unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.  NKJV

The Scales Don't Lie

On Friday I weighed 225.4.  Happy times.   Then Saturday I was up to 226.6, and I stayed at that weight on Sunday, dropped to 226.2 on Monday and Tuesday, but this morning, after very little to eat on Tuesday, I was down to 224.00.    I've discovered a couple things.  First, I haven't been able to exercise at all from Saturday through today and that really slows down weight loss.  To loose weight without starving yourself at the age of 49, then you must burn some calories with exercise.  Second, I've found that exercise is a great way to stay in a positive frame of mind.  Since I haven't been exercising I've been feeling down.

Why haven't I been exercising?  I'm an adjunct professor at a university in Atlanta and grades are due today.  So for the past four days I've been spending all my spare time grading finals and papers.  It is an emotionally gruelling task, but it doesn't burn many calories.  I plan to get out in the yard and do some serious yard work tomorrow.

One thing that helps motivate is when people tell you that you've been losing weight.  Generally, people who haven't seen you since you started losing weight will be the first to notice, but today my daughter (who sees me everyday) said, "You really are looking skinny."  In fact, my wife cupped my face in her hands Monday and said, "You can really tell you've lost weight."  Those things make you feel good.

 To be honest, I haven't really been tempted to binge eat.  I'm actually forcing myself to eat.  I don't get very hungry as long as I eat something on a regular schedule.  Yesterday I waited until 1:00 pm to eat lunch and I was getting really hungry.  I stopped at Longhorns intending to the salmon, but I had a salad instead.  So, all in all, I've seen positive results, even during the holiday guantlett. 

Verse of the Day: Ps 62:9

9 Surely men of low degree are a vapor,
Men of high degree are a lie;
If they are weighed on the scales,
They are altogether lighter than vapor.
NKJV

Here The Scoop

Here's the deal, I went to a Christmas banquet yesterday. It was a big deal with all the fixin's and trimmings. For lunch the menu was tenderloin, grilled chicken with a hollandaise sauce, rice and broccoli. There was also a dinner roll and for dessert red velvet cake. I ate everything except the roll and cake. Knowing that this luncheon was coming, I ate a light breakfast, and I had a light dinner as well—I ate lots of melon.

After I returned home I went out to my back yard and worked for an hour clearing brush from the back side of my lot. As I’ve said before, that is a full body workout. Cutting small trees with a machete, pulling vines out of trees, hacking briars, and so on, I really worked up a sweat. I like it because I get a great overall workout, plus I’ve accomplished something.

This morning I weighed myself and found that I’d lost 1.2 lbs down to 225.4. It’s been years since I’ve seen the 225s. I’d love to be down to the 220s by the end of December. I’ve probably got enough brush left on my lot to keep me busy until then.

My problem now is that I don’t have any clothes to wear. I don’t want to buy a lot of clothes because I plan to lose another 25 lbs, so anything I buy now will be too small in about six months. I’ll probably go to Goodwill and get some cheap stuff to hold me over until then.

Verse of the Day: Mark 9:23, NKJV

23 Jesus said to him, "If you can believe , all things are possible to him who believes."

Christmas Banquets Begin

I'm dressed to go to a Christmas Luncheon with the North Georgia Church of God state leadership.  This is the first of about a half a dozen such events.  How do I approach these luncheons?  First of all, I had a small breakfast, so I try to trim some calories there.  Second, I'll try to each smart at the luncheon.  Third, I will exercise a little more this evening.

Yesterday morning I weighed in at 226.4 lbs and then I hit the treadmill for 20 minutes wearing my 20 lb weighted vest.  Then, last night, I jogged for one mile and tried to set a new personal best in time.  My last attempt was November 18th and I ran it in 8 minutes and 50 seconds.  Last night I really pushed myself HARD and ran it in 8 minutes and 20 seconds.  Not bad considering I really haven't even been jogging since November.  I've been doing a lot of hiking, but no jogging.  My next goal is to get my mile down to under 8 minutes.

Waking up this morning I believed that all my hard work was going to pay off in getting me into the 225 lb range.  Instead, I ended up on the plateau.  I didn't lose a single ounce.  I weighed in at 226.4 again this morning.  I'm seeing that this is what happens, namely, that I lose quickly, then stall, then lose again--the stairstep process I talked about earlier.  However, though I didn't lose weight from all my  hard work, I do feel that I've lost size.  I'm wearing clothes that I haven't worn in 4 years.  They are a little dated however. 

Finally, I watched the final episode of The Biggest Loser Tuesday evening and it was really inspiring.  Danny Cahill looked like a totally different person.  I hope he can keep it off, and I hope I can as well.

Scripture of the Day: Matt 24:13, NKJV
13 But he who endures to the end shall be saved.

Post-Thanksgiving

Admittedly the rate of my weightloss slowed down during Thanksgiving.  In fact, I refused to weigh myself until a week after Thanksgiving.  In addition to the holiday meal, I have been on the road and driven over 2,500 miles back and forth between West Virginia, Georgia, and Washington, DC.  It's a long story, but the short version is that my mother had a heart attack and I was back and forth helping her in a hospital in West Virginia and then in Washington, DC.

While in West Virginia, and before my mother's heart attack, I did walk the hills each and every day.  It was quite a workout.  Then in Washington at the hospital I tried to take the stairs whenever possible.  My mother was on the fourth floor.  In addition, yesterday I was working in the undergrowth in my back yard trying the clear the back side of the lot my home sits on.  Wow!  What a workout that was.  The net result is that this morning I weighed in at 227.6.  I'm .6 pounds away from losing 25 lbs. since September 23rd.  That's half way to my goal of 50 by 50. 

Yesterday I bought a vest that holds 20 pounds in weights.  I wore it up and down the stairs at my home and up the hill in front of my home.  I never realized how heavy 20 pounds was until the cashier asked me to move the box for her.  Then it occurred to me that I've lost that much and more.  When I put the vest on and walked around I reminded myself that I weighed more than that before I started losing weight.  No wonder I was winded going up and down stairs. 

Anyhow, my mother is doing great.  God really performed a miracle.  To hear about that you can go to the link for my sermon last Sunday (Never Give Up On God). 

Scripture of the Day: Deut 7:10
9 "Therefore know that the LORD your God, He is God, the faithful God who keeps covenant and mercy for a thousand generations with those who love Him and keep His commandments"  NKJV