You have a lot of health factors to motivate you, plus you’ve done it before. The key will be keeping it off.
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I’m cheering for you JB. Super-difficult drop so much weight, especially if you’re as old as you say.
I’ve been battling my weight for over a decade now. At 22, I was over 260 pounds. At 26, I was less than 190. Bumped up close to 250 during my dissertation a year ago (33).
Now my weight loss starts at 232. Didn’t do much to warrant losing the weight I did before which is probably why it took over a year for it to happen. Now I’m more focus and have dropped to 225 in two weeks. Would love to get below 200 again.
I’m not as detailed as you when it comes to calorie-counting. I don’t know if my diet is good or anything like that. I just exercise a whole lot more. The walk to work itself round-trip is nearly 2 miles. I probably walk around the same amount during lunch break too. Combine that with cardio in the gym and it’s been good.
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It’s ok I laughed when I read it.
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04-Aug-2019: 1620 calories
Rowed 2000 M in 10:52
I know that’s a bad time, but I’m going to start rowing regularly and I want to track my 500, 1000, 2000, 5000, and 10,000 M times and improve as much as possible.
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05-Aug-2019: 2285 calories
Not terrible considering I had a business dinner tonight. Had a 3rd pint of beer when I had planned on only 2 which added 200 calories. Had beef brisket and burnt ends with sides of pickle spears and mashed sweet potato, which I think were likely the lowest calorie sides. Ate a light breakfast and light lunch to try to keep overall calories down.
If I did it again right now, I would try to keep to 2 pints and maybe get only 1 meat instead of a 2 meat platter. Oh this was a BBQ place in case that wasn’t obvious from the meat choices.
It’s great that you can work at home sometimes; I WAH full time, and am pretty distraught when I have to commute during rush hour. It’s an incredible difference between trying to remain calm in the face of hundreds of assholes in their daily road rally and having an extra 2, 3, or even 4 hours of extra time per day. I have always had a reasonably short or no commute, and just cannot imagine doing what you do.
Since you mention you can’t quit your job, why don’t you move closer to work? If you cut the 2 hours to 30 minutes, that’s still an extra couple of hours a day. Or, can you find a similar job closer to home? It seems that it would be better for your health, and maybe even your wealth.
I would be lucky to approach 1/4 of my compensation anywhere within a 30 to 45 minute commute from my house.
We thought a lot about moving closer, but for several reasons we decided not to do that. One is my daughter is pretty entrenched here, doing well, and has a great group of friends. Another is my wife needs only about 6 years to vest in her pension. (Her commute is about 300 yards.)
My daughter is going to graduate HS around the time my wife vests in her pension, and our plan then is when my daughter heads for college my wife will retire and we’re going to purchase and live on a boat somewhere on the North Shore or Boston Harbor for 3 seasons (winter is tough up here to live on a boat) until I decide to retire. My commute will be reasonable then all except the winter, when I’ll be commuting from our house. (Or maybe we sell the house and rent a small apartment near my work, it kind of depends on what my daughter does.) After I retire we are going to travel and live on the boat year round while our health allows it. Another good reason to get my health squared away.
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06-Aug-2019: 1417 calories
Ended up making sandwiches on pita for lunch today, and damn deli turkey has a lot of sodium. Also this has to be my heaviest carb day so far. Didn’t really plan it this way, but at least my calories are good. (Forgot to take stuff out of the freezer which kind of messed up having the stuff I planned available for lunch and dinner.)
07-Aug-2019: 1620 calories
Rowed 2000 M in 10:01
Tried to time my splits to see if I could hit sub 10 minutes and just missed. But took 51 seconds off my last 2000 M effort lol.
08-Aug-2019: 1416 calories
Week 4: 09-Aug-2019
Weight: 239 pounds
Starting weight: 254 pounds
Weekly loss: 1 pound
Total loss: 15 pounds
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09-Aug-2019: 2083 calories
A little high on calories, but squeezed in 3 pints of beer so I’m happy with it.
Tomorrow will be the first day that I’m planning to let things go a bit, as I’m meeting up with some of my climbing buddies for beers and a bonfire. My friend has a wood fired pizza oven outside so pizza is on the menu. Will log everything and hope to come in under 2600 calories, but not going to sweat it too much.
I’ll make it up the rest of the week.
Some numbers for the first 4 weeks:
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Averaged 1638 calories/day versus goal of less than 1900 calories/day
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Averaged just over 1000 calorie per day deficit (Assuming my caloric requirements estimate is accurate)
If the caloric requirement estimate is close to accurate, I should have lost 7.5 pounds of fat and/or lean body mass. This suggests a 7.5 pound shift in water weight, since I lost 15 pounds.
This also suggests I should continue to lose between 1 and 2 pounds per week provided I keep this up.
10-Aug-2019: 2963 calories
I bit higher than I wanted but I have clear sailing from here to Friday now so I’ll make it up.
11-Aug-2019: 1292 calories
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12-Aug-2019: 1360 calories
Rowed 5000 M in 26:41
Best Rowing Times So Far:
500 M: Not tested
1000 M: Not tested
2000 M: 10:01
5000 M: 26:41
10000 M: Not tested
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I have the week off to use up some vacation time and just doing a staycation around the house for most of it. So I have lots of time to focus on food prep for this week and next.
Hit the farmers market on Saturday again and stocked up on veggies and fruits. We got a quart of the most amazing plums I’ve ever tasted. Also some local cheeses and mushrooms including a pile of foraged chanterelles.
Just made a homemade batch of spicy mustard and tomorrow I’m making refrigerator pickles with fresh pickling cukes from the farmstand down the street. (Fridge pickles are sort of quick pickled and taste great but only last a couple of months in storage.) I also got some chuck and some round to grind up tomorrow for burgers over the next couple of weeks.
It feels good to be motivated and making progress and especially having a lot of home prepared meals.
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3/4 cup mustard seed - I used about half yellow and half brown
1/2 cup apple cider vinegar
1/2 cup water
1 tsp turmeric
2 tsp sea salt
I mixed the mustard seeds together dry and then ground up roughly half in a spice blender and left the other half whole.
Then basically dump all the dry ingredients in a bowl and add in the liquids when mixing. The coldest water possible gives the hottest mustard for some reason. Then let it sit at room temp covered for a few days stirring once in a while. If it seems too thick add a little more water.
It tastes bad the first day or two (bitter) but after about two or three days it’s good to go.
Also you can skip the turmeric or add honey or do a bunch of different things really. (Try different vinegar, etc.) I use the turmeric because it gives it a really cool gold color.
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