Fat City

There really isn't anything too exciting to report and so I have decided to write about my goal for October. The picture to the left is one that was taken in the spring of 2001 when Cami and I had completed a 12 week Body for Life Challenge contest and submitted our before and after pictures. I had never undertaken a health challenge prior to that time and anyone that has seen me lately can attest that I have not done so lately either. Like many of you I have found that it is easier to eat what is convenient and tastes good rather than that which is beneficial. I have found that I was feeling run down and tired all of the time. My endurance was non-existent and there was just no more squeezing into the old 34 waist jeans anymore. Back sometime in June I got an app on my itouch called LoseIt that allowed me to track my calories and log exercise. You enter in your height and weight and then enter a goal. The program calculates a daily calorie allowance that if followed should result in weight loss. I was excited at the novelty of the app initially but as usual grew bored with it and only entered anything periodically.
Cami and I were on a trip in the car sometime later and I was helping myself to some red licorice that is a staple for any of our long distance journeys. I began to feel sick from eating so much but in true Rush fashion persevered until I had truly made myself ill. The seat belt was tight around my ever-expanding waist line and I noticed how a large panus now flopped over the belt and jiggled with every bump in the road. I was disgusted with myself. I was tired of having no self

control. I made the same resolve that I had made a hundred times, to control myself by eating right and exercising regularly. I started mountain biking with my brothers and was astounded at how little I could do initially and then at how fast my body seemed to remember how. I began to eat more consciously, entering in the food into LoseIt. I began to be aware of how expensive calorie wise some foods were. I started logging activity and compared the difficulty of eating a lot of calories with burning a lot. I still did not eat like I knew I should but I ate more deliberately, when I was hungry rather than when I felt like it. Slowly my chins started to evaporate. I started to feel more energetic. I noticed that I slept better and woke up feeling rested and had less heartburn. I went from 214 lbs down to 189 within a couple of months. I have been hanging around bouncing between 185 and 195 for the last couple of weeks. I have a desire to make some more permanent changes in my attitude and actions and wanted to post it here to have some accountability for my commitments. I have decided to begin a Body for Life type diet balancing carbs and protein while staying within my calorie allowance (1780 calories a day) having a free day on Sunday in which I can eat what I want. For exercise I am going to start the cursed P90X routine. I have been doing it for a couple of weeks and I like how it includes more than just muscle building but also flexibility and range of motion activities. So I will be doing 90 days of this starting October 1st. I will report my progress with appropriate pictures (this is a family blog after all) periodically. It will also give me something to write about when topics are a little sparse. Please feel free to give advice or join in with a program of your own