Showing posts with label bodymedia. Show all posts
Showing posts with label bodymedia. Show all posts

Monday, August 19, 2013

100 Days

100 Days.  Little more than 3 months.

How much has changed in your life?

 How much of your life have you changed?

100 days ago I had a huge eating binge. How huge? 14579 calories.

14579. No that's not a typo.  That includes at one point 5536 during a 40 minute car ride home from downtown.

Can't live like that. You cannot go out and eat a weeks worth of food in a day and expect life to be grand.

100 days ago I had my last binge. I'm proud of that. But what can I do with the next 100?

What could I do to change the fat man by November 26th?

I made a commitment 100 days ago not to go on any more crazy binges. I've battled binges all my life, and 100 days later I've been successful so far.

So lets lay down a new challenge.

A good friend of mine Rob Foster is the owner of Trainersonsite.com. Rob is a great guy and he's been trying to help me for a while now. Despite my struggles he has maintained his energy and drive to see me through it all.

So what if I made this commitment. I'm going to follow Rob's program he's given me for the next 100 days.

In the last 100 days I helped myself. Now lets start getting help from experts.  I'm going to take advantage of people who want to help me, like Rob.  I'll  use tools like bodymedia.com and Myfitnesspal.com to track my food for the next 100 days, making sure I finish in the negative at least 6 days out of every 7.

Lets spend 100 days and start reversing this fat man. Lets spend 100 days together and see what happens.

100 days ago I had my last binge. Today starts the next 100 days. Join me, see how it goes.

Check back here frequently, my goal is to update as often as I can, daily whenever possible so that people can see the progression.



Monday, January 9, 2012

A new year begins for all, and a new decade for me!

Monday seems like a good day for regular blog entries, so we'll aim for that going forward, as I said before, ideally weekly, but bi-weekly at the least.

Welcome to 2012 everyone, a new beginning to the rest of our lives. A chance as we say goodbye to the old year to say hello to new habits and a new outlook.

And for me, a special milestone last Thursday, my 40th birthday. Celebrated in fine style with my beautiful wife.

You can't ever move forward unless you know where you have been, and you can't measure your changes unless you know where you are now. So, some key points for where I am now.

Current Weight : 261.4 (made it through new years and my birthday with a 3lb loss, not bad, now time to really go)
Current BMI: 35.4  (Obese Class II)
Waist Circumference : 45in (40inches is the point at which heart and diabetes risk increases)
5K Personal Best : 43:03.9
# of pushups before exhaustion = 18 (ugh, wow that's low)


Turning 40

I've been asked a few times in the last few days if turning 40 has bothered me, if I feel older. The simple answer is no. But there is a more complex one.

Turning 40 has been difficult for one reason, from a standpoint of health very little has changed for me in the past decade. Make no mistake, overall my life is VASTLY superior to where it was 10 years ago. Family, job, happiness, all dramatically better. But the one thing, the health of this now 40 yr old body, that hasn't changed. I've gotten older, but I've missed so many opportunities to get fitter.

So rather than languish on that shortcoming, I need to use it to power me into the next 40 years. I don't want to waste 10 years, 10 weeks, 10 days or 10 minutes in my drive to a healthier 41 year old me. I don't like feeling this way, and it is in my power to stop.

They say you are only as old as you feel, well I can't wait to find out how much younger I feel as the weight comes off and the energy goes up!

I have to give a couple of shout outs here, first thanks to @bl11courtney for the retweet recently, great to have some many new people on board with me!

Second, to my friend NS, congratulations on your 30lb weight loss. Your success is inspirational!

Hang in there everyone, keep at your plan, keep looking at your goals, keep yourselves and others motivated for change, and lets all change together!

@fatfitman

Thursday, December 29, 2011

Half measures have availed us nothing

One year ago today I noticed my weight had jumped up to a startling 272.4lbs

I set out two simple goals;

A) lose 53lbs, putting me below 220.

B) run a 5k race

Well, looking back, how did I do?  Not great. Today I weigh 264.4 lbs, so in one year I lost only 8 lbs. I participated in a 5k race, but by no means did I run it.

What happened to my year? I could list some excuses easily, injury, kids, time constraints.

But they are excuses. What's the real truth?

Half measures avail us nothing

That's the cold hard truth. I'm not trying to lose 10lbs to fit into a smaller pair of jeans. I'm trying to reverse years of neglect on my body. And I spent a year doing it half-assed.

Honest appraisal, I have more than 60lbs to lose. That's not to look better, that's simply to be healthy. Say what you want about BMI, but I need to lose 40lbs to not be classified as obese!
These are big numbers, these aren't "I'm going to cut down on my pasta" numbers, these are my life needs an overhaul numbers.

I would eat right, then not
I would log my food, sometimes
I would workout, when I felt like it

Half measures avail us nothing

This cannot continue.  I cannot simply do the few easy things and expect a true change. I cannot simply hope things will get better while eating a cheeseburger. I cannot become more fit by averaging one workout a week.

So lets turn it around. Let's fix it. Now.

Goals for 2012

Goal #1: Get below 205 lbs.  Once I am at that weight I'll take an appraisal of what a reasonable goal weight should be for me

Goal #2: RUN a 5k. Not walk, not half and half. Run. The whole way. This one might be harder than the weight loss.

Half measures avail us nothing

I'm not going to get there without changing how I do things. I can't occasionally log my food. I can't occasionally workout, and I can't occasionally blog about it.

Logging food is how I hold myself accountable for my choices, it has to be a daily thing.

Working out is good for my waistline, my heart, and for easing stress, 6 times a week is not unreasonable.

Blogging is my accountability to friends and family, my way of sharing my struggle, and hoping others are motivated to join me. I need to aim for weekly, but at least every 2 weeks I need to be in here, good or bad.

When I achieved successes during 2011 I did the above. When I stumbled in 2011 I did them occasionally.

Half measures avail us nothing.

No half measures for 2012. This is my year, this is my 40th year, this is the year I meet the fitman again.

@fatfitman

Tuesday, February 22, 2011

Nothing happens in a straight line

I'm just back from 2 weeks on the road. The first week was for business in Cleveland. More on that later. The second trip was 10 days in Florida with my family. To save on airfare we drove down.

In a straight line it is 1184 miles from Toronto to Fort Myers, FL. By car it is 1520 miles. 340 miles, 20% of the trip is zig zagging your way down the highways, 340 extra miles because it's not a straight line drive. We have to go around obstacles like hills, lakes, valleys.

Weight loss is similar. I'm not just going to go and drop 50 straight pounds...I wish. I'm going to have good days and bad, good weeks and bad. I'll get to my goal, but I'll have travelled a lot further than 50lbs to get there.

On January 30th I announced I had lost that first 10lbs. well, a few weeks on the road has proved to be a detour. I now weigh 263.8.

I could get all depressed here, and quit the process. I could say, well, it's bad, so I'll start tomorrow and have a nice grilled cheese and bacon sandwich for lunch. but just like driving to Florida, i want to get there. I don't want any more detours than I have to make. So the bodymedia armband is back on, I have an exercise date with my wife tonight, and we start pushing deeper into the process.

Some people have been asking me how I managed on the road with food and exercise.  Well, it is HARD!!! Driving along seeing nothing but McDonald's, Cracker barrel, KFC...All poor choices. Subway was my salvation. Turkey subs, light or no mayo, lots of veggies, water to drink. healthy snacks in the car, made before we set out by my wife. Planning a little, waiting until we saw a Subway saved untold calories.

During the business trip it was even worse. At least in Florida we were staying at my parents house allowing us to cook. While in Cleveland I had to really watch what happens in the restaurants. Salad appetizers, dressings on the side, choosing small beef dishes (careful with chicken, many restaurants saute, or sometimes even presoak the chicken in butter!), went out for fish one night.

I was less successful with the exercise, in Cleveland I should have done much more, in Florida lots of walking.

All in all 2lbs or so gained after 17days on the road is not terrible. It's a detour. I didn't go too far out of my way, and I am ready for the next leg of the journey. I have to push hard these next few miles to make up some lost time, but overall...I'm still on course.  How about you? Still on that good track?

Thursday, December 30, 2010

Bodymedia - Weight control through technology

I am not a Bodymedia rep, sales guy or marketer, these opinions are my own, and I gain nothing from any sales or clicks on the bodymedia website. I have not included a link as I do not want anyone thinking I am gaining from this. You can easily google bodymedia and it will take you right there.

We all need some help if we are trying to gain control of our eating, weight, exercise habits. I'll be using a tool from Bodyedia called the FIT armband. This device helps me monitor exactly who many calories I burn over the course of my day. It's worn on your non-dominant arm and measures things like temperature, perspiration, movement etc.

The idea is to take the guesswork out of your daily calorie burn...Not just how much you burn on the treadmill, but all day, everyday, while you work, while you sleep, while you play with your kids.

Why is this important?  Well, weight loss is essentially a math equation. If your calories burned exceeds your calories eaten, you will over time lose weight. About 3500 calories per pound.

The key thing is the accuracy of the measurements, treadmills and other exercise machines will give you an approximation, but they can be off substantially. Plus, you don't know how much you are burning in all your other activities.

The FIT armband doesn't just track calories, it tracks sleep, how long your moderate exercise was, how long you exercised vigorously, how many steps you took.

All of this information is helpful, but of limited usefulness if you aren't tracking everything you eat...And I mean EVERYTHING.  Snacks, portion sizes (accuracy is important!), drinks, sauces (a diet killer) etc etc etc. Included as part of the FIT program is access to some online software that makes tracking your food daily an easy task. The software is simple and intuitive, with an encyclopedic database of food, including many restaurant and brand name packaged food. if its not there, you can add your own.

How effective is it?  You'll see it used on virtually all the contestants on the Biggest Loser (very motivational show btw if you are trying to lose weight). I personally used it to lose 15lbs early last year, I regained them when I stopped using the tool. I know at least one other person who used it to great effect as well, losing over 20lbs.

Its not the answer for everyone obviously, but it's the tool I'll be using for my journey. If you have your own successful tools, I'd love to hear about them.