Monday Check in

[Healy Arms]

OK - Monday has arrived - time for transparency;

 

I'm 205.4 this morning - getting close to 40 down. Scale fluctuates 3 each direction - nothing I can do about that. Excellent workout from 530am to 630am.

 

Better. Still too fat. Around 35 left to go. Maybe 40 - we'll see - that's a ways away.

[Str8Shot]

Slow weekend for me, had told sister I would watch her place and do some things she needed done while she was in Vegas... No gym just push-ups and a few miles each night ... Scale has down 2 lbs but did punch a new hole in belt to keep it snug without slipping. That makes 10 ( 5 I had to punch ) holes my waist has shrank on my belt. I find keeping my Belt and punching new holes great motivation. About 20 more lbs to hit my goal before 10/31 and hunt starts 36 lbs to go by end of Dec.

 

Hitting farmers market today to replenish the greens I did not pick up over the weekend !

[Havasuhunter]

Ran every other day after work last week. Push-ups, crunches, dips, calf raises, squats, etc at work. Cut way back on the fast food, which is difficult when you are away from home for 2 weeks working 13 hour shifts. I cooked beans, rice, grilled veggies, chicken and yellowfin tuna for dinner most nights in some combination and took left overs to work for lunch. Zero soda last week, which is a victory for me. Also very little caffeine, which I'm trying to limit or eliminate.

[Flatlander]

217 this AM, that is approaching an all time high for me. I did four runs last week (2 miles each) and cut soda intake in half. I still have a long ways to go but I feel very motivated to change.

 

Thanks for starting this and all the encouraging posts.

[bigorange]

Down 4lbs since started back regularly exercising. Ran 2 days last week (goal was 3 days), walked a mile every day during lunch, and strength one day (goal was 2 days). Resort weekend for our wedding anniversary, but managed to not blow it too bad.

 

Nice climb planned a couple mornings this week in place of the run...one morning with a blind and hopefully the other a little heavy on the way out.

[Str8Shot]

Havasu

 

I find hard boiling a couple dozen eggs on Sunday for the next week helps a ton in getting a quick start to your day and having good Protein for a snack or lunch readily available. A couple hard boiled eggs, Banana, 1 oz of almonds along with an ounce of 85% higher dark chocolate is a good start to the day ... of course if you can grill up a steak and fry a couple eggs in olive or coconut oil in the morning ther eis nothing wrong with that either !

[Healy Arms]

Havasu

 

I find hard boiling a couple dozen eggs on Sunday for the next week helps a ton in getting a quick start to your day and having good Protein for a snack or lunch readily available. A couple hard boiled eggs, Banana, 1 oz of almonds along with an ounce of 85% higher dark chocolate is a good start to the day ... of course if you can grill up a steak and fry a couple eggs in olive or coconut oil in the morning ther eis nothing wrong with that either !

 

That's a great food list -

 

Staying away from the soda, spaghetti, bread & tortillas seems to be the ticket. No sleepy unproductive afternoons after a lunchtime burrito or lasagne carb load. The weight drops off slow-n-steady too.

 

Takes some getting used to, swapping bread for vegetables, but you feel great in about 2 weeks.

[Hyperwrx]

Mark, last year I did a low carb diet for about a week and went cold turkey on everything. I just ate meat and vegtables, no sugars or carbs. Lost weight but I felt absolutly horrible and quit. Did you experience this?

[Str8Shot]

Mark, last year I did a low carb diet for about a week and went cold turkey on everything. I just ate meat and vegtables, no sugars or carbs. Lost weight but I felt absolutly horrible and quit. Did you experience this?

Hyper .. this is basically what I have been doing since January and down nearly 80 lbs ... That feeling horrible happens, often associated with your body detoxing and adjusting ... it lasted about a week for me but I pushed through it .... doubled my intake of daily spinach, threw in an extra banana at afternoon snack, found a good Multi-Vitamin and kept the water intake high .... for me once my body adjusted there were no more issues.

[Non-Typical Solutions]

Started my 2nd week of insanity work out....it kicks my butt but I feel good to have done something, it flat out will put you into a sweat in nothing flat.

My goal is to lose 30 lbs. put me down to 140 which is prime weight for my height.

 

Str8shot is spot on with his food mix there, I also do alot of grilled chicken.....I lost 30 pounds during wrestling season last year....those boiled eggs do produce gas though so watch out.

 

Great idea with the Monday morning check in, I plan on keeping too it....thanks for the motivation.

[Str8Shot]

Non-typical.... I was thinking about using insanity , I have a friend that has always been ripped who raves about it. Chicken is my number one protein , I can cook it about a hundred ways now , and lettuce wraps for lunch are far better than any fast food .... I make everything from scratch including what dresses my salads... There are several sites that offer Nutritional Calculators that when doing a recipe you can enter all your ingredients by amount and give number of servings and it will give you all the nutritional info just like on the label on the side of your packaged goods. Having some grilled , broiled, or baked chicken always on hand is awesome too ... after evening workouts having a few ounces of turkey or chicken ( slow digesting proteins) can be better than even having a Creatine supplement for muscle healing while you sleep ..

[Healy Arms]

Scott-

 

I actually followed my doc's advice to the letter and transitioned slowly to the no bread routine. He told me a dramatic no-carb change would make me hit a wall just like you did and wouldn't keep going. So I took simple starch carbs out dinner first and did that for a month - keeping my breakfast and lunch just the same way it had always been.

 

After a month I took a chunk of carbs out of lunch - added vegetables and additional protein. Worked on getting the starch down to an equivalent of 1/3 of a cup of oats, and the rest protein and vegetables. I could have done that pretty quickly but I did it over 6-7 weeks.

 

Now I'm on a "descending carb" eating schedule. First meal of the day has between 25 and 35 grams of simple carbs (beans, rice, oats, etc) vegetables don't count so I eat lots of them. Lunch has between 15 and 20 simple carb grams and dinner has no simple carbs. Alcohol is empty calories and is limited to 6oz of red wine 1x a day - 3x a week or less is preferred so that's what I do. Beer is one 16oz serving per week. Distilled alcohol once a month (at most) - no more than 3oz and can't be combined with any other booze although that might have been forgotten a time or two around a campfire. Soda is limited to REAL soda - no artificial sweeteners - and no more than 6oz per day. The fact you don't get much booze and soda kinda drills the point home that they aren't good for you. To keep things real-life realistic, you can still have them - just not much.

 

Basically you can eat like a king in the morning - eat smaller high quality stuff before bed.

 

Taking the project on slowly and re-training my body was the key to making this last. I tried Atkins a few years back and had the same experience you did. Lost weight but couldn't function and hated it. This time around I'm determined to see it through and going slow I haven't felt crappy at all. I have followed the plan pretty darn close, minus a cheat day here and there, and it is working.

 

Once I am down to 170 or so - the eating plan goes into Phase II. Not sure what that looks like yet.

[Healy Arms]

 

Mark, last year I did a low carb diet for about a week and went cold turkey on everything. I just ate meat and vegtables, no sugars or carbs. Lost weight but I felt absolutly horrible and quit. Did you experience this?

Hyper .. this is basically what I have been doing since January and down nearly 80 lbs ... That feeling horrible happens, often associated with your body detoxing and adjusting ... it lasted about a week for me but I pushed through it .... doubled my intake of daily spinach, threw in an extra banana at afternoon snack, found a good Multi-Vitamin and kept the water intake high .... for me once my body adjusted there were no more issues.

 

 

 

Str8shot and I sound like we have a similar thing going on

 

[CouesWhitetail]

Great advice everyone! I have been slowly removing the carbs from our dinners. It's tough because pasta is one of my husband's favorite foods. But he loves veggies too, so it's an easy switch most days. Hard boiled eggs are a staple for us, especially when camping. But even this morning I enjoyed a hardboiled egg and a fresh peach from a friend's tree. That made a surprisingly satisfying bfast.

 

The other hardship for us is that my husband is now into making beer and wine! I used to drink almost no beer and have some wine occassionally, but now the stuff he makes is so good that I have at least some beer or wine most days now. So cutting out alcohol will be pretty impossible for us. I will have to make up for those empty calories by more exercise or cutting out other food.

[Healy Arms]

I will have to make up for those empty calories by more exercise or cutting out other food.

 

Time to bust out the Insanity DVD