I don’t know what’s going on lately, but every time I get on the scale I’m heavier than the last time. Today I looked on in horror as I saw 278.6 pounds displayed on the screen (and lovingly tweeted by my scale for me).

Once I recovered from the shock, I sat down and spent a little time looking over my recent weight loss efforts. Just last year, as of March 30, I was down to 248 pounds. That was a loss of 20 pounds from the start of 2011. Not record-breaking, but certainly very respectable progress by any standards. Looking back at what I was doing then, my success was all about eating a (mostly) Paleo diet and walking. I wasn’t doing any weight lifting and I didn’t stop drinking alcohol. If I had kept it up, and even if I had only lost another 20 pounds the rest of the year (that would have given me another nine months to lose 20 pounds when I had already lost 20 in three months), I’d only weigh 228 pounds today — 50 pounds less than I do right now! Sure, we can play what-if games all day long, but it’s pretty amazing to me what a huge difference a few bad choices where I let myself get derailed from doing what was working changed my life so drastically.

I guess the lesson I’m taking away from all this is diligence — I have to keep working the plan every day and not let one failure turn into another and another and snowball into nine months of failures and regrets. I have a plan. I’ve demonstrated that this plan can work. I have the resources to carry out the plan. As far as I can tell, the only thing stopping me is me. And maybe I don’t know how to fix that problem yet, but I have to try. At least I’m aware of it now, or not in denial about it anymore, and that’s where I have to start.

So that’s how I got here. Learning from the past is important, but I can’t dwell on it too long. So what are my next steps?

I put two week’s worth of my workout schedule in my calendar. Taking the time to do this really helps. I have to be realistic about my schedule and work around meetings and whatnot. I like knowing from the start of the day that I have this thing to do and I can work through the day with that in mind. It’s not magic, but it’s certainly better than just letting the day happen and thinking how I should throw in some exercise somewhere.

I’m going to purify the refrigerator and pantry today and make sure I have the ingredients on hand to eat Paleo approved meals for the next few days.

I’m going to re-read all my highlights from The Primal Blueprint, the awesome book by Mark Sisson from Mark’s Daily Apple. I highlighted a lot, so that’s no small task.

I think that’s enough for today.

By Eden, Thu 2 Feb 2012, Categories: Fat

Here we are again, almost a year since the last post — Back to Blogging and Goin’ Paleo. It’s funny to read that post now. A lot has happened since I wrote it, but not much has changed — at least as far as this blog is concerned. I’m fatter today and I have roughly the same amount of debt. To be honest, I don’t care much about the debt right now — debt is a much easier problem for me to solve than fat.

The scale told me a horrifying story this morning — 273.3 pounds. That’s the most I’ve ever weighed. Even though it’s not that much more than I weighed a year ago, seeing a number over 270 is kind of shocking.

I really was on the right track last year. I briefly dropped under 240 pounds — thanks to a mostly-Paleo diet and somewhat regular walking. However, I had given it all up by the middle of 2011. We had some big things happen in our lives last year. The biggest being that I’m now a father (which is awesome), but I don’t want to hide behind excuses. I chose to do something else when I could have exercised and I chose to eat the foods I knew I should avoid. Understanding the problem isn’t difficult. It’s actually putting what I know into practice when I fail to succeed.

I don’t remember when I last exercised, other than a round of golf this year, it must have been sometime before Christmas. My diet is bad — I mostly just eat what I want, particularly lots of carbohydrates neatly packaged in the form of delicious bread. Oh, how I love bread — giving up bread is definitely the hardest part about going Paleo, but obviously a big reason why it works. I’m going to try again. I haven’t cleared out the cabinets yet, but I’m getting closer.

One of my plans for 2012 is to get back into writing this blog regularly. I think the focused effort and accountability it creates makes a big difference. Of course, looking at my past efforts to start blogging again, the odds of me following through aren’t very good. Other than that, I’m going to get started by going for a walk today.

By Eden, Thu 19 Jan 2012, Categories: Fat, Goals, Life

I’m still here. I’ve been tempted to kill the site and forget about it, but funnily enough traffic continues to increase even as I leave the site mostly abandoned. Not that I’m in it for the money (hey that $2 the site earned last month could buy me half a latte), but I enjoy writing and I want to do more of it this year.

Not much has happened since the last post I wrote back in August, 2010. I guess I was about 259 pounds then. I finished 2010 at 265 pounds. I think I hit 267 before Christmas. Amazingly, I actually started exercising and trying to do better the week after Christmas and I’ve been on a nice trend since then—weighing in around 252 pounds today and the last couple of days. That’s a solid loss of 13 pounds so far this year and 15 since Christmas. Not too shabby, and if I’m honest about it, I haven’t really even worked very hard at it.

Not to imply I’ve been sitting around playing World of Warcraft (that game really killed me with the expansion in early December), because I haven’t; I’ve quit that again, something I seem to do about twice a year or so. I’ve done a fair amount of walking in 2011. That’s been my primary source of exercise. I walked 39 miles in January and 36 in February. I tried mixing in some jogging too, but decided to stick with walking until I lose more weight. I really want to take it slow and avoid injuries. And I actually have avoided injuries thus far and I don’t want that to change. I’ve considered 230 pounds to be the starting point for adding some jogging to my routine. I’d still like to run a 5K some day. I don’t know if I really do, but I still tell myself that.

Other than walking, the other major change I’ve made is switching to a Paleo diet. I was learning about Paleo in January and so not really following it until the end of the month. Just about all of February was Paleo compliant (I’d say I’m 80-90% Paleo) and that’s when my weight really started dropping. I can only describe it as effortless weight loss. No doubt that the walking helps, but I had months in 2010 where I logged the same kind of miles I do now and didn’t have nearly the same weight loss.

I’ll share more about Paleo in the future. If you’re curious, here’s a couple of great getting started resources:

• Primal Blueprint 101 from Mark’s Daily Apple
• Paleo FAQ from Robb Wolf

By Eden, Mon 7 Mar 2011, 2 Comments, Categories: About, Fat

Back on September 12, 2007 I started writing about my weight loss efforts on this site. That was more than a year and a half ago and I weighed 266 pounds. I mentioned in that post that it was “the heaviest weight of my life”. On January 6, 2009 I weighed 267.6 pounds. How’s that for progress?

The sad part is that I was down as low as 245.8 pounds back on March 11, 2008 (see my complete weight loss chart here). That was pretty nice progress, losing just over 20 pounds in about six months. However, I remember thinking then that my progress was too slow. Needless to say, I’d give up a lot of things today to get those 20 pounds back.

As of today, I weigh 260.4 pounds. My goal for 2009 is to weigh 217.6 pounds (50 pounds lower than I started the year). I have a lot of work to do, and not a lot of time to do it, but I’m committing myself to the fitness routine again and I’m going to try to get back to what I was doing right a year ago. Look for regular, more frequent fitness and weight loss updates here in the future.

By Eden, Sat 16 May 2009, 1 Comment, Categories: Fat, Weight Loss

In the past month or so, I started playing basketball again. I say again because I grew up playing basketball, played it all the way through high school, and continued to play for fun for several years after that. Of course, I was in great shape back then. Sadly, for the past three-and-a-half years, I’ve lived an almost entirely sedentary lifestyle where playing basketball is almost as crazy for me as running a marathon.

Fortunately, I have a friend who lives about a mile away and we have a school nearby with two basketball courts. We decided to start playing to get back in shape. Even though it’s only the two of us playing 1-on-1, the amount of exercise in one hour of playing is tremendous. I felt like I was going to die the first day we played. I was completely winded after a few minutes and I was sore for days afterward. I’ve continued to play though, and I feel more energetic every time we go. I think it’s making a huge difference for me.

So, while all of that sounds great, I did have one small obstacle to clear in order to play more frequently and to enjoy it more. When I started playing again, I only had one good pair of basketball shorts and only two t-shirts that were comfortable and fit me well. That may not sound like much of a problem, but when you’re busy working and trying to fit in a game of basketball at the end of the day, you don’t really have time to manage your laundry. Wearing clothes that are too tight or a little old and worn out, even just for exercise, doesn’t make you feel very good about what you’re doing and can make skipping a day a bit easier than it should be.

To solve this problem, I went out and bought three new pairs of basketball shorts and five new t-shirts. I made sure they all fit me well, looked good, and made me feel good wearing them. I spent about $90 for my new basketball wardrobe. I know this probably sounds trivial, but it really makes a big difference. I look forward to playing more now because I can put on the clothes that make me feel like an athlete again. Sure, I’m still fat, but at least I’m dressed for getting fit.

I value saving money and being frugal, but you’ve got to be prepared to spend some money to set yourself up for success and remove the little barriers that may not be obvious at first. So think about what you’re trying to accomplish and look for the little things that get in your way and don’t be afraid to spend some money to eliminate those barriers.

By Eden, Sun 19 Apr 2009, 1 Comment, Categories: Fat, Spending