Finance and Fat » Weight Loss

This Year Ain’t Over – 2010 Weight Loss Update

Eden — Wed, 04 Aug 2010 19:27:58 +0000

And I’m back. August 4th seems like as good a day as any for the first progress update to my 2010 Weight Loss Goals, written way back on Saturday, January 16th, 2010. Boy, things sure were different back then. I had hope for the New Year! Now it’s just another New Year of Regret. I’m joking of course, I don’t regret things much—maybe I should? I see that I even created a fancy little Google Spreadsheet for tracking all of my amazing progress back then! Funny thing is, I forgot I had done that until today. I’ll see if I can update it, but I’m probably lacking most of the data points needed.

In case you can’t tell from the tone of the above paragraph, things haven’t gone well this year. In fact, as things stand today, I’m a big fat zero on the progress chart for 2010. Seven months later and I stand exactly where I did when I was full of optimism and hope for the New Year. Oh well, that’s pretty much standard operating procedure for me over the past few years (as you can see if you check any of the weight loss archives around here).

But it’s all in the past now. That’s the funny thing about me. I must be too dumb to give up because I’m always optimistic that I can turn things around and lose 50 pounds before the year is over. Well, 50 might be rough, but I’d be happy with 30. In fact, that is my new goal! Look, a shiny new goal! Surely everything will be better now.

Okay, so things probably won’t be better now, but I’m going to try. I really am. I learned a couple of things this year. Like when I was walking regularly and eating lots of vegetables my weight was going down. The one month I managed to do both at the same time, I had lost about nine pounds. So there is hope, and at least I have a simple way to get started. Just some vegetables and some walking…that shouldn’t be too hard, even for me. Only time will tell of course. Hopefully I’ll be back to update this in less than seven months.

This Year Ain’t Over – 2010 Weight Loss Update

---
Related Articles at Finance and Fat:

2010 Weight Loss Goals

Eden — Sat, 16 Jan 2010 21:43:45 +0000

It’s that time of year again! The time of year I pretend to turn over a new leaf and fool myself into thinking I can be productive and fix all the mistakes of the previous year. Of course, I still believe that I can really do it so maybe one year things will come together as planned (I’m hoping it’s this year!).

I’m starting 2010 at about 259 pounds. That’s 8 pounds less than I started 2009. Certainly not good progress, but it beats gaining 8 pounds so I’ll take it. My goal for 2010 is to get down to 219 pounds. That seems to be a long way from 259, and especially considering my poor efforts in 2009, but I believe I can do it.

Here’s my approach for 2010. I’m breaking my annual goal into quarterly goals. So the first milestone is weighing in at (or below) 249 pounds by April 1st. This works out to 10 pounds per quarter, figure about 12 weeks per quarter and I can reach my goals while losing less than 1 pound per week (about .83 pounds per week if I used the calculator properly).

We’re already a couple of weeks into January and my weight is basically unchanged, fluctuating up and down by 1-2 pounds each week so far. Not the most promising start, but these pounds should be the easiest to lose so I’m still confident I can reach the April 1st deadline. There’s probably some irony in choosing April 1st as my first milestone, but that’s just how it worked out so I’m going to go with it.

Look for more regular updates on my progress this year and probably even more frequent updates on Twitter (follow @financeandfat if you’re into that Twitter thing). By the way, I’ll be tracking my progress on a publicly visible Google Spreadsheet.

2010 Weight Loss Goals

---
Related Articles at Finance and Fat:

Monthly Weight Loss Report, August 2009

Eden — Wed, 26 Aug 2009 03:17:04 +0000

Regular readers may have noticed the weekly weight loss report has changed to monthly. On the other hand, the weekly reports haven’t happened much at all lately, so I’m not really missing out on anything here.

My weight loss efforts have been a total failure over the past few months. I weighed in at 265 pounds today, which is within two pounds of my all time high (where I started this year). I guess the silver lining is that I’m at least down two pounds for the year. But with so much weight to lose, I really need to be making faster progress than that.

My iPhone challenge hasn’t helped at all either. Frankly, I think it’s made me not even care about an iPhone anymore! I suppose that’s a good thing, but I’d feel better if it was motivating me to exercise more.

It’s not all bad news though. I actually went out for a run today. I’m running a 5K in December and I finally started training today. I’m doing the Couch to 5K Running Plan. The plan is intended to get a sedentary person off the couch and ready to run a 5K in nine weeks. I’m happy with day one. It was challenging, but not too tough that I felt like I couldn’t finish it. Today’s workout consisted of a five minute walking warmup, followed by intervals of sixty seconds of jogging and ninety seconds of walking. The intervals last for twenty minutes and finish off with a five minute walking cool down.

As usual, I feel great after finally getting myself off the couch and actually doing some exercise. If only I could remember that I would feel this good when I’m making excuses to avoid exercise. Hopefully the race in December and this training plan will help me to stay on top of things this time around.

Lessons Learned:

I feel better after exercising. Maybe this should be obvious, but apparently it’s not because I always forget.

There are no tricks or shortcuts. I have to choose to exercise and stop making excuses.

Tracking progress helps. I’m using Daily Burn to track my calories and exercise. It can be a bit cumbersome at times, and adding exercise is not always intuitive, but overall it’s a nice application and I’ve found it to be helpful (it’s free by the way). I really like the stat tracking. It helps me to see my progress built up and charted over time. It makes it seem worthwhile to go for a walk even if I only have ten minutes. Little efforts do add up!

I’m not happy that it is almost the end of August and I’ve only lost two pounds this year. On the other hand, there are still four months left in the year, so it’s far from too late to give up. I can still easily finish the year down twenty pounds or so. I think the 5K will help a lot. Even though my marathon plans turned into a complete and utter failure last year, I did reach my lowest weight of the past several years when I was in the early stages of training for it. I have a marathon in mind for the end of 2010, but I don’t want to get ahead of myself yet. We will see how the 5K goes this year.

Monthly Weight Loss Report, August 2009

---
Related Articles at Finance and Fat:

Weekly Web Favorites: Losing Weight is Hard Edition

Eden — Sat, 08 Aug 2009 15:07:54 +0000

I’m really struggling with my diet and exercise lately. I’ve realized that I first turn to food when I’m feeling stressed or depressed. The only healthy replacement I can think of is exercise so I’m going to work on making exercise a priority, even when I don’t feel like it.

Favorite Quote:

“One man’s garbage is another man’s treasure. Unless you’re a raccoon. Then it’s basically all one category.” – Funny Quotes by Quotes for Idiots

Favorite Links:

I have two favorites from Early Retirement Extreme: Survival Preparedness – a great starting point for emergency preparation and Extreme Early Retirement vs. Friends and Relatives offers a look at the issues you’ll face with friends and family when trying to save money to the extreme.
What We Wish We Knew When We Were Younger [from Get Rich Slowly] – a great look at things we wish we had known before, since I knew virtually nothing about money these all apply to me and many more too I’m sure.
The Short Term and the Long Term Choice [from The Simple Dollar] – Ask yourself where you’ll be in the future when making a decision, this is great advice and something I’m trying to put into practice in my life now. I have far too much of a short term focus.

Carnivals

I was fortunate enough to be included in the Carnival of Personal Finance: Famous money quotes edition, hosted by Christian Personal Finance and the Festival of Frugality #189, Extreme Heat Edition, hosted by Modern Tightwad. Many thanks to the carnival hosts for the hard work they put this week!

*As always, you can find all of my ‘weekly web favorites’ and many more links on my StumbleUpon page.

Weekly Web Favorites: Losing Weight is Hard Edition

---
Related Articles at Finance and Fat:

Weekly Weight Loss Report, July 14, 2009

Eden — Tue, 14 Jul 2009 15:05:48 +0000

I weighed in at 260.6 pounds this week, for a gain of 0.8 pounds. That leaves me with 50.7 pounds to lose for my iPhone Weight Loss Challenge.

I followed my diet well Monday through Friday, but completely went off the deep end on the weekend and didn’t follow it at all. This carried through to Monday too, so I’m guessing the three days of gluttony did some damage to the previous five days of good eating.

On the other hand, I know my 3.6 pound loss from week one was probably a bit of a fluke so I don’t feel too bad about adding less than one pound this week.

My average lost per week is now 1.4 pounds. I’ll be happy as long as it is over one, but my goal is to lose two pounds per week.

I didn’t do as much exercise as I should have last week either. I’m back on my diet today and hopefully will be doing more exercise this week too.

As always, you can see my all-time weight loss progress chart here.

Weekly Weight Loss Report, July 14, 2009

---
Related Articles at Finance and Fat:

Weekly Weight Loss Report, July 7, 2009

Eden — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 16:52:36 +0000

I weighed in at 259.8 pounds this week, good for a loss of 3.6 pounds since June 30th. That leaves 49.9 pounds to lose for my iPhone Weight Loss Challenge.

I didn’t do a lot of exercise this week, and didn’t remember to post my exercise on Twitter very regularly. I played some basketball, did some walking, and played some golf. I’m starting on a new diet too, which I will write about in more detail soon.

This is the first week that I feel really motivated and I’m getting a lot more serious about my weight loss efforts. Hopefully this will be another good week.

As always, you can see my all-time weight loss progress chart here.

Weekly Weight Loss Report, July 7, 2009

---
Related Articles at Finance and Fat:

My 54 Pound iPhone Challenge

Eden — Mon, 06 Jul 2009 11:25:53 +0000

I want an iPhone. I’ve had my eye on one since it was released back in June of 2007. However, I’ve resisted purchasing one because I don’t NEED an iPhone. It is purely a WANT, an indulgence, a waste of money. I could try to justify it, but it’s just an expensive toy.

While it’s true that the iPhone is just a toy, there are no rules in personal finance against buying toys. You just have to be smart about it and, for me, that means planning ahead, saving the money, and paying cash. I can do all of that, but I still haven’t made the purchase.

Yesterday, I decided that I am finally going to do it. However, there is one big caveat. I made a deal with my wife that I won’t buy an iPhone until I get my weight down to 210 pounds.

I think this is a great way to incentivize my weight-loss by adding a tangible reward. It’s something I really want and it’s also easy to put up pictures of the iPhone as motivation/reminders for me to stick with my exercise and diet routine. It also gives me plenty of time to save the money, decide for sure that I really want to buy one (of course I do, but it sounds good to say that), and hopefully enough time for Verizon to start selling the iPhone so I won’t be stuck with AT&T.

To be clear, I’m not only losing weight for an iPhone. I want and need to lose weight and I’ve been working on it, unsuccessfully, for the past two years. This is just another tool in the motivational toolbox that I’m trying out. If weight loss was only about rational decisions, I would have lost the weight already. It’s obvious that I need more help on the emotional/mental side and that’s what I’m hoping this little game will do.

As of my last weigh-in, on June 30th, I was 263.4 pounds. Losing 54 pounds will put me just under 210. Obviously, this will take some time. Averaging 1 pound per week means this could take more than a year. However, I have a lot of weight to lose and I think I could get it done a lot faster if I really work at it. This will be an interesting test of the benefits of external motivation and whether I will do better than I have so far.

I’m going back to weekly weigh-ins and reports on this blog so please check back in to see my progress. Also, please let me know if you’ve tried a reward system when losing weight and how that worked for you and if you have any tips for success.

My 54 Pound iPhone Challenge

---
Related Articles at Finance and Fat:

Weight Loss Update, May 2009

Eden — Mon, 15 Jun 2009 20:42:12 +0000

I’m late posting this update, but I want to make sure it’s here so I can look back at my weight loss posts later. On May 26, 2009 I weighed-in at 258.4 pounds (see my all-time weight loss chart here).

I’m participating in a weight loss contest with some of my family and we weigh-in once a month, so the May 26th weigh-in was my ‘official’ weight for the month. That was good for a loss of 1.6 pounds in May. I lost 4.6 pounds in April, so I suppose it’s reasonable to expect a bit of a drop-off, but I feel like I should have lost more weight in May.

I was on vacation for the past week and a half and I know I ate a lot of food so I’m not going to be getting on the scale again any time soon. My next contest weigh-in date is June 30th, so I’ll probably wait until the week before that to weigh-in again.

I attribute most of my success over the past 2 months to playing basketball. But it’s been about 2 weeks since I last played, so I need to get back on that as soon as possible. Not only is the basketball great exercise, but I have the desire to do exercise apart from playing basketball to help improve my game so that’s an extra bonus. It seems that having a sport to focus on is incredibly helpful with weight loss motivation.

I’ve also bought a few exercise gadgets lately and I’m trying some different workouts, which I will write about in further detail in the coming weeks as I have a chance to evaluate them.

Weight Loss Update, May 2009

---
Related Articles at Finance and Fat:

Fitness Reset and Weight Loss Update

Eden — Sun, 17 May 2009 01:36:23 +0000

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.

Fitness Reset and Weight Loss Update

---
Related Articles at Finance and Fat:

Twittering the Pounds Away

Eden — Sat, 18 Apr 2009 13:23:09 +0000

Since The Oprah is now on Twitter, I imagine it should be safe to write a post about Twitter and figure that most of you will know what the heck I’m talking about. If you’re not sure, just click over to Twitter and give it a try.

I already have a personal Twitter account, where I write about anything and everything- follow at your own risk. So I thought it would be a good idea to create an account just for the Finance and Fat blog.

Finance and Fat on Twitter will be used to keep an exercise journal, keep track of my weight every time I hit the scale, and hopefully it can work as an accountability tool too. I’d love it if you followed me and felt free to yell at me if you don’t see me posting about my exercise regularly, or if you see too many posts related to In ‘N Out Burger…Speaking of food, I’ll try to write a bit about my diet, maybe just the really good and really bad so it doesn’t become too tedious. I’ll be sure to write about anything new I’m trying and whether I find promising results or not.

If you find a real-time exercise and weight loss journal to be compelling content, please follow Finance and Fat on Twitter and help keep me accountable and help me to reach my weight loss goal in 2009 (I’ve got a long way to go!).

Twittering the Pounds Away

---
Related Articles at Finance and Fat: