About Fogdog's Weight Loss

Don't Focus on the Goal...

If you've followed this blog you know that I've struggled for many years with improving my health. I've finally reached a point where I've managed to maintain a small amount of success. Now it's time to take the next step, but I believe it requires a new way of thinking.

Instead of trying to get healthy, why not shift focus toward learning how to build healthy habits instead. Follow me as I try to teach myself how to Engineer healthy habits that will allow me to take my health to the next level. Let's see where this experiment goes!

Sunday, July 5, 2015

Day #182 - A Change in Plans

In my last couple of posts I talked about a major mental shift where I wanted to stop focusing on diet and instead focus more on just living a healthy lifestyle.  I could almost feel the eye rolling from the blogging world as I published that post.  Well here I am a few weeks later and I'm happy to say that those weeks were not a disaster.  I stuck to my new plan and truly enjoyed it.

I've been doing well, eating reasonably healthy with a few splurges here and there.  My mental state has been strong.  I didn't get that job in Wilmington and I actually felt a little relieved that we didn't have to move again so quickly.  All in all it was a pretty good 3 weeks.  The only problem... I didn't lose any weight.

I knew that going away from dieting and instead just trying to be mindful and make good choices would slow my weight loss down.  I kind of thought that maybe I would lose about 0.5 pounds each week and it would slowly creep down over the next couple years, but after a month, I went from 337 to 337, exactly 0 pounds lost. 

Not losing any weight was a little surprising, but that alone wouldn't be enough to get me to change my mind, I'm as happy now as I've been in a long time so what if I'm not losing weight.  However, a trip to my new doctor helped me change my mind...

2 weeks ago I went for my first physical in this new area.  I found a great doctor to be my physician and when we met, I also found out he specializes in bariatric medicine.  I got my cursory physical, but we really spent a lot of time talking about the history of my weight.  I told him everything about my successes and failures all the way up to my current mode of just trying to be healthy and keeping a strong mental focus and awareness.  Although he didn't really roll his eyes, I could tell by the look on his face that he wanted to.

The doctor told me that he likes someone that's a little overweight to lose weight slowly over time in order to reduce the risk of just putting it back on.  It made sense to me.  "However", he continued, "you are not just a little overweight, you are SEVERELY overweight."  He told me that I needed to start seriously dropping pounds and he was giving me 6 months to show some serious progress.  He told me that my best approach would be an Atkins style of eating; no sugar and highly restrictive on carbs.  After that, if I didn't get anywhere he said the next step would be to talk about weight loss medications, and failing that, we would next discuss weight loss surgery options.  It was a little dis-heartening to have someone shoot down your plan, but I pride myself on not dismissing other people's opinions just because they are different from mine.

I went home and spent the next couple days thinking about what the doctor had said.  Atkins? That is one diet that I never tried.  Back in the 90's I remember a guy at work who was doing Atkins and I can remember him sitting down at break end just eating nothing but 10 slices of bacon.  I remember telling myself that Atkins had to be the most unhealthy diets in the world and that I would never do that.  It's funny how certain events can mold your perception because up until now I've never really considered Atkins to be a healthy choice for weight loss.

I thought about my current plan and situation more, and then it came to me... There's nothing wrong with my mindset, it's just the timing is off.  The mindset I've been carrying around for a while now is the mindset I will need to have AFTER I lose all this weight.  Once the weight is gone I need to practice mindful eating and won't need to weigh myself all the time.  After I lose the weight I need to stop worrying about counting things and instead just focus on being healthy.  My current mode is that of someone who is on a maintenance plan!

So I got the Atkins book out at the library.  I don't particularly like the book, but the science behind it seems reasonable, so 6 days ago Mrs. FogDog and I started the Atkins Phase I plan.  This first week was brutal, I had headaches, I was tired, and at times felt a little nauseous from cutting sugar and carbs from my diet.  Fortunately, and as the book promised, that has now gone away and I feel much better.  Tomorrow is my first weigh-in and I am hoping to see a really good number.

So now my plans have changed and I find myself back at putting a serious focus on dropping pounds.  At the start of the year I made a goal to drop 100 pounds.  That's probably not going to happen given that it is now July, but my goal is to go back to the doctor in 6 months 50 pounds lighter. 

I'll keep blogging periodically to show my progress; wish me luck.

Stay Strong!

 

22 comments:

  1. Good luck FD! I have been doing whole 30 which cuts sugars, grains, alcohol,dairy and legumes. I can tell a big difference on how I feel and I think that its really making a difference on how and where my body is losing the fat.Keep at it!

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  2. I've not checked in with you in a while, but yeah, looking back at your successes, when you were consistent with your food choices and exercise, you lost weight. But that goes for all of us trying to lose. I could never do Atkins because I love my morning cup of coffee way too much :) Good luck on building on your success with Atkins!

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    Replies
    1. I love my morning cup of coffee as well. I can say now that after going through withdrawal from sugar and drinking my coffee with heavy cream only, I have adapted and still enjoy my morning cup.

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  3. Good luck with your new plan! A blunt talk from my doctor was also the reason why I lost the extra weight (found out unexpectedly that I was pre-diabetic). 3ish years later, and a 60lb loss and now in maintenance, I'm very happy to now see normal glucose numbers :) You can do this!

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    Replies
    1. My Triglycerides are terrible; I'm determined to go back in 6 months with significant improvement.

      Thanks for the encouragement; I've added you to my blogroll.

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  4. I have been living the LCHF lifestyle for seven years now. 50 carbs (or less per day) higher healthy fats and moderate protein. Eating whole real foods, not processed.

    I wish you and Mrs FD Good luck - please keep us posted.

    All the best Jan

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  5. Sounds like you have a plan.
    I don't really know all that much about Atkins, apart from it being a pretty big thing about 15 years ago. Or at least, that's when I first remember hearing about it. I'm curious to know how you will go on it.
    Best of luck with it, and I look forward to seeing how it works for you! :)

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    1. When I first heard about it I wasn't a big fan as I read a lot of literature about how unhealthy it was. I'm now starting to see how it was misrepresented by those who were still beating the low fat/low cal drum.

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  6. I've previously had a look at the "new" Atkins information online, and also have tried (briefly) Whole 30 but always find cutting out whole food groups problematic. And that isn't even counting junk as a food group! But I'm a big fan of trying everything so I'll be interested to hear how you go.

    Oh, and my doctor just told me NOT to eat bacon! Or only once a year, like my birthday.

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    Replies
    1. I used to feel exactly the same way, but now that I've tried it for 2 weeks I'm not so sure about those old beliefs anymore. I still have a long way to go, but I promise I'll keep posting my results for all to see.

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  7. Good luck with Atkins. I need to work on eating less carbs, especially since I am diabetic. You can do this FD! You can.

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  8. I've had great luck with Atkins in the past. For me, it's a great 'kickstart' plan. Be sure to get your carbs in through primarily green vegetables. Our family started a 3 week Atkins induction in January, and have slowly transitioned to a more moderate carb plan plus lots of walking for exercise. Still losing!

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    Replies
    1. Kickstart doesn't even begin to describe it! 13 pounds in the fist two weeks feels amazing!

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  10. New reader here. Loved this post.

    From what you wrote, your doctor said "Atkins like" so once you get into the swing by following Atkins exactly, you may be able to adapt it a bit. Or you may not need to. It really boils down to what a previous commenter said--low carb eating. NOT NO carb. I don't know why people talk abaout cutting our a whole food group when referring to low carb eating. Unless, of course, sugar and starch are considered a whole food group now.

    But, as I said, it's low carb, not no carb. Once thru the initial phases that get you started, you can really have all of the non-starchy vegetables you want. They're carbohydrate. And you can have starachy veggies, too, you just have to count the carbs with those.

    Of course, if you're like me, you may not want many vegetables. :} Which is kind of rub with low carb. Being able to eat unlimited amounts of something that you'd not miss if it weren't there... Sigh. But I digress. And you may love vegetables! Like I said, I'm a new reader.

    One thing I found that's nice with low carb, is the minimal need for weighing, measuring and counting compared to other plans. Really, once you get the hang of it, you only need to fuss about food that have more carbohydrates than your average broccoli, spinach, cucumbers, etc.

    So if low carb is so great, why am I still fat? Because I won't stay away from the ice cream, that's why. Hmph. If you stick to it, it' works. If you "cheat" it is unforgiving.

    Best wishes.

    Deb

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    1. To be honest, I hated the Atkins book. 2 inches thick, 400+ pages all to say "no sugar and low carbs". I don't like his "lists" of things he says you can and can't have. I prefer simple so I'm not "exactly" following Atkins. I eat whatever I want as long as I'm not eating sugar and keeping my carbs below 20 (now moving to 30).

      I'm not a big fan of veggies either, but I can enjoy a salad with dressing so that's my primary veggie staple.

      PS - I've added you to my blogroll; I would be grateful if you added me to yours as well.

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    2. I added you. :) I also reread my comment. aaarrrgghh. I don't know how you got anything out of what I said--it's almost incoherent. I need to proof, that's for sure.

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