Working Out on the NJ Turnpike

I hope everyone had a great Labor Day weekend.  Mine was filled with signs that I am indeed changing the way I approach things.  If you remember, when I restarted this blog I said that I would be starting my new transformation on September 1^st, but then very quickly changed my mind and decided to start right away.

The reason why I originally wanted to start after Labor Day was because I knew I was going on a long trip to Maine to visit with family.  With 2 travel days (12 hours each day), a birthday party, and seeing relatives who also love to eat, I knew that the odds of doing well were not in my favor.

However, that was the old me.  The new me asked a very simple question… “Is your new way of approaching food going to prevent you from ever travelling again?”.  Seems like a silly question, obviously the answer is no, but the reality is I have to figure out how to deal with those times when we leave the comfort of the normal daily routine.

So I started my transformation early knowing that I would have to go on this trip.  I also knew that traveling and eating poorly go hand-in-hand with me; It gives me an excuse to eat junk food all day long as rest stops and gas stations don’t typically offer healthy fare.  On our last excursion that involved a lot of driving I actually ate so poorly that I actually threw up on the ride home!  However, with a new mindset I was confident that I could battle this particular demon of mine and come out on top.  It turned out to be a great choice because that’s exactly what I did… 

Small Victory #1

The 12 hour drive up was filled with happy kids, good conversation with my wife, and also lots of healthy eating.  In fact, we made the whole trip up to Maine without stopping and buying any food or drinks (excluding 2 coffees at the start of the trip).  My wife packed an entire cooler full of healthy snacks and we had a gallon jug of water.  My kids loved lunch;  grilled chicken salad in a bag.  They get a kick out of anything that’s just a little different so eating salad out of plastic baggies went over well. They also jumped at the chance to support their dad.  After a quick bathroom break at a rest stop on the NJ Turnpike, I asked "Who wants to do a quick workout?".  Of course the kids were up for it, so we all stood in a circle and each kid got to pick an exercise that we would do.  We did jumping jacks, squats, and pushups off the picnic table.  People that passed by looked at us a little funny, but my kids were having fun supporting their dad and so it didn't bother me at all!

Small Victory #2

I won’t go into too much detail about my time in Maine, but I will say that I did a decent job of not overeating.  I did have some birthday cake as we celebrated my daughter’s birthday, but I was generally happy with my choices throughout the trip.  However, the small victory came on the last day when we went out to dinner… 

My family lives in a very rural part of Maine so they don’t get out much.  The one thing my niece said she wanted to do was go to “5 Guys” for dinner and then “Sweet Frog” afterward.  For those that don’t know, “5 Guys” is a popular burger joint and “Sweet Frog” is a frozen yogurt shop.  It was an hour away (I said it was rural), but I agreed that we could go there.  My typical meal at 5 Guys is a bacon cheeseburger, bacon cheesedog, and a large fry.  Instead I ordered a plain hamburger and then the entire family shared a large fry. I probably got ¼ of the calories I normally eat there. 

When we got to Sweet Frog I was feeling pretty good about myself and decided to keep it going.  Instead of loading up a dish with every topping known to man, I instead chose to put a small amount of frozen yogurt in my cup and then proceeded to load it up with fresh fruit and then a few almonds and walnuts for some crunch.  My guess is that I ate dinner and dessert all for about 800 calories.  The old me would have eaten 800 calories just in fries.

Small Victory #3

My last small victory came after the long ride home.  To make it easier on everyone (except me) I decided that we would leave Sunday night and I would drive through the night.  I’ve done it before and I’ll tell you if you have kids it works out really well as they sleep the whole time.  Anyway, I made the drive home through the night only snacking on fruit and drinking a lot of coffee.  By 7AM the family was waking up and we were just an hour from home.  We decided to stop at “Bob Evans” for some breakfast.  At this point I was exhausted and really hungry.  As soon as we pulled in I could hear myself justifying a huge breakfast all in the name of the “sacrifice” I chose to make by driving through the night.  I “deserved” to eat a huge meal because of the selflessness I showed in the evening (yes my brain does think this way sometimes).  In the end I showed restraint and ordered a veggie omelet.  When the waiter asked if I wanted hash browns or home fries I astounded myself further when I said “neither”.  He actually offered a fruit cup instead and I took it.  I still can’t believe that I pulled that one off.

 

Of course there were a couple areas where I could’ve done better.  For starters I didn’t drink as much water as I should have.  I did drink some but it can be difficult when you are traveling as you don’t want to have to stop every 30 minutes to use the bathroom.  I also could have exercised a little more.  Basically I didn’t get any real exercise on Saturday, Sunday, or Monday.

Monday I just laid around watching TV because I was so tired, but I also went right back to my “normal” diet.  In all this was the healthiest traveling that I’ve done in my entire life!  It’s given me some more confidence that this time I have truly changed my mindset; these deviations from the routine are not an excuse to go wild, but rather, something that needs to be managed.  I was able to manage this trip and came back knowing that I didn’t “undo” the hard work from earlier in the week.  That was the best feeling of all!

30 Day Challenge - And the winner is...

First, a review of the rules:  The purpose of the 30 day challenge was to see who could lose more weight in a month; me or my good friend known as Big D.  The idea was to create a challenge that was tough, motivating, and also allowed both players to be in control of their own destiny.  The result was setting a goal of 15 pounds.  If both players lost at least 15 pounds, then whoever lost more received $1 (for bragging rights).  If however the goal was not met, then the loser paid $20 for every pound short of 15!  The stakes were high but as long as you lost 15 pounds, the most money you could lose was a buck.  Both me and Big D. had advantages and disadvantages which made it an interesting bet.  Could my family support and stable schedule beat out Big D's youth and his advantage of not already being on a diet (everyone knows when you start a diet you get great 1st week numbers)?  The answer was discovered at 7:00AM this morning...

My performance over the month was very good.  My wife helped me to remain accountable for ALL my calories and I learned that in the past I have grossly underestimated what I was taking in.  For the duration I held my calories constantly at 2000-2100.  I did go out to eat twice during the challenge but on both occasions I behaved reasonably well.  As far as exercise went, I did start to slack off a little in the end.  In week 3 I missed a few workouts, but only in the name of doing other activities that required exertion.  In the last week I caught a nasty chest cold and didn't workout one bit.  I should probably cut myself some slack because it was a really bad cold, but I do think I should've found a way to get some exercise in.  The lack of exercise in the last week really had me nervous, but there were some signs of doing well such as people noticing I looked thinner and being able to adjust my belt in one notch.

Big D's performance was also very good.  He avoided fast food completely and also only ate out a couple times during the event despite making 2 trips to visit his girlfriend in NY.  He ate several small meals each day, got plenty of protein, drank lots of water, and avoided salt as much as possible (I did actually give him some advice before we started and was happy to see he listened).  For exercise he walked his dog every day and went to the gym as much as possible to workout on a bike (he even went to some spin classes with his girlfriend when he was out of town).  At the start of the challenge he was walking 3 miles each day and by the end he was up to 6!  I was actually amazed at how much Big D. changed his ways during the challenge.

When Big D. arrived at my house this morning we both talked about how we thought we might come out.  I thought maybe I hit about 10 pounds.  I had been sick all week and felt extremely bloated like I might be retaining a bunch of water.  Big D. thought he might hit about 12 pounds but said there was no way in the world that he hit 15.  Then he accused me of trying to mess with his head and he mentioned that several people at work had noticed I lost weight.  I did truly think that I only lost 10 pounds (12 max).  We flipped a coin and I lost so he made me get on the Wii scale first...

FogDog Starting Weight - 288.1
FogDog Final Weight - 270.9
FogDog Total Loss on the 30 Day Challenge - 17.2 Pounds

You could have knocked me over with a feather!  Of course now Big D. was convinced that I had been messing with him (truly I was not), but he congratulated me on hitting such a high number. 

Next was his turn; after posting such a big number, clearly you could see he was really worried that he was going to lose...

Big D. Starting Weight - 256.4
Big D. Final Weight - 235.0
Big D. Total Loss on the 30 Day Challenge - 21.4 Pounds

The winner by 4.2 Pounds ... BIG D.!

To be honest, I was thrilled to see how well he had done, and was happy to give up the dollar.  I had told him a few days before that he deserved to win.  Don't get me wrong, I worked hard to lose my weight, but I was already on that path; I simply amped up my efforts.  Big D. made a total transformation and to me that was quite impressive!  More importantly, I think Big D. recognizes what he needs to do to keep the weight off and that's a victory in itself.

Although I lost the bet, I still have plenty of things to celebrate and I am thrilled with the results.  This weigh-in brought me a bunch of victories all at once:

1. I met the 30-day challenge goal
2. I hit my mid term goal of 275 and now get my reward (bring on the mountain bike!)
3. I helped to inspire a friend to make some healthy changes
4. I have now reached a weight that I have not seen since before my freshman year in college
5. Finally (and this is the biggest one for me) I have now crossed over the half way point in my journey to 199!  I started at 349 a couple years ago so 275 was a big number for me.  I cannot, and will not be stopped!

So my hat's off to Big D. for a great race.  By the way, we've already started planning the next challenge and the first rule we decided on was when we weigh in, if our starting weight is higher than our current weight from this morning there will be severe penalties.

To my other friend DJ (whom I have a longer term bet with) I'll say this:

I might be way ahead of you now, but don't give up! All it takes is a spark to get it going again and I know you can do it.  If you need a little incentive, just start thinking about how much money you are going to owe me if you stay where you are at.  I'm going on vacation in Maine in July and if I can keep it going, I might just be stopping by your house to collect!

To all the rest of you out there, I hope this story inspires you to keep on going.  It may be hard and it may be slow, but the small victories are what keep us going.  Just keep chipping away at it and don't let the setbacks rule your journey.  If you don't give up, you too will get to feel what it's like to hit your halfway point.  Trust me on this, after hitting that mark, my resolve to see it through to the end has never been stronger!

Now I'm off for a vacation so I probably won't be back in the blog world until next weekend.  My goal is to not gain any weight while I'm gone and I will be resuming my normal weekly weigh-ins (and catching up with everyone else's blogs) starting next week.  Good luck and stay Strong!

Want to Lose Weight? It's The Small Battles That Count!

Even if you don't follow football you've probably heard that the New Orleans Saints won the Super Bowl and are this year's NFL champions.  My hat's off to the Saints on a great season and an inspirational championship for a city that could use something positive.  But this is a blog about weight loss and I find myself thinking about the parallels between sports and the goal to lose weight.  There's something to be learned from the Saints, or any champion from any sport for that matter.

When people look at a team that has just won the championship, the focus tends to be on that last championship game and the great battle that was won.  But take a step back for a moment and really think about how that team got that big win in the first place.  In order to be able play in that game the Saints had to win the NFC Championship.  In order to win the NFC Championship game, they had to first win a Divisional Playoff Game and in order to even get to that game they had to win enough games in the regular season to make the playoffs.  Now let's dig a little deeper...In order to win every one of the 16 games they won, they had to win a lot of little battles.  Every game is made up of well over one hundred plays.  In every play there are 11 individuals that all have their own personal battle to play out.  Do some simple math and you can quickly see that their road to the championship involved hundreds of thousands of little battles over the course of many months that needed to be won.  Did they win every one?  Not even close, but it's a fair assumption that they won more of those battles than they lost.

It is the same thing when you are trying to lose weight.  All too often we focus on the end result.  The Super Bowl victory of weight loss means hitting that magic number you decided on in the beginning of your journey.  We tend to put a lot of focus on that big (small) number even though it is so far away.  We also put a lot of focus on meeting our weekly goals, but rarely do we look at all those little battles that must be won day in and day out.  It's OK to have those lofty goals and to think of them once in a while but you have to think small every day.  Do you think that football player lines up for a play thinking about how he's going to win the Super Bowl?  He's thinking about one thing and one thing only...How to win the little battle that's right in front of him.

So what should you do?

1. Try to put those end results away and focus on the job at hand.  If you don't win the daily battles you never will get to the playoffs, not to mention the championship.
2. Use your little victories to inspire you to more little victories in the hopes that stringing them together will help you win the game.  Most goals scored come from stringing together lots of little victories, not one giant leap.
3. Recognize you cannot win every single battle.  It's impossible, so don't even try.  Instead, when you get beat, pick yourself up off the ground, pull the grass from your helmet, and win that next little battle.  Just like a string of wins is uplifting, a string of losses is equally demoralizing.

There's one more thing to consider as well (THIS IS VERY IMPORTANT).  Be aware that once in a while, one small victory can become the catalyst that ultimately hurls you toward your goal and gives you the boost you need to see it all the way to the end.  These are rare instances and there is no way to predict beforehand which one will cause it to happen.  History is full of stories of how one seemingly insignificant win changed things forever.  As I said, you have no way of knowing when this could happen, so the only way to improve your chances is to increase the number of victories you have.  Once you have it, it will instantly catapult you forward and the small battles you face will suddenly become so much easier to win. 

I'll end on a personal note that illustrates this concept.  Last night my family and I went out to dinner.  I ate reasonably well and actually saved half my meal for the next day (small victory #1).  On the way home my wife wanted to stop and get some chocolate cake for dessert and I was all for it.  When we got home I was excited about the chocolate cake but wanted to wait until after 8:00 so I could eat it while watching TV.  With an hour to kill (I promised I would avoid the TV and PC until after 8:00PM) I suddenly had this urge to do something useful.  I went into my basement and got on the elliptical trainer and knocked out 3 miles!  That's more than I ever have done at one time (small victory #2). 

After that, the chocolate cake didn't seem as appetizing.  I didn't want to undo the 3 miles that I had just worked my butt off for.  In the end I passed on the chocolate cake (small victory #3) and went to bed satisfied with the decisions I made.  Those 3 small victories are actually what inspired me to write this article.  Today I'm still feeling happy about those decisions; success can be infectious.  Who knows if somewhere down the road I might hit the scale at 199 and look back at my journey and think "I'm so glad I didn't eat that chocolate cake!"

I hope this article helps you to remember today so you can have a better tomorrow.  Win those little battles; you never know which one you may remember forever.