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Big-time achievement May 16, 2009

Posted by Mike Matthews in Stories.
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pic2It’s been a while since I’ve updated you on my diet. I guess it’s as good a time as any to let you know of my success. It seems Delaware’s Big Fat Losers may become a thing of the past. I really don’t update it much, as I’ve been focusing mostly on this blog.

Anyhow, just to update: In the first three months since I began my Weight Watchers journey, I’ve lost an astonishing 50.6 pounds! Yes! Yes! Yes! Let me repeat, because I think it’s so awesome: I’ve lost 50.6 pounds! In 12 weeks! There’s no stopping this (morbidly obese) locomotive! I started this battle at 349 pounds. Yes…349 pounds! I most recently weighed-in at an astonishing 298 pounds. This is, honestly, the lightest I’ve been in at least a decade and I feel great. Just being UNDER 300 pounds is the best feeling one can have.

Continuing my numbers crunch:

  • I’ve lost, on average, about 4 pounds per week. My lowest one-week total was 2.2 pounds back in March. My highest one-week loss was 7.8 pounds, again in March.
  • My BMI (body mass index) was a frighteningly high 44% when I started in February. In short, that means that my complete human body was nearly half fat!!! I’ve recently recalculated and my BMI is now 37%. That’s a decrease by 7 percentage points! A healthy BMI for a guy like me is between 20-25%. My goal is to get to, at the highest, 25% by Christmas. I think this is a goal I can definitely reach.
  • I still haven’t gone new-clothes shopping. Doesn’t interest me at this point. I’m happy finding “in-between” clothes at this point. The shirts I wore three months ago are noticeably larger and my slacks are EMBARRASSINGLY bigger. I don’t know if my trick of poking additional holes in my belt will last much longer!
  • When I started Weight Watchers, I was such a huge MF’er that I maxed-out on the program’s Points. I was entitled 44 Points a day, which is a ridiculous amount of food. Only once I got below 300 pounds did my Points FINALLY recalculate. I now get 43 Points per day. I will lose one Point as I decrease in decades (ie. go from 290s to 280s to 270s etc.)
  • Exercise has certainly played a key role in this weight loss. Being underemployed has allowed me great flexibility in my work-out routine. When I first started, I was LITERALLY exercising seven days a week for at least two hours. Well, after doing some research, I found that exercising so many days for so many hours may not actually be healthy. So, I’ve cut back to about five days a week for at least two hours at a time. The weight is still melting away and I actually find the days I don’t go to the gym allow my muscles to relax and take a breather.
  • Carrots! Carrots! Carrots! These have been my saving grace…100%. Lots of people don’t like raw carrots. I love them. I eat probably half-a-pound of those babies every day. They are so loaded with fiber and so low in calories that I actually think I BURN calories while eating them! The fiber keeps me gassy throughout the day, but who cares? Keeps me cleaned out!
  • Breakfast: I was never much of a breakfast eater. I’ve found eating breakfast is now essential to getting me going for the day. I’m up by about 7 every morning and I either make a smoothie (about 4 Points), have some berries with cottage cheese (3 Points), or have a simple glass of grapefruit juice (2 Points) to get my day started.
  • I try to make lunch my biggest meal so I won’t eat much at dinner. Eating late at night is no good for me. After a certain hour, I no longer burn calories.
  • Kilroy’s original challenge to me was to lose 100 pounds by the end of August. Although this will be cutting it close, I do think this is an attainable goal. So, Kilroy…you’d better have Christine O’Donnell waiting at the finish line!

There you have it. Three months in and many successes to report. Let’s hope I can keep at it!

Brian’s Weigh In – Week 5 March 21, 2009

Posted by Brian Shields in No pain no gain, Stories, Weigh In, Weigh-ins.
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3-21-09-weight-288

This morning I weighed in at 288 pounds, with a one pound loss for the week.

Last night I was stressing, and if any of you are one of my Facebook friends, you have already noticed. I know I have not done what it takes to lose weight in a manageable fashion. I have slipped into old habits and laziness. I haven’t been to they gym in two weeks. I am snacking again, eating through stressful emotions. I am not preparing for work or class periods when I will be away from home, relying on foraging for quick bites while pressed for time.

I know I can do better, but at the time, I just lost all motivation. It skirted away from me. Only my obligation to this blog, and this cause has kept me from going straight back to my old ways.

So.. I did something about it. I obviously cannot do this on my own. I don’t know what I was thinking, because doing this on my own is what got me here in the first place. The Weight Watchers thing seems to work for Mike, and keeps him on track. I buckled down last night, and paid for an online membership for three months in the wee hours of the morning when I got home from work.

It’s not that bad actually. I entered my meal information for yesterday, which I thought was pretty damn good, and on track, and found out that I was close, but 4 points over for the day. It is also a great way to analyze what you eat, and how it affects your overall balance for the day.

Surprisingly, that huge ham club sandwich (with mustard) on multigrain bread that I had for lunch did more damage than that medium  slice of hawaiian pizza I snagged at work. If I tweaked the sandwich a bit, subtracted the bacon and cheese, I would be within my limits for the day.

.. or if I just exercised one little bit, I would have been fine.

So, the motivation level is higher than it was last night when I was freaking out, but not quite as high as I would like for it to be.

I have to be motivated by goals and obligations, apparently. Free range exercising is not working. So.. I need to find a way to motivate me into the gym before I am motivated in the gym. Something that will keep my interest, and make me reach a goal. The baby bonnett thing worked like a charm, and would have worked if it wasn’t for some unfortunate timing.

I have one idea that I have been brainstorming for a while.. riding my bike across the state. From the border in Laurel to the ocean in Lewes. Over 36 miles.

I think I can do it with some training.

Still thinking about it, let me know what you think.

Brian’s Weigh In: Week 4 March 14, 2009

Posted by Brian Shields in No pain no gain, Stories, Weigh In, Weigh-ins.
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3-14-09-weight-2891

This morning I clocked in at 289 pounds, a 3 pound loss for this week.

It feels good to be somewhat back on the saddle again. I didn’t exercise as much as I would have liked, nor have I eaten anywhere near as good as I wished. Then again, I am trying to find that happy medium between diet and past life called lifestyle change.

I am not the greatest of chefs and my cooking is sometimes horrible. Lately things have been going well. I still have a problem with preparedness. Bringing lunch with me is still not happing, resulting in my having to forage Georgetown for something healthy and edible in a short amount of time.

Breakfast, since it was starting to get warmer for a while, has reverted back to cereals and some mini frittatas that Taylor over at Mac N Cheese Review suggested. After this post I am going to nuke a couple up and tear them apart. They are very versitile, with the ability to change different veggies in the same basic recipe if you need a change. That, and I am happy I get to use my muffin pan more often.

I hate to say it, but happiness was probably the largest change this week. If you follow my blog, The Mourning Constitution, you may already know that I was diagnosed with a mild form of Social Anxiety Disorder. With only one visit, and some small therapudic tricks I learned that day, have helped me minimize my emotional binges due to stress by dealing with the stress.

This is very important. Some people are emotionally tied to food and use it as a comfort mechanism, many times leading to becoming overweight. Many of these same people fail at dieting because of this. It is vital that if you recognise a dependancy on food items when in times of high stress that you seek some sort of guidance. I wasn’t given any medication or any major breakthroughs in science to get me to realize what I was doing… it was just a conversation. My doctor opened me up, dissected me, and gave me a nugget of helpful wisdom in a single hour. I have used that advise to cope with unrealistic stress in my life, which resulted in binge eating.

That helped me lose weight today.

Honestly, it was an hour’s worth of my time. The worst that could have happened was that nothing could have been gained from it. Break even chances are no-brainers to make. If you need to, make the leap.

~~~~~~~~~~~

That being said, my plan for next week is to try a new exercise program. I really hate the gym. I feel like a gerbil. Too many mirrors. I hate being the fat, sweaty guy at the gym full of scrawny teenie boppers trying to show their ass to the guys lifting weights.

So, I talked with my boss at work, and I have put together a massive marketing campaign, consisting primarily of walking door to door, putting flyers on doorknobs week after week after week. It is aggressive too, the plan isn’s as sinple as 3 or 4 streets a week. We are talking whole developments and whole towns in one or two weeks. Five or six trailer parks in a week. We’re talking 10-15 hours of walking a week.

All while getting paid. Hot damn.

I have the green light to do it, and weather permitting, I’ll be litening to my Ipod walking short distances, up three steps, down three steps, short distance, steps, etc… for hours on end next week.

I have the green light for a month, as long as I don’t go into overtime. If we don’t see any results in a month, it’ll be scrapped. So I have a while to get hoofin’ and make it happen.

Hopefully it will result in a slimmer waistline, and less munchin time.

This blog really needed some female hormones added to the mix February 23, 2009

Posted by Suzanne in Stories.
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…and I really need the support the guys (and you all) can provide.  Well, when I speak of “I” it actually means my partner Peg and myself.  We both need to lose weight and with me getting more serious about it, she will lose weight as well, since I do the cooking and food shopping.

Let me give you a bit of background.  I first saw the electric light of the world back in October of 1970 in Berlin, Germany.  I was a preemie and weight in at only 3 pounds.  Back then babies that small did normally not survive.  My father went to a toy-store to buy doll clothing for me to wear.  The months and years following, my parents fed me just about anything and allowed me to eat just about anything, because I was so small.  The tiny little baby turned into a chubby child and teenager, without any knowledge of what foods are good and how much is good. By the time I knew better, it was too late.

In my teens I found sports and joined a trampoline club (yes, the big trampolines that are now part of the Olympics- back then we only dreamed of that).  Every day for 2 hours I trained and often we had competitions on weekends.  I loved it.  I lost a lot of weight without even trying and was skinnier and more muscular then I had ever been before.  I even have a picture of me in my trampolin outfit and youc an see the ripples where the belly muscles are. ANYWAY. After a school accident and 10 days in the hospital with a concussion, I was forced to stop because jumping on the trampoline hurt my head.  I quickly turned back into the overweight teenager. No other sport could capture my attention.

I gave birth to my son when I was 24 and have been overweight ever since.  Right now I am at the highest weight hat I have ever been and I am ashamed to even post how much it is. I am at 280lbs. My goal weight is, for now, to get to 200 lbs, but at the end of this journey I would like to be 150lbs. That would still be “overweight” for my height, but it’s my “feel good weight” — to me, that is all that matters at this point.

I am dangerously obese and know that if I don’t do something about it, I am risking my otherwise good health. So, as of today I am putting myself on a diet, tomorrow morning I am seeing my doctor to discuss it with her, and I will also work on a workout routine. 

I hope I can stick to it — no, I WILL stick to it – this has to end.

Two different worlds of dieting February 17, 2009

Posted by Brian Shields in Healthy Yummies, Stories.
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From reading Mike’s last two posts, about a delicious smoothie that I need to try, and his tofu stir fry, I have noticed that he and I are trying two completely different methods to achieve our goals.

Whereas he is completely solo and in control of 100% of his food choices, I am immursed in a world where some choices are made for me, and where kitchens create drama. The others in the house usually leave my stuff alone, but sometimes one will latch onto something and go at it full force.

For instance, I have been starting my morning off with a bowl of quick cooked oatmeal, about a half of a cup, cooked with 1/3 cup of raisins, and 1/2 of a cup of milk. Microwave it for two minutes, and add milk to create the texture you wish. Sometimes I add a tablespoon of sugar, sometimes I don’t.

Well, two family members have latched onto my idea and started devouring my small canister of oats. After switching to the large one, we have adequate supplies to last us a few days.

I am not avoiding carbohydrates, obviously. I have found that by doing so I am completely hungry 45 minutes after I eat. I do make sure I eat the carbs early in the day if I have any at all. Minimizing the amount consumed, yes, but not completely eliminating them.

I also have to make smart choices when eating in public, because I haven’t gotten in the habit of taking my meals with me yet.

Yesterday I wanted chinese food badly. I had a craving for some chicken and broccoli. Remembering what a doctor said to me once, when i mentioned what i had for lunch. He said that soy sauce is loaded with sodium, and a regular large sodium intake can lead to a raise in blood pressure. He suggested that when ordering, I have the chicken and broccoli steamed, putting the sauce in a cup on the side so you can dip the chicken in and control the amount of sauce on your food.

So I did. I ate the broccoli steamed, which was nice. The chicken tasted better with the sauce, but I only dipped it part way just to get a taste of it. Switching to white rice instead of fried also trims back calories and fat.

I maybe cut an 800 calorie meal in half by eliminating alot of the fat and salt in it.

I have more, but I’ll have to write about it later. Gotta run to work.

My Story February 17, 2009

Posted by Brian Shields in Stories.
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My troubles with weight were always in my life since I was  little. To this day I dream of my mother’s baked chicken dripping in veggie oil, coated with salt, pepper, and season salt. Eating healthy was just not something I was taught. Vegetables always came from a can, or drenched with italian dressing in a taco salad.

I have always been one to stifle bad emotions with food. I remember while mourning a family member’s passing when I was 15. Relatives and friends would bring food. Noone in the house felt like eating, and I wouldn’t stop. I ate a whole loaf of a delicious cranberry nut bread all by myself in a day.

When I was on my own in the military, when things turned bad I turned to stuffing my face. Eventually, the expanding waistline outgrew my ability to work it off, and I ended up on the Air Force’s Weight Management Program. You don’t know dieting until the military forces it on you. The goals were modest, and the information was there to be digested, but fighting the emotional demons in my head at the same time was overwhelming. I resorted to pills. Diet pills, Vivarin or No Dose, even laxatives. Anything to make my monthly weigh in and not be forced out of the military. My girlfriend at the time, the lucky young lady who eventually became my wife, found out about my “regiment.” The 4 days of only water, vitamins, and pills before each monthly weigh in to fast down below the monthly goals set before me.

She forced me to stop, or else she would leave me. I stopped. it also caught up with me, and I failed my final weigh in within 2 months of the end of my enlistment, one pound above the maximum allowed weight for my height, 184 pounds.

I separated, honorably, with a non-reenlistable code on my DD214 on October 4th, 2002.

Four and a half years later I have gained over 100 more.

It’s coming off, people. I am facing my emotional gremlins, and recognising the patterns which have caused me to push 300 pounds. I am finally motivated to drop this weight, I am finally motivated to move on with my life and put the past behind me.

I will be lying if I said that I won’t need help. I have a large number of factors working against me that most every person who attempts to lose weight have. I will need your help, your insight, and your support. I will need your taunting, prodding, and joking insults.

Beyond us, the hungry people of Delaware need us. The Food Bank of Delaware serves an honorable purpose, and that is to feed those who cannot afford proper nutrition.

We will have some fun along the way, but in the end let’s do this for them.

The frightening beginning February 17, 2009

Posted by Mike Matthews in Stories.
2 comments

p10100331Whenever one does something that one isn’t accustomed to, it’s often an intricately involved baptism by fire. In my case, I’ve been fat most of my life. Many in my family are either somewhat overweight or morbidly obese. In my case, it’s been the latter for far too long. Or, at least, the past 15 years, when I seem to recall really picking up in weight.

I’ve always had the urge to do more about my massive girth. I’d tried several diets and routines over the past decade, most of which didn’t work because they simply didn’t offer realistic options or means of helping me maintain the weight loss as time drew on. The Atkins Diet worked for a few months, but then I fell off the wagon and realized life without carbs is simply unlivable.

So, I found myself perusing the information on the Weight Watchers website. Several family members and friends had, coincidentally, joined at about the same time. Obviously, Lil Baby Jesus was attempting to send me a message that it was time for me to do something. The great thing about this Weight Watchers program (and, please know, I am not here to endorse ANY product or plan) is that I can eat those carbs I so dearly missed doing Atkins. Combined with exercise and a totally revitalized diet, the Weight Watchers Points system promises a lot — so long as the patient STICKS to it and doesn’t stray too dramatically.

And so I’m here. With my friend Brian Shields of the blog The Mourning Constitution. We’re looking for other fatties or anyone who’s interested in losing some weight for a good cause. We’ll have more on that soon, but please contact us at delawaresbigfatlosers -at- -gmail- -dot- -com- if you’d like to join in our weight loss extravaganza.

I’ll have lots more to share here. Weight loss struggles and successes. Stories from my past. Stories of my future. Recipes. Lots of recipes. Workout routines. Pictures of me on a scale.

This is just the beginning. And it’s oh-so frightening and exciting!