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Wednesday, January 21, 2009

Very interesting article on ABCNews.com:


What we crave
Originally uploaded by The Put-Man

Want another reason why you shouldn't spend too much time at the trough? Because consistently eating too much food over a period of just a few weeks can screw up your brain, taking away your ability to control your appetite.

"Two or three months of overnutrition, a diet high in fat and sugar," can wake up a normally dormant...

"Two or three months of overnutrition, a diet high in fat and sugar," can wake up a normally dormant "pathway" in the brain, which can take away a person's ability to control his or her appetite, says Dongsheng Cai, assistant professor of physiology of the University of Wisconsin-Madison. The new study is published in the current issue of the journal Cell.

That's the basic finding in a new study out of the University of Wisconsin-Madison that could help explain why once you've put on those extra pounds, it's really hard to take them off. The study is published in the current issue of the journal Cell.

"We've discovered why the appetite doesn't shut down," said Dongsheng Cai, assistant professor of physiology at UW-Madison, in a telephone interview, even after a person has consumed enough food to maintain the correct balance between calorie intake and energy expended.

Read more:

http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/Story?id=5978686&page=1

Tuesday, January 20, 2009

A Solid Workout


Tonight's Board
Originally uploaded by The Put-Man
20 Minutes of cardio w/ HR @ 135 to 145

ABS - 15 & 15 (oblique) / 10 & 10 / 12 & 12 (strong finish!)
Chest - 60 for 15 / 11 / 10 (Good!)
Shoulder - 50 for 15 / 15 / 15 (need one more plate next time)
Back - 90 for 15 / 15 / 15 (need one more plate next time)
Tri's - 70 for 15 / 13 / 10 (Good!)
Bi's - 60 for 15 / 12 / 9 (good!)

By reading the comments above, you'll get the hint that when I do three sets, I want the weight to be intense enough that when i try to do sets of 15, the second & third sets are too much...almost!

Abs are 3 sets of 30 each, trying to split evenly into obliques. these I HATE.

Monday, January 19, 2009

Critical Gear - Peer Trainer

Ok, so it's not really "gear", I still find it critical to my success!

A free website that allows me to not only track every little thing I eat, but also each bit of working out!

More importantly, you can join multiple 'groups' of four - so that everyone within the group can evaluate & help encourage, cajole, and kick your ass as needed.

Critical Gear - iPod & Sport Headphones

The last bit of critical gear (besides the obvious things like workout clothes, a gym membership, and good sneakers).

I like the Video iPod & the Sport headphones that squish into the ear canal like ear-plugs (no noise reduction needed, & GREAT bass response!).

I got an el-cheapo pair of headphones at Radio Shack ($6.00) just for the spiffy case - my $100 headphones getting constant tangles really pissed me off.

For the iPod I got a beefy rubber case from Speck Industries that will guarantee I never drop it. Without a case, I'm sure I'd have smashed it several times over by now! (It's a long drop to the concrete off the elliptical machine)

On the iPod I have several workout mixes, a selection of music videos from the 80's, and a few TV shows. Originally the TV shows were going to be my salvation, but I like the music better as the beat helps keep me on track. The music videos are the best compromise!

Find whatever works for you - to make it as fun as possible!

Critical Gear - Accurate Scale

This was arguably the most difficult item for me to find.

You see, I'm extraordinarily fat, and a regular scale just won't accurate calculate my gargantuan size.

Yes, seriously.

Once you're done laughing AT me (it's ok), you're going to wonder how you'll know if YOUR scale is accurate.

Easy.

Step on your scale, let it settle on a specific number. Write it down. Step off, go walk around the house, step back on. Let it settle, then write down the number. Do this 3 or 4 times.

Yes, seriously!

Did it give you the EXACT same number each time?

yes or no?

Digital tend to be more accurate, and the better the scale the less picky it'll be about specific foot placement and such. Get the one with an electronic fat-calculator only if you really want to be depressed.

Stick to a regular schedule of weigh-ins...like once a week. Otherwise your natural variations will only give more frustration.

Also - use only ONE scale. Variations between scales will make you nuts. Stay away from the one at the gym, and assure your Doctor that you KNOW exactly what your weight is...because you do!

Write it down every week. That's your weekly moment of truth.

Critical Gear - Workout Boards


photo.jpg
Originally uploaded by The Put-Man
Like much of my gear & routine - this is an important component that evolved over time.

One for "Uppers", and one for "Lower" body. Each one is a 5 x 8 "magnet" board, which I found at The Dollar Store. I Xeroxed workout pages from my Body For Life book, and "laminated" them onto the boards using carefully trimmed clear packing tape. This gives an easily cleanable surface that can be marked & re-marked time & time again with old-fashioned grease pencils. I found the grease pencils at Home Depot, in the tile department, of all places.

I use one color to detail the actual weight & reps used during the workout, and another color to set the next workout's goal weight. The plan is to do three sets, trying for 15 reps in each set. Once 15/15/15 is achieved, add one more weight brick to the workout.

Lowers:
Quads
Hams
Calves
Abs (which I hate)

Uppers:
Chest
Shoulders
Back
Triceps
Biceps
Abs (Technically only supposed to be on "Lowers", but since I hate them so much, they are included again)

Each workout has a section to record that day's cardio & other assorted workout notes.

Critical Gear - Sport Watch

The Sport Watch is arguably one of my most important tools.

Used EVERY time I go to the gym, it keeps me on track - but MUCH more important - it tells me when I'm doing too much! Generally, I try to keep my cardio Heart Rate (HR) between 135 & 155, and general weightlifting between 120 & 135.

Programmable for age, & weight, it also includes a 30 day fitness evaluation tool. Every 30 days it puts me through a simple 15 minute easy/medium/hard workout to determine my fitness level. This feature allows for a fairly accurate calculation on "calories burned".

Once every 3 months with a fresh eval, I wear the watch for 24 hours while doing nothing special. This gives me a fairly accurate number of calories burned in one day, which is critical to know when planning menus.

More on THAT later...!

Thursday, January 15, 2009

Makes going home a reasonable affair...

The 3:30pm snack keeps me from turning into The Tasmanian Devil in my kitchen...

The Healthy Choice "Steamers" are quick, pretty darn good, and under 350 calories.

The single size serving of raw almonds gives me something nice & crunchy, good stuuf for the heart, and the small packet keeps me on the reservation.

How I start my day...


Yummy Breakfast
Originally uploaded by The Put-Man
1 Crustless Quiche
1 Mug STRONG coffee

...run, run, run to start my day...

The meal I wait all day for...


Diner
Originally uploaded by The Put-Man
1 small bowl Chicken Noodle Soup
2 Small Sammiches (dark rye bread, spicy mustard, pepperjack cheese, peppered deli turkey)
7 Mini Chicken Tacos
1 'dollop' 0% Fat Greek Yogurt used as sour cream
2 Diet Cokes
1 glass of water

Wednesday, January 14, 2009

The Headache Machine


Yummy
Originally uploaded by The Put-Man
Headaches. Hate ‘em. Always have.

Way back in the ‘long, long ago’, when I used to wear the green suit & jump out of helicopters, a Navy Corpsman once explained to this Dumb Marine that I had to drink an entire canteen of water & wait 30 minutes before he’d give me any pain-candy (aspirin) because the first symptom of dehydration was usually a headache. Since we were running around the boondocks in Hawaii (where I was stationed), we tended to sweat an inordinate amount, and dehydration was a real issue. Shockingly enough (he was NAVY, after all), the Corpsman was right.

Flash forward a decade, to when I was living in Portland, Oregon. I’d purchased a crummy old Jeep that I loved (it’s dashboard survives today in my TV room), and late one summer evening I was involved in a terrible head-on collision out on highway 18, coming back from the coast, when the other driver fell asleep at the wheel.

It’s an old two-lane highway, and we were each going about 45 MPH. The car that hit me was an old Honda Civic, the impact so wrenching that the girl driving had to be medivac’d. Her car looked like it’d hit a brick wall.

My front bumper wasn’t bent so bad. The left front fender had to be pulled out a bit, and I had to put a spare tire on – but I drove home, proud of my tough old Jeep. A week later, the headaches nearly brought me to my knees. I began taking so much aspirin over the next few years that I was getting constant nose bleeds, and my annual physical showed trouble with my liver as if I was an alcoholic.

At this point, I was living in San Francisco, and my hippie-vegan girlfriend used her feminine-cunning to get me to the witch-doctor. (she wouldn’t put-out until I went to her chiropractor)

Changed my life.

Broke up with the hippie-vegan-chick, and moved back to DC, but I kept going to the chiropractor. Turns out, I’ wrenched my neck in that accident, and after years of mis-alignment, it was TOUGH to get ‘er right.

In a nutshell, it caused tension in my neck with the big muscles that connect down to my shoulders. These would cause tension in the upper neck, which in turn pulled on the big tendon that goes all the way over the top of the skull. THAT pressure resulted in horrific headaches on par with migraines.

Needless to say, I don’t miss those.

It’s been about a year since I’ve been in for an adjustment. Here in Chicago I go to a Naturopathic guy – sort of a combo Chiro & Therapeutic Massage. LOVE IT! However, my hot-chick former-trainer is now a massage therapist who knows my musculature as well as anyone, and I get her to work me over periodically. I find that working out helps tremendously, too.

With all that said – caffeine is also a big issue. At BOTH ends of the spectrum! On the weekends I can forget to have coffee, getting caught up with car club stuff, and by early Sunday afternoon, I’m a mess. The flip side of that is weekdays when I make my own (too strong) coffee to bring to work, and I go through 3 to 5 cups like I was still 30.

BAD IDEA.

Tummy gets all queasy on me, and a different sort of P I E R C I N G headache radiates behind my eyes. Lunch, and two BIG bottles of water usually does the trick. Sometimes I have to resort to spicy food - Red Pepper Flakes – NOT TOBASCO! (Sodium, get thee away from my damn headaches!)

My former issue of nosebleeds has made me paranoid about any sort of aspirin, but when it’s bad enough, I believe in Better Living Through Chemistry. Excedrin Migrane is the ONLY thing that does ANYTHING for me. Regular aspirin, Ibuprofen, Advil, Tylenol, whatever. Does nothing.

It’s Excedrin Migrane, or nothing.

Sometimes, rarely, even that isn’t enough. That’s when I just have to sleep it off. God help me if I sleep in an odd position and wake up with a stiff neck!

That’s when my high-maintenance-ass is off to get a massage!

Then, we have the days I don't pay attention, and I eat Clyde's yummy dog cookies.

Different kind of headache...

A little bowl of happiness...


Dinner
Originally uploaded by The Put-Man
We all know the big first step is getting out there and doing ANYTHING phyical, right?

This time of year, we all have resolutions, and hit it quick & hard. The typical problem is we do too much, too quick, as if we think we're still 22.

Or 30.

We get sore, get frustrated, or God forbid - an injury; and next thing you know it's been 30 days since your last workout. Then you feel guilty, and next thing you know you're hiding in closet, calling the Domino's delivery dude.

How many of us have tried to hide pizza boxes under other stuff inside the trash can?

For me, excercise (apart from being tough to spell), only brings me success when it's more about what I WANT to do, and less about what I feel I SHOULD do.

My inner-Marine wants to run 3 miles in the mud, do 100 pushups, 100 leg-raises, and climb ropes with a heavy backpack, pound on my chest like an ape & yodel.

Yeah, 'aint gonna happen, Skippy...

45 minutes on the elliptical machine with a HR @ 145 while watching an episode of CHUCK feels like I'm a brass-plated WUSS - but is MUCH MORE realistic, and (at my horrid weight) is the best way to get an good workout while avoiding injury.

Maybe the Bally's employees won't mind if I yodel, anyway?

Tuesday, January 13, 2009

Critical Gear


Critical Gear
Originally uploaded by The Put-Man
Ok, so some people might find this a bit silly, but I have found a few items I consider essential to my Health & Fitness success.

This is my nifty Rubbermaid "shaker" cup. Pour in 1.5 cups skim milk
(graduations are marked on the side), then add two scoops of protien mix.

Place the star-hoop inside the top lip of the cup, then affix the
lid. Now shake - and the liquid smashes the powder through the star-
hoop, like a tiny little blender!

Available in serveral colors, I chose the spiffy red.

http://www.amazon.com/Fit-Fresh-Power-Shaker/dp/B0011DIVZG/ref=sr_1_54?ie=UTF8&s=hpc&qid=1231887400&sr=1-54

Monday, January 12, 2009

Monday's Afternoon Snack

If I can do this, you can, too!

It's 5pm, and I'm off to the gym with my buddy Terry, but I thought I'd post my day-so-far...

Breakfast
8am

Trader Joe's crustless quiche (180cal)
Coffee x 2
Water x 2 (cup)


Lunch
Panera w/ Kathy, Rod, & Larry
11:45am

"Pick 2"
Bowl - Chicken Noodle Soup (DUH)
Half sammich - Tuna on whole grain wheat (no onion or mayo)
Whole grain baugette (side)
Diet Pepsi


Afternoon Snack
3:45pm

Healthy Choice "Steamer" Szechuan Beef & noodles - 370 cal
Single small packet raw almonds

Water bottle x 1

The Chicken Noodle Soup Diet - part 3


Goodbye
Originally uploaded by The Put-Man
The problem, in a nut-shell, is what I call the “want-to” factor. Do I really WANT to go to the gym? Hell, no. I’d much rather lay on the couch & watch movies! Do I really WANT a low-fat 600 calorie quesadilla for dinner? Honestly, I’d much rather have pizza…

So, how do we make effective changes in our lives that will add up, long enough, to really make a difference?

I’ve always despised the word “diet”. I feel that in our American lexicon, it implies something temporary – a quick fix for our drive-thru society. The only REAL way to make the changes we want to see…is through changing our habits, for the rest of our lives. This is where I begin beating myself up, my long trail of tears. You see, I just don’t have the personal discipline to force myself into doing things I don’t want to, every damn day. Some people might be good at that, but they’re also probably good at balancing their checkbooks, doing their taxes on time, and buying safe cars that are environmentally friendly. I’m just not like that. I wish I could flip a switch and be the person I was programmed me to be, but something in my DNA just won’t let me. Don’t fence me in, Baby – I’m a wild pony! For 20 years I’ve broken rules that irritate me, driven fast cars, smoked cigarettes, drank brown liquor, and eaten my share of fire-blackened-dead-cow every day, after I sleep in as damn much as the previous day’s hangover requires. You see, inside my dark & twisty mind, giving up booze & smokes to live a healthy lifestyle felt cosmically connected to minivans and sound financial planning. Grown-up stuff. My life is driven entirely by the “want-to”-factor, all else be damned.

Then I realized – this could be the key to my success.

All I had to do was figure out subtle ways to find the things I wanted, that also happened to be healthy for me. It wasn’t a black or white situation, a simple case of good or bad. There was a third sub-set of things I liked, that ALSO just happened to be good for me.

This was weird.

Chicken Noodle Soup was the first thing I figured out, soon there were others. I found Trader Joe’s had chicken quesadillas at 300 calories each. SCORE! Breakfast quiches at 180 calories. WIN! Mini-chicken-tacos at 600 calories for 10. AWESOME! But the daily glance in the mirror affirmed this was not going to be so easily solved. My weekly weigh-ins continued to validate that each week brought fresh challenges to my quest. I got better at my routine, I refined my plan, and yet I was still struggling with what felt to be enormous effort for just the tiniest of wins. It became tougher to maintain my routine, and easier to fall prey to my case of “fuck-it-itis”, a contagious disease of malaise and apathy.

Then the girl I’d been dating finally did something so outrageously awful, that everything changed. Filled with outrage and anger, I snapped.

I broke up with her immediately.

My soul felt like a sponge soaked in resentment, and rage. Anger fueled me, my only outlet the gym, my only sense of control felt like what I was putting in my fridge. I felt that everything had suddenly been muted. Colors were dull, food had no taste, and even smells had gone away. During February in Chicago – frozen arctic that it is – there was precious little daylight, and it was so bitterly cold that one simply hopped from temperate zone to temperate zone. House to car to office, much like living in Vegas during the summer, except it was always dark, and cold rather than hot.

I was so depressed, I didn’t even drink. The Ex had effectively separated me from my group of Happy Hour friends, but I’d also come to realize that those friendships were pretty limited, anyway. Then, a long-standing best-friend became more distant. Even my family was far away, and felt particularly unsupportive, as they’d rather liked the ex.

I was very angry. Resentment fueled me.

I learned to keep a water bottle at my desk, and I learned to fill it - both when I first came in, and when I first got in from lunch. The trick was – if it was full and THERE, I’d just drink from it and not even think about it. But if it got empty, and I realized I was thirsty, then I craved a soda. Keep it full = brain happy.

I learned to count the number of times I chewed. I know that sounds a bit crazy, but I realized if I didn’t count, I chewed about a third as much as I did when I concentrated. Suddenly, paying enough attention to count, I found most of my food was a lot tougher to chew than I'd realized! Each time my jaw clenched, it was a tiny little bit of anger being expressed. With every bite of food, I was shouting inside my own head. Each bite was a step towards hell, and I counted them all.

I was still angry. Still resentful.

I also learned other coping techniques. Between each bite, with so much more time spent on chewing, it seemed predatory to hold my fork up like a vulture ready to swoop while I chewed away. I learned to put it down. Chew. Breathe. Drink water. Breathe. Pick up fork. Bite. Chew. Put fork down. Chew. Breathe. Repeat.

I was so very angry. Resentment felt like bile in my throat.

I learned that I ate more slowly if I sat at my kitchen table rather than in front of the TV. I learned to use the smaller plates, and to limit myself to just one – no seconds! EVER! I learned that I could be happier with a LOT less, if I ate more often, and on a strict schedule. If I ate often enough to not GET too hungry, I was MUCH more likely to be able to contain myself.

Predictably, I was surprised the day things changed.

It was an incredible gift that did it. I got a puppy from my Mother. A sweet, adorable little ball of tri-color-fuzz. I’d not had a dog in several years, and the little guy helped melt my Grinch-heart. I named him Clyde.

I walked him quite often, trying to housetrain him. I’d get up early when he’d whine, to let him out so he’d learn to let me know when he had 'to go'. I went home at lunch so he’d not have to wait too long. I’d go home right after work, again, so he’d not have to wait too long.

Slowly, I began to realize, by being up earlier I was able to have a decent breakfast. That way, when I came home for lunch with Clyde, I was able to keep THAT reasonable. If I remembered to take a late afternoon snack, I wasn’t so famished when I came home at 6pm. If I had dinner stuff I’d chosen that I actually LIKED, I ate it, regardless of how healthy it was.

Then I noticed that I needed more holes in my belt, as it was loose enough it wouldn’t hold up my comfy-baggy pants.

Clyde had helped me turn the corner.

You can't tell ME that Mom's don't know just EXACTLY what the hell they're doing...

Chicken Noodle Soup Diet - Part 2


On Deployment
Originally uploaded by The Put-Man
A few years ago I tried the Seattle Sutton program. She is a registered nurse & dietician, and started her business many years ago preparing heart healthy meals for people recovering from heart surgery. She believes in a well balanced, non-fad approach to good nutrition with very flavorful foods. The meals are pre-made, all I had to do was pick them up each week and microwave until warm. In the end I didn’t succeed, but as with all my failures, I learned a lot about myself. The big news was that no matter how hungry I got, there were things I would NOT eat! Meatloaf? Nope, no way. I learned that limited menu selections just pissed me off (no substitutions). I wanted what I wanted. Forcing myself to eat things I did not like was a recipe for disaster, and led to late night deliveries from my old friend the Domino’s delivery dude. But honestly, even the days where I ate what I was supposed to, I was so ravenous by early evening that rational decisions were not possible. I would go to bed feeling like I was starving, I’d wake up hungry, and spend my workday suffering what I call “hungry headaches” with a tummy rumbling loud enough to interrupt meetings. For over a month I struggled, torturing myself every day. I ended up gaining weight that month, and quit with feelings beyond frustration.

Nothing seemed to help.

Then, a friend of mine bought me a nice heart rate monitor sport watch. Mostly she was concerned that at any moment I’d keel over dead, and me thumping my chest declaring, “Me strong like bull” simply got me a withering looks and a snappy rejoinder of “Yeah, but dumb like Ox”.

Obviously, she knows me well.

I discovered the sport watch was programmable for not only age and weight, but it also put you through a three stage workout to determine your fitness level. This allows the watch to fairly accurately determine your calories burned during a workout. I went to the gym just to try out my new gizmo, and did a pretty good workout – and was SHOCKED to see how many calories I burned. 45 minutes of cardio on the elliptical machine, and 30 minutes of good weight lifting caused me to burn 1600 calories. That number stuck in my head as I drove away from the gym. As a reward for all my hard work that evening, I stopped at Panera Bread for dinner and treated myself to my favorite food item in the whole wide world – chicken noodle soup. While waiting for my order, I happened to see a little brochure with nutritional information, and I was shocked for my second time that night. One cup of chicken noodle soup was 100 calories.

100 frickin’ calories, people!

I was astounded. How did I luck out, that my very favorite food item was HEALTHY? I drove home in a daze, and ate my soup while watching the latest episode of LOST. I didn’t realize until I was getting ready for bed later that night that I was still wearing my sport watch. Wanting to see my nice 1600 calories burned number, I was confused as to why the watch now told me 1915. Why? Because I’d not remembered to hit the “stop” button! Then it hit me.

I burned calories while watching TV!

Holy Shit. This was like the second coming. Giddy like a school kid with a new cap gun, I reset the watch, and proceeded to wear it for 24 hours straight – doing nothing special. No workout, no extra effort of any kind. My goal was to find out how many calories I burned each day…simply existing. The result was an astounding 3400 calories.

Now, I had a plan. 3400 was my daily break-even number. All I had to do each day was add up everything I ate, and subtract any extra effort. Each day’s net gain/loss was rolled into a week-to-date number. My goal was to create a net loss each week of 3500 to 7000 calories. One pound of fat equaling 3500 calories would put me at the proper 1 to 2 pounds lost each week.

For the first time ever, I started madly researching the calories of each item I ate every day. I searched for ways to make things I liked & wanted to eat that would fit within my daily calorie budget.

An example of one day’s log:

ECO = Exercise Calorie Output
DCB = Daily Calories Burned
DFI = Daily Food Intake
WTD = Week To Date
CB = Calories Burned
Hinky = My Hot-Chick-Trainer
Food Numbers xxx/yyy = calories/ calories from fat
Workout Numbers xx/yy = weight / reps

DAILY SUMMARY
WTD - +160
DFI - 2654 cal / 354 from fat (13.3%)
ECO - 2474
DCB - 3000
Total - <2820>
WTD - <2660>

WORKOUT
2 bottles water @ gym
25 min cardio w/ RPM @ 50 -65 & HR @ 130 - 155 (!)
Squats - 135/15, 135/15, 155!/15!
Ham's - 110/15, 110/14, 110/15!
Calves - 125/15, 125/15, 125/15
Quad's - 87/15, 87/15, 87/13
ABS - Hate & Skipped

BREAKFAST
634 / 26
Two bowls Corn Flakes - 366 / 4
Two English Muffins w/ fat free cream cheese - 268 / 22
Coffee

LUNCH
710 / 182
Two Sammiches w/ deli turkey & pepperjack - 610 / 162
Italian Wedding Soup - 100 / 20
Diet Coke

SNACK
FOUR 32oz Bottles Water!
Other Half of Wedding Soup (late) - 100 / 2

DINNER
1210 / 144
Two sammiches of 15 grain bread, pepperjack, Gulden's, and deli Turkey 610/162
Four Bowls Chicken Noodle Soup - 600 / 144

The Chicken Noodle Soup Diet - Part 1

This is a plan of my own invention, developed over many years of struggling with my health & fitness. I have read a ton of different “fad diet” books over the years, and always felt they were too gimmicky, unhealthy, and doomed the reader to further confusion, heartache, and lack of success.

However, most had a kernel of truth in them somewhere, and each one taught me something about myself. It was also nice to realize a few truths – one being that we are each unique & someone else’s success may not work for us – and that’s ok. The other thing I learned is that there is no substitute for doing it the old-school way – solid good nutrition & simple sweaty exercise.

I was not an overweight child, didn’t have a family history of obesity, and after High School I was a VERY physically fit US Marine for several years! I was 170lbs when I graduated from boot camp, and 4 years later was a very fit 210lbs at 6”1’. While on active duty, my eating and drinking habits were horrendous, but I constantly trained for physical fitness. Being young and lacking in personal discipline, once I was removed from a structured environment where I always HAD to be active, my weight gain was immediate and significant.

Compounding this issue - I hated grocery shopping, didn’t know much cooking, yet loved to eat. My easiest sources of food were the drive-thru & delivery. By the time I was 30, I was more than 150lbs overweight. My cholesterol & blood pressure got me unnerving lectures from the doctor, yet I refused to go on medications (the possible side effects frightened me), so I simply quit going to the doctor. I became depressed. I had no energy, and the negative cycle began to feed on itself.

My depression got serious. I felt worse about myself, and found it difficult to find women attracted to someone so overweight. The loneliness fed my depression which fed the weight gain. It began to feel like I’d dug a hole so deep there was no way out.

Just before I turned 40, I became so desperate after trying everything I could think of to lose weight, I signed up for bariatric surgery. The guy who was reluctant to take drugs was now looking at SURGERY! Then, I was further shocked to learn during pre-op that I was, literally, twice the man I used to be. I was 420lbs. I hit bottom right there, and cried. I quit the program and walked out of that office on Michigan Avenue a broken and defeated man.

I did not know where to turn.

I knew surgery wasn’t going to fix what was broken. Surgery was tempting because it would remove my own responsibility for my awful weight gain.

I beat myself up constantly for not having the basic drive and discipline to ‘grunt it out’ on my own. This, of course, just made it harder on myself. I felt like my brain knew EXACTLY what to do – after all – I’d been a Marine, and I had read EVERY damn fitness & diet book out there! But once I was in front of food, my willpower left the building. Once I came home at night and sat down in front of the TV, my energy was gone. It felt like lounging was the best way to recharge an exhausted body, but I never quite got to the point of feeling better.

Between ages 30 & 40 I’d learned a lot, regardless of having less & less success at losing weight. I had tried several different methods of getting food into my house, as I’d figured out a cornerstone of my problem was what I stuffed in my pie-hole. I’d gone to several different personal trainers, and spent a small fortune to become a very strong fat-man who’d not lost a single pound. I knew I had to find a way to do BOTH – changing my diet was not enough on its own, nor was excersise. It was going to have to be a team effort.

I’d learned that grocery delivery got me my initial food success – ordering on-line was easy, kept me away from the evil-bastard-dorito-chip aisle, and I could stay on-plan by clicking my way to success. I learned, to my chagrin – how to begin reading labels. That education seems to be ongoing, but I’m doing it. Several key-moments have occurred, like quitting regular soda, fast food, and bad pizza. Several years later, and my bad cholesterol is down more than 60 points, with NO DRUGS! I was personally responsible for a sales slump at my local Domino’s Pizza, but I learned I could find foods I really liked – that shockingly enough – wouldn’t kill me someday.

I’d learned that a personal trainer helped get me exercise success – having an APPOINTMENT at the gym made it much more likely I’d GO to the gym! I tend to do fairly well once I’m inside the front door – the whole trick is getting me TO the gym’s front door. Having a very attractive woman for my trainer seemed to help. I’m not proud of that – but a guy has to work with what motivations he has…

I’d learned I needed to track what I was doing. This evolved into several areas.

One was a simple weekly weigh-in. I’d gained enough weight over the years that a standard 350lb scale (as typically found at the Doctor’s office or the gym) was not enough to weigh me. Finding a scale that was good enough quality to accurately weigh me at my excessive weight was an important key. I had a terribly inaccurate scale that I thought would give me at least a snap-shot of any week-to-week variation – but I discovered after MONTHS of frustration that this scale was not only WILDLY wrong (45lbs less than what I really was), it could be more than 10lbs different each time I stepped on it, depending on precise placement of my feet. I could step on, step off, and directly back on – and be 10lbs different! An accurate scale made a HUGE difference. I also found that weighing myself more than once a week was counter-productive – fluctuations in water weight and so forth could produce a tremendous swing, and easily disrupt my motivation. But once a week – despite variations – should be enough time to lose enough weight that success is seen & measured.

My next tool for success was a decent heart-rate-monitor-watch. This allowed several things – the first of which was avoiding my fear of doing too much & dropping dead. Since I’m still here, that goal must be going quite well! More importantly, the watch is programmable for weight, age, and has a three-zone “fitness finder” to help you find what heart-rate is appropriate for your fitness level. This also gives the watch a fairly decent calorie-burn counter. Every 30 days I update the weight and fitness-finder. I then wear the watch for a full 24 hours of doing NOTHING, to find my base-line calories burned each day.

Lastly – I learned that writing everything down was absolutely imperative. I’d learned that if I was “logging”, I was succeeding. Once I thought I’d learned enough and gotten good enough on my own to quit logging – success ended. I have to write down each day’s individual items eaten, drank, exercised, my accomplishments, failures, frustrations & successes. It is of particular help to have this available for review by someone whose council and advice you trust. This should be someone with a vested interest in your success, like your trainer, or your work-out-buddy. Someone who motivates you, that you want to impress, yet can be totally honest with.

So, now you want to know what I do – right?