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?
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