Healthy Tomorrow Starts Today! My Weight Loss Journey
What would getting a large sum of money mean to a lot of us. I mean a substantial amount. Enough to buy the house you want, have side income of investments. Maybe quit your job and travel. It is enough of a dream for many […]
With my 38th birthday come and gone I feel very optimistic about my progress. I achieved losing over 40 lbs by that time. I am walking from 1 block when I started to 4-5km almost every day now. Many aspects of my life are seeing […]
Today was very nice to step on the scale. I have been struggling the past few weeks. My weight loss seemed to have leveled off right before hitting my first goal of losing 40lbs. It had been frustratingly stuck. Today stepping on the scale and seeing it go past the -40lb mark I had to step on again just to be sure. Even though it is only a few more pounds it is a fantastic feeling to break that number.
One of my thoughts was to be 40lbs lighter by my next birthday. My primary reason for doing this is to improve my mobility and be more healthy. I also think measuring pounds lost on its own is not the best metric in determining success in becoming more healthy. However I certainly do have ideas about what kind of weight I would like to lose even if they are not a primary goal. With my Birthday now just over a week away so it feels great to have achieved this milestone.
I have another goal in my mind as of late. That is to plan on my 40th birthday. It is a big milestone to be sure, one that can be a little hard to transition to. But the question on my mind is would if on my 40th birthday I was stronger and more fit then I have ever been in my life? What would that feel like on that day? It is still 2 years away, so not out of the realm of possibility to achieve, and certainly an interesting thought.
40lbs was a goal for my birthday but so is 45lbs as the next step. Why? Well another thing I would like to do soon is to grab a 45lb Olympic plate out of my gym and hold it up. These are the large plates you see in gyms that people load up usually for bench pressing, squatting, deadlifting etc. They are always kind of a pain to lug around and so make nice context in weight for me. I can literally hold one of these up with the perspective that I no longer constantly carry this weight around inside me. The next step after that will be to hold two of them in each hand. That will hopefully be in the summer.
It can be hard to stay positive all the time, especially when your weight loss stalls out after being steady. I know during this process it will that at times and I know it is the larger picture that matters. But despite that it still can be hard to see the same weight on the scale for days. In turn however when it does finally move again it is also a nice boost and motivator. While I do think I need to ignore the stalls, I will use the positive movement as inspiration.
I am at around the three month mark now and the difference in how I move and feel is night and day. Having written a lot about that so far and with how happy I am about that change. I have not mentioned much about […]
Today was a fun day! I decided right before my walk that instead of going to my normal area I would try something new. I decided to call a friend and see if they wanted to go for a little hike. What was so fun […]
Today I was mowing the lawn yet again and it was becoming overwhelming obvious how productivity increases with this lifestyle change. The thing I realized yesterday, and was so obvious today was that I had zero back pain. Up until now I have been enjoying so much regaining my mobility I simply did not care if there was still some pain. I have likened this process to having chains lifted off of me one by one and today it feels like they are gone. I feel absolutely pain fee, and it is fantastic.
I speculated at the start of this process that almost every aspect of my life could be improved in some way by eating better, losing weight and exercising. Being able to keep up with maintaining things like grass and yard work has been one of those things. I figured I would be able to do more and be more busy with my time, which has turned out to be true. However a by-product I did not consider is that It also indirectly gave me more time in my day instead of taking it away.
Some grass cutting with no pain!
“I am finding to the contrary exercise pays you dividends in the most valuable asset we have, our time. “
The last time I mowed the grass it took me an hour and a half with little pain. This was so much better than the half a day it had been taking me in excruciating pain before. But yesterday I managed the yard in only just over one hour and with zero pain. Each little victory adds to not only what I can do, but how much I can do in a day. People feel they do not have enough minutes or hours in their day for exercise. What I found to the contrary exercise pays you dividends in the most valuable asset we have, our time. This can be in the form of time added to your lifespan, your efficiency to complete mundane tasks or just your enjoyment of the time you have. It has become clear that it is the best investment you can ever make.
Weight loss to Date -32.8lbs Today I feel very strong, not just physically but in many aspects. I am learning the strength you gain when you convert your lifestyle is not just the weight you can lift. The lifestyle change strengthens your ability to withstand […]
Weight loss to date -30.2lbs Trying to quantify how much better I feel on week seven is hard to do. Not because it is hard to find what is improving, but so many things are improving at once. I am now noticing a difference and […]
Weight loss to date 29.8lbs
As I am progressing through this weight loss and lifestyle change I am constantly reassessing things. My activity, my eating, my reasons for doing this. It seems like each day my activity increases and my ideas around food seem to be changing as well. How and why I choose to eat and what I choose to eat has done a turnabout.
When you deal with overeating such as myself the reasons for that overeating and or choosing the wrong things to eat are complicated. But one aspect that is easy to identify is using food as a way to feel better about other aspects of your life. It gives you a positive feeling to look forward to a pizza night, or a large ice cream in the evening. This positive feeling doesn’t last long as I then feel sluggish, bloated and unhappy. It is a system of eating that has no logic, but lots of emotion. It is a cycle that feeds into itself that constructs a relationship with food that is both unhealthy and warped.
How I have been changing my viewpoint on food these last few weeks is a great contrast. When I was young, and interested in fitness I remember a TV ad. It went something like this, a super fit person gets out of a sports car at a gas station. The commentary goes on about how you only feed a machine like this the best. The ad pretends to be of course talking about the beautiful car and how you must look after it. However the twist ends up being the commentator referring to the person and what they eat. We take care of our cars but not the machine we are given. My body has always been strong, in fact I won a Provincial Bench Press championship back in 2009. Sometimes it feel like my body was a machine like a muscle car, able to bench press 500lbs. But I have neglected it, let it rust, not changed the oil, running on bald tires. It is time for a restoration and to treat my body with quality food as a fuel to run and maintain it.
I do not want to suggest my ultimate goal is to look a certain way. My goal is to move, be more active and appreciate this machine I am given to function in the world no matter how I look. It is to put quality foods in my system to make me feel good, and exercise as my new way to be happy. Right now I am lifting weights again every morning and walking 4km every day. Only six weeks ago I had back pain trying to get my mail just one block away. What is even more exciting is that I am now looking forward to my walks. I am looking forward to a healthy smoothie in the morning to fuel up. It is the same feeling as looking forward to my pizza night, but with the good feelings continuing on afterwards. This process is not just about living longer it is also about living happier.
Weight loss to date 21.4lbs I first talked about walking at the Spit in my Week 3 update. It is a great place to walk due to its many benches and wonderful scenery. Today was definitely a new millstone in my walking and mobility as […]
