WEIGHT LOSS INTRODUCTION

Disclaimer

This a not a guideline for others to follow to lose weight. This is only the record of my weight loss journey. I hope that reading my stories and seeing my progress will inspire you to follow your own path tailored to your specific body type and needs. Consult a physician if you intend to lose weight. These journal entries will help me stay faithful to my goals.

The format of this blog post will be different and longer than future entries. For my initial health post, I wanted to give additional background about myself and more in depth reviews of calories of certain foods, which won’t be necessary to touch on in the future.

My Background

I am overweight. In fact, I am classified as obese. At least I’m living up to the American stereotype, right? ‘Murica!

Anyway, this is an extremely uncomfortable thing for me to discuss because it is one of the few things about myself that I am self-conscious about. But that is why I’m here!

I am a male and 5’11” (180.3 cm). According to the Body Mass Index (BMI) guidelines, my healthy weight should be between 132.6 and 179.2 pounds (60 – 81 kg). Although, I do feel that 132 is far too low for me. Also, weight can be subjective, since body builders can easily weigh more than that with basically no fat.

It may surprise you to hear this, and hold your shock the best you can, I am no body builder. My weight is fat.

I began my weight loss journey when I was over 230 pounds (104 kg). I couldn’t stand to look at myself anymore, especially from the side. Looking straight on at myself doesn’t appear as bad as it does when I see just how far my stomach hangs out.

I was not a healthy person. I didn’t eat poorly, I very rarely ate fast food, but I did consume far too much on a daily basis. Much more than anyone not training for a triathlon should eat.

When I first decided it was time to make a change, I cut out alcohol, soda, and coffee from my diet. I don’t have an alcohol problem in the slightest, but I would generally drink a beer or glass of wine each night while I was cooking dinner. Those are completely empty calories and not necessary. I will still drink if I’m with friends or celebrating something, but it stopped being a drink a night.

As far as soda goes, I had stopped enjoying it for the most part. I still crave it sometimes, but that was the easiest thing for me to give up. I usually drank a glass with dinner each night. I will say, if I am offered Dang! Butterscotch Rootbeer, I will never refuse it (fortunately it’s not sold at grocery stores or anywhere near me). It’s like liquid crack. It’s exactly what I would imagine Butterbeer in Harry Potter to taste like.

I drank a cup of coffee with far too much creamer (no sugar, though) almost every night after dinner. I had quit altogether until I discovered Donut Shop Coconut Mocha coffee. So good! Now I have maybe one or two cups a week, with far less creamer. I have never enjoyed or needed coffee in the morning, so I don’t have to worry about that fix.

Even with those changes, I wasn’t seeing very drastic results. I had lost some weight initially, down to 228 pounds (103 kg). But afterward, I fluctuated between 225 and 227 pounds (102 - 103 kg) and wasn’t getting any lower. My caloric intake was still too high, so I wasn’t able to burn as many as I was taking in.

What I Want

My goal is to reach 170 pounds (77 kg). That was my weight before college, many years ago. 60 pounds from my highest weight!

How did I gain so much weight since then?

I used to eat very poorly. I constantly ate fast food and too much of it. That increased my weight, but it wasn’t until I began a new job after graduating college that it skyrocketed.

They offered a cafeteria-style employee room with free food. Most of the food was less than healthy. Granted, they offered salads as well, which I would have at times with about a gallon of salad dressing. And more often than not, my coworkers and I didn’t want what was being served, so we would get take out. Pizza, In-N-Out, Chick-fil-A, Del Taco. . . whatever, it seemed, would be the unhealthiest thing we could possibly eat.

I walked quite a lot (and sometimes ran) working there, but the amount of food I was eating increased drastically from what I ate during college. It increased the size of my stomach so much that I pretty much needed more and more food to feel satisfied, a practice that continued long after quitting the job.

What I’m Doing About It

When I noticed that I wasn’t losing any weight from restricting my alcohol, coffee, and soda intake, I knew I had to make other changes.

I began a short workout regimen inside my apartment. I started with a 7-minute workout app on my phone. Before you say anything, I know 7 minutes won’t bring about any significant change or improvements. I was/am extremely out of shape and overweight, and if I started with something more extreme, I could have injured myself.

That, and I have a history of knee and back problems if I’m not careful. The knee pain was a result of running too often (yes, I used to run all the time) without stretching properly. The back injury was caused by an errant helium tank. They normally don’t cause problems, unless I do certain exercises without stretching. The weight obviously doesn’t relieve any of the pressure on those parts of my body.

I started the 7-minute workout on May 19th and have increased the duration since then. I would love to perform more physical fitness outside, but it’s not possible where I live.

My reasons are twofold:

1. It’s excruciatingly hot here, as you can see by the image on the right.
2. I [temporarily] live in the city with one of the worst rated air qualities in the country. Every time I go outside, I begin coughing. This has never happened to me anywhere else.

This makes it difficult to be active outside and why I try to get creative inside my apartment.

Over a month had gone by and still I wasn’t seeing any change in my weight.

On June 24th, I decided to do the one tried and proven technique to weight loss: caloric deficit! I began counting all of the calories I was eating and this is when I finally started seeing a change.

For me, I need to eat just under 2,400 calories a day to maintain my weight (no weight gain or loss).

The general rule of thumb, although this greatly depends on your current weight, body type, health, etc, is that you need to reduce calorie intake by 500 calories to lose one pound a week or 1,000 calories for two pounds.

I initially decided to aim at 1,500 calories a day. It was a good round number and I hoped it would be achievable.

Revelations About Calories

I truly realized how much I was eating when I started paying attention to every calorie I was ingesting.

Alas, the first day I chose to count calories, I was all but out of food in my kitchen. I pretty much only had flour tortillas, cheese, salsa and sour cream for lunch. “A quesadilla it is!” I thought.

Do you realize how many damn calories are in one fracken quesadilla??? Let’s break it down, shall we?

• 2 flour tortillas = 420 calories (210 each)
• ¼ cup of shredded cheese = 110 calories. ¼ cup doesn’t even cover a tortilla, so I had to double it = 220 calories
• 2 tablespoons sour cream = 80 calories (Some may think sour cream isn’t a necessary addition to quesadillas. Those people are wrong.)
• Salsa = 10 calories
• Total = 730 calories

That is actually a relatively small quesadilla for me, cheese-wise. Back in the day, I probably used nearly a cup of cheese in one quesadilla, and I would eat two of those for one meal! Not to mention, I cooked them in a pan with oil to get them crispy and melty and delicious. This time, I didn’t even want to deal with oil calories, so I cooked it in the oven.

I should note, these are all store bought items. There is a Mexican supermarket pretty close to me that makes some of the best flour tortillas I have ever had. I imagine those ones have even more calories, but I’m not sure.

My takeaway from my quesadilla incident, besides the fact that I would probably never eat another one again, was that one is half of my caloric intake for one day. After dinner that day, I was at my limit. I went to bed pretty hungry and not sure if I would be able to maintain a 1,500 calorie diet.

My roommate had bought Oreo’s. I love Oreo’s, they’re cookie crack (why do I keep saying crack?). But two cookies are 140 calories. I could easily eat 4 with a large glass of milk (around 1 ½ cups). That alone is 490 calories!

It’s insane to me how many calories certain things are. I wondered how I could cut so many calories without starving myself. Being constantly hungry is counterproductive to weight loss and causes the body to go into emergency mode.

Anyway, after that day, I began looking into everything I could eat and started calculating meals. It’s actually not so bad and I can eat most of the things I used to cook, with some modifications and portion control. I used to be terrible at portion control, but knowing how many calories are in a meal prevents me from putting more on my plate than I should eat.

My Results Thus Far

Through June 30th, I made rough estimates about how many calories I was ingesting. On July 1st, I started counting and recording every single calorie. It’s actually a lot easier than you think and I don’t find it necessary to get an app or program to do so for you, especially since a lot of the calories online seem to differ from the labels on the products I use.

Eating smaller portions has become increasingly easier. I have learned to have small snacks (fruit, yogurt, veggies, etc) through the day to curb any cravings or meal binging. I have never been a fan of yogurt, but I really enjoy Icelandic-style skyr. Unfortunately, the closest grocery store to me that sells it is in Guam (I say Guam when something is far away) so I have begun eating flavored Greek yogurt, which is pretty similar.

My problem with food has always been the fact that I love cooking. . . and I love eating the food I make even more. Usually on a giant plate.

I was worried I would have to change my entire menu, but there are only a few meals that I used to make that would be too many calories to be worth preparing.

On July 3rd, I chose to aim at 1,346 calories a day. This is exactly 1,000 calories less per day than I need to maintain my weight. Going too far less can be unhealthy.

Surprisingly, on some days I actually find it difficult to eat as many calories as I need. I have to eat a snack at night to ensure I’m not too low. That’s a drastic difference, especially after just over 2 weeks of calorie counting!

There was one day where I ate under 1,100 calories. I can’t stress enough how bad this is and I am not recommending it for anyone. I was going to eat more, but I was tired and went to bed instead. And I laid in bed for 4 hours wide awake and hungry. Yay insomnia!

I have written enough. You came here for results. I have been weighing myself every day since June 26th, a couple days after counting calories. These are the numbers and calories eaten each day, when recorded:

Date	Pounds	Kilograms	Caloric Intake
26 June 2016	224.1 lb	101.65 kg	NR
27 June 2016	222.6 lb	100.97 kg	NR
28 June 2016	222.9 lb	101.11 kg	NR
29 June 2016	222.2 lb	100.79 kg	NR
30 June 2016	221.6 lb	100.52 kg	NR
01 July 2016	220.8 lb	100.15 kg	1,071 calories
02 July 2016	220.9 lb	100.20 kg	1,550 calories
03 July 2016	220.5 lb	100.02 kg	1,225 calories
04 July 2016	219.2 lb	99.43 kg	1,248 calories
05 July 2016	218.8 lb	99.25 kg	1,419 calories
06 July 2016	218.6 lb	99.16 kg	1,319 calories
07 July 2016	217.9 lb	98.84 kg	1,340 calories
08 July 2016	218.1 lb	98.93 kg	1,291 calories
09 July 2016	217.7 lb	98.75 kg	1,396 calories
10 July 2016	216.8 lb	98.34 kg	---

I have lost 5.8 pounds since June 27th! I can’t recall how long it has been since I have weighed this little and I couldn’t be happier that I am finally losing weight. I still have a long way to go before I reach my goal. 47 more pounds, in fact. But I am on my way!

I’m not counting the 26th because a number of factors can be involved with that large of a difference between days, including water weight. My weight loss has been on a steady and normal decline since the 27th. It was even higher on June 24th, which is why I didn’t include it here.

I am sorry for the extemely long post. Future health-related journal entries won't be nearly this extensive. If you made it to the end, I applaud you. Thanks for your support!