week 35/36:

Wow, it really seems like a long time between posts since I've decided to do this every two weeks. I actually almost forgot about doing it this week. Anyways....weighed in on Saturday after my 6 mile run, lol I know, 6 miles who would have ever thought I'd say that, and the scaled showed 246 this time. 3 more pounds gone and lost forever! That brings the total to 76 friggin' pounds! I'm only 26 pounds away from that goal of 220, I still struggle to wrap my head around the magnitude of the whole thing.

Lately I have not been very UNappreciative of the congratulations and well wishes that have been passed onto me. I'm sorry to any of you that felt slighted for giving me praises and did not receive the appropriate thanks. Part of it for me, I guess, is that I know that I'm not at my goal yet, and it feels a bit premature to celebrate my accomplishment. Having once gone through a big weight loss stretch before, I know that there is plenty of potential for failure even at this point. While I don't think I can be derailed this time, especially if I'm still losing weight in my current mood, I do understand your sentiment and intentions, but there is that piece of me that wants to say "hold your applause until the end." The other reason would be my mood/mental state. Yes I'm still struggling to put that awful day behind me. I'm doing everything I can to get by it all, including some things I never thought I would do. I can't explain why I'm letting this linger; I just know I hurt because of my actions and I just can't seem to forgive myself for them. Maybe its because I never have done anything like that before. I have always buried my feelings and swallowed my pains in order to avoid hurting someone's feelings. I just need a way to move on. Thanks to all of my really special friends who have tried so hard to pull me out of my mood. Even if it may not seem it, I do listen to everything you have to say and I want you to know I'm trying. Believe me when I say I do appreciate the support even if I seem ungrateful right now and that goes for everyone.

I did go out to do some shopping a couple of weeks ago, and for the first time since probably high school I actually bought clothes from one of those "trendy" mall stores. I don't know if you've ever noticed but places like the Gap and American Eagle don't exactly cater to the big folks. Bought a few pretty cool LARGE t-shirts, yeah thats right not XL but L. Also needed some shorts because I have none the even come close to fitting any more. I was super stoked when I grabbed a pair of size 40 cargo shorts and they were WAY to loose, hahaha! So I can cross off another of my bigger goals from the list and that goal was to wear pants/shorts smaller than size 40. The shorts I bought are a size 38!!! Very cool, indeed. I've tried to jog my brain but all the alcohol between high school and now have fuzzied my memory; I have no idea when I last wore pants this small. Anyone wanna bet I can get to a 34??

Now that spring has sprung you all have no excuse but to get your buts out there and do something to improve your health. Take the kids on a bike ride, go for a walk with your girl/guy, just go do something!

Here is something that has been bouncing around in my mind but I don't really know how to pursue it. I would love some advice from anyone who may have an idea. Once I have completely gotten myself out of the "obese" category, which they say I still am even though I can run six miles in under an hour (grumble...stupid body mass index what do you know), I would like a way to get actively involved with breaking the obesity cycle that is destroying so many lives. I know that I am a fat kid because my parents fed me bad foods and never really got any kind of healthy living education. I became aware of this one day when my niece came over after school. There were donuts on the counter in the kitchen and when she saw them she said "I so deserve this donut." I thought 'wow really? Who deserves a donut?' and proceeded to discuss with her why she thought she deserved a donut. That kind of mentality she displayed only leads to weight issues. I never really thought about how poorly we use food until that moment. I have also seen it when my mother is babysitting the grandkids, the typical meal involves some combo of the following: french fries, hot dogs, ring bologna, Doritos, and pizza. I have always teased my mom that it is her fault that I was fat, but I was always referring to how good her cooking is, not the nutritional quality or lack there of. There is a cycle that needs to be broken in order to save kids from the fate that I have suffer through. Part of it is getting parents to understand what they are doing to their kids by letting McD's become there favorite food group and the other part is motivating kids to learn about nutrition and get them exercising. Sorry I started getting preachy again, but anyone of you have asked for my help know that I can get rather passionate about this weight loss thing and helping those that want it. This is something I really think I could become heavily involved with if I can find a way. If you have any thoughts as to how to get myself into this please let me know.

Week 33/34

Sorry I had the intention of writing Friday, but my days seem to be short a few hours lately. Anyway, I weighed in on Friday and we did it, we cracked the 250 barrier...stepped on the scaled and slid the big block out to the 250 mark and the needle said I had to much weight on the scale, and the big smile came on my face as I slid the big block back to the 200 mark, hahaha bye bye 250! Now of course the needle immediately slams up because now we must slide the little block way out to the end. We stop at 249 and the needle levels out. So here I am at 249 pounds, just 29 away from the big goal. The total loss is now at a staggering 73 pounds. I thought about that a lot this weekend, and went back to the idea proposed by Dan DeLong to put the weight I lost into a backpack and lug it around for a bit. Well I didnt have anything that I could fit into a backpack that weighed 73 pounds so I just started to think about what would weigh 73 pounds. 4.5 full size bowling balls, two of those water cooler water bottles (each nearly ful), my 6 yr old nephew Noah holding a newborn twins, a quarter-barrell of your favorite adult beverage, and so on. When you start putting it into perspective it's pretty scary how fat I was.


Thanks to all who posted on my before and after pics on Fb. If you missed the photos go here. I wish I was in a better place to appreciate all of your positive words a little more, but I'm not. It is hard to believe that I could be appathetic about losing nearly 75 pounds and looking so much better, but I'm just not shaking my current mood. It sucks to feel this way but I'm working on it. Hopefully the coming of Spring and some warm sunshine helps. Maybe I will elaborate some more when I feel a little more comfortable about talking about it.

Just so I don't end on a down note: I am into my third full week of training for The Tough Mudder. I've ran more in the past three weeks than I have in the past 8 years total. hahaha.... The training plan has me running three times a week, slowly increasing my distances in order to get me close to the 7 miles needed for the Mudder. Sundays are when I run a greater distance and this week I was slated to run 3 miles, I went to the Body Zone and got on the treadmill and started going. When I got to mile 3 I decided I was feeling to good to stop and figured I'd keep running until I really started to feel tired. I got to mile 4 before I started to sense a little fatigue so I figured that it would be a good time to start backing down and ran another 1/4 mile during my cool down. Total distance ran 4.3 miles, I still can't believe I ran that. guess we'll try for 5 next Sunday.

Week 32: 220 by 2/20, unfortunately no.

I know its not Monday, but being that my birthday is this weekend and I plan to abuse my body (food and booze) the whole weekend, I figured that it would be best to weigh in today rather than Monday. So after an hour of Body Combat at the gym, I stepped up to the scale....did I magically lose the last 36 pounds I needed to in order to get to 220 by 2/20 in the final week?? lol No but I did lose 2 pounds since the last weigh in. The current weight is 254 and the total comes to 68 pounds!!!

RECAPPING THE LAST 8 MONTHS:

When I began this blog its sole purpose was accountability. I know how easy it is to give up on yourself when you are the only one expecting a change. The more I had thought about the dramatic nature of my goal, I knew that at some point I would need more than self motivation to get me through some tough times and keep me on the right track. That is why I invited you all into my life for these past 8 months. It amazes me that so many of you have taken an interest in all of this. It has gotten so crazy that I have received emails from people I don't even know that read my blog and they all wish me well. I knew if I made my goal so very public then I would be able to add a big heaping pile of guilt and shame if I quit. Believe me when I say this, the blog has a lot to do with my success to this point. There were a few moments of doubt as to whether I wanted to keep this up, the biggest moment is the one I'm dealing with right now. What I really didn't expect was that I would open up so much and expose my feelings and emotions as I did. I still regret, and probably will forever regret, exposing my disappointment and anger in that ugly post directed at a great girl about a month ago. I've never wanted to take back anything in my life more than that moment. Of course it hasn't been all bad, regretful moments. We were able to share some very exciting times together. The "new pants" post is still one of my favorites just because of the happiness I was feeling. FYI those jeans I bought that day can now be removed without undoing the button or zipper. So I guess it won't be long before another "new pants" post appears hahaha. So I thank you all for joining me on this trek through weight loss and personal change. I have had more than a few people tell me that they have been inspired by my journey and that they have started their own. It is such an amazing thing to be the source of inspiration. I wish all of you success in your own journeys. To all of you, your presence has been a huge factor in my success. Please keep reading.

SOME CONCRETE RESULTS:
Outside of the weight there are a few tangible bits of data I can share with you to show my results.

• Waist size has dropped 10" from 50" to 40"
• I've dropped 9" of chub from around my chest and 8" from my hips
  
• 2.5" of fat from my upper arms (biceps) This one seems odd cuz I think my arms look bigger, but I guess that's cuz I can see the bi/tri muscles.
• My body fat dropped 25%, down from 31% body fat (this is using a home based measure test I don't know it's accuracy)
• The horrible useless BMI number has dropped from 41.2 to 32.6 According to this I'm getting dangerously close to only being overweight and not obese.
  

WHERE DO WE GO FROM HERE?

So now we must begin a new chapter to this crazy odyssey. With 34 pound left to lose in order to reach my goal, we will start by giving the Project a new slogan. "100 pounds - 1 year!" What that means is that by July 4th weekend I WILL be at the goal weight of 220. While I am more than happy with the progress I have made with PDD, but I am a little disappointed that I didn't get a little closer to my goal weight in these 8 months. Unrealistic as the original goal may have been, I can look back at my time and I know that there were days that I could have been better. One other change I'm gonna make to all of this is that I'm gonna cut down on the frequency of my posts. AS I get closer to 220 the harder it is to shed a pound so I will try to post every other week or when I got something important to get out, keep an eye on facebook for my updates.

Sometimes when we make long term goals they can become easy to push to the side when things get boring and progress slows. So thanks to my wonderful friend, Laura, I have found a brand new objective to focus my efforts on. Many of you will think that I am insane when you check out the link that I'm about to provide, but this is EXACTLY what I need right now. I am still bogged down by my disappointing behavior a month ago and workouts have suffered. My focus has been way off, probably from the depression I have been fighting. Because of the insane nature of this event I will be throwing myself into training with more gusto than I have yet to provide, there will be no room for self pity, "time to nut up or shut up." Following the inevitable birthday hangover, I will begin training, big thanks to Nicole for the 10k run training plan, for what will be the craziest thing I will have ever done. So with no further ado I invite you to checkout The Tough Mudder to be held at Bear Creek Ski area. Take a minute to check it out, I'll wait.........Yeah I think I am crazy too! Sometimes in life we must really test ourselves, this will truly do it for me. I can't even begin to explain how amped I am for this challenge!

Once again thank you all so much for the support, couldn't have done it without you!!! If you're not doing anything Saturday night I will be out and about in Fleetwood celebrating. Grand Central Taproom has DJ/karaoke after 10p, get me drunk enough and maybe I'll sing you a song.

PS I am in the process of creating a photo album of before and now pics. I will put it on facebook ASAP.