what a cheater!

Guess who went out to lunch with work (including pita bread and several french fries) and then proceeded to eat brownie bites? LINNEA! She’s a CHEATER! Not to mention she’s going back out to lunch with a friend tomorrow, and a bridal shower on Saturday. Man, that really makes me feel like a schmuck. I’m so hungry right now. Sooooo hungry. We don’t even know what we’re having for dinner. This is a code red! I just want to go to Chili’s or something. I repeat, CODE RED! Somebody better make me a healthy dinner soon or I’m getting a burger (and fries).

i forgot…

I weighed myself this morning, but forgot what it was. it was 261.something. At least a pound, I remember that much. Forgetting the decimal is unacceptable so I’m not listing it. Anyway, I was right. I knew the 2 pound loss after 1 day was inaccurate. Now I’m beginning to see my scale’s true colors. Or, the 3 slices of angel-food cake I ate on Tuesday weren’t so light and fluffy after all. They were pretty small though.

Advice: (*TMI alert*) You should always weigh yourself at the same time of day. On occasion I’ve been >5lbs heavier at night than in the morning. Thus, I weigh myself in the morning. If you want to make yourself feel better about it, weigh after a poop, and before breakfast, if possible. Depending how regular you are, that could give you that extra pound you were looking for.

Forum: I think we have a decent amount of people interested in joining the forum. I think I’m going to start it soon, so I hope everyone who expressed interest will actually participate, otherwise it’ll be a big waste of a domain registration. I’ll keep you posted. Any recommendations on what should be included with the site, outside of the actual forum?

day 2.5 begins

It’s not really day 3 since yesterday was our scheduled “don’t count” day. I didn’t splurge, which is good. I have some advice about cheating days below. Today is the make or break day of the week. It’s hump day, and I didn’t keep track of points yesterday. We’ll see how today goes. I don’t have a weight update because I haven’t weighed myself yet today. Deep stuff huh?

I’ve got 5 people intereseted in starting a public accountability weight loss forum with me. 5 more and we’re in business. I’d start it right now, but my wife won’t let me buy the domain name for it until 10 people have expressed interest. So fellow fatsos, express interest! Anyway, to the business:

Advice: Everyone goes off their diet for one reason or another. When I’m being serious about it, my only reasons are when we have dinner events with friends. I’d say only about 1 in 4 times we actually count points. Otherwise I pretend beer is zero points (it’s 3, 2 for lite). When I’m not being serious about it a high stress day will make me convince Linnea we need to eat out. Another big reason is we didn’t take anything out for dinner.

So, to the actual advice. If you go off your diet, only do it for one day. We would usually just neglect the rest of the week. This leads to splurging and trying to “eat it while I can,” before the new week of dieting begins. DON’T DO IT! We’ve also found that making a weekly dinner menu virtually eliminates the “what should we have? oh, let’s go out” aspect.

survive day one? check.

Day one went as I expected. When I thought about food, I wanted it, whether I was full or not. The idea of knowing you can only have so much just makes me want it more. Oh well, like my first post title says, I’m addicted to food. It just tastes so good. While I normally won’t give “updates” on a daily basis, I decided that, since I just started, I would anyway. Overall, day one was a success, I only used one of my flex points. As a recap, if you don’t know what I’m talking about, the weight watchers points system (well, the old one if it’s changed) gives you a certain number of daily points based on your weight and gender (30 in my case), and 35 weekly “flex” points. These points are based on calorie, fat and fiber content. So to the update…

Weight loss: 2.0 lbs. I’m not marking this at daytum.com/diberard, because I fluctuate by more than 5 pounds throughout the day. Granted, both weigh-ins were in the morning, but I’m only showing this to brag. It’s only been a day and that could swing back the other way tomorrow.

Cheating?: Technically, I had a “pinch” of shredded cheddar that I didn’t count. It’s a wash because I never exactly measure all my servings when I’m following WW anyway, but it still works (assuming I stick to it for more than 1 week).

Today will be our designated cheating day, we have our bi-weekly bible study/dinner. We’ll count 5 flex (35/7 days), and be done with it.

Advice: (pertaining to the above statement) I’ve actually heard though, that diets are MUCH more effective if you have one day where you don’t calorie count. Otherwise, your metabolism adjusts to the lower calorie intake and you burn less.

Forum anybody?: So I learned there is a really cool domain name I would use if this “public-accountability” weight loss system picks up interest. Anyway, please email me (or comment) your interest if you think you’d post either weight loss stories, struggles, advice, etc. Since I’m poor, I’ll need some “donors” to buy the domain (it’s only $10/yr), but then I bet if I threw Google’s Adsense on it we’d recoup the cost. Let me know, I think it would be a cool support system for people like me who always “wait ’til next Monday” to start their diet.

and so it begins…

Weighed myself this morning to kick-off the public accountability weight loss plan. I’ll be weighing myself once a week or more, which you can track at daytum.com/diberard. I think I’m going to start using tags so that I can have multiple topics per post, rather than limiting myself with the categories. I also have one person “considering” joining me in my quest. I’m sure Linnea would join too. If I get one or two more interests, I’ll probably figure out how to start a forum on this site, and then set everyone up with their own blogs too. I’m open to suggestion on the format. Ok, so to the business:

Starting Weight: 262.8 lbs*
*This is the fattest I’ve ever been, ouch. I’ve passed my previous high score by 1.8 lbs, so it’s not so bad, but considering I was around 235 lbs 2.5 years ago, it sucks.

Goals: My goals need to be split up because I plan on losing a lot of weight. I think the usual is a 10% weight loss, which would put me at about 235 lbs again. This is a nice number so:
Goal 1: 235 lbs
Goal 2: 215 lbs
Goal 3: 200 lbs (optional)

I’ll post when I update my numbers, work out, or cheat. Don’t look for a work out today, I’m super busy and we went on walks 3 days in a row this weekend. I’ll also be posting random stuff about how I’m doing, what’s tempting me (first one below), advice, etc. You can look for all these topics in the tags list. Enjoy!

First temptation: Of course, the very first thing I plan to eat on my diet has to tempt me. I went to pour some corn pops for breakfast, and it just so happened the awesome star trek badge was near the top, so it came out, but it forced a ton of pops with it. I’m talking about 2-3 times the amount I wanted to eat (1 serving ~1 cup, w/ milk = 3pts). I stayed strong and put the extra back.

First day strategy: I’m working from home today because I have no class or meetings. This can lead to trouble because I have constant access to food. I started the day by pushing back my cereal time to after I dropped Louis off at daycare, hoping that will help me until lunch, or even have a later lunch. That would help me avoid afternoon snacks, and be amazing. We’ll see  how it goes, I only get 30 points.

hello, i’m a fatso, and i’m addicted to food and lazy

I have decided to start this website to create a public accountability for my weight loss actions. Since my initial attemt at following the weight watchers points system (where i lost 40 pounds in 3 months with no exercise outside of walking to class), i have completed about 2 full weeks following weight watchers without cheating. That was 4 years ago. I suck. I’m fat. I’m addicted to food. I’m addicted to being lazy and not doing anything about it. It needs to stop. I need to start fitting back into all my pants. My extra-large shirts need to stop getting tighter.

I’m officially starting tomorrow. I plan on keeping you updated to my weight (at least weekly) and work outs on my daytum.com profile. When I update those, I’ll let you know here in the “big fat updates” category. I’ll also let you know when (I mean if) I cheat on following the weight watchers points system. It’s a fancy way to count calories, and I get 30 points/day with 35 extra “flex” points/week. The one rule I’m implementing with my wife Linnea, is that we don’t count on Tuesdays (Bible study dinner) and deduct 5 of our flex points. I’ll also be posting some about my experience, how I’m dealing with the public accountability, etc. in the “big fat thoughts” category.

Please feel free to offer your support. I’m also hosting this myself, so if there is an interest by some more fatsos I can set you up as contributors, get you your own fatso email, set up a mailing list, etc., so let me know if you’re interested. I’m thinking a forum would be a nice touch too.