Kyle's Diary

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Don't be embarrassed, Kyle.You haven't given up, which is the main thing. Perhaps list what you eat on a normal day & you will get some feedback. Keeping track of calories at least for a week or two helps give you an idea of what you are consuming. Welcome back :)
 
Hi Cate! Thanks for reaching out to me. I will take your advice and list out my eating habits, though I don't know much about the calories.

Breakfast: Chopped green apple + vanilla Greek yogurt + nuts

Lunch: Some protein (salmon, tofu, omelet, or chicken) and steamed veggies

Snack: raisins and nuts

Dinner: Same as lunch

I drink coffee with a cream and sugar in the morning. All water after that.

Exercise is irregular. Trying to fit it in more and more when possible.
 
Today my company had a bbq. I got a little down because I didn't join it and everyone seemed to having fun. But I just didn't want to throw off my progress for a little fun.

I have stopped adding cream or sugar to my coffee the last couple days. And I did a great 2hr workout at the gym yesterday. My weight was down to 264.4# this morning. Hopefully it will go down more by tomorrow morning.
 
At the end of last month, I started feeling this spirit of determination. I always allow myself to not take my health seriously, making the excuse that being obsessed with the physical is unholy or ungodly. But I decided that I am not going to make any excuses like this anymore, no matter how I feel emotionally. I am going to keep working on my weight, even if other things in my life are making me miserable. I can't keep depending on my circumstances to be favorable in order to take my health seriously. It is inevitable that painful situations will come my way now and then, and I from now on I am not going to use them as excuses to give up on my health. I am not going to blame my ambition for a healthy body for my misfortunes, no matter how guilty I feel.

Do I make sense? I often wonder if anyone else has a similar inner struggle like me, feeling guilty for putting my health first. Am I alone in this faulty thought pattern? I wonder how I got this way...
 
I don't think you should ever put your health behind everything else. It should have high priority & you should not feel guilty.
 
Yes, I agree. I go to church regularly, but strangely in my church it almost never comes up as an issue that godly people need to care about. Maybe people think it's just too obvious? Well it's not really, or more people would take their health seriously. Though I am sure that a deeper look at religious teachings would reveal the importance of taking responsibility for your physical health.

I am going to host a family night later this month for young families in my church, and I think I will focus on how the Bible encourages taking care of ones health, if I can find some good examples. Honestly, during Biblical times I doubt there was an obesity epidemic like we have in the western world today. But I think that I will be able to find something good. Even if I can't, it will be interesting to do the research.
 
kstadelh said:
Greetings. I am 30, and I recently reached my record high weight around 280 lbs. I have been stuck around this weight for the past 6 months or so. I have been biking 10 miles per day as my way to get to work and back. I thought the biking alone would make me lose weight, but it didn't. So I started skipping breakfast and not eating sweets (cake, ice cream, candy, etc.). I had done this a few years earlier for about year, and it had worked for me. But after I got married I gave up the diet and my weight climbed back up. This time when I tried the diet again, I started losing weight initially, but when I went through a stressful time at work, I rebelled against my diet and went back up to about 280 lbs.. I tried counting calories on my phone, but I didn't see much progress with my weight loss. So I recently I tried getting back on the same diet again, but I had no willpower left and I kept rebelling against it.

A couple days ago I just broke down and started crying. I had so much desire to lose weight. I had been overweight almost all of my life, and I wanted to change my life for the better and long-term. The problem was that I didn't have any knowhow or guidance about how to eat healthy, which made it seem impossible to make any progress. In the middle of my cry, I started searching online for some books about weight loss. Amazon had Dr. Phil's 20/20 Diet book, and I read the sample. Reading the sample made me cry even more because it described exactly what I have been going through. It said that I can only do this when I am truly ready to make the change, and I knew then that I was ready. I immediately bought the audiobook for $15. One of the points the book makes is that it can be very beneficial to join a weight loss forum, like this one, which is why I joined this website. As I write I see that just keeping a journal clears things up a lot.

Two days before I started the diet, I weighed 277. The morning of the second day of the diet (today), I weighed 272! 5 lbs. in 2 day! I was shocked because I had been struggling to lose weight for a while, and 272 was about the lowest I had been able to get. In retrospect, I think the sudden drop in weight is due to the cleansing function, which is part of the first 5 days of the diet. But who cares? 5 lbs. is 5 lbs.! I did it!

The thing I like about this diet is that it is designed to keep people from rebelling and giving up. The book says that the only way to lose weight and keep it off is to make lifestyle changes, and that is why the diet tries to incorporate skills that can be maintained for the rest of one's life. I believe in myself, and I believe in this diet program. But I know there will be times when I need moral support. So I hope that I can make some friends on this forum and we can help each other on our quests for healthier lives.

Sorry for the long intro!

Kyle
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Thanks for being so open. It’s helpful to me.
 
I have been struggling in my mind the last few days about my weight loss. I am not miserable or anything. I am just a little concerned because I have tried lowering my calories a little by not putting any cream or sugar in my coffee, but my weight loss has slowed down a lot. Maybe this new slower rate of weight-loss is more natural and healthy. But it makes it seem like I will not be able to enjoy the emotional reward of weight loss because it will be happening so slowly and my goal weight seems like it is going to take so much longer than I first imagined. The good thing is that I don't feel discourage to stop doing my best. I am a little confused to be honest. Did my weight loss slow because I lowered my calories or did it show because it is just natural that it slows? Is there anything healthy and wholesome that I can do to help my body lose weight a little faster? Or should I just stick to what I am doing to try to be stable and patient? Maybe either way would be fine. I don't know.
 
Hi Kyle :) Given the normal amount of fluctuation in water weight (due to increased exercise, stress, salty food, feeling crappy...) and gut filling it´s impossible to say your weight loss is slowing down, a lot no less, after only a few days. If you get so focused on the number on the scale, maybe you should either weigh less often or use a multi-day average to establish your progress. I personally prefer the former (I only weigh about once a month these days) but everyone´s different. Patience is an absolute necessity if you have more than ten pounds to lose or you will end up looking at unhealthy quick-loss methods that do nothing in the long run but make you miserable.
Life doesn't start when you're slim or healthy: it's already here. That means you SHOULD participate in the fun times - just maybe try and find healthier options or reduce your portions at barbecues or work lunches. Or have some lighter meals the day before. If you don't find a way to stay healthy when real life happens to you now, you won't be able to hold your weight later after getting to goal.
 
LaMaria said:
Hi Kyle :) Given the normal amount of fluctuation in water weight (due to increased exercise, stress, salty food, feeling crappy...) and gut filling it´s impossible to say your weight loss is slowing down, a lot no less, after only a few days. If you get so focused on the number on the scale, maybe you should either weigh less often or use a multi-day average to establish your progress. I personally prefer the former (I only weigh about once a month these days) but everyone´s different. Patience is an absolute necessity if you have more than ten pounds to lose or you will end up looking at unhealthy quick-loss methods that do nothing in the long run but make you miserable.
Life doesn't start when you're slim or healthy: it's already here. That means you SHOULD participate in the fun times - just maybe try and find healthier options or reduce your portions at barbecues or work lunches. Or have some lighter meals the day before. If you don't find a way to stay healthy when real life happens to you now, you won't be able to hold your weight later after getting to goal.
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Thank you so much. I think your advice is so precious. I just imagined things differently. But I will calm down with the scale. Perhaps once a week for now. I don't want to get obsessed here. Afterall, I am hapy that I am eating healthier and I can also find satisfaction in the 15 lbs. I HAVE lost. I will let go of the need to see numbers decreasing. If I am consistent and healthy, my body will slowly go towards the healthy weight it is meant to be. Thanks again.
 
Hello Friends,

I have some good news. First of all, as you have read, my weight loss had come to a halt the for about two weeks, even though I was exercising and eating healthy. I was getting worried that my body was resisting weight loss, and I was getting frustrated. So I decided to stop checking the scale for a few days. But I also noticed that I unintentionally started getting more relaxed with my eating, more willing to pop extra food into my mouth that I didn't really need. I started asking myself what I was doing in the beginning that helped me lose weight. So since it seemed like I was losing momentum and falling off the wagon, I decided to restart my diet from day 1. I told my wife to go back to making cod, which I didn't like because it tasted bitter. But I think the cod really promotes a higher metabolism. And after eating cod again I have started losing again, though much more stably than the first time around when I lost a lot of water weight. I have managed to get down to 259.8 lbs. (I started at 280 lbs. at the beginning of the year), which I am very happy about because I was really visualizing being under 260 lbs. Somehow that line holds some meaning to me. I have started wearing shirts that I got as gifts but were too small before, and I am wearing the belt my wife bought a few weeks ago but was too small to put on before. And I am feeling much less self-conscious about my body because my man-boobs, belly and rear end are shrinking. I am also doing a little weight lifting before my cardio when I go to the gym, and it is helping me feel stronger and more vibrant.

My body is a little sore from the weight-lifting. And I do feel hungry today because I have had a hard time getting enough sleep due to the soreness. But emotionally I am doing very well, and I am trying to be stable and not let my emotions throw me off track. I think that I got this big due to some underlying emotional issue, and I think that as I lose weight, I will have to confront them to stay on track. But I want to have the state of mind that sometimes my health is more important than my feelings. After all, what's the point of being emotionally content if I cannot control my physical health as well. Also becoming physically healthy can also help me in the long run with my overall happiness. I think that one reason why I have allowed myself to become overweight is that a part of me enjoys being a victim of my bad health. Being overweight is an excuse I give myself to justify not trying harder to build loving relationships with people in my life. I tell myself that there is no point because they could not love an overweight person. So I don't even try. But in my heart, one of my main purposes for losing weight is to get myself out of this unhealthy mindset and start opening my heart to people around me again. I was so open and smiley as a child, and I want to bring that youthful flare back to my personality. Honestly the last few years I have been sort of morose and emotionally grey, partially as a defense mechanism to the stress in my life. But I don't like being this way. I want to enthusiastic and warm. I think that when I show my true happy character, I will naturally attract good people into my life.
 
kstadelh said:
I think that I got this big due to some underlying emotional issue, and I think that as I lose weight, I will have to confront them to stay on track.
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That´s very often the case. And often a reason why when some people reach their goal weight and the trip of continuous praise and sense of achievement stops they realize they´re still unhappy. Which is usually the start of regaining the weight. So kudos for realizing this early on but please start working on those underlying issues now and don´t expect them to go away of their own.
 
My wife started making Cod the Korean way where you coat it with egg and pan fry it in olive oil. It might have a little more oil than the baked version, but it is by far much easier to eat. Maybe I will encourage her to get coconut oil, which I heard is healthier than olive oil.

I have not been checking my weight lately, especially as it seems to have stopped going down. But I am just focusing on being consistent with my healthy eating and try to get in exercise here and there when I can. Hopefully my body will get the message that I am not in a famine and it will start letting go of the excess weight.

A few of my co-workers suggested having weight-loss competition from March 1st - April 30. We will each put in $50, and the money will all go to the biggest loser. I think I might take part in it. Even if I might not win, it could be a good motivator, and it sounds fun. Let me see how many people are willing to do it.
 
Hi, Kyle. Good for you, losing 20 lbs already this year! Being consistent with healthy eating & getting exercise when you can, will pay off in the long run. If it is possible for you to see a counsellor I would recommend it. When I lost 36 kg back in 2007 I still was very low in self-esteem & was really helped by counselling. It's just a thought.
 
kstadelh said:
I am just focusing on being consistent with my healthy eating and try to get in exercise here and there when I can.
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Sounds like a good long-term strategy. Coconut oil may or may not be healthier than olive oil (it handles higher temperatures a lot better but otherwise it´s really just fashionable right now) but the difference in calories isn´t worth talking about.
 
Thanks, Cate. I will think about it a little more. My church pastor is actually also a licensed therapist. I will at least talk to him first.

Thank you, LaMaria. I really appreciate that information. I think I will just leave it alone. Coconut oil is more expensive and it comes in hard-to-use jars. I prefer olive oil.

I have not been losing weight, but I think I must have lost more inches from my waste because I had to tighten my belt. That was comforting. And it is also a nice feeling to be able to maintain 260 lbs. for a long period of time. I am trying to just appreciate the benefits of being 260 lbs. as opposed to 280 lbs. They are both high weights, but the 20 lbs. makes a world of a difference. Perhaps what I need to focus on is enjoying the benefits of my current weight and healthy lifestyle, instead of focusing too much on quick weight loss. Sometimes you just need to celebrate what you have right now, and let the other goals you have come in their own time. I am honestly very grateful I have been able to get down to 260 lbs. and maintain. And if I am able to lose more weight, I will focus on enjoying and maintaining THAT weight. Aha! Looks like I am my own therapist!

Funny thing is. There is that pesky little voice in the back of my head saying "what if you CAN'T maintain and start gaining weight again?" That's a painful thought. Maybe that's why I need to see a real shrink.
 
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