A. Habersham
New member
I am beginning this blog without a destination. To be honest, my weight loss has always been extremely personal to me and I have shared very little information about this effort. I love to talk and share stories so I'm working on a way to share mine. I think this diary/blog forum is exactly where I would like to start with that.
A little background about me: I’m like everyone else that is trying to lose weight. I have big successes and much larger failures. I have tried almost every diet and nearly every sort of eating schedule to boost these efforts. Most of them work but only for a short amount of time. I lose interest in diets and routines and I fall victim to bad weeks, weekends, and months like everyone else. I’m also not like everyone else: I have previously lost over 100 pounds and I have been lucky enough to keep it all off. It took slightly over a year and it was the most rewarding and frustrating thing I have ever accomplished in my life. However, I began at such a heavy weight that I have plenty of work left to complete. I estimate that for my height, bone structure, and lifestyle that 190 pounds is about where I want to be in order to live a healthy lifestyle with all of my favorite rewards (craft beer, Italian sandwiches). That means I have 36.5 more pounds to lose. I have been wanting to lose this 36.5 for three years now and it will be a huge physical and emotional challenge to get back into the swing of things.
I’m also at a disadvantage (maybe). We know now that in the dieting world that big losers like myself may be susceptible to a stunted metabolism. Or in other words, at 226.5 pounds, it’s possible that I have to eat less calories than someone else at the same weight to maintain solely because I’ve lost an enormous amount of weight previously. However, by maintaining my 100 pound weight loss for three years I believe that I may have avoided this issue for now. I do fear that added focus on weight loss and getting back into a weight loss routine might trigger a slower metabolism but that is something I’m willing to risk.
Onward – I don’t have an exact plan to tackle the next 36.5 pounds. Specifically, I don’t know just yet what food items I’m planning to eat and avoid. However, I do have a set of rules that work particularly well for me that I am going to implement for the next several weeks as a baseline regardless of whatever diet I eventually plan on sticking with. This is not a proven diet or routine. It just happens to have guided me through a 100 pound weight loss.
1. Absolutely no food after 8PM
Notes: I’m regularly in bed around 11PM so this is an easy rule for me to install. If I’m going to a concert and know I’ll be awake until 1AM, I would simply just subtract 3 hours from my anticipated bed time to draw my line in the sand.
2. Avoid high carb meals after lunch.
Notes: I’m not a nutrition nut. However, I do believe that carbs give me energy and I’m pretty sure that I need less of that after work when I’m sitting on the couch reading. Also, I still eat carbs after lunch. But maybe not spaghetti, sandwiches, or those sort of things. Essentially, soups, omelets, and salads are my ideal afternoon and night meals.
3. NO DARK BEERS. EVER.
Notes: Craft beer fans will slaughter this point until the cows come home. Generally speaking, the color of the beer correlates with the amount of calories. However, this is not always the case. I can pick out 50 IPAs with way more calories than my favorite brown ales or black lagers (ABV = calories, too). This rule works for my beer interests, however. I’ll essentially just be switching to lighter beers on occasions I wish to partake. I don't drink wine, liquors, or other spirits.
4. Coffee, tea, and water.
Notes: This means no sodas, diet sodas, sugary sports drinks, juices, and all that stuff. This isn’t really something I focus on as I have not regularly consumed any of these things since I was in high school.
5. Eat when I’m hungry
Notes: This also means that I will abstain from eating when I’m NOT hungry. This also means that breakfast, in my world, is completely optional and only happens in the rare event when I feel hungry in the hour it takes me to wake up and leave home each morning. I know some people still think breakfast is important and that it jumpstarts the metabolism but all I’ve noticed is that it adds extra calories to my day that I don’t usually need to make it to lunch (I eat early lunches. More on that down the road).
So that is where I’ll begin. It’s a small step toward a huge goal but I think that it is important to get a routine going that I can follow before I implement structured foods and exercise to achieve weight loss. I generally expect these rules to get me down slightly under 220 in the next two weeks. My biggest challenge will be incorporating fruits and exercise into my diet.
I also understand the nature of this being a public forum. I'm looking forward to sharing success stories, strategies, and failures with everyone here. Happy dieting.
-Habersham
A little background about me: I’m like everyone else that is trying to lose weight. I have big successes and much larger failures. I have tried almost every diet and nearly every sort of eating schedule to boost these efforts. Most of them work but only for a short amount of time. I lose interest in diets and routines and I fall victim to bad weeks, weekends, and months like everyone else. I’m also not like everyone else: I have previously lost over 100 pounds and I have been lucky enough to keep it all off. It took slightly over a year and it was the most rewarding and frustrating thing I have ever accomplished in my life. However, I began at such a heavy weight that I have plenty of work left to complete. I estimate that for my height, bone structure, and lifestyle that 190 pounds is about where I want to be in order to live a healthy lifestyle with all of my favorite rewards (craft beer, Italian sandwiches). That means I have 36.5 more pounds to lose. I have been wanting to lose this 36.5 for three years now and it will be a huge physical and emotional challenge to get back into the swing of things.
I’m also at a disadvantage (maybe). We know now that in the dieting world that big losers like myself may be susceptible to a stunted metabolism. Or in other words, at 226.5 pounds, it’s possible that I have to eat less calories than someone else at the same weight to maintain solely because I’ve lost an enormous amount of weight previously. However, by maintaining my 100 pound weight loss for three years I believe that I may have avoided this issue for now. I do fear that added focus on weight loss and getting back into a weight loss routine might trigger a slower metabolism but that is something I’m willing to risk.
Onward – I don’t have an exact plan to tackle the next 36.5 pounds. Specifically, I don’t know just yet what food items I’m planning to eat and avoid. However, I do have a set of rules that work particularly well for me that I am going to implement for the next several weeks as a baseline regardless of whatever diet I eventually plan on sticking with. This is not a proven diet or routine. It just happens to have guided me through a 100 pound weight loss.
1. Absolutely no food after 8PM
Notes: I’m regularly in bed around 11PM so this is an easy rule for me to install. If I’m going to a concert and know I’ll be awake until 1AM, I would simply just subtract 3 hours from my anticipated bed time to draw my line in the sand.
2. Avoid high carb meals after lunch.
Notes: I’m not a nutrition nut. However, I do believe that carbs give me energy and I’m pretty sure that I need less of that after work when I’m sitting on the couch reading. Also, I still eat carbs after lunch. But maybe not spaghetti, sandwiches, or those sort of things. Essentially, soups, omelets, and salads are my ideal afternoon and night meals.
3. NO DARK BEERS. EVER.
Notes: Craft beer fans will slaughter this point until the cows come home. Generally speaking, the color of the beer correlates with the amount of calories. However, this is not always the case. I can pick out 50 IPAs with way more calories than my favorite brown ales or black lagers (ABV = calories, too). This rule works for my beer interests, however. I’ll essentially just be switching to lighter beers on occasions I wish to partake. I don't drink wine, liquors, or other spirits.
4. Coffee, tea, and water.
Notes: This means no sodas, diet sodas, sugary sports drinks, juices, and all that stuff. This isn’t really something I focus on as I have not regularly consumed any of these things since I was in high school.
5. Eat when I’m hungry
Notes: This also means that I will abstain from eating when I’m NOT hungry. This also means that breakfast, in my world, is completely optional and only happens in the rare event when I feel hungry in the hour it takes me to wake up and leave home each morning. I know some people still think breakfast is important and that it jumpstarts the metabolism but all I’ve noticed is that it adds extra calories to my day that I don’t usually need to make it to lunch (I eat early lunches. More on that down the road).
So that is where I’ll begin. It’s a small step toward a huge goal but I think that it is important to get a routine going that I can follow before I implement structured foods and exercise to achieve weight loss. I generally expect these rules to get me down slightly under 220 in the next two weeks. My biggest challenge will be incorporating fruits and exercise into my diet.
I also understand the nature of this being a public forum. I'm looking forward to sharing success stories, strategies, and failures with everyone here. Happy dieting.
-Habersham
I'm Hana - are you planning on posting your calories/food/exercise each day or just using it as a space to ponder/chat/ramble? xx
