The Longest Journey

angelicrock

angelicrock

New member
It seems to me that weight loss isnt just about eating right and excercising, its more of a life long journey. You cant just do it once and be set. You MUST continue so that you are happy with yourself and ensure your body will not quit on you.

With that said, this is the start of a new chapter in my journey. My goal is simple, look the way I did two years ago. Im not into huge muscles, I am into being healthy. I am around 5'6-5'7, depending on the shoes I wear ;) , and I weigh (at the moment) 175lbs. I am not fat but I am not happy either. As I stated in my intro I am increasingly less happy with my physical appearance and the way my body feels as a whole. I grew up in a very active household. I played every sport and I was a huge surfer. Since then I have taken on a full time job and I go to school full time. My typical day is waking up at 6am getting to work at 7am get off of work at 5pm, drive directly to school, get home at 11pm, do homework for an hour or two and then go to bed.

You can probably see that there is little time for excercising at the moment. Luckily my job is delivering mail and running shipping/receiving at the company I work for. Its a lot of lifting and a lot of walking up and down stairs. I would say its a moderate workout each day.

My main issue at the moment is that because I have so little time between work and school I tend to either eat fast food or eat when I get home at 11pm. Due to lack of time when I get home I usually do not make healthy food. I make whatever is quick and easy. It's really the only way I can manage my time.

Now what am I going to do differently?

I have decided that the best option for me is to spend more time on the weekend excercising and planning out my meals for the week. I think if I can spend maybe 2 hours over the weekend preparing healthy meals that I can take to work and eat when I am out of class, I can avoid the fast and fatty foods. Im blessed with the fact I have a fast metabolism even as I have gotten older (not old as I am 22). My metabolism seems as if it hasn't slowed down at all. The only difference between the past and present is that I am eating very unhealthy and I am not as active as I need to be. A diet can only get me so far. I think I can make these changes and reach my (hopefully) realistic goal of losing 15lbs by June or July. I will say June right now but with the way my schedule is the extra month may be needed.

The only obsticle not taken into account right now is that my fiance and I are having a baby and she is due to give birth in April. I will have to update this log during that time with the new schedule and time balancing. I also hope to get my girlfriend on a diet with me once the baby is born. We both love being active and eating healthy but sometimes life gets in the way and we don't do enough to overcome.

Anyway, that is my goal right now. Let me know if you guys think its unrealistic or if you have any pointers. One thing I hope to gain from this site is peer support and the knowledge of others. I admit that I do not know everything (just don't tell my fiance I said this) and I love to learn from others.
 
The first three pics are me at my goal weight. The last is a picture of me recently with a little of the weight on. I have more recent pics at home on my PC so I will need to upload those sometime in the next couple of days. You should get the idea though.
 
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Today is day one of my diet. Breakfast was a slice of toast with strawberry jelly on it, an orange and an 8 ounce glass of V8 Strawberry Banana juice. Lets see how lunch and dinner go.

UPDATE: For lunch I ate a sandwich (Turkey and ham) with light honey mustard and light mayo with a slice of non-fat cheese (not the best cheese in the world but I'll take it) and a bag of sun chips.
 
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you're pretty cute... are you planning on going hollow? doesn't really look like you have any weight on you to lose...

though healthy eating is good for everyone :)
 
Like I said its not so much that I want to lose weight, its more I want to look better than I do now. Weight gain is probably in the near future for me if I start working out. I have about 15lbs to lose if I dont gain muscle mass. Ill upload very recent photos when I get home from work tonight, you will see that I have a little to lose.
 
Dinner was a bit more difficult than I had anticipated. I ate left over tostada (ground turkey thankfully) and some mixed veggies. If I did my math correctly I should have had about 1300 cals yesterday which is a little below what I am supposed to have.

That being said, I planned a much better set of meals out today.

Breakfast: Orange, Banana, 8oz V8 Juice
Lunch: Sandwich, bag of sun chips (this will be my worst meal of the day)
Dinner: Salad with romaine lettuce, red and yellow peppers, green onion, cilantro, and half a chicken breast seasoned with Mrs.Dash.

As promised here are the most recent photos of myself.





And here is a picture of what I looked like with my shirt off at my goal weight(ignore the sun burn, I forgot to use sun screen on this particular day).
 
hehe nice sunburn! , I think Mal was to busy drooling on the first couple pics to see the others (older women get desperate ... im well on the way there myself!)

Yeah i can see how and where you want to do a few lb loss, you look hot in the sunburn pic (quick Mal! save it to the communal porn drive!)

Good luck though
 
Hi! Welcome to your journal, and your healthier, more active life.

Love, love the pics of you and your gal - you guys oughta be in the movies or something! Geez! And now a wee babe is coming your way too - brother, your life is about to C-H-A-N-G-E!! So good on ya for getting a head start on your health.

It is cool that you actually come from a very active home, and that you and your gal enjoy doing active stuff together. Time to get back to it!

OF COURSE YOU CAN DO THIS!
Cheers from :eh:
ABBA
 
Thank you for those kind words.


2/21/08
Breakfast: Bowl of Cpt Crunch (not the healthiest but I woke up late) and an orange.

Lunch: I packed the rest of my chicken breast salad and a bag of sun chips.

Dinner: Not sure yet, I dont have school tonight though so I will consult my cookbooks when I get home.


Does anyone plan their dinners each week to save time and money? I have been thinking about doing this so it limits what I buy at the store each week, plus I wont have to spent so much time trying to think of what to make.
 
Dinner tonight was...


My favorite...


SUSHI! Ah Yeah! I love sushi. Well, japanese food in general. Its definately the best.
 
Well, I didnt do so hot this weekend with the diet. I ate the right foods but came up short in calories and most of the cals I had on Saturday were from beer. Not that I drank a lot of beer, but that kind of gives you and I a look at what I am not doing which is eating.

I need to get a hand held journal that I can write things down in. Maybe a physical chart of what I am eating. I usually notice what I am doing wrong after-the-fact which is usually too late to do anything.

Let's see how this week goes.
 
Doing a lot better this week. It seems like my finals are helping me stay on track. I have been so stressed about them that I havent really thought about the amount of calories I eat, just what I eat. The past few days I have eaten 1800 cals which is about 500-600 more than I had been eating. The best part about the cals I have been eating is that 90% of it comes from fruit and veges, the other 10% comes from meat and my now taily protein bar (im not a big fan of these but my fiance bought me some and I dont want to look like an asshole and not eat them).

Stepped on the scale this morning and I am down 1 pound below my fluctuating average. Meaning my weight generally fluctuates between 3 weights and I am below the lowest of the three by 1 lb. I cant be sure that it is completely attributed to the diet and the increasing amount of heavy lifting I do at work, but it is nice to see a lower number on the scale for the first time in about 7 maybe 8 months.

It feels good and I think that little boost in confidence and motivation will help me stick to this and not pull another bad eating weekend.
 
I am sticking to the diet and not really thinking about what to eat, I just eat right. I get hungry, I have an orange. Much like I would have done with a bag of chips in the past. It seems like it is becoming second nature to just grab something healthy. I was even able to find a decent meal at a resturaunt this weekend by substituting certain items for other items which lowered the calories and increased its nutritional value.

I havent weighed myself but I dont think I am going to. I said before that it isnt about the number on the scale, it's about how I look and feel. I feel great, now I just need to look great.

By the way, oranges have to be the single best fruit on earth (behind the pineapple but I will get to that another time). Oranges are so sweet and juicy. I usually dont have a sweet tooth but if I want something sweet I grab an orange.
 
well doen on the loss so far :hurray: - and your continued dedication to the healthy lifestyle!

i love pineapples.only i always buy them tinned and that ends up being unnessesary calories lol!

have a great week

x
 
You seem to have the right attitude about your wanting to lose weight. Congrats to you for not obsessing like some people (i.e. me) do.

Great job on finding a healthy meal at a restaurant the other night. It's pretty easily done as long as you have no hesitation about asking for what you want...what sides you can substitute...for the cook not to use butter, etc.

As far as fruit, I am a huge fan of strawberries. I buy tons of em at the farmer's market, sit and clean them over the weekend, put some Splenda on em, and then I have a fantastic snack any time I want. Plus, they have a low energy density. Two cups of strawberries is only about 100-120 calories...and very, very filling.

Keep posting and staying accountable to yourself, and congrats on the lifestyle changes you're making!
 
Ugh! Despite my best effort I got onto a scale yesterday at work (sounds weird and it probably is but apparently that's what I do at work). I have gained weight since my last time on a scale. 7lbs to be exact. I feel absolutely horrible right now because even though I dont really care about the numbers its always nice to see a mathmatical representation of the work I have put in.

I can attribute the gain to a couple things, the first being the cloths I wear at work. Usually when I weigh myself I wear boxers and nothing else. Yesterday I was wearing cargo pants (pockets all full), shoes, socks, a shirt and a jacket. The other things I attribute to the gain is the heavy lifting I have been doing at work. But, even then I wouldnt imagine those two combined would amount to 7 lbs.

My fiance says she notices some possitive changes in my physical appearance but I am not convinced. I still think I look the same and mentally when I see a +7 on the scale I now see myself as looking even larger than before.

I guess I will start monitoring my waist line and see if that is changing.
 
When I first started weighing myself, I weighed myself with my shoes off and with with my shoes on. I weighed myself at a shopping centre and I didn't want to have to take them off and on every time. From then on I just deducted the difference I'd already worked out. I just went and weighed my workout shoes, wallet, keys and mobile phone and that's 3.5 lb! Many of us find that just weighing at a different time of day gives a fluctuation of 1-2 lb. A different day will randomly (probably not really randomly - but random in terms of no one knows why just now), give a difference of at 2 lb or more. Sometimes it's water retention, and that can be affected by how much variation there was in the amount of salt you took in ... Different scales make an enormous difference all by themselves. The scales I started on weighed me 6 lbs heavier than the ones I use now. I know that sounds unbelievable but it's true! and on and on ...

You can really only compare apples with apples yaknow - or maybe oranges with oranges - great snack choice btw - so much fibre!!

Good for you that you're pushing yourself back to healthier so soon after noticing a change - and despite all the challenges in your life. It is worth it and will help you manage the others even better.
 
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Yeah, I have read a lot of things that can influence weight. I completely forgot about water retention and stuff like that. It's hard to not dwell over the numbers, but being a math and science guy I have always heard people say "the numbers dont lie." Weight, diet and health are tricky things and I want to give myself two months to really evaluate the current path I am on. It definately isnt bad but 7lbs got me worried.

I will refrain as much as possible from stepping onto the scale. Instead I will keep a weekly measure of my waist and stomach (the two places where I have the weight sitting).

Thank you for the support though, I really do appreciate it.
 
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