So I tried a little experiment today. I’ve been reading a book this week called Atomic Habits and it’s been very fascinating and kind of validating to some of the changes in my life. But one of the chapters talked about how it’s really the anticipation of (insert bad habit) that you look forward to, not the actual doing or having of it. For the holiday months and into January my bad habit was eating dessert too often during the week. There’s a particular peanut butter square at a local restaurant that I would usually stop and get twice a week. It’s soooo good and it has to be 1000 calories or more. I haven’t had that since before the Super Bowl and really haven’t had any big desserts since I started blogging about this. It feels finally like my habits on that have been broken. What I’d like to do is get to a place where I can have dessert once a week and feel ok about it. I don’t want to live without sweet foods ever again in my life. And there’s no need for that. But my problem when I do have it is that it tends to happen too much. I was eating dessert 4-5 times a week, if not more some weeks from December thru the end of January. I’m i’m lucky I only gained a couple pounds back. This last few weeks I’ve lost that back plus a little bit. I’m at 275 this morning which is about as low as I’ve been since 2012. 8 more pounds would mark my lowest as an adult. I was 267 at one point in 2012.

So I wanted to try having the dessert today and really pay attention to the anticipatory feelings, vs the feelings while eating, and the feelings afterwards. One mistake I did make in this experiment was I ate in the same place and same speed and same way I always did before. It’s amazing to watch the autopilot on so many of these habits since reading the book. So the funny part of the story was this restaurant doesn’t sell those Peanut butter squares anymore lol. So i got another piece of pie they had and it was good. I definitely noticed that the real jones for me was the lead up, the buying it, and the driving home with it. By the time it became time to eat it, I was actually kind of depressed about it. Cause i knew i was going to eat it and not enjoy it and feel bad afterwards. And that prophecy was fulfilled. I don’t know if i learned anything from the experiment other than I still like pie and i still feel like a fat loser after eating it. So just gonna try to get back to the no dessert plan tomorrow and we’ll see how it goes.

Weighed in at 276.0 this morning after yoga class and I’m sure some of that loss was sweat as it was a warm class! I so have enjoyed the benefits that yoga has given me the last few months since I started doing it regularly. The things I’ve noticed the most are strength in my shoulders and so much more openness and flexibility in my hips and legs. Today was my 32nd 1 hour class. The first day I went in there I was so nervous and I was absolutely wrecked when class was over. It was so hard. But I’m happy I’ve stuck with it. Feeling good about my food choices for the most part over the weekend and started today out with a homemade protein shake with frozen strawberries and bananas, some protein powder, greek yogurt and a tiny spoonful of peanut butter. Delicious and filling and probably 450 calories and over 40 grams of protein.

Yoga tomorrow and going to try and keep up with the late night walks as I’ve been doing. Very excited on Thursday to go to my first spring training game of the spring! Yay!

Still plugging away at trying to make better decisions and for the most part doing a good job of it. My weight the last few mornings has been 277 or 278, which is basically back to where i’ve been the last several months. So i’m happy that in these last few weeks i’ve gotten down a bit from 282 on super bowl, but mostly just trying to get my habits back to being good. This particular weight just feels like such a plateau at this point and it’s hard because I know there really isn’t much further to go. But I also think that attitude is what’s contributing to the apathy about finishing the weight loss. I’ve always kind of lived my life in this “just good enough” kind of way. I was always a B student. I’ve always been a B level person. Good, but never excellent. I keep reminding myself that if I just perform good habits and routine that eventually the weight will start to come off again. Maybe it’s time to play with some different meal combinations and choices just to change things up? I do think my habits of eating the same things quite often probably lead my body to adapting a bit to that.

Was feeling a bit down about things yesterday. One of the big things I’ve tried to work on during this whole weight loss has been self-esteem. I do think as a whole it’s improved, but my core feeling about myself tends to be one of disappointment and rejection. Which I thought by age 43 I’d have moved past. I mean this is the only life and body I’ll ever have, so I better learn to love it. Time is ticking away lol.

Just got back from a monday morning yoga class and had a great sweat. I weighed 276.8 just now which I’m very happy about but i’m sure a good chunk of that loss was water sweated out. Regardless I’m very happy about the food and exercise decisions I’ve made over the weekend and looking to build on that for the remainder of the week. Plus the weather is back to sunny so evening walks are back in play after three nights of rain! I’m going to get my eyes dialated today so I’m going to have to take it easy around the house and already have my meals planned out so hoping I can stick to that. I’ve gotten rid of potentially bad snacks that were in the house. I’ve kind of learned if they’re in here, then i’ll eat them lol.

Winding down the weekend and a week since kind of trying to start this little re-start to my weight loss. I feel like this weekend I made good food choices all around. Saturday in particular I executed my eating plan the entire day. I went and saw a movie after work and didn’t eat anything at the theater or afterwards so that was good. It’s been raining this weekend so I didn’t walk at night last night but going to go on the treadmill at the gym to start off my sunday. Will do a weigh in later this morning and see where we’re at. I was 279.4 yesterday. Right now I’m fine if the weight stays in the same ballpark as I’m mostly just wanting to create patterns of change that I know will lead to results as time goes by. So feeling good about things this weekend. Too often I let the scale dictate my mood and that’s just not a winning formula. The difference between 279.4 and 281 or 282 is hardly anything yet when the scale was 282 last week I felt down. I try and remember it’s just a number and was an indicator for me I needed to tighten things up a bit, it’s not a reflection of me as a person.

Weigh in this morning after Yoga class was 279.2. Yesterday went pretty well with a very good breakfast and lunch. Dinner once again I probably ate a little more than I wanted to. I had a planned out portion and went through it and was still very hungry so i had some popcorn and more water and that helped satisfy me. Mostly just wanting to focus on more planning and execution of that plan. I want to just get back to my good habit I’ve mostly kept. I was doing that for the most part recently but just was allowing in too many extra snack and sweet calories and that was in my opinion causing the plateau and even the minor gain of 3lbs over the last month.

I did a chest and tricep weights workout yesterday and have been doing my late night walking so I was feeling kinda sore when I went into yoga class this morning. My yoga class on Thursdays is a mix of hot yoga, sculpt (weights/cardio) and restore (stretching) and I have a feeling I”m going to be very sore tomorrow, so tomorrow i’ll probably take a rest day from exercise. I’m feeling ok emotionally about things with food, I’m just kind of annoyed how hungry I’ve been feeling later in the day. I don’t eat that much in the midday so i’m sure that’s why, but i just can’t eat alot while announcing races cause I want to keep my airway as open as possible and not feel “full”. Usually it’s a good thing because it just means I eat less, but I think right now it’s working against me because I come home and eat a lot for dinner. 

Today just going to have a chill day, maybe do some painting and planning on making some pasta and red sauce with chicken for dinner. 

So today felt better about food and meal planning. Execution was good until dinner. I smoked some chicken wings with salt and pepper and they were delicious. I think I just ate more than I wanted to, because honestly I bought too many. They were only $5 a pound at whole foods so i figured two pounds. They were small wings so it was like 24 of them to make the two pounds. I figured I’d eat half tonight and half for dinner tomorrow night. These were small wings though so i went thru like 18 of them. Which just felt like too much. I didn’t have much of a lunch though so i’m thinking maybe i need to make lunch my bigger meal and try to eat smaller in the evening. I did have all my food between 11am and 5:30pm. A small protein smoothie after yoga at 11am, a little bowl of oatmeal and some peanut butter around 2pm and then the chicken wings. I feel like on paper it looks like a better day of eating than it feels right now because i feel like I ate so many of the wings. Tomorrow i’ll weigh in again. I have been drinking more water which has been good and tonight I took a nice walk. 

Felt pretty good about my first day of trying to get my diet back into form. I went and did my monday morning yoga class which is usually the toughest one I take during the week. My hamstrings are sore this morning, but in a good way! Breakfast was 3 eggs and some turkey sausage and lunch was some whole grain cereal and soy milk. Dinner I had rotisserie chicken and when I finished I noticed myself immediately wanting something sweet. So I did what I used to do when I was losing weight before and had a cough drop and some sugar free gum. I feel like that helps get me something sweet that’s like 5 calories and by the time I’m done with those, I’m not hungry any longer. One of my big problems is I eat too fast, so often I’ll eat an amount that makes me full, but I eat it so fast that my brain doesn’t acknowledge being full until I eat something else and then I feel stuffed. I also went out with a friend to a museum last night so walked around for much of the evening, so that replaced my normal evening/night walk for last night and was about 4000 steps. Normally at night I shoot for 50-60 minute walk which gets me about 6000 steps to finish the day.

Weigh in for Monday 2/12/24 was 280.4 pounds at 9am which is when I’ll usually try and weigh in. I know there’s fluctuations in weigh ins everyday but mostly just looking for a little progress these next few weeks. If I lose 2 to 5 pounds I’ll be very happy. 

Ok so i’m typing this during the super bowl. I’ve been kind of spinning my wheels on my weight loss for a couple months now and I really would like to re-kickstart it a little bit. So I think I’m going to try something atleast for the rest of February. I think the lowest weight I’ve gotten to is 275lbs which down from my high in 2017 of 443 is obviously a big improvement. But since Thanksgiving, I’ve basically vascillated between 277 and 281 on given days. This morning was 280. I’ve been really sticking to my exercise plan very well but I’ve been starting to eat much more poorly again. I’m not eating huge amounts, just eating too many sweets. I think in my mind i’m content with where I’m at in my weight loss and despite all the hard workouts I’m putting in, i’m just spinning my tires. Which I think i’ve been fine with. 

So for the next 18 days I’m going to try and really tighten things up. The big changes I’m going to shoot for is no sweets/desserts. As a whole I feel like my meals have remained pretty good. It’s just that I’ve been snacking far too much on non work days with stuff like peanut butter, protein bars (sugar!) and stuff like that. And I’ve been having dessert after dinner far too frequently. When I’ve lost weight it was just cause i cut all that stuff out. At some point I have to learn to just do desserts in moderation or just small/better desserts like a popsicle instead of a piece of pie or cake.

Also going to try to increase my water intake. Water is usually the only beverage I drink but I think i’ve been not drinking enough and that’s allowing me room to put more food. 

I’ve been very happy with my exercise routine recently and am going to try and continue with that. Yoga 3x per week, walks atleast 4-5 nights a week, and 2 days a week of weight lifting. Mostly I think i just want some accountability to help motivate me to get back on track.

It’s been a year since I wrote something on here and have been meaning to do a weight loss update. I so enjoyed doing that journaling exercise last August and kind of wish I’d have done it this year. I think for the next little while on here though I’m going to try and do some more general journaling on here and more regular weight loss thoughts. This morning I got on the scale at the gym with socks, shorts, and a shirt on, and weighed 280.3 pounds. As an adult, I’ve only been below this weight once and that was in 2011/12 or so when a severe depression episode had me eating very little and weighing 267 at my lowest. From there I gained steadily up to 443 pounds in late 2017/early 2018. I did a blog about my weight loss journey from 443 to 343 back in March of 2022 and you can read that HERE. Just for reference I’m a pretty tall person at 6’4″.

So that was about 17 months ago and I’m down 60 pounds or so in that time. About 8 months of that was spent basically plateaued at around 318 to 320. This past March I started really losing again, initially through diet and exercise. But I also have been battling some bad digestive issues with acid reflux and gastritis, so to be honest, eating more than 2000 calories a day has been very tough just cause I constantly feel full even when I haven’t eaten that much. I got an endoscopy and they said everything looked good other than my stomach was irritated. So they gave me a new medication and that has helped with getting food down, but the fullness and bloating still persists. I’ve been eating pretty clean though and so the mixture of good foods, exercise, and lower calories has equaled a pretty fast drop the last five months or so.

Getting under 300 pounds felt like a really exciting milestone to get by. Other than that foray down to 267 in 2012, I’ve basically been over 300 for most of my adult life. I truly have never had a “goal weight” throughout this process and honestly never really have at any point in my life. I truly don’t know what I’d look or feel like at 250, 240, 230, etc, so we shall see. I can’t imagine someone of my height and broader build being under 220 or so. I’d guess 230 to 240 is probably where I’d like to eventually be at. My approach to the loss has been kind of a “day at a time” mantra, just make as many good decisions each day as I can and things will take care of themselves. But now that I’m kind of in the later stretches of this thing, I wanted to reflect on what’s different, what’s the same, and just some thoughts on the process.

I’ll start with the positives. I am proud of myself. My weight has been a battle for much of my life and I’m happy that I’ve made the changes that I set out to make. I’ve had a lot of people helping and supporting me through making those changes. Friends who have been amazing resources and occasional shoulders to lean on. I had a personal trainer for a year that got me educated and really started on a good fitness program. And I’ve gotten lots of support and nice comments from people on social media. All of that encouragement has really made this a better experience. Like a lot of things in life, it feels like a solitary journey but there’s so many people helping out when you think about it. It’s such a tedious and slow process, and it’s so easy to get derailed. The difference for me the last few years is that I just never have really gotten derailed for more than a day or two. Before, I’d fall off the wagon and would stay off

Right now my biggest positive is buying clothes. I think at my heaviest I was a 54 inch waist for pants and 4xl shirts were a little too snug. a little over a month ago, at about 290 pounds, I went to the Destination XL shop to buy some clothes. I’ve mostly shopped there, JC Penney Big and tall section, and amazon in recent years for clothes. Well at DXL I went to buy a pair of jeans and all they had was 44 waist as their smallest. Last time I bought clothes was in the winter and I bought 46 waist clothes. I knew those were now too big so I asked the guy if they had a 42 and he said I’d need to go to Dillards as they didn’t carry below 44 very often. I hadn’t bought new clothes in a while and imagine my surprise when the 42 waist jeans at Dillards were even a touch big! I tried on the 40 waist and they fit perfectly. I also walked over to the Mens section (not big and tall) and tried on some shirts at a XXL size, and they fit perfectly. My friend Jessica told me a while back, don’t go by the scale, go by how your clothes fit. Of course I still go by the scale (Hi Jess), but trying on those clothes and having them fit felt so good. For YEARS I’ve gone to stores and seen things I like, only to see them not available in my size. Shopping as a heavier person legit sucks and I wish more brands expanded their sizes for bigger folks.

So now some negative things. Number one has to be body dysmorphia. I see myself in the mirror every day and I still think I look exactly the same as I did when I was much heavier. I see a fat person looking back at me (yes I’m aware I’m still a fat person, but you know what I mean). However, what’s interesting is that when I see photos, especially photos of me with other people, then I see the staggering difference in weight from the past. I’m starting to think that I’m just always going to see myself that way and maybe that’s exactly how body dysmorphia works. But it’s a frighteningly real part of this process and one that gets me down quite often.

I’ve also recently started noticing my skin changing as weight has come off more quickly in recent months. I wouldn’t say I have “loose skin” but it’s certainly starting to happen. I guess this is a negative, but truth be told I think it’s more of a battle scar/victory type thing. As I said right now it’s minor, and hopefully if I can lose weight a little more gradual over the coming months and years, then it’ll be just a small issue.

One thing that I’ve really focused on trying to work through since moving to Florida is loneliness. I feel like it’s a word that has a weird stigma around it, but it’s the correct word for how I feel most of the time. I’ve always been very blessed with a lot of friends and a wonderful family who I’m very close with. However, I live 3000 miles from almost all of them. In Florida I’ve worked to expand my network of friends, but making friends as an adult isn’t easy. A big part of my wanting to lose weight was to make myself more attractive and hopefully more appealing as a prospective partner for someone. I’ve dated a lot the last couple years and met some wonderful people, but nothing has really stuck beyond a few dates or just staying friends. I’m fortunate to be able to travel a fair bit and do lots of fun and exciting things in my free time, but I do 95% of those things alone. I really wish I had someone to share my time and life with and it’s a priority of mine to find that. It’s just proved very elusive. I feel like for years I figured it was my body and appearance that made me unattractive to women. Turns out maybe it was my personality all along lol. But I’m still optimistic that I will meet someone and have a great relationship.

Overall I’m very happy with my progress and the experience. When I look at some of the most rewarding things that have come in my life, almost all of them were long roads that had lots of twists and turns as well as many low points. I think if something comes without struggle it’s not as appreciated and learned from. I’m looking forward to more milestones with this but also just hoping to continue to work towards more self acceptance. Thanks for reading. Here are some more recent photos to contrast with the one up top.