Another week and some more stats to add to the sheet! Happy Thursday everyone, I hope you're doing well. I am...tired. Against my better judgement I went back to back to back days doing the running program. That's definitely the last time that will happen! Week six is really Hell Week part two because each day is different just like in week five. Also just like in week five I can say that I have survived while maintaining the pace I've decided to use for the entire program. With today's success through the fire and flames I am extremely excited for the final three weeks. This way I can move on to the treadmill mixed with beach running. I checked today and there is still roughly 5% of the tickets left for the Run For Your Lives 5k/zombie obstacle course. HOPEFULLY I'll be able to get a ticket to participate in it! Anyway, on to the recap!
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The Grand Canyon... YOU WILL BE MINE! A door closes and a window opens! The plan for this weekend was to go to Columbus for another wedding but sadly I had to cancel those plans. The cost of a plane ticket last minute plus the day that I do get paid vs the wedding date makes it impossible for me to be able to go. I was pretty bummed out by that, and I told my friend that he would have to carry on without me. I trudged through the mist and sorrow of missed opportunity when I got a message on Facebook. A friend of mine is going to the Grand Canyon this weekend and there's room for me if I want to tag along! Now I have plans again! If you look in my Goals section of this site you'll see one of my objectives is to hike all the way down and up the Grand Canyon. I definitely want to do this, but I am not ready yet. I've been doing some reading on the Canyon and the hiking opportunities available, and they have trails that will lead you all the way to the bottom and back. The problem is that it's 28 miles round trip. It's also over six thousand feet deep, meaning it's over a mile decline and incline. The site strongly advises people if they are going to hike down and back up that they do it over two days. You can easily over exert yourself in the heat and end up injuring yourself that way. They also strongly advise people not to do it if it's their first time. I want to complete this, and I know that I can make the distance, but I'd rather not put the strain on myself on such short notice. So we'll explore the many other trails and have fun this weekend camping! Good afternoon, good evening, good day to you all! I'd like to start off by saying that I am starting to see a lot of differences in my everyday life from switching things up! I'm currently sitting in the library on a wooden chair with arms. Why is that significant? Because in my past life, wooden chairs with arms hurt a lot from sitting in them for more than fifteen minutes. And that's if I could even fit. 19 pounds held up to 123 looks like nothing, but it is! It's a huge difference! As a matter of fact, losing 5-10% of your body weight:
This is Tiny. Tiny is an orphaned cat that was left at an animal shelter last December in Fredricton, NB (Canada). His previous owners allowed him to expand his kitty waistline until he hit the staggering weight of 30 pounds. At that point I'm assuming the owners couldn't afford to feed him and decided to let him go. The reason why I am sharing this is because as of today, Tiny is 2/3 of the way towards living up to his name! He's down over one third of his body weight to 19 pounds! If you go through his pictures you can tell that he is delighted to be slimming down. (A bit of sarcasm there.) After so much weight lost he can start wearing the things I'm sure he's always wanted to wear like ties, more ties, and even bow ties! (A lot of sarcasm there. I absolutely despise animals wearing clothes. Especially cats. My blog. My opinion. Deal with it.) You can read his story and see the incredible progress pictures here. So much is happening in the world right now and yet this story gets featured as top news on Yahoo.com... I've lost 19 pounds so far which is a fraction over 5% of my starting body weight. In essence, I will be doing the same thing as Tiny. I need to lose 123 pounds to get to my goal weight of 250 pounds. That is 33% of my starting body weight. Just as Tiny is doing now, I will hit that mark not as if I'm crossing the finish line, but instead like I'm approaching the halfway mark. From there I begin the process of fine tuning until I get to the look I desire. My adventure will end when I'm satisfied with the results. That could be 250. It could be 200. It might even be 160 (Not really). It depends on how I feel about me. My hat's off to Tiny for the rapid pace in which he's losing his weight. I doubt that I'll shave the full 33% off me in nine months total. It's hard to say what the future holds. I do like the pace I'm going for the sake of my skin keeping up. And if I don't get a feature on Yahoo.com for my achievements then the world will burn. I'll make sure of it. I'm going to start working on the recap (it's pretty brief and straightforward) of the Frank to 5k running program as I finally finished Hell Week/week five's 20 minute consistent run today! I'll probably post that later on today! What are your thoughts on obese cats? This is a very hot topic that I'd like you to sound off on! That's all for now! Till the next episode! Yesterday I got the great idea to take on the Stairway to Heaven again. Chris and I both had to work at ten so it seemed like a great idea to hit the stairs first thing in the morning. 7:15 we looked up the 282 stairs wondering if maybe we had made a mistake. In actuality the only mistake I made was to skip breakfast before beginning my ascent... The biggest thing in that went in our favor was that the sky was very overcast. I'd be happy to struggle and sweat in the cool breeze than in the hot morning sun. I didn't count how many breaks I ended up taking on the way up because I was chatting most the time with Chris. Having a partner to walk with makes the trek a little bit easier. I remember taking breaks after the first and second flights plus two during the third flight. That third set of stairs is a real jerk. The steps are two and three steps high and are uneven. After the third set I sat down for a blow. I told Chris that there is one more set of big steps then a landing that goes into regular sized steps. After mentally preparing myself for the final two flights. It's funny because the woman I previously mentioned that smiled and gave me the thumbs up passed by me again. And she flashed me another one of her genuine, you-can-do-it smiles! I explained to Chris who she was. I gave Chris permission to continue to the next landing without me so that he wouldn't have to stand around unnecessarily while I gasp for air and take breaks. I once again took to steppin while looking down. This post was a long time coming. I'd like to thank my friend Owen for turning me onto this little lifesaver. Lets face the music here. Losing weight is not easy. To shed weight you have to really dedicate yourself. It's not something that can just be turned on and then it stays on with little to no maintenance. What I'm focusing on in this post is the diet aspect of weight loss. I've heard from many people and I've read online that to lose weight it is 80% diet and 20% exercise. I've tried to find a reliable source to back this up but I have yet to find one. Nonetheless I agree. I've learned that you could work out for three hours a day everyday and still manage to gain weight in the form of fat. What I've been doing is making sure that I finish the day with a calorie deficit. In other words, I make sure that the calories I take in are fewer than the calories that I expel during the day. Even if I stopped exercising completely I would still lose weight- just not at the same pace that I am now. I was suggested to check out this app that really changed my whole approach to losing weight. It's called My Fitness Pal. If you're looking to lose anything from 5-200 pounds then this is a great way to start. The My Fitness Pal app is available on iPods/pads/phones as well as most smartphones on the market. Even if you don't have one, then you can still log your information on their website and keep up that way. To set up your account you enter your weight, height, how often you plan to work out each week, your activity level, and how much you want to lose per week. Once you set that up then the site/app will calculate your BMR (Basil Metabolic Rate- how many calories you burn on a daily basis just from bodily functions and minimal movements). Depending on your goals it will calculate how many calories you'd need to take in on a daily basis in order to hit that goal of pounds per week. When you lose ten pounds it will recalculate your BMR and you adjust from there. My current BMR is about 3240 calories burned per day. My goal is to lose 2 pounds a week. Since a pound of fat is 3,500 calories, I need a deficit of 1,000 calories per day to hit that goal. The purpose of this app is to monitor your intake as well as your output of calories. Whenever I eat something I enter it onto the app and it will break it down to show me the makeup of the food. Protein, carbs, fats, sodium, vitamins, etc. It breaks down how much you need of those things per day. When you exercise you enter that as well and it gives you an estimate for the amount of calories you burn doing that activity. This is anything from walking, hiking, playing basketball, dancing, and so much more. The app is great because it helped me get on track with my eating habits. I'll admit that for the past two weeks I haven't used it but it's because I have gotten to the point that I can eye gauge the amount of calories in the foods I eat. I'll still reference it on new foods to figure out how much I can have. I'm about to jump back in full time again so that I can speed up the weight loss process and get much more consistent results. So hopefully you'll check out the website for yourself if you're in a rut and trying to shed some weight! On an unrelated note, it's Wednesday which means that I'll be updating the weight portion on the site as well as all of my measurements! So check back later for that! (I weighed myself and I'll say that the results were AWESOME!) Until the next episode! I am cuttin a rug! Hey there everyone! I hope your weekend was good. As you can see from the post's picture, I think I had a pretty good time this weekend! On Thursday night I flew from Los Angeles all the over to St Louis to celebrate the final few days of bachelorhood and the beautiful union that would follow with one of my best friends Matt. Let me tell you a little about Matt. He is invested either zero percent or a hundred and ten percent. If you are so lucky to be part of the adventure then you will take the fall with him or revel together in the glory of victory. With that being said, I tried to behave myself the entire week from a caloric standpoint because I knew that there was going to be some heavy drinking and eating done over the weekend. Unfortunately I was so busy last week that when I would try not to eat as much I would end up not eating at all for long periods as I was too busy to think about it. This would lead to binges later on in the day/night. I will say with a hundred percent confidence that none of those days I crossed the 2,200 calorie mark. So I'm still doing okay by staying under my goal for daily intake. What that meant though was two days of eating Chipotle burritos towards the end of the day. So rather than eating three normal meals or even four to five small meals I ended up on a couple of days eating a small breakfast and then a huge dinner. I've still got some work to do in that aspect. Anyhow, I get to St Louis and I'm picked up by the best man. Matt is already at a bar with a few others warming up to the evening's festivities. I get there and he's pretty coherent. I'm introduced to all the guys in our party (mostly they were the bride's brothers) and then I chat with Matt to catch up on each other's weeks leading up to then. Next thing I know it's time to do shots. Before coming out, I told Matt that I was avoiding beer because it's mostly calories. By the time I get a buzz/drunk (10-15 cans) I've blown calories out of the water. Matt sees me apprehensively looking at my shot of Tequila then stares me in the eyes and says "Frank. Shots have zero calories." I know this is not true. Not in the slightest. Shots are better in beer in the fact that they have less calories, but they do have calories. Nonetheless, it's that little nugget of fiction got me to loosen up and take the shot. Next thing I know there are three shots sitting in front of me and three in front of Matt because I needed to catch up and he was my date. He was everyone's date that night. By the time the night is nearing it's end I had consumed eight or nine shots... I think... And a Jack and Coke. On this day I really didn't have much to eat because right after work I went to the airport and flew out. So I could afford to drink freely. Plus I behaved during the week... Kinda... This is just a quick blurb but today I head out to St Louis for the wedding of my good friend Matt. While out I will be facing the challenges of eating too much and of course the ever present existence of alcohol! Beer=empty calories! I will not allow these things to keep me from having fun, but I will be on my best behavior as often as possible. The Frank to 5k running program is going great! When I return on Sunday I will complete the final day of the "Hell Week #1". That means running for 20 minutes non stop. So I won't be around a computer until then so I hope everyone has a great weekend and I look forward to recapping my various adventures when I return! :-D The road to success is rough and rocky but always leads up. The way that I keep myself going is setting up realistic goals. Losing weight can be a daunting task, especially when there's more than just 10-20 pounds to lose. Before starting this blog and committing to losing weight I did a lot of research. I took a few days and read as much as I could, then I borrowed from what I liked to create the program I'm using now. The biggest key to success is starting small and staying small. What I mean by that is breaking everything I do into chunks. Yes I want to lose 123 pounds to hit my first target weight. Yes I want to master Portion Control. Yes I want to run in races and be semi- athletic. The only problem is that there is no instant way to do any of those things. And if I set myself up to try all at once, I'd most likely end up failing again. In a year I could be down to my target weight. In two months I could conquer portion control. In a year I could be running races. The only problem is that there's no fast forward button. I have to take things one step at a time. Trying to hold up 15 pounds lost in two months next to 123 pounds needed to hit my goal makes it seem impossible to get there. I need a way to succeed within 2-3 months. How do I do that? I lower the bar. So rather than looking at it as "I need to 123 pounds someday" I see it as "I need to lose 5-10% of my starting body weight within a 2-3 month period." That's something attainable. Even if it takes five months, it's still something I can do. It's a reason to celebrate. What happens after I hit that goal? I set another goal equally as achievable. The small battles add up to win the war. It also keeps the morale high. The only enemy here is the excess weight. Don't let yourself get caught up in the crossfire. This was nearly two weeks in the making but I finally completed week four of the Frank to 5k running program! I was worried that with so much time off I would regress. I stayed active while I couldn't go to the gym- or at least a gym with an elliptical. Even so, I felt that the work I had done so far would have diminished during the time off. To my surprise, as soon as I stepped onto the elliptical, I was right back in the swing of things! I ended up outdoing the distance from my first day over a week and a half previously! Yay me! You can see the chart of my times/patterns/distances on the official Frank to 5k page, but here's a reminder of what I had to do this week. 00:00-5:00: Warmup walk 5:00-8:00: Run 8:00-9:30: Walk 9:30-14:30: Run 14:30-17:00: Walk 17:00-20:00: Run 20:00-21:30: Walk 21:30-26:30: Run 26:30-30:00: Cooldown Walk |
Weight loss timeline:Starting weight: 446 lbs Archives
September 2016
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