It all started a year ago when I developed a severe and pronounced disagreement with a *cough* medical professional during an annual health assessment at the auxiliary office. Since the Board of Directors here at TharpSter.org have made the carefully thought-out decision to take on the role of scofflaw as it applies to providing health insurance coverage to its *ahem* employees, we’ve had to take steps to obtain coverage elsewhere.
It was probably the best route to take. I couldn’t fathom offering up a companion wellness program which incentivizes employees to eat healthy, stay active, and pursue creative methods for weighing the extruded product of their roughage-laden colons in a glorious effort to earn “wellness points”.
Last year was the first year in which the subcontractor involved with providing the health assessments measured our respective height and weight. Now I won’t go into a great deal of detail about my assessment short of stating that my height measured in at 5’4”. All of my adult life, I’ve hovered somewhere between 5’6” and 5’7”, depending on the pull of Earth’s gravity during any given day. When I protested, I was offered another shot of being measured, to which I declined. Everyone I talked to after the fact complained about being measured short as well.
Numbers don’t lie, people. The tools and devices which generate those numbers have a propensity for avoiding the truth at all costs. With my diminished height firmly planted on the wellness website as a catalyst to the complex I have about the aforementioned height, I rebelled. I tapered off my participation in the plan and wrote it off as a bunch of mamby-pamby BS brought on by the expansion of socialized medicine. I stopped tracking what I was eating every day and determined I could take care of bidness without knowing my caloric intake and output. I gradually lost my motivation to get my butt to the gym 3-4 times a week as well.
My efforts paid off.
Within a year, I had gained 20 pounds.
Twenty ‘effin pounds.
Back then, I had maintained a goal to lose about 40 pounds. Even at that point I was discouraged. Regardless of my tracking and exercising efforts, the poundage wasn’t coming off. The lack of motivation to stay with it was motivated by the lack of results.
A few weeks ago when the painful evidence was there in my face, I made a decision to get back into it. I had reached a weight I had never expected to reach, and I was pretty darn close to one I didn’t even want to touch. Since January 12th, I’ve been at it again.
I’m tracking what I eat. I’m exercising regularly. I even got a Fitbit pedometer through the rewards program at my bank. They had no toasters. I’m going to use these tools and participate in the “mamby pamby” wellness program at work to now lose 60 pounds. Everything that follows from here represents my periodic ramblings about my efforts to keep the TharpSter PounDown in full force and effect.
Unlike an ongoing blog post where the future and the outcome are generally unknown, I’m posting these entries into a hidden page right here on your favorite website on the whole world wide web. At some point, I will unhide the page and let the world see what I can only hope are the fruits of my labor. It’s a safe assumption by now that if you’re reading this, it’s because I’ve revealed the page. PFO, don’t you think?
Thursday, 01/30/2014 – Yesterday, I was pretty good boy on the exercise side. Whereas I typically average around 7000-8000 steps a day, I managed to churn out just over 10,800. This was catalyzed by my parking on the other side of the building at work, and coupled with a good workout last night. The only problem was that I didn’t’ lose anything. I stayed flat. I expect it had to do with my caloric intake. The cheesesteak sandwich and battered fries at lunch probably didn’t help either.
Weight: 2Much minus 6 lbs.
Tuesday, 03/18/2014 – A pleasant surprise
To say the least, I completely expected to see a considerable gain coming out of this last weekend. I spent all week last week recovering from the impacts of a swanky all you can eat meat joint which features young men sporting skewers of steak, chicken, pork, and lamb at the ready to cut a slice or two off for you right there at your plate while you try to wade through their heavy accents. The place is good, however my lower gastro-intestinal system was in a major state of hilgedy-pilgedy the following day. Mixing your meats is kinda like mixing your booze. It’s generally not a good idea. For those of you familiar with the I-35 corridor between San Antonio and Austin, consider that monstrosity as a pretty good representation of how my colon felt the next day.
So after that particular outing on Sunday the 9th, I had pretty much spent the next several days fighting back against the sudden 3 pound gain I had experienced as a result of taking in the fruits of a labor put forth by the Brazilian steak boys. By the time I had gotten to the end of the week, I had managed to get rid of the gain. The problem was the upcoming weekend.
Junior was in town on spring break, and we had decided to have breakfast on Sunday morning before he left. Later on in the day, Wifey and I would be going out for a nice dinner, and following that up with a trip to a local hotel in hopes of committing copious amounts of drunken unga-bunga.
After a day of sending my calorie counter into flux with assorted kolaches, fried cheese, high calorie grilled chicken salads, and Mexican Screws, I honestly expected to get on the scale on Monday only to hear it groan. So I did the one thing to counter act a gain this weekend.
I didn’t get on the scale yesterday.
I also backed up the toilet at the hotel. That will teach them to stock their hotel rooms with a plunger in the future.
Yesterday was my off day from exercise as well. If I even generated 3000 steps, that was way too much. At the same time, I watched my caloric intake like a hawk. It was more like a Chicken Hawk. This morning, when I got on the scale, I was apparently rewarded with the dumbest of Homer Simpson like luck.
There was no gain.
In fact, there was a loss. From the point I had last weighed on Saturday morning, I had lost nearly 4 pounds. This was especially cool, because I had all but stalled at about a 14 pound loss, and couldn’t drop that 15th pound to save my life. In this case, I exceeded it.
If my past efforts over the last few months are any indication of future results, I fully expect in the next day or so that a pound or two will jump back on. It’s just the way my weight loss seems to work.
Weight: 2Much minus 17.2 lbs.
Sunday, April 27, 2014
So here I sit nearly 3 1/2 months out from when I started this mission to pound it down, and I’ve managed to figure a few things out on the way to solving the Rubik’s Cube that is weight loss. As you read these, keep one thing in mind. They all apply to me and the way I have to solve the cube.
1. Timing seems to be everything. On days I don’t exercise, I have to be careful not to eat dinner too late. If I do eat late on these days, I eat something high fiber like Raisin Bran or a wheat bagel.
2. Nutritional intake is as probably more important than caloric intake. There are certain foods which I have severely limited on this mission. Taters and cheeses are the primary culprits here. I still have them every once in a while, but I generally stay away from them.
3. The bulk of my workout revolves around slowly elevating my heart rate in preparation for a 13 minute joy ride on the elliptical.
Three times a week, I start with 18 minutes on the treadmill at 3.2 mph. The incline of the treadmill changes based on my heart rate, which should stay at 117 beats per minute. Given a heart rate which is pretty easy to obtain, it’s rare that machine gives me any elevation at all.
I then spend the next 20-25 minutes doing machines. Depending in the day, those exercises will focus on abs, arms, or legs. During the warm up on the treadmill and my time on the machines, I only listen to podcasts where there’s talking only. I don’t want anything to fire me up to work faster than I am at the given time.
Once I’m done on the machines, I turn the podcasts off and switch to my top rated songs on my iPhone. I then jump on the elliptical and program it for 10 minutes with a heart rate requirement of 140 beats per minute. The machine will automatically give me a 3 minute cool down period. By minute number 7 of this particular phase of this particular workout, I’m feeling pretty good. The adrenaline is pumping, and the ear drums are being irreparably damaged by excessive decibels of some of my favorite music.
Afterwards, I get back on the treadmill for another 13 minutes to do my cool down.
4. Patience. Patience my ass, I’m going to kill something. In today’s microwave society, we expect immediate results. Sadly, losing weight in the manner I’m doing it doesn’t lend to a quick turn around.
Weight: 2 much minus 23.2
Wednesday, May 7, 2014
Hang on, I’ll be right back.
I gotta pee.
Ok, that feels better.
The ongoing effort to shed some poundage which will render your favorite blogger on the worldwide web a mere shadow of his former self continues to pay slow and steady dividends.
Crud. Gotta let the dog in. Hang on.
I’m back.
So back to the dividends. Aside from the weight slowly coming off, there have been other benefits too. I’ve pulled no fewer than 4 shirts out of the closet which I haven’t dared to wear in over a year and have put them back into rotation with the rest of my business casual duds which refuse to reveal the moobs. The plantar fasciitis has pulled up stakes and bolted along with that insatiable and sometimes painful itch located about 5 inches north of my gooch. My blood pressure has improved as well.
I encounter occasional backslides reticent of the story in The Odyssey (a word I can’t spell without the benefit of a right click) where our hero and his crew were escaping the Cyclops (I think) via boat. Whenever they got far enough from the island where ole one eye was stationed, Odysseus would yell out at his enemy with trash talk designed to offer up some disparaging remarks about his mama. Cyclops would throw a big ole rock at the ship, which would cause waves that took our hubris infested protagonist back to the island. Odysseus and the crew would have to work that much harder to fight the wave and get further out to sea. Once they did, bonehead would open his trap again and show his inability to learn a lesson. The process went on for awhile as I remember.
For all I know, some of the details may be incorrect. I haven’t read that story in over 30 years.
Anyway, there are times when I’m on a roll and losing weight consistently. I get a little cocky and jump off the nutrition wagon and gain a few pounds back. I then spend the next week losing those pounds and trying to work on getting back in the groove.
In other news, there’s a young girl at the gym with a streak of bleached hair in her bangs. She’s got long brown hair and possesses several of the physical attributes that shallow gentlemen appreciate in a young lady. For this, I refer to her (in my own mind) as Rogue for her resemblance to the comic book character.
Today, in the course of doing various exercises to maintain her tone, an accidental lack of modesty revealed that she was blazing a thong under her shorts.
I don’t question this young lady’s ability to sport such a device and make it do what it was meant to do. At the same time, who in their right mind wears a thong when working out?
Rest assured, I don’t.
Weight: 2 Much minus 24.2 pounds
Saturday, May 17, 2014
I hate the effin’ backslide.
At the end of last week, I hit the 25 pound mark. On Friday, I drove up to the northern branch to move Junior out of his dorm on the 3rd floor and into an apartment. By the end of the day, my FitBit had registered 33 floors in which I climbed while hauling assorted clothing, school supplies, bathroom ammunition, and a generally bitchy attitude for having to negotiate so many stairs.
On the next day, I flew back home and proceeded to trash talk the Cyclops by eating lots of queso (aka: this blogger’s crack). By the end of the weekend, I had put a few of those 25 pounds back on and was subsequently relegated to fighting to get them back off.
Dagnabbit.
Weight: 2 much minus 23.8
Saturday, 05/24/2014
Yesterday, I came within 0.8 pounds of hitting my first goal.
Perhaps I should explain that.
A little over a year ago when my initial weight loss attempts were starting to turn south on me, I set a goal in my Fitbit application to lose 10 pounds. It was an obtainable goal, and something that I felt would help me kick start my efforts.
Having added 20 something pounds last year, I found when I accessed that original goal on January 12th of this year, that losing 10 pounds was now re-tasked to losing 27 pounds. That was the culmination of losing the original 10 pounds, and whatever else had been added on in the interim.
So I’m just about there. I way the same thing today I weighed yesterday, so I’m just fighting that lousy 0.8 pounds.
Once I hit it, I will set another 10 lb goal. I will repeat as necessary until I hit my ultimate goal of 60 lbs.
After that, I’ll really get started.
Weight: 2 much minus 26.8
Tuesday, June 3rd
Weight: 2 much minus 28 / Goal #2 plus 9.6
Thursday, June 6th
One of the near daily practices necessary for those of us who negotiate our corpulence regularly is the fact that our clothes and the way they fit can be suspect.
I’ve worn a 2x in shirts for the longest time. By the end of last year and the beginning of this year, my girth had gotten to a point where I probably needed to wear a 2 1/2x.
That’s right. If you want to go to Walmart and buy a t-shirt featuring a smart visual joke about the Pythagorean Theorem, you just ain’t gonna find it in a 2 1/2x. You either need to get a 2x or 3x; and that’s on the outside chance that plus sizes are even offered for such whimsical attire.
But what about the vast collection of 2x shirts which you already have? There’s the roster shirts from when the kids played ball, the assorted shirts featuring beard clad entrepreneurs who hail from Louisiana, and one or two featuring your favorite Martian (not Mr. Hand).
So if you have a load of 2x shirts which may be a little tight, the key is to subtly stretch them out before you put them on. The procedure is as follows:
1. Put the shirt on
2. Pull you arms back through the arm holes so that they’re positioned at your side, under the shirt.
3. Slowly raise your arms. This will stretch the shirt around your oblique (love handles) and abs (dunlap) out a bit so that it doesn’t reveal your aesthetically displeasing curves, aka Muffin Top. Believe me, they’re probably ugly. A case of body dysmorphic usually accompanies such corpulence.
4. Now bend your arms and cross your chest with them as if you were doing a *cough* sit-up. Push each arm out and downward to stretch out the chest area. This will keep the shirt from revealing your moobs and the unsightly protruded noses of your chilled Artesians.
Four quick steps and your shirt now looks like it fits you looser than it actually does.
Look out world, here you come.
Weight: Goal 2 plus 9.4 lbs.
Saturday, June 28th
Ok, here’s something weird.
Not really.
I’m working with a dietician as part of the wellness plan at work. In a monthly call we had the other day about my progress in dropping the poundage, she suggested I might consider tracking my calories through My Fitness Pal. Up until now, I had been tracking them through Fitbit, but I figured it couldn’t hurt either way.
The interesting thing about the My Fitness Pal is the ads. It’s a free site, so one can only guess that advertising will reign supreme. Yesterday when I went to the site, Webroot was advertised on the right side of the home screen.
I use Webroot.
Today, across the top, an ad appears for Vistaprint.
I’ve been on Vistaprint in recent days doing some work for the manager at the northern branch at the organization.
Today, on the side, I’ve seen ads for Travelocity and Harry’s an online outfit that sells razors.
I’ve been to both of these sites in recent days as well.
Hmmmmmm. Makes you wonder.
Weight: Goal 2 plus 8.8 pounds.
Sunday, July 20th
Finally, I hit the 30 pound mark.
The problem is that just when I think I’ve cracked the code to pounding down, the effing scale next to the effing tub in the effing bathroom (what other effing room would the effing scale next to the effing tub be next to?) has continued its ongoing mockery of my efforts.
At the end of last month, I had a scheduled call with my nutritionist which is provided by my wellness program at work. During the call, she suggested I my consider using a different application to track my caloric intake. I went some 20 days or so using that app before I was able to show any weight loss based on what I entered as my starting weight when I first signed on.
Regardless, I think I may be one step closer to cracking the ultimate code which will help me drop another 30 pounds. Big picture, it would seem I need to eat about 2200 calories a day and balance my carbs, protein, and fat intake correctly.
We’ll see.
Weight: Goal 2 plus 7.4 pounds.
Saturday, August 30th
Anyone who bought that line of crap about me cracking the code to dropping poundage should seriously consider the existence of the word “gullible” in the dictionary. I’ve looked it up myself a few times just to make sure the cherished souls charged with carrying on the collective work of Daniel Webster have kept that word in there for posterity sake.
The premise of me being able to lose any weight based on a net daily intake of 2200 calories was egregious at best.
Net, my ass.
2200 calories a day, my pasty, dimpled, dumpy, sometimes itchy, sometimes smelly, flat, won’t hold my britches up in the back, cracked down the middle ass.
Ten days after my previous entry, I had another scheduled call with my nutritionist and aired my frustrations. It would seem that once I started using the new app to track my… ahem…. “progress”, everything went to hell. In the most polite of manners, I aired all of my frustrations to said nutritionist.
In that call, we adjusted my daily calorie intake goal to 2000 gross. That’s before taxes for those of you can never remember the difference between net and gross. We also covered a few other things which helped to line me back on the path to hit my goals.
One of those things was a honest discussion about the effing scale just outside of the effing tub in the effing bathroom. I was weighing myself too much. It usually happened daily, but there where times were it could happen twice a day.
Go figure that such behavior would manifest itself in your favorite obsessive compulsive blogger on the whole worldwide web.
So it was decided on that call that I won’t weigh myself everyday.
Hence, the effing scale has been removed from the effing floor next to the effing tub in the effing bathroom and has been unceremoniously relocated to the effing shelf in the effing closet.
Explaining that move to Wifey the next day when she couldn’t find the scale made for an interesting conversation.
Weight: Goal 2 plus 1.2 pounds.
Saturday, 10/04/2014
Well ladies and gentlemen, I have two updates.
First of all, I hit my second goal last week. It took what seems like a whole frickin summer to do it, but I got ‘r done. All things being equal, I attribute the push over the top to hit the goal to a bidness trip to *ugh* New Jersey last week. During that trip, I found myself walking around New York City with the boss and the boss’s boss during two of those nights. The night we went to Times Square ultimately garnered just under 17,000 on my fitbit that day. If that wasn’t enough, I was exposed to a lot of different foods which I as a picky eater didn’t partake. My caloric intake those days was lower than average.
The second update comes by way of being noticed. For the first time this week, someone at work mentioned my weight loss. It made my day. For all of these months, I’ve seen some clothes fit me a whole lot better than they did before. A pair of dress britches I received for Christmas which didn’t fit then, were part of the ensemble I donned in *ugh* New Jersey. Tshirts which used to be tight and were in need of a stretch out fit well, and even a little loose. I bought a new belt and am already three notches in on that bad boy. Up until the weight loss was mentioned, all of the key indicators I had seen to prove it were meaningless.
Weight: Goal 3 plus 7.8 pounds
Saturday, 11/01/2014
Ya know, there comes a time in every young man’s life when he gets to a point that he’s achieved two-thirds of his weight loss goal on the year that he just has to sit down and set the math aside so as to dig through the back of the ole closet to see what’s going on back there.
Set aside that I’ve been on this mission for 41 weeks now and I’ve lost 41 pounds. I’m still running some statistical analysis on what my year end total loss is projected to be by the time I hit January 12, 2015.
Clothes are starting to fit better now. I’m wearing shirts I haven’t worn in awhile because they had gotten to tight and huggy. Now they’re back to fitting the way they were meant to.
But I’m not here to talk about my shirts.
I’m here for the britches.
This morning, I found a pair of Levi’s in the back of the closet. The belt loops were intact and showed no sign of being pulled on excessively so as to keep from revealing my Hank Hill like tuckus. There was no hole worn into the crotch. These jeans were in pretty good shape.
One can only surmise that they had been relegated to the back of the closet because they had become to tight and ungiving. Given that it was a tad nippy out this morning, I decided to wear jeans.
I put them on and they fit perfectly. They weren’t too tight. They allowed me to copy a squat like Johnny Bench. They didn’t need to be repeated hoisted over my butt.
Ya know, there comes a time in every young man’s life when all he has to do and realize that the smallest things can be pretty frickin’ awesome.
Weight: Goal 3 plus 6.2 pounds
Sunday, 12/30/2014
Ya know, there comes a time in every young man’s life when after realizing things are going well with his diet, he then hits a plateau. He gets stuck at a certain weight, and can’t break through to get past that particular weight and move on closer to his goal.
He gets stuck.
Dagnabbit.
I’ve been stuck people.
Even worse is that the holidays did a number on me because I slowed down my exercise routine and feasted when I should have fasted.
Dagnabbit.
As Juniorette would state in the most mocking of tones she’s capable of: “The struggles of the first world are alive and well.”
Yes, I want to continue to lose weight and hit that elusive 60 pound goal.
Hang on. Gotta see if the Rice Krispie treats are ready.
Pause for effect.
On the plus side, I can think of 3 specific events which have generated a warm fuzzy for me in this process.
- A family member complimented the weight loss the other night.
- Someone who has recently been undergoing a nitro-infused, non-surgical weight loss over the last several months and had been dropping the poundage pretty fast told me that pharmaceuticals have been used to aid in the endeavor. Throughout this whole adventure, I’ve been doing this trip based solely on nutrition and exercise.
- My wedding ring has started to slip off, and has admonished me to be careful when waiving my hand about lest I lose it.
Big picture, I plan to unhide this page and make it visible to all who visit this site on January 12th, 2015. That will mark the one year anniversary of when I started this particular effort. Unless, something major happens in the coming weeks, it appears I will post about a 42 pound loss on the year.
That’s pretty telling, given that 42 is my favorite number.
Weight: Goal 3 plus 6.2 pounds
Sunday, 01/11/2015 – The Last Entry
Well ladies and gentlemen, this is it.
I sit here a year later typing up what will the last entry on this particular mission to document my ongoing goals to lose a pound or two.
The total amount of poundage I’m managed to drop since this time last year is 41.2 pound. I came up 18.8 pounds short for the ambitious one year goal I set, but I’m not very discouraged about it.
I’ll tell you why.
I will keep working on it. I’ve generally hit a plateau right now, not unlike the one I encountered last spring.
In the last year, I’ve pulled several shirts out of the back of the closet and worked them back into the regular rotation. One of those shirts has been back there so long, I don’t even remember the last time I wore it.
A trip to the jewelry store is imminent because I have to get my wedding band resized.
Downward.
On a side note, bandages make for a good ring guard in a pinch.
The most poignant reason why I’m not discouraged came to me just this morning. I found a picture I had taken of myself and the family while we were sitting in a movie theater on this day last year. The picture featured just my head, but it was very telling. It’s amazing how big my cheeks and neck looked in that picture.
Perhaps last year after taking and viewing that picture, I was motivated to start this mission to pound down. I honestly don’t remember. I’d like to think that this time next year I’ll look at a picture taken this last week and continue to shudder like I did with last year’s pic.
In the meantime, I have some people to acknowledge / thank:
- God – gave me the gumption to git-r-done
- Fitbit – thanks for the step count
- My Fitness Pal – thanks for the monitoring software
- Christine my coach at Redbrick Health who told me not to weigh daily
- The Wealth and Hellness program at work – not sure if I pronounced that one correctly
- Planet Fitness – the exercise component of the Wealth and Hellness
- My dogs, Faith and Hope, for being all to eager to go on a walk with me to boost the step count and flights climbed
- Grilled chicken breast
- All of the various friends, coworkers, and family members who provided unsolicited encouragement throughout the year
- The occasional meal replacement bar and protein shake used as filler to achieve a daily calorie budget
- That parking spot between two columns really close to the door at work, on the other side of the building from where my cubicle resides
- Plantar Fasciitis – Getting up and walking around made my foot feel better whenever it flared up
- Wifey – Of course. I can’t even begin to give a summary or go into detail on how much of a help she was this last year.
Pound it down, y’all.