Attempt #2 - BELLY OFF

Ok, so I wasn't able to take off the last 15... But I'm not giving up yet! I still want to see myself shed these last few pounds, and I'm taking another crack at it.

This time, to help with some ideas and tips - I'm turning to Men's Health Magazine's BELLY OFF Program - http://www.menshealth.com/bellyoff/index.php

The site offers some great tools:

Food - Full meal plan including recipies, shopping lists, etc
Work-outs - Several options include a Body Weight regime for those who don't go to the Gym or have specialized workout equipment.

Basically I've got 6 weeks til my 1/2 Marathon, so I'll be doing a lot of running as well.

I weighed in at 179 on the Wii this morning, so I really only have about 9 or 10 pounds to lose and I'll be happy... If I can stick (mostly) to this plan, keep running, keep working out and cut out the stupid food, I'll get there!

Encouragement / Comments are Welcome... What do you think? Can I do it?

January Update

Well, I stopped posting and the desire and the fire just drizzled out. I was hoping to keep posting daily, and perhaps get a bit of commentary going on the blog, get the sense that friends and family were following along, and that would help to keep me motivated, that didn't really materialize - not that I'm looking for excuses here, just mentioning that.

I weighed in this morning on my upstairs scale at 174, so maybe a pound or two off of where I left off at the end of November.

So I made it about 1/2 way to my goal.

An interesting point about this is how does one reflect on the results of the 'project'

If the goal was to lose 15 lbs, and I only lost 7.5, then you could say I failed. However if I'd never attempted it, I'd not have lost that 7.5 lbs, so in that sense it was a success.

The way I look at it, is I plan to be in this body for a long, long, time, and ever run I take, every good choice I make with the food I eat, this is progress.

I'm going to keep working to get this last 7 lbs off, I've been running over the holidays and haven't done too badly food wise. I'm going to sign up for the Mississauga Marathon and I'll be training for that. I'll also be getting an extra run in every week, I'll be running for 30 minutes with George's soccer team on Wednesday night, so assuming I keep my food intake at a reasonable level, I should be able to shed the extra fat within another month or so, and be lean and mean, ready to take on my next goal - to finish the Mississauga 1/2 Marathon in under 2 hours.

More Progress!

Had a decent day food-wise yesterday, clocked in around 1500 calories, no exercise (aside from my walks in the morning to the train and back), but my Wii Fit weight-in this morning came up as 172.8, so down almost another pound in two days which is good.

So I've now dropped almost 10 lbs since I started, which is a decent acheivement, now let's see if I can keep on cranking, get these last 5 off!

It's funny, in the Wii fit initial weigh-in screen, my line is still practically wedged up against the 'overweight' section of the BMI scale, it'd be nice to create a bit of breathing room there! :)

Had a Good Day

I just need to take it one day at a time...

Yesterday was a good day.  Kept my intake to around 1,500 calories, logged it in SparkPeople, and did 30 minutes of Wii Fit last night, a mix of Aerobics, Balance Games, Yoga and Strength Training.

I didn't have time for a weigh-in this morning, so I'll have another good day today and we'll see if I'm down again tomorrow morning.

Progress, not Perfection

I've been using SparkPeople on and off for a couple of years now, interesting to see the graph of my weight... Interesting to see the increase from July through to the end of 2007, In hindsight, I think that would of had to do with not being as active going into the winter months and working a lot of hours, thus not getting to the gym... and then I got things back under control... from Jan-March, that was really the last time, previous to this time that I decided to knock a few pounds off, my intention then was to get down to 175 by the kick-off of the TFC season... I think I came within 3 or 4 lbs of that goal... then stayed fairly consistent until this time around...

A little behind, but still on track...

Ok, so I've still down from my last weight in.

Had a good day yesterday food wise, clocked in around 1,500 calories, had a good 90+ minutes of indoor soccer last night, lots of running as we only had 7 guys out.

Weighed-in this morning, 173.7 on Wii Fit, 173.5 on my scale upstairs, so down about another pound over the last 10 days, which given the fact that I've not got a lot of exercise, and I've continued to enjoy myself on weekends, I'm totally Ok with.

This means I've now got 6.5 lbs to go in just over 2 weeks.  This would require me to be about 1,200 calories "to the good" each day, which is not realistic, but what I'll do is at least try to kick-up the exercise, try to get some really good cardio in, eat lots of healthy food, and we'll see where we end up!

Wow! 11 Days!

Ok, so I guess I've lost a bit of inertia here!

Due to a combination of factors I haven't been at the top of my game.

Don't get me wrong, I haven't been sitting on the couch eating chips and drinking beer for 10 days straight or anything, but I certainly haven't been executing on my complete strategy in order to acheive my goal.

So I've got 3 weeks left.   It's time to sprint to the finish.

I was in bed last night at a good hour, up at 6:30am this morning, did a little bit of yoga and stretching and pushups, and I've had a good breakfast and logged it in SparkPeople.  Tonight will be soccer, no plans to go out for beers afterwards, so it should be a really good day.  I'll get on the Wii and the scale tomorrow morning, log where I'm at and I'll know exactly what I've got to do and whether reaching the 167 mark by the 13th is still acheivable or not...

If not, no tears, I'll just drive as hard as I can TO that date, and then extend the effort for another week or two to arrive at the goal.  

I plan to be around for a LONG LONG time, so while I'd certainly like to reach my goal, a week or two in the grand scheme of things is neither here nor there.