Not too extraordinary of a day, but for me it marks the 31st day of my commitment to my new diet.
I don't know if you all remember that well (I do) but for the most part of my early 20s I was grossly overweight, at one point in 2004 I was more than 290 lbs. I had a 42 inch waist and had to find XXL (sometimes XXXL, yeah try and find that) shirts to wear.
Me at 290ish in January 2004.
Needless to say I was grumpy a lot back then, I would attribute my weight to binge drinking (who me?) and eating my life away. It wasn't for lack of physical effort, as I enjoyed playing basketball and did so at a very regular basis. I even tried to get on diets and try diet supplements to lose weight with Gerald and Vinji. They succeeded where I failed, and I just couldn't figure it out.
One day in March 2005 a light turned on in my head, and along with the motivation of Grace, I started going to 24hr fitness and getting on the elliptical. Though my weight loss wasn't anything crazy it started me on the right path. A year-and-a-half later I was in better shape, but still in the 270lb range. I felt a lot better about myself and I guess my body was able to start it's metabolic engine and around this time I started thinking differently about food. I became obsessed with going to the gym every day. I became obsessed with counting calories and starving myself. Fast-food and the things I loved was a no-no.
After about 3-4 months of this crazy low calorie diet and nightly trips to the gym I started to see drastic weight loss. By the time I turned 25 in March of 2007 I was 220lbs. That is a net loss of nearly 75 lbs. I never felt better in my life. I fit into anything I wanted and I was super confident. I was able to tell Grace how much she really meant to me, and I was lucky enough that she felt that I deserved her. My confidence skyrocketed. I was happy! In July of 2007 I looked down at the scale and it said 214lbs!
I was able to keep my fitness portion of my regimen pretty well for over 2.5 years after that. However, as many of you know, when you date someone you go out and eat whatever you want basically. I kept my weight under 225 which I felt was OK. In July of 2009 tragedy struck... I went to Italy with Grace and after that trip left my fitness regimen behind. Needless to say I didn't remember to eat well to change this.
The result of this irresponsibility was a gain in weight, obviously. In December of 2010 (umm, a month ago) I weighed 255lbs again. My size 38 loose Seven Jeans were suffocating. My belt that I have had since 2007 was on its last hole.
I failed myself.
Jed, had noticed he was in the same boat a little earlier than I did. In early November he started cutting carbs out of his diet. By late December everyone could see that he was losing weight and looking good. At first I was hesitant to believe in such non-sense. I LOVE RICE. I LOVE POTATOES. I LOVE CANDY. However, I couldn't really deny that Jed had lost weight pretty painlessly so I had to research it.
Primal Blueprint:
I found this great website called Mark's Daily Apple (www.marksdailyapple.com) and it detailed a lo-carb plan of living that arises from the idea that we should eat what our ancestors ate. Back when early humans existed they mainly ate protein from animals and gathered plants that they could find around. Our ancestors lacked the theories and technology needed to process or even grow/raise food. This means that grains (wheat, rice), legumes (beans, corn), exotic fruits (basically anything but berries haha) are not to be eaten, which basically leaves you with vegetables as the main/only source of carbohydrates The idea of this diet is called the Primal Blueprint and I became fascinated with it.
The first thing I did was really look at how I had been eating. Grace and I had tried to eat "well" since we moved in together in June as we both noticed that we weren't in the same shape when we started seeing each other. By eating well we tried to keep away from "white" starches, which is a great idea, but we also consumed the carbs in a high level.
I would have a bowl of cereal and 2% milk (30g of carbs) for breakfast, a turkey sandwich on wheat bread (40g of carbs) and a bag of Doritos (18g of carbs) for lunch. Everyday I would be hungry again an hour or so after lunch so I would grab another bag of Doritos (18g of carbs) when I got home I would prepare dinner. Most of the time Grace and I would eat a protein with brown rice (50-70g of carbs!!!) or wheat pasta (40g of carbs). By the time dessert was eaten every night we were at least in the 250g/day of carbs range. This is enough carbs to keep someone overweight, especially when we really didn't work out.
Goal:
I also set a goal for myself. I would like to be under 220 lbs by the end of May 2011. I would love to eventually be under 200lbs and this is my long term goal.
I decided that starting January 1st (I started a little earlier actually) I was going to give up my love affair with carbs. The last week in December Grace and I ate whatever we pleased, I knew it was going to be a while before I had my favorite foods again.
I started off kind of shaky, as I really missed carbs at first. I also went overboard with the fattiness of the meals I did eat when I did avoid carbs. I was very steak-centric, if you know what I mean. As the month went on I started really trying to pay attention to my daily intake in the nutrients we all need to survive. I started looking into adding a lot more dark greens to get iron and fiber. The month didn't go by without roadblocks as my brother was in town (and we all know how he likes to eat) and my cousins Lesley and her family came to visit from Canada for a week and a half. My biggest test was surviving an ITALIAN all you can eat dinner without having any carbs.
I did it.
Fast forward to today. I am down to under 240lbs (depending on if I pooped or how much water I retain) and my size 38 pants are loose again and the fat around my jaw has lessened. That is a net weight loss of 15 lbs in a month. Not bad, but not as great as I would want. I didn't work out much and I did eat high fat/high salt and fast food (double-double protein style!) for a good amount of my meals. As I begin to add in a fitness program and decrease my salt and fat intake I hope to see better gains (err... LOSSES).
As much as people would like to believe that this is just a fad diet, and that the love for carbs is just to much to give up, I hope to make this a complete lifestyle overhaul. I don't deny that one day in the future I will eat spam and garlic fried rice again, or carne asada fries or a large pepperoni stuffed crust pizza or... you get the picture. That is unrealistic. What I have also figured out though is it is equally unrealistic to keep holding on the idea that I (or anyone) NEED these carbed-up foods. I do know that once I do hit my goal my "normal" day intake of carbs will still be under 100g (barring a cheat day or an indulgence day or whatever). This will be my plan for the duration of my time on earth.
In the meantime, I have no problem giving up my love affair with carbohydrate-laden foods in order to find the self that I loved and was proud of and eventually let go away due to laziness and neglect.
I will start blogging more often as this blog has been mostly and online photo album and not a way for me to externalize my thinking process. In future posts I hope to help people that are in similar situations by posting what I eat and how I workout and my progress on this journey.
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