Day 55 of 103in365: 13/103

Hey There!

Let me get right to the point! I lost 2LBS this week doing just what I said I would do last week!

I worked out 5 days and ate better and smarter than I had done any week in the past 6 months!

I am pretty happy and proud and it was really great to see the needle on the scale go down this week! 2 LBS more down and I am back on my way!

This week I got into Bob Harper's book "The Skinny Rules." If you have ever seen The Biggest Loser, you have probably seen Bob. He is one of the trainers and coaches on the show. This book is great so far (I have not finished it yet) and the premiss is that he is providing 20 simple rules that if done for the rest of your life, will get you skinny and keep you skinny.

He does not give any rules that are extreme or that are not healthy to do everyday. Some of them are tough and some of them are really straight forward and obvious. There is really not much of anything in the rules that most people have not heard of and most people would agree are things you need to do to get and stay thin. Here they are:

1. Drink a large glass of water before every meal - No Excuses.
2. Don't drink your calories.
3. Eat protein at every meal - or stay hungry and grouchy.
4. Slash your intake of refined flours and grains.
5. Eat 30 to 50 grams of fiber a day.
6. Eat apples and berries every single day. Every single day!
7. No Carbs after lunch.
8. Learn to read food labels so you know what you are eating.
9. Stop guessing about portion sizes and get it right - for good.
10. No more added sweetners, including artificial ones.
11. Ger rid of those white potatoes.
12. Make one day a week Meatless.
13. Get rid of fast foods and fried foods.
14. Eat a real breakfast.
15. Make your own food and eat at least ten meals a week at home.
16. Banish high-salt foods.
17. Eat your vegetables - Just Do It!
18. Go to bed hungry.
19. Sleep right.
20. Plan one splurge meal a week.

He states that these rule are nonnegotiable, and also realizes that most people will not be able to or not be willing to follow all of them right away. He advises a "step down" approach to help you "move away from an old behavior and toward and new, healthy one a little at a time."He states that this is only a temporary step and you should work towards living all the rules the whole way.

About half of the book takes each rule and breaks it down for you. He explains why it is a rule and how to follow it. The rest of the book is sample menus and lots of sample recipes that meet all the Skinny Rules.

I have not made any of the recipes yet, but I am excited to and I will share how they work out.

My workouts were great this past week and I mixed in some cardio and some high rep weights with every workout. The longest I worked out at one time was 30 minutes last week and my goal is to do that again this week too. Since I am doing weigh-in Mondays again, I am considering a "week" to be Monday through Sunday. (pretty standard, really.)

That means that I am already 2 workouts into my 5 workouts for this week, as I have worked out both yesterday morning and this morning! 

Take away for this week: Check out "Skinny Rules" by Bob Harper. So far, it really makes a ton of sense to me and he puts just about everything you need to be doing for the rest of your life into one list and into simple to understand terms. We may not want to impose more rules on our lives, but sometimes just telling ourselves that I am going to eat this and not eat that or do this and not do that, is easier to do if I can default to "I am going to do this because it is a rule and it makes sense and I want something different so I am going to do something different!" Try something different this week! Newsflash! You will get something different and it just might be amazing and just what you have needed!

Have a great week!

Scuba

Day 47 of 103in365: 11/103

Hey There!

47 days into 365 now and I must report that I did not go up or down in lbs this week.

"What's the deal Scuba?" you might be asking.

Herein lives the deal.

I was talking to one of my friends and biggest supporters this week about my blog and about weight loss. He himself has lost a great deal of weight this year and is a big inspiration and support for me. He was giving me feedback about my blog and said something really thought provoking for me. He said, "I am really enjoying your blog. Specifically right now, I am noticing that your are talking about getting fired up, and you just are not there yet. I am looking forward to seeing when that switch is flipped for real again and you become ready to really do what you need to do."

I was not sure what to say to that at first, but I quickly realized his point. And he was right!

I have been excited to be back at my blog and lbs loss again, and feeling good about the first 11 lbs being off, but I have not gone "all in" yet and have not been ready to do whatever it takes to get the job done.

"All in" is a poker term not all of you may be aware of. It is what a poker player says when they are willing to bet all their remaining chips or cash on their current hand. It means they are committed and they realize if they lose the hand, they might be out of the game or tournament. This is a serious statement in poker and if you say "I'm all in" at the wrong time you are probably "All done."

"The road to failure is paved with good intentions," is a variation of an old proverb. This quote is important for me this week, because without follow through, all my good intentions about losing this weight are going to lead to failure. (Again) With follow through however, and with an "I'm All In!" attitude and then its corresponding actions, I will be successful and I WILL lose all the the weight I want!

I have a new and "strength-based" version of that old proverb. Here it goes!

"The road to success is paved with committed follow through!"

Take away for this week: Are you ready to say "I am ALL in" and "I will do whatever it takes to be successful!" I know I am, and I know I have to be if I am going to get this 103 lbs off by next August. (And I am going to get it off, BTW!) This week, figure out what is holding you back from being "all in" and being ready to do whatever it takes. Identify the barriers that are in between you and your goals, and get to busting them down! I have been doing that for the past few days and now I can honestly and confidently say "I AM ALL IN!"

Have a great week!

Scuba

Day 40 of 103in365: 11/103

Hey There!

It is Day 40 of 365 and I am down 1 more LB.1 LB down is better than 1 LB up!

11 LBS down and only 92 LBS to go!

Piece of cake! Ok probably not a piece of cake, especially if there is a significant number of cake pieces involved.

I will be one of the first 3 to admit that I need to step up my game if I am going to do this thing. No lbs a week, or only 1 lb a week, is not going to cut it, Chester! (if that even is your real name)

I have been making a classic blunder and enjoying the feeling of being back on the “wagon,” enjoying the feeling of being down these first handful of lbs and feeling over accomplished and not doing everything I know I need to be doing everyday!

I went for 1 bike ride this past week and did a mediocre job, at best, of watching my intake. (come on Chester!)

This week marks my departure from such silly things! As I re-read my post from last week, I re-recognize and acknowledge that there is no time like the present to put new habits into action and minimize and/or eventually extinguish some long-standing unhealthy habits. Goodbye cheeseburgers for breakfast, lunch, dinner, and dinner 2 the sequel! (dinner is back and this time it’s hungry!) Hello healthier foods and healthy portions and more moving around! I can still have a “reasonably sized” cheeseburger from time to time, (5% or less of the time) if I am doing what I need to be doing the other 95% of the time.

This 5% vs 95% theory of weight-loss will not work if you are getting them backwards … turns out. Sorry, but you are not going to lose a bunch of weight eating like you are living through the zombie apocalypse and the only way to defeat the zombies is to eat all the cheeseburgers before they do, and then the last 5% of the time, eat a bean sprout and cup of water and proclaim “Mission Accomplished!”(though for the record and all things being equal, if that kind of zombie apocalypse really does happen, call me cause I would be a valuable member of the that team!)

So here’s one of the things I am going to do different this week. I am making some public commitments. I am committing to at least 4 workouts before next Monday. I am also going to start back on some of the things I was doing before, which were focusing on:

1)    Activities that are fun for me! (bike, speed bag, wing chun dummy, martial arts, boxing drills, walking, etc.)

2)    For the most part, doing 1/3 cardio and 2/3 weight training.

3)    Keeping most workouts fairly short so I have to make them count and also so that I might have the energy to do more than one shorter workout a day.

If you want, you can make reference to the entry I made on 12/17/12 during round 1 of 103in365. It was round 1’s day 78 of 365. I talked about an article that I read in October of 2012, which was one of the catalysts for the way I am going about this thing here. This is a link to that post, and in that post, there is a link to that aforementioned article. (That link still works as of the writing of today’s post)

http://103in365.blogspot.com/2012/12/day-78-of-103in365-weigh-in-monday-33103.html

Sometimes I think of this time around as round 2. It is not always possible to get the job done in round 1! I cannot think of any great boxer who always finished the bout in the 1^st round. Sometimes it even took many rounds. I am going to finish the job in the 2^nd round, but I am under no illusion that I am better than Ali or Marciano. They could have cleaned my proverbial clock before they had breakfast!

Take away for this week: If you don’t get the job done (whatever the job at hand is) in the 1^st round, remember you are in good company and there is almost always a round 2! This week might just be the week to hit the old “reset” button on a goal that you have fallen short on, and restart with even more focus, courage and commitment! When life gives us the not so guaranteed round 2 opportunity, let alone even more rounds, we need to get even better at taking advantage of them and setting back off towards our goals! 

Have a great week!

Scuba

Day 33 of 103in365: 10/103

Hey There!

It is day 33 of 365. It has only been a few days since my last entry, but I want to get a bit synched up to Weigh-In Mondays. My commitment is to blog every week and my plan is to blog most weeks on Monday or Tuesday. (Just FYI)

So weigh-in Monday showed no negative and no positive progress in the good fight, but that being said, I did not expect much since I just weighed in and blogged only a few days ago.

I have been thinking about how much I can not and will not spend much time during these remaining 11 months stalled out or going backwards. To insure I do not so this, I have been reminding myself of such sayings as “Anything worth doing is worth working hard for” and “If you want something different you have to do something different” and “Success or Happiness is made up of many small victories.” (Even though I put all three of those sayings in quotes, I am paraphrasing them from my memory. Sorry, I know that is not really how quotes work.)(And you can quote me on that!)

I have been spending a good deal of time thinking specifically about an Aristotle quote that I ran into earlier this year and that I share with the young people that I have the privilege of working with. The quote goes a little something like this, (hit it!)

“We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.”

I love this quote because he is saying that it is our habits that are the biggest determining factor of our success or Excellence, and as such, our daily decisions add up to our excellence or our lack there of.

I LOVE THAT! That is just another wise person from history who knew and shared with whoever would listen, that your happiness and your success and your feelings of fulfillment are a product of your many decisions and habits and not the responsibility of anyone else. Just yourself. This also means that we are not victims of the will of others in times of unhappiness and when we are feeling unfulfilled. We are in the drivers seat and if we have the courage to take action, we can have all the success and Excellence we want and deserve.

Take away for this week: It is on us to take stock of the situations in our lives and what has led us to those things, and here is the most important part, take accountability and DO something about it! Not all at once, necessarily, but one daily decision at a time and by working to change one habit at a time too!

Have a great week!

Scuba