6 Years... Not 6 Months

6 Years... Not 6 months

How about a weight loss story that is about slow, steady progress mixed with stumbles and fails?

The photo on the left is me circa October '09. The one on the right is me today. I'm still not where I want to be, but I haven't given up. While I do plateau and slide, I also stick with it, start fighting again, set goals, and never truly quit.

Ups and Downs

I was about 293 lb. in the photo, and I tried a lot of schemes for the next 6 months. In April of the next year I started really logging both calories and weight (that's is why this weight log starts then). By then I had lost more than 10 lb. but I had really plateaued and I needed something.

For me that something was logging EVERY SINGLE CALORIE. That was what did it for me. It is a pain in the ass, but it works. You have clarity and insight into what you are doing and what is working. You recognize foods that do work for you and ones that don't

It is like getting out of debt... Keep a budget.

As you can see from the chart, I lost, then gained, then lost again. But even when I was being bad, I still kept logging my fails. It kept up the habit and kept me honest.

Guns for Guns

I have a story for every major inflection point. The longest sustained drop in weight was during my "Guns for Guns" motivation program. I would motivate myself with firearm-related rewards at certain milestones. That worked great until I bought a house and became house poor.

It is sometimes tough to find cost-effective rewards when you are used to rewarding yourself with food.

Surgery Sucks

All injuries suck, but you hopefully find ways to still diet and do other exercise. But this one hit me hard.

The big hump in my chart (gaining back weight) was just after some major arm surgery: Ulnar Osteotomy!

Basically you have carpel-tunnel-like symptoms, but in the pinky side, not down the middle, and nothing else is fixing it so they shorten your bone. (Cut it at and angle, shave a millimeter or two off) bolt it back together). If you like X-Rays: http://imgur.com/ZME2taT

The day of the surgery I hit my goal weight: http://imgur.com/Sk3rwq3

But I did it mostly the wrong way (muscle atrophy because I couldn't lift and I was recovering from a surgery that released a nerve in my elbow to try to fix the problem).

One Thing at a Time

Sorry for potato... Cant find a better one.

Part of the big hump was the recovery, and I also was way busy finishing my MBA. This is me excited to go back to school that fall (a jab at all the photos FB moms were posting). I finished last December and I've been working back up momentum since then.

No Cats

Im not a big animal lover, so I figure a shameless sweaty selfie is good, right?

Right now I'm working on building up my momentum again:

Diet: I'm not recording calories at the moment, just trying to get 200g protein and doing intermittent fasting. It is tough to get 200g in 8 hours, so the method is sort of self regulating if I just eat smart.

Exercise: I'm doing pretty good at 10k steps a day, and I just started this routine: http://m.imgur.com/gallery/gKaHO

Thanks for reading, and I hope it might inspire a few of you who get discouraged because you aren't seeing amazing results in 2-5 months.

I'm in this for the long haul, and it has been more about consistent lifestyle changes than crazy super changes.

Oh, and hooray for me! So far I've kept the boobs.