• Weekly Weigh-In #1; Phase 2: 202.5 lbs.
• Phase 2 Starting Weight: 203.3 lbs.
• Gain/loss of: -0.8 lbs.
• Pounds to Go: 12.5 lbs.
• Weight Loss to Date: 94.5 lbs.

The scale was acting funny this morning, fluctuating between all sorts of numbers. My weight for today is an average of all of them and for the first few days I’d say that’s not too bad. We’ll see how things pan out over the next few weeks.

As I mentioned at the start of this post, I’m going to do things a little different this time around just to shake things up. First and most notably I have decided to abandon my Weight Watchers Point Excel chart for the month, and there are a few reasons for this: a) I need something different and b) after listening to a great podcast the other day, I discovered the importance of BMR.

What is BMR? It’s your Basal Metabolic Rate, or the amount of calories you burn by simply doing nothing–even sleeping. No matter what you’re doing, you burn calories and how many you burn depends on your height, weight and age. (To determine your BMR, go here.) After determining what your BMR is, it’s important to know that that number–mine is 1954.49–is what your body needs in order to maintain your current weight. If you want to shed some weight, simply take in less than your recommended BMR or exercise some more. 

My next change also goes hand-in-hand with the BMR thing. I discovered a fantastic (and free) iPhone/iPod Touch app on the iTunes store called Lose It! This app is probably one of the best I’ve come across because it keeps track of everything: weight, calorie intake, activities/calories burned, goal date, and also has a thorough database of foods to choose from when entering what you’ve eaten. If it’s not there, you can create your own data for it and save it for future use.

In my case, I was allowed 1,637 calories–just slightly lower than my BMR. Calories are tallied up as you enter your food intake and the app determines how many calories you have left to consume to stay in your safe zone. And if you add activities, the appropriate number of calories is subtracted from your total. Can it get any simpler than that? I don’t think so!

And let me tell you: seeing intake in calories vs. Points is a real kick in the gut. 

On the Wii Fit front, I have chosen to run the Island Lap while holding 5 lb. dumbells in each hand. I started that last night and noticed a considerable difference while “jogging” as I sweated much more than usual. Also, I found a little hidden extra in the “jogging” portion of the game. If you follow the different colored dogs, you run at a swifter pace than following a standard Mii. I tried it and yes, it does seem much faster!

Finally, I had mentioned earlier a podcast I discovered so I thought I’d give it a mention. It’s called Fat 2 Fit and it’s pretty much a couple of guys talking weight loss on a human level. Nothing complicated; no degrees in anatomy required. You just listen to what they have to say about their progress, answer listener e-mail, get tips from others, and discover Web sites or other valuable information. (That’s how I found out about BMR!) It’s a good listen and I’d recommend it to anybody who wants to lose weight but doesn’t know where to start.

You can give the Fat 2 Fit podcast a listen here:

I think that’s enough for today. If you don’t hear from me the rest of the week, I’ll see you here next Wednesday. Stay focused!

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But even after losing my weight, I’m not entirely satisfied.

If you recall, because I had reached my goal so far ahead of time, I committed myself to getting down to 190 lbs. I had referred to this next step as Phase 2–and it starts tomorrow.

Yes, after taking it easy and staying within a range of +/- 5 lbs. over 3 months after reaching my goal, I have decided that it is indeed time to take the plunge and get to 190 lbs. by my 40th birthday which is a little over a month away (February 14th). At my current weight of 203.0 lbs., that means I need to lose an average of 3.25 lbs. per week, slightly more than my doctors’ recommendation.

I’m not going to get too confident and call this a piece of cake. In fact I shouldn’t even try to lose it so quickly–13 lbs. in a month may be a bit lofty, but I’m going to try my best to make it. Even if I only lose 10 lbs. then I’ll consider it a success.

I started tonight by engaging myself in an hour of Wii Fit as opposed to my standard 30 minutes. My son and I also rode our bikes a little over a mile today and I drained, cleaned and waxed our spa. Hey, every little bit of activity helps, you know. My next step may be to buy My Fitness Coach since, even though it has proven itself as very efficient, Wii Fit’s activities can become quite monotonous after so long. Note that I said “may” about My Fitness Coach because I’m still up in the air about it, even if I do have a few gift cards to burn.

This also means that I will be breaking out the Weight Watchers Points Excel chart and that the Weekly Weigh-Ins are back if only for 4 weeks. I haven’t done either since reaching 200 lbs. so I think now is the time bring them back! About the only change there is that they will be posted on Wednesdays instead of Tuesdays as in the past. This Wednesday is the 14th–exactly 1 month from my birthday, which falls on a Saturday this year. I’m beginning with today’s weight and taking it from there.

So now I need to shift my focus and re-commit myself to losing the weight I promised myself I would lose. I’ve noticed some dangerous behaviors in the last 3 months–snacking being the real killer–and I know they must change. And while I’ve tried to keep myself busy I know I can do better.

I’ve already bought the right foods for at least this week’s lunch; I will buy more healthy goodies on Friday when I get paid.

There you have it. Again, My current weight is 203.0 lbs. and it’s time to get this rockin’. See you Wednesday!

Note: I’ve added a new button to the “Share This Post” clutter at the bottom. If you would like to e-mail this post, simply click on the “via e-mail” icon and your default e-mail program will open up with a link and some generic text. From there you just add recipients and whatver other text you wish–I did all the hard work for you

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Here’s the post where I thank the products that helped me make it through my journey. For a list of people I thanked some time ago, you can click here.

Ready? Then here we go. Please note that I am not a compensated spokeperson for any of these products; I mention them out the kindness of my heart for helping me reach my goal.

Weight Watchers
While I never went to one meeting or charted my progress online, the Points Program is simple enough to follow that you really don’t need to. (I simply followed the literature my wife had after doing the program years ago.)

Unlike other weight loss programs where you’re practically required to buy their own food products, the Points Program allows you to pretty much eat anything you like, provided you take the time to calculate the Points in each item. 

From there, you determine whether what you’re eating falls into your daily Points intake. Heck, I ate Happy Meals on occasion for 12 Points including fries. While crunching numbers may not be for everybody, I decided that I wanted to get serious about losing weight I had to change my ways. I still count Points to this day, which will no doubt help me maintain what I’ve already lost. 

Another good thing about the Program is that there are quite a few nifty gadgets available that can help you keep tabs of your intake. It’s as easy as that, and I can’t thank the program enough for helping me understand the importance of portion control, not starvation. While I haven’t gotten a book deal for losing my weight, unlike somebody that lost a fraction of what I did and can’t shut up about it, I’m proof that Weight Watchers works. It’s not a diet, it’s a lifestyle change.

Trek Bikes
That old saying of “You get what you pay for” is definitely true with Trek bikes. While I was hesitant at first to spend nearly $500 on “just a bike,” I soon realized that a Trek bike wasn’t like any other bike I ever had.

The quality is unbelievable and the ride is just sublime. I’ve put some hard miles on my 7200 model and it’s still begging for more, some of which I will put on it tomorrow when me and The Kid go for a ride while Mom runs a few errands. Even in my heavier days, the bike showed no signs of the burden being put upon it. My only addition to it was my old Garmin GPS unit which tracks just about everything: MPH, distance, elevation, tracks, etc. That just makes the ride more enjoyable.

Trader Joe’s
To the point: I love Trader Joe’s. With such a great selection of healthy foods, it’s no wonder the place it always croweded. But not everything they sell is healthy, which is why it pays to read the nutrition labels (which you should be doing anyhow!) My favorites include their veggie or chicken egg rolls (6 Points for two), 98% fat free bean and cheese burritos (4 Points each), and their unbelievable lentil soup and tuna salad.

Sure, their selection on many items is limited, but for quality food at good prices I’ll gladly make another stop for the other stuff I need.

iPod Shuffle
Walking was part of my daily routine and Apple’s iPod Shuffle made it more enjoyable. I loaded it to capacity with some random tunes, clipped on my person, popped in the headphones and away I went each day during lunch. 

At the low price of $49 for the 1GB model, the iPod Shuffle is sure to make your workout routine a little less of a burden. I know it worked for me!

Wii and Wii Fit
I would have never guess that one day a video game system would be helping me lose weight–and make me sweat!

You might recall how giddy I was when I found a Wii Fit at Target in May. At the time I was about 230 lbs. and broke a sweat just about every time I did anything on it. Over 7 months later, those 30 lbs. are gone and I can do just about any exercise the Wii Fit has to offer and not ever drop one bead of sweat. All I did was add 30 minutes of exercises to my daily routine, which already included at least 30 minutes of walking. Throw in a balanced diet with those two things and I ended up losing 30 of the last 50 lbs. I needed to be at 200 lbs.

Like the Trek bike, the cost was definitely justifiable. 

Subway
This was the perfect alternative to what I normally had for lunch: Lean Cuisines or Smart Ones. In fact as I blogged here, I recently chose to eat lunch there for two weeks by ordering a $5 footlong and splitting it up over two days. Not only was it tasty, it saved me a bit of money as well.

I have my favorites: Veggie Delite, Sweet Onion Chicken Teriyaki, Turkey Breast and Ham. From there I had condiments added as I so desired, but never got mayonnaise or any oils–I only asked for mustard. Your choices are practically endless so you can mix things up each time you go, and having such a variety is a good thing.

Reebok
When I decided that walking would be a part of my daily routine, I decided I had to buy some shoes that could handle it.

Enter Reebok which, next to Vans, have been my shoe of choice for many years. But rather than buy a few pairs of low-end styles I opted to spend the money on a couple nice pairs of running shoes, and both have held up tremendously. In fact I still wear either pair today, despite being a little worn on the bottom.

Well, I think that about wraps up this “commercial” of sorts. In closing, I’d like to once again thank each and every one of those products for delivering what they promised and helping me make losing weight more enjoyable than I ever thought possible!

I’ll post again when there’s something new to talk about. Until then, don’t lose sight of your goal(s), everybody!

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Keep in mind that because we were off on Thursday and Friday, last week was a short week for us. That alone cut into two days of lunchtime walking and since our department gathered on Wednesday for a potluck, there went a third. So I chose to take Monday and Tuesday off from walking, meaning I didn’t go at all last week.

Then Thankgiving and all its magnificent turkey-ish splendor rolls into town. I enjoyed myself as if this were my last meal. In fact I enjoyed the meal a but too much.

And what a lethal combination no walking and overeating turned out to be.

Suffice it to say, I gained some weight but not enough to make me feel like I failed miserably. And I’m sure I speak for the many folks that stepped onto their scales today and said, “Oh boy…”

No, I’m not going rush out and join a gym as a result of my gain. There won’t be any of that. It’s business as usual here at 200by40, and today I took the first steps–literally and figuratively–towards dropping those pounds: I started up my daily walk and did a solid hour of Wii Fit.

I’ve set no target date as I have already met my goal. This is just some poundage gained after a 4-day weekend and can be easily lost without much effort.

If you did gain some weight this Thanksgiving, whatever you do, don’t wallow in it. That’s the worst thing you can do.

Instead, grab the bull by the horns and go for it! Remember to stay focused and never lose sight of your goal, nor give in to temptation.

And forget all about those empty New Year’s resolutions; start your plan to change your lifestyle now and get into eating right as the New Year rolls around.

Now get busy. You We can do it!

Food. Since reaching my goal last Saturday, things have been going fantastic. In fact, today is the first day I didn’t use my Weight Watchers Points Excel chart since I created the thing. I’ve decided to stop using it since after over two years, I pretty much know how many Points are in everything I eat, or I just simply avoid the things I know I shouldn’t be eating. I’m keeping my snacking to a minimum and whenever I feel the urge to munch on something, I grab a bottle of water instead or have one cookie rather than a handful.

Weight. My weight has been right around 199.8 lbs. and 201 lbs. and that’s just fine with me. I may have gone as high as 202 lbs. but as long as I don’t drift any higher than that I think I’ll be fine. As previously stated, I plan on getting down to 190 lbs. or so that I have some wiggle room between that and my original goal of 200 lbs. but for now, I’m happy being able to maintain my goal weight.

Exercise. Aside from some walking and running around I did with the kid at Disneyland, my exercise routine has been put aside since reaching my goal. My Wii Fit may start missing me No, I’m not getting lazy; I’m simply enjoying my achievement and being able to finally take it easy at night after putting Anthony to bed. And because I took Friday and Monday off from work, I haven’t walked my daily 1.5 miles during lunch. That will change tomorrow when I return.

It seems as though my years of food discipline have truly paid off as I find myself not wanting a lot of the foods I used to eat or eating much less of them. For example, we had Little Caesar’s today for lunch and I had only two slices. That’s it–two slices versus the usual 3 or 4 I would have eating when I was nearly 300 lbs.

And for what it’s worth, here’s a progress picture of me taken at Disneyland the day I reached my goal:

Finally: 199.9 lbs. Click to enlarge.

It may not show the best example of my weight loss but hey, at least it was taken on the day of victory.

In addition to all of this, I’ve decided to abandon the Weekly Weigh-Ins simply because there wouldn’t be much to report if I keep maintaining my weight. I’ll definitely keep watching my weight and will report as needed but for now, they are history.

Once again, thanks to all who have been checking in on things. I am still in the process of getting my products Thank You List together so watch for that soon.

See ya, and hang in there!

A week fighting off an illness definitely kept me from where I’d rather be right now, which is…

• Weekly Weigh-In #27: 203.5 lbs.
• Last week’s Weigh-In: 202.5 lbs.
• Gain/loss of: +1.0 lbs.
• Weekly average lost: 1.8 lbs.
• Weight loss to date: 93.6 lbs.

As stated yesterday, it was a bad week on just about every level: sick, not exercising, eating to gain some of my energy back. In short, it was not a lot of fun and concentrating on my weight loss was the furthest thing from my mind.

Here’s a breakdown of activities from last week:

• Monday: Worked half-day; no walk
• Tuesday: Called in sick, no walk
• Wednesday: Worked but only walked 1 mile since I was still sick
• Thursday: See Wednesday
• Friday: Went to lunch with co-workers; no walk
• Only did one night of Wii Fit during that week

So as you can see, gaining only one pound this week might have been a good thing as I could have probably gained more. But unlike Weekly Weigh-In #12 when I asked for a do-over because of a battle with gastroenteritis, I’m going to take this one and run with it.

Moving on. Even with those results, my current weight of 203.5 lbs. might as well be 235 lbs. I’ve been stuck in the 200s for about six weeks now and it’s getting difficult to shake them, even when not ill, so I’ve decided to make a change.

See Traineo my ticker on the right? In case you hadn’t noticed I changed my goal weight, therefore my “To Go” numbers got bumped up a little. I have altered my goal weight to be 190 lbs. instead of 200 lbs. for a reason: those last few pounds were taunting me to hell! No seriously, they were! Now that I’m so close to my goal, I find myself slipping a little bit now and then, making it seem absolutely unachievable. That says nothing of the weight I’ve lost since starting because, well, losing that much seemed easy compared to these last 2 or 3 pounds.

I decided that they were going to be the death of me so rather than carefully try to meet them, I decided to aggressively rip right through them. It’s kind of like that theory I’ve heard about breaking boards in karate: imagine yourself trying to hit through the board behind the board.

I’m no karate expert, so who knows if I’m even right on that, but it seems like a logical way to get past these few pounds: work beyond them.

Gotta go. See you later!

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Yesterday I returned to walking during lunch but only a portion of the distance. I just don’t feel well enough to go all the way and my pace is considerably slower than usual. Additionally, save for my daily Body Test, my Wii Fit has gone unused since I came down with this cold or whatever it is.

But I am hungry beyond belief and responding to that call, so I wouldn’t be surprised if next week’s Weigh-In shows some gain. Then again, it could completely fool me and show a significant loss.

Either way, I should stay focused on getting better and not reaching my goal right now.

Here’s to getting better–and soon.

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Rather than add to what I wrote yesterday, I thought I’d go ahead and write a new post.

I went home early on Monday because there was very little to do at work. As a result, I did not go for my daily 1.5 mile walk around the area. Then yesterday I stayed home with Ann so that we can tend to our son who was running a very high fever on Monday night. By Tuesday morning he was doing better but still pretty sick. And again, I did no walking.

Now it seems his illness has rubbed off on me as I have had a runny nose, cough, and sore throat for the last few days. This also means that I am not very up-to-the-task on the exercise front by not partaking in my nightly 30 minutes of Wii Fit for the last two nights. But I was willing to eat more liberally than usual yesterday.

The results have not very pleasing to say the least, but that’s what happens when you are at home and don’t keep yourself occupied—you tend to eat. I was pretty much a snack demon all day yesterday, simply not paying attention to what I was eating, how much I was eating, or the frequency in which I was stuffing my face.

But now that I’m back at work I find myself in a more controlled environment in terms of food intake. I am only going to eat what I have brought to eat and since I have no money for the food machine, I will thumb my nose at all those goodies inside of it.

These past few days have just been a small roadblock in my quest to lose those last few pounds. We all have them, and how we face and overcome them is purely at our discretion.

Simply put: this hasn’t stopped me. I will get better and I will reach my goal in a few weeks.

And a head’s up to the folks at Yellow Basket in Carson: you’ve won. I have decided that I will have my first really good hamburger at your restaurant once I reach my goal. So please, have my double cheeseburger and onion rings ready for me.

Oh, and a diet Coke

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I’ve got a little time before I have to get to work so here are the numbers. More stats and stuff later!

• Weekly Weigh-In #25: 204.1 lbs.
• Last week’s Weigh-In: 205.6 lbs.
• Gain/loss of: -1.5 lbs.
• Weekly average lost: 2.0 lbs.
• Weight loss to date: 93.0 lbs.

UPDATED 12:20 p.m. or so

So alright, it looks like this week’s loss makes up for last week’s rather lame 0.9 lbs. lost. This puts me back into my doctor-recommended goal of 1.5 lbs. to 2 lbs. per week, so despite the lame sentiments of a particular commentator, I’d say I’m doing just fine.

By the way, what was the point of that comment? Was it supposed to bring me down or something? FAIL!

And I reached yet another milestone: 93 lbs. lost! WOO HOO! Yeah, it’s not exactly 95 lbs. but at this point, any round number is worthy of celebration.

Oh, and I posted a little sticky at the top of the page for Yahoo! Shine readers that visit my blog. I have noticed a steady increase in traffic from my single post there and thought I’d let them know that there probably won’t be any more posts over there as it’s just too much work. I used to do it with my personal blog and MySpace before realizing that it usually requires more than a simple cut-and-paste command. I prefer to post everything here and know it will work rather than post it elsewhere and have to tweak it umpteen times before it’s the way I want it.

So if you’re here from Yahoo! Shine, welcome and thanks for visiting. I’m glad to have you here. I’d recommend, however, that you bookmark this blog or subscribe to my RSS feed via Google Reader or reader of choice.

Finally, here are some Wii Fit progress photos. As usual, keep in mind that Wii Fit–30 minutes a night of various workouts–is only part of my plan that also includes walking nearly 2 miles a day (about 30 minutes) and proper diet. Also take note that as I’ve said in the past, Wii Fit’s scale isn’t all that accurate.

And I can’t stress this enough: visit your doctor before starting any weight loss plan. I did; you should, too.

Click on images to embiggen:

• BMI at start: 33.11
• Current BMI: 29.19

Still high, I know. But I’m getting there. Now here’s the weight chart:

Wii Fit weight:

• Start (May 25, 2008): 230.3 lbs.
• Current: 203.9 lbs.

My real weight:

• Start (May 25, 2008): 231.0 lbs.
• Current: 204.1 lbs.

So as you can see, there are slight discrepancies between the two but sometimes they are even larger than that. Please don’t put 100% reliance into the Wii Fit “scale” as it’s nothing more than a tool. Buy a nice glass bottom scale for more accurate readings.

I think that’s all for now. Thank you to all who continue to visit and leave kind words. Those keep me going when things get tough, and I hope that my progress motivates you into losing weight the right way.

The journey is almost over–thanks for being a part of it!

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It’s time to bid a fond farewell to yet another t-shirt size that has dominate my life over the years: XL.

Yes, like the 2XL size before it and my size 40-48 pants, the XL shirt has finally gone the way of the dinosaur. Ann picked up at least three L shirts for me the other day and I’m happy to report that all of them fit and fit well. I’m sure they might be a bit snug once they are washed but for now, I’m reveling in my victory!

On the progress front, I seem to have hit a dormant phase but that’s okay because I think I know the reason why: my quest to drop those last few pesky pounds by my vacation in October is starting to take its toll.

It seems to me that this same thing happened the last time I put a strict limit on things, back when I was still averaging 3 lbs. lost per week. By that account, I should have been at my goal by July 29th, but here I am and I’m still not there yet. Even before July 29th rolled around I noticed that things weren’t going as smoothly and I blamed that on my expedited deadline, not my original one of February 14, 2009. So I scratched it off my calendar and forgot about it.

Miraculously, I began to lose more weight. Go figure.

It’s taken me well over 2 years to drop the 90+ lbs. I have, so it seems silly to push deadlines in order to reach my goal earlier than anticipated. I’ve learned that the only thing it leads to is overeating, disappointment in your progress, and falling into old habits.

While I’d love to lose these last 6 lbs. before October 7th or so, I’m going to forget about that date and keep on doing what I’ve been doing for the last couple of years.

I’ll post what happened between now and the next Weekly Weigh-In. It should be interesting!

As far as exercising goes, last night I was just dead tired and failed to do my nightly Wii Fit. I went to bed at 10 p.m., the earliest I’ve gone to bed in what seems like an eternity.

Sometimes you just have to.

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