Paidion Vs. Lady Numbers

End of Week 2

ladynumbers — Wed, 05 May 2010 03:08:45 +0000

What a horrendous week that was. This week will be much better. So I gained 1.2 pounds. But the eating out lots and the flying trip to Denver didn’t help. So I am now at 222. More later.

End of Week 2. Bee Pollen?!?!

paidion32 — Tue, 04 May 2010 17:07:15 +0000

Today is the first day of starting the Eat Clean Diet.
I was going to start last week but then it turned into one of those big snarling kind of weeks that sap your energy and limits your ability to make good decisions. Don’t ask.
But today is a different creature entirely. The pantry is stocked with all the good things Eat Clean says I should be eating. As a result of the snarling vicious week that was, there are no more cookies or sweet treats in the building other than the natural healthy kind.
So i woke up, looked at the “Cooler Plan” and saw that it called for Oatmeal….with flax seed….wheat germ….and bee pollen. By the time I was done mixing it together it looked like a mass of mustard infused….gloop. In an effort to remind myself how healthy this was, and because Lady Numbers kept asking, I looked up each ingredient.
Most of it was the standard “Fiber which is good for digestion…etc”, but the bee pollen is apparently some sort of wonder food. After doing some independent research I confirmed what the Eat Clean book told me. It’s something called a “complete food” which means it has a metric butt ton of nearly everything your body needs. I may go into exact details (metric butt ton isn’t as descriptive as I like) but I’m pressed for time right now.
The only downside, as my fellow Eat Cleaners no doubt already know, is it tastes like Blech. Yeah, it’s a taste that is actually a sound. I tried adding vanilla and that didn’t do it. I tried to muscle my way through the flavor and smile, in an effort to get my body to change it’s thinking from “quarter pounder tastes good” to “Bee pollen tastes Good”, but nothing. And so I did the only thing I could think of. I needed to get the nutrients into my body. I had to make it taste at least a little good. So I sinned and added a tablespoon of sugar.
I’m not on the extreme end of the diet right now. My focus is adjusting to this lifestyle, and if I have to cut the occasional corner this week then I think I’m alright. As a result, I don’t feel TOO bad about the tablespoon of sugar. If there are other ideas out there I would be VERY happy to have them. This bee pollen thing is good for me but so hard to choke down.

In other news, despite the horrible terribly no good diet and exercise week before I managed to actually lose weight. Yeah, I’m fully expecting to gain it back. Pretty sure it was just water weight.

But the results are in and they are what they are. Weight: 272.6 Body fat percentage 42.2% Overall Weight Loss: -5.6 Percent of Overall Weight Loss: -2.01%

Maybe I should look at the positive side. I haven’t been drinking sodas even nearly as much as I had in the past. That absence of calories (we’re talking about 6 16oz. cups a day at my old job) is probably having an effect.

So, this weeks goals: Try to do Eat Clean as much as possible while scaling back my old eating habits, drink only water and non-sugared fruit juices, treadmill three times this week and do my pull up bar exercises twice this week. Gotta build up those arms for when the fat melts off, doncha know. I’ve never had a beach body but one can dream. :)

Pax,

Bad Day

ladynumbers — Wed, 28 Apr 2010 02:34:09 +0000

So today was not a great start to the new week. I had kind of an emotional blow today and the first thing I craved was pie…. And I gave into that craving. I really shouldn’t have, but I did anyway. But Paidion and I went to Village Inn for dinner & pie together, so at least we stayed on even footing lol. I calculated the calories afterwards, and dinner with pie was more than my target calorie intake for the entire day. Thankfully I had had a healthy breakfast, lunch and snack. So, my daily total was 1900 calories. So I walked for 40 minutes, burning off 275 calories. So according to CalorieCount, I still had a daily calorie deficit of 200 calories. Not sure how it calculates my daily just living calories. It says I burn 1900-2000 per day just living. Seems high to me. Wonder if that is accurate…. When I calculate my resting metabolic rate, it is closer to 1650. So why the 300+ cal difference?

Tomorrow is a new day and a new start. So will continue to fight the desire to sit like a slug on the couch or bed and watch tv or read….

On a more positive note, I got a ‘sit-n-stepper’ thing at a garage sale. It is like a spinning wheel treadle mimicking walking while sitting. I put it under my desk at work. My goal isn’t necessarily to ‘work out’ at work, but at least to burn a few more calories while sitting at my desk. So between that and the treadmill tonight, my calves are yelling at me… lol

Reminder to self – get some new shoes that don’t hurt!

The First Week

paidion32 — Tue, 27 Apr 2010 18:53:48 +0000

Well, he we are at the end of week one. For some reason I thought weigh in and Biggest Loser night was on Thursday. So I wasn’t thinking clearly last night when I snacked on bacon bits at work and had a Blackberry Dr. Pepper (pure ambrosia, for the curious. YUM. Just go to your local Chili’s and they’ll make you one. It’s not on the menu but any fool can add blackberry syrup to Dr. Pepper.) or three.

When I stepped on the scale this morning the results I was scared that the results I had seen earlier in the week, with that sneak peek, would have evaporated and I’d be back to 278.2. While they weren’t as good as the – 5 lbs that had been there before…it was still a loss. Started out at 278.2 lbs and am now at 275.8 lbs. So that’s a net loss of 2.4 lbs and .8% of body weight.

I still maintain that my slow and steady approach will win out in the end. The idea is that I need to change my eating habits in order to have consistent weight loss for the rest of my life. When we exercise….or when I exercise anyway…lol…I tend to start craving big time. My body is used to the Double Quarter Pounder w/ Cheese as it’s regular protein source. Sad but true. If I start requiring more protein my body will crave it from its usual source and make life that much harder for me. So…that’s the theory anyway. I have to figure out and get used to what to substitute and have those items available or I’m going to fail.

Second week project…Time to get cracking and figuring out this whole Eat Clean diet thing. I know the general idea (eat food as close as possible to its natural state) but I have no concept of it in practice. It’s not an idea with skin on, as one of my friends say. How does it look off the page? As a result I’ll be hoping on the Eat Clean website, plunge into their forums and get some real world ideas going. And reporting back to you of course. :)

Pax,

End of Week 1

ladynumbers — Tue, 27 Apr 2010 15:05:20 +0000

So, weigh-in was this morning. We had this discussion about how to count the weight loss. Our scale shows in .2 increments, so I say we just go with actual lost – I am an accountant after all. So my beginning weight was 224.2 and today’s weight was 220.8. For an actual loss of 3.4 lbs (1.52% weight lost). Yay! Fantastic, especially for the kind of week we had. But Paidion said it was a 4 lb loss (224-220) due to always rounding down. My thought is if we are going to round then it should be according to rules of rounding, which would mean a 3 lb loss. But then I lose that actual .4. lol. So thoughts on how to calculate?

A Denny’s Moment

paidion32 — Mon, 26 Apr 2010 19:12:07 +0000

So this isn’t confirmed sabotage, but it kind of feels like it. Being that she is my wife I’ll give her the benefit of the doubt.
Lady Numbers and I got to spend lunchtime together and at first we were just going to go fabric shopping and then go our separate ways but then she suggests lunch. And I say “Yeah that would be great.”
Little did I know how difficult it would be for me.

We decide on Dennys and it’s only when I actually arrive that I realize the gross error that is a trip…to a DINER. I am a diner man. I dig them. Breakfast all day, never ending coffee. The best diner of all time, that I’ve experienced, is in my hometown. The Pioneer Cafe. ZOMG. I’m STILL carrying around plump little fat cells that were born from the chicken gravy cooked in that place.
At Denny’s I actually had a moment where I wanted to run back out the door. Instead I sat down and flipped through the menu a couple times looking for the healthiest option. That’s hard to do at Denny’s where everything is coated in cheese and grease. So I decide on the “Ultimate Omelet” which has more veggies in it than I normally eat counter balanced by the sausage and the cheese but I think I’m being healthy by getting it made with egg whites. I also ask for whole wheat toast and then Lady Numbers orders. A half “Moons Over My Hammy” and a fruit cup.
I felt like such a dunce. I felt like twice that much of a dunce when the order finally arrived. Egg whites, yes, but there is a small pool of butter around the omelet. Next to it the hash browns cooked in that same butter (if they even actually use real butter) and a handful of cheese on top of the omelet.
Yeah. Wow. Self sabotage if anything. TOTALLY need to overhaul my thinking and be aware of what the crap I’m doing when I order food. Crying out loud.

Pax,

Mid-Week Update 2.0

ladynumbers — Mon, 26 Apr 2010 04:41:29 +0000

So, Paidion wrote a mid-week update and I thought I would throw in my two cents worth.

So, not the greatest of weeks. I counted calories & did daily workouts until Friday, when I my new weekends started (our office is closed on Fridays for part of the summer after tax season ends). I got sick Thursday so was feeling like crap and spent a lot of time in bed Friday & Saturday… And all thoughts of calorie counting went out the window. Workouts dwindled to housework and yard work. So, not my best week. I weighed myself Friday morning and thought that I wasn’t doing too badly, but then the weekend happened and who knows what Tuesday will bring. *sigh*

All I can think of is that tomorrow starts a new day and Tuesday starts a new week in which to do things better and more according to plan. Kinda wierds me out that Paidion is kind of taking it slow and just changing his food choices when I feel like I need to do more and plan more and count calories and keep to a routine of workouts. Wonder which theory will do better? Am I stressing too much?…

Mid-Week Update

paidion32 — Mon, 26 Apr 2010 04:28:22 +0000

I’m not gonna lie to ya, Marge. It’s been a rough week.

I’ve been more active this last week than I have in a while. Somewhere between the treadmill, the Biggest Loser game (which sadly Lady Numbers tried and manage to bench herself for a day as a result.:( ), the yard work, and a couple days at the new job (if you aren’t running then there’s something wrong with your work ethic) I’m tired and sore all the way around. Kind of a good feeling that I remember from January when I was using the Wii EA Sports Active regularly.

Water I’m doing well on. I get a massive glass down with breakfast and my vitamins. After that I intersperse it throughout the day. I have to stay conscious of it or I’ll let that slip. Vitamins I’ve been pretty faithful with and am starting to feel a difference.

The food has been a bit of a problem. I’m making wiser choices. Instead of two brats and a handful of chips I went for a single brat, an apple and a banana. Went to McDonald’s today and got the Fruit and Yogurt parfait instead of fries. Lady Numbers was with me and said “Woah. You can do that?” and changed her own order. I’m so glad I’m easing into the activity and the diet portions of this contest because man…..Just the little changes have made a huge impact. Fiber. Yeah. Forces you to make sure you take a book to the bathroom with you at the beginning.

Lady Numbers and I have been cautiously eying the scale, dancing around the issue. It was one of the sort of unspoken rules that we would only weigh in on Thursdays.

“Do you ever get the urge to go check the scale?” she asked me the other day.

“Uh. No, not really.”

“Oh.”

“Oh, man. You’ve already checked it haven’t you?”

“Well, I was curious if things were working and I was happy with the result so…”

Such is life with Lady Numbers. Knowing her, now that she knows diet and exercise are working she’ll not trespass in this manner again.

And so it started eating away at me as well. I am also pleased with the progress. :)

Pax,

In the beginning…

ladynumbers — Wed, 21 Apr 2010 04:16:45 +0000

So, Paidion has given me a wonderful outline to guide me through the basics, which is great, since he is the blogger and web guru….

So, I am an accountant and mom of a beautiful, precocious nearly 4 year old. I love my DH dearly and deeply and we have been married nearly 10 years. And I desperately want another baby. But, to do so, I feel like I need to drop a few pounds. Okay, more than a few….

So, I have been overweight most of my life. I have been told I am fat for as long as I can remember. I have a twin sister who was underweight, so in comparison, I was always picked on, etc. Looking back on my Jr High and High school pics, I really wasn’t fat, just like I could have lost 15-20 pounds. But, self-fulfilling prophecy, and by the time I graduated from college and got married, I was really getting up there. I needed to lose 60-70 pounds. And then things ballooned from there. For the first time, I was out “on my own” with my DH and we loved each other and one of our fav activities was to go out and eat. Oh the wonderful conversations and laughter and growth of love that happened, all at a dinner table. As time went on, I kept talking about losing weight, but never did much about it. And then we decided to have a baby. I felt like I needed to lose some weight, but when I went to the Midwife for a pre-prenatal visit just to talk about getting pregnant, she warned that I should think about pulling off some weight before we got pregnant in order to make the pregnancy more likely to be healthy. So I started Weight Watchers. I lost 45 lbs in 15 months. Which is great! But I had so much more to lose and it had been over a year so we just decided to get pregnant then anyway

So now that she is nearly 4 years old, we are talking about baby #2. And what joy! I was back at 10 lbs more than what I started at last time when we decided to have a baby. I have to lose all it all over again. Talk about frustration and mental beatings. So, I started off like last time, counting calories, but adding more workouts. But my trainer kept saying I wasn’t eating enough calories, but the nutritionist said I was eating too many calories… and I just got more and more frustrated with competing advice. So in 14 weeks, I lost about 10 lbs. And then I had to have surgery. Everything had to be halted. More frustration.

I needed something that didn’t require such the intensive workouts because of surgery recovery, but I still wanted to lose weight. So I did the Optifast program. Great program. And I did great for 14 of the 18 (or so) week program. I lost 45 pounds. And then I had to have surgery again. Dang umbilical hernias and difficulties healing…. Between having to dropout of the program and then tax season kicking in and major stress, I reverted to my old eating habits and 10 lbs came quickly back on. So back to the drawing board.

Ultimately, I want to lose 65 more pounds. I know that is unrealistic to lose by the end of October before our vacation. So my goal is to lose about 40 by Oct 29. According to the Optifast Doc, 160 would be a decent weight, especially considering where I have come from. So take that, stupid BMI Charts and crap.

So, the wager is to see who can lose the most body weight %, body fat %, and inches by Oct 29, the day before we fly out on our vacation. The stakes is $1000, to chose to spend in any way you wish. What would I do with an extra $1k? Embroidery add-on for my sewing machine? Or go all out on vacation? Who knows…. Will have to give it some thought.

Workout Tools: Treadmill, the Wii – Dance Revolution, Biggest Loser and EA Sports Active, Netflix streaming workout DVDs, aerobic step

Diet: Use of some Optifast product and/or SlimFast and counting calories on caloriecount.about.com, drinking xango juice and taking Eleviv (www.xango.com)

Plan: Try to keep calories at 1000-1200 per day and workout a burn of 200-300 calories per day

Danger zones: sweets! I love ice cream and chocolate. And I love having a sweet taste in my mouth as the ending to a meal. Also, when at work, the desire to munch is very strong. While on the Optifast program, I used gum and mints to help counteract this reflex response. But it only works as long as the gum or mint is in my mouth. Will have to watch that. Finally, having to counteract the loneliness of the evenings when Paidion is working and daughter is in bed and the whole evening stretches out before me with unrelenting boredom…

And, only because Paidion insisted, my starting weight is 224.2 (down from 268 in Jan 2009! )and body fat % is 53.6%. Measurements are Chest 47 1/2″, Waist 51″ & hips 56″ for a total of 154 1/2″.

The Backstory

paidion32 — Wed, 21 Apr 2010 04:14:52 +0000

Hey all. Paidion here. I’m the husband of my dear Lady Numbers who has agreed to this strange little contest with me. As I’m sure she’s already said were a 30 something married couple with a three year old daughter that we are constantly struggling to keep up with. And also we are sadly overweight. We both have our reasons for this and we are both about as tired as we can be of the constant struggle, fatigue, and ensuing guilt and shame.

My own story begins way back in grade school. In those turbulent years it was impressed upon my by teachers, fellow students and such that I was a little fatty. I complained to my mother and she said “Oh dear, you’re just big boned. You’ve got a little baby fat, but that will go away in time”. I looked around me and saw one of my best friends, Ben, who was CLEARLY a victim of childhood obesity and heard his mother console him in a similar manner. ”Big Boned”, no matter what any mirror would tell me, meant that I was just as fat as Ben. He was a great kid, he just had a tragic addiction to sweets and cream cheese. Yeah, it was bad as it sounds.

I look at pictures of myself from those days and even into high school and I wonder how I could have ever possibly thought I was fat. Being put into the “Heavy Weight” class in Wrestling didn’t help matters. The fact was that I genuinely was big boned. And heavy boned. I looked back on my pictures with the heavy weights and I look comparatively anorexic despite weighing the same as them. I did have a Paul McCartney style chubby baby face, but that was all.

After a while despondency set in and I just said “Screw it. If I’m fat I’m fat. At least I’ll enjoy the calories instead of fighting it”, and that’s what brought me to being nearly 100 pounds heavier than my weight in high school. Added to that, at one point in my post high school days I started smoking which with weight is a deadly combination. One of the great successes recently (november 1st actually) has been that I have finally kicked that habit for good. Yay, one for the home team.

So I got married ten years ago, and whenever there has been something bad that has happened my idea of a healthy way to deal with it was to go for pie. And ice cream. And Chicken Fried Steak with sausage gravy. And then I went to culinary school and made it my profession to cook people food. And so as a result I stand before you, dear reader, at the heaviest of my life 279lbs (rounding up that pointless decimal point). I am scared to death that I’ll hit 280. That number would simply crush me. It’s stupid that it could have that effect. I mean it’s just a number. Right? At least that’s what I try to tell myself.

So, that brings us to today. The first day in a five month journey hand in hand with Lady Numbers and $1000 dollars on the line for the person who loses the biggest percentage of weight by late October.

As far as personal goals, I basically want to build and define my arms, legs, abs and get to a minimum 230. I’d like to be 210 (only 20lbs heavier than high school), but we’ll have to see. Shooting for 210, won’t be sad at 230.

Tools At Hand:

1 Slightly Used Treadmill (Oh, treadmill. I swear that I will learn to love you over time. Just not right this second)

1 Iron Gym Pull Up Bar (It can also be used for sit ups, dips, etc. This is to aid me in my effort to build arms and abs.)

Men’s Health exercise APP for my Droid Phone. (This may require a gym membership to fully use. We’ll see on that in about a month maybe.)

Nintendo Wii Tools: Biggest Loser, EA Sports Active, Dance Dance Revolution (don’t laugh…it gets me in a horribly aerobic place)

Supplements :

Xango (mangosteen juice), Elevive (green tea metabolic supplement), Krill Oil, some sort of Men’s Vitamins that have been moldering away in the back of my cupboard.

Diet:

I’m looking to get away from the fats and carbs slowly at first and moving into this Eat Clean Diet that looks rather interesting. I was thinking as I was wandering through the produce section “Wow…5-7 servings of fruits and veg a day…when does that leave much appetite for anything else. Oh! right. That’s kind of the point. Gotcha.” Eat Clean goes even farther than that.

Exercise Plan:

Right now I’m not sure what my body can handle in the shape it’s in. I will plan on 3 days a week of pull up circuit, 3 days a week of treadmill and 2 days a week of Biggest Loser workouts. It sounds like a lot but if I’m going to beat the VERY competitive and capable Lady Numbers…I’ll have to do even more.

Danger Zones:

I like sodas. I mean an ungodly amount. It was easier for me to give up smoking than to give up sodas, and I’ve tried. *sigh* and water just sounds so dang plain and boring. I’ve looked into getting little packets for my drink but everything has aspartame, or some other chemical sweetener. Not interested in replacing corn syrup with something even less natural and good for me.

I work at a major Fast-Casual establishment that specializes in fried food type fare. It’s SO easy to snack. It’s ridiculous.

I’m lazy. I am REALLY lazy. And even the few times that I do get motivated the motivation sputters out and I’m on the couch watching “Clerks” while eating some Ben and Jerry’s “Chubby Hubby” ice cream. Yeah. The humor there doesn’t escape me.

So, I need to find a way to stay motivated to exercise, stop drinking soda, and not snack at work.

Well, that’s it for the first blog. I’ll update with my weight and body fat percentage at least every week on Biggest Loser on TV day. Periodic updates about struggles will probably happen more frequently as they frustrate me. :)

278.2 lbs

42.6% Body Fat

Measurements

Chest: 50″

Waist: 51 1/2″

Hips: 49″