Non sum qualis eram

I’m starting over.  I haven’t weighed myself in a month.  I made a judgment call and decided that rather than fail badly, I just wouldn’t play the game this month.  I just figure that we don’t lose until we quit.  I haven’t quit, therefore I win!

Kids are going back to mommy’s on Sunday.  I survived three whole weeks of being a single parent.  Well, I’ve almost survived it!  I’m gonna give myself the benefit of the doubt and plan on making it through the next few days.

I’m gonna weigh myself and start over on Friday.  That’s late enough in the week that I can always phone it in if I need to.  I mean at everything else, not the diet!  Man oh man, I hate that word.  It’s so misleading.  It’s not about diet, it’s about lifestyle.  My brother just lost 90 pounds doing a modified Adkins dealie.  My ex lost 190 pounds last year under weight loss surgery.  Heck, I’ve lost over 80 pounds twice in my life.  Read any of a million stories if you want.  Their only real common denominator tends to be a serious lifestyle change.  Going on a “diet” just isn’t enough.  Live a sedentary lifestyle and it still ain’t a gonna work!

I’ve been getting my upstairs in order.  My brain, not the upstairs upstairs!  I cleaned that like a month or so ago and I think I even put something in a blog about it.  The ex seems to be doing fine with the pace maker.  It’s odd seeing the pictures on her myspace.  You know, the ones with her and her new boyfriend.  I encouraged her on this one.  After she had the drunk thrown in jail, I was glad to see a somewhat decent guy with a job in her life.  I don’t mind my kids being around this one.  I kinda figured that it was better for me to make good and sure we BOTH understood that this bridge was burned.  She did me wrong and I’ll leave it at that.  I’m still not gonna be an a**hole about it.

I’ve also been planning my big start over!  This time I planned everything.  My current goal is to do a ten week challenge with myself.

I read a bunch of surveys and studies about weight loss.  The best of them tended to have at least 30% of the people admitted to cheating.  Now understand, these people were still included in the final results.  Those are just the people who admitted to cheating, too!  So, if you see a study that says one diet had better results than another keep in mind that doesn’t necessarily mean that any of the people actually followed the diet correctly.  Very, very frustrating!

The funny thing about most diets is that they all agree on a lot of things.  Basically, it’s protein/carbs / fats and eat less than you burn and try and get your fiber and your vitamins.  They just push around the various percentages.  The Biggest Loser diet is just a very low calorie diet with an insane amount of working out.  In the end, they should all let you lose weight.  I’m guessing some do work better for some people than others.  Mostly I’d guess, it comes down to whether or not you can get yourself to stick to it faithfully.

I think a lot of diets confuse nutrition and weight loss.  I mean, it’s easy to lose weight.  Just stop eating.  Granted, you’re gonna burn way more muscle than fat and end up one very very sick puppy.  It will work, though.  Go less extreme and just miss out on a few nutrients and vitamins consistently and you may not get sick. Over time, though, your health is gonna suffer.

The main trick is not yo-yoing.  That’s the real problem with crash diets and fad diets.  One day you’re gonna have to maintain and that means eating approximately the right amount of calories to neither gain nor lose weight.  If you’ve been counting calories and dieting sensibly, that just means adding a couple hundred calories or so a day and being done with it.  If you’ve been living off of a grapefruit and a piece of dryer lint for the past 6 months, you’re gonna have to start over from scratch with a brand new diet just to maintain.

That’s why my plan involves an orange and actual DRYER SHEETS!  I may be insane, but I’m not cra… Okay, I’m crazy.  I’m crazy like a fox, a LUNATIC fox!!!

No seriously, I’ve got my calories precounted this time and I have the luxury of having complete control over what is in my fridge.  The hardest part about the food is figuring in food that I can fit around my work schedule.  My breaks are anything but evenly placed.  So, I’ve come up with some veggie packs that I can throw down at the machine if it comes to that.  I’m actually having trouble fitting all this stuff into my lunchbox.  A couple of snickers would fit a whole lot easier!  =)

I’m also seriously considering moving at least some of my workout to the morning.  I think it would help to jump start my metabolism.  My joke at work is that I start work at five but don’t wake up until nine.  I think there may actually be some truth to that.  The only problem is that that’d be a 3am workout.  I am insane, but that is just plain CRAZY!  I seriously think I may be that crazy, though.

The most important thing is that I’m gonna try to follow the plan faithfully and blindly.  I’m only going to weigh myself once a week.  If it doesn’t work, I can always mess with it, but I’ve got to give it at least a week or two.

So, in short.  I’m gonna give myself 10 weeks to see what I can do.  I am a lunatic.  I’m okay with being divorced.  After 8 months of being single, I’m planning on being faithful and on going blind.

Cry havoc and let slip the dogs of war!

Kevin