Been Away a while

I let myself go over the holidays and gave back ten of my hard lost pounds.  I have droppoed them again amd I am back on track.  I was 304 this morning.  I just read of a blog called the ancestral weight loss registry which is run by a medical student at VCU.  http://www.awlr.org/  I posted my story there and I will copy it below because  already wrote it.

Tell us your story.


My father died at the age of 89 in 2009.  At the time I was dealing with the failure of my business and significant financial hardship, I had dealt with the stress of that situation by eating and drinking my way to 450 lbs.  I remember being at the wake and seeing the way people reacted to seeing how far I had let myself go.  It was as if I could read their minds as we talked, "Wow, we will be at his funeral next". They were right, at that rate I was killing myself. A few months later, I noticed that my brother had just lost 40 lbs seemingly overnight and he loaned me his copy of Protein Power.  I read it cover to cover in two days and went out to but my own copy.  It was the first book on diet that ever made sense to me.  I immediately began to adopt the Protein Power Plan. It was a few months before I could actually weigh myself, because my scale only went up to 400#, but I could feel my body changing and I could begin wearing clothes that had hung unused for years.  On 04-15-2010 I stepped on the scale and got a reading of 399. I might be the only guy who has ever been happy to see 399 on a scale.  I have found Protein Power to be easy to follow and today weighed in at 304.  I had to buy a new suit for that funeral and the pants were size 66.  I am currently wearing 54 inch pants and I am looking forward to giving these away when I am done with them because I will not need them for much longer.  I allow myself to go off plan for special celebrations but I don't really feel the need to do so and the more progress I make, the less I am willing to give any of it up.  I still have a way to go in order to meet my goal, but I have gotten this far without working out much or ever going hungry.

What was your biggest challenge?

Getting started. The hardest part is making up your mind to change your life.  Inertia is a bitch.

I was broke unemployed and depressed when I began my journey.  There is no excuse for not getting started. Read a book, make some changes, see results, make more changes, see more results.

Ultimately it is my Responsibility

It doesn't really matter who is to blame.  Each of us is responsible for our own health.  Obviously injury and disease can and do happen to anyone; but we do control what we eat and how we spend our time.  If I eat a large pizza and knock back 12 beers while sitting on the couch watching NFL for 10 hours on any given Sunday; I can't blame anyone but myself for the damage that does to my body and my metabolism.  I can get angry about the fact that "the man" is lying to me about what is healthy for me to eat.  I can also decide to use that as an excuse to stay fat or I can educate myself about the subject and find a system that works for me.  I have chosen the latter and I have found that Protein Power works well for me. http://www.proteinpower.com/index.php
This book is written by a husband and wife team of MDs who developed this approach while treating their patients in private practice.  The book has a solid medical explanation of their approach and why it works.  I admit that I don't follow the program to the letter, but it is the best approach I have found.  I have lost 127.5 lbs in the past 12 months with limited exercise and I have never felt deprived.  Your body does need some time to adapt to using fat for fuel but that process does not take long.  I can honestly say it has been pretty easy.  It takes time and patience and I had to make significant changes in my habits, but I guess that is the point.  I don't count points, weigh portions, or obsess about the scale from one day to the next.  I just learned what I can eat and have stuck to that plan; I could probably have lost more in this time frame but I am pleased with my progress and I KNOW what I need to do to keep going.  I want to drop another 70#, but I am more concerned with body composition that the actual number on the scale.  I have started to exercise more regularly and I will continue to step that up in frequency and intensity.  I am going to write more frequently on this blog as well.
There are small moments in the course of this process that I enjoy even more that seeing a new number on the scale.  I have seen them referred to as NSV's (Non Scale Victory).  I was cleaning out my closet the other day and realized that I have a whole new wardrobe of clothes that I already own.  I am physically at  the point where I can exercise more frequently, so my next project is to find a workout program that works for me.  I am starting with dumbbell based weight training and using a speed bag for aerobic and coordination training.

Who is to blame?

As I am going through this weight loss process, I have taken it upon myself to learn about what I can eat and what works for me in terms of weight loss and diet.  I have been frustrated by the amount of misinformation and ignorance out there; especially among the so called experts.  Ultimately, it is still MY responsibility to learn what works for me.  The scam artists and big companies (I know, redundant) out there don't care if I am fat or not, they just want my money.  Most doctors and nutrition experts don't really care if I am fat, they just spout the safe  popular answer.  TV shows, authors... don't give a shit, they want an audience.  The only one you can be sure of is yourself. Make a change, try something, don't worry if it is right, just do something.  Track your results, do your own homework, and find something that works for you.  The program that I follow may be best for you.  But it works for me.  This week I am down 122.5 in the past 12 months.

Conspiracy Theory or Not Conspiracy Theory

I keep going back and forth on this issue.  The cynic in me wants to believe that the man is keeping us down by pushing a low fat high carb diet because it supports the big ag complex, it also causes a lot of people to have fucked up cholesterol readings and obesity.  How much money is spent on statin drugs, the diet industry, and farm supplements for high fructose corn syrup.  Maybe I am not crazy, follow the money.  I don'r really know and I don't really have the time to dig it up, but it does piss me off.  I am coming around to the idea that there is no one right way to eat, different things work for different people, and many of the programs are similar with different spins.  I guess my advice to anyone looking to lose a significant amount of weight is, "Keep trying until you find one that works for you. Get used to the idea that you need to make lifestyle changes or die before your time."  I can tell anyone what I am doing but they need to ask me.

I have been doing a lot of reading lately....The Biggest Loser

After crossing the century mark,  by the way, I am now down 113. I decided to get back to basics and got my hands on two more recent books by the authors of Protein Power; The 6 week cure, and The Protein Power Life Plan.  I was a little taken aback to see a couple of minor inconsistencies between them  but came to realize, if the message did not change, why write another book, who would buy it?  I guess the larger point is that even the experts have more to learn.  It still grinds my gears (thank you Peter Griffin) to see how much of the weight loss advice out there is really just a series of sales pitches.

It is amazing how much crap is being sold as healthy food, look at yogurt.  I sometimes look at the labels of yogurt at the store, and I never buy any because it is all crap loaded with sugar and shit I can pronounce.

I watched a few minutes of The Biggest Loser today.  1-What the fuck does Anna Kournikova know about losing weight. 2 - Wow those fuckers are working out a lot harder than I have been, I don' know if you are inspiring people if you sent the message that you need to have some asshole trainer yell at you constantly and break you down in order to lose weight. I think it would be pretty easy to watch that and decide that looks too hard, I can't do that.  I for the most part keep my efforts to myself unless someone sincerely brings it up.  I guess my little journey would maker for boring TV.  Again, they are using this whole weight loss thing to sell.

I guess this blog is my way of saying, it is not that hard when you find a plan that works for you, I changed the way I eat, I didn't work out that much and I have lost 113 lbs.  Now that I have come this far, I am working out more. My point is, anyone can do this if they are ready to make some changes in their life.

Hey I lost 100 pounds - How the hell did that happen?

I am 49 years old and 6'04" tall, I weigh 348.5 lbs. I actually feel pretty good about that because eight months ago I weighed 450.  I am a pretty private person, I strongly believe that the world would be a much better place if everyone would just mind their own fuc#ing business.  In spite of this I am choosing to document my journey in public.  There are two reasons, the first has to do with quantum mechanics, specifically my dramatic oversimplification and bastardization of Werner Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principal, which was explained to me in a smoky bar late one night by a chain smoking, piano playing, physicist.  The principle is that the act of measuring a phenomenon impacts the behavior of that phenomenon and therefore impacts the accuracy of the measurement. Now I am not a quark, and this blog will not discuss particle collisions, but rather my behavior. By measuring and documenting my efforts in public, I am affecting my behavior.  I am much less likely to allow myself to fail if I have to measure and document that failure in public.  The second reason has to do with something I have come to realize as I have worked through this process.  As cynical as I tend to be about the world, I am still amazed by the amount of bullshit out there in the world of nutrition and weight loss. Of course there is the expected bull from the numerous hucksters trying to sell us all something, but even in the professional ranks of doctors and dietitians, there is a huge amount of ignorance and misinformation on the topics of weight loss and nutrition.  I have come to the unfortunate conclusion that I must educate myself because there is a huge amount of conflicting information out there.  My advice to anyone trying to lose a significant amount of weight.  DO YOUR HOMEWORK.  FIND A PROGRAM THAT WORKS FOR YOU.  TRUST YOURSELF.


Simple ideas, but many people are looking for or expecting a step by step solution to be spoon fed to them.  They are buying into what they are being sold.  When you consider adopting any approach to eating you must ask yourself, "Can I eat this way for the rest of my life?". In most cases you are told you wont have to because you should see results and be able to loosen up as you reach your goals.  This can be dangerous.  


I have been following a program that has been around a while called Protein Power.  The authors are a married couple of doctors named Micheal R. and Mary Dan Eades.  This approach is essentially a low-carb high protein approach.  I had never really considered any of the numerous low-carb programs as viable  because they are generally looked down upon by the "established nutritional community".  I will explore that issue later.  I tried this approach because it was recommended to my brother by his chiropractor and he lost 50 lbs pretty quickly.  So I borrowed the book and when I read it, it made sense, so I gave it a try.  Here I am 8 months older and 102.5 lbs lighter, I am pleased with my progress but don't mistake that for satisfaction. My current goal is 270.  When I get there, I will refine the goal.  My intention is to discuss what I have learned and hopefully make it easier for someone else; and don't forget about my buddy Werner Heisenberg. I picture him sitting on my shoulder kind of like those good and bad devils, but Werner is not good or bad and he does not judge me, he measures and documents my behavior, it is up to me to judge and analyze. I believe that there is another principle specific to human behavior which is more germane to this discussion, but for now Heisenberg will have to do.  More later. Best Wishes.   

This is just my running commentary on whatever I want

I just read a great article in the New Yorker about the raid an Abbotabad and the killing of BinLaden.

http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2011/08/08/110808fa_fact_schmidle