Losing Now

I have been reading or skimming through the ‘Biggest Loser Weight Loss’ book and have found nothing really new or earth shattering.  It is nice to read about the contestants for motivation.  But there was one item that I think is insightful and bears repeating.

To succeed at major weight loss and body transformation it is imperative to be comfortable in your own skin.  Too many people in the western society hate themselves.  The poor body image is the term we use today.  I must admit that I fall into, or did fall into the self body loather.  I mean, why should I like anything about a body that needs to lose 151 pounds?

 I need to like my body for what it is for two reasons.  First, you can’t fix up something that you think of as worthless.  If it was a house you would rebuild.  If it was a car you would go out and buy a new one.  If it is your body you basically wait for death and hide the body from the world until the casket closes.   If you find things in your current body that you like you, will be motivated to improve it, to make it better.  A person inheriting an old family home on a plot overlooking the ocean will see value in an old dilapidated structure.  It just needs a coat of paint and some repairs.  Have you ever seen a man that loves cars purchase an old GTO?  The thing will be rusted out and not run.  The man’s wife will nag to get that thing out of the driveway, but the man hangs on and works on it.  Slowly the man knows that that GTO will be the envy of all around. Our bodies are like that GTO, or must be for us to succeed.  You must see the worth in yourself.  You must know that it is a loss to the world if you don’t get your body up and running.  Seeing your value and your body’s value is the only thing that will work. Second, you can not solely look at the end result of your weight loss as the prize.  Losing 151 pounds for me will take a couple of years, and building up muscle to look great will take a couple of years longer than that.  If I can not be happy with my body all through this journey I will fail because the journey is too long.   It will be impossible for us to see the joys of losing 5 pounds, much less 1 pound.   With this much weight to lose there will be far more 1 and 3 pound loss weeks than there will be 50 pounds, 100 pounds, and 151 pound loss weeks.  If you can’t accept yourself and find worth in yourself now I think you should just give up the effort and try another time.  Being comfortable in your own skin is this important to succeed.

Every time a person says something negative, or that you take as negative about your body you must tell yourself 2 things positive to combat that.  Every time that subconscious little voice in your head says that you aren’t worth the effort and that it is better to give up, you must consciously reply with 3 things that you like about yourself that makes you worth this great effort.

Remember that being prepared is a big key to succeeding also so make a list of things you like about yourself.  Try to find 5 things that you like about your physical body and 5 things you like about your self as a person.  Try to add to this list every day.  Then, use this list to combat the negative thoughts and comments you receive throughout the day, 2 positive for 1 external negative, and 3 positive for 1 internal negative.

I will start my list here as an example.  You will see that some things in the list will seem petty to others, but are a big deal to me.

Positive Body

1. I am tall
2. I have great eyes
3. I have gentle hands
4. I have a strong body frame
5. I have small ears

Positive Self

1. I am empathetic of others
2. I am smart
3. I work hard even through challenges
4. I am loved by my family
5. I am kind and giving to others
6. I am not bound to money one way or the other

So make your own list.  Write it down and put it in your wallet.  There will be times when you can’t think of one of those items because you feel so negative about yourself.  When those times come, take out the list and read it all to yourself.  Finally, add to this list.  Make a conscious effort to build the list, not from what others say, but from what you say. 

Good luck and God Bless

Ben, or bdinger as I know him on the Bike Forums, is a big guy at 360 pounds. He has not reached his goal weight, has all of his limbs, and did not overcome a terrible disease. He has done none of the things that typically qualify a person for my Overcame selection. What he has done is lived life strong and entered a mountain bike race. You can read his tale of challenge and how he overcame that challenge at http://optifat.blogspot.com/2007/07/i-always-win.html

I ride a bicycle on pavement and bike paths, pushing the bike up many of the hills. It is hard on me at this stage of the game. Ben is stronger, and has been riding longer than I have, but more importantly, he does not quit….EVER. First he put his person on display in a mountain bike race, not a ride. He was competing against fit, competitive men, women, and teenagers. That is more courage than I can muster.

During the race he crashed, mangling his front tire and brakes. Ben freely admits that he started feeling sorry for himself. He thought about quitting. Then, wounded and exhausted, Ben does his best to fix his bike and finishes the race. He overcame in so many ways.

Slow and steady weight loss is the right way to lose the weight, but it is frustrating when you are first starting out.  I am very anxious to drop below the 350 pound mark.  I have lost 21 pounds since my doctor’s visit, and I know I was bigger before that visit.  I am on the last notch of my fat belt and able to wear my older fat man shorts.

While it will never be as quick as I want it to be, it is going very well for me.

My story is in three parts.
The beginning:
We moved from the city to the country in one of the first subdivisions made in the county. I was in third grade, skinny as a rail, and for the first time friendless. I withdrew and became a fat angry kid, making it harder to find friends. High school was approaching and I knew I better do something. I started riding the Schwinn my dad had bought me before we moved. It began to be a bit small, but I road it everywhere. While kids were starting to get into the bmx game, i was a road cyclist through and through. In 1979 I saw the movie Breaking Away, found weight training, and went crazy. Unfortunately I was able to buy a car shortly after that and the bicycle was forgotten. I never did learn how to take care of the bike. I was not mechanical, my dad was. He had tools, and I was not allowed near them.

The Middle:
In the Army with a young family I was lured into the mountain bike world. It was all the rage and road bikes were hard to find. Forgetting that I loved the road ride and that I wanted a bike to commute around the installation. I bought the best mountain bike I could buy…a cheap heavy thing that did not fit me. I never liked that bike. Soon after I was stationed at Germany and by the time my bike caught up to me I left the Army and went back to Missouri. My bike was stolen in transit. You might think this was a good thing and I would learn. Surely Jumbo would get a road bike replacement.

Out of the Army without Uncle Same threatening me with jail or monetary penalties if I got out of shape, I got out of shape. My buddy suggested biking. I had no money so of course I bought the best that my credit could afford, a Schwinn Impact Pro mountain bike. Never mind that Schwinn was about bankrupt and that I hated the feel of the mountain bike or that I road on roads or bike paths. I quit riding without putting many miles on the bike.

Last part:
I have become Jumbo. I want to get myself in shape. Well, I am so far gone that I can only think about swimming or walking to get back into shape. Walking is so slow. Swimming requires going somewhere special. Well heck. What about biking? Nah, no one has ever seen a 300 plus rider. I looked around the net and found Tom. Seeing that picture of him on a x-mart bike with an oxygen tank on his back was pretty impressive. I started pricing bikes. Road bikes this time.

Well it should have been a road bike. I found myself on mbt and discovered 29ers. The Karate Monkey. I was ready to buy and went to my lbs to have them build one up for me. They laughed me out of the store. No, they did not literally laugh, but they made it quite clear I had no business betting on a bicycle. I was demoralized and forgot about riding.

For the next several months I tried to get myself excited about walking. Oooh, I was going to get into speed walking, marathon walking, hiking, blah. Walking is great, I just wanted, well I wanted to be a cyclist. I found a few other guys as big as I am that were riding. After bugging people around the clock I spec’d out my Big Liberty Blue and had her built by a shop in Mn. While I can’t quite say that I am riding yet on a consistant basis, I am very close. Magic will happen again.

John Paul was heavy all of his life, but ballooned to the mid-300’s when he went to college.  Read his story Here.

Today, being another day, has led me out of  ‘feeling sorry for myself’ land.  The depression still lingers at the edge of my reality, but it is not influencing my efforts.  I managed a nice, long walk this morning and am feeling pretty good. (more…)

I mentioned earlier that I was going to start riding a bicycle as part of my FUN and exercise. My eventual goal is to commute to work, a 20 mile round trip endevour. Yesterday I finally finished putting my new bicycle together and took it out for my first ride. What utter joy it was to have the wind in my hair again, allowing me to utilize old cliché’s.

My bike is built from a Surly Long Haul Trucker road frame that is a wonderful steel blue color. I had the wheels hand built to extra strong specifications to make sure they supported my weight. She rides as if floating through time bringing me back to days before worry and stress. She liberates my soul as I we ride together. She is my Big Liberty Blue.

Mauia used to weigh 380 pounds — pretty big, but especially big for a guy only six feet tall. He went on a diet, lost more than 100 pounds and became a fullback. Here’s the secret to Mauia’s diet: no sugar, no carbohydrates, extra helpings of dedication and Samoan pride. He now weighs 270 pounds, runs the 40-yard dash in 4.8 seconds and answers to the nickname ”Juggernaut,” a reference to a comic book character who, once given even the slightest amount of momentum, can plow his head and body through any object.

At times I have felt that I was too far gone to do anything about my weight. Those times fed my excuses to quit trying, to get off an exercise plan, to eat a gallon of ice cream. Reagan Mauia could have used those excuses. He was even bigger, with more body fat than I am. Click here for a bit of his story.

Another milestone was reached today. I began walking on our treadmill, formerly known as the place to pile cloths, when I began my current quest to begin losing weight. The treadmill has a feature that monitors your heart rate and keeps it in a targeted zone. You can set the zone for the best exertion level to lose weight. The treadmill will then adjust incline and speed accordingly to maintain that exertion level for the entire period of the workout.

This feature is terrific. One of the problems I encounter with my current mental understanding of my physical abilities is that I don’t know what is exercising too hard or too light. If I exercise too hard I may not continue to exercise due to fatigue or even injury. It is important to continue to steadily exercise for best affect. If I exercise too lightly I am just wasting my time. Too lightly here means not enough to burn more calories than I normally would have without performing the exercise.

The first day I walked on the treadmill using this feature I walked for 30 minutes at 2.5 miles an hour. Before the 30 minutes were concluded my speed had been reduced to 1.7 miles an hour to keep my heart rate in my target zone. That first day was May 1st, 2007. Today I just finished walking for1 hour at 3 miles an hour with a 3-degree incline. My speed never decreased and my incline only dropped one degree. More impressive to me was the fact that I am growing more aware of my body’s stress levels and needs. I knew when I was out of the zone without looking at the output screen and could slow my heart rate a bit by focusing on breathing control. This is fantastic progress and I am quite proud of the accomplishment. I did not achieve this change in physical ability by over exerting myself. I kept a consistent exercise going for several weeks while slowly increasing duration and intensity. Don’t kill yourself. You will just quit, and quitting will eventually kill you yet again.

If I can do this you can too. Even if you don’t have fancy equipment just monitor your time and distance. Every 5 minutes check your pulse rate for 15 seconds and multiply by 4. If your heart rate is higher than you want, simply slow down. If your heart rate is lower than you want, pickup the pace.

Here is a good link about heart rate training and how to find your target zone.

Here is an article that does not believe that heart rate zone training is the best thing to do.

Obviously I do not agree with the article that does not promote heart rate zone training. It is obvious that you will lose more calories with higher intensity training. More calories lost means that you will lose more ‘fat’ calories than you would with a lower intensity workout, but you lose other calories from your body as well. Calories are just units of energy and all energy needs fuel. If you are not using fat for the fuel you are using protein and that means muscle or useful tissue. The other downside to exercising at a great intensity is that you may fail to stick with it. Consistency is the key to losing a great amount of weight. We are not in a sprint. We are in a marathon. This is why I train in a target heart rate zone best suited for losing fat.

Yesterday I tested my blood sugar and it was 113.  That is the lowest it has ever tested.  What is more amazing is that I have failed to take my injected medicine two nights in a row.  I was at the 113 level without my major sugar controlling medication!  That is a miracle.

Yes, I have lost 11 pounds and I am eating a wonderful diet of food, but this is still a miracle.  The little changes that make huge changes in our lives are miraculous changes.  Do the little changes and be patient.