Break the Cycle

Do you ever say, “I’m going to start my diet tomorrow?”  Today’s the day you need to break that cycle.

Have you already blown Monday and half of Tuesday, and are looking forward to next Monday to start over?  Well don’t.  Make right now the time you decide to start. 

WHAT MAKES YOU THINK TOMORROW IS GOING TO BE ANY DIFFERENT THAN TODAY?

If you’re making excuses today, you’ll make them tomorrow, and the next day, and the next day.  MAKE TODAY THE DAY YOU STOP MAKING EXCUSES.  If you don’t have healthy foods in the house, go out and get some.

My other endless cycle was, “Before I start, I just want one last Big Mac (or whatever).”  Forget about those foods.  Offer them up to God and be done with them.  I would cycle through all the bad foods one last time on my “Farewell to Food Tour”, and by the time I got to the last one, I needed to have the first one just once more, and so the cycle continued.  I was the Barbara Streisand of “one last time!”

At the end of the day, these are excuses.  We let them get in the way, or overlook them because it’s easier than putting in the work and making the changes.

If you have to, start small, cut out dessert, or a second helping.  Replace some of your meat with vegetables, or a snack with a piece of fruit, but whatever you do, GET STARTED RIGHT NOW!

What’s for Dinner?

Losing weight and consuming less calories has as much to do with the proper food choices as anything else.  It’s not about cutting carbs, or eliminating fat, starvation or limiting yourself to a handful of foods, IT’S ABOUT BURNING MORE CALORIES THAN YOU TAKE IN. 

 If you’re eating 10 pounds of bacon, but skipping the bread, you’re still going to get fat. 

 On the other hand, starving yourself or skipping meals is setting you up for failure.  It’s inevitable that at some point you’re going to get really hungry and wind up overeating.  You should be aiming for a calorie consumption that is sustainable for the rest of your life.  After all, you’re not dieting, you’re making a lifestyle change that will result in a healthier you. 

 As a disclaimer, I lost my weight on 1500 calories a day.  I DON’T RECOMMEND GOING THIS LOW, it was a constant bone of contention between my trainer and I, but I was trying to achieve a specific goal in a set amount of time.  I can honestly say I never really felt hungry and some days struggled to hit 1500 at the end of the day.  Now I consume around 2500 calories a day. 

 I did try to keep my daily fat intake below 15%.  (www.fitday.com shows you what percentage of your total calories come from fat, protein and carbohydrates).  Aside from that I didn’t try to limit carbs, other than avoiding white flour products like pasta and white bread, instead opting for the whole grain varieties.

 My carbs consisted a ton of vegetables, something I had gotten away from for a long time.  I avoided butter, generally eating them steamed or sautéed. Whole grain wraps were my bread, and loads of fruit.  Fruits and Veggies are nutrient dense and generally low calorie.  Be careful with raisins which are a little more calorie dense and not as bulky as other fruits

 For protein, I relied on egg whites, turkey bacon, turkey breast, pork tenderloin, bison, shrimp, fish and the occasional ostrich burger.  These are all very lean meats which taste great and are easy to prepare.  You can also eat lean beef and chicken breast, but I tried to steer clear of them last summer. 

I stayed away from the “Low Fat” versions of things like cheese, mayo, etc. You certainly don’t have to, but in my opinion, they just don’t taste the same, and if it didn’t taste good to me, I wasn’t going to waste my calories on it.

Most importantly, find the foods that work for you.  Measure out your portions until you’ve reached your goal or are comfortable with eyeballing it, and keep your fridge stocked.  

MAKE IT JUST AS EASY TO GRAB HEALTHY FOOD AS IT IS TO GRAB JUNK FOOD

Counting Calories

So how exactly do you lose weight?

That’s easy, you need to burn more calories than you consume.

EASIER SAID THAN DONE RIGHT?

3500 Calories = 1 pound of body weight (This works in either direction!) 500 Calories a day = 3500 Calories a week

Most of us are operating well on the wrong side of that, taking in many more calories than we burn. THIS IS WHY WE GAIN WEIGHT. Consider that a cup of pretzels, generally considered a healthy snack, contains around 175 calories. How many of us portion out a cup, eat it and that’s it? Chances are we grab a handful, eat it, and then come back for more. 2 cups and we’re already coming dangerously close to that 500 calorie mark.

That’s the trap of “Healthy Snacks”, or the reduced fat low calorie snacks that we are led to believe are going to make us thin. The problem is that because we’re eating something with less calories, we tend to eat more of it. I can plow through a bag of Baked Lay’s like nobody’s business. It’s better than eating a bag of regular chips, but it’s still going to make you fat.

YOUR BODY DOESN’T CARE IF YOU’RE EATING CARROTS OR COLE SLAW, IF YOU ARE TAKING IN MORE CALORIES THAN YOU ARE BURNING YOU’RE GOING TO GET FAT.

If you’re not already counting calories, you should be.

I used www.fitday.com religiously to lose my weight. If it went in my body, it went in FITDAY. It’s a free account, sign up and start tracking.

FITDAY has 1000’s of foods already broken down, and if you can’t find something, you can easily enter it. You’ll begin to see foods that you can eliminate to help you reach your goal. If you’re being honest with yourself and truly logging everything, you begin to ask yourself “Do I really need this?” It really helps.

In addition to food, FITDAY also let’s you add exercise, and household tasks to help gauge how many calories you’re burning. I didn’t use this feature as I felt it tended to overestimate calories burned, but it at least gives you an idea.

Have You Earned It?

So now that I’ve put my story out there, I want to help you create your own.

Make today the day that you start your journey to becoming a better mother or father, sister or brother, a better spouse, a better whatever. 

MAKE THIS THE DAY YOU BEGIN THE JOURNEY TO BECOME A BETTER YOU.

I want to keep it short today, so no groundbreaking revelations, just this…

It’s a holiday weekend, filled with traps.  Parties, cookouts, picnics, you name it.  A weekend wrought with temptation.  What I want you to do when temptation strikes is ask yourself the following question.

“HAVE I EARNED IT ?”

Have you reached your goal?  Have you made the necessary sacrifices?  Is what you’re about to put into your mouth going to get you where you want to be? 

IS IT GOING TO MAKE YOU A BETTER YOU?

It’s easy to make excuses, it’s a holiday, and if you’re truly happy with where you are, then by all means indulge.  My guess is that if you’re reading this blog, then you’re not.

If you’re telling yourself, “I’ll start Tuesday”, then you’re cheating yourself.  Holidays are the easiest times to make excuses.

MAKE TOMORROW TODAY AND STOP MAKING EXCUSES. 

My trainer gave me the following from a book she was reading.

“Excuse: To regard with indulgence, to view leniently, to overlook or pardon. - Even if it’s justified an excuse is still an excuse.  I can’t really means I won’t.”

I’ll end with a tip.  If you’re going somewhere where you know there will be nothing but poor food choices, then take something with you.  Nobody’s going to fault you for trying to get healthy, and if they do then they’re not someone you need in your life.  Surround yourself with people who love and support you, and make it work.

You can do it! Believe in yourself, I BELIEVE IN YOU.

I look forward to hearing how you made that sacrifice this weekend.

EARN IT!

That’s That!

Anyhow, the rest is history.  Every day, I stuck with the program, and every day I was able to do a little bit more.  Some weeks I dropped, a ton, some I didn’t drop any.  It wasn’t for a lack of effort, or because I slipped up, but sometimes your body is going to do what it’s going to do.  The key was that I didn’t use that as an excuse.  Instead I used it as fuel.

Before (5/23/2008)

When I started my journey, I couldn’t jog across the street or run up the stairs without getting winded.  10 weeks later, I was lifting weights for 45 minutes and running or spinning an hour a day, 6 days a week.  Some days I would double up the cardio, spinning in the morning and running at night.  I began at 268 lbs, 10 weeks later my final weight was 202, 8 lbs below my goal weight.

After (7/30/2008)

There was no secret, no magic pill, no fad diet with a catchy name, no cutting carbs, no starvation, no gimmicks, just 10 weeks committing to a better me.  10 weeks of learning how to eat and discovering that when you’re eating healthy foods, you really can eat a ton.  Not once did I feel hungry, not once did I feel deprived. (OK, one day I would have killed for a chocolate milkshake, but that’s it)  10 weeks of pushing myself through the pain, not quitting because my legs were tired, or my chest was sore.  10 weeks of replacing “I can’t” with “I WILL”

So here I am one year later, Formerly Fat Matt!

 

I’d like to thank a couple people who helped make this possible.

First my mother, who paid the entrance fee and supported me all the way.  The best part of Wednesday weigh-ins was calling my mom afterwards and hearing the sheer joy in her voice as she’d shout out my number to my dad, knowing that for so long she had to worry about my health. I love you mom!

Second, my trainer Lisa, who wouldn’t let me get complacent.  Who still is that bug in my ear when I need a kick in the can.  Good enough wasn’t good enough, you pushed me for better. 

Third, my teammates, Nicole, Sue, Kristen and Bri.  You inspired me to work harder, and continue to impress me with your dedication.  None of you ever gave up, even when the Yellow team had it in the bag.  RED TEAM ROCKS!

Fourth, my mother-in-law Sharon who took the kids while Audrey was in the hospital, and helped her when she was home so that my kids didn’t have to go through what she went through.  I can’t thank you enough!

And finally my wife.  Audrey was 9 months pregnant and had a c-section June 17^th.  I don’t know from where you summon your strength, but you juggled work, 3 kids and a giant belly to allow me the time to get this done.  Never once did she complain.  You loved me when I was 280 as much as you love me now (more of me to love I guess!), even though that’s not what you signed up for.  You are my inspiration.  I love you!

Oh, before I forget, my son William, who at the beginning of the competition thought it was hilarious to grab and twist my “boobs.”  Thanks for the encouragement buddy!

Getting In Shape

This week, rather than driving straight home, I went out and bought a food scale.  I knew that to set myself up for long-term success, I needed to portion and prepare my own food.  Healthy Choice was a great tool to get me started, and I still keep it in my Freezer for when I’m in a hurry, or just don’t feel like cooking.  I vowed to myself that nothing bad would go into my body for the rest of the competition. 

A couple other things happened that week as well.  Thursday morning I met Lisa in the gym to go over my workout.  I was on the recumbent bike and wearing a sweatshirt and sweatpants on what was a particularly hot June day.  She said something along the lines of, “What the heck are you wearing a sweat suit for?”  Sure I liked to sweat, but I was hiding under it.  I was fat, and not as strong as I used to be.  I think subconsciously I figured that if I wore a sweatshirt, no one would notice.  In reality, I was the fat sweat ball who stuck out like a sore thumb.  From that day on, I lost the sweatshirt.

She also “commented” on my cardio effort.  I was riding with my heart rate at 155 for most of my workout.  I thought I was working pretty hard.  I was still very much out of shape, and was trying to build up slowly, but when you’re told, “I am guessing it doesn’t feel like you are working THAT hard?  Could you go all day at 155?”  It kind of puts it in perspective.  I agreed to take her spin class the next week.

Wednesday morning was spin class.  Now when I say I was terrified of spin class, that’s an understatement. I thought about it all day Tuesday, couldn’t sleep that night, and spent the hour before class pacing in my kitchen feeling like I was going to vomit and trying to come up with a good excuse not to go.  I had no idea what to expect but fully expected to die.  The spin room was a dark 10X15 cinderblock room, lit by a string of red Christmas lights.  It looked more like an opium den, then a place to exercise.  It didn’t help that the woman seated next to me looked like she wrestled grizzlies in her spare time.  Obviously I didn’t die, but it was tough.  I realized I could be working much harder.

I had been steadily losing weight for a couple weeks.  Some weeks I’d lose more, some less, but I was close to my 6 lb average.  Many times I was the biggest loser, and some times I was not.  I used those weeks to drive myself harder.  I was a man possessed, but still needed the occasional kick in the pants.  Lisa didn’t allow me to get complacent.  Every time I started thinking that I was in shape, or that I was working as hard as I could, she’d take our workouts up a notch and tear me back down. 

The final piece of the puzzle was the weights.  As I had mentioned, I was using very light weight and high repetitions.  It was the last wall I had built that had to be torn down.  Lisa was bugging me to lift heavy weights, but I was resistant.  I even went so far as to say, “I have no use for big muscles anymore.”  WHAT?  When I finally admitted to myself that the sole reason I was lifting this way was so I didn’t have to see how weak I’d become, I found out I was much stronger than I thought I was.

Each week I was able to do more, so each weak I worked a little harder.  I bought spin shoes and was taking a couple classes a week.  I also got a heart rate monitor, which became an invaluable tool to gauge how hard I was working.  210 was quickly becoming a reality as I watched myself methodically descend through the 260’s, 250’s, 240’s etc. declaring, “That’s the last time I’ll ever see the 240’s.”  Somewhere along the way, I even reset my goal to 200 lbs.

The Trainer

So that brings me to brings me back to my trainer Lisa. 

I still wasn’t 100% sold on her yet.  What was she going to tell me that I didn’t already know?  NOTHING!  I started lifting with my dad when I was 14 and was strong as an ox when I got to Brown.  Aside from football, I qualified for states in wrestling my senior year.  I was a 235 lb heavyweight and routinely beat guys 35 lbs heavier than me relying on my strength and conditioning.  Our off-season cardio program was top notch, and I usually took a couple aerobics classes a week aside from what we were doing at practice. 

I already had all the tools, what was a trainer at the YMCA going to teach me?  It was my one reservation with the whole fitness challenge, and on top of that, I drew the short straw and got the girl trainer!

I thought I’d use her as an antagonist, someone to piss me off and motivate me, because of course I knew more than she did (After all, I’d been so successful the past 10 years doing it on my own!)  Anyhow, I emailed her after the first weigh-in that I needed to average 6 pounds a week to hit 210 by July 30^th.  I got the following response, “6 lb’s is a pretty aggressive goal!  You are going to have to be very diligent with your nutrition, and the cardio.”  Well that’s all I needed to hear, because in my mind she said, “YOU CAN’T DO IT” 

I began to really watch what I was eating.  Still no food scale, but I put forth a much better effort than week one.  Plus, made it through Memorial Day weekend with a birthday party for Audrey at the house catered with some of my favorite crap foods to eat, and a house full of friends twisting my arm.  I didn’t deprive myself completely, but limited myself to just a taste (or two) of the really bad foods, and couple beers (OK, I wasn’t really counting).  It was very helpful having been told I couldn’t average 6 pounds a week! (Scorpio’s can be very stubborn)

Week 2 – 8 pound loss!  Extremely excited to be down 11 pounds in two weeks, and despite being motivated to prove Lisa wrong, it was going to be a dangerous week for me.  If I was going to slip up, this would likely be the week.  It had been too easy so far. 

Fortunately, while we were doing our team challenge, Lisa was reading our food logs.  Mine had birthday cake on it!  Still smiling from the scale, we met as a group to pick a day for a team workout.  We got ripped, the “You haven’t earned it yet” speech.  It’s strange, because on one hand I was smiling from ear to ear, and wanted to be jumping up and down saying, “I lost 8 pounds” over and over again, but on the other hand, the message was sinking in.  I hadn’t earned it yet.  I still had a long road to haul.

It was oddly reminiscent of a speech my High School Football coach gave my senior year after he found out we all went to a party in the woods after our first game.  He was a great friend to me, and I felt like I let him down.  That speech kept me on the right path that year, and it was like I was hearing it all over again.  It was a cathartic moment, hitting me then and there how far I’d fallen, and how hard I needed to fight to get back.  It also changed my attitude towards Lisa.  I had to view her as an ally rather than an antagonist, she was trying to help me after all.  I needed to earn her respect and I had to respect myself.  My past accomplishments meant nothing anymore. I was in the present fighting for my future.

It was the clicking point, my wake up call, an epiphany.  That was the moment everything changed.

The Game Plan

My game plan was pretty simple in my mind.  I was going to start out slow and build from there.  So what exactly did that that mean? 

I was traveling a bunch the first two weeks of the competition, so when I was away, I’d avoid the crap food I normally ate on the road, because calories consumed on the road aren’t really calories right?  I made better choices (still not ideal, but better).  As far as working out, let’s just say I tried.  I may have walked/jogged (OK, mostly walked) a couple times, a totally half assed effort to say the least.

When I was home, I again made better food choices, but hadn’t fully committed to cutting out all the crap.  I didn’t need to just yet.  I knew that cutting down on the sheer volume of food would have results.  I also started to relearn how to eat, for lack of a better term.  Since I had no idea what a normal portion looked like and refused to buy a food scale, I decided I would replace my lunch and dinner with a Healthy Choice meal.  They tasted great, were inexpensive, and gave me a sense of how much I should be eating.  I was hungry at times as my body adjusted, and my brain tried to convince my hands and mouth that I was starving, but for the most part I resisted the urge.

My workouts while home consisted of light weights and high repetitions on the Nautilus Machines, focusing on a couple body parts.  My logic was that I was burning more calories, while at the same time not getting so sore that I had to miss a day.  I was fooling myself, which I’ll explain tomorrow. 

My cardio was 30-40 minutes on the recumbent bike, starting slowly with moderate resistance.  I knew at some point I would have to start running, and was trying to get back into some sort of shape, and shed some weight to get to that point.  I had broken a treadmill a year before so I was nervous!  Plus I hated to run.

We also had a team workout where my evil trainer made us run hills and do pushups and sit-ups.  The hills sucked, but I knew I was out of shape and could deal with it.  I just hoped I wouldn’t drop dead.  The pushups were another story.  I used to be able to bang them out all day, now I was struggling to do 10.  I realized I had a long way to go.

I needed to average 6 pounds a week over the 10 week program to hit my stated goal of 210.  I knew that some weeks I’d fall short, and others I’d do better, but was determined to keep my eye on the prize.  I was certain that even though it may be slow going at the beginning, and that I was bound to hit a plateau or two, I could make up for it later on as I got into better shape.

I was excited heading into my first weigh-in to be down 6 pounds after not having done much physically, but by watching the volume of food.  Needless to say I was disappointed when the scale at the Y only had me down 3.  It was better than nothing, but I hadn’t yet realized that the sole purpose of the YMCA’s scale was to taunt and torment me.

Happy Anniversary – Day 2

So what made this time different? 

First, I had to swallow my pride.  I had to accept that I could not do this on my own.  It was me and a bunch of women trying to lose weight.  It was ironic to me that I had watched my mother diet my whole life, and now here I was, former star athlete with a bunch of moms trying to lose weight.  It was a humbling experience.

Second, I needed to put myself out there.  I needed to talk about it.  My “a little bit about me” email to my new trainer wound up being a short novel detailing my athletic achievements and how I wound up a 270 pound lump on the couch.  I wanted to talk a big game so that I felt obligated to follow it up, but also to expose that raw nerve that I tended not to touch. I’m a private person, and I still wasn’t sold on the prospect of a trainer (more about that later) but I knew that I had place my trust in her hands, RELUCTANTLY.

I also had to tell my friends what I was doing.  A terrifying prospect!  It’s just not something guys talk about, and God only knew what level of harassment it would entail.  They were surprisingly supportive.  Since we graduated, eight of our friends had passed away, and I was on the short list of next to go.  We all knew it.  They met my news with a sense of relief.  It meant a lot.

I needed to tell whomever I could so that failure would not be an option.  I didn’t want to have to see Sue dropping the kids off at school every day, to drive home to see my family, to go to New York and hang out with my friends, or see my wife and kids for that matter, having failed yet again.  I couldn’t bear to let that happen.

Third, I had to mentally prepare for what I had to do.  I had to have a game plan and stick to it.  I had to figure out what a normal person ate like.  I had to be prepared that when I lost the first 10-15 pounds, I wasn’t going to ease off for a couple days and then “reward myself.”  Let’s face it, the first ten pounds are the easiest to lose, but also the easiest to trip up on.  Your shirts feel a little more comfortable and your pants aren’t so tight, so you have a treat and next thing you know, a month has passed and you’re three pounds heavier than you were when you started. 

I had to be ready to be sore, and accept that I wasn’t as strong as I used to be.  Whether I was in New York, or Rhode Island, I hated being in the gym.  When I was 18 I could squat a truck and move mountains.  I’d play a football game on Friday night and build a railroad-tie wall on Saturday morning.  I couldn’t do that any more, and I was embarrassed.  I had worked so hard, how could I have let that go?  Even though no one in the gym knew me back then, I felt like I had a huge neon sign on my back.  It was time to work through that and get over it.

Finally, I had to find the time to get to the gym.  I was traveling a lot for work and my wife was eight months pregnant with our fourth son in four years.   I had used the “I don’t have time to workout” excuse for far too long and now I truly didn’t have the time to workout, but had to…

Happy Anniversary – part 1

A year ago today I started on a journey that forever changed the course of my life. It was a journey I had started many times over the past ten years, but had always turned back. This time it had to be different. It was my last chance.

I was an athlete my entire life, a skinny agile kid that kept growing and filling out, getting bigger and stronger, pushing myself harder until I eventually found myself as a Freshman Linebacker at Brown University. A 6’2” – 235 pound badass (at least in my own mind)! My Collegiate career was short-lived, a knee injury and subsequent surgery halfway into the season brought it to a screeching halt.

For the first time in as long as I could remember, I was out of sports, had no schedule and was 580 miles from parental supervision. I did what any normal 18 year old would have done, I drank beer and played video games I studied and continued to exercise. Unfortunately, all that “studying and exercising” caused me to slowly gain weight and helped earn me the nickname “sloth” among my friends.

My struggles began about ten years ago when my wife (then fiancée) and I moved to New York City. I was a kid in a candy store with 24 hour access to whatever I felt like eating, whether it be the Bistro Burger with waffle fries at Big Nick’s, Rainbow Gummy Frogs with Marshmallow and a couple beers from the corner Bodega, a big chunk of cheese and salami from Fairway, bacon two eggs and cheese on a croissant (because there’s just not enough fat in a roll), Gray’s Papaya hot dogs, an everything bagel with bacon cream cheese and the list goes on and on.

I put on 50 pounds our first year in the city. Yes, that’s 5-0

Sweet Hair!

Thus began the never-ending cycle of starting a diet, stopping a diet, joining a gym and not going. As significant events in my life came and went, I vowed, “I WILL DO IT THIS TIME!” I managed to only lose 5 pounds for my wedding, despite being a member of two gyms, and came back from the honeymoon heavier than before. Surely after my first son was born, I’d lose the weight so I’d be around to wrestle and run with him, just like my dad did for me. NOPE! I put on more weight. Ditto with the second and third sons and with the fourth son on the way, it was looking like business as usual.

My mom worried that my wake-up call would be a heart attack. Well two summers ago, convinced I was having one, I gave myself a panic attack and spent a night in the hospital hooked up to a heart monitor. Still not the wake-up call I needed.

So that brings me to May 16, 2008. A few weeks earlier I overheard a woman talking about a team based fitness challenge at the YMCA while we were dropping our kids off at school. It was the Y’s version of “The Biggest Loser.” My wife followed up (I would have let it go), my mom sent me a check to sign up and so it began. Ten weeks with a trainer, weekly weigh-ins and a physical challenge.

My beginning weight was recorded. 268 pounds. 33 pounds above my playing weight, but almost 15 years since I last consistently worked out. I was asked to set a realistic goal. I wrote down 210 pounds, realistic only to me at that point. And so my journey began…