Special Occasion Weekend

I had a rough go of it this weekend. I had 2 occasions that again revolved around food as a method of celebrating - one was a wedding Friday night and the other was a Mexican dinner to celebrate Hispanic Sunday at church. These are without a doubt some of the most difficult times to make nutritious decisions. Most of what's available is filled with gratuitous calories with no regard for fat or calorie content. How did I respond?

Friday night at the cake reception for the wedding, I had a bottle of water and avoided the temptation to have even a small piece of cake. I did go home and have a couple of 100 calorie snacks per the blog last week.

Sunday wasn't as easy. This was a dinner to be celebrated with an Hispanic church (Danny Johnston pastor). I was hungry so I did eat something. I started with a small scoop (about 2 tablespoons) of rice and the same of re-fried beans. Some lettuce, tomatoes and a squirt of ranch. I had a couple of sips of Shannon's diet Pepsi (I've stopped drinking pop completely) and about 8 tortilla chips with about a half cup of salsa.

Hunger vs. Craving

Hunger vs. craving. I fought this big time when I got home from church today. As I relaxed and settled in for the evening I felt like I was hungry still so I ate a couple of the 100 calorie snacks. About an hour later I thought I was getting hungry again but I refrained because honestly, I wasn't hungry. How did I distinguish? My stomach was not growling. So to fight off the cravings (at about 6 p.m.) I jumped on the Gazelle (see last week's posting) and worked out for about 25 minutes burning roughly 250 calories. That seemed to do the trick but an hour later my stomach growled so I ate another small snack and went to bed about 10:30.

The difference, at least in my mind, between hunger vs. craving, simply put, is the hunger pangs and growling. Easier said than done I know, but for me I'm going to try and listen to my body to determine whether or not I'm hungry or if I'm experiencing cravings. I will try to not respond to the cravings by eating but rather with activity, if feasible and if it's hunger pangs I feel, I'll respond by eating a small snack. We'll see how far this gets me.
Signing off - RD 2.0

Week 3 Results - April 30, 2007

Dale's Results
Weight: 262 - 258 = 4 lbs. (15 total to-date)
BMI: 39 - 37 = 2 to-date

Nate's Results
Weight: 281.5 - 278.5 = 3 lbs. (10.5 total to-date)
BMI: 36.1 - 34.8 = 1.3 to-date

Paw's Results
Weight: 305 - 301 = 4 lbs. (9 total to-date)
BMI: 43.2 - 42 = 1.2 to-date

Closet Cleaning Time

I was excited this weekend to start to see some results elsewhere other than on the scales. I have a terrible habit of retaining clothes that no longer fit just for the very reason of going on a diet. As I began to sift through all of my pants I could track my weight gain from 36" - 38" - 40" - 42" and finally 44". Scary stuff, but I organized all of my jeans in stacks according to the waist size and while I may have to do some shopping, I won't have to do too much because I have so many of each size. I'm hoping that by vacation I will at least be down to 40". I comfortably slipped on 42" this weekend!

RD 2.0

Food Choices and Plateau Breakers - Week of April 23, 2007

This week was a challenging week for me. Restricting myself to 1200 calories a day started out as a novelty but now has grown to be a chore. The cravings have been difficult to contend with and my appetite seems to have highs and lows. I have gotten in the habit of weighing myself daily. I can't help wanting to see my results each morning. Most diets tell you to weigh yourself weekly. This is hard for me because part of my motivation for the day includes seeing if I've done well or not.

It seemed I hit a road block this week. I managed to stay "by the book" until Thursday even though my weight fluctuated by a pound up and a pound down. I talked to another girl that is on this diet at work and she said it happens. I was in hopes that I was going to be able to lose 8 more pounds this week, but as you can see on this week's weight update I only lost 3. I'm still happy with that but I plan on changing a few things up this week.

Saturday I bought a new Gazelle by Tony Little (infomercial item) at Wal-mart for about $85. You can burn around 100 calories in about 10 mins. on this, but you certainly feel it in your calves. I'm walking around today feeling like I have "charlie horses" in both calves. Once I get started walking though, they warm up and I can't feel it any more.

Another strategy I'm doing to break the plateau is to consume just a few more calories. I had an extra piece of fruit, and a variety of 100 calorie snack items.

1. Quakes

(90 - 100 calories)

2. Slim Fast Peanut Butter Crunch Bars

(120 calories)

3. Creamsicle

(70 calories)

Another item I ate this weekend that I think may have gotten me out of my slump is to eat a lunch at Subway. I had a Turkey Breast Sub with just 310 calories and 4.5 grams of fat. It was very satsifying and I think just what I needed to change things up enough. This was the first time since I started this diet that I actually ate out.

(310 calories)

Last and certainly not least, I had a small slice of Veggie Lover's pizza from Pizza Hut.

(200 calories)

Just some ideas to keep in mind to economize on calories without sacrificing taste. Another item I added, starting this week, is a multi-vitamin from One A Day.

Good Luck this week!

RD 2.0

Week 2 Results - April 23, 2007

The results are in and here's the scoop

Dale's Results
Weight: 265 - 262 = 3 lbs. (11 total to-date)
BMI: 38 - 37.6 = 0.4 (1.6 total to-date)

Nate's Results
Weight: 284.5 - 281.5 = 3 lbs. (8.5 lbs.)
BMI: 35.6 - 35.2 = 0.4 (0.9 total to-date)

Paw's Results
Weight: 305 -
BMI: 42.5 -

The Struggle Continues

I've fought weight almost my whole life and have tried so many different things to make eating right a way of life. One of the tools I stumbled on a few years ago was http://fitday.com. The nice part about this website is it archives weight related info. From journal entries, activites and foods, this website offers you a glimpse into your past as it were. Well, in an attempt to find out what my weight was in the lighthouse picture with Shannon I was able to determine my weight in that picture was roughly 206 lbs. I'm going to include a sampling of some of the journal entries. You'll be able to see a thread of optimism at each start, of which there are several starts. One that particularly stood out was that in January 2006 my all time heaviest was 273 lbs. ironically enough, that's my starting weight with this program too. Here are the entries, just for archival purposes. Starting with Jan-06 going backwards to May-02. Incidentally, I started using fitday.com to continue to track my progress.

PAST JOURNAL ENTRIES ON FITDAY.COM
1/30/06
Weighed in at Weight Watchers at 273 pounds. That's my all-time highest weight ever. They are setting a 10% goal for me to lost 27 pounds in this 12 week program. The cost for the program was $135.00.

Shannon and the kids are going on this diet with me. I'm not sure what Shannon weighs but she says she is at her all-time highest weight ever too. Nate weighs 266 pounds. He's all of 1-2" taller than I am but that's still bigger than he needs to be and bigger than he wants to be. Katelyn doesn't need to be on a diet but we've noticed that with us being so conscious about our food choices, she's been opening up to trying different things. This is a big plus for a little girl that always orders chicken nuggets with ranch and is very picky about what she eats.

Execise will be the challenge for me. I have made attempts to walk in the plant for 15-20 mins. before but I am going to have to stick to it this time if I expect to get the results I'm hoping for. According to Fitday I have to lose about 3 pounds a week if I want to be down to 200 pounds by July 1, 2006.

I've noticed that there is a stronger sense this diet will work since we are all on it together. We're surrounding ourselves with healthier choices and marking boxes with point values plus I am trying to log info in Fitday to track progress.

2/7/06
Starting Weight = 273
Current Weight as of 2/6/06 = 267

A new Tracking website is

www.sparkpeople.com
rmangold+acts238

11/24/04
According to http://www.caloriecontrol.org/calcalsm.html

I need to maintain a caloric intake of 2500 calories to maintain a weight of 180 lbs.

At my current weight 240 lbs. to maintain this weight I need to eat 2875.5 calories.

1/9/03
I did some reviewing of my journal from April/May 2002, I am embarassed that I dropped the ball so badly. I was dazed by my success but in tracing the dates I also found out that my grandfather had passed away and directly after we got home from his funeral we took our dogs back to the breeder.

There is a lot of emotional stuff that happened that diverted my attention away from my healthy lifestyle I was trying to achieve. After just losing my grandfather and taking my dogs back to the breeder (for various reasons), I found that I was tumbling into a state of semi-depression. I have started once or twice a week to walk and will track my progress here.

1/8/03
Today I didn't do so well on my water intake like I would have liked to. However, you can't argue with results, I lost 3 pounds of water weight. I had to get up 3 times yesterday during my nap to go to the bathroom. I knew I would lose something. It will be a couple of days before I lose anything else but it was a nice way to kick start the new eating plan.

I did enjoy a good sub from Subway, it's an excellent alternative to eating fast food and I find it very filling. In fact with me drinking milk with my meal I get fuller faster and was able to just limit myself to a 6" sub vs. a 12".

Another tip I find that curbs my appetite is drinking tea. I can't explain what that does vs. drinking coffee but it helps sooth my hunger a bit. Part of curbing my hunger also has included identifying the triggers for overeating or unnecessary eating.

The definition of overeating is the same but unnecessary eating is eating for the sake of eating, that is a very useful problem to identify and eliminate. It could potentially shed 10-15 pounds immediately. Not surrounding myself with quickly grabbed and munchable foods will help curb this. Foods that require preparation are better to have around I am less likely to be cumpulsive with food that needs to be warmed up or thawed. Preventing quick fixes like this will surely lead to shed pounds also.

1/7/03
Began a new customized eating plan today. Being on Midnight Shift it's difficult to plan your meals. My overall goal (180 pounds by July 1, 2003)may seem unrealistic based on how much time I am willing to put into exercise but I am going to try it nonetheless.In addition to my goal weight I am setting a goal of increasing my intake of water, lowfat/no fat milk, vitamins and cutting out soda pop, and lowering my salt intake. The results will be measured daily.

My water intake goal=6-8, 8 oz. glasses a day

My Milk intake 8-10 oz. minimum daily for calicium and for a fuller feeling during my meals

My goal is to limit my soda pop intake to only on the weekends and at that 1 can a day for Friday, Saturday, and Sunday and it will be diet pop.

My salt intake will be limited to a very small portion if used at all.

My exersise goal will be to increase my activity level to 15-20 minutes daily like walking and perhaps jogging in place on our trampouline (small indoor).

1/6/03
Today is the official beginning of the new diet year. I have gorged myself till I can't think of anything I didn't eat or pig out on in anticipation of going on a diet. I am officially ready to give up junk for awhile in favor of a healthy lifestyle.

One key to my success is having the support of my wife. She and I work terrific together when it comes to losing weight. We are failures at helping each other maintain. To put it in terms I best relate to, "it's either feast or famine".

My last weight entry with Fitday.com was 225 lbs. I began again entering information here at a starting weight of 230 lbs. That's not a real bad weight gain when you look at it in terms of only gaining 5 lbs. in 8 months time and that includes holiday weight.

5/2/02
Thursday May 2, 2002

ACTIVITIES:

Busy day today. I slept a total of 4 hours and never stopped the whole day. I had some errands to run and then had a rehersal for a concert I am in on Friday. The total rehersal time took up a little over 3 hours. I entered in the time as my activity for the day in addition to walking 3 miles.
I got on the scales this afternoon when I got up and had dropped another pound. The walking is really paying off and I am still not feeling that hungry. My appetite has quieted tremendously. It seems like the more weight I lose the less hungry I feel only because I am afraid of putting those pounds back on when I have worked so hard to shed them.

My caloric intake suffered drastically today due to my busyness. I had only enough time in between everything I was doing to eat a Slim Fast bar and a yogurt.

5/1/02
Wednesday May 1, 2002

ACTIVITIES:

Today I put in an extra mile only because I felt like it. I brought my CD player along and listened to music. It really made the time go by fast. I am still having to contend with that blister on my foot but I am not letting it stop me from getting my walks in. Kathy actually put in an extra mile too today she wound up walking 4 miles with me. I figured since I was used to putting in 4 on my own I would continue the trend.

I also got out and shot some baskets to break up the monotony of walking a little. That was quite a work out in itself.

GOALS:

I decided to up my goals a little from 200 by June to 190 by July. I hope I can stay on track. After yesterday losing the weight I did I felt motivated. I am starting now to get my thoughts and frame of mind in order so that when vacation gets here I will not blow all this hard work. The most difficult thing will be to get back on a regular schedule of exercise if I get off it on vacation. I am going to have to find some outlet to get some sort of work out in. Maybe spend time in the pool swimming or going for lots of walks and trying to keep track of the time we spend and the distance we walk. Then there is the eating. I am going to keep myself eating low calorie meals if I can at all help it. I have gone too far to turn back now and if I can get down to 190 I'll feel even more motivated to eat right.

5/10/02
Weight at 206 lbs.

Week 1 Results - April 16, 2007

Dale's Results
Weight: 273 - 265 = 8 lbs.
BMI: = 39.2 - 38 = 1.2
BP =

Nate's Results
Weight: 289 - 284.5 = 5.5 lbs.
BMI: 36.1 - 35.6 = .05

Paw's Results
Weight: 310 - 305 = 5 lbs.
BMI: 43.2 - 42.5 = .07

Who's This Guy and Girl?

Here is a picture of Shannon and me in July of 2002 at the Portland Head Light on Cape Elizabeth, Maine. The sad part is, I can remember thinking at that time how fat I was, now I'd give anything to be back to that weight. Lord willing and Dale willing, it will happen again. My weight? 206 lbs.

Dale's Health Stats

Part of my problem is blood pressure so we purchased a machine that will help me monitor my blood pressure. As of this posting my reading was 131/89, which is pre-hypertensive. The ideal is 120/80. So I have some work to do. I also had a recent health screening at the church performed by one of our nurses. My cholesterol and blood sugar was right on par. This will be yet another measure of success I will be monitoring. The SSHE diet minimizes carbs, sugar and sodium. Just minimizing the sodium will help my blood pressure go down.

My BMI (Body Mass Index) is 39.2

BMI	Weight Status
Below 18.5	Underweight
18.5 - 24.9	Normal
25.0 - 29.9	Overweight
30.0 and Above	Obese

People who are overweight or obese are at higher risk for chronic conditions such as high blood pressure, diabetes, and high cholesterol.

At a minimum, anyone who is obese should try to avoid gaining additional weight. In addition, anyone who is obese should try to lose weight. Even a small weight loss (just 10% of your current weight) may help lower the risk of disease.

The BMI for a 180 lb. man is 25.8 which is still considered overweight. The ideal weight and BMI for my height? 165 lbs. and a BMI of 23.7. So roughly over 100 lbs. before I reach what doctor's believe to be a healthy weight.

See: http://nhlbisupport.com/bmi/

RD 2.0

You Can Do It!

Just a quick note to say that in the words of a VERY wise man, "You can Do it!" - Uncle Mike

Thanks for the words of encouragement. They certainly help. Please check back regularly to monitor our progress. Each Monday we will be posting our results. Nathan and I are going to try and post bi-weekly or weekly photos to measure our results as well.

I might add here that Nathan has been doing 100 sit-ups a day and half as many push-ups. His results can already be seen just by looking at the slimming of his stomach in his "before" shots. Nate is also lifting small free weights to add some resistance training to his exercise.

Great Job Bud!

Reasons Why

Recently I decided to begin an agressive weight-loss program as I don't feel in the best of health. When I say that I mean...
* I'm tired all of the time
* My blood pressure is way out of whack
* My feet hurt almost all of the time
* I'm setting a bad example for my children
* I now have a chronic snoring problem that is a result of being too fat
* I have only one pair of shoes that don't hurt or aggravate my feet
* My clothes don't fit right so I keep buying bigger sizes
* I can't find my size of clothing at Wal-mart anymore (only in the camping section by the tents)
* I hate the way I look
* I get out of breath too easily
* I can't see my feet when I stand up and look down
* I can't tie my shoes without gasping for breath
* I have more chins than a chinese phone book
* I Hate cutting my toe nails
* I can't fit into the rides at Cedar Point
* The seats on an airplane are too small
* I can't wear my wedding band
* I'm just plain not happy

I'm going to use the above list to track my progress as well. Being able to acheive these goals will motivate me as I go along.

The weight-loss program I started is Seattle Sutton's Healthy Eating. Essentially, it's pre-portioned meals, packaged for convenience that if eaten in the portions given will be the equivilent to either a 1200 or 2000 calorie diet. Wanting to jump start my progress I went for the 1200 calorie diet. The price is $119/week for 1200 and $139/week for the 2000 calorie diet. See links on the right.

What got me started was my dad and mom. Dad started the diet 2 weeks ago and loves the food and seems quite content. When he found out I was going on it, it seemed he was encouraged and he and I agreed to do just that, encourage one another and to share our results back and forth. Nathan too, joined us. He is cutting back and using Slim Fast shakes as meal replacements. I chose another blog to track our results complete with "before" pics and what I hope to be very favorable "after" pics. I even got my dad to send me some that I posted. In the spirit of fun I created the blog called the "Diet Tribe" and our handle for the blog is 3losers (of weight of course).

It's our hope that having this bond and blog will engender a faithfulness to the diets. I'm not saying this is going to be easy but having this bond will certainly make us accountable to each other as well.

Good Luck Dad and Nate!

FYI - 180 lb. Man

This is where I'm heading so I thought I'd find out just what a 180 lb. man eats to stay 180 lbs.

The average man that weighs 180 lbs. daily consumes...

2,160 calories
248g to 279g of carbohydrates
126g to 162g of protein
60g or less of fat
Absolute maximum of 2,400mg of sodium

Day 3 - Plugging Away

As of today, all of our pics are posted. Everyone appears to be sticking to the plan and slowly making progress. Nate asked me if I planned on cheating and I quickly told him "NO". I'm feeling strong so far and the SSHE (Seattle Sutton's Healthy Eating) plan is agreeable so far. Paw has upgraded to a 2000 calories/day while I'm staying with the 1200. I am going to try it for another week before I determine whether or not I'll upgrade. So far I don't see any reason to but it's only been 3 days.

I thought about updating this blog daily but I'm not sure it's going to be value added so I'll periodically check in. I am certain though that we are going to post routine pics of our progress. Nathan and I are going to post them weekly. I have to discuss with Paw how often he wants to. Also, we are going to be posting our weights below each set of pics so we can track our progress.

Good luck to all of you and keep plugging away~

RD 2.0

Paw's Pics

4/10/07: Paw's Before Pics at 310 lbs.

Dale's Pics

4-09-07: Dale's "Before Pics" 273 lbs.

Nate's Pics

4-09-07: Nathan's Before Pics at 289 lbs. (Note the Signature "Earvie J. Butt")

Day 1 - The Beginning 4-09-07

Nathan (289 lbs.) and I (273 lbs.) have begun our journey to "Thin-ness". We have lived life in the "Fat Lane" too long and now we're doing something about it! Our goal is simple - to lose weight. While Nathan and I are in competition to lose the most weight before June 30, 2007, the day before we leave for vacation, we are going to do what we can to help each other.

On yet another plane, Paw Mangold, is also on a diet. His plan is the same as mine. We are both doing Seattle Sutton's Healthy Eating - We'll call it SSHE for short. I started last night (4/9/07) and Paw started almost 2 weeks ago.

Together the 3 Losers will in fact be just that, losers of the most dreadful and terrible of all human imperfections - Fat. We're doing this so we look and feel better about ourselves and so we can have a better quality of life and hopefully a longer life as well.

This blog will be an attempt to track our success. Nathan and I (RD 2.0) took our before pictures yesterday and will use the same clothes to track our success on a regular basis. We'll see if we can get Paw Mangold to take some pics as well. If not I have some that might keep him motivated. I might add here too that this is the 1-year anniversary of Paw Mangold's heart attack. We're praying above all, that this diet plan will be the catalyst to better living for Paw so this NEVER happens again!

So here's to success!
RD 2.0

(See "Before" pics on our "Pics Page")