Achievement Unlocked – Weight Goal Obtained!

Perhaps it’s a little premature to get excited about obtaining my weight goal considering someone may have tampered with the weight scale this morning, but whatever.  It says I achieved it so I’m thinking I achieved it!

This is a personal account of what was going through my head for the past five months while losing weight so that in the future, if I somehow gain that weight back, I can peer into what was going through my head at the time.

The Past – The Grueling Gates of Hell (Jogging)

In the past, I noticed over the years that the amount of weight being pulled by gravity was increasing slowly.  A few pounds here, a few pounds there.  It just crept up.  I was conscious of this creeping up factor and sometimes would get on spurts of diet/physical activity/whatever to curb the gain, but it really never really stood the test of time.

Of course, thoughts of jogging at lunch went through my head and I was actually quite diligent about it.  When I went to Australia a few years back, I made it a point to get out and jog every day at lunch because I knew I needed to build endurance to climb up hills and walk around town all day long.  That was a successful training regimen but two factors were creeping in the back of my head:

• I didn’t lose weight, but I did build endurance.
• I HATE jogging.

The next year I continued the trend of jogging around the Ottawa river during the summer months but according to my fitness tracker, you can definitely see how I would just start off with one giant spurt of ten days, then it descended from there.  The classic fitness regimen for millions of people across the planet…you get an idea in your head, you go for it, then you lose motivation.  This wasn’t helping.  I had also set up the bicycle in the basement during the winter months which was decent but I wasn’t entirely diligent with it as well.  Plus, I never really saw any weight loss.

Now, let me tell you of my ultimate fitness goal – to have a strong heart.  Heart disease runs in the family bloodline so I have always maintained that I could care less about my weight, but I do care about my heart so weight loss is a secondary goal to me, and I will always stand by that.

I do feel I have met that goal consistently over the past years, however, it was time to take the next step.  Secondary goal engage!

The Present – Thoughts from a slightly slimmer, yet even funnier man

Last year, Véro was nice enough to pick me up a Fitbit Charge HR wristband which would keep track of my heartrate.  I thought it would be a useful tool when I was on the bicycle in the basement as I didn’t have a speedometer on it so I had no real sense of how much of a workout my heart was getting while on the bicycle.

I have to say that this Fitbit was the beginning of what has changed my life.  Forget about the money spent on a gym.  Just buy one of these things.  When I first started using it, I was looking into trying to maintain a ‘step’ goal of 10,000 steps a day.  This started me on the right track of getting some consistent fitness into my life.

It wasn’t until Véro and I were expecting our first child that I really started thinking about what kind of father I wanted to be.  Part of the thinking was that I wanted to be a father that could be an example of what this kid may want to be.  Hence, I wanted to show this kid that an active lifestyle isn’t a bad one.

The Present – My thoughts that went into this whole ordeal

I started toying around with the calorie counter on the Fitbit and this opened up a whole new world to me.  I have to say that I am quite stubborn when it comes to advice from any source…sometimes I blatantly disregard it searching for an easier solution.  But sometimes it just takes years for me to really listen and understand concepts.

Calories in, calories out – Case in point, the key to weight loss is creating a calorie deficit.  The calorie counter on the Fitbit is what changed my life.  Once I realized that it was tracking how many calories I was burning in a day (based on my heart rate), I then realized that if I kept track of the food I ate against that, it would show if I was gaining or losing calories in a day.

That unlocked an amazing revelation which has been talked about for ages.  It doesn’t matter what you eat, as long as you create a calorie deficit.  I’m not here to listen to fitness freaks tell me that this is a really bad attitude considering you can’t just eat bacon and beer and be healthy.  I’m here to say that as long as you make sure that you have burned more calories in a day compared to the amount you ingested…it doesn’t matter when it comes to weight loss.  Calories are calories.

That was the key to unlocking my secondary goal – weight loss.  I could still drink beer.  I could still eat chicken wings.  I could still have pizza.  I could still eat all the things I love, as long as I held strong onto the rule that I shouldn’t go over a certain limit during the day.

The food that was affected the most by this was chicken wings.  Freaking chicken wings.  I love those things.  Every time Véro would be away for the evening, I would eat chicken wings.  I ate some chicken wings and that resulted in 1,000 calories put into my body.  Out of a 1,500 a day intake, I was screwed.  So I had to adjust my thinking on chicken wings and the next time I had wings, I had something like a half pound with some rice or something like that.  The last time I ate a pound or two, I had to basically go exercise for another hour to burn that off.  But I started looking to other foods I loved that had a lower calorie count.  Or when I ate pizza, I would have some salad with the pizza and take one less slice.  Do I like it?  Nah…I have to say when it comes to chicken wings and pizza, I like to gorge.  But so be it…some of this can’t be easy.

Find an exercise that you love – Easier said than done, right?  I hate jogging…HATE IT.  I did it for years.  I thought I would turn a corner in my life and start to love it.  That never happened.  You know what I do love though?  Walking!  I walked everywhere when I was a kid.  So enough was enough, I decided to start walking.  It was a liberating experience.  I started taking walks at lunch.  It was great to get outside and move around instead of just sit in another area and play board games (granted, I love my board games!).  Once I got that cadence started, I started taking walks on breaks.  That’s my go-to…squeeze in a fifteen minute walk on a break and a longer one at lunch, and bingo bango, you’re getting some good physical activity which isn’t hard to do.

One of Véro’s requests when becoming pregnant was to buy an elliptical as she wanted to stay in shape but didn’t know how to since she couldn’t jog anymore.  Lo and behold, a $100 later brought the elliptical into our house and we both love it.  I put a 45 minute show on, I start up the elliptical and boom, I’m on my way.  Sure, it’s a struggle some days.  Some days it’s not.  The Fitbit is neat how it knows that I’m on an elliptical vs. walking regularly vs. doing some skydiving.  So after the elliptical, I can see that I burned 300+ calories.  Boom, that was easy.  Some days it isn’t easy.  It’s a struggle.  Some days I get home and I enter all the food I’ve eaten during the day into Fitbit and kind of determine if I need to get on the elliptical today, or if I can let it slide.  Lately I have been letting it slide, but I also notice that I walk to and from a parking spot now since Véro is on maternity leave.  This kills a few more calories.

Weekends are hard to get exercise – Unless I hit the elliptical when I wake up in the morning, there are some tough days where I can’t even squeeze 10,000 steps in which means it’s hard to have some fun on the weekend and down a few brewskies.  So I just suck it up and hit that elliptical up in the morning, unless I predict a day of a lot of walking or working around the house.  But if it’s just a ‘stay in and do nothing much weekend’, I better hit up that elliptical since I’m losing out on those walks at work!

1,500 Calories – At first I was trying to eat a lot less, as well as get a lot of calories burned during the day.  I stumbled up articles that said that a man my age should aim to have 1,500 calories in his body in a given day because that’s what your body needs to eat in order to work efficiently.  What does this really mean?  Well, without 1,500 calories, your body theoretically might think something is wrong and then start working differently and maybe not burn fat as much, or shut down some systems.  I’m sure there is a scientific explanation from some fitness pro that will swoop in on the comments section, but the main point of my realization was to make sure I had a minimum of 1,500 calories in a day.  Some days I wasn’t hitting that so I would make sure I had some crackers at an evening snack.  It’s super weird to think that I was EATING food to lose weight, but I have to say that I did notice a difference once I started consistently having a minimum of 1,500 calories a day.  Pro-tip: a beer throws 200 calories towards that goal if you’re missing it near the end of the night!  Hey, in my head, a calorie is a calorie.

 Stay true to the goal – With the Fitbit, I can see when my calorie intake is higher than the calories I’ve burned through the day.  So it keeps me in check.  There have been a few days where after supper, I realize that I need to get onto the elliptical to bring me back into the ‘green zone’ which means that I’m on track for the goal I’ve set out for the day.  I believe the goal was to have around 500 calories less in a day so I was aiming for that, or to be under that each day.  I have to say that there were a few nights that I go over because of the nature of what I’m doing (read: Meeting Rick at the Pub Italia), but hey, if that only happens once in awhile, don’t knock yourself!  Plus, if the goal is just weight loss with no time limit, then who cares if it slips a little?

Time Limit – I set a time limit of meeting my weight goal by the time the baby was born.  The baby isn’t born yet and here I am, sitting proud.  Achievement!  I’m not sure if I necessarily needed a time limit goal, but I can’t say it hurt.

Treat yourself – One interesting thing that I found kept me motivated is that I started buying lunches at work.  I felt that was a daily treat to myself and was a reward for a job well done each day.  Mentally, it kept me motivated because each day I would go on my walk and think “Oooh…what am I treating myself to lunch today?”

A Pound a week – As my friend Trish put it, it’s not safe to lose more than a pound a week.  I scoffed at that comment, but on the other hand, it was hard to lose more than a pound a week!  So you really need to look at what your goal is and plan out a pound a week.  You want to lose 20 pounds?  That’s going to take you 20 weeks my friend.  Twenty weeks!  Get that through your head.  I did find it gratifying to measure my weight every day and see it go down by a pound around the same time each week.  It’s also neat to see it on a graph over the long run on my Fitbit app.  Some weeks I felt that I wasn’t losing weight as fast as I used to, but statistics don’t lie and there was only one week where I maintained the same amount of weight as the one before.  Once again, I blame that on Cousin Rick visiting and hitting up the Pub Italia!

Rock and Roll is weight reduction – Rock concerts are a crazy exercise.  This explains how I could pound back so many beers at Bluesfest and not really gain any weight after two weeks!

The Future – What the heck am I going to do now?

I have been chatting with Véro about this for the past week since I was approaching my goal.  Now what do I do?

I have been reading about other people who don’t really know what to do when they hit their goal because it’s not like I should just go back to eating chicken wings whenever I feel like it.

So, off the top of my head, here are some things that are roaming through my brain:

• I’ll keep walking at breaks and lunch.
• I might keep working towards getting my body mass index down into ‘the green zone’ considering I’m still in the yellow zone. In order to do that, I still need to work towards some more weight loss.  I might just do it in smaller goals instead of my five month long goal.
• I feel I’ve crossed a goal line and I’m not sure if I should continue onwards, or just take it easy for awhile. With the baby coming, maybe that will introduce a factor of “it’s pretty freaking hard to get enough exercise during the day when you have zero sleep and are stuck at home instead of walking around on lunch hours.”  So perhaps my goal should just be to maintain the weight level while these new things are happening.
• I’ll keep eating the way I do and maybe in the future I’ll start looking into eating healthier. But for the time being, I’ll be keeping an eye on calories more than sodium content.  (Sacrilege, I know!)

This is my historical record of an interesting time in my life and I could care less what fitness experts come in and say about my methods.  At the end of the day, I have a strong heart and I lost some weight.  Those were my goals and I achieved them the way I wanted to do them.

Woo…long post!  Maybe it’s time I just start this blog up full time and make shorter posts!

update:  Yeah, eating chicken wings is not a good form of celebration!  I somehow bounced back four pounds!  Ha ha, ah well, back to the grind!