My Fat Pants

what's different about these biege/khaki pants?
Originally uploaded by :: Wendy ::

I haven't update in awhile because of the cold I previously mentioned. I ended up going to the doctor and getting anti-biotics and a decongestant. All in all, thanks to not eating and dehydration, I lost ten pounds while sick! Thankfully with some fluids, my weight went back to a more reasonable level and I'm back on track to lose weight the right way.

Today I stopped and picked up two new pair of pants. My current pants bunch up weird when I pull my belt tight enough to hold them up, so it was time for new ones. I took a pair of 56's and 58's to the dressing room and while both fit, the 56's were still a little snug. SO I'm only down one size, but now I officially have my fat pants.

What are fat pants, you say? Well, those are the pants I can hold up proudly in front of myself once I've lost all the weight I'm aiming to lose. A giant pair of pants in front of a slender body is apparently the best way to show off just how far you've come.

He Shoots, He Scores!

Soccer goal
Originally uploaded by ewiemann

So while I normally don't like to toot my own horn or boast, I would like to announce that for the first time in my weight loss journey, I've met one of my goals! I wanted to lose ten pounds in January and I did it! I weight from 400.8lbs to 390.4lbs, even with a few bad weekends. I could lose more if I stuck to my eating plan 100%, but I know myself and I know that my weight loss chart will always look more like a series of hills than a water slide.

I'm sure that one of my sources of motivation this past month has been this blog. Even if only a few people are reading it, I know that someone is keeping tabs on me. Sharing your goals means that if you fail, you have to tell someone!

Here we go again! February is a little shorter than January, so it will be a little harder, but I'm aiming for 380lbs by the end of the month. I've also added a Flickr photo album to my blog with the charts of my weight loss since I started. I use the tools over at the Hacker's Diet Online to track my weight because I really like the trend line. Even if I have one bad day, it lets me know that over all, I'm still losing.

Best to Be Skinny to Exercise

life's dirty little secret
Originally uploaded by debaird

A few of my coworkers went to a pick up game of basketball last night and their tales made for a very humorous lunch hour. Aside from the one guy who plays regularly, everyone else quickly found out just how out of shape they are. They said that by the end of the night, they were just wandering from one end of the court to the other, trying to keep up with the ball. I proudly was able to say that I saved myself from humiliation by not going -- that I know that I am out of shape.

And thus, the weight loss paradox. I know good and well that if I went and played basketball for a few hours, I would have burned more calories. But besides humiliation, I also risked injury and utter exhaustion. Apparently, fat rats have the same outlook on exercise that I do -- they phone it in every once in awhile, but they leave the real work to the skinny mice. Recent research found that as weight goes down, the motivation to run goes up, as does the rewards of running.

But still, I know I have to exercise. I haven't tried jumping rope again because the only real place to do it is outside and people might see. The same excuse has explained why I'm not doing the shovelglove or hula hooping. I guess for the time being, I'm regulated to walking and the treadmill -- hopefully my motivation will go up as my diet takes care of some of my extra baggage.

Jaguars are Obligate Carnivores

Jaguar
Originally uploaded by _guu_

On almost every weightloss forum I visit, there are challenges. Most of them seem to center around the Biggest Loser but I have seen others like 25 Pounds by Christmas and things like that. The basic idea is the same -- everyone signs up, weighs in weekly and the winner is whoever loses the most pounds/percentage of pounds. The prize? Well, the praise at the end is nice, but the real prize is better health through team-based motivation.

For the last six weeks, I've been participating in a challenge over on fatsecret called Ride 'em which was cowboy themed. I didn't get into the theme as much as the energetic women on my team, but let me just say that I've never been called "partner" more in my life. All in all, the challenge went really well -- I lost 16 pounds in six weeks, which was short of the challenge goal of 1% per week, but I still did well. Overall, my team came in third place!

Well, the new challenge starts today. Same rules, but the theme is racing or Are you born to be wild?. This time, I'm not only the member of a team, but I'm the leader of one! I volunteered to lead and let me just say that the Green Jaguars are going to kick butts and take names. Every few days, I'm supposed to send motivational notes and articles to my team while commenting on their journals to help them along.

How can I lose motivation when I'm responsible for motivating other people? I can do this, it will be awesome. 6% in six weeks wound leave me roughly twenty-four pounds lighter by St. Patrick's Day. That seems like the perfect reason to celebrate with an Irish Carbomb.

Fitness Tunes to Get You Going

music
Originally uploaded by phil h

If they ever make a movie about my weightloss journey, I have to admit that Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger by Daft Punk will be part of the soundtrack. I was first exposed to the song by Kanye West's remix, Stronger, but I like the original better. It and Technologic by the same group are staples in my workout mixes, but lately I've been looking to expand that playlist.

Today I stumbled upon SkinnySongs, an album of music written by Heidi Rozen, a successful business woman who one day decided to slim down before turning 50. She sampled the diet music that was available at the time, but didn't like what she heard since most of it focused on the dreary aspects of dieting.

Taking it upon herself and building on her creative-writing degree, she worked with two established music producers to make ten songs, including Use It to Lose It, The Incredible Shrinking Woman, and I'm a Hottie Now. Some critics of the album have pointed out that the songs focus on the vanity of losing weight instead of the health benefits. Keith Ayoob, a nutritionist in New York City made one such comment.

The tunes are catchy and short, but they are focused on superficiality and cosmetics instead of managing weight for health. From a useful standpoint, I don't know how much they are going to help anybody.

I'll have to disagree. While my main focus of losing weight is to be around a lot longer for my family, I can't help but want to look better too. Even if my only motivation for losing weight was to fit into a specific pair of jeans, that wouldn't mean that I wouldn't also achieve better health at the same time.

The Biggest Loser Couples

measuring tape
Originally uploaded by the cosmic cat

One of my favorite television shows, The Biggest Loser, started the newest season last night. This time around, instead of competing as individuals, the contestants are group into teams of two. Each week, they're weighed together on a giant scale -- so if one team member does bad, the whole team suffers.

During the first episode, the team members were taken to the hospital morgue to drive home the point that being obese can seriously shorten your life. Personally, I think this was done more for the benefit of television ratings than the contestants. A few years ago, a bad case of upset stomach combined with leaning on my left arm the wrong way convinced me that I was having a heart attack. After spending the night in the hospital and finding out that I was fine, my bad habits didn't change. Sure, I vowed to exercise and eat right, I even bought a treadmill, but I didn't stick to it. Until you're ready to change for yourself, you're not going to change.

Case in point? Lynn, the sixty year old man from the green team, opted to skip a workout that he promised to do with his daughter even after the hospital "wake-up call." In the end, his lack of motivation got him and his daughter voted off the show first. The Biggest Loser always does a follow-up after a contestant is eliminated and it didn't look like the green team lost much weight on their own. At the ranch or at home, people with motivation will succeed and those without it will fail.

The Biggest Loser is on Tuesdays at 8 Eastern / 7 Central. I'd recommend checking it out next week. Despite ratings gimmicks and product placement, the show is very inspirational.