The process...

So, if you read my previous post, you probably know that I managed to survive the first day at the gym.  Since then, I kept on going at least 3 times a week, increasing the running vs. walking time. After a while I realized that I was really doing it, I was actually loosing weight.

I have to say that it took about 20 or 30 pounds for people to actually notice the change. Suddenly I started to get feedback from people around me; "you look good", "did you loose weight?" At the beginning I was still turning my head looking for the slim good looking guy behind me that everyone were talking about. I could not believe it was me they were talking about. Was I the one there getting compliments about my looks? me, the fat guy? How weird was that!?

I wasn't only a fat guy, I was (and still am) also a numbers guy. It was all about the numbers... How many calories I burned, how many miles I ran, what speed, how many times a week, and so on. I measured everything I could measure so it was only natural that I would start document my weight loss officially.

I never really liked stepping on the scale. I was afraid from what it would tell me every time. The scale was like this evil fortune teller that told you some ugly truth you did not want to hear but you keep going to him anyway hoping that this time you'll hear something reassuring... "You're still fat dude", "not working hard enough fat guy", "0.5 pound?? that's it? this is what you woke me up for??".  As frustrating as it was I made up my mind that I had to look at the ugly truth, I had to know my weight every day, every week and every second (did somebody mention OCD?)

On January 1st 2009 as a New Year resolution, after about 6 weeks of training, and slowly reducing meals portions, I created an Excel spreadsheet and put on the data + weight, I added a formula that would show me exactly how many pounds I lost. At the beginning I checked my weight every day, then every two days, finally I realized how stupid, not to mention obsessive It was and I decided to do it once a week. Friday became my weigh day and this is how it looked:

I think the happiest day for me was when I went below 100 kg (220 pounds). I couldn't really remember when I weighed less than 100 kg, (since i was 19 or so) so that was a real breakthrough for me.

Few things that helped me during that first year,

1. I was always a pretty methodical guy, which meant numbers for me. I purchased a Polar heart rate monitor, the kind that allowed you to put your weight, age etc... and calculated how many calories you burnt in a work out. For me, a success was when I passed the 800 calories for a single training.
2. Document, document, document! I insisted on writing my weight every week and that was the most important file on my laptop, backed up to at least 5 places. Looking at that graph going down just did the job.  It was not always linear, there were ups and downs here and there, but overall the trend was weight going down.  I have learned that even if I had a "bad" day with too much food or too little exercise, it didn't mean much. I could always go back on track and the trend kept to be loosing weight. I did not give up to the thought that came in saying "well fat guy, you eat so much already leave this stupid weight loss attempt and go back to be your old fat self..."

The pace of my weight loss got slower and slower. This is how 2010 looked like. Overall I didn't loose much at 2010, only around 10 pounds but I was content and even proud of how I was able to keep my new low weight despite all those dis-encouraging ups and downs...

In my next post I will write the story about getting into biking, sometime in summer 2009