Revel Canyon City Marathon Training - Let's Talk Weight.

I'm now four weeks into my training program to prepare for the Revel Canyon City Marathon in November. And so far, it's great. Not only am I running farther and faster each week, but there's also a very tangible benefit.

As of this morning, twenty-eight days after starting my training program, I am no longer carrying the equivalent of these three things:

Each of these - the bag of sugar, the sack of potatoes, and the two-liter bottle of soda - weigh approximately five pounds each. Combined, that's a total of fifteen pounds. And that is the same amount of weight that I have dropped since hitting my high of 235 pounds on July 19th.

Think about that for a moment. Every single day, all day long, lugging these things around with me. Running with them. Walking with them. Heck, just carrying that weight as I try to sit comfortably.

And now, those fifteen pounds are gone. In case you're wondering, yes, I feel pretty great about it!

Now, let's take a look at how they came off. Because weight loss works like a science but shows itself much less specifically. I have been doing the right things each day, being more active and reducing my overall calorie intake. You would think that my weight would drop a little bit every day. But that's not how it works.

Here's the chart showing the number of pounds I've lost over the the last four weeks. First thing you notice is that there is a lot of give and take. I weigh myself the same time each day, so all things in my control are the same from day to day. And yet, I lose a little, gain a little, lose a lot, gain a little, lose a little, etc.

Why am I showing all of this detail? Because I think it's important to be honest with myself AND because I think it can help others who may be discouraged on the days they gain a pound or two. I am proof that weight fluctuates even when a person does all the right things. That's no reason to give up or to feel like a failure.

I still have eighty-three days before my marathon and nearly eleven months before my self-imposed one year weight-loss deadline, and I have already dropped 20% of my overall goal of seventy-five pounds.

Think about that, too. In four weeks, I've dropped fifteen pounds. I only have sixty pound to go and I have forty-eight more weeks to do it.

Does that mean I will lose it all faster? Perhaps. But I know there will be plateaus. There will be setbacks. There will be days when I am doing all the right things and the weight stubbornly hangs on.

When those things happen, I will look back on these early blogs and find comfort. They will remind me that weight loss comes in waves, not necessarily equal measures.

And I will press on. I will not give up. I will have faith in my training and nutrition plan and I will push on.

Because I didn't put the weight on overnight and it won't come off that way, either. But I am worth all the effort it will take. My health is worth it.

Right now, though, I'm going to just enjoy the moment.

Because this:

makes this guy very happy.

From 235 to 160: The Big Plan

Last week, I shared what felt to me like a huge, dark secret. Over the last year, I put on weight and had gotten all the way up to 235 pounds. It was not a feel-good moment for me by any definition, but it was a relief to finally be honest and talk openly about what was going on in my life and with my fitness journey.

Right now, I'm working on a short-term plan to run a strong full marathon on November 7th. But that is only a piece of the puzzle. I am also working on a long-term plan to drop the extra weight, do it in a healthy manner, and keep it off for good.

First, a HUGE disclaimer: I am going to share some numbers but they are general guidelines only. The standard BMI calculator is not the end all/be all of health and fitness. As I move along my fitness journey, I will be utilizing accurate body fat measurements and relying on measurements from my doctor as I adjust my overall weight goals.

That said, right now, I don't need any tool or spreadsheet to convince me that I weigh too much. My starting weight for this year (July 19th, 2015 - July 18th, 2016) is 235 pounds. And more than any number on a scale, other things show me that I am overweight:

• My clothes fit tightly.
• I am winded doing things that used to be easy for me, like walking stairs.
• The two areas of my body that first show weight gain (my face and my stomach) are REALLY showing weight gain.
• I am not sleeping well.
• My body is sore all the time.
• And mostly, I am not feeling comfortable in my own skin.

While it's not the final arbiter of what is healthy for me, I am using the BMI scale to compare my starting point with my weekly progress.

This is where I started at 235 pounds:

And this is where I am after three weeks:

And this is where I would be if I drop seventy-five pounds and have a healthy BMI:

Somewhere between where I am now (223) and where the calculator says I should be (160) is the ideal weight for me. As I continue to eat healthier, stay active, and repeat consistently, my weight will continue to drop. As I get more and more fit, I will work with my doctor to determine what is my healthiest goal weight.

For now, though, this early in the game, I am going to set a goal of losing roughly 1.4 pounds each week on average. With exercise and improved nutrition, that is a realistic and healthy goal. I realize that it is an approximate weekly goal and that there will be small weight gains along the way. The body does not lose weight in an exact manner.

For example, this chart shows the number of pounds I have lost over the last three weeks:

As expected, I didn't really lose any weight the week I took off from running. But looking at the first and third weeks, you can see that it isn't a smooth line of loss. I drop a little, drop a little more, gain a little, then drop a little, etc. 

And that's perfectly normal. If I am going to lose this weight and keep it off, I need to remember that my body will naturally weigh a little more or a little less on any given day. It happens and it's no reason to freak out.

And why I am sharing all of this? To let others know a few things:

1. You can make a change and improve your health.
2. Big goals are good provided you have short-term strategies to achieve them.
3. Measurements keep you honest.
4. Obsessively worrying about the number from a single day is pointless.
5. Do the right things consistently and you will see results.

It's going to be a good year, friends. I know that because I'm going to put in the work to make it so.

The Worst Blog I've Ever Written.

Yep. No doubt, this is the worst blog I've ever written. Don't say I didn't warn you.

First, let's talk about what it is not:

• It's not a "poor me" blog
• It's not an "everything is someone else's fault" blog
• It's not a "life is hopeless" blog
• It's not a "feel bad about myself" blog
• And it's not a "secretly wanting everyone to tell me how great I am" blog

And what it is:

• It's where I come clean with myself, my friends, and anyone else who stumbles across this post
• It's where I admit to myself the damage I've done
• It's where I explain my struggles
• And it's how I turn things around

Sounds like a lot, right? It is. It's good and bad and personal and it all needs to be said so I can get myself back on the right track. So let's get started.

I started my weight loss journey in June 2010. Soon after, it became about more than just dropping pounds, and my health and fitness pursuit truly began. Over nearly five years, I have lost and gained weight, taken on new challenges, and run multiple events of every distance from 5ks to marathons. More importantly, I've taken control of my life and improved everything about myself. 

I'm proud of my accomplishments. 

But I've also fallen into the trap of focusing more on what I have done and less on what I need to be doing right now. Sure, it's great that I've completed six full marathons. But the last time I ran 26.2 miles was October 2013. And I've run multiple relay races, but over the last year, my pace has slowed down considerably.

And my eating? It's terrible. I went from tracking my nutrition and enjoying occasional treats to defaulting to fast food every day for lunch. All those empty calories, and all because I've been too lazy and too unmotivated to take the time to prepare a healthy meal to bring to work.

Running and working out? No. Just, no. I can count on one hand the times I have been out running in the last two months. And strength training? Nope. None at all.

Obviously, all of this has taken its toll on my body. I have gained weight steadily over the last year or so, and now, I barely recognize me. I know it's obvious to anyone who has seen me in person, and it's to the point where it's impossible to hide in pictures.

Here I am a week ago in Nashville with my teammates.

Even without the neon orange shirt, you can't miss me. And you can't miss that I've put on a lot of weight.

How much? Here's the awful truth. I weighed in yesterday morning at nearly 230. Let that sink in for a moment. I am one of those people who loses a lot of weight and fails to keep it off. It sucks, but it's true.

At my lowest weight on this journey, I weighed 182 the morning of the Pasadena Marathon. And I ran that event feeling lean and strong.

I want that again. I will have that again. And it starts right here with all of this honesty.

I have a plan for the next 30 days. And that plan gets me ready for the six month marathon training plan I have queued up right behind it. (I'll share more about the 30 Day Challenge tomorrow.)

Tonight, when I click Publish, I will be sharing with everyone what I consider to be my failure. Some of you will understand and think, "that could be my story, too." Others of you might think, "yeah, it happens." And still others might say, "so much for Captain Awesome, this guy is just another failure."

I can't control what anyone else thinks. I CAN control what I think. And me, I think I am going to get back to the basics that helped me be successful the first time. I am going to be eat better, be active, and repeat consistently. I am also going to share these next several months candidly, since keeping secrets has never been a good thing for me to do.

I know what I need to do. And I know that sharing my setbacks will help hold me accountable for fighting back through them. 

Here we go, friends. Start the clock, because I have so many things I will accomplish in 2015 and not a whole lot of time in which to do it.

Ready? Go!

My Fitness Journey, Part I.

I was always a skinny kid. I could eat anything and everything I wanted and I still never gained weight. When I joined the Marine Corps at eighteen, I was still stick-thin. In fact, I came THISCLOSE to being put on double-rations while in Boot Camp to fatten me up. For nearly four years, I ate calorie-heavy food, drank crazy amounts of alcohol, and rarely gained an ounce. I credit a turbo-charged metabolism and nonstop Marine Corps physical training.

Unfortunately, after leaving the Marine Corps, I continued to eat and drink the same way for many years. What I didn't continue was the physical fitness training. And year after year, meal after meal, my body began to change. It was subtle at first, but weight gain was inevitable. I gained a couple of pounds each year, and by my mid-thirties, I could no longer pretend that everything was fine. But I didn't really know a way to turn it around.

In late 2005, a friend surprised me with a 5K while we were together in Chicago. It was my first and I finished, and it got me thinking about my health and fitness levels. I spent the next year off-and-on at the gym and managed to lose a bit of weight. In January of 2007, I was diagnosed with Pertussis. (It's the adult version of Whooping Cough, and yes, I did feel like a 17th century peasant with the Plague.) For nearly one hundred days, I coughed. I could barely move, let alone workout. And even after I recovered, I didn't feel like doing anything healthy. I was angry at having been sick for so long and resigned to a life of being overweight.

And for the next three years, I ate and drank my way to my heaviest weight ever. After I hit 220 pounds, I stopped stepping on the scale. I just didn't want to know. But in June 2010, my annual Marine Corps Reunion was held here in San Diego. For several days, I was surrounded by my Marine Corps brothers and sisters. They were all people who knew me back in the day, and for some, it had been 20+ years since they had seen me. And you can imagine how different I looked to them.

You would be right if you credit them for waking me up from my mental funk. But it didn't happen the way you might think. They didn't make me feel fat or bad about myself. Quite the opposite, in fact. They helped me remember the person I used to be, the young Marine who was fearless and funny and passionate about life. They helped me see that I was still that person; I just needed to reach out and take control of my life again.

And I did. I had been a member of SparkPeople.com (a free health and fitness website) for over a year, but I had never really explored the site. Now, though, I began checking in every single day. I read articles, took quizzes, joined teams, and started blogging.

I also made a commitment to myself that I would be perfect - yep, perfect - but just until I got myself back under 200 pounds. That meant no alcohol, no fast food, no desserts and no eating out. It meant going to the gym and working out every single day, no exceptions. I knew it wasn't something I could live with forever, but I could definitely do it long enough to drop 20+ pounds.

It worked. Soon, I was down to 198.5 pounds. In August, I signed up for a Bike The Bay challenge and in September, I ran the Marine Corps Boot Camp Challenge. I was definitely on my way. By December 2010, I was solidly in a groove. I had a new lifestyle - eat healthy, be active, repeat consistently. And I was ready for a new challenge. I signed up for a 5K, then a 10K, then a half marathon... and then another! In 2011, I ran two half marathons, the Tough Mudder, the Super Spartan, Bay to Breakers, Warrior Dash, and a Ragnar Relay. My crowning achievement, though, was running the Marine Corps Marathon in October. It took me every bit of five hours to finish it, and I am as proud of that as if I had won the whole thing.

Since then, I have run nearly a dozen half marathons and I have another full marathon coming up. I have found a balance in my life, eating and being active while indulging from time to time in my favorite foods and drinks.

Looking back, I understand why my first attempt in weight loss in 2005 didn't work. I was all about the physical, and I completely ignored what was happening in my mind and in my heart. I didn't just eat because I was hungry. I ate because I was sad and lonely and depressed. And that doesn't just go away on its own, no matter how much weight you lose.

This time around, I have worked on more than just my body. Instead of focusing on losing weight, I have focused on an overall fitness plan. I'm a happier person, inside and out, and I am better able to separate the food I need to eat from the junk I was inhaling without thought. These days, I finally get it. And the simple truth is, healthy is the new skinny.

I don't judge my success by my weight. Instead, I think of the miles I've run, the races I've completed, the challenges I have met... and most importantly, the relationships and friendships I have made along this journey.

I struggled along the way. I still struggle sometimes. But I am proof that anyone with a plan and a will to work for it can go from couch potato to marathoner. Join me as I continue to make my life an adventure.




(Originally published as My Story in May 2012. An updated version will follow.)

Losses and Gains

(This is a long blog, folks, but it's personal and from the heart. Thank you for taking the time to read it and I hope that it conveys all that I am feeling right now.) 

When I began my journey, my focus was on what I hoped to lose. Inches and pounds. I had no idea that my bigger reward was what I would gain. 

It's been sixteen months since I really began using Spark People. And it's been eleven months since what I was reading and writing online sunk in enough that it became an integral part of my real-world activities. Sure, I knew that exercise and healthy eating were important and I tried to stick with them, but my success was hit-and-miss. But then, something clicked. I finally understood that I needed to build consistency if I truly wanted to live a healthy life. 

My early goals were simple. I wanted to lose weight. I wanted to drop pounds and shed inches. I wanted the fat gone. And day after day, week after week, month after month, I worked hard to achieve those goals. I dropped 5 pounds, then 10, then got into One-derland. I kept dropping, down another 5 and another 5 and another. And now, I've stopped focusing on the number on the scale and started judging my fitness by non-scale variables, like how my clothes fit, my energy levels and my overall mood and attitude. 

Yep, I lost what I wanted to lose. But my real reward was in what I gained. 

Since losing the weight and becoming active, I have run a half marathon with my best friend. I have run a Super Spartan race with amazing friends. I have enjoyed a guys' weekend in San Francisco running Bay to Breakers with two Marine Corps buddies. And I have run a Ragnar Relay with a group of strangers that welcomed me and made me feel like one of the team. 

I have had the most amazing moments. I have run alone under the midnight moon, with friends through crowds of screaming supporters, along vistas offering spectacular landscape views, along harbors and bays and tree-lined paths. I have clung to and jumped from obstacles and ropes and into mud bogs. And in the months to come, I will endure a Tough Mudder, two more half-marathons, and finally, the Marine Corps Marathon. 

I have lost weight, sure. But I have gained experiences and moments that are the absolute definition of life well-lived. I have wept with pride and beamed with joy. I have crossed finish lines and hugged strangers and friends and family. I have staggered and stumbled and walked, sprinted and charged and crawled. I have shared moments of pride and accomplishment with loved ones by my side. I have felt more alive in the last year than I have in the forty-three years that came before. 

Yes, I have lost a lot over the last 12 months. But my true victory and success comes in what I have gained. No more wasting my life, sitting around and letting others experience the challenges and reap the rewards. I have been given a chan... no, wait... I have MADE a chance for me to live a better life, and there is nothing that can stop me now. 

Life. It's what I have gained. 

(Originally posted on SparkPeople.com)

How I dropped 10 pounds in 1 second.

I've been giving a lot more thought to my weight goals over the last couple of weeks, and I made the decision today to adjust my loss goal from 160 to 170. As I'm losing weight, I am also getting a better feel for my body and what is truly healthy. 

Here I am at 220 pounds: 
 

And here, from 2006, is me at 189: 
 

And again at 185: 
 

I look at me in the last picture. I remember how I felt at that weight. I still had pounds to lose, sure, but 10-15 at the most. No way that guy in that photo needed to lose another 25 pounds. 

So, I'm adjusting my goal. And I am giving myself the freedom to adjust it again, up or down, as I continue to get healthier. I will not draw a line in the sand for a specific weight. I have a general goal of 170, but I will listen to my body and decide as I go if I still need to lose more weight or transition to a maintenance plan. 

And that, folks, is how I lost 10 pounds with a single keyboard stroke and a click of the mouse. 

Why am I doing this?

Because I do not want to spend the rest of my life looking like this. 

 

Me, Christmas 2009. Sitting there, weighing as much as I ever have in my life, I felt completely uncomfortable. I didn't want to take pictures, I didn't want to dress up and go out, I didn't want to do anything but hide out. And that is no way to live. 

So, here I am almost two months later, feeling like a whole new person. And this? Oh, yes. THIS is a way to live. 

Patience. Rewarded.

I just wrote on Thursday that I was happy with my progress, despite the fact that I had not lost a single pound over the entire last week. I told myself to have faith that making better eating choices, sticking with my workouts, and getting and giving support here at Spark People would work. Turns out, I was right. 

Yes, I know I said I was only going to weigh myself once a week, but I woke up this morning and decided to take a quick peek. Hello, success. I weighed in at 209.5 pounds this morning, which means I dropped 3.5 pounds since Thursday. 

What does that tell me? It tells me that the numbers on the scale are going to do tricky things. They are going to sit stubbornly for days, even weeks at a time, despite all my best efforts. And then, almost inexplicably, they are going to drop in dramatic fashion. 

So, today I'll celebrate the big drop. I'm doing the work and I deserve to enjoy the rewards. But I will do so with the knowledge that every weigh-in will not be like this, and even when the numbers flatline, I'm still confident I am doing the right things for longterm health and fitness. 

I lost zero pounds last week. So why am I happy?

I weigh in every Thursday morning. This week, like last week, I weighed 213 pounds. And that should bother me, right? Wrong. 

I'm not unhappy right now. In fact, I'm feeling pretty good. And I'll tell you why. 

One, I know that my eating habits last week were not that great. Sure, I ate relatively healthy breakfasts and lunches. But my dinners included quite a few indulgence items. And those calories add up. And portion control? Forget it. I wasn't all that concerned with that. So, I made unhealthy eating decisions and ate too much. Both of those things are fully within my power to change in this upcoming week. So I'm happy. 

Two, my overall goal is to lose (in a healthy and sensible manner) one pound per week. I have already lost seven in three weeks, so I am double my plan. And if my body slows down a bit for a week or two, no problem. I'm still moving in the right direction. So I'm happy. 

Three, scale be damned, I feel better. I have worn my polo shirts tucked in each day this week, and I haven't done that in quite a while. My jeans fit a bit looser, my belt has to be pulled a bit tighter, and people tell me I look like I am losing weight. So I'm happy. 

And four, I made a conscious decision to not let the weigh-in bother me. Instead, I chose to seek out message threads on the "Panic! Button for Immediate Help" forum. I decided to focus my energy today on cheering people up and encouraging others rather than wallow in some faux-problem of my own. And as it turns out, writing messages of support to other people can't help but impact my own mood. So I'm happy. 

I don't know who all might read this blog entry. And I don't know where any of you may be on your own journeys. But I can tell you that just being here is enough to motivate and inspire me to do more, to be more. I read our stories and connect with different pieces of each of them. I am glad to be a part of this group and proud to be on this path with so many of you. 

So I'm happy. 

(Originally posted on SparkPeople.com)