Probably my last post

I have to say that this challenge has been one of the greatest things that has happened to me in a long time. My health has made a 360 degree turn around. Three months ago, I could hardly walk up and down the stairs in my house. Last Saturday night I went outside and ran 5 miles and I wasn't completely tired out yet. It felt really good. The only problem was being able to walk for the next couple of days. I can't believe that all of the exercise that I have done on the bicycle and the eliptical; didn't really prepare my legs for this. I love it when my muscles are sore. I really feel like I have accomplished something. I was really disappointed that I didn't lose any weight last week. I am excited to see thee rest of my numbers. So far I have lost 35 pounds. I hope I can maintain that until Friday.
I am going to miss having a trainer to meet with a couple of times a week. That has really helped me to get my but out of bed in the morning. My wife likes to run, so maybe this is something we could start doing together. In the past I have always had a bad attitude about running. These last few months have changed my perspective.
I just can't believe that I let myself get as heavy as I did. I have always enjoyed exercising, especially, I have been a heavy weight lifter. I just let the food get the best of me. I am thankful for the nutrition class that has taught me more about what I should be eating and how much.
I could continue all day about how good I feel. I hope that I can keep up this attitude.
I wish all of the participants good luck for their future and it has been great getting to know all of you.

Small set back and now I am back on track

After a long weekend of ward camp outs and a family reunion, I am setting my focus back to my goal of changing my lifestyle. It is hard to stay on track when there is so much good food around. I went crazy with the cookies and brownies on Saturday; and by the end of the day I was really regretting it. Man was I sick for a couple of days; I don't ever want to feel that way again. It is amazing how fast the body can go down hill.
I am back on track and feeling good again already. It is great to be back in clothes that I haven't seen for several years. It is almost like a whole new wardrobe again. I am down 32lbs from when I started the challenge and I have lost 50lbs since March.. That is how much my daughter weighs. I was packing her around with me everyday and now I almost feel light on my feet already. I am really excited to see all the other changes in my body.
Everybody that I have seen lately is looking really good and I am hearing a lot of good feed back of how much better they feel. It is great encouragement.

A pleasant surprise

I had a very pleasant surprise on Saturday. I decided that I had not been on a bike ride up Santaquin canyon for a long time. I got on my bike and headed up the canyon and at the point where I am usually almost completely dead; this time I was feeling really good. I passed that point even in a higher gear and decided to keep going and went farther than I had ever gone before. I ended up going over 3 miles up the canyon and it is a pretty steep road. I have been thinking all of this time, that I had not been progressing on the bike. It was an awesome feeling and I am really excited. I ended up going up again on Monday and going a little farther again. It is just an awesome feeling to be 30 pounds lighter and I feel like I can move like a kid again.
It is great to see the other participants at the gym and to see and hear how they are progressing. I can't believe that we are now almost down to 2 weeks left. I look forward to seeing the numbers at the end and see more than what the scale has been telling me.

Time has really been flying by

I can't believe how fast the time is going by. Less than 5 weeks left in the challenge. So far this has been a great opportunity and a jump start to a better life. I still really struggle with getting fruit and vegetables into my diet. Every day when I log my food I only have one fruit and maybe one vegetable. Other than that, I have stayed away from the food that put on all the weight. When they call it a challenge, it is a challenge. I feel so much better now and I am walking places a lot more than driving. I used to drive my van from the North West plaza to the building just east, the UVOC, to the sports med clinic to work on computers. Now I walk and I have more energy to get out of my chair and do my job. I feel good.
It is still a fight some days to resist what it seems like everyone else is eating. I hope I don't offend anyone, but I have found that I have to turn to God for help to resist and to eat right. I turn to him more in times when I am depressed and stressed out when I usually turn to food. That is what helps me go on.

It has been a really bitter sweet last few days

The last few days has been really hard to keep up on food tracking. I have had a lot of stress in my life and I have wanted to take it out on food. I am trying to train myself to find another way to deal with my stress. My son made a family favorite home made chocolate cake with home made chocolate fudge frosting. I broke and at a pretty good sized piece of it. It tasted really good, but I suffered all night with my sinuses from the chocolate. I have known for many years that I have an allergy to chocolate. I didn't eat the whole cake and life continues to go on. I am continuing to lose weight. I still wish it was as easy to take it off as it was to put it on.
I am really grateful for this program; it keeps me going and trying harder.

We are now over the hump in the challenge

It was really good to see so many members of the heart challenge at the gym yesterday. I had one of the best weight workouts that I have had. I went up 5 to 10 pounds on almost every exercise. It felt really good to get such a good workout. At the half way point I have lost 20 pounds and I already feel like a different person. I am finding that y colleagues at work are aware and don't really even offer the junk food to me anymore. I am even seeing others that are inspired by what I am doing and are trying to eat better themselves.
It is not only the weight loss; it is my pocket book that is doing better on the challenge. I was spending up to $3 a day on a 44oz soda and a chocolate doughnut. For lunches I was spending sometimes $11 for a burger fries and a drink at Five Guys. I am even finding that I am enjoying healthy food that I normally would not even eat. I still struggle with getting enough fruit in a day. I mostly just forget to eat it. Overall things are going well and I am enjoying time with my children that I didn't enjoy before; because I was so obsessed about getting to the gym. With that, I will take another 24.

I keep forgetting to blog

We have hit the half way point I am feeling pretty good that I have lost 20 pounds.About 40 more and I will be at a good ideal weight. I am still struggling to get enough fruit during the day. I have never been a fruit eater; so this is a complete change in lifestyle.
My eyes are opened every time I try to go out to eat. I am amazed at how much fat and calories are in the food that I used to eat. I went out to eat with my family for my wife's birthday last Thursday and we went to one of our favorite places to eat, El Azteca, We usually get the Chimichanga combo each. Instead we split one meal and I was only able to eat half of my half of chimichanga this time. It feels really good to be aware of my feelings of when I am full.I hope that I can continue this direction when the challenge is over.

Getting a little burnout

I am starting to feel a little bit of burnout this week. This morning I was just too tired to get out of bed and get to the gym by 7:00. I just slept in an extra hour; but I did get into the gym around lunch time. I decided this week I would go the whole week without drinking even a Cherry Coke Zero. I have been 4 days without any caffeine at all. I quite the heavy soda drinking, but I was still having a Cherry Coke Zero 20oz every other day. Last week it turned into every day while I was traveling for work all last week. I am going to see if I can do this whole week without. Getting rid of the caffeine will help me sleep better.
I was really craving a brownie from Great Harvest, so I gave in and had one. I decided that it wasn't going to kill me to have one this week. Life still goes on.
For some reason I have been more hungry the last few days, so the things that we have been learning about listening to my body and understanding the reason why I am feeling hungry, or if I really am hungry. That has helped me a lot to be aware of my hunger

Not all salads are created equal

Today has been kind of a hard day. I have been traveling for work the last couple of days and I spent the day today in Fillmore. For some reason I have just felt hungry and it didn't help that the clinic had a lot of good food setting out today. Normally I would have just sat and ate all day. I just had a little to satisfy my cravings. I am staying in Richfield tonight and I just realized my favorite salad from Wingers has 1110 calories, 49 Grams of fat and 127 Carbs. I should have checked that before I ordered it. I really love the sticky fingers. Life goes on. I will get up in the morning and get a good workout and go on with the lifestyle change. I am not going to call it a diet again.

It has been an up and down week

I was excited to find after a hard week of exercise and turning down my favorite foods; I lost three pounds. I have lost 16 pounds so far in since I started the challenge.
I really learned a lot from the nutrition class last week. I found that Mindy explained my rollercoaster life of weight loss and weight gain. This time I want to make the change permanant and that is going to require a change from the inside instead of just changing the outside. I have never worked on the underlying problem with my weight. The intuitive eating information, I believe, will be very helpful in making this change. I plan on getting the book.
I liked the document that Mindy gave us about those that are concerned about their weight and those that are compulsive. I find that I am at the compulsive end for the most part. I am going to try this week to stop getting on the scale several times a day and just relax and check my weight at the end of the week.
One thing that can be very challenging, is going out to eat with the family. On friday, I went out with the family to grab a bite to eat, and I think I spent 20 minutes looking at the nutrition information for the resteraunt. I have an iPhone app that has most reseraunts and there nutrion. Nothing, at most of the places, is healthy. I just had to grab the better of all of the evils.
I think my kids think there is something wrong with Dad. He has never eaten like this before.
It is great and I want this to pass on to my children, so we can all be healthier.

Plateau week

After losing 10 pounds in a two week period; I have hit a plateau and only lost 2 pounds last week. Even though I didn't lose as much weight; I am feeling much better. The workouts are great an my trainer is great. I have a tendency to go all or nothing into one direction and I deprive myself of sweets until I end up binging. I decided on Friday that I would go ahead and have one of my favorite brownies. This put my mind at ease and I was able to only have the one that day. It feels good to be able to have on and just move on and continue a new way of life.I understand, from some research that I have done, that it helps to get over the plateau to relax a little on my eating. I think a lot of it is in my mind.

I thought I was doing pretty well

I thought I was feeling pretty good; and then I decided to go on a bike ride Saturday up Santaquin Canyon. That really kicked my but. I am amazed at how bad of shape I have let myself get into over the last 5 years. I was proud of myself on Saturday, instead of eating the whole bag of Double Stuff Oreo's; I only had six total. I also noticed something else that was interesting to me. When I wasn't pigging out on the cookies; my kids didn't hardly touch them either. It feels really good to have some control over my eating.

Another week has gone by.

I am really excited about this challenge. I am really enjoying my workouts and the work outs are giving me the motivation not to eat so much. One of my favorite things to get was a giant brownie with chocolate chips in it, from great harvest. I have been really stressed out and anxious all week and the cravings for a giant brownie have been calling me. I have made it without that or my favorite daily chocolate cake donut.
I have had a rude awakening the last few months and this heart challenge is giving me a stronger motivation to change my family tree. 

Feeling good right now

I had my third meeting with my trainer, JD, today and the last couple of times I have actually felt sore from the weight work out. I am excited that I lost 5 pounds last week and that makes me want to work even harder. My kids talked me into going to get ice cream at Macey's on Saturday and instead of getting the usual King Kong ice cream; I got the medium instead. It feels good not to feel like I am over full all of the time.

I didn't relaize how bad off I I really am

I spent last week with the Boy Scouts at a High Adventure camp called Entrada in Moab. Thursday Morning we did a 5 hour 14 mile mountain bike ride on a trail called "Metal Masher". About half way through, I was wishing I was done. I pushed the bike more than riding. This was a major reality check for me and I want to some day do that ride without pushing the bike up the hills. We also did some hiking in Arches National Park. I had a guy 10 years older than me kicking my but on all the trails. In the past I would get depressed about being unhealthy. This time it is a challenge and instead I want to make myself better.