Physical Challenges

When I was a kid, I used to watch a children's game show called "Double Dare" in which two teams of kids would take turns answering trivia questions. Sometimes, a team would get stumped and would pass their question to their opposing team by saying "dare". If the opposing team didn't know the answer, they would reply "double dare", at which point the original team could take a guess or perform a "physical challenge". The physical challenge was usually some sort of trick they had to perform in a few seconds, like try and land a checker on a checker board that is attached to your partner's head. Or they could be really gross, like having to dive face first and blindfolded into a bowl of whip cream, looking for a teething ring. Sounds kinda silly today, but as a kid I loved it!

I've noticed that many people who are in shape typically surround themselves with physical challenges. Whether it's riding a bike over a long distance, mountain climbing, or parachuting, many people in shape simply have a great time with their bodies. They are able to use them and do something they truly enjoy doing. Weighing over 300 pounds has been an excuse for me to not enjoy such things. Over the years, my hobbies have been more sedentary than active. Being a movie fan, I love sitting on my couch watching films. I also have a love for building plastic model kits, especially those which are science fiction in nature. Again, as much fun as these activities are for me, they don't exactly have any physical health benefits.

For a while I've considered getting more involved in activities which will help me get my body moving. Our church has an hiking group in which people get together and hike one of the countless trails we have in the Pacific Northwest. I was invited to join in on the latest hike yesterday and, with serious reservations, I accepted. I've been wanting to find ways to be more active, and hiking is something I've never really done as an adult. Of course my main concern was "can I do this?" The trail was going to take us to Aldridge Butte, a little-known area in the Columbia River Gorge. I did some research on this trail and found that it was a 3.2 mile round trip trail, listed as easy-moderate. Knowing full well that "easy-moderate" was a score not generated with a 320 pound person in mind, I braced myself for the very real possibility that I was not going to be able to overcome this physical challenge. When we parked at the bottom of the gorge and I looked up to see where we were going, I realized this was going to be a hell of a steep climb, something I wasn't remotely used to. Nevertheless, I psyched myself up and I was determined to get to the top.

We had to walk up a gravel road just to get to the trail head, and by that point I was already breathing heavily. The trail itself was completely shaded by trees, but that didn't matter to my body which was producing so much sweat that my entire shirt, sleeves and all, was soaked. By about 1/3 of the way up the trail, I looked like I had taken a shower with my clothes on. Did I mention that not another single person in our group even broke a sweat? About 3/4 of the way up the trail, our climb went from moderately steep to very steep. I pushed and pushed and pushed as much as I could. Every time I looked ahead and saw more trail, I'd hear a voice say "is it much farther Papa Smurf?" It was about this point that someone in our group shared with me the secret of a hike: don't focus on the past or the future, but focus on the here and now. With that in mind, my exhausted self focused on whatever it could. The trees. The sounds of the birds. The back of the shoes of the person walking in front of me. The rocks I was walking over. An hour later after we started, we reached our destination.

My God, I had never seen such a sight. The Columbia River Gorge is a place I have been many, many times in my life. I thought I had seen it all. But all of the views I have ever seen were achieved through the action of driving to viewing points. Suddenly, after spending an hour breathing so hard that my lungs hurt, I was looking at a site that had never looked so awesome. With all of the sweat in my clothes, the bug spray trying to drip into my eyes, and the achy muscles I had all over my body, I felt more exhilarated than I had felt in years. I looked out onto the beautiful canyon below which stretched for miles and miles in both directions for what felt like the first time. My friend Lynn asked me how I was doing, and I turned to her with what must have been a big-ass grin on my face and said, "I did this." Afterwards, we posed for pictures, noticed how tiny our cars looked from our vantage point, and then spent the next 40 minutes hiking our way back down to them.

For the rest of the day, I was glowing. I also felt challenged. I immediately decided that one day, perhaps when I've dropped another 50 pounds, I will return to this same trail and see if I can do it better. For now, I'll continue to bask in the fact that I climbed 1100 feet in just over 1 1/2 miles in one hour, and I didn't quit. And I conquered a great physical challenge.

"Wii weight"

For the first time in the several years I have owned it, I was able to use my Wii Fit!

My partner and I purchased a Wii Fit with the hope that it would be a fun addition to our "home entertainment" as well giving us the benefit of losing a few pounds. When we purchased it, I was certainly realistic about any positive health benefits it might bring to us. I mean, seriously, how can a video game be a factor of any kind in the process of losing weight. Nonetheless, we brought it home, unpacked it, and plugged it in. I remember the first time I saw the Wii Fit program on our TV, and how cute we thought the little animated Wii board was, especially how it reacted when people would stand on its real world doppelganger.

My first experience with the Wii Fit was not a happy one. Knowing that it would measure my weight, I stepped on it a little embarassed about what it might tell me. Trying to hold my large frame on the piece of plastic, I focused on the screen and saw...nothing. The program was telling me there was an error, and to step off and try again. Like a good little Wii-Fit-workout-buddy, I followed the directions. Again, nothing. My partner decided to give it a try and, after he stepped on it, the game told him his exact weight. Seeing this, and after traveling to my office and consulting the metallic box of all knowledge, known as the Internet, I confirmed a fear I had: I was too heavy to play the Wii Fit. The program had a weight limit of 330 pounds, and I knew that I was somewhere in the 350 range.

At first, I was pissed. I was really pissed! How could a product which was obviously designed to help people lose weight in their living rooms have such a ridiculous design flaw? What were they thinking? As time went on, my partner and a friend of ours would play the different balancing and aerobic games, and had fun doing so, all the while I sat on the couch and pouted like Ralphie holding a C+. Yes, we were eventually able to fool the game and allow me to play, but I could never have an accurate profile which would track my weight or BMI. I decided right then that one day, I was going to cross the threshold of 330, which I had labeled my "Wii Weight" and be able to play the game. It was a goal. It was a SILLY goal, but goals are great to have in life, especially when trying to lose weight.

This morning, I stepped on the scale (something I wasn't supposed to do!) and discovered that I was down to 327.2 pounds. Feeling that was safely under 330, I decided to dust off the Wii Fit board and try it out. I plugged in my profile, and went through the endless prompts to set up my Wii Fit Profile. Then, it asked me to step on. "Measuring..." it said as I held my breath. After whispering "anything but Slytherin, anything by Slytherin" over and over to myself for what seemed like an eternity, the game told me something I've waited years to see. It had measured my weight! I had officially reached my Wii Weight and, as an added bonus, I had 5 pounds to spare!

The Wii Fit finished setting up my profile and plotted a point on a graph as a starting point for my weight loss. It will be fun tracking my weight loss on a video game! I spent the next half hour playing the various games, and even working up a tiny bit of sweat before having to quit so I could fulfill my obligations I have for the rest of the day.

So I guess the moral here is, don't just have typical goals for yourself while trying to lose weight. Throw some fun and silly goals in their too. Try to associate numbers on a scale with something other than your weight. Sure, it's all a mind game in the end, but it's a positive mind game which is very helpful to fight back the more negative mind games that we play to talk ourselves out of trying to lose weight.

So what's your silly weight loss goal?

330.8

This morning, my scale said I haven't lost any weight in the last week. While I'm disappointed by the number, I'd be less than honest with myself if I said I was surprised.

While I've been exercising and, with the exception of a milkshake have also avoided dining out, I have not been tracking my food intake. They say that weight loss is 20% exercise, 80% diet. I now have proof that this is correct. As a former Weight Watcher, I'm very familiar with the process of tracking food. Given the online tools available, it's certainly easy enough to start tracking. Indeed, this last week I did start tracking. However, I was very inconsistent. I tracked 2 things, both of them breakfast. Not gonna lose weight if I track 2 meals out of a whole week!

So, that's what I need to work on this week. "Write it if I bite it" is a great saying I picked up at a WW meeting. That program does work, as long as I work at keeping honest with my intake. This brings up a great point: honesty. For those of us who struggle with weight loss, there is no quicker route to defeat than by being dishonest with ourselves. You know what I'm talking about. For instance, when having a 1/2 cup serving of ice cream, how easy is it for us to look at a full bowl of the frozen, creamy, dairy deliciousness and convince ourselves that we could, if forced to, pack that bowl of ice cream into a 1/2 measuring cup? So instead of eating the 180 calorie dessert we KNOW we're eating, we're consuming about 2 or 3 servings in one bowl! It is so easy to get into these little mind games, which is why I fail to see the point in trying to lose weight if we aren't honest with ourselves first. The funny thing is, we can lie to ourselves, but the scale always tells the truth!

This week, my goal is to track everything. My goal is to also get in at least 3 walks over 2 miles, while putting in 30 minutes all other days. This is probably a little too much for me to do in one week, but I really want to lose another 10 pounds in the next 15 days (is that even possible?!). If I can't make that goal, at the very least I will be comfortably out of the 330s, never to return!

And the journey continues, on foot...

It's been over a year since my last post, and my weight loss attempts all but stalled in that time. Until now...

Allow me to explain how I got to where I am now. A few weeks ago I participated in the Portland Rose Festival Character Clown Corps. Yep, I'm a clown! The main event of the Portland Rose Festival is the Grand Floral Parade, a 4 1/2 mile walk from the Memorial Coliseum, over a bridge, and through downtown Portland. Knowing that I had this physical challenge ahead of me, I decided to start walking around my neighborhood to get my legs out of their state of near-atrophy! Then, something amazing happened: I discovered I liked going out for walks! What I liked more was how I felt after I was done. I felt energized, awake, and alive. What a great feeling!

The day of the parade came, and I conquered it! While I definitely felt tired at the end, and my feet were sore from pounding the pavement with nothing but Converse between them and asphalt, the feelings of near-death that I had dreaded never came.

After the parade, I watched the televised highlights and had the shock of a life time. There I was for all the world to see and in high-definition. A 337 pound clown, huge, wobbling, and waddling across the street. Worse, I was surrounded by a plethora of skinny, fit people. I was the elephant in the room. I've seen pictures of myself before with similar feelings, but this felt even worse. On my face you can tell I'm having the time of my life, but everything below my face said that my life was going to be cut short because I am very unhealthy.

Not long after, I stood on the bathroom scale and had another shock. The renewed activity in my life had a very positive impact. I had lost 5 pounds. Ok, so 5 pounds is not a lot for someone living in the 330s, but for me that was huge. I hadn't been dieting, and I really hadn't even been exercising. I had just been walking and trying to get this body ready for a 4 1/2 mile walk. Then it hit me like a perfect storm: if I want to live, I need to walk.

So walking I've been. My partner and I recently moved into a neighborhood not more than a half-mile from a middle school with a track and a mile-long cross country trail. I decided that I no longer had any excuses, so I put on my shoes and went walking. Two weeks ago, I set out a goal: walk every night. Mission accomplished. The next week I managed to get in three walks. So far this week, I've managed to get in one (with another coming following my publishing this blog). I found that I really enjoy walking the cross country trail, and yesterday I managed to walk it 3 times. Since I walk to and from the school, that's nearly 4 miles of walking!

So, that's where I am. The scale last week told me I no longer weigh in the 330s. For the first time in 5 years I'm in the 320s, which for me is huge. I have a goal to be at 318 by the end of the month. It's ambitious, but I know I can make that happen. Why 318? Two years ago, I was at my heaviest weight: 353. By month end I hope to have lost 10 percent of my weight, which will put me at 318.

So that's where I'm at. I've been wanting to journal my weight loss and I can't think of a better way to do so than to blog it. With that in mind, these blogs will be much more frequent than before. Stay tuned!

Support

I don't like relying on people. I'd like to think I'm the type of person who can take care of himself, especially when things get really bad. Over the last couple of years my partner has been out of work and I've only managed to find part time work. That said, one of my relatives has been helping us financially until we can get back on our feet. Every time I see a check in the mail, I cringe. I should be able to take care of myself.

I've felt like this when it comes to weight loss as well. I feel like relying on friends to help you lose weight is somewhat of a trap. It certainly does (and for me can) work really well at keeping oneself motivated. However, what if you lose the continual support of that friend? A situation like this happened to me several years ago while I was on Weight Watchers with one of my best girl friends. We both had a significant amount of weight to lose, although I had much, MUCH more than she. I joined the program several months after she had, when I had noticed how much it had worked for her. After I joined the program, I noticed how well it impacted me! The pounds started coming off, and after a few weeks people started noticing the change in my physique. Every week at the meetings and weigh-ins, my friend and I would share our accomplishments, support each other in our missteps, and continually push each other through to that next week. I was eating healthier, moving more, and really enjoying the process of losing weight. More importantly I wasn't at all missing those habits that made me overweight. It was an incredible experience.

Then it happened: my friend had achieved her weight loss goal and she quit Weight Watchers. At that point, I thought, 'yeah, I can do this on my own.' Within a couple of weeks, though, I had started falling into bad habits. Before I knew it, my attendance at the meetings evaporated and I found every single pound I had lost.

Now, I don't blame my friend. She is to this day one of my best friends and I wouldn't trade our friendship for anything! But that experience made me realize something: when it comes to weight loss, I very much need people to rely on for support, encouragement, and motivation. This is why I was so happy to learn that another friend of mine began this same program a few weeks ago, is having success, and wants me to come to the meetings with her. I accepted the invitation, and Thursday the new journey begins. The best part is, as the day gets closer, I feel like I'm ready for this, and I'm even somewhat excited about the prospect. However, I am leery of my previous experiences, and I need to find a way to keep the motivation alive. Stay tuned!

Effort and lack thereof

As you've probably guessed it from my lack of posts, I lost focus on my weight loss. Again.

I'm certainly not the only one to experience this phenom. You know the story: a big person gets a burst of motivation to change their life. He or she sets goals to be more active, eat healthier, and lose weight. And all that energy lasts about a week and then POOF! they're back in the drive thru saying "large size, with a diet Coke."

My friend Pjaye has been making serious changes to her lifestyle over the last year, and she's seeing lots of progress. She used to be fairly large, but because of Weight Watchers and a gym membership, she has lost more than 65 pounds. I once asked her how she keeps the motivation alive, and she said that she just has to be really OCD about things like going to the gym. That's great, but how does one not be OCD about eating high-fat, greasy cheeseburgers?

I've heard people suggest that weight loss is all about priorities, and one choosing to make it their number one priority. I guess I don't understand how to do that. I certainly want to lose the weight bad enough, and yet the desire for weight loss is never that appealing when I have to choose between a home cooked meal and a greasy cheeseburger, or choose between going for a walk and sitting on the couch watching TV. It's not that I don't know how to set goals. I've done it before. Last year I completed my Masters in Teaching degree, capping a 9-year long college career. During those years of studying, I never once considered dropping out of school. I had a goal of getting a BA, and MIT, and my teaching certificate, and I met all of those goals. Surely, if I can spend a third of my life working toward a degree, then I can spend a few years losing 175 pounds.

This weekend the weather is supposed to be dry. I think I'll take advantage of it and go for a stroll or two around the neighborhood.

WW

"Nothing tastes as good as thin feels"

Several years ago I joined Weight Watchers with my pal Sarah. We found that the food tracking and the weekly weigh-ins helped us both stay accountable to what we were eating. So why do I currently weigh 350 lbs? Turns out my friend Sarah didn't have as much weight to lose as I, and when she finished the program, I used it as an excuse to stop going. That decision allowed me to regain every single one of the 30 pounds I lost, as well as an additional 20 pounds!

A few weeks ago, I decided to try WW once again. It's a program I know works well for me. However, this time I am going it alone. My very good friend Patricia has been on the program since early 2009 and has lost around 50 pounds. Seems like she'd be the perfect candidate to lose weight with, right? Actually, for me, not so much. I love the girl as a sister, but when it comes to losing weight together she has somewhat of a competitive side to her. For instance, one time we tried a weight loss competition in which we would weigh in each week, and the person who lost the least amount of weight had to pay a communal piggy bank money dollars in the amount of the weight lost by that weeks winner. Turned out I was very good at losing, that is I was good at losing the game! Ultimately, I quit playing and the weight started going back on.

So this time, I'm not using my friends as a crutch for my weight loss. Instead, I have decided to only tell a select few that I am working on my weight, while others, like the competitive Patricia, remain in the dark. So far, this is working well for me as I don't feel pressured if my weight doesn't drop as fast as I'd like it to. I'm only answerable to me and the WW scale. Works for me!