Measurable Progress

Yesterday I had a meeting to attend so rather than wear my normal jeans attire I grabbed a pair of khakis. After pressing I put them on. They felt different; snug, but comfortable. I have a pair of 46's that I usually wear but they are more loose fitting. Checking the size of what I had on I saw that they were my old 44's! That made my day.

This AM when I threw on my jeans I noticed that I'm almost to the point of using the third hole on my belt. When I started this, the first hole was about all that felt good. I've been in the 2nd one for a month or so. While the 3rd one feels a little tight, I can tell that I'm getting close!

Even if I'm not off "E" yet on the scale, my existing clothes are fitting better and that's measurable progress!

I Ate How Many Calories?

For the last couple of years I've taken over the task of weekly menu planning and grocery shopping. In theory this should allow me to better control the food that enters the house and what/how meals are prepared. In theory I should be able to control the family calorie intake to some degree.

Theory works better than practice. Last night I planned baby-back ribs and ate 4 - 2 rib sections; 8 ribs in all. After eating I added up what I ate and posted it to TWYE. Since I'm just starting there, I wanted to see how good their crowd-sourced calorie counts were. So I did a little estimating on 8 ribs - gack over 1000 calories when the BBQ sauce was included!. That put me over the 2500 mark for the day.

It also got me thinking about how I've been going about this meal planning process. I make out a menu, shop, make, eat and only then calculate the calories. Seems backwards now that I think about it.

So starting today I'll "pre-plan" my calorie intake as much as possible. If I don't know how many calories something has in it, I'll find out before I plan/make/eat it. I don't want to be a slave to calorie counting but I do need to have some idea of how much something has in it before I eat it. Especially if I'm going to eat something with a lot of calories in it. That way I can do some creative planning on how to eat for the day.

Side Tracks

I'm experimenting with some tracking widgets so I don't have to enter walking distances or food logs in a blog post.

Since the walking program at work is over, I'm trying out Walker Tracker. Looks nice and easy. The widget shows graphs, posts, and stats.

For food tracking, Tweet What You Eat (TWYE) looks interesting. It leverages twitter posts on food items to crowd-sourced calorie counts. Don't know how accurate the calorie counts are but it's better than having to calculate them all by hand.

Summer Update

I've not posted in some time since I got discouraged over my lack of weight progress and that posting food intake was getting, well boring.

However, that doesn't mean the project is done. Instead I've been focusing on other aspects of loosing weight, mainly exercise. The place where I work started a walking program via the American Heart Association. The goal is to hit 10K steps per day. Everyone that participated received a pedometer and promised to record their total steps every day for a twelve week period.

Well, I'm closing in on the end of the 12 week period and except for a few rainy days, I've been pretty good at hitting 10K per day. I turned my evening walks into a routine and cover about 3-3.5 miles in an hour time frame. That usually puts me over the top of whatever I've manged to walk around the office and home.

In addition, I've started taking the stairs at work every time I need to exit our office area. We're on the 3rd floor so that's good exercise up and down the stairs 6 or so times per day. I allow myself 1 elevator ride per day. I usually take that when I first arrive.

I've also kept busy doing home improvement on the weekends. Home repair and wood working can produce a lot of steps. So much so that on most weekends I'm at 10K steps by the end of the day without going on my walkabout.

So what has all this done do my weight? Hard to tell. The scale still says "E" so I guess I'm still above 340. However, my spouse told me my stomach looked smaller and that I looked like I've lost weight. I've also noticed the following:

• I'm one size smaller on my belt
• My pants are looser
• Bending over at the waist is a litter easier (hey, at 6'5" bending over is a chore no matter how heavy I am)
• My face and neck area seem less "full", i.e. my double chin isn't so pronounced.

All this has me feeling better about myself despite not being able to crack "E" on the scale. I'm inclined re-start the eating side of the program now that I feel the exercise is something sustainable.