Weight Loss 2.0

It's close to 10 years since I changed up my eating & lifestyle habits. Over the course of the intervening years I managed to loose a fair amount of weight - sub 290 at times - as well as gain some back.

At this 10 year mark there are a number of positive changes that are still with me:

• I eat a fair amount of healthy, prepared from scratch meals/food
• A good portion of my food is from a CSA - organic & locally grown
• Refined sugar from drinks and food is absent from most of my daily diet
• Exercise is part of my weekly - if not daily - routine:
• bicycle 17 miles 3x/week during the spring-summer-fall
• swim a mile or more 2-3 times/week during the winter - all at once or in stages
• perform HIIT intervals 2-3 times/week using hand weights, medicine balls, kettle bells, and sometimes just body weight
• Overall my health numbers are good - blood pressure, cholesterol, A1C, etc - all in normal range

Some new things that I'm doing:

• I track my activity, exercise, etc w/an Apple watch
• I hit my activity goal most days, except for the weekend
• I work with a health coach - doing that over the last 2 years

Some not so good things:

• I find myself close to where I was in April of 2010 - 318'ish lbs
• Processed food has made its way back into my diet at least once per week
• I go through periods of snacking on refined sugar treats, peanut M & Ms mainly
• I've gotten away from AB's "list", i.e. every day foods, 3x/week, 1x/week
• Alcohol consumption has increased a fair amount
• Nutrient dense food makes up less of my diet - no avocados, fiber supplements (flax seed, psyllium husks)
• Gotten away from green tea & soy milk and back to coffee, milk
• Processed grains - flour from home made bread, etc are in my diet
• I don't write about what I'm doing/seeing/trying

Those are the major ones - there may be a few others but those popped into my head as I re-read entries from 2009 - 2011.

My health coach encourages me to set weekly goals and then about every 3 months set some more longer term goals. Mainly I've focused on staying on my exercise routine or goals related to it - how far to bike, swim, etc and some food related goals. What I've noticed is that exercise alone won't get me to loose weight - I need to recapture the food practices that helped me go from 351 to sub 290. I need to set weight goals to accompany the exercise and food changes.

For 2019 I'm challenging myself to the following:

1. Incorporate nutrient dense foods & supplements into my daily diet
2. Incorporate daily servings of fruits and veggies into my daily diet
3. Minimize daily intake of refined sugar snacks and drinks, e.g fruit juice
4. Keep eating out and/or processed foods to no more than once per week
5. Keep hitting my activity goal of 1k calories/day
6. Decrease alcohol consumption
7. Drink green tea daily
8. By this time next year, be at or below 290
9. Write about what I'm feeling, seeing, experiencing, learning

I'll probably ask myself at some future date, why now, why again, what motivated you to do this - admittedly - again. Photographs. Over the holidays I was in front of the camera instead of behind it and the images I saw of myself were not what I wanted to see. Although I'm not as large as I was at 351, it's no longer moving in the correct direction. Maybe I should do that more often, hummm...