Joe's weight loss journey Blog

Dizzy

jakaminsk — Thu, 27 Jan 2011 01:20:48 +0000

I spent most of today feeling a bit dizzy. I do not know why and I really cannot figure it out. I ate some extra thinking that might be it even though I have been eating as much as I used to while I was losing weight before. Nothing seemed to work to quell the dizziness. It was enough for me to notice it but not enough to cause me to sit down because of it. I am thinking that I may be sick and that may be causing it even though I do not have outward symptoms. I have a slight fever but that may be masked because of my constant taking of Aleve for my knee pain because my normal temp is below 98.6F.

So for food today I ate a bit more than I expected to and it was about the amount I was eating during my stable period over the holidays.

For exercise I did my typical Wednesday routine which is lifting only. One thing that I noticed was my muscles were fatiguing early and I was feeling weak by the end my set on each exercise. That is unusual for me at the weights I am lifting now because they are very light. I think it is a symptom of that dizziness I have been feeling. Oh well I will have to keep an eye on this.

Life is a journey.

update 12 hours later: I have decided that I have some kind of bug. I have some mild queasiness and moderately loose bowel movement. So I am not going to workout for a couple of days while I fight this off.

Consistancy

jakaminsk — Tue, 25 Jan 2011 01:20:42 +0000

Well things are settling down to a routine for workout now. The lifting and the treadmill workout both went fine. I am noticing that I am having more knee pain. I am hoping that it is just my knees getting used to the additional strain. I will have to keep in eye on it.

Eating today was a struggle. I need to not bring money to work so I cannot hit the vending machine. But one thing from the vending machine will not kill my progress but it does not help it and I try to keep what I eat just to what I need.

I have learned that consistency in how I eat and what my activity level is critical to my weight loss. It is also a key to my success after weight loss because if I were to choose to go back to eating the way that I was I would regain the weight again. Changing my lifestyle is the only way to long-term success in weight loss and maintaining it. There is no other way to do it.

Life is a journey.

7 pounds lost in the last two weeks

jakaminsk — Sat, 22 Jan 2011 22:14:31 +0000

I weighed myself today. I lost 7.1 pounds in the last 2 weeks. I have now lost all that I gained in the last couple of months plus 2 more pounds for a total of 97 pounds lost. This is better than I expected by far I figured that I would have lost 3-4 pounds so I am very happy with my results. Now I need to move forward with weight loss and see where I can get to by the one year point about March 19^th. That will actually be 53 weeks but I am not scheduled to weigh in on the 12^th but I may change my mind before then.

The workout went fine today. The last 2 days I upped my lifting a little bit per exercise so as to tax the muscles a little bit more. Now normally I used to just do water aerobics on Saturday for aerobic activity but I am adding 15 minutes of treadmill also to give me a bit of added activity. This burns a few more calories and gives me a good time to increase my speed on the treadmill so I can get used to faster paces with a smaller block of time.

I am on my Saturday eating plan which is a little bit more than normal but still a controlled amount. So I am on my plan for eating also today.

I do not know if I will post tomorrow because when I was doing it before I was giving myself a day off a week. I will see what I feel like tomorrow and if I feel like I have something to say I will post and if not I will not. This is a good start back and I am feeling good about what I am doing again to lose weight.

Life is a journey.

Looking ahead to weigh in tomorrow

jakaminsk — Sat, 22 Jan 2011 04:06:08 +0000

Today I added another 5 minutes to my treadmill workout. One thing I am noticing is that my knees are feeling the workouts now. I think it is just really adjustment time that I need. I will keep an eye on it and make sure I do not over do it.

My eating went OK today. I think I will have an OK weight in tomorrow, nothing to write home about but there should be a definite loss.

One of the things I am noticing it that my fat is getting flabby again. That is a good sign since that precedes weight loss and inches loss. Since I only really was putting my heart into my eating program for about 5 days I most likely will not lose a lot but I will be happy with the progress. The next two weeks should be a pretty good indicator since I am back on track with both diet and exercise. I am just glad that I got myself back on track and that I am moving forward again. I was really beginning to worry that I had completely lost my way as far as weight loss.

Life is a journey.

Chiropractor results

jakaminsk — Fri, 21 Jan 2011 02:40:13 +0000

Today my workout went fine. I added 5 minutes to my treadmill time today. One nice thing that happened was I felt the endorphins during my run. It is always good when I feel the endorphins.

Eating today did not go as well. I ate about 3 servings of chips that I was not planning on eating. That is not good, but I did pretty well the rest of the week. I have room to improve on it at least it was not worse. I really hope I do well on my weigh in on Saturday.

I got my results back from chiropractor today. I have some work to do on improving neck flexibility. The more important thing is my flat feet and the way my heel strikes when I walk. I cannot afford the custom inserts that the chiropractor wants to do it was about twice what I was able to spend. I think I will try the new ones from Dr. Scholls those should at least help the flat feet portion of the problem.

Life is a journey.

Chiropractor visit

jakaminsk — Thu, 20 Jan 2011 02:31:00 +0000

Today was a weight lifting only day for workout. So I used the time I would normally spend on the treadmill to hit the whirlpool and steam room. I lift weights six days a week and do aerobic activity 5 days a week. This rotation tends to work well for my muscles to recover.

My eating went well today, so basically I am back on track there.

I went to the chiropractor today just for a preventative check. A local doctor was doing a very cheap initial consultation. I do not know everything yet but in the future I know I need to get some inserts for my shoe to help improve my posture. That is something that could have contributed to my lack of cartilage in my knees. I do not know what the other recommendations are going to be but I do not foresee much else being recommended. My back flexibility is good. For my neck there was less than full motion but I think I can work on that pretty much on my own.

Lift is a journey.

Staying in the swing of things

jakaminsk — Wed, 19 Jan 2011 02:37:15 +0000

Today my workout went well. The lifting part of it was fine and no shoulder problems. On the treadmill I reached the speed at which I hit the 80% heart rate. So I have reached the speed I will workout at until my heart rate goes down. When it gets to the 65% heart rate I will speed up again. Now on Thursday I will start to add time until I reach the 45 minute mark for treadmill.

I stayed on my eating plan today so that went well and I can see already that I am dropping some weight. Now to just keep it up so I can lose the other half of the weight I want to lose. Not much to say today because it is late, but I still posted.

Life is a journey.

Back to regular posting again

jakaminsk — Tue, 18 Jan 2011 00:02:16 +0000

I have decided to go back to daily posting on my blog again. I think that this is one of the things that help me to become more accountable to myself. Also if I know I have to comment on my eating it helps to keep me on track.

So I am now doing my workouts prior to work in the mornings. This seems to be a good time for me because the gym is not that busy and I can get in and out quickly. So my lifting went fine today. My treadmill workout was one that I was pushing myself so I was going faster than I have done before so that was good. I think I will raise the speed one more step tomorrow and then just work at raising the time. I am currently doing 30 minutes on the treadmill and I am going to raise it 45 minutes. I think that will push me enough to get the results flowing again on the fitness end of things so I can lower my blood pressure.

As far as my eating goes I was pretty good today only about 100 calories of additional stuff that was not in my planned eating. That is doing much better than I have in the last couple of months. Now to just keep it going.

I have been working on a shoulder injury for a number of weeks now and I just started trying something new. It is called hydrotherapy. That is using heat and cold in the shower to do the same thing as ice packs and heating pads do but in a much faster and more complete method. It seems to be helping some and I will let you know in a couple of days if it makes a big difference.

Life is a journey.

1.4 pounds lost in 4 weeks

jakaminsk — Sun, 16 Jan 2011 19:38:09 +0000

I lost 1.4 lbs in the 4 weeks ending 1/8/11. This is better than gaining and I am quite happy with it. Considering it was the holidays and I had a number of injuries during that time which resulted in me not working out I am very satisfied. It is not what I would like to have had happen but it is good considering the circumstances and it represents a definite change in diet and lifestyle from what I used to do so that is good. I have not changed to what I need to do to get to the weight I want to but it is progress.

I started working out again this week. It is going well except I needed to basically start over again on the weight lifting because of the injuries. So what I am doing is concentrating on aerobic activity and working to build that up and make progress in my cardio fitness. I think that is a good direction for me to be going at this point.

I am also working on trying to get my food dialed back into what I was eating before. That is a harder thing to do than I was thinking it would be. Part of the driving force behind that change in eating habit before was financial. Now that end of the need is not as great but it is still there. Also the drive to get healthier is not as great at this point but it is also still there. So I am trying to find something to focus on so I can get back the intensity that I had before. I think that will also take a little time. As long as I do not give up and do not quit trying there is still progress.

Life is a journey.

Keep moving forward

jakaminsk — Sun, 12 Dec 2010 21:14:25 +0000

So I went back into my routine today. I went and worked out on Sunday which is unusual for me but I had decided that I was going to do it this week because of all the workouts I had missed for being sick and to help get myself back on track. I realized that if I workout in the early morning that I do not need to do it on a regular basis like I was going to because I can get all 6 of my workouts in Monday through Saturday for lifting and my 5 aerobic workout also. So this should be my only Sunday workout unless I feel I need to make one up because of an overtime week at work or something.

It was good to feel the endorphins coursing through my body again and feel them changing my mood. I feel so much better when I am working out than when I am not. I was getting a lot of physical activity in my job but it just does not seem to produce the feeling of well-being that working out does for me. Maybe it is because of the continuous pain it was causing me in my gluts, knees and ankles.

I am thinking about adding one or two additional workouts in the evening to get in some water aerobics. I will have to see how everything goes with the morning workouts and how I feel in the evening but I am looking at it as an option. Right now I am looking at 4 days a week of treadmill in the morning and Saturday morning water aerobics to get my aerobic activity in. I will have to see how my body reacts to this and adjust accordingly if I need to by either doing night water aerobics to make up for treadmill workout I can’t do or to do additional workout, I will just have to see how it goes.

One nice thing about this break that I took is that I should have a good couple weeks to a month of weight loss because of the resetting effect on my metabolism that this should have had. I do not like the fact that I regained some weight but on the good side there was always the feeling that I need to get back to it. I knew it was necessary for me to get back to doing the right things again.

Life is a journey.