It would appear that going back to the original plan - without bread, potatoes, pasta or sugar is the CHOSEN way to go.  It’s been a day and a half - and I have not had major cravings. 

The key is going to be keeping up the variety! Man can not live on Pick-up Stix and Pei Wei alone!  The other thing I’m doing is not jumping straight back into the full-fledged exercise regimend.  I need to feel good physically before I get going again.  Get the syrup out of my veins!

Yet another point may be that I’m not going to hold myself up to a rigid schedule.  Perhaps stay off the scale for a while and just see what happens.  Watch the clothes get looser, etc.

I tried a number of times recently to get back into the swing of the diet by allowing for bread.  And rice.  And potatoes.  It turns out that they mess with my blood sugar so much that I’m off the diet faster than I can pull into a drive-thru.

I hereby declare that my original instincts were correct and that white proccessed flour, potatoes and sugar are of the devil.

I’ve found sunflower seeds to be a pretty neat treat.  They keep your mouth busy, are not all that high in calories considering how long they take to eat - and are a great source of vitamin E.

 Anyhow - ten hours and going strong.

Things are looking up!  Or down, as the case may be.  I’m down 15 lbs since the start of the month.  Remember I had been WAY off the wagon and 12 of those lbs were likely my colon shrinking back to normal size!

I’m making a concession or two this run.  Instead of NO BREAD, I’m looking at allowing for limited amounts of whole wheat bread.  This opens the door for a fine meal at Subway.  I get the 6″ Turkey or Roast Beef with no cheese or oil.  I ask for plenty of all the vegetables, salt and pepper and vinegar.  I get that with the baked Lays chips, a diet soda and call it good.  It’s less than 500 calories and fills me pretty well. 

I DO feel that the higher glycemic index of the bread and chips makes me hungrier faster - but I have to broaden my options, or It will be too easy to fall again.

I’m also back at the gym 3 days a week.  Doing mostly the elliptical.  I do 43 minutes at a crack.  I got to that number in an odd way.  I watch episodes of different shows on my IPOD Video.  I’m watching “Prison Break” right now.  Without commercials, these hour long episodes run 43 minutes.  I’ve heard that anything over 30 minutes of cardio is a waste, but I go the extra little bit.  I’m also averaging just over 900 calories per workout - which has a nice ring to it.

Well, crap on a stick!  I didn’t just fall off the wagon, I rolled into on-coming traffic and have been run over several hundred times.

I could go into the exuses that revolve around the work stress of launching a major project, home stress in having a new baby or general life stress with the Holidays - but I know that crapola doesn’t fly around here.

There is a great line in the movie “Batman Returns” when Thomas Wayne tells 8-year old Bruce, “And why do we fall?  So we can learn to pick ourselves up.”

I feel that I’ve managed to show that I can run on this program for an extended period of time.  Now I need to show that I can take a fall and pick myslef back up.  I’d hit my a nice weight by most people’s standards, but not by mine.  And now that I’ve been off track for what has turned into almost two months, I’m that much further away.

I’m going to work my original plan.  Reach out to friends for support - and lend support in return, and get to MY (10 lbs. lower than my lowest ever) goal no later than June 21 Of THIS YEAR!

A single tear dropped down my cheek as I saw that I only lost one pound this week.  I am now 14.4 lbs from my Christmas goal, down 113.4 lbs since January 4th 2006.

Down an additional 6.2lbs from last weigh-in.  Puts me at a total of a 112.4 pound loss since January 4th.  I have another 15.6 pounds to hit my Christmas goal! Will I make it????  I’m nervous that most of the weight so far has been water weight.

You may have heard of a scale physicians use to calculate just how big a fella you are.  It’s an odd formula - but it takes into account how much of you should be bone, muscle and guts, and assumes the rest is fat.  The scale is called the BMI or Body Mass Index.

When I started out this little juant towards fitness, I had a BMI of 46.1.  This is not good - as the scale goes like this:

Obesity: BMI between 30 to 34.9
Severe Obesity: BMI between 35 to 39.9
Morbid Obesity: BMI between 40 to 49.9
Super Morbid Obesity: 50 and above.

Running through the calculations - I found that at my highest I was 29 pounds away from Super Morbid Obesity.  Not great!

Well, for the good news - this weeks weigh in showed a loss of 106 pounds since January (and 120 from my highest point).  I am now sitting pretty at a BMI of 29.9.  I am no longer obese.  I am merely “overweight”.  Technically and what not.

To make it to “Normal Weight” on the BMI scale, I have to chose which leg I am going to have cut off, or grow 3 inches - as hight is considered.  The scale says that a 6′ person should weigh 183 pounds.  That’s 37 more from where I am now.

So, my goals are now as follows: get down to 199 by Christmas.  That was the original goal.  Then I need to get to 195 to get a lifetime membership in weightwatchers (I DON’T FOLLOW THEIR PROGRAM, BUT THEY HAVE THE BEST SCALE IN THE WORLD AND I WEIGH IN ON IT ONCE A WEEK!!!).  Next, I have to get down to 183 to meet the BMI scale’s seal of approval.  I’ll likely stop at the 195.

Some of my earliest memories involve my dad telling me to pull my pants up.  I wasn’t mooning anyone or being obscene, I just tend to wear my pants a little bit low.  Down at the crease where the belly and the lower abdomin meet. 

If I were to wear pants up where they are meant to be worn (about 2 inches below the belly button), there would be a couple of problems.  First, I’d have to wear pants that were about three sizes larger, as the diameter of my “belly crease” and my “just below the belly button” are quite different.  This isn’t just an ego thing.  Width tends to be associated with length in the world of britches, and I’m not one to walk around with roll-up cuffs.  It’s pretty easy to spot a pair of home-hemmed Levi’s, so that was never an option.

The other main issue is that when you have a significant belly and wear your pants up high, it creates a large pouch of dead air between the outer edge of your belly and where the material material gathers up again to go up and under your privates.  Not only does that void get hot, stale and oderous, but the extra material also forms itself into a half-way deflated circus tent when you sit down.  Add the fact that these pants require a foot-and-a-half long zipper, and it’s NO SALE.

So, I let them ride low.

Well, a wonderful thing is happening as I pass the 100 lbs weight loss.  I’m able to wear my pants up above the now flattening belly overhang - which will eventually turn into a flap of loose skin (Yumm!) and I can park my pants just about three inches below my belly button.  There is about a one notch difference with my belt when I do this - but I’m a work in progress.

It’s been 6 months and I’m down 96.8 lbs.  Not bad.  Not bad at all.  That puts me 31.2 pounds away from my Christmas goal.

Skipped last week - as I was out of town working.  I was down 1.6 lbs this week though.  Not bad after a week of travel for work and then a long weekend eating out every meal.  35.4 to go to hit Christmas goal.

Down 2.6 lbs this week for a total of 85 lbs.  COOL!  43 to go for Christmas goal.

Down 82.4 since January 4th.  That’s 1.8 lbs this week.  Not a ton - but cool since I was down so much last week - and was able to keep going.  I was ready to be OK with just maintaining.  So - COOL FOR ME!