Milestones: Halfway, 70 pounds & 20% lost

Since February 1st I’ve hit three very important milestones on my weight loss journey:

• Halfway there: 65.6 pounds lost: Achieved 2/1/2013 (361.2 Starting | 230 Goal)
• 70 pounds lost: Achieved 2/7/2013
• 20% total weight lost: Achieved 2/9/2013

There’s something else that I want to dive into now. With the average American being in the “overweight” category anymore the fact that justifying being overweight and being proud of your body has become pervasive in our culture. I used to be guilty of this as well. Using the excuse of “I’m big boned” to justify the fact that I was 130 pounds overweight. It still didn’t change the fact that I was embarrassed to raise my arms in public due to the fact that my belly would show underneath almost every shirt I wore.

This is quite possibly the only picture of me with proof. I’ve either destroyed or not allowed a picture to be taken of me that could display my belly. My friends are kind.

On that same token, the people who are overweight and specifically obese are likely not even at fault. Nobody eats with the knowledge that they’re going to get fat, they eat because they’re body tells them they should be eating. Whether it’s because of increased cortisol (stress) or insulin resistance. And not unlike what happened with myself, the diet suggested by the USDA is full of things that just make your body think you’re still hungry.

Guess what I haven’t done in 3 months: craved a bagel at work either early or mid-morning, touched the magical candy drawer at work, raided the fridge around 8:30 – 9:30 at night, or eaten a grain. I don’t say that to sound pretentious. I used to yell at myself for all of those activities (except the last one). I didn’t understand why I ate a “Healthy” meal and was ready to raid the fridge a few hours after every meal. I don’t do those things anymore because my body doesn’t tell me to. There wasn’t will power involved with it. Just knowledge.

I’m amazed at the amount of pure information I’ve gleaned from just googling and reading about not only how the human body digests the food it gets but also what the food we’re told to eat actually does to us. What the correlation is between an orange being good for us, but orange juice being worse than a coke ounce for ounce (look it up). There are so many questions that I was able to start asking myself and of my food that the way I had been eating and had been told to eat no longer made sense.

How is it that I’ve been able to lose 70+ pounds in 4 1/2 months without really doing any normal exercise regime? Do I plan to exercise? Yes. Because even though I’m not likely to be one of those people that want to run a 5k (I hate running, always have). I do want to be able to run up and down the basketball court for a full game without having to sit out the last portion of the game due to being winded. My philosophy based on what I’ve read and my direct experience with losing weight is this: My weight is directly correlated to my diet. My ability to run up and down a basketball court is directly correlated to the fact that I don’t do it that often. Will I lose more weight faster if I exercise and stick on my current diet? Very likely, but it’s cold out and I don’t want to pay for a gym membership. So long walks with the family will wait until spring and summer. I also envy those that love working out and someday I’ll get there. I’m already on the way there since the wife and I took on walking the MOA on a weekend (two total and they were in a row with plans already for next weekend).

What I’m trying to say is that if the latest diet you tried doesn’t work for you to lose the weight and no matter how much you exercise you keep gaining or not losing; then maybe you should consider that the way you’ve been told to eat is wrong. Maybe it’s as simple as that.

But for the progress: