Get Fit, Stark! Week 5 - Meat, glorious meat!

Well, 5 weeks in the books and I am allowed to eat meat again! That first bite was pure heaven and it continued for the rest of my 3 ounce serving. The after effects, though, were not as delightful. I was pure bubble guts. It’s crazy how quickly your body gets used to not eating meat!

Because I am eating some real food again, I was not feeling a big loss this week. Boy was I surprised when I stepped on the scale and found out I dropped 8.2 pounds. Now I’m only about 5 pounds away from my original goal weight and there’s still about 5 months to go! I’m adding 10 pounds to my goal, so now I’m shooting for 255. I am feeling really great and optimistic about it.

I am still only able to work out a little bit because of my restricted diet. Those workouts are fine, but I’m looking forward to pumping some iron next week. I haven’t really enjoyed working out and lifting weights since college and that was more about the interaction and bonding with my teammates than it was about lifting. I’m looking for a good workout buddy to help keep me motivated to lift.

I’m finding the motivation to stick to the diet because of my success on it. I’ve lost a total of 43 pounds so far and I am feeling better than I have in a long time. I can sleep better and I just feel healthier. I want all of you reading this to feel as great as I do right now and I hope I can be a motivation for you.

I might not be able to make it easier for you to work out, but I can help motivate you and I can make it cheaper! To help get you in shape, we are offering a Daylight Savings Fall Back Special. All new annual memberships purchased between November 1 and November 15 will be 20% off! I want all of you to feel as great as I do and now you have a chance to get fit for less. Take advantage of it, and a few months down the road you’ll feel fitter, healthier, and better about yourself like I do!

Get Fit, Stark! Week 4- The Birthday

Last week, I talked about will power. This week I think I might have to reiterate my point. What I’ve found out over the past month is that will power is probably the single most important key to weight loss. And will power is a funny thing because once you start exerting it, you feel better about yourself and are more confident in what you can accomplish. Look at it this way: when you don’t eat the cookie that is sitting in front of you, you feel better about yourself because you stuck to your diet. If you would have eaten the cookie, you would have enjoyed it while it lasted, but felt bad about doing so afterwards. The next time you have temptation staring you in the face, you will remember how not eating it made you feel better for longer than eating it would have and you’ll repeat the behavior. All the while slowly building your will power until it is second nature to make healthier choices. And that’s the bottom line of a diet.

Talk about a test of will power – this week is my birthday week, so temptation is flying at me left and right. My brother sent me a cookie bouquet of Dallas Cowboy Football Cookies and I couldn’t eat them! I gave them to all of my staff at our staff meeting and then had to stare at them through the whole thing. They smelled delicious and made it difficult to concentrate, but I survived. I did give in and have a very small piece of ice cream cake since it was my birthday. It was excellent…until it just sat like a lump in my stomach for the rest of the night. And I didn’t even eat my normal size piece! It’s amazing how quickly your body adapts to a healthier lifestyle.

I was finally allowed to start exercising this week. We had one group exercise with Get Fit Stark! and I was amazed to find out how many people had never worked out in a gym before. It really got me thinking about why that might be and how to help people overcome their apprehension. Since this is our line of work, my staff and I started brainstorming ways to solve this problem. We have some big things coming at the Massillon Recreation Center – like hours just for those who have never exercised before, opening a circuit-style workout and a fitness challenge members that goes along with what I am doing with the Get Fit, Stark! Program.

I came in a little under my usual weekly weight loss this week, only losing 4.2 pounds, but I know that is still an accomplishment. Hopefully all of this birthday food goes away so I can keep on losing!

Get Fit, Stark! Week 3

All diets eventually come down to one thing: WILL POWER. Mine is no different-that’s what the third week has been all about. I’m still craving meat like crazy and it is getting really tough to down a gallon of water every day. Yes, a gallon of water and yes, it is as boring as you would imagine it to be. I never thought I would say Crystal Light is a lifesaver, but Crystal Life is a lifesaver!

I attended Baldwin Wallace’s Sports Hall of Fame Dinner over the weekend. It was great to see all of my old friends; however, it was not great to see the food table. I felt like I was in a bad dream! The only thing worse than staring at all of that food was turning around and seeing the dessert spread. All I could think was ‘someone please wake me up from this horrible dream!’ I mean all of this delicious food and I couldn’t eat it. Talk about will power. It was worse than last weekend! I skipped one of my drink packets so I could have 3 oz. of roast beef and a small salad. I put some pasta on my plate, but it was just for show – I didn’t eat any of it. People noticed I wasn’t eating like I normally would and I told them all I wasn’t feeling well. For some reason, I am a little embarrassed to tell all of my college buddies that I am on a diet. Let alone a liquid diet. It’s just not the ‘cool’ thing to do I guess.

On a positive note, my dog likes me a lot more now then before I started this diet. See, being the habitual eater I am, sometimes I forget I can’t eat things and I’ll grab a piece of ham out of the refrigerator. Then I remember I am on the diet and toss it to the dog. So it isn’t really me he likes more, just the extra food.

As this goes on and I get more used to my diet, the things that used to be really hard are getting easier. I don’t have a problem cooking the family meals anymore. I just try not to cook meatballs so not to tempt myself. And it helps that people are noticing my weight loss. There is no turning back now that people can see it!

I can finally work out again after five years of being a slug. But I don’t think that’s going to help me have a big weight loss this week. I haven’t been as hungry, so I’ve been skipping some of my supplements because, let’s be honest, sometimes they aren’t the most delicious things in the world. Then I found out that if I don’t eat all of the calories I should, my metabolism plummets and I stop losing weight. So needless to say I’ve started eating/drinking all of my allowed calories again. And if the scale isn’t where I want it to be this week, the scale and Sarah are flying out the window! Hopefully that doesn’t happen tonight!

Get Fit, Stark! Week 2

Another week of the liquid diet is officially in the books. At the first weigh-in on Tuesday, I was down 18 pounds. It was extremely encouraging. People are starting to notice the difference, and that helps make this all feel worthwhile.

After having a successful first week on my diet, I got to thinking about why some people “cheat” on their diets. I think it may be easier for me because I am not allowed to eat any food. I don’t get to eat a little bit and then have to stop. That’s got to be hard. And why do they call it “cheating” anyway? It sounds so negative. Just call it a slip-up. Cheating has such bad connotations. Diets are hard and sometimes you need a little pick-me-up to get you through. Think about it – you are already making a huge change trading all the things you enjoyed eating for things that are healthy and not always (or ever) quite as good. Everyone is going to have a little slip-up here and there. I should share my little trick of putting the food into my mouth to get the taste, then spitting it out before I actually eat it. Maybe that would help them. Actually it would help me to remember it, considering I had a few slip-ups this week.

A few days ago, I accidentally ate a meatball while cleaning up the kitchen. I didn’t even realize I did it until it was too late. It’s that eating out of habit thing I’ve been telling you about. My second slip-up came on Saturday while I was watching football (of course). I’m telling you it’s just not the same without being able to eat or drink anything! Anyway, I was in a hospitality suite for the Michigan/Michigan State game and there was all this food just sitting there. No one was eating it. It was just being wasted. You can’t just waste food like that, so I took a bite of a cheeseburger (no bun!). I think I kept it in my mouth and savored it for 15 minutes before I finally ate it. It was absolutely delicious and well worth the guilt I felt about it later.

I think the first week of a diet might be easier than then next one. The novelty of being on the diet and the novelty of the challenge is starting to wear off, making it harder to stick to. But on the other hand, I am sleeping better now and people are starting to notice I’ve lost weight. I don’t really have the desire to eat fast food, but I drive by too many Dairy Queens on the way home and it is getting harder to not swing in and grab a blizzard. Although I will admit, saving money by not eating all that fast food is definitely nice!

I have my next weigh-in on Tuesday. I am not really feeling a big loss coming on. The Recreation Center is holding a weekly 50/50 drawing for whoever guesses how much weight I lose each week. Talk about pressure! If I gain weight or don’t lose enough I could keep someone from winning the pot! But I am going to rise to the occasion, slip-ups and all.