New Year, New Goals

Health-wise, 2013 sucked.

I started the year with big expectations and pretty much failed on every single one of them.

I don't plan on making the same mistakes this year.

This year my goals are more lifestyle change goals as opposed to "I plan on losing ___ pounds by January 31."

1. Eat less food
2. Eat healthier food
3. Exercise more
4. Stress out less

There are different aspects to each of those, but they are the basics.

Finally, An Update

There are a lot of reasons why I haven't updated my blog for awhile.  The main one is that there is really nothing to update.  In the past two months, I have eaten too much food - most of which has been very unhealthy - and I haven't exercised nearly as much as I should.

With those two things, a whole bunch of other bad habits formed.

It all started about the time that I read an article on CNN about a lady who had lost 242 pounds.  The main point of the article is to lose weight without fanfare.  Don't tell the world that you are trying to lose weight and you will lose more weight.

As I read the article, it went against everything I believed in.  After all, how am I going to get the extra support from family and friends if I don't tell anyone?

Then I read the following line: "People are mean -- people who you would normally think would be supportive.  One friend told me she liked it better when I was the fat friend."

That line hit me hard.  I had almost the exact thing happen to me.  People that I thought would be supportive in my lifestyle changes were trying to bring me down, telling me that I was eating wrong or exercising wrong or that I was "just no fun anymore".  (NOTE: 99% of you have been great and I thank you for that.)

Plus, I felt like I was turning into THAT guy.  You know the one that is constantly posting pictures of himself holding huge pants and saying, "I lost another pound this week."

Look, I didn't start this as a "Hey, look at me!" type of thing.  I am doing this so I can get to a healthy weight so I can be around for the lives of my five children.  So I'm not leaving a wife to raising those five children on her own.  And I post it out here for the world to see because I know, from past experience, that if I don't have people kicking me in the backside on a regular basis to stay on track, I will eventually be back to my old habits, gaining even more weight than I weighed before.

I realize that I need all the support I can get.

However, I began to think that maybe there was something to this whole quietly losing weight thing.  After all, my wife had lost nearly 60 pounds after our last child without telling anyone that she was doing it.  Maybe I could do it as well.

Well, that didn't happen.

So here I am again, begging for your support.

Once again, I am not asking for you to say, "Wow, Eric.  You look fantastic!" I am looking for positive people to tell me that I can, in fact, do this.

I am looking for people who are going through similar struggles so we can help each other out.

I am looking for people to tell me that I really don't need that cheeseburger and tots.

I am asking you for your help.

Thanks in advance.

Struggles

I'm a big believer that people can change - physically, mentally, spiritually.  Having said that, I am also aware that it's not easy to change.  Sometimes the change doesn't take the first time, or the second or the 100th.

Every day I have to wake up and talk myself into exercising.  (Although, lately, I talk myself out of it more often.)  I have to talk myself out of drinking a soda or eating a burger or eating an entire pizza.  I'm not proud of this, it's just something I have to live with every day of my life.

I've mentioned before that I am an emotional eater.  My trigger is stress, mostly.  The moment stress hits my life, I am searching for a package of crumb donuts in the vending machine.

Unfortunately, my life is all kinds of stressful right now, which doesn't help things.

I have never been a big fan of excuses, and I'm trying not to let this stress be an excuse of why I don't exercise or eat right, but it's almost becoming an uphill battle.

I hope I can come out of this soon, before too much damage has taken place.

I'm Still Alive

It's been a long time since I last wrote.

Those are usually the words that start every journal entry of my current journal.  I set a goal to write in my journal every week (my days are not exciting enough to write daily), and next thing I know it's been three months and I start the entry with, "It's been a long time since I last wrote."

Unlike that journal, though, I have a good excuse for this blog.  I have been doing homework.

The month of April was hectic with homework.  I didn't have time to sleep, let alone exercise or write on a blog.

May is not any better, quite honestly, but I thought I would just take a moment to let my readers out there (if any of you are left) that I am still alive and I am still losing weight.  (In spite of my hectic life.)

This morning I weighed 227.2 pounds.  While it's not much more than the last time I posted my weight, it is lower.

I plan on working out a schedule this term of school to be able to fit in exercise with everything else.

Anyway, that is all for now.  Please keep checking back because I will update this when I can.

Thanks for your support.

A New Kind of Nugget

In my never ending search for meatless products that are not tofu, I have come across one that, I have to admit, scared me a little.  

It was from a company called Quorn and the box said "Meatless and soy-free Chik'N Nuggets".  

My first thought was, "How are they doing meatless without soy?"  I then turned the box over and this is what it said: 

Quorn Chik'n Nuggets are made with mycoprotein (myco is Greek for 'fungi')...

And that's where I stopped.

Fungus nuggets?  

Sounds like a rock band.

But, considering that it wasn't soy-based, I was willing to try it.

Last night my wife made nuggets for the family - chicken for them, fungus for me - and I was finally able to venture into the world of fungus.

To be completely honest, the fungus nuggets tasted more like chicken and had a better chicken texture than any other chicken nugget I have eaten in the past.

And, I really liked them.

They are a little pricey (for me) to be eating them on a daily basis, but it's not a bad deal for a special treat when salad just won't do.

Their website has quite a few meatless and soy-free products I would like to try, all made out of fungus.

Mmmmm....fungus cheese burger

Sorry About the Break

Unlike most colleges, WGU runs on six-month terms.  Since I started school in November, my terms go from November 1 to April 30 and May 1 to October 31.

It's kind of nice because all you have is to finish twelve credit hours within that six months.

Unfortunately, I am a procrastinator.

Well, it's not even that.  I'm just lazy.  And it doesn't help that I have a voice inside my head that sounds a little like Elvis that says stuff like, "Relax!  You have six months to do this class.  Why not take a break from homework between Thanksgiving and Groundhog Day?"

So then the final month comes up and I'm scrambling to get my credits done, all the while promising myself  that I will not do this to myself next term.  ("I am going to finish all my credits in the first three months next term and work ahead," I tell myself twice a year.)

With the end of April and yet another term coming to an end, I am scrambling and promising.  All of my free time and mental capacity is focused on school.

Unfortunately, the first thing that gets put on hold is exercise.  I don't know why this is.

Well, actually I do.  It's not like I can give up any more sleep.  I barely get enough to begin with.

I can't give up my job or put my church calling on hold.

I can't avoid my wife and kids.

I can't stop eating. (In fact, some days it seems that I literally can't stop eating.)

Which brings me to my next point.  Being an emotional eater, I tend to eat more when I'm stressed.  And it doesn't help that I usually will gravitate towards less-than-healthy foods when I'm stressed.  For some reason, I can't imagine myself ever saying, "I was so stressed today that I downed an entire bag of baby carrots."

Doritos, on the other hand...

Fortunately, even with my lack of exercise and my overindulgence of discounted Cadbury Easter candy, I haven't gained a lot of weight.  I'm still hovering around 230.  (230.4 this morning).

Granted, I still drink a lot of water and try to eat healthy meals, so that has helped out.

I plan to jump back into this with full force on or about May 1.

Until then, don't expect a lot of updates, but know that I'm still mostly on track.

Thanks again for your support.

Before & After Picture

So here is my starting point at around 270 pounds.

Here is what I look like today, after losing 41 pounds. (See, I told you I need new clothes.)