30 down, 90 to go

[TheJaysFlight]

Hey, rebels! This is probably going to be a longer introduction than it needs to be. I'm really excited to tell you my story.

 

I'm Jay, I'm 34, and I have always been fat. Or at least since I was a teenager.

 

I'm working on fixing that--I started at the beginning of February 2017, weighing 281.6 pounds. At my height, that means I had 120 pounds to lose. That was just over two months ago, and as of this morning I have lost a quarter of those 120 pounds! I'm shocked and thrilled with my progress.

 

I've changed a few things, but the biggest change is, of course, my diet. I hate being told what to eat, so I knew following A Diet was out of the question. People who make up Diets are in it for money, power, and glory. I refuse to contribute to that. So I started by tracking all my food on MyFitnessPal and it has proven to be a fantastic tool. It wasn't long before I was making almost all of my food. I had been eating huge quantities of very calorie dense (and high sodium) foods, and making everything myself has really changed my life. I'm eating whatever I want, but it's better in almost every way: healthier, cheaper, and more delicious. The only way my new way of eating is worse is that it takes more time and effort, but it's so worth it that I don't even notice that anymore.

 

I've also dramatically decreased my intake of meat. I was eating meat almost every day before, and now it's about two or three times a week. I decided to eat a vegetarian diet in March 2017, and it went so well that I've decided to eat vegetarian for all odd-numbered months this year. The veg thing isn't really related to my weight loss, but I thought it was worth mentioning.

 

Also in early February, I started taking walks in order to be more active. I was walking at least a mile, usually 2-3 miles, sometimes more, per day. On one of those walks recently I remembered being a kid and loving to run. So I tried running and lasted for about thirty seconds. I might have been a little disappointed in my lack of stamina, but I was so excited at the thought of running! I decided I would run a 5k by 04 July 2017!

 

So I downloaded the Couch to 5k app, and promptly realized I was not ready for it. It wanted me to run for eight minutes, a minute at a time, divided by 90 seconds of walking. That sounds easy, but I was absolutely not capable of it. I made a more realistic goal. I would walk a 5k by the Fourth of July, and run one by the beginning of February 2018. The one-year anniversary of my life change.

 

Since I obviously was not at "Couch", I created a "Bed to Couch" program for myself. I started building up my running stamina a little at a time. Right now I can do seven one-minute running intervals with four-minute walking breaks between. I'm pretty sure tomorrow I'll hit eight. And then my goal will change to reducing the walk breaks down to 90 seconds.

 

I'm not sure when I'll be ready for Couch to 5k, but I'm feeling pretty good that I'll meet my goal of running a 5k by next February. And I am walking a 5k in May! 

 

Okay, so that's where I'm coming from as far as weight, diet, and fitness go. The nerd stuff? I dunno, man, I have so many nerdy interests I don't know where to start. I just really like learning about things. I like data. I love language. I like music and film and literature. I like fantasy and sci-fi and especially horror. I guess my main passion is collecting hobbies.

 

Questions? Opinions? Bring it on--and vive la révolution!

[juliebarkley]

Welcome to the Rebellion!

 

I'm so impressed by your progress already! You've got a plan all laid out and everything. Wow.

[TheJaysFlight]

Thanks! I'm trying to be methodical--I find if I try to fly by the seat of my pants, I don't get anywhere. I just got under 250 lbs yesterday!

[Lovejoy444]

Welcome Jay! I totally dig your methodical plan. Sounds like something I'd do. LOL I find your dedication inspiring and your enthusiasm contagious. For that, I offer you my sincerest thanks! I'm gonna try to channel my Inner Jay for the next few days, as I've been having a bit of difficulty with sweet craving torpedoes blowing my calorie boat out of the water in the evenings. What other inspiration have ya got for me, Jay???

 

Feel free to hit me up if you need support or have a question. I'm a pretty new NF newbie, too (yeah, redundant, I know), but I'll help any way I can.

 

=)

Laurie

[Guzzi]

Hey!  Welcome on board!

 

Im kinda shocked that the C25K program expects people to run for a whole minute!  The program I followed be Jog Scotland only had us run for 30s at a time, and I remember several members of the group really struggling with that.  You can check it out here if you're interested. 

 

Im really impressed with how you've researched/found all of these tools by yourself and implemented them.  You're obviously super motivated, I can't imagine you having any problems achieving your goals. 

 

I think your your idea of eating vegetarian is a great one.  Most of us only eat a fraction of the vegetables we really should, and there is data to suggest that as we get older we should eat more and more vegetables and basically cut all animal products to a minimum.  There's a town in America who's residents are mostly vegan (for religious reasons) that has the longest average life spans and lowest rates of heart problems, diabetes cancers etc.  I wish I could remember what it was called.  

 

I have a couple of Thug Kitchen cookbooks and I honestly can't recommend them enough.  

 

I try to eat quite a lot of veg but we went away for the weekend with the kids and fuck me but it was almost to find any restaurants that served actual vegetables.  Even the vegetarian option was usually a meat-and-vegetable free, starchy, high calorie, low taste, piece of crap.  I salute you Sir for making some very good choices and for really changing your life around. 

 

Are you planning on joining the next 4 Week Challenge on Sunday?

[SirJoshHafer]

Hi Jay! Welcome!

 

The fact that you adapted you're own version of the Couch to 5k method rather than getting discouraged is awesome. It's clear nothing can stand in the way of you and your goals which you are sure to accomplish with that mindset.

[TheJaysFlight]

Thanks everyone!

 

Guzzi, to be honest I hadn't considered doing a challenge--I'll look into it! Anything I should know that I won't find in the guidelines and FAQs?

[Guzzi]

This article is from back when the challenges were 6 weeks long, but it's still valid.   I think it explains things really well.  The Rules/FAQs are here, it's a really good page but it is a bit long winded.  

 

What you want to do with the challenge is to build new, better habits.  Make your goals something that you can achieve consistently for 4 weeks.  The idea is that once you've been doing it for 4 weeks then it becomes easier to just keep doing it.  You pick 3 (diet/fitness) goals and have the option to do a 4th (life) goal.  Though of course you could really do whatever the heck you want, no one's going to tell you off or anything.   

 

Most people don't do very well on their first challenge, for 2 reasons:

 

1.  They bite off more than they can chew and try to make 3 BIG changes that they can't really stick to.  Keep it small. 

 

2.  They forget to set up a grading system at the start of the challenge.  It doesn't need to be complicated, but people usually overlook it, then when they slip up for a couple of days they think they've failed rather than thinking "Oh, I only got a C this week".  It can be the difference between someone knuckling down next week and doing really well, or chucking the whole thing because they feel like a failure. 

[TheJaysFlight]

Thanks! I did go ahead and make my challenge thread in the Scouts group, but I really like your advice to create a grading system. I didn't see that mentioned in anything I read!

 

Okay, now to ponder how to grade myself. Hmmmm.

[LaScozzese]

On 4/18/2017 at 2:58 PM, Guzzi said:

I have a couple of Thug Kitchen cookbooks and I honestly can't recommend them enough.  

 Just wanted to second this! I have a couple on my kindle and the recipes are spot on.

[Lovejoy444]

Not sure if this photo will go through or not, Jay, but this is what I did to keep track of my challenges. I made a table in Word, then copied it to fit 6 to a page (3 front, 3 back) for the next  4-week challenges. In the "tracking" column, I"m just gonna use hash marks. Are you mathy? LOL If not, when the 4 weeks are over, do the division to get your percent achieved: Example using my own chart... "walk 10 min/day"... 28 possible... let's say I achieved 24... 24 ÷ 28 = 85.7%, which I'd just round to 86%.

 

You can see that my goals are really tiny, definitely achievable. They're also not all fitness-related, but that's because my whole life's a mess, not just my body. I'm creating challenges to suit MY particular needs. I'm also proceeding with other challenges I've set for myself in my Epic quest, continuing to work toward quests within my guild/character class (Druid), and some of the overall Rebel challenges. It can be quite a bit to keep track of, I think, but as I love making printables and charts, I'll be working on a more comprehensive system for this. Now me personally, I probably won't complicate my life more by figuring out how to post my progress on the NF web site. I've got it all on paper and in my NF folder, which I can check on any time I want. But that's just me. I'm a paper kinda gal. LOL

 

=)

Laurie

[TheJaysFlight]

Ohhh I really like that! Thanks for posting it! I think I will incorporate it into my extremely scientific and mathematical scoring methodology.

[Lovejoy444]

Well yay! Thanks Jay. I figured you were mathy, but thought I'd throw the math in there anyway for those who aren't. Also I just edited my post with another paragraph since I found out the pic showed up.

 

 

 

[Lovejoy444]

Also, I might add an overall grade with the average of the 4 individual grades... I'll just write it off to the right of the challenge dates.

 

[TheJaysFlight]

This is a nice middle ground between the truly ridiculous complicated scoring system I initially came up with, and the fun but loosey-goosey system I replaced it with. I'll probably do something more or less like this and convert the scores into my silly ranks.