Week1

Starting weight 1/1/2016

Well, I started this journey on January 2, 2016. I could see no need to start on the 1st, as I had leftovers from Christmas to finish as well as New Year's pork, sauerkraut and mashed potatoes to stuff myself with, so I put it off until the 2nd.

It has been a good week for the most part. From past experience I can say that the first two weeks are the toughest while my body get used to the new lifestyle and lower calorie count, but it has been good.

I am using an app on my phone called "MyFitnessPal", available on both android and iphone. It allows me to track my calories, weight, water, and exercise. It has a great database of foods, allows you to scan bar codes on packages for nutrition information and also allows you to create your own items by recipe. It's free in its basic form but does have a subscription version that eliminates ads and provides cloud storage of info. I have found that the basic version is adequate for my needs at this point. It also has an online website which is synced with your app where you can check your progress or enter meals or exercise if you don't want to do it on your phone. This is also free. http://www.myfitnesspal.com. You can find links to the app as well as create a login to monitor your progress.

I weighed in the evening of  Jan. 1 at about 9 pm to start things off. As you can see in the photo above, I weighed in at 375.4 lbs.. My allotment of calories as assigned by "MyFitnessPal" is 2280/day. That is designed for a loss of 2 lbs a week. With that said, I have only exceeded that limit one day this week. On Tue I did go over by 231 calories. But, I have been under for ever other day this week.

Jan. 7, down 8.2 lbs

I weighed in on Thur and my weight was down to 367.2 lbs. That's a loss of 8.2 lbs. I will weigh in again this evening (I try to keep it to about the same time each day) and see where we are at the week mark. I don't get too excited over these figures because I do realize that much of the fluctuation in weight is due to water intake. I drink a lot of water, so my weight can fluctuate by several pounds during a day. But, this is certainly a good start on my goal.

I am still at a point where I get hungry between meals and crave snacks. That usually passes after the 2nd week, so I am just trying to hang in there and make sure that if I do have a snack it is something low calorie and healthy. I actually love canned green beans. That has been one of my go-to snacks. I will throw a can in a bowl and nuke them for a couple minutes (The whole can comes in at about 60 calories.) then put a little hot sauce on them. I love "Frank's Red Hot" and it spices it up just enough without adding any real calories.

I work nights so what would be breakfast for most of you I call lunch. I eat at about 2:30 am. This past week my lunch has consisted of a sandwich made with Sandwich Rounds (100 cal), 4 slices of sliced Oscar Meyer turkey (@30 cal, 120 total), and 1 slice of Kraft Swiss Cheese (60 cal), A cup of Yoplait Light Greek Yogurt (100 cal), 1 cup of applesauce (50 cal) and a cup of sugar free jello-black raspberry (10 cal). Total lunch calories 440.

My other meals of the day generally consist of whatever my wife cooks for dinner and something else I can find around the house. I do track all these meals though and make sure I keep a fair accounting. After all, who am I cheating if I do cheat? Only myself!

I do snack on apple slices, cheese slices, carrots and celery (and I do dip them, always counting the dip too). Another favorite no calorie snack is a big dill pickle. I do however need to watch because of the sodium content of a lot of these things.

Jan 9, down 8.4 lbs.

I would definitely call this first week a success. I will update my weigh in tonight. I also plan to get some selfies to show my progress along the way. I have not taken any yet.