Week 8

I can't believe it is week 8 already. I am really falling into the routine now. In the past several days I have been about 1000 calories below my target. While that's good and if it continues will guarantee good loss at the end of the week, I have to make sure that I don't get caught up in the frenzy and eat too few. I think the metabolism is humming pretty good with the workouts and I have to make sure that I am eating enough to keep that up.

As of this writing, I just returned from a good workout at the gym. I put in about 70 minutes of cardio and burned just a little over 1000 calories. Now again, I know there are those who will say "1000 calories! I don't get anywhere near that in an hour workout!". Remember, I'm probably much bigger than you are. I'm 6'3" and 348 lbs.. Just existing burns more calories than the average person. As my weight goes down it will get harder to reach those kinds of numbers. The good news is, it will also get easier to work out harder.

I want to share a small victory that I had over the weekend. I was out shopping with the wife, and we were in the "fat man" section of JC Penny (they were having a sale and she had coupons that were about to expire). We found this cool t-shirt, but they only had it in 3XLT (I have been wearing 4-5XLT). We decided to buy it for the future (how's that for confidence!). Yesterday, I decided to try it on since it was just laying there. I was pleasantly surprised when it fit pretty well! It's still a little snug (about like my 4X was about 8 weeks ago) so I have left the tags on it and won't wear it until it fits perfectly, but I am sure I will be wearing it to the gym within the next month. I'm getting closer all the time to one of my goals which is to be able to buy clothes in the regular section of most stores. Most go up to 3XL, so I'm closing in.

I do want to take a second to acknowledge all the support I have received since taking this journey public. I was nervous about it because I thought it was likely I would get a lot of flack from people who wouldn't believe that I am seriously doing this. It has been quite the contrary. I have received nothing but positive support from everyone. THANK YOU. While this journey is a personal one, support and encouragement make a difficult task much easier. I didn't however do it just to find additional support. By putting it out there in front of friends, co-workers and family, I now am accountable to all of them. The only thing worse than failure is public failure, so I have a lot of added incentive to see this through. Understand, it is not the fear of failure that drives me. As I said in a conversation with a friend/co-worker last night, I've seen what not doing this leaves me and that's not what I want my life to be. That's my primary motivating factor.

I will update at the end of the week with the official weigh in and whatever else has been going on. Of course if I'm feeling particularly inspired I may update sooner. I have added an email subscription form at the top of the blog to make it easier to subscribe if you don't like to mess with RSS feeds. Just enter your email address and submit it. You will be asked to enter a code to show that you are not a spambot. Then you will receive a confirmation email. Confirm your subscription through the email and you will then receive email updates everytime this blog is updated.