Vito's Weight Loss Blog

Hey all,

I've been posting journal entires from several years ago for you guys to read. Most of them are rather grim and don't offer much insight as to what my life is like no, so I thought that it would be a good idea for me to share with you what my life is like nowadays. Here's something that I wrote several months ago this year.

I woke as I normally do bright and early at 6am. I do this no matter what I have planned for the day as a means of self-discipline. I find myself to be more energetic when I wake up early and go to sleep at an earlier hour - say around 10pm. I ate my usual breakfast of egg whites, oatmeal, a cup of yogurt, and some fresh fruit. this helps me to have energy for the day ahead, as well as supply me with protein that is needed for muscle development.

At around 7:30 I was off and at the gym. I started my workout with a nice 10 minute brisk walk on the tredmil, and afterwards I followed that up with about 5 minutes of stretching to be sure I didn't pull anything on accident. I decided that it was time to do legs today, so I went ahead and did some squats, leg presses, lunges, and leg extensions. Needless to say, I think my legs are going to be sore tomorrow! After finishing my last set, I did another 35 minutes of cardio this way I got it out of the way because tomorrow I'm going to have a viable excuse as to why I can't do cardio.

By the time I was done at the gym it was nearly 9:30 and about time that I headed home in order for me to get ready for work at 11 at the office. Late day today. We have some clients who are coming in later from out of state who, for some reason, can only make it here at such a late hour.

As soon as I got home I had my usual protein shake along with some more fruit. I showered, packed a reasonable lunch, as was on my way at 10:20. No traffic, either.

I got to work around 10:55 and was at my desk at 11:05 after making a few stops here and there to say hello to the rest of the guys.

I took my lunch around 4:15, just a little before the clients were supposed to arrive. I made myself a turkey sandwhich with lettuce and tomatoes along with mustard since mayo contains too much fat. I also packed some more fresh fruit, V8 Splash to drink, and some nuts.

We managed to get things settled at the office fairly quickly with the clients and I was able to get on my way home around 6:25 which isn't too bad. There was still some traffic on the roads, but that's to be expected at the tail end of the rush hour.

Upon getting home I did some laundry and finished that up around 8:30. I went ahead and made some dinner - Chicken and rice along with some corn. I grilled the chicken on the foreman grill and boiled the rice. The less fats the better.

This seems to go against what I have read before when I first started doing this diary, but from what I have seen, as long as I stay away from carbo hydrates before I go to sleep, I'm fine.

Before going to bed Transformers was on so I watched that and somewhere around 11:35 I finally fell asleep.

I forgot to mention my weight. This mornings weigh-in was an impressive 230 pounds - only a few pounds short of my goal of 210! I'm so close I can't wait!

I feel kind of stupid telling you all this, but the reason why I haven't updated this blog in such a long time is because I forgot to bookmark the page that I need to login through! I finally got fed up and shot Chris a PM on The Geek Forums and had him help me find the login page once again. I can assure you all that I have now bookmarked the login page and that I won't lose it again... At least until my computer crashes and wish my luck that could be tomorrow.

In my last entry I quickly talked about how you have to constantly change things when you notice that you're no longer losing weight while dieting.I cannot stress enough how important this detail is.

If you continue to go to the gym and do the same thing over and over again with the same amount of resistance, you body will be conditioned to do just that. Nothing more. Your body will always do the least amount of work possible to maintain its mass. So if you change things, you will force change upon your physical body.

I'd also like to take a minute and tell you folks reading this that want to try and lose weight to look into purchasing a George Foreman grill from their local department store. They're a great way to safely grill food within your house while drastically cutting the fat content in the cooked food. Best of all, the food tastes great after it comes off the Foreman Grill. Lately my favorite has been grilled chicken marinated in Mrs. Dash's low sodium marinades.

Wow, I don't even remember writing the last entry that I made that's how busy I've been. The only thing I remember is dosing off at the end where it begins "the above information..." and the rest is history. I must have been working off of 4 hour's of sleep and been awake for about 20 hours at that point.

I remember writing that, hitting the pillow in bed and when I woke up I didn't even realize that I left my browser open. I could have sworn that someone had broken in and somehow managed to write that blog there as a joke.

The funny part is, it actually makes sense. Kind of. When you diet, remember that once you notice that you're not losing weight anymore, you have to begin to change things. Change the way you eat, the amount of fluids you drink, the amount you sleep, the way you work out.

Remember: The only thing that shouldn't change is change itself!

It's been awhile since my last entry to this blog. I wanted to take a few minutes to share some more information with you guys that I picked up on the way to becoming someone normal in size: The calorie.

It's important to understand what a calorie is in order to lose weight because they can either be your friend or your enemy, depending on how you use them.

Simply put, a calorie is a unit of energy, similar to a joule. A calorie is the amount of heat energy required to raise the temperature of one gram of water by 1 degree C. Basically, the more calories a food item contains, the more energy you're going to have to expend in order to "work off" the food you just ate. In food, we express calories in kilocalories (kcal) which means 1000 calories, or the amount of heat energy needed to heat one kilogram of water by one degree C.

Your body has something that is known as "basal metabolic rate" which means how many calories your body will go through while doing nothing - not even digesting food. Factors that influence your BMR include your age and body fat - as you lose weight, you will have to eat less to maintain your mass.

This brings me to my next thought: Many people begin to lose weight, and then all the sudden they stop! They don't realize that their current diet is allowing them to eat more calories than their BMR will allow them to expend. These people are faced several options, including eating less calories a day or increase your activity level to force your body to expend more calories than it is taking in on a daily basis.  

 The above information REALLY helped me to decide how I was going to lose more than a few pounds here and there. I onced heard this quote an  it's very true:

 

Think smarter, not harder.

 

Remember that each any everyday you wake up and begin how to think you're going to deal with today's ordeals.

Before I go on to say anything else, I'd like to take a minute to point out that someone left a comment to a blog post that I made on 4/28/08. Whoever you are, please check the comments. I replied to your question. I hope it helped.

Here's another journal entry back from 2004. I'm still amazed at the things that I used to do when I was that heavy. If you're like I used to be, you might do some of this same stuff.

 

Here I am several months into my diet and I must say that I've made some progress. I don't have an amazing story to write about like some people do. Some people manage to lose 50 pounds in two months, but I'm convinced now that that's just a gimmick to make money quick.

This morning for breakfast I had a fairly healthy meal. I made myself several pancakes, along with four sausage links, a biscuit, and an apple since I realized I needed some fruit and color in my diet in order to become healthy. I consider this to be a major acheivement on my part as I know breakfast is the most important meal of the day, and I used to capitalize on that several months ago. I've gone from having a breakfast that used to contain over 3000 calories to one that contains right around 1000 calories.

When I first started on this diet, I made a promise to myself that I was going to make slow changes in order to avoid failure. I hope to get down to a lead 400 calorie breakfast by October or November of this year.

After breakfast I went out for my usual walk - I managed to walk just about a half a mile before having to sit down. My ankles still hurt but nowhere near like they used to. Hopefully by mid 2005 they will no longer hurt and the pain will be just a memory of the past. I think I'm going to begin to time myself when I take these walks this way I can see if my endurance is improving at all. If I had to estimate right now, my half mile is about a half of an hour, maybe a little less on good days.

After my morning walk I went home and I had a mid-morning snack of two biscuits, a cup of coffee (It's interesting to note that all of the sudden I have been having this craving for coffee, yet I used to never drink the stuff before), two pancakes that I had left over from earlier, and some peanuts. Afterwards I did some more research online on how to lose weight, and generally how to keep better care of myself since I know weight is not my only problem.

For lunch I had about 3/4 of a pie of pizza that I ordered, a half a bottle of soda since the pizza made me thirsty, two peanut butter and jelly sandwhiches, a bag of Doritos and some pop corn. Afterwards I dozzed off on the couch while watching Days of Out Lives. Everyone says that that soap opera is utter trash, but after getting into it, you really learn to appreciate it.

Dinner time came around real quick since I dozzed off for several hours more than I usually do.

I was tempted to order Chinese food - which happens to be one of my favorites, but then I realized that I had already had take out earlier today when I ordered pizza. I've been trying to limit the amount of times that I have some form of take out food per week to about 4 times a week. So far I've been pretty good with that. Instead for dinner I made a box of bagel bites that I had in the freezer, two hot pockets, four slices of bread (I was craving it for some reason) and six hot dogs.

March 20, 2004 (Morning):

Last night I don't know what happened. After eating dinner I went to lay in bed for a little bit and I didn't wake up until about 7am this morning. It's both a good and a bad thing. It was good since it prevented me from eating more, but it was also bad since I had just ate, and I know that it's bad to go to sleep right after you eat.

Hopefully in the coming weeks I'll be able to stop myself from eating right before I go to sleep.

It's been a while since I last updated this blog of mine. I just wanted to take a minute while I had some free time at work to let you all know that I'm still going to keep this blog updated.

I hope to update this blog in the next couple of days with some more journal entires form the past, as well as some more weight loss and powerful motivation tips that I picked up over the years.Things have just gotten so busy lately at work that I haven't had much time at work, or at home to update this page. Hopefully that will change within the next few days.

 

-Vito.

I haven't update my block in a few days now since I've been really busy with work and my personal life. I can assure you things are going great, and I'm keeping the pounds off - even to this day.

I'd like to take a few minutes to write to you some weight loss tips that I picked up while trying to lose some weight. Some I heard worked for other people, but didn't work for me, and other tips I tried didn't really work well for many other people, but they worked really well for me.

1.                    Drink plenty of water
When you drink lots of water, you help to speed up your body's natural metabolism, as well as keep your stomach some-what full with something healthy, rather than with something bad for you. The typical human should drink around 64 fluid ounces per day. Athletes should drink upwards of a gallon a day to stay properly hydrated!

2.                    Eat three meals a day, with healthy snacks in between
When you teach your body that food will always be coming to feed it, it will no longer have a tendency to keep any as fat since it knows that more is coming shortly. Also, eating three meals a day will help to minimize the amount of food that you will eat at night. Say for instance you don't eat at work and when you go home you want to "pig out" and then go to bed an hour or so later. That food will be stored as fat since you're going to sleep with it still in your stomach, undigested.

3.                    Watch out for soda and soft drinks
Soda and other such beverages are loaded with carbs and sugar. They don't do anything for you. They may taste good, but in the end they will do nothing but make you gain weight and rot your teeth.

4.                    Keep an eye out for food high in sodium
Watch the amount of sodium that you take in on a daily basis. Sodium can be hidden in many foods, even those that you think are healthy. Take for instance the Smart Ones microwavable platters - those are loaded with sodium since it's a natural preservative. Sodium also makes your body retain more water, thus making you heavier and more bloated-looking.

5.                    Use common sense
One of the most effective things I did when I lost weight was when I used my common sense. I did my research; I kept track of what I was eating at what time, and how much I was losing on a daily basis - not just once a week or once a month. Keeping an accurate and honest diary / blog is a good idea since it is likely to motivate you into losing weight. When I look back at some of my journal entries (I have a Microsoft Word document that contains all of my journal entries) I can't believe how stupid I used to be when it came to my own health. Common sense should have told me, "Hey, this isn't healthy for you" had I been listening.

Those are just a few tips to help you lose weight. They might now all work for you, but if you take them and tweak them, they may just come in handy.

Looking back, this made for an interesting journal entry. I didn't realize until re-reading my entires how much I was addicted to eating large amounts of food. This goes to show you that I was indeed an addict:

 

It's been nearly two weeks now since I started this diet, and each day it seems to have gotten harder and harder to cut back on what I am used to eating. I sit here knowing that I should be doing something, but don't know what to do since I would usually use any and all extra time to eat whatever I could get my hands on.

This morning's breakfast went really well for a change. I finally got the courage to throw away all of the left overs that were in the fridge from last night this way in the morning I would not be been tempted to eat them along with whatever else I was going to have. I have cut the cheese out of my diet, so I only had about a dozen eggs along with some biscuits, toast, 8 strips of bacon, about 6 sausage links, and a glass of orange juice to wash it all down.

After breakfast I went for my usual walk. I've only got a week or so to go before I hit my 21st day. They say something about it taking 21 days to break an old habit and form a new one. Hopefully what they say is true. The walk went alright, I suppose. My ankles still hurt from the tremendous amount of stress that they take when I walk on them. I was able to walk about a quarter of a mile this morning before I had to sit and rest for a few minutes. Afterwards I made my way back home to where I took a long nap and woke up a little after noon.

For lunch I treated myself to pizza since I had not had it for nearly three weeks. Instead of ordering my usual two large pies, I only went with one large pie, no toppings, and no soda. I came to the realization several days ago that soda contains empty calories... I also did a little research online and started to read about just what our bodies are made of, what they need, what they don't need, and some diet tips. Turns out the internet is a great resource when it comes to diet information. After having my pizza I tried to do a little house work off and on, but my ankles began hurting too much, so I decided to do some more research online.

Inbetween lunch and dinner I made my self a mid-afternoon snack in which I had a bag of chips, a roast beef sandwhich, a left over slice of pizza from lunch, two biscuits, and a Hungry Man TV dinner.

Dinner came around and I made myself 3 12-ounce steaks on the George Foreman grill - it was a great buy. It really helps cut down on some of the fat on the things that I cook. I made some mashed potatoes and gravy to go along with it, a can of corn, three biscuits, and some V8 Splash.

After dinner I did some laundry and watched some Law and Order on NBC before bed at 11:30pm. Before bed I had half a bag of pretzles along with some more V8 Splash since I was thirsty. I remembered to go through the fridge and throw away any left overs that I may be tempted to eat come tomorrow morning.

This morning's weigh in was 672 pounds. In just about two week's time I've lost about 5 pounds.

Chris from The Geekery was nice enough to set me up with this blog so I could share my accomplishments with the rest of the world. After submitting one of my diary entires to Chris he liked it so much that he decided to set up this site for me. Needless to say he said the Movable Type installation was fairly easy, even a 676 pound man could do it!

From here on out, I'm going to write about how I went from being a 676 pound fat man who couldn't get up to go to the bathroom on his own to being the 200 pound-averaged-sized man that I am nowadays.

I'm going to give you guys all of the details on how I lost nearly 400 pounds. I'm going to share some of the diary entries that I wrote over the years, and most importantly, I hope I'm going to give some of you lard asses enough motivation to lose some of that extra fat that you're carrying around with you.

P.S., I'm still learning how to do this whole blog thing, so if any of you have any tips or hints, just go ahead and leave me a comment by clicking "Comments" above this post.