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 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.

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'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.