Strange Day

Another morning run in which two slow love songs got played over and over. This happened a few days ago. I did no preplanning for down 200 because the idea didn't come until I was already nearly two months into my diet, not a good way to make a film. I don't intend to make one film and be done - down 200 is just the first. I have two films I plan to start next March. One about a friend who developed paranoid schizophrenia and a second called The Things We do for Love. That one was inspired by a young Wisconsin woman who faked her own kidnapping to get a boyfriends attention. The music for a documentary on Love has to be great. One of the two songs was Come What May  by Ewan McGregor and Nicole Kidman - I have the Moulin Rouge soundtrack, somehow I have to believe that song has to be in the movie. 

I weighed 274.4 today.

Made my weekly goal again

I weighed in this morning at 273.4 - I needed to be at 274.5 - I'm happy. I said I'd post my stats for the last week today. I still don't have Health Vault working the way I'd like (on my site) so I'll just illustrate what I've been seeing here in the blog. 

My official weigh in days are Wednesday, the goal each week is to be down by 5 pounds (as an average) so each week I need to be at either 4.5 or 9.5, so far I've seen this happen (or very close) every week. The drop has not been steady though it's been more like a staircase. 

For example this last week went like this. 

I weighed in last Wednesday at 278.2 (I needed to be at 279.5 or less) - then the weigh in’s were as follows: TH 278.1, F 278.8, S 279, SU 279, M277.6, T274.6 W 273.4. This pattern of making the goal weight on Wednesday followed by a slow gain for 4 days then three days of sudden drop has been the pattern nearly from the start. What does it mean? I don't know, all I can say is that I'm glad I have been watching and logging from close to the start, by doing so I don't get alarmed or discouraged at all when I go through those first four days after making weight because I'm going up slightly. I've come to trust what I'm doing and to know that the last three days prior to weighing in I will see the weight drop.

Next weeks goal is 269.5, it'll be great to back in the 260's - I'll be just a pound or so away from the down 100 mark at that point also, that'll be a nice.

I weighed 273.4 today. 

Down 3

I had to drop my daughter off at the airport in Minneapolis this morning. This put some pressure on me as far as my run goes, but I got her there and me back - I did the run. Lost 3 pounds since yesterday - tomorrow I'll post the entire weeks progress in my blog. The pattern in which my weight drops is so consistent - it has been since the start almost.  I make weight, go up a little for 4-days then drop all I need to over the last three days, seems strange to me that it's like this, that it's not a steady slow drop, but trust that I'm not complaining. 

As I walked back from my run into work, it dawned on me that I had just dropped off my daughter (she's 18), at the airport in the Cities, didn't walk in with her, she's on her way to Colorado to go horseback riding in the mountains - and I'm not even worried. I'd normally be a wreck, but she's growing up (grown up) and I'm sad about that but not worried. 

I hope she's OK because she's my Director of Photography. I need her to shoot my film - now I'm worried. 

I weighed 274.6 today.

About 3 pounds to go

Another good weekend. I’ve had three in a row now; I have to again credit the fact that I'm doing so much overtime on the weekends. I have to admit it's kind of nice to work on the weekends - there is no one else around, no one interrupts the work and you can actually get quite a bit done. 

I'm seriously thinking about writing a book about what I'm doing with the weight loss. It's crazy to even think about - but books on weight loss and diet tend to be big sellers. The crazy part of that sort of thinking is that I'm not getting enough done now re: the film. The book would only be good in the context of the release of the film. They need to be completed simultaneously. Might be too much to tackle.

I weighed 277.6 today

Working all day again today

I was in the office again all day today. Work is really getting in the way of my film. In a few weeks maybe I'll be able to put more effort into my personal projects. The one good thing about working weekends is it has kept me out of the house. Away from any food temptations. It's not like I'm all that terribly tempted, it’s just that I’ve had a couple of bad weekends and I can't have that this week or next, or the next, or the next, or the next, or the next…  Actually I have not been so obsessed with my weekly goals as I'm feeling right now for this weeks (Wednesday's weigh in) and the following weeks. 

I’m moving, with both weigh ins towards the down 100 pound mark. It's actually started to sink in I think. I've got a long way to go and yet I’ve already lost a lot. 

I weighed 279.0 today

Good run, odd run.

I had a really good run this morning, at about 3 minutes into my half-hour run I moved the MPH to 5. I kept it at 5 MPH for the rest of the run, burned 487 calories and for the sprint I moved it to 5.8. All of this is new territory for me. I was also at 1.49 miles for the total distance run. 

What was odd was that I listened to two love songs for the entire run. Jewel's Break Me and Tom Waits’ Johnsburg, Illinois. They came up on my iPod, and I just kept replaying them for the entire half hour. Now these are two of the greatest artists and I love these two songs, but the slower music isn't typically what motivates me on the run. I'm going to post the top ten exercise/running songs of all time soon on my website. While the list will only be my opinion, I happen to be right about this. 

My taste in music is certainly not mainstream - especially if the music that gets pumped into the workout facility represents mainstream, my God the music in that place is awful. A mix of disco, 80’s-90’s pop, the worst possible versions of re-released classics and (worst of all) Fill Me Up Buttercup and Dancing Queen! Anything by ABBA just should not be played except for historic purposes. The only song I ever heard there that represented something worth listening to was Cocaine by Eric Clapton. I do appreciate Clapton on a number of levels - but this particular song is completely inappropriate for the this facility, the content of the song. 

Anyway, since I'm a fan of Leonard Cohen, Nick Cave, Springsteen, PJ Harvey, Over The Rhine, and U2 and other artists who's lyrics are a little more intelligent,  I guess I won't be hearing anything I like there. Thank goodness for the iPod. Just too bad I can't keep it on while showering or in the hot tub. 

I weighed 278.8 tody

 

A lot to do

There's so much to do and so little time to do it. I keep giving myself tasks to accomplish. The biggie this week (I need to have this done by Sunday) is to get my request/proposals ready for the various suppliers and products that have been so instrumental in my weight loss. In a couple of cases I'm hoping to go to their corporate headquarters to get a closer look at what they do and how the products are created.

Getting permission to show their products is critical and now that I have the site launched I'm realize how tardy I am in seeking that permission.

I weighed 278.1 today.

Made my weekly goal

Not sure why I was worried about the goal this week but I was. I made it with 1.3 pounds to spare. I'm now in the 270's also I'm nearly down 90 lbs. that's pretty cool. These little plateaus have a good deal of reward. I'm charting my loss and I put a light yellow bar on the weekly goal and a darker yellow box around every ten pounds down. In about two weeks from now I should be down 100 lbs. That will mean I'm halfway through this. 

I'll have to celebrate that one in some way. I think I will have a Diet Dr. Pepper Cherry Vanilla pop. (Just like the one I'm having right now). 

I weighed 278.2

PC Frustrations

I didn't get a chance to go through the old clothes last night. Maybe tonight - we'll see. Instead I spent a good deal of the evening attempting to get my laptop to accept my P2 cards. It would appear to me now as though I will need to upgrade the OS that came with the laptop. This makes me nervous because I don't know if this is entirely software related. It could be hardware related. I hate to put another $200 into software upgrade only to find that the next step then says the hardware isn't good enough.

And why all the options for OS anyway? I guess I've been on a Mac too long. I'm 1.2 pounds over tomorrow’s goal weight of 279.5 - looks like I will make goal again.

I weighed 280.7 pounds today.

Clothes not fitting

For the last 11 years since moving to Minnesota I have had all my clothes hanging in the closet. About 6 months ago I took out everything that didn't fit to make room for framing equipment and misc. art supplies. Now the few things that I didn't store are too big. Since I knew the weight would be dropping quickly I made a decision not to be buying new clothes every month or so, only to have them too big a couple months later. Tonight I will need to start going through what I stored and see what fits and if it's even remotely in style. 

I weighed 282.2 today. 

Busy day

I'm leaving from here to go to the coffee shop to try to download what ever I will need to be able to get my laptop working with my P2 cards - it’s just to slow at home. Run was very good again. Did a little bit of weight lifting after also. 

Will also be push mowing the lawn today again. It's a great extra workout. 

I weighed 283.8 today. 

Shooting today

I hope that I will be able to set up a video shoot today. Not shooting enough. Will likely need to get some assistance from the DVX User group - very frustrated with my new pc laptop for dumping the P2 Cards. It came with Vista and I think I'm going to have to take that off to get the P2 CMS to go on - appears to only be a Windows option. No doubt the DVX folks will have the answer. 

Going to do the set-up shot out in the horse pasture. It'll be interesting to see if the horses get curious and come over to bug me. 

I weighed 284.0 today. 

The running keeps getting better

I'm continuing to push my pace on the treadmill and continue to handle the increases well. My original concern was that as my weight dropped (which it has) my pace wouldn't keep up with the weight loss, so as to maintain a minimal 400-calorie burn. I started at about 410 calories burned (weighing 350) and the amount burned has gone up steadily, even with the drop in weight. I'm now in the 470 calorie burned range (weighing 284).

Maybe I was over-thinking this initially. It seems to me now as though the quickening pace plays a far more influencial role in the calorie burn then the weight I'm carrying.

I weighed 284.4 pounds today.

Broken routine

It was a rough morning - my alarm went off at 5:11 AM instead of 5:00 AM and then, when I walked out the door, I left my bag with my work clothes on the table. I was ten minutes on the way to work before I realized what I had done - turned around and headed back. The whole thing had me completely out of my typical routine of the last couple months. I had not even realized what a routine I had fallen into until this morning. I decided that despite running a half an hour behind I'd go ahead and do my morning run anyway. I barely got to work on time.

My old routine didn't have me getting up so early, nor did it involve exercise. I'd get up at 6:00am, get ready for work and stop at Burger King, McDonalds, Hardees or Taco Bell for a breakfast sandwich (two if on sale, I always knew who had the deal going). Plus whatever potato side dish was offered and coffee. That's a five day-a-week routine that goes back almost 15 years.  I didn't really set-out to break this routine, I just had to get up at 5:00 to have enough time to do the exercise, the restaurants are not even open when I go by. 

I weighed 284.8 pounds today.

Made Goal Again

I'm up slightly over yesterdays weigh in but I'm totally OK with that (by just 1/10th a pound). On to the 270's for next weeks goal. 

Today my website down200.com went live. It still has a few pages that are basically design page holders but perhaps I'll stay tonight to fix that. I brought in my video camera so I'll do a little Jeep Cam video journaling on the way home tonight.

I weighed 284.2 pounds today. 

Dropped 3

I lost three pounds over-night and have already made my goal weight for tomorrow. I need to be careful about this, making the goal early is really not a good thing. I still need to make the weight tomorrow and as I've learned the slightest up tick in calories can result in big swings on the scale. They are for the most part excess water-weight gains (I believe) but still with a goal of being down 200 pounds it's important to make every goal in between. 

I weighed in at 284.1 this morning; my goal weight for tomorrow is 284.5. As long as I don't over-do the calories tonight I should be fine - maybe even drop a little more. I'm now down 83.4 pounds since the start in March of 2008. 

I weighed 284.1 pounds today. 

Finally a good weekend

It's been awhile since I've had a good weekend. This is re: staying tight on my diet. Part of the reason I did so well is due to the fact that I needed to be at work for most of the weekend…again. That's OK though, I've hired a couple of really great people and they'll be here in August.  

A big part of my summer this year relates to my weight loss program. It's my grass cutting. Every year something goes wrong with the ride-on mower. Usually I fall a week or two behind on the cutting and it takes weeks for the excess grass to go away. This year when it didn't start (I think it's the spark plug) I decided I wasn’t going to fall behind. I started using the push mower. It takes about two hours on the ride-on and over 5 hours with the push mower. I've push mowed every weekend since. It's a great workout! We have some fairly hilly areas. My daughter Sarah photographed me with the still camera and we’re going to do an animation of this for the film. This “extra” weekend workout has really helped given I tend to add extra calories on the weekends.   

I passed the 80LBS down marker this morning. I'm in good shape for Wednesday's weigh-in also. Just two and half pounds to go for goal.

I weighed 287.0 today. 

down200.com almost ready to launch

I've nearly put the final touches to my website down200.com. Launching a supportive website is one of the necessary rituals when making a film. In this case though, in addition to being needed to support the film, it’s also needed to support the diet itself. 

There’s an incredibly symbiotic relationship between the diet (the attempt to lose weight) and the making of the film. They both feed each other with incredible motivation. The fact that I'm making a documentary, blogging and publishing a website all put enormous pressure on me to stay on the diet. This is “good pressure” in every sense of it. Likewise losing weight (losing it so rapidly) makes the film not only possible it empowers it! 

Of the three, making the film, launching a website and blogging, blogging is free - easy to set-up and in my opinion should be a standard requirement for anyone going on a diet. The pressure from going public with what you are doing is a “great thing”, if you really want to get the weight off. Motivation is such an important factor to achieving your weight loss goals. Blog about what you are doing and let all your family know, let co-workers know, track your progress - BE BRAVE AND CONFIDENT - right from the start and your chances for success will increase dramatically. 

I weighed 289.5 today.

Baby Ball Gag is coming! Thank God.

I got a shipping notice this morning on my Rycote Baby Ball Gag Windshield. I have a sequence in the film that is critical, it's early in film and I want to shoot it outdoors. This little device was the one missing piece in my sound system that was holding up this particular shoot. I'm glad it'll be arriving soon. It cuts down on wind noise. I need to have this sequence in early as it establishes what I'm trying to do. The longer I wait the more weight I drop. It's a good problem to have I suppose.

The filming and it's related complexes have been quite challenging. I'm just not shooting enough. This has been made even harder by my job. We’ve had two people leave recently so I have been working weekends just to try and keep us close to on track. We do finally have two new Art Directors on the way - I can't wait till they start. I have a few more weekends work ahead of me I'm afraid. The positive to this work related situation is that it keeps me out of the house - where I tend to over eat.

I weighed 288.6 today.

Almost made it

Missed blogging yesterday, I regret that. I weighed in yesterday at 289.6. This was great, I didn't quite make my goal weight (289.5) but I did reach the goal of 5 lbs per week. I lost 5.4 in fact. I was short of my goal by half a pound the previous week. I'm fairly confident that I will make up the extra tenth a pound over by my next weigh-in. 

My iPod died this morning (it's like brand new). Just mid song - dead. I had already finished my run, but now I have nothing for tomorrow. The music is important to my run, it really helps. This is my second iPod - I ran the first through the washing machine. It actually survived that - but the battery goes dead really fast now, it only plays for about 20 minutes then it fades out. So I bought another and now it's dead. Doesn't even show up when connected to my Mac. Just another setback.

I weighed 289.2 today. 

About halfway to tomorrows goal

I weighed in at 293.6. That's not too bad. It is in fact a new low for me. I have not been at this weight in years. I'm still 4.1 pounds high for tomorrows goal. I lost 3.4 since yesterday so it's not out of reach. I missed last weeks goal by 1/2 a pound. I was hoping to make up that half pound, we'll see tomorrow. It may seem like I'm obsessing about the goals and the pounds and truthfully I am. As has been the case for most of this effort I'm experiencing a sudden drop just before the weigh-in. 

People say don't focus on the pounds lost - look towards other aspects, take baby steps, don't eat after 8 PM, take the stairs instead of the elevator, etc. I really appreciate where they are coming from but I don't agree. Little goals achieve little results and pounds down equals a lower BMI and a lower BMI means less risk for diabetes, heart conditions, etc. 

I know they don't want to have people discouraged because they are not losing the pounds but if you don't put forth a strong effort to lose the pounds - you just won't lose the pounds! 

Today I weighed 293.6

 

Good run this morning

I have 7.5 pounds to lose by Wednesday. It will not be easy but I'm going to try. This was a bad weekend for me (4th of July weekend). Despite every intention of really tightening up I didn't. Must move on though, I believe the time has come to switch back to liquids only. While the weight has continued to drop (even with some solid food) maintaining the very low calorie count is much more challenging when I allow even a little bit of the solid foods. I will come back to the solids for sure - just feel like the time has come to really "kick it into gear again". 

Much of what needs to come off by Wednesday is water weight. One thing I have learned is that sudden gains and losses are mostly excess water weight. I had another good run. Every morning I seem to do a little better with the running, it's getting easier, even as I pick up the pace. 

Today I weighed 297. 

It'll be tough this week

For the first time last week I missed my weekly goal of losing 5 pounds. I was 1/2 a pound short.

It's been a challenge here lately to keep that pace up. I don't think it's the diet as much as it has been me. I don’t have the balance of exercise and calories perfected. When I first started I was losing too much. While that may seem like a good thing I didn’t want to create any unnecessary health risks. I was burning about 430 calories on the treadmill, but was only taking in 500-600 calories. So I have been adding 100-200 calories, but my weight drop has not been steady. If you're were to chart it, it would appear to be more of a staircase then a curve. 

I have sudden drops from about Monday/Tuesday thru Wednesday/Thursday.  Then it goes up and then sudden drops again. This is partially due to adding calories after the sudden drops, gaining some weight back (or losing very little), then cutting back again. I wish I could just find the magic combination of calorie burn and calorie intake to produce very steady consistent loss. Right now the exercise is consistent and the calorie intake is the variable and right now I'll need another sudden drop to make the next weigh in goal. We'll see what happens on Wednesday. 

Today I weighed 299.8.  

My first post

What a great site. I want to thank everyone at blogger.com and Google for providing this incredible service! I really believe it's going to be instrumental in my success with both the film and the weight loss. 

I wish I had set this up right from the start! I have had thoughts/emotions/success right from the beginning and being able to capture those things daily would have made this project all the more interesting I'm sure. 

To recap just a little I have lost about 70 lbs. thus far. I'm to the point where I'm running 2.25 miles 6 days a week on a treadmill (in half an hour). I've got the basic design of my website DOWN200.com completed (purchased the URL). I've purchased my camera, a sound system, a laptop for field work on the video and a couple of great videos from dvxuser.com. I need to thank the folks at dvxuser.com for all the advice and support thus far.

More details to come on my (yet to launch) site DOWN200.com

My weight today was 298.8.