confession :)

i have been avoiding blogging as my struggles to get the weight off continue. the struggle is just to get back into the pre-africa habits. i know what i need to do and it's just a matter of getting through the first hard week - after that it's easy. but this has really been an eye opener for me. the first time i had success with this approach i stuck with it for 3 months and lost 85 pounds - then went off for just one weekend and it took like 6-7 years off trying to get back on it. i stayed with it a lot longer this last time, met my goals and have now gained back 40 + pounds.

i'm trying again today, got through most of three days a few weeks ago and fell off, the eye opener is just how difficult it is to get going. i can't take that for granted any longer.

on a positive note i got a lot done on the melon website this weekend! it'll go live soon! at least in beta form.

i weighed 253.8 today.

242.8

Just finished my second run - the weeks over, I weighed 242.8 today, wish it was lower :)

I do realize if I just maitain a strict approach this weekend I could easily be back in the 230's come next Monday when I weigh in again.

I weighed 242.8 today

250.2

It's been frustrating over the last couple months - I have managed to take off and keep off a little weight but not able to really move it down consistently. Yesterday it had moved up a little even. I weighed in at 250.2 after my run and what's worse is that's going into a weekend.

So today (Saturday) I have somehow managed to get through the day with the HMR only. It's almost 7:30 pm - I think I will make it through day one. This is what I need to do, it's not easy. I won't weigh in again until Monday.

Well it's Monday and I have yet to finish this post. Yesterday was really bad - I made it through the day OK - but had some major - withdrawal symptoms. Feeling normal today and still on the diet :)

I weighed 244.2 today.

blogger's block

It's been so odd. I've been feeling the need to blog, I have plenty to blog about, I've sat down to blog - but then I just don't feel like doing it. It's odd because there was a time when I was blogging everyday. It was in the midst of my big push for the weight loss and I'd stop back at my computer at work after my second run to do my blog. In other words I'd have to really go out of my way to get it done.

So now I have two blogs going - each about the two different film projects I have. As to the weight loss blog - good news there is that I'm comfortably back into the 14 mile a day runs. Though, on some days run a little less. It seems to alternate between 13.26 and 14.38 (still good either way).

As to the "Road to Pundamilia" my other film - I have finished the first rough cut of one segment. Hopefully today I will get a few more things at least planned out. It was an intense effort to get that first cut finished and of-course it's too long but I think I will move on to another segment. I think it would be better to get away form the first segment for awhile.

Not my best blog but better then nothing. Here's something I found today while searching through old emails from one of the volunteers in Africa. This is GREAT!

I´m so happy I went there, I´m so happy I experienced this all, now I´m more ready to help africa in the future, I´m ready to face corruption and disappointment and I´m ready to face love :) because in Kenya I saw more love than anywhere else in the world, I carried God in my arms and I kissed God good night, and God hugged me when I was leaving and made me feel wanted, needed, important, and all the kids in WWB loved God and He was always with them and inside them, all the little hearts I met there were filled with love...incredible, pure love for life.

and now I love Africa more than ever before...

– Jarka Bednarova

who knows?

it was another bad weekend - i was hoping to go liquids only but didn't. staying at home and "not eating" is really difficult. even after a fairly good week. i didn't gain back too much though or at least the gain didn't last too long.

i weighed 249.6 yesterday (monday morning after the morning run) - and had a significant drop more by the end of the second run, last night i weighed 245.4 (back to where i was on Friday) - who knows??? i ran again this morning and was at 244.2 - we'll see where i end up after tonight's run. i'm looking forward to being in the 30's again - it may happen this week. i'm starting to think about the skin removal surgery again. it'll set me free from this body, i feel i'm back on track.

i lost something today

it was as i thought it might be - i did poorly by being at home all weekend - very hard to be there and not eat. i did get the opportunity to get a start on my film - though i think i spent just as much time mowing the grass as i did editing. i gained 5 pounds over the weekend and then i couldn't run at all on tuesday. i weighed 253.4 on monday - didn't weigh myself on tuesday, yesterday i weighed 250 and tonight i weighed 245.4. i've got to do better this weekend.

i lost my big toe nail tonight. i have been beating up my feet for nearly 2.5 years now... i've had toe nails turn black three times - but this is the first time this has happened - what does one do? do i bury it and have a service? or keep it as a memento? super glue it back on? will a new toe nail grow back? it felt like i was in the movie "Fly" or "District 9". This toe has been bothering me for the last few months.

i weighed 245.4 today.

it's hard

i'm on my third day of the 2 a day runs - today was better then yesterday. Yesterday as the 2nd run started I crashed and burned. i've had this happen before. 3-4 times over the last 2 plus years i've been running. i don't know what causes it but i just feel weak all over - like i'm about to collapse. it felt that way walking over to the DAHLC. i still got dressed and on a treadmill hoping it might go away - it didn't. the first day of these double runs - Monday - went great and today was good too. For the record yesterday i weighed 245.6 and today 244.6, so it's dropping again. just need to stick with this now.

i'm back

back on the two a day runs - it's been since July 12th of 2009 since i have run this much in one day. hopefully my legs won't cramp up tonight. it's not just the run i'm also dropping down to 600 calories or less a day again. it's a defeat of sorts. it was always my belief that maintenance would not require the same effort it took to get the weight off. i think i was wrong. i thought 7 miles a day would be enough - but i'm going back to 14 a day now. it's a bit agrivating to think i need to run that much to maintain my loss - but whatever.

i weighed 246.2 today

my plan

yesterday after my run i weighed 249. for the last few months i have weighed between 247 and 252. i need to get this weight dropping again. i stopped doing the second runs after africa because i needed the time to get work done for the site and other africa related issues. there's still much to do along those lines but when i first stopped the second run i was using the early morning time to get some work done. now i'm not. i'm running after work and getting home so tired and late enough i'm not able to work on anything anyway.

i'm going back to the 2 a day runs. starting monday. it'll feel good if i can manage it. right now i'm thinking i may do this for 5 days a week. take the weekends off from the running entirely to start editing the film. i'll still be push mowing the yard (rather large yard) so i'll get some exercise on the weekends. i'm also going to try to get back on the 600 calorie a day diet. do those two things and i know the weight will drop quickly.

anyway - i need to get a trip planned to florida, my mom is quite interested in seeing all the footage - she gave up the internet altogether so she has not seen any of it. a quick trip to canada has got to happen soon also, to finish filming alicia's story.

i hope it's not raining too much again today.

i weighed 249.2 today.

Movie themes for "The Road to Punda Milia"

I ran this morning - it was great. I moved it up from 6 miles to 6.85 (same the night before). I was at 7.5 miles (2x a day) before I left for Africa, so I have a ways to go to get back but it felt so good. That's over an hours time span.

I'm making plans to head to Canada to finish filming Alicia. Her story is so cool but of course I can't share much because it'd be a spoiler. I'm also hoping to go to Spain to film/interview Iratxe - she's in Molo now and has done so many incredible things - her impact is astounding.

I said I was going to begin to talk about "The Road to Punda Milia" - at SXSW during one of our dinners I got to pick the brains of my two film making cohorts, Jay Koski and Mitch Winkler. The advice re:organizing my thoughts/ideas and how to begin the editing process were quite valuable. The film is about International Volunteering and our dinner conversation touched upon many aspects of what this is going to be. Mitch got to see some of the footage and was very impressed with both the content and quality.

Here are a few themes:

1. American obesity in our population and the starvation and malnutrition in Kenya. American over consumption in light of abject poverty elsewhere.

2. Giving back what I took (you should never take more then you give), related to the first theme, but personal as I lost 160 lbs before going to Africa - basically I lived the first half of my life unfairly.

3. Quest for personal transition - on the outside and from within.

4. The transforming experience of volunteering

5. Being those without (poverty)

Not sure how these will (or if they will) be incorporated into the film but they will be on my mind as I start to organize things.

I weighed 247.2 today.

the road to punda milia

it's time to begin blogging about "the road to punda milia" - it's way past time actually and I am working on a new blog site specifically for "punda milia" but as that film is part of the down200 film - i'll just post the blogs on both. the two films are absolutely tied together. one represents my physical transformation - the loss of 200 pounds the other my transformation from within. the road to punda milia is about international volunteering - but on a personal level it represents the start of a new life for me.

i weighed 249.5 yesterday

doing something great

just got back from my run and it went well - i weighed 247.0

some folks were just going into st. Johns church for easter service. i thought about iraxte (new friend from spain) and that she will be traveling today from Nairobi to Nikaru (by herself). she will spend two weeks at an orphanage there called melon. i spent a little time at melon and i loved the place. i'm worried about iraxte as my travel experience out of nairobi went very badly.

she won't be in church today because she is not a believer. it's interesting because i now have 5 friends from Spain (4 of whom i met in africa) - none are believers. but all of them do both spain and God proud. iraxte has been in Molo for the last couple months - she'll be in Nikaru for the next two weeks - then back to Molo for two more weeks. she has done so many great things while in africa - i just wanted to share this one.

iraxte found several kids in Molo who were at jeopardy to go blind. the poverty is so extreme that these kids and many kids are not able to get the proper health care they need. she took them to a specialist in Nikaru and will be making return trips for their care and has solicited and acquired special drugs from a supplier in spain. because of her efforts 4-5 kids will now have there sight, who would have otherwise gone blind.

how great is that? who will really be in church today? how do we define a believer? is it the one who sets in church and professes belief? or is it the one who travels alone on a road filled with threat to help others? is church in a building or upon a road?

her blog
http://iratxe-kenya2010.blogspot.com/

still with it

It's a real challenge to get on this low calorie diet - but so far so good - I was at 255.6 five days ago and I've stuck to it for 5 days - I was down to 247.6 today after my run. The run went well too. Working at SMEVA all day today - trying to do my taxes today. Fun times I suppose.

I weighed 247.6 today.

Exercise = Pain

It never goes away - always one strange pain or another. Now it's my big toe - turning black and hurting, leg cramps again. I got back on my 600 calorie or less diet yesterday. I bought a bunch of Progresso Tomato Soup a few days ago - and finally made it through the day without cheating. So I started at 255.6 - dropped to 252.6 last night. I have only been able to drop to about 249.2 lately - I hope now that I'm back on the extreme calorie cutback I can finally move beyond this and get back down again. Then I'll pursue Mayo for the excess skin removal surgery. It's been a long time coming.

I weighed 252.6 today.

i was a little disappointed

yesterday i got back to the abraham center to weigh myself for the first time since going in for emergency surgery on a hernia. that was on a wednesday and the tuesday prior i had eaton almost nothing. of course through out the surgery and initial recovery i ate a few packs of crackers and one piece of toast. just felt too nauseous to eat anything. i have heard that people typically lose a lot of weight due to surgery but i only lost 4 lbs. this was such a huge disappointment - it felt like i had lost much more.

to make matters far worse i will not be able to run for the next 2-3 weeks. i was just starting to prepare myself to return to the two a day workouts and now it'll be no workouts. hopefully i will be able to finish the final tasks for the Chazon web site and a few other tasks related to that. i'll have more time now.


i weighed 248.2 yesterday.

Back to SXSW

Back to SXSW

it's final and approved - i'll be heading to austin texas in march... the sxsw design conference / film festival. it'll be 4 years in a row for me and jay (one of my employees) - mitch will join us also and he's a great one to have a long. he also use to work at mayo clinic and also a filmmaker. he's an oncologist and took a great new gig in wisconsin a few years ago.

austin texas is awesome - i totally love it... it's the best place in the world to watch a film. the films which include many great docs each year and are always inspiring and you learn so much. i have taken on a new role at work and the conference also includes interactive design so i will take advantage of more of those course selections.

so with the good news (this was not a guarantee this year) i have jumped back on my strict calorie restricted diet. i want to get off all the weight i have gained since africa. this is a great incentive and having great incentives is what really works for me. so the plan is not to eat until mid march and my weight should be back to where it was. i hope i can do it.

new years people

today was good - i was running late with work, tempted to skip the run - went anyway. it's that time of year again when the place is so crowded. can barely find an open locker or an open treadmill!. sadly in a few weeks it'll be back to normal. people's news years resolutions only last a few weeks.

i weighed 255.6 pounds today.

new years people

today was good - i was running late with work, tempted to skip the run - went anyway. it's that time of year again when the place is so crowded. can barely find an open locker or an open treadmill!. sadly in a few weeks it'll be back to normal. people's news years resolutions only last a few weeks.

i weighed 255.6 pounds today.

blooging late tonight

my weight dropped a little again - so busy with work not much progress on the site - no free time - got in the run...

i weighed 257 today.

Back to work today

The vacation is over and hopefully the temptation too overeat with it. I posted a couple of videos from africa on facebook let me know it you want to be friends there . The run was good today :)

I weighed 259 today.

New Years Resolution

I ran yesterday, so glad the knee was not a factor. It wasn't to painful all day (yesterday) - more stiff and that went away as I started to run. I had a good run - close to 7 miles. Yesterday I worked on a few of the writing tasks for the Chazon site and I also started building a blog for "The Road to Punda Milia" the movie about international volunteering.

Blogging about Africa, both the experience of it and the progress of the film are both long over-due. The blog about my weight loss has to continue and I think the two will go together - they actually do go together. I can't finish the down 200 film without first finishing The Road to Punda Milia, as it's making is a part of the down 200 film. Interestingly the obligations of the Africa project (it's much larger then just a film) have had a profoundly negative effect on my weight. I have to get a handle on this. I have gained over 40 lbs since leaving for Africa. That's in like just five months.

Before leaving for Africa i weighed 215.2, the scales at the Abrams center were not working yesterday so i couldn't weigh in - but my last weigh in had me at 256.8. OK this is the first time I have admitted how much weight I have gained. One reason why I was hesitating to blog was that I ended every blog with how much I weighed and I had been blogging daily. I'm embarrassed for gaining back as much as I have, but I'd rather face that then continue to gain. It's been very positive to be open about my progress (and now my failings) as it creates accountability. So from now on two things - I will start blogging everyday again (some will be quite short) and I will close with my weight (assuming the scale is working :)