The Final Fifteen Pounds

Ever get got at one thing while losing it with another? I'm fussing with this a lot this year.  Exercise habit is churning right along nicely. But drinking a soda everyday. It gets me through 5th period.  I love the kids. Just h aving fits with the allergies.  I worked out last night. Win! And during lunch today. It's a cool workout designed for teachers to do in the classroom. Love it. (I'll share it with you for free if you decide to take the Keep it Cool Newsletter - Stress Relief 4 Teachers ).  The workout cleared my head. And I felt better off.  But I've created this daily habit of the soda. Now I'm having a heck of a time breaking it. I feel better after drinking it, but I know it's ultimately messing with me. So the feeling good is all a ruse. Dang. Well, okay. Need to put my big boy britches on and figure out how to crush the soda while massaging the exercise habit.  This is my whack-a-mole life. In a hurry today. No am...

It's hard to get going. I mean, sometimes it's like opening an old rusty car door that's been sitting out in a field for 8 years.  Right now, the pollen is hitting. And I'm not dripping or headachy or itchy. I'm just tired. It's wiping me out.  I eat dinner. Very pleasant time with my family, wife and five boys. They get going to a karate class. And all I wanna do is sit. Take a nap really. But I thought, I can get on that bouncer for a little while.  I put on an oldish TV show, The Magnificent Seven. BTW, the show choice is important. Don't want something where I need to pay really close attention. It's The Magnificent Seven, I already know the plot. But it also keeps my attention enough that I notice my effort that much. I start bouncing. Don't want to do it. But I get into the show. And in five or seven minutes, I'm warmed up. So I start doing intervals. Real hard for 10 to 20 seconds. Slow it down for 20 or 40 seconds. And I go ...

Walk We have all heard that walking helps us lose weight. Yes, there are other great ways, but walking can work for virtually anyone. When my #weightlossjourney began about a year and a half ago, I had a coach helping me. And he told me something I didn't want to hear. He told me that I had to exercise. I like to exercise, so that wasn't the problem, but I have an issue. I tend to injure myself when I workout--especially when I am lifting something.  But then, I thought about this. I can walk. I can walk like crazy. I walk in the heat (well hydrated). I walk in the freezing cold. I can walk in the daytime. I can walk at night.  Using a bouncer, I can even "walk" in my living room. And that's what I did. And I lost 40 pounds. Love it. I would be walking around the track at the college and it was so cold that my fingers cried. But about 20 minutes in, I didn't care. About 30 minutes in, every care in the world would just drop right down on the tr...

You ever stayed away from the fattening food for days and then had that quick WANT, that - "Oooo gotta have it NOW!" I had that today. I wanted a Coke. It came at me quickly. Like a stab in the heart out of nowhere.  I didn't give in, and it went away. The feeling really didn't last long. Somehow I was able to get my wits about me and remember that a soda bottle was the last thing I needed in my hand. I wanted it, but I steered away.  That makes four days. Eventually I'll stop counting.  Had enough of that Coke-lust eating my lunch. It's hard to think back and figure out how you get to the place where things go bad. But it is important. And it's crucial that you remember how bad you feel when you actually drink the sugar water (or whatever).  Okay, of course I don't feel bad right when I drink it; I feel bad later. That sick feeling from too much sugar and salt and caffeine all at once like a bomb in the belly. Also the mental pa...

Ever tried to quit a habit that was so hard to stop it made you scream? I'm trying.  The latest scoreboard: Weekend = No soda. Win Monday = No soda. Win. Win. And there are good reasons why it started to work. I casually read diet and nutrition stuff. I listen to podcasts like Fat Burning Man , Half Size Me  (it's kinda girly but I still get a lot out of it), and Bulletproof Radio . And they don't all agree with each other on the best ways to lose weight.  But one thing they all agree on (the blogs, the podcasts, and the books) is that drinking sugar is really bad for us. It's starting to sink in. And so I haven't imbibed over the last three days.  But I did every day last week. Half a soda each day. Dang it.  And my weight isn't budging down. Not an ounce. And I mean I posted and everything about how to start a new habit in one day . Remember that? And I believe it. But I didn't have enough foundation in place to make it wo...

Mental challenges in the weight loss game can be so interesting. So peculiar to an individual. Here's one I will deal with tomorrow. On a typical school day, I eat lunch around 11. It's a little early, but I don't get to make my own schedule. If I don't eat at 11, I'm waiting until 3 or later.  But on Sunday, I usually eat lunch around 1, two hours later than a normal day for me!  So I'm famished.  Enjoy the Feast and Lose Weight And there is something wonderful before me: a feast. A table laden with wonders. Each Sunday is a different theme. One Sunday it will be Mexican food, on another it will be Italian. You get the idea.  And this is often the best food I've ever tasted. These ladies knock them selves out. I mean it is amazing. I want doubles of everything.  So here comes famished Lieberman with a big old white plate that cries to be filled up. On one end of the table are the entrees, then the sides, and finally the salads, not to mentio...

When you are trying to win at weight loss, there are good things that get in your way. The church potluck is one of those for me. I find myself at a potluck feast sometimes three times in a week. And by their very nature, church feasts are not designed to help the weight wary.  Last night was one of these. Long table filled with delights = I eat too many of them. And my scale goes orbital (exaggerating a little). I put too many white things and sweet things on my plate.  I need to go in with a plan.  Here's the plan for next time, probably Sunday: Decided ahead of time to fill half my plate with veggies.  Don't eat white things. Stop after one plate and refill on water or unsweetened tea. That ought to work. What would you do?

It is amazing how fast our habits can change.  So I went on a road trip. Did about 2500 miles in five days. Of course my diet changed. I ate fast food. I ate trail mix (the kind with M and Ms). I even ate a little ice cream to help me stay awake. I didn't get much sleep. I anticipated all of this.  What I didn't forecast was how hard it was going to be to go back to my healthy ways of eating. It has felt like it was dang near impossible.  I know better. It's not impossible.  And I knew it was going to be sorta hard. But man.  In those five days, I got so used to sugars and fats: my body and mind didn't want to go back to greens and fruits. For the last week, I've been drinking soda almost every day. Around 1 or 2 o'clock PM, I get this giant urge to fill my belly with Coca Cola.  Getting my mojo back is way hard. But I will. I haven't given up. Just knocked down.  One of the things I note above is sleep. Getting back to getting 7 or ...

188 is my wall. I know that I can lose more. I have been as low as 181 in the last many months. But My body likes 188. I'm having to convince it that it wants to go lower but it doesn't wanna listen.  So here I am at 188. Admittedly, Sundays are a food snag. The food at church is amazing. I plain ole eat too much of it.  Next battle: Eat a normal amount of food on Sunday. Even though I skipped dinner on Sunday after that lunch feast, and exercised for an hour. The scale didn't budge. Not a bit. It will. I just gotta get more mean about it than I am.  Mr. Mean comin' right up.

I've soared 52 times around Sol. And parts of my body feel it. My joints especially. I do body weight workouts because I have found that I don't injure myself. In 2 years of exercise, I have had one minor injury. And I was able to work around it. Before, I would go in the gym and start cranking on the weights and within a few weeks. Bam! Pain.  I listen to my body now. And it talks to me.  So I needed to slow it down yesterday. I've been experimenting with 1 set of whatever exercise I'm doing. I know it's not going to burn a bunch of calories. But it does get my heart rate up. It does help with my muscle tone. And it keeps me from hurting my joints. I was so happy this past summer to be able to do my first pull up/chin up as an adult. That was so exciting! But when I do them, my elbows get real sore for a few days.  Experimenting with gentle warm up sets. Pyramids. 1 pull, rest. 2 pulls, rest. 3 pulls, rest. So maybe instead of 1 set. Do one eas...

I'm looking in the refrigerator having one of those 8 o'clock at night moments--looking for something fun to eat. That part of my brain that remembers all of the hard work I am doing, including the 45 minutes of exercise on the rebounder, and I reach for the very low cal smoothie instead of the jar of peanut butter. I can't remember the last time that happened. Here's the thing, I knew what my plan was. I had already varied from the plan to a degree. I didn't want all of it to go away in a few minutes of snacking.  That's the crazy thing. Your mind can be so focused all day long. Then, you get an urge to eat something that will reverse the hard work and literally in 30 seconds you can undo a day of focus.  Now, I did still eat. Or drink anyway. I chugged down a smoothie. We're looking at 180 calories (it's very low cal). But with the peanut butter and crackers, it would have been 500 +.  This would have been better. Get a big glass of water a...