Accountability and Affirmation, Baby!

First the sake of consistency, I'm picking April 17 as the start date for my weight-loss extravaganza.

That was around the day I weighed in at 227 and almost broke my 20-year vomitless streak out of disgust. Since then, I've made wholesale changes in my life -- many of which I outlined a week ago.

Look, it doesn't matter if you're working out if you're not eating right. You'll just completely sabotage yourself. So I've cut out a lot of the bullshit. No more Five Guys; no more Taco Bell; no more Papa John's. I'm allowing myself Chipotle once every two weeks, and I'm allowing Jersey Mike's once a week, if only because I need my sweet tea. But I probably won't go that often anyway.

That's the key, really. If you cut out everything you'll drive yourself crazy. A cheat meal here and there, when combined with a kick-ass day in the gym or as a reward for something is perfectly fine. And from my experience it helps stave off those cheat weeks or cheat months. I'm less likely to stuff myself on pizza if I know I've got a Chipotle burrito coming up.

Otherwise, lots of fruit and vegetables (I must have bought, like, a dozen peaches and plums this week). Chicken breast. Tuna. I've grown fond of the Healthy Choice Cafe Steamers frozen dinners and the Green Giant Veggie Steamers. A relatively cost-effective (and tasty) method for making sure I'm getting enough veggies. Plus, the meals are generally packed with protein.

I could definitely do better. There's always room for improvement. I could eat more fresh vegetables and more fruit. Less cheese (although I'm already eating, like, 1,000 percent less cheese than I did before). But, all in all, compared to how I was eating prior to April 17, I'm very proud of where I am.

As far as physical fitness goes, I've worked my way up to going to the gym six days a week. Three days of running and three days of lifting, plus resting on Sunday. I'm still walking Allie four miles every day though.

I've had to be careful with the running because I hurt my hamstring last year around this time, and it LITERALLY was still bothering me last month when I first started with softball. Knock on wood, I ran three days last week and felt no discomfort for the first time in a long time. Great success.

I had a GREAT week in the gym last week. On Friday, I was able to run three miles straight without stopping or slowing down for the first time since I ran a 5K back in September. And I had another great running day today -- finished all three miles (3.1, to be exact) in just more than 30 minutes.

Yes, it was on the treadmill, but it's been 1,000 degrees outside (today's awesome weather notwithstanding) and the treadmill doesn't make my knees throb for hours afterward. It's better than nothing, and it'll have to do. It may not sound like much, but this is significant progress considering I couldn't finish two miles without stopping for a rest or feeling discomfort just a few weeks ago.

At this point, I'm walking 28 miles per week and running nine miles per week. I figure another week or so of running three miles a day and I'll bump it up to 3.5 or maybe four. Or maybe I'll jump to running four days a week instead of three. We'll have to see how it goes.

Now, because I'd been trying to fake my way through weight-training with 25-pound dumbbells for a couple years, my stats on the weights in the gym are embarrassing, so I will not share them here right now. But we're making progress, and that's what really matters.

Now for the really important part (which, naturally, is at the bottom of the post. Writing 101 fail, folks). How am I looking and feeling?

I'm feeling better than I have since I ran my half-marathon a year and a half ago. I think I look thinner, but I see myself every day so it's hard to tell. I do know I am comfortably wearing shirts I haven't been able to wear in more than a year. And I'm using a belt hole I haven't seen since the half-marathon as well. GREAT success!

I don't have any idea what my body fat percentage is. I need to get something to measure that. But as of right now, no idea. I'll have to check on that this week.

I weighed in this morning at 206 (!), for a loss of 21 (!!) pounds over the past eight weeks. My goal, as I mentioned earlier, is to get to 180 pounds. But weight is just an arbitrary number -- for guys especially. What's more important is how you look, how you feel, how your clothes fit, how strong you are, etc. So if I feel accomplished and happy at 185 or 190 or 170 -- whatever it may be -- I'm fine with that.

So that's where I'm at right now. Back with another post on Wednesday. LET'S GO!

-BG