Lee's Wednesday Weigh-in (for real) - Week 5

So this is what murder feels like.

For the last two weeks, it's been nothing but gluttony. There has been a lot to celebrate. In the last week or so, my father and my niece both turned a page over in the calendar. And I got myself a little job in DC. My Philadelphia-based grandparents came out to the Bay Area to talk part in all of this celebrating.

The last ten days have involved a lot of eating, a lot of drinking, a lot of cake (duh), and not a lot of working out. In fact, there has been NO working out. And over the course of the last few weeks, I've met up for drinks multiple times with high school friends. Being this idle, drinking this much and eating this poorly should result in me looking something like this. Actually, looking like this could only be considered a victory.

I'll freely acknowledge that I didn't step on the scale last week because I expected to see a horrifying number on the scale. I couldn't pull that shit two weeks in a row.

Thus, I made a special trip to the gym, just so I could use the same scale, got down to my skivvies, and stepped onto the scale. I slid the balance down to 212 -- my starting weight -- with the hopes that I hadn't fallen that far. Mercifully, 212 was too heavy. This was a win in itself. At least if I put on weight, I wouldn't be starting from square one. Still, I know there's some serious work to do...

Starting Weight: 212

Week 1 Weight: 208

Week 2 Weight: 208

Week 3 Weight: 206

Week 4 Weight: mystery

Week 5 Weight: 209

Lee's Wednesday Weigh-in (not really) - Week 4

Okay, so I didn't weigh in this week. Not that didn't want to or feel the need to. I'm sure that this week was a bad week. What I do know is this: I feel lighter.

I feel lighter for a simple reason: the weight of unemployment has finally been lifted off my shoulders. I've looked for a good job for the last five months. For those months, I certainly felt like I was carrying around some extra weight. The weight of rejection, the weight of stress, the weight of not knowing. The longer it went, the heavier that weight felt. And now, instantaneously, it's gone.

So for now, I will not weigh in. I'll check in next week and go from there.

Lee's Wednesday Weigh-in: Week 3

Apologies for the delayed Wednesday Weigh-in. I didn’t have the opportunity to get to the gym on Wednesday.

There’s the Atkins Diet and the Southbeach Diet, WeightWatchers and NutriSystem. But after this week, I would like to propose the Cake Diet. As I noted earlier this week, with all the cake I have consumed this week, I would have been happy just to break even. But after working hard in the gym, I couldn’t believe what my eyes saw.

I put the scale on 208 – my weight from last week – and would have been perfectly content just to see the scale remain balanced. I was shocked to see that 208 was too heavy. It was way too heavy. The scale didn’t even move to the center. I nudged the balance bit by bit until the scale settled right at 206 pounds.

With that, I present the Cake Diet: eat relatively well, eat a little cake, work your ass off, lose weight. Seems perfectly reasonable.

Starting Weight: 212

Week 1 Weight: 208

Week 2 Weight: 208

Week 3 Weight: 206

Ugh. This week has been a killer. Between a bachelor party and having a happy hour with all the new fellows, taking care of my weight has been priority number 4325. It's been tough though. Last week i had three demo lessons last week which all but surely locked up my time due to preparing for them and then the rest of the week which consisted of going to NH and eating lots of pizza,hot dogs, and hamburgers(along with drinking some beer) to honor my friend Vic.

I'm finding that the hardest part is still making the time to work out. The good news is many of my fellows seminars end around 4 during the summer which gives me no excuse to NOT go to the gym across the street. I've been a glutten and frankly it has been really,really fun, but the time for all that is over now and I need to re-dedicate myself. I know this entry isn't as funny as it should be but this is what's going on. My motivation and energy has completely gone to getting job and studying,which is fine, but the true test will always be the daily challenges in life. We will always be busy and so it's about how i use my time now. Maybe I won't be able to work out after a ten hour day but what's stopping me on the weekend? What's stopping me right now?

Playoff beards, Guilt, and Jorge Posada

These first few weeks have been difficult weeks to start a diet. It’s not because there are a slew of restaurants that have been opening near me. No, these weeks have been difficult because it’s playoff time for the National Hockey League. For the third time in twenty years, my beloved San Jose Sharks have advanced to the Western Conference Finals. However, this is the first time that I have been in the Bay Area while the Sharks were in the Western Conference Finals. The side effects of this month-long (so far…) playoff run have been extraordinary.

1) One of the most beautiful hockey traditions is the playoff beard. Most hockey players – and a lot of fans – will grow out their beards for the duration of their team’s playoff run. I have joined this group of men and, I must say, the beard is quite fantastic. I didn’t know how a full beard would look with a bald head, but short of my sister, it has received nothing but compliments. Growing a beard of such length has forced me to also use shampoo and conditioner for the first time in ages. As itchy as this thing is, and as much as I can’t wait to get rid of it, I sure as hell hope that I have to continue growing it through mid-June.

Playoff beard in all its glory

2) I wouldn’t say that I have been an emotional trainwreck, but there has been a fair amount of in-game yelling (mostly directed at the pathetic refereeing) and post-game drinking, of both the celebratory and depressed types.

3) There have been copious amounts of cake devoured during the last month. What does cake have to do with playoffs? For most of these playoffs games, we have hosted or been hosted to viewing parties. Either during or after the games, we would eat dinner, which would be followed by cakes from all sorts of places – Icing on the Cake, Nothing Bundt Cakes, and Costco. And there are few things that are harder to resist than cake. Just ask Jim Gaffigan

That third factor is the critical one that is affecting my efforts at dieting (although I’m convinced that this beard has added at least a little weight on the scale). Eating cake at least three days a week will set a person back a bit. Nothing like a little butter, sugar, and flour to help put the pounds on.

The same cake is also a huge motivational factor. Every time I put a serving of cake on my plate, I’m also serving myself a slice of guilt, something that us Jews do very well (although I’m sure that Anthony would assert that while Jews created guilt, Catholics perfected it). Every time I take a bite of cake, I know I have to spend a little more time at the gym, if only to maintain my current weight. Because I am convinced that if I continue to eat the way I’ve been eating without exercising, I would be closer to 220 pounds than 210.

Given what I’ve been doing, it’s hard to expect that my weight will drop like Jorge Posada’s batting average (you’re welcome, Anthony). So, for now, I have a feeling that I may be stuck in neutral. I may even put on a pound or two. But in the meantime, I am working my ass off. Maybe not literally, but certainly figuratively.

Now let me at that cinnamon pound cake!

Lee's Wednesday Weigh-in: Week 2

I learned to play blackjack when I was a toddler. My grandmother thought it would be an effective way to teach me how to add. It was. Along the way, I also learned all the rules and nuances of blackjack. By the time I was five, I knew when to double down and what cards to split. Of course, I might have also become slightly addicted along the way. I first played in Vegas when I was 16. And over the course of the last nine years, with the exception of one magical weekend in Vegas, I have done nothing but lose. It was the course of these years – when the money was on the table – that I learned that breaking even isn’t all that bad.

Unless you are some kind of MIT genius card-counter, nobody comes out ahead in Vegas every time. Most people lose, and everyone is thrilled just to break even. Similarly, no one on a diet loses weight every week. It doesn’t take a lot – a Chipotle burrito here, a double cheeseburger there – to really mess up a dieter. And yet, that’s exactly what I did this past week. Over the course of about thirty hours last weekend, I ate a Chipotle burrito, went out drinking, ate a double cheeseburger, then ate steak, followed by cake. Eating like that is how a thin person becomes fat.

So basically, the way I ate during the first part of the week was like catching a bad shoe of cards. I really wanted to play my cards right, but never even had the opportunity because the deck was stacked. I’m absolutely screwed. But then, half way through the shoe, the cards turn. The table gets hot. I split when I can, double-down at will, work my tail off. By the end of the shoe, I’ve seen the worst cards possible and the best cards possible, but I still broke even.

And so, on this week, I would be happy just to break even. Following my weekend of bingeing, I busted my ass harder than I ever have. I put together a new workout that makes me sweat so hard that I look like I’ve stepped out of a swimming pool. I got back to eating relatively healthy. And when cake was again put on the table, I simply sampled.

The hard work paid off. Half a week of gluttony followed by half a being on the program resulted in a push: no weight gained, no weight lost.

If only I did that well in Vegas.

Starting Weight: 212
Week 1 Weight: 208
Week 2 Weight: 208

My demise: social eating

The end of this week was a brutal couple of days on the “let’s not be fat” program. It started with Cinco de Mayo. My friend, Michael, and I got together for this truly American holiday. I knew I was in trouble when Mike proposed that we go to Chipotle for dinner. Seemed to make perfect sense: Mexican food on a Mexican holiday.

“You know you could get a salad,” Mike told me with a half-smile on his face.

Right. I’m also going to drink water at a bar.

If I’m going to Chipotle, I’m getting a burrito, diet be damned. I remember when I was in college, my friend Joe faced the same conundrum. Being on Weight Watchers, a Chipotle burrito with guacamole was 34 points, an entire day’s worth of food for Joe. It didn’t stop him from getting his burrito and it sure didn’t stop me either.

After dinner, Mike and I went out drinking. I was perfectly content to drink rum and cokes or vodka-sprites in order to avoid high-calorie beer. That changed immediately when I saw that the bar had a beer-pong table. Not a table used for beer-pong. An actual beer-pong table. Four games (and one aforementioned rum and coke) later, I was feeling pretty good.

Both of us woke up the next morning feeling pretty miserable. Of course, the only solution for a hangover is a greasy good, and Mike recommended the perfect solution: a place called The Habit, a burger joint. The thing came loaded with two patties, two slices of cheese, caramelized onions, and avocado. This was a heart attack in a bun and it was delicious. It was the first fast-food hamburger I’ve had that could give In-N-Out a run for its money.

The food fest continued while I watched Game 4 of the Sharks-Red Wings series. Not only did our hosts put out dinner, but they also put out such healthy appetizers as salami, cheese, and a bowl of guacamole big enough to drown in. Figuring my dieting for the last twenty-four hours had been on hold, I didn’t hold back.

My weekend of gluttony ended on Saturday with my friend Matt at the Berryessa Art and Wine Festival. I spent the afternoon drinking one of the most delicious red zins I’ve ever had in my life. The wine wasn’t so bad for me; the pizza that followed did me in.

This is my demise. This will be my demise throughout this process. When I’m by myself, I am a model dieter. I eat well and I exercise like a maniac. But when I’m with friends, things go downhill quickly. I eat poorly, drink excessively, and don’t work out. This is not to say I’m blaming my friends for my weight – that would be downright irresponsible. It’s just so much harder to be healthy when I’m with my friends.

Anthony's Wednesday weigh in

This week has been difficult for me. I am in the final week of classes, the final week of my student teaching gig at one of the best schools I could ever want to be in, and the final week of my job. 2 final papers, 3 big lessons plans and preparing for two audition classes has kept me pretty busy. I'm starting to realize how difficult it can be to work out. With that said, I have done heavy ab exercises (crush,bicycles,medicine ball,etc) every other day as well as weight exercises every other day since Lee left. I've also reduced my portions signifigantly(Pam can vouch for this) and begun to include less main meal and more salad on my plate. The lack of Cardio hurt me in the weight loss category, but I can feel my Ab muscles getting stronger as well as my arms.


i joked with lee that maybe I did lose some weight but replaced it with muscle weight. Eh. I'm going to try to fit in more Cardio this upcoming week.

Starting weight:170
Week 1 weight: 170

On a side note, our scale is off. I was going to keep using it figuring since it was off it would be consistently off but I am going to buy a new one and see what my true weight will be next week.

Lee's Wednesday Weigh-In: Week 1

I’ve stayed away from the scale for the last week. I’m not scared of stepping on the scale – I know more or less what I weigh. I also know that checking my weight every day is worthless. One’s weight fluctuates over the course of the day. And day to day, differences in weight change are paltry. Weight loss should be a little more measurable on a week-to-week basis.

Beyond raw numbers, I’m already feeling better. Between eating better and exercising more, the results in just this first week have been noticeable. I have more energy and I’m sleeping better. My endurance level has improved over the course of the week. And more than anything, I’ve been feeling better about myself. I feel like I’ve lost at least something.

So today, while at the gym, I got on the scale for the first time since beginning this weight-loss challenge. I’m pretty satisfied with the results.

Starting Weight: 212
Week 1 Weight: 208

Choices

Trying to not be fat is hard. Especially when I have to deal with the aroma of McDonald’s french fries when I walk down to the gym. Dealing with the scent of delicious, salty fried potato is a new phenomenon. Yes, I had not been to the gym in a while prior to this week – laziness had gotten the better of me – but this week was the first time I had noticed the french fries.

It all has to do with how I’m getting to the gym. Instead of driving the 1.9 miles to the gym, I decided to start walking to gym. Walking there takes thirty minutes, instead of the seven-minute drive, and it’s a simple way to pick up a bit of extra cardio. Plus, being in the full swing of spring in California, why wouldn’t I want to spend a couple extra minutes under gloriously blue skies?

Walking instead of driving is one of the simple choices I’m making in order to get to a reasonable weight. And for the most part, a lot of these choices are no-brainers. In the battle of jello pudding vs. ice cream, jello always wins. And frozen Girl Scout Thin Mints are absolutely out of the question. As tempting as that green box in my freezer is, the 8% of my daily saturated PER COOKIE almost makes me sick. My limited soda drinking has been replaced by water. And I’ve done my best to cut down my portions.


At the end of the day, it’s all going to come down to choices, but making the right choice isn’t always easy. It’s not that I don’t know which foods are good and which foods aren’t. It’s the circumstances that often drive bad decision making.

Two recent examples:

1) I went out with Paul – yes, the same Paul who convinced me to not go to the gym – to watch Game One of the Red Wings-Sharks playoff series. Typically, I will drink dark beer at a bar, but tonight I went with rum and cokes. Sure, I picked up a bit of sugar with the coke, but I made sure to kill it off by dancing with a clearly inebriated, overweight Vietnamese girl who told me she loved me ten seconds after meeting me. So the choice of beer vs. liquor wasn’t so difficult. The difficult choice came when somebody at the bar offered me free pizza. Now, of course I know pizza is a terrible food to eat, but how can I turn down FREE pizza? More pressingly, how can I turn down free pizza when I have a serious case of the drunk munchies? In the end, I couldn’t. I had two small slices, but I’d like to think that the sweat I built up while dancing represented those calories being whisked away.

2) On Sunday, I went to a birthday party for a friend from the Peace Corps. The party was on the beach and I knew there would be a lot of running around, so I didn’t feel so bad about drinking a couple Coors Lights. But when it came time for cake, I cringed and salivated at the same time. My love for frosting is unmatched, so much so that I have been known to eat frosting straight out of the container sans cake. Me turning down cake has the same odds as a snowball surviving in hell. So instead of going for the full size, I had a small piece plated for me. It seemed like a reasonable compromise.

My family likes to joke that fat people become fat because of an illness called “hand to mouth disease.” But eating doesn’t explain the whole story. We all eat. I don’t see anyone mainlining dinners. What we can do is eat differently. And exercise more.

Simply put, we can make better choices.

The Myth vs. the Truth

One of the hardest parts about losing weight is convincing yourself you have to do it. We all remember our parents staring at us when we were young with the eyes of a war veteran who saw too much as we downed twinkie after fruit snack after 4th slice of pizza. They would say "one day it's all going to catch up with you". We of course, would scoff at this as we found new ways to add chocolate to everything on our plate. "Sure Dad. Don't hate" (for the record, I would never tell my dad not to hate. 1. That wasn't a slang term when we were young 2. I don't look cool when I say "don't hate" *) The easiest way to do this, once it finally does catch up with you, is use weight as the tool. I'm 170 pounds and figured 170 pounds isn't that overweight. I had just come back from the Peace Corps and earned the right after losing over 30 pounds to gorge myself on whatever fantastical treats came my way via the express lane of developed American supermarkets and bodegas. "Yeungling beer? Sure! I haven't had that in two years!" or "Is that cheesecake?? Everyone move to the side please. Former starving volunteer here, i deserve this..." and the list of quotes goes on. Once i got to 170 i felt as if I was t my normal weight. My mom even said(as the pounds began to creep up) "oh, you're filling in" A month or two later it was either my mom or dad saying that exact same phrase in a less than thankful tone. But I was 170 and that wasn't that bad. 170 is normal. I have friends who lok fine and they are 200, blahblahblah. Well, being 170 and being in shape are two VERY DIFFERENT THINGS. if you don't believe please look at the comparison I have made here: This is me at 170 and this is current UFC Welterweight Champion(as of this afternoon) georges St-Pierre. If you can't see the difference, then clearly you are an enabler:


(both of these people weigh 170 pounds.guess which one is me)

So now it's not about losing weight. It's about getting in shape. It's about toning muscle. and most of all, its about finding a phone that doesn't look like all my photos were taken in the darkest corner of an interior decorators basement playtime dungeon. When you look at your weight, you are looking at an illusion. When you look in the mirror, you can only see the truth. Now who wants a beer?

-Anthony

*My new favorite song lyric is "They gonna hate....but that's how you know you're doing great!"-Swizzy. What up.

The upside to being overweight

Moments before getting my ass off the couch and to the gym, I received a call from my friend Paul. He wanted to know if I wanted to come over to his place to drink some beers poolside.

"I was just about to head to the gym," I told Paul.

"Fuck it, go tomorrow."

That's all the convincing I needed.

While sitting outside under the warm California sun, Paul - a not so skinny man himself - turned to me nonchalantly and said, "You know the nice thing about being fat?"

"What's that?"

"More of us to get tan."

Thanks for finding the bronze lining, Paul.

The first text message I sent to Lee the day after we started the weight loss pact(aka today)....

"Dollar pizza 3, Anthony 0.(expletive). I was good yesterday too. Ate a salad and worked out. Today? Not so much..."

So yeah, rough start....rooooouuuugggghhhh start

Day Zero

Over the course of the last two years, my good friend Anthony and I have shared many experiences. Both of us were in the Peace Corps in Mozambique. Both of us are huge sports fans; we often kept each other sane with in-depth, extensive conversations via text message. And in my recent trip to New York, we shared many a delicious meals, visited the Statue of Liberty, and watched Anthony's beloved Yankees lose to the White Sox.

We also came to realize that, after two years of being thin in Mozambique, both of us have put on some serious weight. Not pudgy, diet-for-two-weeks-and-be-healthy weight. This is I'm-disgusted-with-myself weight.

By the tail end of my stay, we vowed that we needed to bring sexy back. We needed to get back down to healthy weights. But there was no way that we could do this alone. We would need the support of one another.

We will check in at least every week to post our weights. We hope that you find this blog entertaining. I'm sure that Anthony and I will be ripping on each other throughout this experience. After all, laughing is just another way to kill calories.

And thus begins our magical adventure to healthiness. Thanks for coming along.

Anthony starting weight: 170
Anthony goal weight: 155

Lee starting weight: 212
Lee goal weight: 190