November 1st 2015.
I went on a cruise. While on the cruise, my wife told me she wanted a divorce.
After getting over the shock, I made up my mind that I wanted to be thin and get healthy.
As mentioned earlier, I weighed 285 pounds and was taking two different blood pressure pills and cholesterol meds. Doctors said my blood pressure was tied to my weight. I was also on a C-pap machine for sleep apnea. My doctor also told me the sleep apnea might be corrected if I lost weight. I was borderline diabetic, officially obese—a down right time bomb waiting to explode.
Right there, I made the decision to change my life. I didn’t care how long it took, I would be pill-free, machine free, and weigh 175-180 pounds. The only problem was how to do it. I’d failed so many times. I considered the option of gastric bypass, but rejected it realizing that people who have the surgery must—MUST—learn to change their eating habits or face serious digestive issues. So, if I had to changed my food intake anyway, why not just do it now and save the money and frustration?
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The only problem was how to do it.
I’d failed so many times.
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I have to admit, all those years on diet plans had taught me quite a bit about nutrition. Big deal, right? We professional dieters know all about nutrition.
I moved in with my son’s in-laws. A problem loomed immediately. My son’s mother-in-law is Italian. Even though I am full-blooded Italian, I hadn’t eaten much pasta in years.
Pasta was evil!
She cooks eggplant parmesan, chicken cacciatore, and numerous other pasta dishes. And so it began. She cooked every night. When she set the table, she put 12-inch plates on the counter. Everyone served themselves. The first night I walked into the kitchen at dinnertime, I spent a few seconds in hesitation mode as the vision of myself at a hefty—a gentle word for the one I was actually thinking about—300 pounds within a few weeks. But I recovered fast.
I went to the cabinet and grabbed an 8-inch plate. I put a serving on it and never went back for seconds. That’s all I did for the first two months. I basically ate whatever she made only I cut my food intake in half.
I didn’t exercise at all during these this time, and lost over 20 pounds. I was onto something!
So, I decided to cut all my food intake in half. I changed nothing I normally ate, I just ate less of it. Example: I used to get two Egg McMuffins before work. I began getting just one. Once things got rolling for me, I started eating half of it for breakfast and then the other half for lunch.
Another example: Normal breakfast = 2 eggs, 3 slices of bacon, 2 slices of toast and home fries. New breakfast = 1 egg, 1 bacon, 1 toast and half the potatoes.
I made my long-term goal right then: I would lose 100 pounds and get down to 185. I set no time frame for this goal. Since it was such an astronomical number, I felt placing a time limit was too restrictive and I would keep failing.
I knew, like everyone, that exercise burned calories. I needed to help things along. During this period, I worked from 6 a.m. to 2 p.m. I started going to a gym in the morning before work. I stayed about 30 minutes and did mostly cardio.
Over the next two weeks, another 8 pounds came off, although it now it came more slowly, but my weight continued to drop. I was becoming one happy camper.
Still eating what I wanted—but half of my normal portions—and even though the weight was coming off, I grew bored with the same-old gym workout. Rather than quit like I’d done so many times before when I grew tired or complacent, I changed things up and began alternating the programs. One morning, I’d walk the Merrill Barber Bridge[1]. It spans the Indian River Lagoon—over one mile in length with an arch in the middle. If time allowed, I also walked along Indian River Blvd to the Alma Lee Loy Bridge[2], and back along Ocean Dr. A total of six miles.
On other days, I’d walk the beach, going as long as time would allow, but never less than three miles. Over the course of the next year, I continued to lose weight. Just like eating, your workouts sometimes need to be changed. So, I went back to the gym and added a little weight training to the cardio routines.
Remember, we are all creatures of habit and our bodies will adapt to those habits. In a sense, it’s a constant battle to keep fooling our bodies by changing things up.
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Over the next two weeks, another 8 pounds came off,
although it now it came more slowly, but my weight continued to drop.
I was becoming one happy camper.
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Note from Cindy: During this time I was in a different boat. My husband of twenty-five years grew ill. During the five weeks while he was in the hospital, I ate the foods I wanted—yogurt for breakfast, salad or sandwich for lunch, and meat and a veggie for dinner—the way I wanted. Before I knew it, my clothes were too big. The scale said I’d lost 20 pounds. When he passed away, in spite of the sadness, I was happy about the weight. I determined to keep it off, but it turned out to be easy. I lived alone and could eat whatever I liked, which was lots and lots of veggies, fruit and nuts, and very little meat. I’m not a huge sweet eater, though I LOVE real Italian gelato.
Note from Rick: See I told you about the gelato.
It was about that time I discovered Myfitnesspal.com: https://bit.ly/1GY8jDF. What an awesome program. If you input your food and are honest about it, you will see just what and how much you can eat. The program contains an amazing number of pre-programed foods. It tracks your exercise and calorie burn, which makes it pretty easy to monitor your calorie intake as well. And, in my case, salt.
I learned two very important things with this program. Number one: drink lots of water. I know you’ve heard the rule about eight 8-ounce glasses a day. Though it seems crazy, and you think you’ll be in the bathroom all day (Note from Cindy: and you kind of are), it works. I find that on the days I eat really well but neglect my water intake, I sometimes go up in weight.
That happens when my salt intake is high also. So you have this great day of exercise and burn 600 - 700 calories, and you eat what you think is a really good diet, because your calorie intake is under 1200. The thing is, you ate something out of a box. It was only 350 calories, so that’s good, right? Wrong! Go back and read the box, and it is 1400 grams of sodium and you only drank 1 glass of water. A recipe for instant weight gain.
Note from Cindy: If you’re careful the next day, it should come off. But if you have a lot of those days in a row, pay more attention.
Note from Rick: Cindy is right we figured that out by accident after a few very upsetting mornings on the scale.
I was still working full time while living with my son’s in-laws.
These were my meals during the days:
Breakfast workdays:
Egg McMuffin, They are only 300 calories
Bran cereal with banana and almond cashew milk
Oatmeal with raisins
Non workdays
Omelet with leftover veggies and cheese
Go to favorite restaurant
Workday Lunch
Half pita bread 2 slices lunchmeat and 1 slice cheese with a dash of mayo
Apple or piece of fruit
Non workday
Subway
Tropical Smoothie Café
Pizza
Tuna
Enjoy a few chips with lunch
Snacks
Protein bars
Fruit
Low cal/fat yogurt
Try to keep snacks under a hundred calories. And once a day if you can.
Make My Fitness Pal your bible. Be honest. Put in every morsel of food. When you first start using this program, it will surprise you how many times a day you eat something small, not thinking of it as fattening, and at the end of the day, looking at the screen and exclaiming, “No way, I didn’t eat that much!”
Set a goal weight.
The first steps for me were the hardest.
[1] https://bit.ly/2JnAvs4
[2] https://bit.ly/2sGtYyi