My issues
with weight really stared in high school.
I was a 3 sport athlete so I was active all of the time and able to eat
whatever I wanted without any consequences, until I tore my ACL in an AAU
basketball game, then everything changed.
While I
played basketball and lacrosse, football was always my favorite and what I knew
I wanted to continue to play in college so when I got injured playing
basketball I decided to stop playing everything else and commit to playing
football. Great for my football career
but bad for me weight. I kept eating
like I did when I was playing 3 sports and practicing all the time but I
definitely wasn’t burning the same amount of calories as before. I didn’t get huge or anything, I mean I was
still working out and practicing so I still had an active lifestyle and I think
I benefited from a faster childhood metabolism but I most definitely put a
little weight on at this point.
I was really
able to maintain that through college, again benefiting from working out and
having practice all the time. The
biggest change came after I was done playing college football. I was working full time and just really
decided that after working out constantly for the last 9 or 10 years that I
just wanted to take a little time off and just relax. Planning for 2 or 3 months, 6 went by before
I really noticed something had changed. Long
story short, it was still some time before I finally decided that I was ready
to stop living that way and try to get back in shape.
Ever since
that day, it has continued to be a struggle.
Lets not lie, I like food. If
weight loss was all about working out and not so much about what you eat, I
would be in great shape but it’s not.
What you eat is vital to your success in losing weight or just getting in
shape and I have tried just about everything to find something that works. I did the HGH diet, where you basically eat a
piece of broccoli and 2 bites of chicken and that’s supposed to last you all
day… Yeah, that didn’t last for very long… I did Weight Watchers, Body for Live
and even Atkins, trying to find something that I could not only just “diet”
with but something that I could maintain for life. I really liked Atkins initially, I really
struggled with getting to the low number of allowed carbs at the beginning and
especially with working out, I felt very fatigued. And I love carbs, so the deprivation was
tough for me to stick with. It wasn’t
until I fell off plan yet again that I realized how good eating low amounts of
carbs made me feel, I just needed a way to get around the fatigue so I could
stick with it.
I had been
watching Extreme Weight Loss (or Extreme Makeover: Weight Loss Edition as it
was originally known) for a while and enjoyed watching the process. As I continued to learn more and more about
exercise and diets I realized although Chris Powell talks about changing the
lifestyles of the participants, we never get an insight into the diets they use…
I know, buy my book and I’ll show you… Well, I did. Outside of the fact that it is not outlined in
the book how many carbs you should have on low carb and high carb day, I love
the system. In simple terms you
alternate low carb and high carb days based on the particular plan you are
following and you get a reward day! For
me, it is a perfect fit. I “deprive”
myself of the carbs I love for 2 days (I choose the more aggressive plan) and
then I get to eat some carbs. The key is
to eat healthy carbs, not the white breads, white rice, etc. that is not as nutritious
as whole grains, but it is almost like a mid-week cheat day for me. Then 2 more days of low carbs and another
high carb day and then a true reward day.
The reward day is dangerous for me, in the past I was able to stay “on
plan” until I cheated. Then once I had
cheated, it became easier to do it again and again until I was completely off
plan. I try to limit my reward day as
best I can while still enjoying my reward day to try to make it as easy as
possible to get back on plan on Monday.
I think this
system could be “it” for me. I love the
fact that I really get to eat food and don’t have to “diet” except for the low
carb days, those take commitment, but I hope to truly make this a life style
change and not a diet fad. As I have
struggled holding on to a plan in the past, I am hoping that putting this in
writing, even if no one reads it, will help hold me accountable. My goal is 245 pounds, I weighed in this
morning at 293.0, but the number on the scale is not as important to me as the
way I look. I want to get more toned and
have less body fat, focusing on that will help me not get discouraged when the
scale doesn’t move as much as I may have wanted it to a particular week. I’ll
put up new posts with updates not only of my progress but also of tips or good
information that I have gathered during my journey, feel free to suggest
information to look at or things to consider or even recipes that fit the plan,
I’ll take all the help I can get.
