Today is my 23rd birthday. It also happens to be the 1 year anniversary of when I looked in my bathroom mirror and didn’t like what I saw. My belly finally crossed that point of seeming too big and it was time to make a change in my life. Before this epiphany I used to eat whatever I wanted without thinking about the consequences. Things like Chef Boyardee, fast food burgers, and pizza were common items on my menu.

Since then I decided to eat Cheerios in the morning and Healthy Choice dinners at night. I became aware of what I was eating and actively went out of my way to find healthier alternatives. Candy bars from the vending machine everyday quickly add up yet the snacks never seem to provide any satisfaction. It was better for me to avoid them all together.

I even tried to develop an exercise routine by riding my $7 exercise bike which became the topic of my first real blog entry here. I quickly lost interest in the bike and except for my 1.5 miles I cover walking to and from work, I don’t really have any other exercise plan. Relying on watching what I eat alone, I managed to o from a high of 217.4 to a jaw dropping 190.0 today! Check out the graph below:

I found keeping track of my weight every couple of days really helped keep me focused on my goals. If I began to gain a few pounds I knew I was slipping up and could easily correct myself. Mostly what kept me interested was seeing the patterns that would emerge. I love looking at numbers like my blog stats or my bank account so tracking my weight was fun. Online tools like SkinnyR and The Daily Plate make it a snap to keep an eye on your scale.

I hope to get down my normal weight of 185 pounds later this year. My weight loss has slowed some but it is still inching along ever so slowly. I think I need to buy new belts because there is still some slack when I set it to the smallest hole. I guess that this is just proof that tackling a goal a little bit at a time can yield big results over time.

I have been trying to eat more small meals throughout the day rather than three larger ones. For example, I eat breakfast before my commute, a granola snack around 11:30am, lunch anywhere from 12:30pm – 2pm, a small snack before dinner and finally a healthy choice microwaveable dinner.

Things seem to be going well as you can see by my graph. The dip below 205 was because of the weekend where I sleep in late and eat much less than during a weekday.

I started to get back into the swing of things this week. Last night I did 30 minutes of Wii boxing to work the upper body and 12 minutes on the exercise bike today. I’m at 209.0 which is creeping up to the dreaded 210 that I have been striving to stay under. Those cookies and ice cream at a going away party at work today probably didn’t help.

Even with all of the fattening beach foods like ice cream, boardwalk fries, and fried cheese I managed to maintain my weight at 208.0. I am glad to see it didn’t slip up above 210 again which means getting below 200 by the end of the summer is still achievable. Playing in the ocean was a great workout too!

I rode my exercise bike yesterday for 15 minutes and 30 seconds. That is 30 seconds more than I planned and I only took one 30 second break. I guess I am slowly building stamina for this.

I came in last night at 208.4 pounds which I hope doesn’t reverse anytime soon. I head to the beach next week for some rest and relaxation.

My goal is to be under 200 by the end of Summer (beginning of September) which should be easily achieved at this rate.

I haven’t exercised in nearly 8 days and I’m at my lowest weight point yet at 208.0. It must be the hot weather causing me to sweat more as most of the weight changes I see on the scale seem related to body water.

Since I am making progress there is no use in straining myself working out. I’ll get on the ball again next week to see if I can give my self a little weight-loss boost.

No exercise today due to the fact that my legs still hurt from my jog yesterday. I think all the weight I lost yesterday was water weight. Oh well tomorrow is another day.

Instead of the usual slog on the exercise bike I decided to go for a quick jog around my neighborhood. On the way back I stopped by the grocery store to get some breakfast cereals for the rest of the week as well as to cool down from my workout. Here is the route I took.

According to Gmaps Pedometer I covered 2.3077 miles (I didn’t run the whole time) and burned 364.4 calories. I’m excited that I finally got past the 210 pound mark. I hope to keep it up tomorrow.

No bike tonight. I thought I would give my legs a rest and instead I worked my upper body by playing Wii Boxing for 25 minutes. Boy did I work out a sweat as my virtual opponents were challenging. The sweating was good because today I had a medium bag of buttered popcorn at lunch. I won’t get the chance to exercise until next Monday so hopefully I can get a little outdoor activity this weekend.

Today was not my day for riding the exercise bike. For some reason I couldn’t keep going once I started. Usually I go for 10 minutes, take a 1 minute break to walk around and get a small glass of water, and then hop back on for another 5 minutes. But today I just couldn’t do that. I must have taken 4-mini breaks as my thighs would start to throb. By the end of my 20 alloted minutes I was dripping sweat and ready for a shower. My legs were burning so I guess it wasn’t a complete loss. Maybe tomorrow I will try and get some Wii Sports in.