Sometimes Life Just Happens

Well, thanks to that pretty little thing on the right, I haven't been able to do much, and that includes working out. Let me introduce the world to Macy, my fourth child and second daughter. She was born on August 9th, and life has been a whirl wind ever since. Between family and friends helping out by bringing over meals and snacks for our family, and just having little to no sleep at night, the whole work out / eat right routine has been majorly interrupted. I am happy to say that I have only suffered the gain of a few pounds, which isn't bad considering the glutton I've made out myself sometimes. I don't just fall off the wagon, I jump off, doing flips in the air and laughing insanely all the way to the ground.

This is exactly what happened the last time I was on a successful path to fitness, and we had a baby. The difference this time, is I have been monitoring what's happening to me, and basically, I'm just not letting myself off the hook this time! Today was my first real day of working out and eating right, and it feels good. It feels good to know that I'm back on track. Maybe I'm not at the same cruising speed I was at before, but I AM back and slowly increasing the accelerator. It should take a couple weeks to get back to where I left off.

One thing motivating me is my backpacking trip coming up in a few weeks. My buddies and I, are doing a 20 mile four day hike in the Sawtooth Mountains of Idaho. It's high altitude and rugged terrain. I don't want to be the guy at the end of the line that everyone else has to stop and wait for. So, there's some motivation for me to lose as much weight and get in the best shape I can by mid September.

Well, more to come eventually.

Over and Out.

So Close No Matter How Far

Well, I haven't written much lately, because not much lately has happened. Since the 4th of July I have been plagued by the inability to really get back into my program with full force. I've been eating correctly for the most part, and I have been exercising here and there, but I've been indulging too much in bad food over the last couple of weeks. The good news, is that I've been maintaining my weight loss. I haven't gained any weight back and so I'm happy with that.

I've been thinking that maybe I have been hitting it really hard non-stop for a while now and that a little break is called for. Just some time to step back, look at my goals, guage my progress, and recharge the batteries. If I can do this without gaining weight or getting seriously out of shape than I don't see the problem with it. Like I said, I'm probably still doing my program at 90% and I'm pretty much maintaining.

The key is to get back into full swing shortly. I can't allow myself to become complacent now. And that would be easy to do. I'm so close now to achieving my goals. I can't suddenly lose focus and drive on accomplishing the end result that I want and desire. NO! Good enough, will not be good enough this time!

Also my Accumeasure body fat calipers arrived the other day, and I measured my body fat percentage. It was around 24% which falls in the "average" category for a male my age. So, I have a new short term goal, and that is to get that percentage into the teens ( falls into the ideal category ) within the next five weeks, and about ten pounds to go along with it. That is going to be difficult since baby number four is coming to the family in about four weeks. I'm going to have to really focus to not let all that interfere with my program. Sure I probably won't get to workout and eat exactly right for a few days whent the baby comes, but I will do what I can.

Its kind of funny how I'm almost in exactly the same situation as I was the last time we had a baby, three years ago. I was five weeks into Body For Life and had lost about ten pounds and was crusiing along great in the program. Then my son Bridger was born. It threw me off my program. People were bringing by meals for our family and treats, etc. I never got back on program and three years later I woke up and had gained all my weight back and more. So, here I am facing the same scenario again, except this time I'm actually five pounds lighter...And this time I WILL NOT GET THROWN OFF TRACK!

Back To The Drawing Board

Well, today is day four of my new Atkins diet. I have spent two years trying to do the Body For Life program and have not made much progress. Sure, I have had good weeks with BFL, I even lost 12 pounds in 5 weeks on BFL once. Unfortunately, I can't seem to stay with it consistently enough to keep the weight off, and have spent the last two years gaining back twenty five pounds. I can say that in my experience with BFL I only lost weight if I was working out every day as the diet prescribes. The plus was if I stuck to the diet part but missed the workouts I did not gain weight. So, it's a great way for me to maintain my weight, but I just don't think I can use it to lose signifigant body fat.

I am not blaming the diet or program itself, but more my personal life and schedule. I work fourteen hour shifts four times a week and overtimes on top of that. I have a wife and three kids plus two dogs. Getting to the gym consitently is not easy. I believe if you have the time and schedule to get into the gym than BFL will work for anyone. But, at least on Atkins you lose weight whether you are working out or not. If I miss a workout on Atkins it isn't a big deal. I still lose weight.

Why back to Atkins? My first experience with Atkins I lost around thirty five pounds. I read alot of negatives about Atkins on the internet that made me wary to do it. I found these negatives to be false in my own case. Here's what I found to be untrue for me.

1- Atkins will make your cholesterol go up
2- Atkins will cause your blood pressure to rise
3- Atkins will make you grumpy and irritable
4- Atkins will make you tired and non-energetic
5- The weight you lose on Atkins is mostly water and lean muscle, not fat.
6- You will gain all the weight back that you lose.

These were the major things I was hearing about Atkins when I started it. I found every single one of those to be wrong in my case. In my job I have to get a complete medical physical every year. My first physical after eight months of Atkins was A+ My blood pressure was down from the year before. My resting heart rate was down. My HDLs were up and my LDLs were down. I was not irritable or non-energetic. My blood sugar stayed nice and level all the time so I never felt that mid-afternoon "crash" that alot of people feel every day. And as far as gaining the weight back....well what diet out there can you go off and NOT gain back the weight. My mistake was going off in the first place.

I also have to mention a recent study out of Stanford, the longest of its kind to date, where the Atkins diet came out on top by a significant amount. The study shows that people on Atkins lost 40% more fat than people on the next best diet. The article I read didn't mention what the "next best" diet is.

So, here's to another try at weight loss, one that I know from personal experience works. From this last study I can do it without fear or doubts to the benefits. I'm thinking that I can probably slowly transition to more of a BFL lifestyle once I lose the weight I want. I will probably count the carbs still. If I start gaining weight, I will cut back the carbs until I find the magic number. So, I guess in the end I will be doing kind of a blend of Atkins and BFL. Atkins For Life? I would do this just because I find the food choices and diet of BFL preferable to Atkins. So, if I can use Atkins to lose the weight first, then BFL to maintain, that would be ideal.

I will keep my progress posted here.