As you might remember it was a rough weekend of food choices but I vowed to really push it at the start of the week. I managed to get in three workouts, all circuit training, since I last ate bad on Sunday night. I sweated hard, pushed my limits, and while I wanted to do more I only had 2.5 days … not even I can make more than 24 hours in a day. So let’s see if it paid off.
Previous Weight — 289.0 lbs
Current Weight — 287.8 lbs
Change In Weight — -1.2 lbs
Wow, like I said on Monday I’ll take any loss this week and run with it. The funny thing though about the loss is my historic trend which is now -1.2, -1.2, -3.8, -1.2. Does anyone else find this weird?
My goals for this next week are to eat clean all week and weekend excluding my standard free meal. I want to see if I can’t jumpstart the next few weeks now.
No More Excuses
These past few weeks have been far from stellar in terms of random meals out and giving in to food cravings. It never fails that at the exact same time every year, usually around April or May, I relax a bit and everything falls apart. I let a few indiscretions creep in here and there, what harm could it do right? Wrong! As can be seen from my weight-loss timeline it’s always resulted in destruction, chaos, and failure.
Not this time, not again, I’ve worked to hard this year to see it fall apart again.
I won’t make excuses any longer
I won’t accept failure
I won’t have a bad snack because I’ve “earned it”
I won’t over consume because it’s a holiday, moderation works best
I won’t let my food pleasures or free meal cascade
I’m so close to my goal weight and while it may seem like I’m being hard on myself I have to prevent this pattern of action from propagating further. I’m at a critical stage where I need to stay focused and on track. I know what works and what doesn’t, I know what’s right and wrong, I just fail sometimes to make the right decision after I’ve seen success for a while.
Not any more, I’m making no more excuses from this point forward. It’s back to basics baby!
Running Duallie Style
In an attempt to get my running groove on and get some quality cardio in with my wife we’ve been shopping around for a quality dual running stroller. If you can’t work around the rug-rats schedule then just include them in your workout right? Anyhow, if you know of a good one please drop a comment. We’re leaning toward the one on the right, it’s a BOB Revolution Duallie Stroller and has some great reviews. We’re going to check it out tonight at REI and see if it’s all everyone says it is.
One thing we did notice while testing out the different ranges in strollers last night, it’s night and day difference the more money your willing to spend. The lower end $240 stroller is not even close to the $650 stroller. The smoothness of the roll, the built in brake, the front wheel locks, the quality of the seating, the storage, and more … like most things you get what you pay for. I’m hoping to find something middle of the road like the one from BOB. Whatever we do decide to purchase you can be sure I’ll post my thoughts on it.
This past weekend was a painful battle of food vs exercise. It really started on Thursday evening with some ice cream cravings that I succumbed to. I beat myself up a bit online about it but my Tweet friends helped me see the light of day there. Strike one in the food salvos …
On Friday morning rather than have a free dinner we decided to do a nice free breakfast since it’s been a while and we wanted some yummy pancakes. So after that I went to work and ate soundly until the evening when I fell out and had ice cream again. Strike two …
On Saturday I had a great first half of the day but then we ate out for dinner and had Stir Crazy. That isn’t itself as bad as it could have been but not controlling all that starch they put on those dishes (what else do they spray in there) and not really knowing the exact calories always makes me feel like I failed. Strike three …
Finally for dinner last night we had everyone over for a simple Mothers Day dinner and everyone wanted pizza and sundaes. I didn’t go absolutely nuts but I won’t lie and say I didn’t partake either. I regret it some but I’d also be lying if I said I didn’t enjoy it. Strike four …
Battles are not Wars
The salvos were fired, they were all direct hits, and I lost the weekend battle over food. I did have some small victories in my workouts in that I did them, both of them, and burned a ton of calories on the ARC trainer (see below). I also had some small victories in all of the other meals throughout each day, it’s not like I ate complete garbage all weekend, just select meals each day.
While the battle was lost the war will be won by the other days I eat and live well. I’m on track today, my motivation has not waned, and I’m working hard to see a loss on Wednesday if at all possible. I’ll take anything this week and be thankful for it.
Traditionally after a free meal I’m up ~ 3 lbs of water the following morning. After several bad meals in a weekend I can be up 5, 6, 7+ lbs of water which is crazy. I was fortunate this morning though that I was only up ~3.5 lbs of water … it could have easily been worse. I think if I kick it when I kick it over the next three days I can turn that gain into a small loss.
Weekly Workouts Recap
Here’s a recap of my workouts for this past week.
- Monday, Morning (20 min)
- 2 min warmup, 18 min circuit training using 30 Day Shred by Jillian Michaels. I did Level 1, not because I’m on level 1 but because I like to change it up. I was also short on time this evening with the kids being rough.
- Tuesday, Evening (20 min)
- More shred, mostly due to time constraints. Rather than miss a workout I’d rather get 20 minutes in of something.
- Wednesday, Morning (45 min)
- Another circuit training DVD from Jillian, No More Trouble Zones. I love sweating during these DVD’s, circuits really kick my butt and make my body feel like its growing in so many ways.
- Thursday, Day Off
- Today was an off day.
- Friday, Workout Failure
- Nothing today either … it took forever to put my daughter down and she was up late. I hate when I fall asleep putting her to sleep but it happens. We decided to party hard and went to bed really early as well so we got some much needed sleep. I know, excuses excuses.
- Saturday, Morning (60 min)
- I went to the gym and got a really solid workout in on the ARC trainer. I set it at 35-40% resistance and went for an hour even. The machine said 1500+ calories, not to shabby.
- Sunday, Morning (50 min)
- More ARC training fun … I’m trying to burn off a lot of the calories I’m eating this weekend. Figured I’d optimize the burn with a machine that burns a lot.
This Weeks Battles
My goal this week is to work out every day, no off days, no excuses. I’d also like to get 2-3 workouts in with my wife. Now that she’s back on program and ramping up her workouts it’d be nice to get that extra boost of motivation that we always give each other with a good workout.
Finally I’d like to get the bike (and maybe running shoes) out again this coming weekend. I’ve got 73+ mile still in my May workout goals and I’ve got the itch for some high cadence riding.
Did you win your battles this weekend?
I finally received the call I’d been hoping to receive for a while now. No, it wasn’t a call from Oprah, Ellen, or Two Fit Chicks … it was however a call we get several times per month, usually around the beginning. It was from our local veterans asking for a donation of household items.
I know your asking yourself why would I get excited about such a call? That answer is actually quite easy, because this time I had a huge box of items I’ve been dying to get rid of. No, it wasn’t full of sapranoesque body parts … it was my fat clothes!
You might remember my posting on the boxing of the clothes? Well they’ve now left the building for good! Gone are all of my 48 – 56 inch pants, 4 & 5 XL shirts, and other random parcels just as large. I hope they’ll help someone but I certainly hope that person absorbs some of the focus and motivation I may have oozed onto them these past months.
I was also thinking that I wish I could have written a little message to accompany them that someone could read when they bought the clothes. I’d imagine it would read something like this:
Dear Future Owner,
I hope you wear these clothes with comfort and satisfaction. I wore them for many months and they served me well but decided to donate them because they no longer fit me.
No, I didn’t grow into larger clothes. Instead, after many many years of wearing similar clothes and being overweight I decided it was time. It was time for a change in perspective, a time for some self control and motivation. You want to know the funniest part? Like most people I failed repeatedly but what I never did was quit trying to be healthy and fit.
Should you ever decide to do the same I can also tell you this, it will not be easy and it will not be short. I know this because I wore these clothes and have an idea what your going through searching for them. No, I have no idea how you got to where you are or what your life story is but I do know what it’s like to be your size. I know it’s not easy and there are many things you can’t do in life.
What you should know though is that when you decide to change you’ll feel amazing, you’ll have a new found love for life, and you won’t stop smiling. It’s very rewarding and empowering but all I can do is suggest that you try and guarantee that the new you will be very thankful later.
Sean
A bit corney I know but to the point and from the heart. Have you ever had a message that you wish could be passed on like this?
I had a really good weekend pushing pretty hard in the warrior challenge and I had a clean beginning of this week as well. As has been the norm lately it’s been really hard getting workouts in with the kids but my wife is amazing and has been supporting me this whole journey so she helps me find the time. Let’s see if the hard work and time shuffling paid off in the end.
Previous Weight — 292.8 lbs
Current Weight — 289.0 lbs
Change In Weight — -3.8 lbs
Wow, now that’s what I’ve been looking for. It’s been 3 weeks since I last saw numbers that weren’t -1.2 so I’m ecstatic with these losses. That brings my rough total for April to -10.4 lbs. It also means I’ve reached another one of my goals to lose 100 lbs (since 1/1/2009). So I’ve got a triple win … I broke the trend from the last few weeks, I’m in the 280’s now, and I’ve lost 101 pounds since last January.
As a small aside, I’m still on track with my goal of 275 by June 30th but it’s going to be close, I can’t have too many bad or unproductive weeks.
My goals for May are:
- Lose 10 lbs
- Bicycle 100 miles
- Start running again
- Sign up for a 5k and the 5.7 miler in the fall (if registration opens)
- Setup a WordCamp fitness blogger meet up
All doable and yet still challenging. I’m most excited about the biking, it’s been a blast lately getting out for my early morning weekend rides.
Have you set your goals for May yet?
Being a fitness nerd I’m always trying new fitness gadgets and applications. I’m not looking for a magic bullet or anything, just tools to make my fitness journey a bit easier or maybe even more fun. I’ve found throughout the years that the more information I have about why I’m succeeding or failing the better I do. I’m not talking about paralyses of analysis, I’m instead just talking about timely information with a decent amount of depth.
One of the most instrumental and detailed applications I’ve used on the iPhone and iPod Touch that has helped me a ton in the past 16 months has been LoseIt. It’s currently available free on the iTunes AppStore and also has a website component. Yes, free as in me wearing my old size 56 pants free. Sorry, bad imagery there.
Just to get it out of the way, I was neither compensated nor asked to do this review by anyone. I am doing it purely because I love this application and have found it hugely helpful to lose almost 100 pounds (only about 2 pounds to go). Besides it’s free so if you don’t believe me it costs you nothing to check it out and see for yourself.
This review is quite long and thorough. If you looking for a small writeup, this isn’t it. If you want an idea of all of the features available and whether I find them useful then this is your place. Sit back with a snack and read on if your interested in learning about LoseIt.
Setup & Goals
I haven’t relaunched the application from scratch in a very long time. I’m going to tell you what I remember of my first setup experience. I remember it as being fast and to the point. It asked about your goals, gender, height, and other information like email (optional but used for backup and other things). In the end you get asked questions to fill in your program information that you see in the screenshot on the right.
You can go back at any time and change your information which is nice. Their stock goals range from maintaining to losing 2 pounds per week in half pound increments. As you choose your goal you get a visual indication in the form of a date that tells you how long it will take you to reach this goal. This is very convenient and helpful because it reinforces immediately that it’s not a race and that you need to know practically how long this is going to take.
If your a glutton for punishment and want to lose more weight, or maybe you want to gain weight, you can further customize your journey by adding or subtracting more calories from their recommendation. Personally I setup my LoseIt to lose 3 pounds per week by selecting 2 pounds from their standard view and customizing it to remove an additional 500 calories per day (remember 3500 calories are in a pound). I only yesterday removed those 500 calories because I was having trouble hitting it and I’ve already lost almost 100 pounds using LoseIt.
Your Day At A Glance
This is the first screen you usually see when launching the application. It gives you a rundown of your budget, calories consumed, calories burned, and net calories remaining for the day. As you can see my day was pretty solid on Wednesday as I burned a ton of calories exercising (circuit training and a long evening walk) and even after eating I was still 700+ calories in the green.
You can quickly change into the week view by selecting it from the segmented control on the top. You are then presented with a nice overview of how your doing for the week with a prominent budget bar so you can visually see where your targeting. You also see a summary for the previous 4 weeks with indicators showing if you were above or below your weekly totals.
My one complaint about this view is that you can’t control anywhere in the application what day of the week you start on. Personally I’d choose the day after my weigh-in day. For them it’s always Monday which seems odd to me. It would also be nice to quickly touch the week indicators to jump to that week instead of having to use the arrow buttons, but that’s a nitpick.
The final view on your day at a glance is your nutrients. This is where you get to see the meat and potatoes of your program and how far you are off your nutrient goals. I wasn’t to far off on the day in the screenshot since I shoot for a 33/33/33 split for my Fat, Carbs, and Protein. You can see for the week overall I was a bit closer than on this day in particular.
One thing I’d like to see made available are goals for nutrients. Whether those goals are percentages or total grams I’d like to set my goals and see visually where I am in relation to them. Again, I know where I want to be so it’s a nice to have.
Entering Foods
Lets talk a bit about entering foods into LoseIt. This is where the application shines but also has some work to make it easier. As you can see from this shot I’ve entered all of my food for the day. Along the top you see your budgeted calories, calories from food, calories burned from exercise, your net calories (budgeted – food + exercise), and finally how far your under (or over) your calories for the day.
This is where people get confused, especially if they don’t see calories burned from exercise as increasing the calories they can eat. I think it would behoove LoseIt to make this configurable to let the user decide how they want it displayed. In the end I try to make sure my food calories are less than my budget but at the same time if I burned a ton of calories exercising I make sure I’m overall just under.
You can add food from your day at a glance view or from the Log view. From here it takes a minimum of 4 touches to enter an item, which is best case and assuming you don’t have to search. It’s kind of annoying having to touch so much but you get used to the workflow and get fairly proficient at it. I really wish the developers would learn something from the Groceries app how to optimize entering many items at the same time.
As you can see you can select what meal your adding the food to and what source of foods you want to choose from. The built in database of foods is available offline which is nice and convenient when your out and about. It also has quite a bit of depth to it, just don’t expect any regional or local odd foods within the app, you have to enter those yourself.
I find that I select from my previous meals quite a bit, especially since I repeat the same breakfasts and lunches. There are a few weeks of previous meals available in this list.
One cool feature in the foods that you might not notice at first is that there are literally hundreds if not thousands of unique icons for the foods. I swear the icon designer was either bored or very dedicated because I’m always surprised at how many unique fruits, veggies, meats, drinks, nuts, etc have icons. Kudos to them for this attention to detail, it really adds to the user experience.
That actually reminds me of another annoyance (aka feature request) I have for LoseIt. I don’t just eat Breakfast, Lunch, Dinner, and Snack. I eat 6 meals per day and hate that I have to group all even numbered meals into snacks. Please please let me specify the number and name of my meals. This would be the biggest feature ever for me.
Finally actually searching for food … It’s pretty much self explanatory. You type what you want and it searches for it. If your in the My Foods section it’s an active search that adds and reduces as you type but if your typing in the Search Foods section it doesn’t search until your done.
As you can see the search results from the Search Foods section is segmented based on where the food is from. There are categories like None (for foods you have at home), Supermarket Foods, and Restaurant Foods. The databases for the supermarket and restaurant foods is quite nice and pretty accurate. I have however seen discrepancies in calories and other nutrition data but to be honest a few here and there isn’t a biggie, it’s not an exact science it’s just an estimate. Besides all companies reformulate and tweak serving sizes etc so I don’t expect perfection here. I would however like the ability to edit existing food entries from their database or at least clone them but they don’t yet have this feature.
Entering Exercise
Adding exercises is just as simple as adding food. You can quickly choose from your previous exercises that it remembers as you do them or choose from a huge list with bazillions of exercises like archery, broom ball, hunting, kickball, table tennis, yard work and everything (literally) in between. Most of the exercises have you enter a distance and/or duration and some even require that you select an intensity level.
If you can’t find an exercise that’s no problem, create your own by giving it a name, duration, and number of calories burned. You can then reuse it in the future and it will attempt to calculate your calories based on the time you choose next time. Nothing fancy but it certainly works well.
Friends
This is one of the newest features for LoseIt, the ability to add friends and watch & support each other along your journey. You can quickly and easily add a friend if you have their email and they have LoseIt. Obviously they have to approve you as a friend (within the app) but once that technicality is out of the way you can view each others weekly progress, weight loss to date, date they’ll hit their goal, calories per day, exercise totals for the week, recent activities or their recent indiscretions.
There is a fun little breakdown view that shows all of your friends recent activities kinda sorted by time. You can quickly tap the envelope icon to send them an email of support or to reprimand them for that calorie overage yesterday.
I really do like this friend feature within the application. It’s added a whole new dimension to losing weight that often times you only get through a full website (which they have as well). About the only thing I’d like to see is the ability, just like in my personal day glance, to view the last 4 weeks worth of my friends data. I currently can only see their active week and as soon as it rolls into Monday I can no longer see last weeks info which is kinda lame,
Goals
You can flip over to goals to see a nice chart or where you started and where you are currently at in relationship to your goal. As you can see from mine I had my dip and then rise at the end of last year followed by a great year this year. It offers a clean view of your goal weight, plan summary, calorie budget and controls to quickly edit your plan (see edit screenshot up top) or to record your weight today.
You unfortunately can’t do anything with the graph … no zooming, no landscape or week/month/year view (like WeightBot) … no nothing. Yawn … seems like a few things you’d like to do here but nada.
More
There are a number of other features hidden in the more section. You can quickly edit any of your custom food or exercises, turn on or off certain nutrient tracking, enable/disable a password lock, or configure motivators. There’s a lot hidden in here … including something nice but weirdly implemented … motivators.
As the name implies it’s a feature that you use to motivate yourself to use LoseIt. Essentially you choose it and it quickly kicks you out of LoseIt into Safari (can we say in app browser). You are then presented with the ability to turn on/off:
- Emailed reports — these are summaries of your usage including workouts, food, etc from LoseIt (see above screenshot of email). You also get a spreadsheet (here’s a sample) with intimate details of everything you ate and every exercise … pretty nice ahe?
- Twitter — sharing of your progress and exercises via Twitter. I don’t use this feature since I already have enough spam in my twitter log so I figure my friends don’t need to see this.
- Facebook — the same as the Twitter feature just on Facebook.
- Reminders — for me the best motivator. You can enale push notification reminders to your phone (at configurable times) to remind you to enter your Breakfast, Lunch, or Dinner information. This feature has saved me on more than one occasion from forgetting to enter information. I think their defaults are way to tight in terms of time so I’ve bumped mine to give some slack time to enter.
Last But Not Least, A Website
I don’t have any more room in this entry to post about the website with the screenshots and the whole 9’s. It a newish website that’s directly tied into the application on your device. You can run more reports including graphs of your data, edit your motivator settings, view friends data, and participate in their online forums.
The site and forums are pretty active considering it’s just users of the application (and some lurkers). This is because you cannot edit nor enter any food or exercise information on the site. When it comes to your LoseIt data it is a purely read only site except for the forums.
I’m hoping the decision to not allow use of the site to enter information was a short term technology decision to get the release out sooner and not a long term approach to LoseIt. If not then I think they need to make every single feature of the site available from within the application, otherwise your confusing your audience and actually doing them a disservice. If your asking the user to constantly change their mode of interaction from application to web browser and back again your breaking the interaction paradigm and not only making it hard to get anything done but your losing mind share.
My other complaint about the site is their authentication always seems to be flakey. No, it doesn’t fail but I constantly have to relogin despite having just been on the site seconds before. This again makes me not want to use it despite some great people on the forums. I’ve noticed it mostly seems to happen when I enter into the site from their root domain and not the subsections.
In Conclusion
The LoseIt Application is a very easy and dare I say fun to use application for entering your nutrition and exercise information on the iPhone and iPod Touch. It’s attention to detail and solid performance (hasn’t crashed in 16 months for me) make this application a must try for anyone owning an iPhone. There are of course a few things that could be done to make this application even better but the same can be said for all software. I’m certain the LoseIt developers have plenty in store for their millions of users (I don’t have any inside details).
Go check it out and let me know what you think.
Donning my kilt I entered into battle this weekend ready to step it up a notch and really kick some butt. Lets see how I faired against my goals for the weekend:
- Bike 30 miles or 110 minutes — I actually biked 26.71 miles in 117 minutes and took care of my A Merry Workout Pledge. I rode to the arboretum around the small loop once, medium once, the large loop three times, and then finally back home. I would have liked my pace to be a bit faster but the hills kinda cooked me. I don’t remember them being as plentiful a few weeks ago when I was here. Part of it also could be that I didn’t bring water and I usually workout on an empty stomach and two hours of bicycling is a bit much on an empty stomach. I used the Run Keeper Pro iPhone application to map this ride if your interested. Here’s the map embedded in my site:
- Swim for 30 minutes — I woke up early on Sunday and went to the gym and did 20 minutes of HIIT followed by 30 minutes of swimming laps. I did random styles during the time like breaststroke, sidestroke, backstroke, etc. Mostly because I get tired doing one stroke but also because I forgot to shave. I know weird right … all I can say is try doing the breaststroke when your right shoulder hits your face every other stroke and that face is covered in sandpaper … yeowch! I had fun though and that’s all that matters. If I have any hopes of doing a tri next year I’m going to need to work on my swimming form though. While I’m not a newbie I’m far from ideal in my stroke.
- Cook something new — I did not have time this weekend to do this and I don’t know how I thought I would. Between our anniversary dinner on Sunday and the birthday party on Saturday I didn’t really have any time to make something new so I’m removing this goal without penalty.
- Eat clean — I ate really well all weekend and even with the planned anniversary dinner everything I ate was on plan and on target. There was one meal out that we didn’t plan on Saturday but I had worked out so much it didn’t really matter how bad I ate. No worries though, I didn’t stray to badly.
All in all I think it was a fantastic weekend. I had a killer bike ride and really enjoyed getting back into the pool for some laps. Heck I even got out for two 3+ mile walks with my wife and kids this weekend as well. We were locked and loaded for a killer warrior weekend … even William Wallace would’ve been proud.
Other Warriors
Here’s some of the other weekend warriors that took the recent challenge. Go check out how they faired:
- Lauren from Less Lauren
- Frank from Male Weight Loss Now
- SeattleRunnerGirl
- Carla from The Right Fit
- Tara from 263 and Counting
- Scott from Minus 5 Times 10
- jord from A Journey of 26.2 Miles Begins with a Blog
- Gluten Free Pumpkins
- Brandon from so long, fat ass!
- Amy from Living and Loving Life
- Craig from My Life, Take Eight
- Jamie from I Can Heal My Self!
- Mac from Get Fit Slowly
- Josie from 35 and Shrinking
- Erin from Erin Takes Control
- Shelli from Shelli Belly
- 146 Pounds
- Jess from Half of Jess
Another installment of the Weekend Warrior Challenge is upon us and this time it’s all about kilts and blue face paint. The theme this month is Braveheart one of my favorite Mel Gibson movies of all time. Who doesn’t love a movie that has hundreds of commando style skirt wearing men painted up like an NFL tailgate party wielding swords, maces, and battle axes?
Given my love for all things Braveheart I thought it fitting that I take this warrior challenge to the next level. What better way to do this than by using some character acting and really taking on the part of a modern day Braveheartian warrior donning kilt and weapon(s)? I mean I can’t really set my goals without truly being in character now can I?
What do you think? I think it captures the whole modern day warrior don’t you? Rather than don blue face paint I went with a stylish blue polo and my weapons of choice are a nice 30 lb dumbbell and an iPad showing Braveheart.
Only my wife will know if I went all the way with the commando kilt thing. I figured I’d save my readers (all two of you) from losing your lunch … though maybe I’ve already put that mental image into your head and your already feeling the pain. Sorry about that.
Ok, now on with the goal setting! These goals have to be a bit harder than usual, otherwise I’m just wearing this blanket kilt for show and I can’t let that scuttlebutt spread now can I.
- Bike 30 miles or 110 minutes — That’s essentially a ride to the arboretum, around 4-5 times, and then back home. As a rainy weather backup option I’m going to plan 110 minutes on the elliptical or ARC trainer. Essentially this is my A Merry Workout Pledge and I’ll either do at least 110 minutes or 30 miles, whichever is longer.
- Swim for 30 minutes — I haven’t swam yet this year despite my gym having a nice lap pool. I figured I might as well take advantage of it while I can since we’re not sure if we’ll cancel that membership or not.
- Cook something new — Find a fun new recipe and cook it this weekend. I always know I’m doing well on the weekend when I have time to cook something new. I don’t know why but the calmer and more organized the weekend the more time I have to experiment.
- Eat clean — We have a birthday party on Saturday and our 6 year wedding anniversary is on Sunday. I’m planning on taking my free meal on Sunday for our dinner out and as for the party I’m planning to eat clean and have only a small piece of cake.
I think that’s taking it to the next level while still maintaining some sense of sanity. I’ll be posting on Monday how it went so stay tuned for the update.
If you’re interested in signing up for the challenge drop on over to this months WWC page and follow the rules. I’m gonna go take this kilt off now because I’m burning up … almost like it’s a blanket or something.
