Coming off of all the hype and awesomeness that was the BCS National Championship, it’s time to move on to the BSC Championship update.
Week One of my overhaul is in the books and so far, so good. For any of you who have ever tried to lose weight, exercise, and just improve your health/kill your bad habits you know how rocky the beginning can be. If you’ve succeeded you also know how crucial the first few weeks are.
It took me a couple of days to figure out what I was going to do. Was it going to be a fat-cut diet? A calorie counter? The last time I lost a significant amount of weight I did the Atkins diet. The way the Atkins diet works is you start with a two-week induction diet in which you ingest no more than 20g of carbs per day. After that you slowly reintroduce carbs until you stop losing weight and then back it off some. I simply never got off the induction diet which resulted in rapid weight loss but also pretty much screwed the pooch for when I stopped, and here I am today.
This time I’ve decided to do a modified Atkins plan. My daily routine involves a packet of oatmeal (during “oatmeal time” at work with Sabrina (name changed, anonymity, etc.)) and then a few sunflower seeds to keep the metabolism up. I have Atkins bars at work, one of which I’ll usually eat mid-morning. Lunch lately has consisted of a green salad with a chicken breast cut into it, lightly glazed with a bit of the ol’ bleu cheese dressing. The afternoon is another bar and then, for dinner, I’ve been leaning towards another salad and one of the lovely salmon fillets I bought over the weekend. I sometimes go with an omelet. The idea is that any carbs I eat are in the morning, with none ingested (or a very small amount) after lunch. I read something over the weekend that said a good way to diet is to “eat like a king for breakfast, a queen for lunch and a pauper for dinner”. I’ve been trying to stick with that and it’s working well so far.
For exercise it’s been low-impact, to say the least. It consists mainly of brisk walking in the morning for 15-20 minutes. Not enough to do much damage, but enough to get the ol’ blood pumping. I try to do the same in the evening as well, though that is hit and miss at this point.
As for the smoking, I have cut back but am still enjoying my cigarettes. I bought a pack on Friday that lasted through the weekend, so that’s about a 50% reduction. Truth be told, I do most of my smoking during the day. At night I can’t usually be bothered to put pants and shoes back on to go outside and have a smoke. The same reduction can be said for the nail biting. I find myself doing it less and less, and am becoming more conscious of when I do it, which is a step in the right direction.
All of that being said, this morning was the end of the first week which means it was my first weigh-in. Did I lose weight? Yup.
Nine pounds!
Needless to say, I was happy when I saw the lower number on the scale this morning. I won’t tell you what that number is, as it’s still higher than I like to admit, but nine pounds is a good start. It’s always a rapid loss in the beginning so I need to stay focused and realize that this is a marathon, not a sprint, so I don’t get discouraged if next week’s weight loss total is lower. I have found that my energy levels are up and that getting up in the morning isn’t nearly the chore it used to be.
Thanks to all of you for the support! Until next week, go get it!
