My Pre-Newyears Resolution

What you may be wondering is a pre-new-years resolution? Well it is my attempt to counter the good meals and lack of regular workouts I have had since I’ve moved. I have made gains in my progress (I mean GAINS) so I am now 240 pounds (up from 224 pounds at the beginning of September).

So if I was actually trying to gain weight I would be real happy right now but alas, that is not the case. I have gotten used to eating more food and have not counted calories since August. I also have not worked out as much and have been plagued with injuries; the latest injury caused by my chihuahua chasing me (I stubbed my toe on a door jamb).

I will talk about what happened, what I am doing and how importaint counting calories are to any diet. I will also touch on why you cannot just exercise more to make up for the increased amount of food. Here is a glimpse of a youtube video entitled, “Attack of the killer chihuahuas” for your perusal.

Well I guess I cannot really blame my chihuahua for not exercising but running is out right now. I have increased my bag work routine while my toe heals up. What I would like to focus on is what happened and what I am going to do to fix my dilemma.

What happened was we moved to a nearby city, I changed internal jobs at my company, we had a health challenge, we have money issues (partially caused by moving), we had a major car repair expense, my wife’s daughter went away to college, and my wife and I had the cumulative stress and mild depression to deal with all at the same time. Boy – talk about an excuse to eat!!! Well if you have looked at my progress for the last couple of months (of lack thereof) you can see how I handled everything.

To make matters worse is the more I ate – the worse off I felt! Ok, so much for my whining. Here is what I have done. We have successfully moved and have mostly unpacked. We went to a new doctor and found new answers that are partially negating the health challenge I alluded to above. We incurred new debt to fix my step-daughter’s car. We instituted a new budget to meet our financial challenges. I have focused on my new job role to get up to speed quickly so my boss values my contribution (layoff insurance). I am not accepting any new stressful items. I tell people that resources are limited and we will have to make due as we can.

You can see that the derailment is temporary and we are putting the trains back on the track! My stress and mild depression is about over and was actually helpful. The stress slowed me down and the mild depression kept me focused on tasks so I could not think too much while I was “fixing” things.

The brings me to my pre-new years resolution. You see I have gained 15 extra pounds in the last three months (I gained about 5 pounds a month) and while you know the pressures that led to this state, you may also know how motivating it is to get to the reckoning point again! I have had to take a serious look at what I have done in the last year and try to figure out what changes I need to make to get back on track.

Here is what I did this year:

• initially went on a low-fat, moderate (not counting) diet
• initially did lots of low-intensity aerobic exercise
• lost some weight early-on and changed my diet to a moderate-fat diet (more calories)
• increased my workout intensity and time
• weight loss slowed
• went back to my low-fat diet and moderated my workout to mixed low and high intensity workouts
• increased weight loss again
• moved (September)
• threw the diet out and intermittently exercised
• gained  half of my weight back

Wow… writing this down has further highlighted an area I need to work on. I was commenting on FatManUnleashed’s blog that I was up 10 pounds and Israel pointed out that was not too much of a gain and to get back on track. I just read Mr Low Body Fat’s Blog and Muata makes the point (paraphrasing) that whatever diet one is on – calories still count! 

So what am I doing? Here are some of the things in my pre-new years resolution/plan:

• counting calories (in my head) and staying within reason for me (1500 – 1800 a day)
• going back to my low-fat diet (I am used to it and we eat good tasting foods)
• giving my wife whatever I would have spent on her birthday dinner (less calories!)
• shooting for 2 to 3 high-intensity workouts a week
  • kickboxing on the bag
  • mountain biking
  • jogging
• shooting for 2 to 3 low-intensity or strength training workouts a week
  • walking the dogs
  • hiking
  • dumbbells
• And I am eating a good Christmas dinner but this time I will stop the day after (unlike Thanksgiving)

 Counting calories are important because one cannot “pay” for extra food by doing extra workouts… it is far easier to bite the bullet (anything but biting the food) and not eat the extra calories and then not have to try and “work it off.”

With any luck if my pre-new years resolution goes well, I will not need an on official new years resolution next year!