Back to the battle!

For me, life is almost never ending battle to stay healthy. On 8/8/2023,I had a gastric bypass. Let's see if I can lose 100 pounds for a second time in my life. Weight so Far 7/29/2023 346 pounds- Start weight before a week of liquid diet 8/8/2023 335 pounds- date of surgery 8/24/2023 319 pounds- last official weigh in at dr's office.

7/20/2018

So, it's been 5 weeks now and I'm down 35 pounds. So far, so good. Hopefully this next week I'll drop below 300.

Stress

One thing that I'm not sure about is the level of stress that I was under in previous weight losses. So, far I'm doing well in this 3rd go around- I've been pretty much perfect. However, without food around, I feel the stress level increasing substantially. I need to get back on the bike to burn some of this stress!

This time is the charm

Weight loss will always be a lifelong battle for me. I have started the program again and am in the 4th week of product.

So far:

6/21/2018 starting weight 340 ending weight 325
6/28/2018 starting weight 325 ending weight 320
7/5/2018 starting weight 320 ending weight 314.5

So far, so good. This is day 22. Let's see how it goes.

I lost another 5.5 pounds this week. I'm getting closer to fitting into my old suits, but at 250 pounds even, I figure that I'm a good 20 to 25 pounds away. I have three weeks to go before my Sept 1 presurgery appointment. Perhaps I can lost 12 to 15 more pounds by then. Then it's probably a good time waiting until I can once again enter the positive choice program- it could be as long as 6 weeks, depending largely on my recovery from knee surgery. It's tempting to continue the fast until September 8 and lose another 4 to 5 pounds before I go on hiatus. But I'm trying to keep the long term in view, here.

8/12/2016 255.5 to 250.0, 5.5 pounds lost

Thinking about another member of the 100 club

The 100 pound club. When I started on the journey of weight loss a couple years ago, my goal was to be a member of the 100 pound club. I read about men and women who had lost over 100 pounds and was inspired. Two of my friends lost the weight through surgery, but I focused on people who had lost weight through a restricted calorie diet- particularly Optifast, where you subsist on 400 calories/day.

One man whose blog I read with some enthusiasm was "Optifast Loser"- he lost close to 200 pounds, then gained some of the weight back. Then his blog entries stopped. I always wondered what had happened to him. Was he successful, but just tired of writing these blog posts? Did he backslide, like I did, and became too embarrassed to share this with the world?

So, far it looks like I'll be successful in beating down the weight again. I've been pretty perfect with my diet over the first 39 days (with 35 lbs lost as of last Thursday) and I can see reaching 199 again to even out at 215 lbs.

But, I think I myself suffered a bit from the embarrassment factor. I didn't want to admit to everyone that the weight had come back again. Really, when I hit 250, I should have signed up again for the program, but I delayed and it was 40 pounds later that I refocused myself. Better late than never, though?

To make this work long term, I need to refocus myself and keep myself accountable for the months after this current weight loss. This means, constant weighing of myself and being frank about the weight gain when it happens.

Some thoughts...

Thirty Five pounds down! Race to surgery

My new chart

7/1/2016 290 lbs
7/7/16 274.5 15.5 lbs lost
7/14/2016 272 2.5 lbs lost
7/21/16 266, 6 lbs lost
7/28/16 261.5 4.5 lbs lost
8/4/16 255.5 6 lbs lost

I've got until September, when I undergo my surgery. I have to take time off the diet for knee surgery, but am hoping to lose another 16 lbs prior to going under the knife. 239 sounds like a nice number.

My Positive Choice instructor Steve used to say that just because you've fallen down the stairs, there's no reason to keep falling. After some 9 months of maintaining my weight, between November 2015 and June 2016, my weight went from 214 to 290. In between, I hurt my knee in a cycling accident, which contributed a bit to the gain.

So, starting July 1, I've been back on product. So far, so good. Twenty four pounds lost.

Starting weight 7/1- 290 lbs
7/8- 274.5 lbs
7/15- 266 lbs

I'm planning to "re-zero" my weight down to 199, eventually. Then I'll rebuild my muscle, just like last time. However, in 5 to 9 weeks, I will likely be scheduled for my knee surgery and will, I think, have to take a break from the product to prepare/recover from the surgery.

A little update on the diet

Was this symbolic? Attending a ceremony where a pig was sacrificed and roasted is a somewhat uncomfortable experience for a guy with a formerly, shall we say, hoggish appetite.




Anyway, I've been cycling since last I wrote. Ever since I've dropped the weight, cycling has been much easier. It makes sense if you think about it. People spend oodles of money to get a bike that's just a few pounds lighter than your average bike so they can ride faster. Well...I dropped 134 pounds of weight. So, you think that might make me blazing fast...

But it doesn't. I'm perhaps fastest among my friends, but in a recent bike race, I was the 310th person to cross the finish line...beating maybe a hundred people. I think I saw more than a few little old ladies and men passing me, along with a very determined looking 8 year old. I tell my wife the 8 year old is clearly a future Olympian...

Still, I am enjoying myself immensely. I bike every weekend for hours and sneak bike rides in during the week. I recently bought myself a carbon road bike and I've convinced myself that this is the path to greater fitness.

Speaking of which, you may be happy to hear that I'm still relatively skinny. My weight has remained in the 205 to 210 pound range since November. My diet has remained fairly strict, though I don't count calories. I mostly eat vegetables, chicken, fish, eggs and fruit almost to the exclusion of everything else. My vices are almond butter by the spoonful, an occasional piece of fried chicken and I've recently started allowing myself a spoonful of a desert if it looks particularly good. So, if you order Spumoni ice cream, don't sit to close to me and my spoon.

My exercise has consisted of the aforementioned cycling and weight lifting. I recently completed two bike races- a 38 mile Rosarito to Valle de Guadalupe race and a 56 mile San Diego Race. When I started weight lifting in November, I was pretty wimpy. The diet took a good deal of muscle, I think. But, after consistent weight lifting, I've about doubled the weight that I can lift. To be honest, I'm probably still kind of wimpy..but I'm working on it!

I'd like to thank all of you that have supported me with your kind thoughts through this process. It's made some hard days go by much easier to hear a compliment or a good humored post. One of my favorite quotes from the movie The Edge with Anthony Hopkins is "What one man can do, another can do." I've learned from many people that have successfully lost weight. If they could do it, it helped me believe that I could as well. If, reading this, you want to lose weight, you can definitely succeed as well!

My first "meal" since April!

It feels like a long time since I started this diet, but it's really a little bit less than 6 months. Now, the end is within sight- maybe a couple more months? The end of liquid only was yesterday. I went to talk to the medical staff and they cleared me to move to a modified meal plan. You see, as I've gotten closer to my goal weight my hunger has been increasing. It used to be that I would drink a shake and wouldn't feel any hunger for a few hours. Now, sometimes the shakes don't take away the hunger at all. This isn't quite hunger like I had before where you wouldn't want to be standing between me and a piece of pizza, but it is unusual for the Optifast diet.

So, I spoke to my medical staff and they suggested adding an actual meal to the shakes. It's not In N Out, but I can now eat 3 oz of lean meat, a half cup of vegetables and 2 1/2 cups of salad in addition to my 5 shakes- this would bring my calorie count up to a whooping 980 calories a day (or the amount of my old taco bell "snacks"! Unfortunately, there will be no more runs to the border for that magical five dollar box. Maybe I can run to Sprouts? Lol.)

I ended up eating what you can kind of see on the saucer above. It's 2.5 ounces of chicken breast, a half cup of mixed frozen veggies and two cups of salad mix (no dressing.) It tasted pretty good, though it's a fraction of what I'd eaten before. Hopefully this won't take the diet too far off track. At 212 pounds, I still have maybe 12 to 22 pounds to lose depending on what my goal weight should be.

It's tough to figure what my end weight should be. My goal weight was 190, but 200 may be a better weight for me. We'll see. A few people, including the wife, are already saying that I'm looking a little bit too thin. Given the alternative, I'd say that's a nice problem to have!

As you can see from the picture below, my wife still thinks that I'm the King! Of course, the Queen is the one that's really in charge...

Will Bike for Food!!

That's me at the Los Angeles- CycLaVia bike event a couple weekends ago. They shut down eleven miles of streets in LA for bicyclists. My buddy Louie and I spent about four hours biking up and down these streets. I felt pretty good throughout the race, tired but happy.

My weight loss slowed down a bit this past week. I only lost a half pound. Ironically this is approximately the weight of my favorite hamburger at Canada Steak Burger. I think it's going to go a little bit slower from now on as I get closer to my goal weight of 190.

Ironically, some people are starting to say that I'm looking "too skinny!" Really, the only place where I feel too skinny is in my biceps. I used to have 18 inch biceps that I developed in the gym. (One of my cornier jokes over the years was to say that I got bit by a mosquito and then, as my wife groaned, flex my arm. Yes, she's put up with much silliness!). Well, anyway, as I got older and further away from my marathon gym sessions, I still had the big arms, but never really realized that much of the muscle had become fat..so as I've lost the fat, I've also lost my "guns"!

I've also become obsessed with clothes in a way that I never was before. My wife says that I'm like one of the women in the commercials who is obsessed with the latest fashion, i.e. a "Fashionista!". I defend myself by pointing out that I've had to rebuy my entire wardrobe, underwear included. So, I'm constantly receiving packages in the mail- suits from ebay, boxer briefs from amazon, etc.. So, I think about clothes now- more than I should. And so....I find myself talking about clothes, sometimes to my buddies, a bunch of gruff guys that I used to drink beer with and who just stare at me...as I talk about belts matching shoes, the proper cuff length, the cut of my Oxxford suits.

Maybe 166 days on a diet has just driven me plum loco. To date, my only cheat has been the half piece of salmon below:



I had this piece of salmon instead of a shake when we went to Seattle.

Overall, I'm impressed with my willpower through this and I think to myself that I'm much closer to the end of the diet than I am to the beginning. This guy no longer looks back at me in the mirror.

Week 1- 5/8/14 334.5 16.5 318
Week 2- 5/15/14 318.0 6.9 311.1
Week 3- 5/22/14 311.0 5.1 306
Week 4- 5/29/14 306 6.0 300
Week 5- 6/5/14 300 4.5 295.5
Week 6- 6/12/14 295.5 3.0 292.5
Week 7- 6/19/14 292.5 8.5 283
Week 8- 6/26/14 283 4.5 278.5
Week 9- 7/3/14 278.5 5.0 273.5
Week 10- 7/10/14 273.5 1.5 272
Week 11- 7/17/14 272 8.0 264
Week 12- 7/24/14 264 3.5 260.5
Week 13- 7/31/14 260.5 6.0 254.5
Week 14- 8/7/14 254.5 3.5 251.0
Week 15- 8/14/14 251 5.0 246
Week 16- 8/21/14 246 3.5 241.5
Week 17- 8/27/14 241.5 4.5 237
Week 18- 9/4/14 237.0 3.0 234
Week 19- 9/11/14 234 2.0 232
Week 20- 9/17/14 232 7.0 225
Week 21- 9/24/14 225 2.0 223
Week 22- 9/30/14 223 3.5 219.5
Week 23- 10/7/14 219.5 0.5 219

A half pound lost!

Twenty weeks and counting..I'll toast to that! (with Optifast..)

Being on a diet doesn't mean you can't party a little. The guy with the beard is Edward James Olmos from Miami Vice, American Me fame- one of the more respected actors in the Latino community. (No wonder he looks a little nervous in the midst of all these lawyers!) This was at the La Raza Lawyers annual scholarship dinner. There was great food and drink to be had...and Optifast for me. You'd think by now that I would have gotten over all temptation, but the steak on my plate looked so good that I almost threw it at my friend Andy to get it away from me! Yes, temptation will always remain, I think. But is food something that has been an addiction to me? We're looking at this issue in my new Optifast class. (For the record, I tend to look at it as more of a bad habit with serious health effect. Doritos are good, but I don't know if my urge for them was of the "crack addict" variety.)

Last Tuesday was a new chapter in my weight loss journey with Optifast. I transferred from my original moderator (the wonderful Ann Tenover) to begin a class called Solutions-Food Addictions. It was a pretty different experience and definitely took me out of my comfort zone. With Ann, I was used to a more "touchy, feely" approach- kind of conversation among friends with plenty of support and laughter. So, why change? Well, after 18 weeks, she started a new group to go over the same syllabus with only a couple of us remaining from the original group, so I thought it was time to learn something new and different.

My new teacher is definitely different- much more sarcastic and confrontational than Anne- though he also shows a deft touch with the group in knowing when to ease off. He came from a work history that included working in the prison with addicts, having been a engineer and many academic degrees. The class, which he created for Optifast, examines over eating as an addiction- i.e. an unhealthy behavior in excess which attempts to fill one of our basic needs. He cites our basic need as feeling safe and loved. I think I'm probably going to like him, but he's definitely much more directly challenging than Ann was. He's an aggressive presence. I felt almost as if I were back at U.C. Berkeley, as he talked about different research studies, hormones in the body and constantly quizzed us.

My lawyer mind kept jumping to counterarguments for much of what he said, but I mostly held my tongue, thinking that there was a lot that I could learn from this PhD in nutrition. But when he went on attack against the destructive property of artificial sweeteners, I almost burst out and said "Heavens, man. Don't take away my diet Coke!" Yes, apparently there is some research backing up the idea that artificial sweeteners actually cause us to eat more. They definitely cause white mice to eat more... I'm skeptical, but will read the research with an open mind.

The moderator's most interesting idea was the rejection of categorizing ourselves as addicts for life. His position is that once you deal with the underlying causes of your addiction, you really aren't an addict anymore. He wants us to leave the class with a beginning understanding of what we need and an idea of how to meet these needs in a healthy way. I'm looking forward to learning a great deal from him.

Week 1- 5/8/14 334.5 16.5 318
Week 2- 5/15/14 318.0 6.9 311.1
Week 3- 5/22/14 311.0 5.1 306
Week 4- 5/29/14 306 6.0 300
Week 5- 6/5/14 300 4.5 295.5
Week 6- 6/12/14 295.5 3.0 292.5
Week 7- 6/19/14 292.5 8.5 283
Week 8- 6/26/14 283 4.5 278.5
Week 9- 7/3/14 278.5 5.0 273.5
Week 10- 7/10/14 273.5 1.5 272
Week 11- 7/17/14 272 8.0 264
Week 12- 7/24/14 264 3.5 260.5
Week 13- 7/31/14 260.5 6.0 254.5
Week 14- 8/7/14 254.5 3.5 251.0
Week 15- 8/14/14 251 5.0 246
Week 16- 8/21/14 246 3.5 241.5
Week 17- 8/27/14 241.5 4.5 237
Week 18- 9/4/14 237.0 3.0 234
Week 19- 9/11/14 234 2.0 232
Week 20- 9/17/14 232 7.0 225
Week 21- 9/24/14 225 2.0 223
Week 22- 9/30/14 223 3.5 219.5

Three and half pounds lost!

Before and After?

Is this a before and after picture? I can definitely see some similarities in the before.. I am probably a couple months away from transitioning off the Optifast diet back into regular food. It's up to the staff of Kaiser, but I expect that my transition diet will start in once I lose 23 more pounds and am ten pounds away from my goal weight of 190.

It's been quite a journey. You can see to the right, the picture of me when I started this program. I'd been overweight for over a decade, maybe closer to 15 years. And, to be honest, I'd started to give up faith in my ability to lose the weight on my own. Einstein reportedly said that the definition of insanity is trying the same thing over and over again, while expecting different results. If so, then I'd been plum loco for quite a while- never really trying an organized weight loss program outside of just personal training. I'd never really tried to tackle the problem of "too many burritos," as my doctor put it!

What really inspired me was the success of two of my closest friends who had tackled their life long obesity problems with surgery. Seeing them slim really made me think seriously about surgery. If they had done it, what was to stop me? I was still highly resistant to the idea (and, honestly, quite scared of going under the knife), but finally I broached the subject with my doctor. Instead of surgery, she sent me to Optifast: a very low calorie weight loss program. (see previous entries for details on Optifast). As I researched the Optifast program, I found an academic study on it that was very convincing- an average weight loss of 58 pounds in 20 weeks for those that stuck with the program. So, I told myself that I'd trust someone else's judgment over mine for once. I'm really glad that I did.

It will be a little while before I look like the guy in this picture again. (Though I think my wife would kill me if I returned to that hairstyle, lol.) But, I'll get there and hopefully do even better. Forty something is the new twenty, right? I hope so!

Week 1- 5/8/14 334.5 16.5 318
Week 2- 5/15/14 318.0 6.9 311.1
Week 3- 5/22/14 311.0 5.1 306
Week 4- 5/29/14 306 6.0 300
Week 5- 6/5/14 300 4.5 295.5
Week 6- 6/12/14 295.5 3.0 292.5
Week 7- 6/19/14 292.5 8.5 283
Week 8- 6/26/14 283 4.5 278.5
Week 9- 7/3/14 278.5 5.0 273.5
Week 10- 7/10/14 273.5 1.5 272
Week 11- 7/17/14 272 8.0 264
Week 12- 7/24/14 264 3.5 260.5
Week 13- 7/31/14 260.5 6.0 254.5
Week 14- 8/7/14 254.5 3.5 251.0
Week 15- 8/14/14 251 5.0 246
Week 16- 8/21/14 246 3.5 241.5
Week 17- 8/27/14 241.5 4.5 237
Week 18- 9/4/14 237.0 3.0 234
Week 19- 9/11/14 234 2.0 232
Week 20- 9/17/14 232 7.0 225
Week 21- 9/24/14 225 2.0 223

111.5 pounds lost!

100 Pounds and Counting!!

Ladies and Gents,

I'm happy to announce that as of last Thursday, I finally crossed the 100 pounds barrier! I have now lost 100.5 pounds since the beginning of May. My father put it best when he told me to be proud because not many people can lose 100 pounds, but then he paused and said "well..not too many people need to lose 100 pounds to begin with!" That's definitely true, lol. Since leaving law school, I've had my share of excesses. I'm just thankful that I've been able to start reversing course.




So how did I celebrate the loss? Well...I did take place in the ice bucket challenge. I'd appreciate anyone sharing this youtube video with their friends.

Click here to see an attorney get doused.

Something that I've found to be important in my own happiness is making an effort to help other people. I discovered this about myself in college. During the saddest period of my life, I started to work at the financial aid department and found that focusing on helping other people with their problems really gave me perspective on my own. I think it's something that's universal. Give a little bit of yourself to a charity and you may find that you spend the rest of the day with a smile on your face.

Week 1- 5/8/14 334.5 16.5 318
Week 2- 5/15/14 318.0 6.9 311.1
Week 3- 5/22/14 311.0 5.1 306
Week 4- 5/29/14 306 6.0 300
Week 5- 6/5/14 300 4.5 295.5
Week 6- 6/12/14 295.5 3.0 292.5
Week 7- 6/19/14 292.5 8.5 283
Week 8- 6/26/14 283 4.5 278.5
Week 9- 7/3/14 278.5 5.0 273.5
Week 10- 7/10/14 273.5 1.5 272
Week 11- 7/17/14 272 8.0 264
Week 12- 7/24/14 264 3.5 260.5
Week 13- 7/31/14 260.5 6.0 254.5
Week 14- 8/7/14 254.5 3.5 251.0
Week 15- 8/14/14 251 5.0 246
Week 16- 8/21/14 246 3.5 241.5
Week 17- 8/27/14 241.5 4.5 237

No longer obese...just overweight!

You've probably heard someone say that a person is not fat, just big boned. The Optifast equivalent saying would be saying that someone is not obese, just overweight! Let me explain. There is something called the Body Mass Index (BMI), which attempts to define levels of fatness. I started at the very top, being morbidly obese. Morbid because I was on my way to dying early? Maybe. Let's just say that it didn't fill me with hope when I got this diagnosis. Anyway, after being moribidly obese, there are those of us that are "only" obese, which I was for the majority of this diet. Then last Thursday, my BMI dropped to 29.62, which qualifies me as being only overweight. So am I still fat? Yep. But not obese! (My doctor said so...)

Of course, there are still pounds left to go in this diet. 47 pounds to be exact. It's daunting, but I am inspired by the fact when Matthew McConaughey lost this exact amount, he won an Oscar. When I look in the mirror, I still don't see the college version of myself, but I am getting closer. If I squint just right, I can see a version of the old me...

One of the best things about this diet is that it's shown me how many kind people that I have around me. People are constantly coming up to me and complimenting me on my weight loss. When I attended my niece's wedding, I felt almost like I was part of the wedding. So many people came up to me and complimented me on my weight loss that I must have had a stupid grin on my face for the whole night.

The other day, a normally stone faced baliff stopped me on my way out of court and said to me, in full Clint Eastwood voice, "If you lose any more weight, I won't recognize you anymore...punk." (Ok, he didn't say "Punk")

In other news, I've found that my strength level has waned somewhat with the weight loss. You might say that I still look pretty strong at 6'3" and 237 pounds, but if you saw me in the gym with the tiny pink dumbbells, you might think again! Occasionally, when I'm lifting with a friend, I do tackle the heavier weights, but it kills me for the rest of the day. It's just basic calories as fuel logic- since I have my body at a huge calorie deficit, my "feats of strength" have to fit into a limited fuel tank.

No, I'm not as strong as I was a few months ago, but this will come in time, I'm sure. I'm at work building my garage gym- I bought an Ironmaster self spotting rack, about 480 pounds of weights, an adjustable bench and a couple barbells. It doesn't look like much yet, but the goal is to have a pretty well outfitted garage gym by November, so I can build some muscle when I get back to real food.


Week 1- 5/8/14 334.5 16.5 318
Week 2- 5/15/14 318.0 6.9 311.1
Week 3- 5/22/14 311.0 5.1 306
Week 4- 5/29/14 306 6.0 300
Week 5- 6/5/14 300 4.5 295.5
Week 6- 6/12/14 295.5 3.0 292.5
Week 7- 6/19/14 292.5 8.5 283
Week 8- 6/26/14 283 4.5 278.5
Week 9- 7/3/14 278.5 5.0 273.5
Week 10- 7/10/14 273.5 1.5 272
Week 11- 7/17/14 272 8.0 264
Week 12- 7/24/14 264 3.5 260.5
Week 13- 7/31/14 260.5 6.0 254.5
Week 14- 8/7/14 254.5 3.5 251.0
Week 15- 8/14/14 251 5.0 246
Week 16- 8/21/14 246 3.5 241.5
Week 17- 8/27/14 241.5 4.5 237

97.5 Pounds lost!

100 Days Without Food! The first 100 days on Optifast

Does being without food for a hundred days bring out the monster in me? Not yet, but we'll see.. As of today, it's been one hundred days since I've eaten anything but Optifast shakes or broth. I could not have even imagined 100 days without carne asada tacos, steaks, hamburgers, pizza, cake or even salad. So how has it been? ABSOLUTE HELL!!! Just kidding.. After the first couple days, it's been pretty manageable. I was hungry the first day, got awful runner's cramps on the 2nd day and since then haven't had to deal with hunger very much at all. When I do get hungry, a shake takes the hunger away. (Insane cravings for gas station pizza are another matter...)

One thing that really helped me get through this diet was the broth. The shakes aren't the greatest, but they sell you packets of chicken broth at Optifast that I would have nightly with hot sauce and lemon. Strange as it may sound, this was often the highlight of my day. As the diet went on, I discovered that I could get broth at restaurants, so that my wife and I started going out to eat for lunch. I started at our favorite Vietnamese restaurants (each a couple blocks from each other). I would order the Pho without noodles, beef or onions- just the broth, please!- and I would add lemon, hot sauce and crushed basil. I wouldn't eat the basil, but it gave it a nice taste. Recently, I began to order chicken broth at a couple Mexican restaurants and seafood broth. At this point, I know it sounds strange, but in the absence of regular food, I've come to really appreciate how delicious broth can be. My wife makes fun of me because before I would never really season anything (but would just eat the "good stuff" out of the soups), but now I put a lot of effort into getting the taste right on my nearly daily broth.

This Saturday, I also went to my 25th high school reunion. It was a good time. Interestingly, more people recognized me than did at my 20th high school reunion. This probably because I'm starting to look a little bit more like the skinny guy I was in high school than the three hundred pound plus lawyer that I've been.

Anyway, it was fun. A lot of joking around, some remembering and I got to at least smell some good BBQ! A friend of mine said, jokingly, that I'd ruined the reunion for him because I was so skinny and it made him feel guilty about eating the hamburgers! He did get over this guilt, somehow, and chow down some burgers, though.

The most negative aspect of the diet after 100 days would probably be the loss of muscle strength and definition in my arms. I've gone from Popeye (in my mind) to Olive Oil..but I know that this is something that I can remedy fairly quickly after I transition back to food. I've already begun looking to rebuild my home gym. In the interim, I've moved up from the 400 calories Optifast 70 to the 800 calories Optifast 800- this, I'm told, will allow me to maintain more of my muscle mass along with my weight workout at the Y. We'll see. First, let's finish this weight loss. 61 pounds to go!

Week 1- 5/8/14 334.5 16.5 318
Week 2- 5/15/14 318.0 6.9 311.1
Week 3- 5/22/14 311.0 5.1 306
Week 4- 5/29/14 306 6.0 300
Week 5- 6/5/14 300 4.5 295.5
Week 6- 6/12/14 295.5 3.0 292.5
Week 7- 6/19/14 292.5 8.5 283
Week 8- 6/26/14 283 4.5 278.5
Week 9- 7/3/14 278.5 5.0 273.5
Week 10- 7/10/14 273.5 1.5 272
Week 11- 7/17/14 272 8.0 264
Week 12- 7/24/14 264 3.5 260.5
Week 13- 7/31/14 260.5 6.0 254.5
Week 14- 8/7/14 254.5 3.5 251.0

Eight Three and a half Pounds lost!

Celebrating my wife's bday, while losing weight!

I'm writing this blog entry mostly while on the Queen Mary. It's a ship bigger than the Titanic that is rumored to be haunted, though the scariest thing I've seen here is a T-bone steak (more on that later). I spent the weekend here for my wife's birthday, which was a lot of fun, but not without its challenges as far as my diet goes.

The two big temptations at celebrations for fat men like me are plentiful food and alcohol. Now, I've never been much for alcohol, outside of the occasional mixed drink, but it is still strange to toast using an Optifast shake. (At a previous b-day party, I had fun toasting with shots of water!) And, after twelve weeks of this diet, I've gotten used to people eating around me. What I wasn't quite prepared for was sitting at a table, where I was surrounded by people eating juicy t-bone steaks. Maria's salads don't tempt me much, but the steaks... Lord have mercy, lol. Sometimes it's very clear to me just how I gained this much weight!

Speaking of weight, I initially thought that I'd be headed for a big weight loss this week because the gym scale showed me at about an 8 pound drop on Monday. It turns out that I only lost 3.5 pounds. Disappointing in a sense, but as long as the weight loss is dropping, life is going well. I've recently "rediscovered" my waist- before I would always wear my pants below the bulge of the belly, but now that my waist has reemerged with the weight loss, I can wear my pants where they are supposed to sit. Of course, this means another trip to the tailor...

I am almost ready to use my 46 long suits, I think just a few more weeks- the blazers fit tightly now, so perhaps as a goal, by my niece's wedding next month, I should be wearing a 46 long. My old hugo boss suit (from law school) and a few ebay suits that I bought are just waiting for me on the clothes rack and I'm eager to move on from my heavily tailored 50 long suits. Today, I wore a pair of pants that were so loose in the legs that I felt like an attorney version of MC Hammer!

I'm not sure what my final suit size will be. A lot depends on how much volume I re-add to my frame when I start weight lifting. I've been on the hunt for a good weight bench and a set of dumbells. I'm also debating whether to hire a personal trainer. My last trainer was excellent, but because of time commitment I was constantly having to cancel our appointments. Still time to think about it, though. Seventy more pounds to go... Piece of cake, right? (or maybe Not a piece of cake..)


Week 1- 5/8/14 334.5 16.5 318
Week 2- 5/15/14 318.0 6.9 311.1
Week 3- 5/22/14 311.0 5.1 306
Week 4- 5/29/14 306 6.0 300
Week 5- 6/5/14 300 4.5 295.5
Week 6- 6/12/14 295.5 3.0 292.5
Week 7- 6/19/14 292.5 8.5 283
Week 8- 6/26/14 283 4.5 278.5
Week 9- 7/3/14 278.5 5.0 273.5
Week 10- 7/10/14 273.5 1.5 272
Week 11- 7/17/14 272 8.0 264
Week 12- 7/24/14 264 3.5 260.5

74 pounds lost.

Seventy Pounds and Counting!

That's me in my wedding tuxedo! I'm planning to use it for my niece's wedding in late August- I know that you're only supposed to use a tux if you're the groom or in the wedding party, but since this may be the last time that a 48 long tuxedo fits me...(I write this with fingers crossed!)

Anyway, this was a very good week! The tally is another eight pounds lost with seventy and a half total pounds lost. And I made it below the second one of my "benchmark" weights (300, 265, 235, 215 and 200 pounds are my significant benchmarks) A long time ago, my brothers pressured me to lose step on a scale because they were concerned about my weight gain post college. I'm actually fairly tough to pressure into anything (unless you're a pretty Latina that married me about a decade ago...), but I reluctantly stepped on the scale, slightly curious. Would I weigh 240 now, 250? I was shocked to see that I was 265! I think I spent the next week at the gym...

God, if I only knew I would weigh above 350 someday. Anyway, now in an ironic turn, I'm thrilled to be weighing "only" 264!

I do realize that I still have another seventy pounds to lose, but it feels great to be halfway there. And, thanks to my height, I don't look seventy pounds over weight. (Maybe 60 pounds overweight? lol) My clothes have all been to the tailor once or twice and I'm not too far away from fitting into my stock of 46 longs. In fact, I'm already thinking less about weight loss and more about the rebuilding of my muscles and the future eating plan that I'll need to keep the weight off.

In other news, my class on meditation was nothing short of amazing. I went in, armed with jokes about Kung Fu Panda and hippies. I left with all my preconceptions shattered. I felt so great after the class- relaxed, energetic and...kind of at peace. The last exercise they had us do was called a "body check" and it was a guided meditation where we focused on different parts of our body. Just fantastic. (as an aside, I felt my ribs after the exercise and was surprised that I could feel my rib cage! Guess I'd been to heavy to feel them before..)

It was an interesting mix of people- there was a type A businessman, a doctor in residency, meditation teachers looking to brush up their skills and some people who were open about huge problems in their life that they were hoping meditation would cure. There was a lady getting over the death of her daughter, another woman there on her birthday and a mother whose out of state son had sent her to the place that he researched as the best to help her deal with her stress!

I had a feeling that I was in the right place, though meditation doesn't come easy to me. My mind has always been restless and it's hard to focus the myriad thoughts running through my head to focus on just my breathing, for instance. But I think it's worth pursuing the discipline in meditation. It may help make this weight loss permanent.

Week 1- 5/8/14 334.5 16.5 318
Week 2- 5/15/14 318.0 6.9 311.1
Week 3- 5/22/14 311.0 5.1 306
Week 4- 5/29/14 306 6.0 300
Week 5- 6/5/14 300 4.5 295.5
Week 6- 6/12/14 295.5 3.0 292.5
Week 7- 6/19/14 292.5 8.5 283
Week 8- 6/26/14 283 4.5 278.5
Week 9- 7/3/14 278.5 5.0 273.5
Week 10-7/10/14 273.5 1.5 272
Week 11-7/17/14 272 8.0 264

One and a half steps forward?

Cue the disaster music! After consistently losing about four to five pounds a week, I stepped on the scale last Thursday and it barely moved. Only a pound and a half lost.. Unexpected, but really I should have seen it coming. Everyone else in my weight loss group has had weeks like this. This was just my turn.

I'm taking a philosophical approach to this- I can't control my results, but I can control my actions and I followed the diet without cheating for a 10th week. Seventy days without tasting juicy hamburgers with bacon, Kung Pao Chicken at my uncle's place, Fillipis' pizza, or the ice cream cake I bought my assistant for his B-day (pictured here). (Can you tell that I still think about food? lol) And I'm still losing the pounds, so I can afford to be patient. As my wife tells me, I didn't become fat overnight...though sometimes it feels like it. I look in the mirror and if I squint just right, I look almost like the 215 pound Berkeley student who boxed "just for fun." If I look further, then I see the jowl and the belly of an attorney with a few too many trips to the all you can eat area. This was "Just for fun," also, I guess, but I'm very glad I don't box anymore...I'd be an awfully big target!

Perhaps my new class in meditation will help me with all this as well. I start on Tuesday night over at UCSD. I must confess, though, that I have my reservations about trying this. I'm always criticizing my parents for jumping on every health food fad (Alkaline water, for instance). I laugh at my brother in law's medicinal ideas (he poured Gatorade on me when his dog bit me to speed the healing!). But now it's me that's going to be me sitting cross legged on a mat, maybe chanting a mantra? Has this UC Berkeley grad finally gotten in touch with his inner hippie? All I know is...studies do consistently show that meditation helps with stress, concentration and memory and I do need to deal with the stress level in my life...

So, I'll buy my yoga mat, light my incense candles (if required) and will try to keep an open mind for once. Kung Fu Panda coming to you soon...

Week 1- 5/8/14 334.5 16.5 318
Week 2- 5/15/14 318.0 6.9 311.1
Week 3- 5/22/14 311.0 5.1 306
Week 4- 5/29/14 306 6.0 300
Week 5- 6/5/14 300 4.5 295.5
Week 6- 6/12/14 295.5 3.0 292.5
Week 7- 6/19/14 292.5 8.5 283
Week 8- 6/26/14 283 4.5 278.5
Week 9- 7/3/14 278.5 5.0 273.5
Week 10- 7/10/14 272 1.5 272

This diet is driving me to drink!

Just kidding. No booze for me while in Mexico wine country. To paraphrase a friend, I get high off of Optifast!

So,it's been nine weeks and sixty pounds since I started the Optifast diet. Nine weeks is significant for me. As a younger man, I used to think that I could always get back into top shape after a lull with a good nine weeks back at the gym. Looking in the mirror, I think it's going to take a wee bit longer this time around, but at least my shape is slightly less round nowadays!

This Sunday took the bike out of the garage for the first time before the diet. After a half hour of looking for my helmet, I was late in meeting my buddy for the ride, so I picked up a helmet at the bike shop. An hour later, my buddy and I were back at that same bike shop because I broke the valve on my tire while pumping air into it. Fifteen minutes later, we were back again because I picked up the wrong type of inner tube..

Eventually though, my friend Louie and I managed a forty minute bike ride. Riding the bike felt better than it had in a long time. I was faster than I can remember being. In fact, on the way back, I looked behind me and realized that I'd left my friend far behind. Bikers often buy lighter carbon frames for their bikes in order to improve speed. I suppose that reducing my own frame by some sixty pounds does make a difference! Endurance-wise, I think I'm definitely going to need more calories if I want to bike ride much longer- maybe an extra shake.

I'm surprised that I've been basically perfect on the diet so far- no solid food in over sixty days! I think it's getting easier to resist eating, but at the same time I know that a slip up could happen at any time. When my wife and her friend were eating pizza at the winery this weekend, it was very tempting to reach over and grab a piece. I just tell myself that I'm close to a third of the way back to my college weight and... try not to stare too much at other people's food.

I sometimes wonder what a difference this weight loss will have in my professional life. Make no mistake, I'm losing the weight primarily for my health. I think I was headed to a heart attack and now I'm healthier than I've been in a long time. Blood pressure is perfect, blood sugar is very low without medication, and my sleep apnea may be gone. Still, people often tell me that losing weight would help me when it comes to getting clients because, I guess, people would prefer a skinny attorney. I hired a business coach for a few months and he also stressed the value of appearance and image.

I guess if you see me driving a BMW a year from now, then people were right about all this. (or, alternatively, if you see my wife driving a Land Rover!) But, on the other hand, I think I'd perfectly happy if you saw a skinny version of me driving the same beat up pickup.

Really, I'd just like to be fit and trim again. My goals for this year are to finish the Rosarito Ensenada bike race (50 miles)in September and to be able to run a 5k in November. I'm also looking forward to doing some serious weight lifting in November when I'm back to eating some solid food.

Week 1- 5/8/14 334.5 16.5 318
Week 2- 5/15/14 318.0 6.9 311.1
Week 3- 5/22/14 311.0 5.1 306
Week 4- 5/29/14 306 6.0 300
Week 5- 6/5/14 300 4.5 295.5
Week 6- 6/12/14 295.5 3.0 292.5
Week 7- 6/19/14 292.5 8.5 283
Week 8- 6/26/14 283 4.5 278.5
Week 9- 7/3/14 278.5 5.0 273.5

Sixty one pounds lost!