FIT Photographers

I am struggling.

Mainly because I feel like I see no progress.

My goal is to be fit and active. To lead a healthy lifestyle, which includes regular exercise & activity, minimal TV/computer sedintary activities (HA! Good luck with my career choices … ) and to have a healthy outlook on food. To enjoy cooking / planning healthy meals and to be able to resist the chips and candy and snacks loaded with processed ingredients and other yucky stuffs.

I want to be able to go out to eat with friends / family and order what I want and have a drink or two and not beat myself up over it. To know that I’m active enough and I have a healthy diet so that it is not an issue to occasionally over induldge on unhealthy foods.

I know this means I need to continue working out at the gym. And I need to find ways to incorporate more activity into my life. Currently that seems so impossible. When I’m not shooting a session I’m at the computer, typing, editing, processing. It’s never ending. But there has to be baby steps somewhere.

I want to start making breakfast for the toddler and myself again. We did it for a few weeks and I thought it was an awesome start to the day, time to get back on track with that again. And maybe instead of the TV on for background noise I could just have some music.

I’ve lost 5 pounds.

In the last six weeks.

I’ve joined the local YMCA and started doing 500 calorie burning workouts 4 days a week.

I’ve banned soda from being in the house, and Mark and I have never been big on chips or candy or other snackie foods.

We’ve incorporated salads into our meals and try to base meals on veggies vs meat or carbs.

And all I’ve lost is 5 pounds.

Guess I’ll just try harder.

Do we really need burgers like this in the world?

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090325/ap_on_fe_st/odd_bodacious_burger

So, I have a sad confession to make.  I am addicted to crack.

Not the kind that is sold out of the back of long low automobiles in shady alleys.

I’m addicted to the kind that is packaged into nearly every processed food on the planet.

High Fructose Corn Syrup.

My favorite packaged liquid crack

I have to admit, my favorite way of imbibing this nectar of nutrition is in the form of soda.  Specifically, McDonald’s Coke.

Have you ever noticed that McDonald’s Coke tastes a little different from the Coke you buy everywhere else?  I’m not sure what it is, but it’s not the same as Coke from, for example, 7-11.  I don’t get it.

But, I digress.

McDonald’s Coke comes in 4 sizes.  Kids, Small, Medium, and Large.

When I was a kid, I remember going into a McDonald’s, and watching in awe as a construction worker (a big burly guy) walked up to the counter, and said loudly, “I’ll have a large Coke.”  The worker behind the counter looked impressed, and put his large cup on the counter.  At that time, McDonald’s cup sizes were (to the best of my recollection) 8 oz, 12 oz, and 16 oz.  The cup to the left (which today is called a MEDIUM) is 21 ounces.  The large today is 32 ounces.

I remember the first time I saw a Big Gulp at 7-11.  32 ounces of soda!  I had a friend named Jamie that would get a Big Gulp, and he’d put the straw in the cup while it was filling, and rapidly suck down as much as he could … while it was filling … so he actually ended up with something like 50-60 ounces of soda.

Today you can buy these mugs at 7-11 that look closer to mini-kegs than to actual cups.  I am waiting for them to come out with the “Huge Gulp” that will have an accessory roller.  This will be like the oxygen tanks you see old people with lung problems toting around - but instead of a tube to the nose, it’ll be a tube directly down your throat, with drip dispersal, so you get your constant fix.

I used to go through a 2 liter bottle of Pepsi every two days.  Broke the habit, then got back on.  Broke it again, got back on.  I’m currently trying to get off.

The medium Coke from McDonald’s has 210 calories and 58 grams of sugar.  One little sugar packet has 4 grams of sugar.  So, that’s the equivalent of having 12 teaspoons of sugar.  If you do the math on the caloric content, 210 calories of sugar is a bit over 1/4 cup.

Suckin’ that stuff down.  Goes down smooth, sweet, and delicious.  Gets into your system, add in the caffeine, and pretty soon you’re addicted - just like Ronald wants.

Any relation between the rising tide of diabetes, and the prevalence of HFCS everywhere?  Did you know that HFCS is even in ketchup?

High Fructose Corn Syrup - is there a 12 step program for this?

What is body image? From the website http://bodyimagetherapy.com/index.html they said “It is the self-image we have in our mind’s eye. It is affected by relationships we have and have had with our caregivers and peers, all of our life experiences, and how we think others perceive us. It is changeable”

We women go through our lives feeling like we need to look like barbie dolls with just the right curves. With just the right size of breasts and even the right size butt. We are judged at the size we are. Even the non judging type of people, myself included, judge others for their size and especially themselves. I think we are the worse critics on ourselves. We think that the world itself is holding us to certain standards. (I’m not picking on men or leaving them out… but this blog is more about my own self realization.)

Honeslty what comes to mind is the poor battle Jessica Simpson is having. YES she is in the spotlight and yes she makes oogles of money more than all of us put together. But she is still a person. And all the talk about how much weight she has gained is horrible. She is a woman and the truth is, we are our own worse enemy. I feel bad for her having to deal with her own insecurites, which I’m sure she has, as well as the public picking on her. This really got me thinking.

As you all know I’ve been trying to lose weight. I’ve always felt I should be back at what I was at the age of 18. If I were to go back to 125lbs I would have to lose 55lbs. But do I need to lose ALL that weight to feel better about myself? Is it just my body that needs to change or my opinion of my body?

I’m not saying I don’t need to lose weight. I can already tell my body is getting health problems because of my weight. I am hyperglycemic and diabetes does run in the family so just for health concerns I need to lose weight.

But the thing is I’m still pretty fit for my weight. I do compare myself to other my weight and they are 2 or 4 dress sizes larger than me. I have always been curvy with large breasts, butt and smaller waist. (even at 125lbs!!) and a lot of guys like that. But even when I weighed that much I thought I was “fat” and was always on diets trying to lose weight. The problem there was my self image NOT my weight. Now it may be a little of both but I know that no matter what I lose it will not be enough.

These few months have been hard, but also a learning experience. I know what makes me over eat, I know what it is that causes me to gain weight. But the most important lesson so far is I know how to MAINTAIN my weight. I may have not lost all the weight I’ve wanted to lose by now but I’ve learned a lot. This is not a 3 month diet just to go back to what I was doing. It is to start a healthier lifestyle away from the fast food places, learning how to drink more water, more walks and workouts.

I expected to be almost done with my venture by now but I just realize that is will never end. In the end I need to have a healthier lifestyle as well as a healthier body image.

I hope you all accomplished your goals and if you didn’t I hope you have learned as much as I have.

So, it’s been quite a while since any of you heard from me at Fit Photographers and I’m sorry about that.  I would like to request a “Do-Over”.  After another couple of months of trying to exercise and eat well on my own I finally figured out something:  I can’t do this alone.  I’m tired of repeating the “Try, Fail” pattern in my life so I’ve enlisted a friend of mine to be my personal trainer.  She actually was going to school to be a nutritionist so she’s got a lot more tools under her belt than I do.  And, she’s hardcore and she knows me pretty well so she’s sure to kick my butt when I need it.

So, here’s the program she set me up with:

I’m going to start working out doing cardio for 30 mins 3 days a week for the next 3 weeks.  She then has me adding on strength training for weeks 4-6 and then more cardio for the three weeks after that.  Then, we’re going to re-evaluate how everything is going and probably bump me up to longer cardio sessions.  I eventually want to be doing 60-90 mins of cardio 5 days a week.  I’m sooo glad she’s going to be building me up to that instead of just starting out with the long sessions.  I’m starting on the stationary bike tomorrow.

As far as food goes, she’s set me up with one of the basic food pyramid diets.  I’m going to be eating 6 small meals a day and trying to get all of the daily recommended servings of good stuff.  I’m so happy I won’t have to count calories and following the pyramid seems like a no-brainer.  She said that I can still eat an occasional treat once a week if I’m good…yay!

Also, I’m going to be writing in a food and exercise journal that she’ll go over once a week to keep me accountable.  I’m so ready to get rid of all this extra weight and finally be healthy again and I’m so thankful I won’t have to do it alone.

Hope all of you are still doing well on your way to fitness!

Kim

Making up time that is…..

After Imaging USA I found myself playing catchup on all sorts of things and that’s my lame excuse for not posting for a bit. Fortunately, I have continued to work out. I haven’t even weighed myself in awhile because I’m just so stoked about what else exercise and a good diet have done for me (By the way, everybody that eats is on a diet - some good….. some not so much).

Shortly after I started my new life of activity and planning what I eat instead of letting whims control all, I started taking blood sugar readings before and after exercise. At that time my fasting blood sugars taken before breakfast would be in the mid to high 100’s. Two hours after breakfast they’d be between the 160’s and 190’s. That would be my measurements right before exercise. I noticed that after a workout, whether it was weights or a bicycle ride, my blood sugars would plummet to 100 or less, often into the 80’s. Wow! They’d stay that way until I ate again and would jump up to the 120’s.

This week I’ve seen a change in the numbers. I’m waking up to fasting sugars of 119 to 125 (today’s reading). That seems to me to indicate that exercise and proper nutrition are starting to have a cumulative effect. If there’s a downside to this, it is that exercise doesn’t halve my readings any more. I’ll go from the low 120’s to mid 90’s. Dramatic is exciting. I’d do a fist pump and hiss out a, “Yesssssss!” when I’d drop nearly 90 points. Dropping 30 points or fewer isn’t as exciting on the surface, but when you stop to think about it, it’s not the drop that counts. It’s far better to have a consistenly lower average than to have large fluctuations.

Now I intend to focus on dropping more belly fat to see if we can get those numbers “normalized”. I want to get down into the range that is considered to be normal. In other words. I’d like to drop “diabetic” from my list of achievements. I survived cancer twice. Let’s see if I can put a whoopin’ on the big D.

Edit:

Hey, be sure and check out my buddy A. J. Wood’s progress. He’s not in our group but he has been inspired (along with some others) to join us in our quest for healthier lives. AJ’s a top notch Adobe trainer and travels the country teaching folks like us (photographers), designers, etc. how to use Adobe products. He’ll correct me if I’m wrong, but I believe he was awarded for being the top trainer. I don’t think he’s with Adobe, but is a certified freelancer. Or maybe he’s certifiable……. ummmm, no. That would be me….

AJ’s Update

Monday morning, in order to kick off February properly, I decided it was time for a weigh in. I wearily got on the scale, expecting no change.

Instead, it displayed a new weight. 222. Down. 5 Pounds gone. I have no idea where they went. I don’t want them to return.

I suspect that I’ve again been under-eating, and since I actually kicked up my caloric intake last week, the scale moved. That is all I can figure out.

Meanwhile, my assistant and I have started doing daily walks. 30+ minutes, every morning, to start our day off right. Today was day 2 of our walks, and we had a great plan. It was cold this morning, so we decided to wait until lunch and walk then - walking up to a local eatery, eating lunch, and then walking back to go back to work. Perfect!

Well, almost perfect. As it turned out, the restaurant was gone. A “for lease” sign in the window. Oops. So we walked back home - rather hungry, since we had timed it for lunch - and then got in the car to go get something to eat. The down side of living in the suburbs? There were no other restaurants within walking distance that we could go to instead. Oh, how I dream of living somewhere where I can walk places. Someday.

Hi, I’m Bill, and I’m a foodaholic.

I originally signed up for this Fit Photographers thing back when it first started, and was pretty much bugging Christine and Carlos to get it going - then it got going, and I got distracted.  I know, I know, it’s a weak excuse, but … everything has a cycle, and I missed the “motivation moment”.

I’m a photographer/videographer based in Frederick, MD.  I started out in videography, added photography, found I enjoyed that more - so started focusing on that.   I also do Wordpress websites for a variety of purposes - a few for profit, a few for non-profits.

It’s not like I set out to be overweight.  When I first signed up for this I was:

• Height: 6′0″
• Weight: 228

I might have seen 229 on the scale one time, but that could have been a mirage, or it could have been the night after a large pizza.  I don’t remember.  I don’t want to remember.

I might post a picture here.  I’m not sure.  Stuff on the internet has a way of coming back to haunt you.  I’d have to get it done soon - I’m already losing!

When I graduated from college (1991) I was 185 lbs.  I was in really good shape - playing volleyball a lot, bicycling a lot.  But then I got married, got a desk job (software engineer) - sedentary living, less exercise … the pounds sneaked onto my body.  After being a software engineer for a while, I become a university professor of computer science in 1999 - more activity, more walking around campus - but also more time late at night at the computer doing projects for my PhD.  Late night munchies, weekend-long programming marathons - this all leads to fast food, easy food, greasy food, too much food.  If you don’t pay attention to what you eat, it’s easy to eat too much.

At one point I was up to 238 pounds.  Ouch.

In 2001 (maybe 2002) I heard about the Atkins diet from a friend of mine who had lost 40 pounds in a relatively short period of time.  So, I decided I was going to give it a shot.  That summer, I worked out at the gym every day for an hour (mostly the stationary cycle and the elliptical machine), and followed the Atkins diet.  The pounds melted off!  In the middle of the process, I was losing about a pound a day, sometimes a pound and 1 or 2 ounces - every day!

The downside of Atkins is that it’s really hard on the body - your skin gets greasy, your breath stinks (ketosis), and (worse) I got really really really irritable.  I was not a fun person to live with.  (Ask my wife.  Or better, don’t.)  But I lost a lot of weight, got down to 190, losing about 45 pounds in 8 weeks.

Then slowly the pounds crept back on … more programming, more long winter weekends, more projects.

So, right around the beginning of this whole Fit Photographer’s thing - I get on the scale again - whoa!  I’m almost up to 230?  No way!  Impossible!  So I get a haircut and take off my underwear, that didn’t make a huge difference on the scale, ya know?

About the same time, my wife happened to record Paul McKenna’s “I can make you thin” series that was running on cable.  Really interesting stuff.  Basically, he has four rules (which I will be covering over the next several articles)…

I also read “The Four Hour Workweek”, and started following Tim Ferriss’ blog (here’s a sample) - and he has his own advice, which is interesting.  I’ll be writing about that, too.

Today I got on the scale - I’m 219.  Hoorah.  And that’s without any increase in exercise.  (We have been having snowstorms, ice storms, and freezing weather here. I’m not a “cold weather” person - unless it’s a ski slope.)

I’m looking forward to participating here more.  My goal is 190.  If I can hit 185, I’ll be ecstatic.

For no other reason except this last week has been hectic.  Really hectic, and insanely frustrating.  I’ve had zero opportunity to work out, and just today all I wanted was a Big Mac, French Fries, and a LARGE Dr. Pepper.  For the first time in almost two months, I just didn’t care.  So I did it.  I ate it and then proceeded to eat Chinese food for dinner in large quantities.

As if it helps, I am feeling quite embarrassed by my obvious food temper-tantrum.

I just wish I knew how to get on top of things when I feel this way. Because, in order to be successful with this weight loss journey, I need to find ways to work through those big feelings without retreating to comfort foods and my t.v. watching sofa.