13 pounds down

Well, I’ve managed to loose now 13 pounds since January 4th and let me tell you, I feel like CRAP. The math-o-matics work out to something on the order of 800-1000 calories every day or, to put it into perspective, 4.465 bowls of breakfast cereal with 1% milk. Plus a regimented workout plan created by my very own father, which I’ve decided is too confusing to follow and will be asking for a newer, simplified plan that doesn’t involve bizarre 4 minute bursts of running interspersed between walking and interpretive dance.

It’s not that I miss eating copious amounts of food, mind you. I got over that after about the second week, I just find myself bored and hungry - time I would have otherwise enjoyed being bored and eating, or bored and cooking something in a kiddie pool of butter. But I’ve found new flavors in the foods I eat, that don’t involve deep frying or extensive introduction of exogenous fat. For instance, the difference in flavor between adding 5 tablespoons of butter to a chicken breast and adding none is remarkably small.

But we shall see. My ’small goal’ is 30 pounds by April 1st, to put me at a pleasant 189 pounds. My sinsiter ‘almost killing myself’ goal is only 40 pounds more to put me at a comfy 179 pounds, which I haven’t been at since I started graduate life.

This diet thing

I’m doing this diet thing right now.  It’s horribly painful.  Let me tell you about it:

I weighed 219 pounds at the beginning of this year after returning from the all-you-can-eat-and-drink resort in Mexico.  I get back and hear of this contest in the department about loosing as much weight as possible and winning lots of money, so I entered it.  10 days later I’ve lost 9 pounds and I think I’m still dropping… but it’s killing me.

Like, I have small bouts of Retrograde amnesia where I can’t remember peoples’ names (like my wife’s) or if I zone out while I’m driving I suddenly can’t remember where I’m going.  You know, inconvenient things like that.  It finally culminated in being forced to go home because I couldn’t hold my head up long enough to do chemistry.  I did the maths and found my caloric intake was somewhere around 400 Cal a day plus the aerobics I was doing.

Whoops.

Now I track what I eat and try to keep it around 1200 Cal a day.

No wonder anorexics are flakes.

Chapter 1: The Biggest Loser

Here begins the blog. At the beginning I weighed 219 pounds. I must lose most of that weight to get to a BMI which is more respectable. My goal is to lose 40 pounds by the end of March.

I have entered into a competition with 7 other people. We all pitched in $50 and the 1st place winner takes home $200. Thanks to generous benefactors, by actual take home will be $1000 with matching rewards, which will go toward PAYING DOWN MY HUGE STUDENT LOANS. Which will be nice.