Here we are at the end of week 4 and I’m just holding ground. It could certainly be worse since I’m pretty sure I was gaining weight every single week before beginning this little campaign but that’s not a lot of comfort.

I have no real reason to expect the weight to melt away though. I’ve not been the best this past week as I forgot to bring a lunch several days which meant eating out and I also had some half fat ice cream. Not a disastrous week but when I’m not exercising, less than stellar.

I gotta admit, I’m not really feelin’ it. The house is crazy enough right now with Aidan and two insane dogs. I don’t need to be worried about everything I ingest. I’m not bailing though. The craziness is not an excuse to eat like a slob so I’ll keep trying. At the very least though, I don’t expect a huge change until I can start exercising. That means I don’t see too much happening in the way of weightloss until things get a little warmer.

Weight= 248
Body Fat %= 38%
Pounds Lost= 3

Today begins the fourth week of TFMC and it didn’t start so great. My weigh in today showed what I feared, a weight gain of one pound. While I’m not ready to jump off a bridge, I am a little disappointed.

When I think of this last week though I know I’m to blame. I slacked big time on bringing lunches to work and that means I ate out. While I tried to be good and I’ve stayed away from the fast food chains, its not exactly like I’ve been eating veggie pockets. I take some solace in the fact that I can see the problem. There’s nothing worse than gaining when you think you’ve been good.

Exercise is now the big thing I need to tackle. This week we’ll begin experimenting with walks. I say experimenting because I really have very little time to work with. I’m up at 5:45am as it is and there’s no free time there. I come home at 6, change the boy, and cook dinner. By 8 we’re heading for bed. We’ve decided that for now I’ll try walking at 8 pm once the dos have gone to bed and Jaime is settling with Aidan. Its not perfect but its the best time we can find.

I’m hoping to do 1 hour walks 3 nights a week, not including the weekend. This will start, hopefully, tomorrow night. The exercise should ultimately help me to lose more weight more consistently as well as keep me from getting winded when I tie my shoes.

Weight: 248
Body Fat %: 37.5
Pounds Lost: 3

Week three begins with only a minor change but at least its in the right direction. I lost another pound this week. I’m sort of surprised that’s all I lost considering my appetite has been in the crappy all week due to my cold. Regardless, I’m happy I’m on the right side of that pound.

I’m feeling more energy already and although it could be the cold talking, I’m feeling better about my food choices now. I don’t feel like I need fatty foods. I’m also pretty alright with the lack of soda. I still have my ginger ale at home but that’s really just a can a day. Not too bad at all.

I feel like I want to start exercising too. I’m hoping maybe I can start walking this week at night but Jaime and I have yet to talk about the logistics of that. I’ve been walking with the dogs each morning for what I’d guess is close to a half mile but that’s neither long enough nor fast enough to be of any real benefit to me. The dogs seem to like it though!

Its off to the grocery store this week for some better foods for me. Hopefully we can keep up this trend of losing at least a pound a week!

Weight: 247
Body Fat %: 38
Pounds Lost: 4

What a great start to my “healthy lifestyle” this has been. First it gets postponed for baby craziness. Then, once it gets started, its a sputtering start because of all the leftover food in the house and a lack time to properly prepare for good eating. As if that weren’t enough, I finally get sick, pushing any real attempts at a balanced diet out the window.

In a way its a good thing. Life isn’t neat and orderly so I shouldn’t be fashioning a long term diet in a clean room. Real life is all about disruptions and how you manage to slalom your way to a straight course through those disruptions instead of getting swept way off course by them.

I have pretty high expectations of myself on this quest because I’ve done it before. I wish I had half the resolve now that I did in 1999 when I decided to quit a pack and a half a day smoking habit and lose 60 pounds in 7 months. People asked me how I did it and was it hard. My honest answer was always “no, its not hard.” It really wasn’t. I had made my mind up and this was just the way I was living now. The problem was, I wasn’t realistic about my maintenance routine. My idea of maintenance was to eat whatever I wanted and sweat it off in a 2-3 hour workout later.

Time is no longer on my side though. I couldn’t find a 2-3 hour chunk of time for a workout without cutting out some of the precious few hours of sleep I get at night. Without the excessive workouts I’m left to really watch what I eat. I don’t have the buffer zone I had 7 years ago. At the same time, I’m not going to eat twigs and berries for every meal. I want to enjoy my food, I just need to learn not to enjoy it so much.

After a second, ill week in TFMC I guess what I’m saying is that I’m happy where things are headed. I’m making healthier decisions than I did a month ago and hopefully I’ll continue to make healthier and healthier decisions down the road. I feel like I probably lost some weight this week. My jeans buttoned awfully easily this morning. Of course, a debilitating cold will do that to you but I’ll take what I can get!

Now some of you have been requesting that I start up with the pictures thing. All I can say is, you poor, sick bastards. You are the people that slow down traffic when there’s an accident because you’re craning your neck to see the carnage. IF I feel better this weekend, I’ll start up with the photos. That’s a big if though because we still have a lot of stuff to catch up on after our illnesses.