100 Day Challenge Log

It begins!  I am going to keep a log of what I do every day so that I stay motivated.  2 days down, 98 to go!

Starting Weight: 296

Day 1: 3/30/11--30 minutes Jogging/walking
Day 2: 3/31/11--30 minutes Jillian Workout DvD (almost died, for reals)
Day 3: 4/1/11--30 minutes Jogging/walking treadmill
Day 4: 4/2/11--Rest (soreness)
Day 5: 4/3/11--Rest (soreness)
Day 6: 4/4/11--Rest (laziness)
Day 7: 4/5/11--Rest (laziness)
Day 8: 4/6/11--30 minutes Jogging/walking treadmill
Day 9: 4/7/11--30 minutes Jillian workout dvd
Day 10: 4/8/11--Date night! no workout today!
Day 11: 4/9/11--30 minutes Jogging/walking treadmill
Day 12: 4/10/11--Rest
Day 13: 4/11/11--Rest
Day 14: 4/12/11--Rest
Weighed in at WW: 293.4
Day 15:4/13/11--30 minutes Jillian workout dvd
Day 16: 4/14/11--30 minutes Jogging/walking
Day 17: 4/15/11--20 minutes Jillian workout dvd
Day 18: 4/16/11--Nothing! lazy!
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And a motivational picture:  What I looked like right after the mission (Roughly 200 lbs)

Update and a Challenge!

Well its been a couple months and I thought i would update things on the fat-fighting front.  I did pretty well at weight watchers and at my lowest I dropped down to about 290 making my loss over about 6 weeks roughly 20 pounds.  The last month and a half has been kinda a fallback to old habits and its been a quick journey back up 5 or 6 pounds.  The more I think about weight gain and weight loss its really about pleasure and pain. Night after night of late night bowls of cereal and pasta depositing microscopic ounces of fat is definitely pleasurable.  To take off those ounces requires an almost equal and opposite amount of pain in exercise and dieting.  That's why eating out of control is never really satisfying, because you know that sometime your going to have to fess up eventually and pay you dues to reverse the damage.

I think its unreasonable to think that you can make eating perfectly a lifestyle change.  Eating bad stuff is just too much fun.  It's better to be honest and realize that if you are going to eat bad stuff now and then, that you have to work it off somehow.  The obvious answer is to exercise every day.  It seems like people I see that can eat bad stuff and not gain weight have either freakish genetics, or like most people have to do something every day to keep themselves in shape.

I came across something on facebook that I thought sounded pretty cool.  It's called the 100 day challenge.  It's simple: get up and move every day for 30 minutes every day for 100 days.  It can be anything, just has to be you moving.  I've wanted to keep up more with this online journal and this may be a good way to do it.  So I am going to post what I did, for how long, and update my weight now and then.  I think it would be a very nice habit to get into that I have never had and would make losing weight a ton easier.  We will see..

http://www.100dayschallenge.org/

Talking to yourself is fun!

  
And watch this funny demonic video too!  Its a slowed down version of an olsen twins song!

The Master Cleanse Days 6-8

Well things are going pretty well i suppose. I only have 3 more days left to go and overall there haven't been too many issues. We went to WholeFoods market on saturday to get some more lemons and maple syrup and had an interesting talk with the store clerk. She informed us that one of her co-workers does the cleanse for 30 days strait, once every year! I could not imagine being on this cleanse for a whole month. Doing something for 10 days is possible, but anymore and i think i would be thouroghly sick.

Ive decided against a day to day journal for the last few days simply because nothing has changed. I will mention last night's sunday dinner though cause it was pretty funny. Sara and I trade off going to each of our parents for sunday dinner and it just so happened that it was my parents turn. So we go over and she made lasagna with a mountain of garlic bread. I don't know why i did it to myself but i sat there the whole time with my 2 bottles of lemonade while my family chowed down right in front of me. I don't know what it is but people like to torture you if you are on any sort of diet plan that is not normal. Meanwhile my dad kept calling the lemonade goat piss and making goat noises. Overall i would say its a good idea not to put yourself in a situation where everyone is eating around you because its freaking hard.

Owell such is life. 3 more days to go then life will resume. I have decided that i have enough energy to study and cram for finals so i will be doing the cleanse through finals. Wish me luck.

Lemonade Days 2-5

If you want to read from the beginning start on the first Lemonade post.

Well its been a few day on this crazy diet and i decided to update the blog.

Day 2
This was probably the worst day so far on the diet. I had to get to lab for a final and so i decided that i didn't have time to do the salt wash in the morning so instead i took the senna laxative tea. For some reason on the box its called "Smooth Move"....yeah its not so smooth in the day. I had crazy sick cramps and like 3-4 bowel movements that made me worry that i might be having diarrhea. Luckily after about 1pm everything stopped on the poop front, and lets just sum up day 2 with 1 important fact--Senna tea sucks in the morning. Aside from that I was pretty hungry in the evening.

Day 3
This day was pretty uneventful to be honest. Plenty of energy and an overall good day. Although a strange phenomena has taken place with my sense of smell and taste. I have been told that our brain has a receptors that basically turn off our taste and smell when we are full--which makes sense because if you eat to much you feel freaking sick. Well quite the opposite is happening to me with this constant bland liquid diet. I feel like my sense of smell is heightened like 5 times. I can seriously go into a room and smell multiple specific smells. An example was in Class there was one kid drinking coffee, another eating peanuts, and several chewing gum--and i could specifically tell that one was cinnamon and the other was mint. Call me crazy but my body is acting weird. At night I stayed up until like 2am playing computer games so i forgot to do the senna tea. Oh well I did better the next day.

Day 4
As far as feeling exhausted, this was the worst day. I have come to discover that it was not because of the diet but it was cause i got much less sleep the night before. Its funny how your mind plays tricks on you--you think about all these things you've read and maybe they might be happening to you. The bizarre thing is that you can really live without solid food--and live relatively normally. The only thing i really miss is the taste of food, and the social interaction associated with food. I mean common we eat with family and friends and it kinda sucks to be out of that loop. It's only for 10 days right?

Day 5
Well I can finally talk in the present tense because..well today is today. I honestly feel 100% better compared to yesterday. I think its cause i got like 9 hours of sleep. I did the salt wash this morning after class and lemme tell you as far as a morning laxative its so much better than the senna tea. No cramps. No emergencies. Just an easy BM or 2 about an hour after gulping it down. I never thought i would say it but I'm even used to gulping down a quart of salty water now. In addition i am an expert and juicing lemons and can make my daily batch of lemonade in a relatively quick manner. Sara and I joked at the beginning of this whole thing that it would be a really inexpensive diet because we already had all the stuff for it and we would only have to buy lemons. Well guess what? Organic lemons are $1 each. Total crap. I use 4 lemons daily, and also buying a crap ton of water and more Grade B maple syrup halfway through....its not going to be as expensive as normal eating but still. Oh by the way normal lemons are 4/$1. What a ripoff to be a health conscious person. Whatever.

The Lemonade Diet

I wanted to keep a journal about this little master cleanse and i figured why not publish it. My sister recently got married and tried this little deal called "The master cleanser" diet--also known as the lemonade diet. Many television shows have poked fun at it (the office--Kelly Kapur) and its been around for a long time. It must be said that this diet is not really meant to help you lose weight, it is primarily a cleansing diet to flush out your system. I have been looking around for a cleansing type diet for a while and this seems the safest way. So heres the diet:

How Long: 10 days on, with 3 days afterward to get back on solid food slowly.

The daily regime:

1) Morning Salt Wash--1 Quart of water with 2 teaspoonfuls of Uniodized sea salt on an emty stomach

2) The daily supply of Lemonade--60 ounces of Distilled or spring water + 12 tablespoons of fresh squeezed organic lemon juice + 12 tablespoons of Grade B organic Maple syrup + 1/2 teaspoonful of Cayenne Pepper.

3) "Smooth Move" natural Senna herbal tea at night before bed

Additional notes:

• Plain water may be used at any time in addition to the lemonade
• A Mint herbal tea may be used at any time to break up the taste boredom
• Less maple syrup may be used, but always the full amount of lemon juice must be used
• Exercise is fine during the diet

With that all Said Lets get up to speed on how my trip has been so far:
Warning: The following will be complete and graphic with much detail into more poop than any normal reader may usually venture. Reader has been warned

1) The night before: The laxative tea really tastes pretty bland with only a slight hint of something fruity. Its decent though and i dont think it will cause a problem. The biggest issue will be the fact that i have to wake up so early to get the salt wash in before i have to leave for school.

2) Day 1: With all that i had read about the natural senna tea i was assuming that there would be some rediculous bowel movement in the middle of the night or something but it was relatively normal. I drank the entire quart of salt wash and it was pretty sick. I truly feel that this will be the hardest part of the whole plan. I gagged a couple times trying to drink it all down. I then made my concoction of lemonade which actually took a while with all the squeezing and measuring.

I was warned to not go anywhere for at least an hour after drinking the salt mixture down so as not to explode somewhere where i shouldn't, but after an hour and 20 minutes i decided that perhaps it didnt work and i headed off to school. I drank my first bottle of the lemonade and realized that the cayenne pepper makes the stuff pretty spicy. Lets just say that this aint no country time lemonade.

When i got to school it hit me hard and i freaking ran to the bathroom to have perhaps the most explosive bowel evacuation of my life. It was actually kinda funny and it made me laugh out loud in the mens room. The rest of the day went pretty well and i drank the entire amount of lemonade having a little bit of headache from the massive change of eating habits. I am about to go make my senna tea but wanted to post and get this started before i go do my homework. Cheers!

Update time!

Well unfortunately its been a really long time since I've written anything in my blog. Reasons? Umm maybe its summer and theres no classes to be taken and the stress level is severely decreased so i think about things of blogging nature less. Either way i think its time to take a look at those goals that i set down. What were they again? oh i remember.

1. Be more on time.
2. Drop to a healthy weight.
3. Improve my study habits.
4. Stop biting my nails.
5. Read my scriptures, pray, and be involved more in church activities.

1. For my first and most important goal of being more on time I can honestly say that i have improved tremendously. That first week i started this i remember being 100% on time for everything i said i was going to be at. As the weeks progressed I tried my hardest to stick to this, with an occasional slip-up, but with nothing more than 5 minutes or so. Sara has noticed a difference and she is the person that i think this weakness affected the most. Result: Success!

2. So how is weight watchers going? Well as of last week I'm down a total of 14 pounds! Not too shabby. Also in the last few weeks I have been been getting into running for the first time in my life. I have always had a goal of running a 5k (3.1 miles) and i think I have finally found the solution. At www.coolrunning.com they have an article entitled "couch to 5k" in which it lays out a program that if followed will have you running a 5k in 9 weeks. It includes running 3 days a week with ever increasing requirements finishing in a final goal of running for 30 minutes straight. Anyone who has ever been interested in running but gets super frustrated when they start this is the coolest article i have ever found. (Kent Hambly just ran his first 10k after 5 months of doing it and has dropped over 60 pounds) Oh also I'm lifting weights three times a week too which feels good. Result: Getting there!

3. This one is a little tricky mainly because i made a big mistake at the beginning of the semester that was way before i stopped playing Wow. Long story short, i tried to withdraw from a class about 6 weeks in but my professor wouldn't let me and the CSU system said it was too late. So after talking to the counselor she said my only options were to try to spring back and aim for a C or B (cause i had missed a test completely thinking i could withdraw) or cut my losses and get an F, then repeating the class next semester and delete the old grade. So in the end i opted for door number 2 and took my first FAIL. Man that word is harsh. On a bright note I severely improved my study habits over the last month and a half of the semester and i got straight A's in all my other classes. How cool is that? 4 A's and an F. How does that happen? Either way I'm proud of my success despite the one minor setback. Result: Success!

4. This is perhaps my favorite goal success story. I purchased this stuff called "Thum" which is essentially clear nail polish with cayenne pepper in it. I painted it on my nails for the first week or so which is always the worst. Surprisingly enough i was only surprised by the sick nasty taste of the stuff a couple times during the week but i think the fact that i had the stuff on kept me from wanting to bite. A couple tactics that i used to curb this habit were to put a pair of nail clippers on my keyring so that i would have a pair with me at all times. If there was something to bite i would stop myself and immediately cut it off. As it turns out my cuticles are healthy again and my nails look like a normal person's nails for about the first time that i can remember. Hows that for nipping a sick nasty habit thats always been with me? Result: Total Success!

5. Epic failure in this department. I asked myself the question when i reviewed my previous goals: why were spiritual goals last on my list? I think we get caught up in all the things we have to do when these important spiritual steps take back seat cause they are things we should do. I have been more involved in church activities, but nothing like i should. Prayer is a tough thing for me, especially at night when i I'm dog tired. Reading the scriptures are also hit and miss. I have 4 months before i get married and i want to be closer to the lord before i see my bride across the alter in the temple. Holy crap I'm excited. Result: Setback!

So in the end 4/5 of the goals are pretty solid. There were some minor setbacks with each but that is to be expected. I am so proud of myself and my chance to overcome so many of my weaknesses. The real trick is to keep going and continue these good habits into the next semester and hopefully the rest of my life.