I was playing around with some numbers for other projects I’m working on, and decided to see how only one small change could affect my weight (in theory).

For example, a 12 oz. can of Coke is 140 calories. Now, let’s say I have only one can a day. If I’m not doing enough activity to burn that 140 calories, and I wind up with a 140 calorie surplus a day, everyday (either by drinking a Coke, eating a second helping of apple pie, or something else), then in one month, I’ll have a surplus of 4200 calories.

A pound is roughly 3500 calories, so I’m gaining 1.2 lbs. a month. Not really noticeable, right? My weight typically fluctuates within a few pounds during the week anyway. But, by the end of the year, I will have stored 50,400 calories or, to put it another way, a very noticeable 14.4 lbs….and now multiply that for any given number of years, and I’ve got trouble.

At that rate, over 3 years, I will have put on 43.2 lbs.

I’m using 3 years as an example because I weigh the same now as I did 3 years ago.

When all you see are diet and exercise plans for losing 10 lbs. in 10 days, 20 lbs. in a month, 50 lbs. in 90 days, and the like, it never really occurs to you that maybe — just maybe — losing 1.2 lbs. a month really can make a difference.

There’s no doubt that I’d be happy to be 43.2 lbs. lighter today.

I’m doing way more than just not drinking one can of soda, so I’m hoping that I’ll lose more than 1.2 lbs. a month (1.5 would be awesome!). But looking at the big picture one small piece at a time reminds me that it’s okay to slow down, and not feel disappointed in small victories simply because I think I could have or should have done better.

Celebrate victories, even the small ones. They add up.

Well, this is the beginning of Week 3 of my Back to the Gym adventures, and today was rough.

Last week, my knees (specifically, the area just below my knees) started feeling really achy and sore, and I thought I might have damaged them by overdoing “the running”. I have to use quotation marks with “the running” because I’m not entirely convinced that what I was doing was actual running. More like lurching maybe?

Anyway, I’ve dialed back “the running” portion of my workout to a half-mile, and won’t be adding more distance to my “running” until I can do the half-mile fairly easily.

Today, I stretched, did a nice 5-minute warm-up walk, and launched into my half-mile. It was painful. My muscles felt stiff, and my knees were not letting me do what I wanted to do. I thought “uh-oh”. I probably shouldn’t be doing this.

But I did.

Afterwards, I did I a 5-minute cool-down walk, stretched some more, and cursed more than a little. (I would have cursed more but I was winded.)

Then I tried running the short length of the gym. Back and forth I went. On the third round, I tried to sprint, which I more or less pulled off. I did some weights and, feeling light-headed, I decided I was done for the day.

On the way out to the car, I noticed my legs didn’t hurt.

They stiffened up again on the drive back home, but doing some Monty Python style walking around the house for a few minutes seemed to help.

So, I thought maybe it’s just a matter of conditioning, getting my body used to this. But while rubbing some sore muscle balm (it’s to relieve the pain of sore muscles; not to cause sore muscles) into my legs, Cindy noticed I have tight tendons, which probably accounts for much of my soreness. I don’t want this to become a major problem (or more of a problem), so I’ll take a little more time to stretch, and do more strength and flexibility training. And rest.

Taking the load off my legs and knees by about 50 lbs. would probably help, too. (But that comes later.)

Last month, after Cindy and I finished the juice fast, I wrote “I got to where I am by making lots of small negative changes over an extended period of time that felt good in the short-term but resulted in negative long-terms consequences. I’m not talking about just my weight here, either. So, the only way to undo it without ‘falling off the wagon’, to my mind, is to make lots of small positive changes over an extended period of time that may feel uncomfortable in the short-term but will result in positive long-terms gains.” And when I said “small positive changes over an extended period of time” I meant it  because I’ve now put myself on one of the most gradual running programs I’ve ever seen. It’s almost ridiculous, but since I’ve never been a runner — that is, I’ve never been able to run very far or for very long, even when I wasn’t overweight — I feel pretty good about this plan.

On Monday, after doing 30 minutes of cardio on the elliptical machine, and lifting some weights, I ran 0.20 miles on the treadmill. That’s one-fifth of a mile. That’s it, and that’s all. And it was plenty. I spent the next 20 minutes walking around trying to get my burning calves to loosen up. I could barely walk.

Yesterday, I ran 0.30 miles, and while I was huffing after just a few minutes, my legs felt fine afterwards.

My plan is to add one-tenth of a mile each day until I can run one whole mile without stopping. It’s something almost everyone I know can already do, but I have never been able to. Never. After that, I’ll keep going until I can do a 5K.

Today, I had planned on adding one-tenth of a mile to my run, bringing it up to 0.40 miles without stopping. Instead, I did 0.60 miles, which is damn good for me. My legs were getting a little tight near the end, but I felt okay. An hour later, I was feeling better than okay. I felt great.

Maybe there’s something to this running thing after all.

UPDATED: 09.22.2011 - Based on the advice in the comments from Scott, I’m making some changes to this plan. Now that I’ve reached the 1-mile milestone, I won’t be adding any distance to my runs for at least a week. Instead, I’ll be running the same distance (1 mile) every day for least a week to try to build up my cardio strength. When running 1 mile becomes easy, I’ll re-evaluate what my next milestone should be.  

Yesterday, Cindy and I finished our 10-day juice fast, and now we’re heading back into eating solid foods. We broke the fast with what started out as a simple cabbage and broth but morphed into a full-blown (and extremely satisfying) vegetable soup. Tonight, we had veggie pizza.

Losing 10 lbs. as a result of being on the juice fast is nice, but I expect it to be temporary. In fact, I weighed myself before writing this entry and I’m already up more than a pound from yesterday. I had been losing about a pound a day during the juice fast. I’m okay with that. Any real change is going to have to come from making…well, real change. It’s that simple. And this gets to the heart of why I did the juice fast.

It’s easy to set my mind at starting something…but hard for me to finish it. I have a long history of stopping projects. I thought the reboot might help me figure out more than how I really think or feel about food. I thought it would show me how I manage to talk myself into quitting projects. It’s easy to quit something when you see it as insignificant, unimportant. The problem with doing that is that eventually you start seeing more and more things as insignificant, or something you can put off until tomorrow. But eating? Now, that’s a challenge! Because it’s something I do everyday, several times a day.

What I needed was to set my mind to something I knew was way outside of my comfort zone, and then do it. When your comfort zone includes comfort foods, not eating is seriously outside the comfort zone, folks. The juice fast couldn’t be something so short-term that I could do it without much effort, but not something too long that I would be setting myself up for failure. 5 days, I could do easily. 7 days is harder because weekends are our time to explore and enjoy the foods this town has to offer. I really missed having brunch at You Say Tomato on Sunday, let me tell you! For me, getting through Saturday and Sunday was more difficult than getting through Monday to Friday. I needed more than a nutritional reboot. I needed a mental reboot. And because I can’t resist wanting to go just a little further, I chose the 10-day fast instead of the 7-day (which I think would be plenty for most people).

What I learned from my juice fast was something obvious: my body and my mind are not on the same page. That’s nothing new to me. The fact that I’m overweight is a pretty good indicator that my life is not balanced, and hasn’t been for some time now. But by drinking juice for 10 days straight, I became very aware just how often my mind lies to me. When I think I’m hungry, I might just be thirsty. When I’m hungry, I might just be bored, whether I consciously think I’m bored or not. For example, I would get hunger pangs late at night, and I would usually just fix myself something to eat, watch some more TV, and then go to bed maybe an hour or 2 later. Not so easy to do on a juice fast. Instead, I would drink water, turn off the TV, and read a book. 15 minutes later, I would notice that I wasn’t feeling hungry. It’s one of those things you know you do, but you don’t realize to what extent you’re doing it until you have to not do it, night after night.

Another very obvious thing: I do not drink enough water.

Now that the fast is over, I’ll be adding in more salads, fresh fruits and vegetables. I’ll also make fresh juice more often when I want a snack, and add more fish and seafood to meals. I’m also seriously considering making 2 days a week meatless (Geez, did I just hear someone hit the floor after reading that?) Last night’s cabbage/potato/onion/garlic/celery/carrot soup was pretty damn tasty. I definitely feel like I have a better appreciation for vegetables when done right. (I’m still going to always choose fried okra over boiled any day of the week though.)

Also, considering I spent the last 10 days not grazing and not eating anything after 8 PM, I’m definitely more mindful of late night eating, and the need to curb that impulse.

But I’m still down for the chili bacon cheeseburger with fries, and fried chicken, and ice cream sandwiches. And I’d still be up for some good Mexican food, if there was a place to get it here in Kansas City. I’m not eliminating “bad” things I like to eat. I’m adding in more “good” things, more micro-nutrient foods that I also like to eat but have neglected, and I’m giving them the same level of consideration as I would to all those comfort foods. Before this fast, if you had told me I would love eating a bowl of vegetable soup, I would have thought you were crazy.

The 60-Day juice fast that Joe Cross and Phil Staples did in Fat, Sick, and Nearly Dead was remarkable. And radical.

But I’m not doing that. I got to where I am by making lots of small negative changes over an extended period of time that felt good in the short-term but resulted in negative long-terms consequences. I’m not talking about just my weight here, either. So, the only way to undo it without “falling off the wagon”, to my mind, is to make lots of small positive changes over an extended period of time that may feel uncomfortable in the short-term but will result in positive long-terms gains.

I think, having done this juice fast, and coming out of it feeling like I’m in control of things that would have typically gotten the better of me, it’s going to be a much easier road to travel.

Today is Day 5 of 10 of our juice fast, and it seems to be going much smoother for me than some of the other detox/cleansing/reboot diets we’ve tried.

Everything I’ve seen or read from other people doing a juice fast, they’ve all said that the first few days are the worst, and I’d say that’s true for me. Even on Day 4, I was feeling a little bit low on energy. This morning, Day 5, I woke up and I could tell immediately that I was feeling better, my energy levels were higher, and I felt good.

Day 1 was the worst. I said I wasn’t giving up coffee on this thing, but I tried to avoid it anyway, so for most of the day I had a massive headache. By late afternoon, I gave in and had a cup, which took the edge off the headache. I had another cup at night, and was feeling mostly normal.

Day 2 was a little better. I didn’t even try to avoid coffee. I had some juice for breakfast, and then about 20 minutes had some coffee. And then a few more cups throughout the day, and one at night.

Day 3 was a mixed bag. I felt groggy, sluggish, tired. Didn’t have a caffeine headache, even though I only had two cups the entire day. One in the morning, and one in the evening, after dinner.

On Day 4, I could tell I was on the upswing. I felt better. For some reason, I was more aware of the muscles in my arms. Don’t ask me why, but it was like “Oh hey, I remember you guys”. I meant to make some coffee at some point during the day, but I forgot, and didn’t have any. But I didn’t miss it either. (This does not mean I’m giving up coffee.)

Today is Day 5. This was the first morning where I woke up feeling normal, the way I felt before starting the fast. I don’t have a headache (but will still have coffee), don’t feel sluggish, or anything usual. The first 3 nights were kind of restless (which probably contributed to my feeling groggy), but last night was a solid night’s rest. I’m not sure if that’s because of the juice, or the lack of coffee in the evening or at night, or a combination of the two. So, tonight, I’m going to make sure to have a coffee about the time I usually would, and see how that works out.

Now, here’s something I noticed by Day 2. I’ve always had this pain on the top of left foot. I’ve had it for years. It’s achy and feels tight in the morning until I’ve walked around on it a bit. The day after we started this, and every day since, that ache is still there, but greatly reduced. I can still tell it’s there, but it doesn’t hurt to walk on it first thing in the morning.

And, now for some coffee!

A couple of weeks ago, Cindy and I watched a documentary on Netflix called Fat, Sick, and Nearly Dead. It’s about an Australian guy bloke named Joe Cross who is overweight, and suffers from an  autoimmune disorder called chronic urticaria. Sick and tired of being in such lousy shape, he comes to the United States to do a 60-day juice fast so he can lose some weight and get off the steroids he has to take for his hives. He spends the first 30 days in and around New York City, and the next 30 travelling across America, meeting people and talking about what he’s doing. Along the way, he meets truck driver Phil Staples, who weighs more than 400 lbs. and also suffers from chronic urticaria.

This is their story. Well, it’s mostly their story. Joe also meets a woman named Siong who suffers from debilitating migraine headaches. She takes on the challenge of a 10-day juice fast to see what effect it has on her life.

The idea of juice fasting for 60 days is just incredible to me. I was fascinated by it, but at no time during the movie was I  tempted to try it, you know. However, when we got to the part about Siong and her struggle to deal with a mere 10-day challenge, I asked Cindy if she wanted to try it…together. 10 days. I could try 10 days.

So, yesterday I ordered a Breville juicer, much like the one in the movie, and it arrived today. After dinner, we made an impromptu juice (didn’t follow a recipe, but it’s close to things I’ve seen people juice) of 1 lemon, 4 celery stalks, 1 cucumber, a handful of spinach, 2 granny smith apples, 2 carrots, and 1 kiwi fruit. It was not bad at all. Next time, I think I’ll sprinkle in a little  black or Cheyenne pepper.

So, while Cindy is away this weekend at BlogHer in San Diego, I’ll be making a solo trip to the farmer’s market to buy (I’m guessing) 5 times more fruits and vegetables than we’d normally consume in a week. She’ll be back on Sunday, and on Monday, we’ll start our own 10-day juice fast challenge.

Cindy thinks we should keep a video journal of how we feel from day to day, so I’ll dig up the Flip camera before she gets back.

We’ll both talk about this again later — how it’s going, what we hope to get out of it, what we plan on doing after it’s over, etc. — when we actually start the fast next week. (I’ll tell you something right now though: I’m not giving up coffee or tea.)

In the meantime, if you want to see the movie yourself, it’s available for streaming on Netflix.

I’m going to be better for no good reason.

I’m not going to lose weight because I’d feel better, or because, if I lose enough, I’d promised myself I’d get a tattoo, or anything like that. The truth is there is no one reason why I would want to do something like lose 50 lbs. There’s too many reasons why losing weight is a good idea, and no matter how long I could spend speculating about all the ways my life would be improved, I’m bound to experience unforeseen benefits.

So, I’m wondering why I should even bother trying to justify it with some one-off reason. I know I, like other people, have used those reasons for motivation. You see it all the time on The Biggest Loser — someone always says they want to see their grandkids grow up, or they want to be able to live long enough to walk their daughters down the isle, or they want to set a good example for their family — and while I totally get how that can motivate these people, the truth is they’re going to benefit from their new bodies and new mindset way beyond any single reason. The ability to lose weight was always there for them. And the reasons for losing weight have also always been there. But they haven’t been able to do it on their own. Having two trainers yelling and pushing them for 6 hours a day, and having healthy food provided and prepared for them doesn’t hurt though because it forces them to change how they think and feel about themselves, to stop using all the things that didn’t work in the past.

What usually happens when people attempt some life-altering endeavor — losing weight, giving up smoking, taking up running — is that, at some point, they get discouraged, or frustrated, or lazy, and fall off the wagon. I’ve fallen off so many wagons, so many times, I’ve lost count.

When it comes to losing weight, there are several ways to measure progress: calculate your Body Mass Index (BMI), use a tape measure, and the obvious one, stand on a scale. Weigh-ins are great, but I think too much is made of them, especially on shows like The Biggest Loser. But, that is, after all, what the show is about: who can lose the most weight.

Here’s the thing, though: inevitably, there will be a weigh-in where someone doesn’t lose any weight, or worse, they gain a few pounds. And then the breakdown starts. Here’s a person who was feeling fine one minute (not just fine, but in the best shape of their life), and the next they’re in tears, all because the scale said something different than what they thought it would (because they felt like they had lost weight), and they have a little meltdown. I’ve seen this happen in Weight Watchers, too.

On the show, which is part healthy living (eating and exercising), part confidence-building competition, part developing mental resolve, and part flat out game-play, not losing enough weight means the difference between staying on The Ranch and leaving. Does it make sense that, after 10 weeks of daily exercise and healthy eating, anyone would fret about a 0-pound weight loss? Only on TV. And only because of the game-play.

In the real world, most of us are only competing with ourselves, which is why we lose all the time. The goal of losing weight comes with all kinds of negative consequences. The two big ones are being forced to eat better, and exercise more. I think a lot of people see it as a punishment for wanting to do something good, which is why people try to cheat the system with magic pills, and taking courses in advantaged mathematics as applied to counting calories. Everybody wants to lose weight. Nobody wants to eat better. Nobody wants to exercise.

Every fat person I’ve known who wanted to lose weight also spent a lot of time bitching and complaining about the new foods they would have to eat. What they’re really doing is trying to convince themselves it’s just not worth it. I’ve even heard things like “I’d rather be happy than thin” as if this is an either/or proposition. I understand though because nothing makes me happier than being ridiculously winded after walking up two flights of stairs. Those health nuts out there don’t understand what fun they’re missing. Look, every fat person knows how to lose weight, I promise you.

Maybe the problem is that it’s too easy a goal to want to lose weight. Who the hell doesn’t want to do that? I say forget it. You know how people who have lost weight say it was a lot of hard work? Why? What about it was a lot of hard work? Well, they’ll tell you, they had to exercise everyday, and they had to learn how to eat better. Ah, so, losing weight wasn’t actually hard at all, was it? The hard part was eating better, and exercising regularly.

How most people think about losing weight is backwards.

Losing weight is an easy goal, something we want to do. But, if you’re the kind of person that feels that, as a consequence for this goal, you are punished with healthy food and exercise, you’re going to fail.

Focus, instead, on being better. That’s the mindset I’m working on right now. Don’t eat better foods to lose weight. Just eat better foods. Period. Don’t focus on exercising to lose weight. Just exercise better. Period.

I don’t need a reason to be better, do I? Isn’t being better reason enough? Isn’t everything we’ve ever wanted for ourselves simply the results of constantly working to be better?

I’m not talking about trying to be perfect. Nobody’s perfect, and nobody’s ever going to be perfect. But we can all be better.

Early to bed, early to rise, makes a man healthy, wealthy, and wise.

It must be true because I do not go to bed early, and I do not wake up easily. And I am not healthy, wealthy, or wise.

I’m a night owl. Not so much as I used to be, but I’m still a late-night person. Sometimes I fall asleep with the TV on, and maybe even a light on in the room. This doesn’t make for the most restful sleep, but I’m too tired and sleepy to get up and do anything about it. I sometimes find myself just trying to ignore it.

Tonight, I’m going to bed earlier than I have in a long time. Cindy’s mom, sister, and our niece came up from Tulsa today for a Mother’s Day weekend, and everybody is tired from a very full day of running around KCMO since just before lunchtime.

As I’m getting ready for bed, I’m thinking that maybe I should make a conscious effort to go to bed earlier, as a regular thing, because as it turns out, how much you sleep, and the quality of that sleep affects a person’s weight — that person being me, in this case.

The later I stay up, the more likely it is that I will drink more coffee, or have a soda, and/or eat some rubbish snack(s). I suspect that none of these things help me sleep better, and therefore contribute negatively to my weight (just as the study points out).

I have some other things I’d like to try next week, but I need to give it all some more thought when I’m a bit more clear-headed and not so drag-ass tired. So, I’ll let you know tomorrow what I’m doing.

Until then, goodnight, and good luck.

About a month ago, I picked up a copy of The 4-Hour Body by Tim Ferriss. I’ve been off the better-eating bandwagon since about November 2010. Between the holidays, kidney stones (and with it, a lack of any kind of exercise), birthday dinners, Mom’s comfort foods, good-bye meals with friends, and eating out way too often in our new city, I’ve put on 10 lbs. I knew I wasn’t going to try doing anything about it until after the move, but I knew I was going to do something.

So, last Monday, I started the 4-Hour Body program, which means I ate a lot of the same high-protein foods (lots of eggs, chicken, and beans), and veggies (mainly broccoli). You can flip through the book, and pick and choose any information that might be relevant to whatever your goals are, but for now, I’m focusing on the Slow-Carb Diet.

Basically, there are 5 rules to follow:

Rule #1: Avoid “white” carbohydrates (or anything that can be white).
Rule #2: Eat the same few meals over and over again.
Rule #3: Don’t drink calories.
Rule #4: Don’t eat fruit.
Rule #5: Take one day off per week and go nuts.

I wasn’t supposed to eat any dairy, or white carbs/starches, or fruit, but I slipped up a few times, eating pizza twice, half a cantaloupe, and a big bowl of Three Sisters Marshmallow Oaties with Shatto banana milk (this combo is awesome!). I also added a slice of Tillamook cheddar cheese to my turkey sandwiches, and I used a ranch dressing instead of lower-calorie vinaigrette. And one night, I split a World’s Finest Chocolate bar with Cindy. But, aside from a glass or two of milk, I drank only water, coffee, tea, or wine. I didn’t have any sodas.

Saturday morning, I was worried that I hadn’t actually lost any weight. I was full all the time, it seemed, and I still cheated a little, but when I stepped on the scale, I was down 3 lbs.

Now, on the 4-Hour Body plan, you get one cheat day a week. You can eat anything and everything you want, and you don’t count calories. My cheat day is Saturday because that’s when we’re more likely to go out exploring the town, and eat out. I weighed myself in the morning before eating anything, and my first Saturday meal was still slow-carb, then I started my cheat day.

After a cheat day binge, I can expect to gain a few pounds for a couple of days, but as long as I’m back to my usual weekday meal plan, I should lose anything I gained, and lose a pound or two by next Saturday morning, when I weigh myself again. I hope this is the case because according to the scale this morning, I gained 4 lbs. over the weekend. (Oh yeah, I totally cheated on Sunday with a huuuge Mexican lunch and a scoop of Baskin-Robbins Jamoca ice cream on a sugar cone. Criminy.)

Still, the first week was promising. Losing 3 lbs. without doing any exercise is not bad at all. For Week Two, I’m starting some kind of daily exercise, and drinking more water.

I’ll let you know how it goes.

And just because I think you could use a musical pick-me-up…

UPDATE: If you want to see them, I have pictures of what I’ve been eating here.

UPDATE, THE SECOND: I’m writing this on Wednesday morning. Okay, so last week, I lost 3 lbs. Binged on Saturday, and gained 4 lbs. over the weekend (even cheated a little on Sunday). Weighed myself this morning, and shore ’nuff, that 4-lb. gain was gone.

I’ve given up on the running. It’s just too much stress on my feet and knees at this point. After each run, it would take 3 days before I could move about without pain in my left foot, and my right knee and shin. Not good. Completely opposite of healthy, in fact. Maybe I’ll try again later, but for now, the idea of running a 5K is shelved.

I have, however, started going back to the gym, and last week I decided to attend Cindy’s yoga class as an exercise in being more mindful. (I’m reading Buddhism Plain and Simple). It was the first time I’ve done yoga in 6 years, and it was as hard as I remember it being. I felt noticeably better after the class, but the next day, I woke up with sore abs and chest. I knew I was going to wind up doing yoga again. The workout, while difficult at times given my level of flexibility, was no-impact, relaxing, calming, rejuvenating, but here it was the next day and I was experiencing clear signs of a strength-building workout.

Turns out, yoga is sneaky that way.