Still no progress in the weight loss department. I weighed in this morning at 217.8, so not only did I not lose weight, I gained .2 pounds from yesterday. I am wondering if my body has just gotten used to the low carb diet and I need to try something else. But as I have stated before, I am going to stick it out for the entire 90 days and at that time I will evaluate what has happened and what I will do from there.

I always have to keep in mind that I am still losing size in my waist and that to me is very important. If I can get rid of my belly fat and love handles then this will be a very successful venture for me. I only have a little over a month to go on the low carb diet; it will be interesting to see what will happen by the end.

Last week I discovered a company that sells low carb foods on the internet. Anything from bread to noodles, so I ordered some rolls, taco shells and the low carb noodles. Last night I had my first pasta dinner this year. I made spaghetti last night with the low carb noodles. These noodles are made out of tofu and smell a little fishy when you take out of the package, but after I rinsed them off and put them in the microwave the smell went away. I then poured the spaghetti sauce with meat on the noodles and it tasted great.

I never have tried tofu before, I thought that I looked disgusting and I never saw a need to eat it. With it covered with sauce and meat it tasted just like other pasta, except it might have been a little chewier. That did not bother me at all and I look forward to more meals with them. I also had a roll that I toasted and buttered and it tasted pretty good too. I am normally a white bread kind of guy and this tasted more on the wholesome side, but at least I was eating bread. If you are interested in checking this store out go to locarbu and see if there is anything that interests you.

Yesterday I consumed 1773 calories, 70 carbs and 99 fat grams. So I am not totally hitting my goal of 50, but I am still way under 100 carbs for the day. Maybe I have been pushing myself too hard during this process, so I am going to give myself some slack and keep it under a 100, with a goal of getting under 50. I went out with our youth pastor today for lunch and had a Panini sandwich and it was very good. I am not going to go off the low carb diet, but I am going to give myself a little bit of a break.

My exercise was back to P90X:90-Day Extreme Home Workout Program yesterday and it went fine. I am still improving on exercise by at least one. So if I did 26 push-ups last week, then I am doing 27 this week. I figure that if I keep adding to it I will continue to get stronger and leaner.

This morning was both good and bad news. The bad news is that I ended up gaining a little weight for the week. I weighed in at 217.6, which means that I gained 1.2 pounds this week. Sure I was not perfect this weekend, but during the week I thought that I was doing awesome. I have never eaten as many salads as I have during the past 57 days and I am not losing any damn weight. This gets me to think about quitting the low carb diet and try something else or just go back to what I was eating before.

But I made a 90 day commitment to myself and to you, so I am going to stick it out for the full 90 days and see what the final results are. I hope if you are doing the low carb diet that you will stay on it for the full 90 days also and see what type of results that you are getting. It is easy to say, “this is not working like I wanted it to, so I am going to quit.” It is really hard to say, “this is not working like I wanted it to, but I am going to stay with it and see what happens.”

I have usually taken the easy way out when it comes to dieting, but this time I have made a commitment to not just myself, but to you too. If I am going to spend all this time logging my food intake, exercise, writing blogs and everything else. I am not going to let that work on the low carb diet go to waste; I am going to see it to the end.

The good news is that I did lose another quarter of an inch in my waist, so I am now down to 37.75”. That is awesome, I guess that I would be happier to not lose as much weight and lose the inches than the other way around. I think that I would be more upset if I was down to 212, but my waist was still at 39”. I am not sure if I my waist is going down because of the low carb diet or P90X:90-Day Extreme Home Workout Program and the running and biking. I am guessing that it is a combination of everything.

Yesterday I consumed 2304 calories, 37 carbs and 152 fat grams. So I am back under the 50 carb goal for the low carb diet. We were still out of town and I was able to rein myself back to what I need to be. I did notice that since I was out of town and I forgot to bring my Gold Standard Chocolate protein Shake, I was hungry a lot more throughout the day. Now that I am home and have it, it is great to have one when I feel a hunger pang.

We went skiing again yesterday for our exercise. It was another great day in Montana for skiing, but since we were driving home we cut the skiing a little short. That was okay, because both of our legs were still tired from skiing the other day.

Well I took the day off yesterday from all exercise. It was nice to just lie around and do nothing at all. I just watched some TV, read the newspaper and read a book. This is an odd day for me, since I am normally on the go all the time. But sometimes we need to get a little rest, so we can recharge our batteries and have the energy to do everything that we want to do. I recommend that you take one to two days off a week and not do any exercise.

If you are constantly exercising, you will feel like there is never a time to rest and our bodies need the rest at least once a week. It will give your body time to recover and get stronger for the next week of exercise. Just do not over do the rest and then stop exercising all together that would not be good either. Find a happy medium for yourself, for me it is taking off one day a week, for you it might be taking off two or three days a week. But continue to exercise at least 4 times a week, even if it is going for a walk.

Again I have no scale this weekend, so I have no idea of what my weight is. I am sure that it is not as good as I would like it to be, I have been going over my carb goal of 50 everyday that I have been out of town. It is a lot harder to stay on the low carb diet when you are out of town. But I do not think that I went to crazy this weekend, my worst day was 122 carbs, which is still way below anything that I used to do.

Yesterday I consumed 2525 calories, 68 carbs and 195 fat grams. The fat was pretty high, maybe I need to reduce my fat intake. I am not losing the weight like I thought that I would and maybe it is because I am eating so much fat all the time.

I do have to tell you that I thought that I would be at a much lower weight by now. My goal was to be at 210 pounds by the end of the month and I am still hovering around 217. That is the same weight that I was at the beginning of this month. The only good thing is that I have been losing size in my waist, so if that continues then I guess that I will be ok with it.

I had a fun exercise yesterday; we were able to go snow skiing in Montana while on vacation. We were very lucky, because I guess that there has not been much snow here. But it had snowed about a foot two days before we arrived here. The snow was great and it was sunny most of the day, so we were able to ski all day.

It was a great day and a great workout. As much as I have been exercising, nothing prepares you for the real deal and since this was only the second time that I have skied this year. I was definitely out of ski shape, my legs felt like rubber by the end of the day.

We skied the whole mountain. Started off with some groomed runs and moved around the hill to find more chairlifts. We took quite a few runs throughout the day including several black diamond runs and a few double black diamonds. The last one that we took was a double black diamond through the trees and powder. A very tough run that took all of the energy out of our legs, so we were done for the day.

It was hard to keep track of everything that I ate throughout the day, but I think that I did a pretty good job of keeping track. I consumed 2636 calories, 122 carbs and 74 fat grams for the day. My carbs were over my goal again, but the good thing was that my fat grams were quite a bit lower than I expected them to be.

Since we are on vacation, I am not going to write this blog as long as I normally do, but I am hopeful that this is still helpful to you.

I was correct, we left town yesterday and I went off the low carb diet by a little bit. I consumed 2638 calories, 103 carbs and 127 fat grams. I knew that I was going to start going over my goal this weekend, but I am still trying to stay on the low carb diet as well as I can. If I had not been on the low carb diet I am sure that I would have probably had over 3500 calories and 300 carbs. At least I am controlling myself better than I would have in the past. I think that in the long run this is going to pay off.

I don’t know what my weight is today since there is no scale. Even though I am not doing as well as I could be, I could be doing quite a bit worse than I am doing right now. I don’t know what will happen by the time I do my next weigh in on Monday, but I think that I have done good enough work throughout the week that I will end up losing a little weight. If nothing else I think that I will still lose a little bit in my waist measurement.

Even when you are out of town and it is a little tougher to stay on your low carb diet, do the best that you can. Even if you are not fully successful to stay under 50 carbs, make sure to always keep track of everything that you are eating. When you know that you are not going to be able to stay fully on track, it is still good to keep a good record of what you are doing. That way you can look back at what you did and know why you did not lose any weight or possibly had a weight gain.

My exercise yesterday was the last day of the P90X core exercise. I sweat way more doing the core exercise than I do when I am doing the regular exercises with weights, push-ups and pull-ups. I never knew how much work that it would be to do the core exercises. It not only works on my core, but it also works on other parts of my body. My arms, shoulders, back and legs are all getting a workout from this core exercise.

Even if you do not do the P90X exercise plan, make sure that you are doing an exercise that you are comfortable doing. Even if you just start out walking on a regular basis, that will be an improvement on doing nothing.

I weighed in this morning at 216.4, so I have finally lost some of the weight gain. I am hoping by Sunday I will have an overall loss in weight for the week. I would prefer to lose a full pound or more, but I will be happy if I lose .2 pounds. I am also hoping to continue to lose another quarter of an inch in my waist. All that I can do is keep staying on the low carb diet, drink my Gold Standard Protein Shake and exercise daily.

My exercise yesterday was on the stationary bike and the stair master. I am getting stronger each week on the stationary bike; I cannot wait until it warms up here. That way I will be able to get on my real bike and cover some ground. It gets pretty boring staying on the stationary bike, at least I can watch TV and learn new things by watching modern marvels. I am still just riding the stationary bike for 30 minutes each time and when I go outside I will probably start at an hour and increase from there.

The stair master is helpful to me also, because we are planning on hiking down to the bottom of the Grand Canyon in a month and a half. So it might be a good thing that I have hurt my achillies and I can’t run right now. Maybe this is just what I need to get in good shape for going up and down that elevation. There is only so much that I can do, so I might as well do what I am able to get done.

Yesterday I consumed 1810 calories, 17 carbs and 115 fat grams. This was once again way below my goal of 50 carbs or less per day. Again, it did not feel like that big of a struggle to do this. I just had a few Gold Standard Shakes throughout the day and ate cheese and beef sticks whenever I felt hungry between meals. Most of the time it is not a problem, but we will be leaving town for a long weekend so it will probably be quite a bit tougher while we are gone.

Since we will be away for the next 3 days, I will not have a scale so I will not know my weight until Monday morning. So I will do my best while I am gone, but I know that it won’t be as good as when I am in my normal environment.

Yesterday I consumed 1916 calories, 20 carbs and 106 fat grams. Just another typical day now that I have been on the low carb diet. Now it seems to be a regular day for me, I am getting used to not having many carbs in my meals. I guess after time and figuring out new ways not to eat the carbs in continues to get easier and easier. If you are just starting out on your low carb diet try to understand that after you have been doing it for a while it will not be as hard to stay on track.

I weighed in again this morning at 217.2, which means that I did not lose any more weight again. This has been pretty frustrating, but I do know that I am getting in better and better shape. I feel better about myself and my waist continues to go down, even if you are not losing weight make sure not to give up.

I highly recommend that when you start you low carb diet, that you not only weigh yourself. But to measure anything on your body that you want to improve. I measured my waist and biceps, since I would like to reduce the size of my waist and increase the size of my biceps. If there are more important things to you, then make sure to measure them when you start and then either weekly or monthly.

I measure my waist once a week and my biceps once a month. If you measure too often then you will get discourage like I have been getting weighing myself every day. I know that I weigh myself everyday and tend to get discourage when I am not losing weight as quickly as I think that I should. If that is going to get you down, then maybe it would be better for you to just weigh yourself once a week.

I think that it is much more important to keep losing inches than to lose pounds. Especially if you are adding exercise to your low fat diet plan. If you are exercising on a regular basis you will start to build muscle and lose the fat. Keep exercising and staying on the low carb diet and you will continue to get into better shape, even if you are not losing weight.

My exercise is back to the P90X and working on my core again. I am not sure if I am supposed to be doing the ab ripper along with the core but I am doing it. My main goal is to get a stronger core and to get my waist down to 36”. That does not mean fit in 36” pants, because I am already doing that with having a 38” waist. When you are doing your measurements make sure to have a fabric tape measure so you know exactly where you are at.

ay 51, February 21^st

I am getting frustrated again. I have been doing a good job of staying on track with my low carb diet and I am exercising every day. Even with all of that I have gained weight every day for four days now. I weighed in this morning at 217.2, so I have gained 1.6 pounds since last Friday and I have been staying pretty true to the low carb diet. I know that I have told you not to get upset at your daily weigh-in and to just focus on the weekly weigh-in.

This has been four days straight having a small increase every day. I am not going to panic and go off the low carb diet. I am going to continue to exercise every day and drink my Gold Standard Chocolate protein Shake every day.  I am going to do the right thing throughout the week and hope that by the end of the week I have an overall weight loss for the week. If this happens to you too, do not get discouraged. Keep staying on track and in the long run I think that this is going to work out.

Yesterday I consumed 1896 calories, 40 carbs and 132 fat grams. So again I was under my goal of 50 carbs. In fact, I was only at about 20 carbs for the day, so I decided to have some chocolate at the end of the day to reward myself. It is unbelievable how slow I can eat chocolate now. I take very small bites and let it melt in my mouth and wait until the entire flavor is gone and then I take another small bite and do the same thing over again. It sounds a little weird, since in the past; I would just take one bite after another as quickly as I could.

I am not sure if I did get the whole flavor of the chocolate in the past. If there were chocolate chip cookies that were just cooked, I could eat 5-10 of them in a few minutes. Now if I had a chocolate chip cookie, I think I could take 5 minutes and just eat one and probably am more satisfied that I was in the past. I have heard of people that say they have one cookie a day and just savor it. But I never believed them. I never thought that I could eat one cookie before now, but now I know that I could just eat one cookie. I probably could not do it the first week of the low carb diet, but now I am in a much better place.

For my exercise yesterday, I was back to the stationary bike and the stair stepper. On the bike, I have gone up another degree of difficulty. I know that I am getting better and better at doing this, since I started on level 10 and I am now on level 13. I had to do the stair stepper, because my achillies is still hurting me and I did not want to continue to hurt it.

I was just a little over my low carb diet goal of 50 carbs yesterday. For the day I consumed 1455 calories, 52 carbs and 95 fat grams. I am not going too excited over being 2 carbs over my goal; I don’t think that is going to make me gain a bunch of weight. I even had a donut yesterday that had 24 carbs in it, so that was almost half my daily carbs. But for me it was worth it. Sometimes you have to have that dessert and just enjoy it.
I think that if you are on the low carb diet and never have any of the foods that you love; it will turn into a bad diet. If you can have something that is not terrible in carbs once in a while, then you don’t feel like you are always depriving yourself. So keep checking the back of boxes when you are at the grocery store or check out your app. See what type of foods that you love to eat and find out which ones are fewer than 30 carbs. That way you can keep your carbs the rest of the day under 20 and then have that big treat and eat it real slowly. I know that donut lasted longer than any other donut that I have eaten.
Yesterday was Sunday, so I did not feel like getting up early to exercise before Church. So I told myself I would do it after lunch. I was lounging around and kind of took a nap and before I knew it, it was 3pm in the afternoon. It was hard to get change my clothes and go downstairs to exercise, I think it would have been better to just do it in the morning. I think when you get out of a routine; it becomes harder to get back into it. I think that next weekend I will just get up early and do the exercise, that way it will be done and out of the way.
I did my P90X:90-Day Extreme Home Workout Program yesterday and it was back to the core. I thought that the core exercise would be a break from the regular lifting weights, pull-ups and push-ups. But in some ways I think that it is harder. I know that I sweat a lot more doing the core exercises than I do on the regular exercises. It really makes me feel a lot stronger throughout my whole body when I do this core. I am glad it is in the series; it breaks up the regular routine and works on a different part of the body.
Yesterday I consumed 1455 calories, 52 carbs and 95 fat grams. I weighed in at 216.8, so the weight is starting to creep up again. I think that my body is just getting used to the lower weight. I hope to lose another pound this week. Even though I am probably not going to hit my goal by the end of the month, I am going the right direction.