Since Friday night worked out well going out to dinner and a beer I said let’s go out again and see if we are doing ok. I did not just go for a salad and a Coors light this time, we were at a nice brew pub with lots of microbrews. So I started checking my handy app on calorie counter to find out how many carbs are in an amber beer. This is my favorite type of beer and they had about 7 different ones to choose from. Well the app told me that an amber was 5 carbs, so I had a couple of those. They have a great bacon burger, so I ordered one without the bun and a salad instead of fries. Man that was a good burger and beer.
Then today I went on-line and started looking up the carbs of amber beers and they ranged anywhere from 5-20 carbs in each one. Since I already put the 5 carb one in the app I will leave it there. Put keep in mind that my carb count might be a little off today, it could be 30 higher than what I am posting. So in the future I will use a number right in the middle, I will count an Amber beer as 13 carbs that way I don’t screw myself up on the counting.
So for Saturday I consumed 3489 calories, 34 carbs and 214 fat grams. The number of fat grams that I have been eating still astonishes me. In the past I always tried to keep my fat grams low to lose weight, but I never really lost much weight doing that. So my weigh in this morning was …..220.6 for a total loss this week of 7.4 lbs. Now I don’t think that I will continue to average losing a pound a day, but I am really happy with that number for the first week. I am overweight by my standards, but I am not like the people on biggest loser where a 7 lbs loss is a bad week for them.
I also did a waist measurement and I went from 40 to 39.5 this week. In some ways I think that this is more important than losing the weight. I mean if I stayed the same weight but my waist went down from 40 to 36 or 34 I think that I would be looking and feeling pretty good. So don’t just look at the scale, make sure to take your measurements. I will measure my waist on a weekly basis and my legs and arms on a monthly basis to see what the improvements are.
My workout was not much yesterday. I think that we all need at least one day off, so we took our dogs for a walk and went about 3 miles. I was joking with my wife that if we chased one of our dogs (Indy) that loves to fetch we would have the best work out ever. Now this dog will fetch 24 hours a day, but my wife said, “I’ll give it a try”. She was running all over the place trying to keep up with him, it was a lot of fun. But we got to the end of the walk and she was a little more tired than me. Since all I did was throw the stick.

Well yesterday was my first experience in dining out doing this low carb diet. And it was not too bad; first of all a lot of people were telling me that beer has a lot of carbs in it. Well I found out the Coors light only has 5 carbs per beer, so I had a couple. Then I ordered a Caesar salad with chicken, it was pretty good but I am not a person that usually has a salad for dinner. Today I consumed 2562 calories, 28 carbs and 179 fat grams and weighed in at 220.2.
Alright, I when out for dinner and had a couple of beers and still lost another pound, that feels pretty good. It just goes to show you that you don’t have to totally starve yourself or eat really bad tasting food in order to lose weight. But there is going to be a leveling off time when it is not going to be so easy to lose the weight. And just because this is coming off so quickly for me don’t expect it to drop off you the same exact way. I am just sharing my personal experiences with you so that hopefully I can help some other people with the struggles that I am going through. The hardest part last night is that my dinner came with a nice warm piece of sourdough bread, but I checked the app on my phone and it was 15 carbs and I did not think that it was worth it. I would highly recommend getting this app or another app that will help you with your carb counting. The easiest way to stay on track of your low carb diet is to know what you are putting in your mouth every day. If you just say to yourself that you are doing well, how do you really know? When I give you the figures everyday of what I consumed they are actual numbers of exactly what I ate. It helps me stay on track and make decisions of what I will or will not eat.
My workout yesterday was back to the P90X:90-Day Extreme Home Workout Program and I worked mostly on legs and man my ass is killing me today. He had me doing all kinds of different lunges and they felt fine at the time, but today every time I take a step I can feel a cheek saying, “ouch”. Oh well that is part of the process, earlier in the week my arms felt like rubber and now they feel fine. My body has to get used to these different workouts and then the pain will go away. So don’t quit when you are sore or tired, that is just your body telling you that you had a good workout and that it is recovering. You will be stronger the next week and the week after that. It is just a matter of getting into a routine.
See you tomorrow, only one day left in the week.

Things seem to be going ok now, I am starting to get into a little routine. I am not missing the Chai teas as much, but sometimes some good hot fresh bread sounds really good. Yesterday I consumed 2303 calories, 29 carbs and 102 fat grams and I weighed in at 221.2, so at least I lost the weight back that I gained yesterday. Now is when it is going to get hard to keep dropping pounds daily. But I am not going to get discouraged on the gaining days. As long as on a weekly basis I lose weight, I will be happy with that. When I started this thing I wanted to go from 228 to 217 for the month of January and I am 5 days into it and have lost over half the weight that I need to, so all I have to do now is lose 4.2 pounds in 25 days. If I don’t do that, you will know that I am cheating.
Last night I tried one of my sons suggestions and we cooked some cauliflower (which I hate) in fact I think that I only have tried it once. But he said to make it like we make our mashed potatoes, so we added garlic, butter, cream cheese and just for extra flavor I melted some grated cheddar cheese on top of it. I did not taste exactly like mashed potatoes, but it did taste pretty good. In fact I went back and had some seconds. Now if you know me you would think that was a minor miracle. I hate the smell, look and taste of cauliflower. But if you mix it with enough stuff that you do like it can taste pretty darn good. Like I said the other day, start doing some research on different foods that are low carb and try them. Try to have as much variety as possible. I have not done this yet, but I think I will put a page on my website and list or have a link to different low carb foods.
My workout yesterday was 30 minutes on the stationary bike at level 10 and 30 minutes on the stair-master at level 7. I started at level 10, because that is what I have been doing for 15 minutes. But with the extended time and the new diet I just did not have the energy to keep up that pace. So I reluctantly dropped down to 7 and I was glad I did, because I was dead by the time I finished. Again don’t try to overdo it on everything. I have made a lot of changes to my diet and my exercise program, so if I can’t handle it 100% then I am willing to dial it down some and then as time goes on I will be getting thinner, leaner and stronger. But if I try to do it all, I will probably end up quitting.
Good luck on your diet and workout and I will write to you tomorrow.

Well good news, my light-headedness is pretty much gone, so not a big cause for concern. I am still at it; I have also found out that eggs only have about a half a carb in them so I have added them to the diet. Yesterday I consumed 1935 calories, 28 carbs and 122 fat grams and my weigh in was 222.2. Crap, now my weight is going up? I knew it would not go down forever but I was hoping that it would not go up. So I gained .8 lbs from yesterday to today and it is not the end of the world. I know that some people tell you not to even weigh yourself everyday so that you don’t get discouraged on these types of days. But I guess I am too anal to wait a week to find out what I did. It would simply drive me crazy to not be able to know what I am doing day to day. Another thing that I would recommend is to weigh yourself at the same time everyday that way it is a more accurate account of what is going on with your body. I weigh myself first thing in the morning before I work out or eat anything. But you can choose what time of day works for you. I defiantly do not recommend weighing yourself more than once a day. I have done that and after a good work out in basketball, sometimes I can lose 5 pounds. But the next morning when I weigh myself again I have gained most of those back. So don’t drive yourself too crazy. I did figure that I would do my measurements once a week I am not so crazy about that and I am not sure that I would see any change from day to day. But hopefully after a week I will see some change for the better.
Yesterday I did the P90X:90-Day Extreme Home Workout Program again and it is a tough workout. Those guys on TV make it look so easy, but of course they have been working out like that for years and this is the first time I have picked up a weight in quite a few years. So if you are doing something like the P90X don’t get discouraged if you cannot do everything that those people are doing. Just go at your own pace and week by week we should be getting stronger and these exercises will become more of a routine. The other thing that I have noticed is that when I sweat it kind of smells like pepperoni, yuk. Maybe I am snacking a little too much on those little slices of pepperoni. But I guess that is part of the change my body is going though. I am hoping that I don’t always smell like that when I sweat. I am hoping is it just another temporary side effect of the changes that I have been making.
Talk to you tomorrow

Well I am still here and my head still feels a little hazy and I never usually have that happen to me. I will be aware of it and if it keeps going maybe I’ll stop or check with a doctor. The other thing is I can’t believe how much food I am eating but I seem to always feel hungry. My wife and son said that will go away in about a week. Yesterday I consumed 2647 calories, 13 carbs and 179 fat grams and I weighed in at 221.4, so I lost 2 lbs again for a total weight loss of 6.6 lbs. Again I know that this is just the beginning and these type of results will not continue. But so far I am very happy with the results. Whenever I get hungry I just eat some more food, the biggest problem is there is not much of a variety. Pretty much just meat, cheese, lettuce and salad dressing.
Yesterday I did 20 minutes on the stationary bike and 20 minutes on the stair-master. I wanted to do 30 each but I did not wake up early enough and had a morning meeting that I had to get to. I am also training to do some short triathlons this year, so I figured I might as well start with some cardio even though my Achilles is hurting me. I usually play basketball twice a week, but getting old sucks and I tend to get more injuries the older I get. So I have to figure out something else to do to get into shape. I am hoping to start playing basketball again next week, but we will see.
I was in a hurry last night so I decided to stop at Carl’s Jr. for a burger and was just going to throw the bun away. But low and behold they had a $6 burger with a lettuce wrap for a bun on their low-carb menu. Wow I never knew that existed before, of course I never cared before. It was a very good burger and I did not even miss the bun or fries. Remember to keep trying new things with this low carb diet, you don’t want to just eat the same thing every day. Because you will get bored of it and then you will start to cheat with other things and pretty soon you will be back to your normal non low carb diet.
I have also been carrying around a small packet of pepperoni slices in my car, that way if I am feeling a little hungry I have something to snack on and they have 0 carbs. I did get the turkey kind because they are also a lot lower in calories and fat and I know that is still part of a good diet to lose weight.
Thanks for reading more coming tomorrow.

Another day of major change in my diet. I am still on track but it is hard to give up bread, cereal and I used to have a Chai tea every day. Now that I have found out that a Chai tea is 40+ carbs they are gone. So not only will I cut the carbs, but I am saving $4 a day. Yesterday I consumed 2973 calories, 18 carbs and 154 fat grams. I am still questioning eating all of this fat and supposedly I am going to lose weight. But for the 2nd day in a row I lost 2 pounds, actually 2.6 pounds, so now I am down to 223.4. Not bad but I know that the first pounds come off easily and then it becomes much harder as the week goes on.
I did the P90x yesterday and my arms feel like rubber today. Wow after the workout it did not feel that bad, but the next day is the recovery day and man I need some recovery. I am also taking a supplement and it tastes pretty good. We bought some at Costco and my wife likes it, but I thought that I was going to puke when I drank it. I figured that if this going to last, I better get something that tastes better. So I did some checking and I found the Optimum Nutrition 100% Whey Gold Standard, Double Rich Chocolate tastes pretty good, so I bought some at the store. After I drank it for a few days I decided that I would need more and I will keep drinking it. So I found it on Amazon for a much better price and had 2-5 lbs barrels shipped to me.
I think that it is important to find something that you like so it is not full-on torture. Today I feel a little light-headed, I guess my body is trying to figure out what the heck I am doing to it. If this is happening to you and you are worried about it then go to the doctor. I will probably wait it out a few days and see what happens. My son told me the first week, he felt kind of weird to, then the second week he started to feel back to normal. Whenever we make sudden change in our eating or physical habits it always takes a while for the body and mind to get used to the new plan. Just like I said earlier, my arms feel like rubber right now. But experience tells me not to quit because of that. I have lifted before and after a while the pain goes away and I start to get stronger. So I am hoping that the same thing is true with the light-headedness.
Remember to just keep working through it and on the other side you will see great results. I’ll be back tomorrow for my next update.

Today is January 2^nd and I have started my low carb diet yesterday. My son who is 22 and is in great shape has been telling me for a while that I should try a low carb diet. My wife has started a low carb diet a few months ago and was losing weight when she stayed on it. I kept saying no and I am in decent shape, if I need to lose a few pounds I usually just eat a little less and try to work out a little more. Well I am getting older (48) and it is not as easy as it used to be. During the holidays I ate like a pig, like I always do and went from 218 pound before Thanksgiving to 228 pounds on January 1^st.

In these blogs I am going to share with you my personal experience with trying this low carb diet, they recommended that I try to stay under 50 carbs per day and use a supplement. I am using Optimum Nutrition 100% Whey Gold Standard, Double Rich Chocolate and it tastes pretty good. So yesterday was my first day and it was a little rough, but I am finding foods that I like with either low carbs or no carbs. Quite a bit of meats have no carbs in them and I love to eat meat. I found an app of my phone called calorie count, but it also counts your carbs. You just put in the item that you are eating and it tells you all the information, you can also talk into it or scan an item it is really cool. Yesterday my wife and I went on a 2 mile walk and I ate 2582 calories, 15g carbs and 182g of fat. I always thought that if I ate less fat, then I would lose weight, but yesterday I ate a lot of fat and lost weight. I lost 2 pounds and now at 226.

Now 228 is probably the highest that I have ever weighed, so I figured today’s weigh-in would be good. So I will take that figure with a grain of salt (I should check to see how many carbs are in salt ha-ha). I know that the first 10 pounds should probably come of relatively easy since I was just there a month and a half ago. But it is never easy to lose weight, it seems like it is much easier for me to put on the pounds. I love my bread, chocolate and Chai tea and I will be giving them all up at the same time.

I am also starting P90X:90-Day Extreme Home Workout Programtoday, so I will have diet and exercise working for me. I hope to be looking good in 90 days. I am not proud of how I look now, but here are my pictures and stats going into this:

6 foot 4 inches                    Goals for 90 days

228 pounds                              205 pounds

Waist 40”                                      waist 36”

Biceps 14.5” flexed                  Biceps 16” flexed

Thanks for reading and good luck with your diet