Monkey Blog

I always lose weight during the Christmas holidays but for various reasons I lost a lot this past Christmas.  I got down to 147.5, which really upset me because I had kept myself in the 150’s for over a year.  I know that I get too caught up with numbers, but being over 150 was a huge deal for me the first time it happened.  It wasn’t that long ago that being 150 seemed unthinkable to me.  I didn’t know anything about training or eating properly and it seemed impossible for a small guy who was already thirty five.

When the holiday madness was over and I could concentrate on training and eating properly again I decided to make a change to my diet.  I kicked the weight gainers to the curb.  Everything I do with my training and eating is with a mindset towards the long haul. When I decided to join a gym and start training properly I made the decision that I was undergoing a complete lifestyle change that I expected to keep up forever.  When I started training at the gym I completely expected that it would be a miserable, torturous experience that I was willing to put up with to get to where I wanted to be with my body.  What I slowly started to realize is that it doesn’t have to be like that.  Don’t get me wrong, you still have to bust your @$$ every time, but how long could you realistically last with a program that you find to be torture?  I never had the mindset of a ‘YY day transformation’.  I just decided that it time to change how I was living permanently.  It’s the same way with the diet.  Sure I could be leaner if I ate a bunch of foods that I hate but are good for me.  Cottage cheese is the perfect example.  It’s got a ton of protein but every time I put it in my mouth I can feel my gag reflex instantly switch into overdrive.  Cottage cheese is out of the picture.  But if you take the effort to find healthy foods that you like then sticking to a good diet isn’t a big deal.

With that said the weight gainers I was taking always seemed to against all of that.  I absolutely cringed every time I would see the nutritional label of the big tub that was sitting on my kitchen counter.  One serving has 17% of saturated fat and 46% of cholesterol of the daily recommended values.  You can’t tell me that that is good for your health in the long haul.  I finally had a “What the hell am I doing?” epiphany and threw the tub into the garbage.

I’ve managed to get myself back to my heaviest weight of 155, which I’m pleased as punch about.  I’ve learned several things about diet in the process.  The first is that wishing you were heavier will not make you heavier, no matter how hard you wish it.  Seriously.  For real.  Another thing I didn’t realize was that I was terrible about skipping meals.  “I’m late for work.  I don’t have time to eat breakfast.”  “OMG is the smoke monster going to let Ben live?  I don’t feel like hitting pause and getting something to eat.  I’m still pretty full.”  Blah blah etc etc.  It doesn’t seem like a big deal to skip a meal once in a while but it really starts to add up.  Now if I’m late for work I grab a South Beach bar (10 grams of protein) and eat it in the car.  I also make sure to eat every 3-4 hours like I’ve always known I should.  Just with those simple changes guess what?  Getting back to where I was with the weight gainers wasn’t a big deal.

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This entry was posted on Sunday, April 19th, 2009 at 7:06 pm and is filed under Training. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.