Johnnie's BFFM Journey

The journey continues

2006-10-14T08:36:00.000-07:00

Well my 1 week break turned into a 10 week break. My injury hurt more on the mental side of the weight loss journey for me. After a week I just couldn't get back into the groove. My eating got progressively worse as time wore on. I started to slowly pick up all of the bad habits that I had given up over the last 8 months. I was eating poorly. I was not exercising. I was behind in my Karate class. I could see the difference in my body after not taking care of myself. My discouragement fueled more bad eating, which made me more discouraged...Anyone who has been obese knows this cycle all too well.

My wake up call happened when my wife and I found out that she is pregnant! This really struck a cord for me for a few reasons. First of all I want to be around for my kids for a long time. Having another one made me reflect on how I had not been taking care of myself for the past 2 months. Also, when Carrie found out she was pregnant with our youngest son I told her it was good motivation for me to lose some weight. However, after Oakley was born it really bothered me looking at the pictures of his birth. I hadn't done anything about my weight and I was ashamed. I didn't want to go through that again.

I started to get back into the swing of things a week ago, and I have had some time to reflect on the past few months. First of all it would be easy to be discouraged about it. I gained around 15 lbs or so. It is going to take some work just to get back to where I was at the beginning of August. However, in the past I have never been able to recover from something like this. I have lost weight before and once things started to go bad it was game over. I think it is because of how much I have learned this year. I am just not able to bury my head in the sand and pretend like everything is OK while I am not taking care of my body. I also felt like total CRAP the last 2 months. Emotionally and physically I have felt like garbage the entire time. I don't think I'll be able to forget how bad it was.

So now what? I'm going back to what worked for me before. Eating right, running, Karate, and a weight program. I hope by Thanksgiving to lose at least 10 of the lbs that I have gained. So far I'm off to a good start. I'm going to update my blog each Monday with my weigh in.

I know that there are going to bet set backs like injuries and mistakes along the way. I think next time I'll be ready to deal with it with a healthier attitude. Have you lost your way on your fitness journey? You can make it back. If I did it you can too.

Here is a pic of me when Oakley was born, May 2005. I will look totally different when the new baby Billings is born in May 2007!

Pain in the....Shoulder.

2006-08-04T11:35:00.000-07:00

At Karate on Tuesday I was learning how to do a side fall. On one attempt I landed wrong and felt a severe pain in my shoulder. I thought maybe it was a tweaked muscle, but it was getting worse by the second. I went to the Dr. the next day and the x-ray was clean, so the verdict is a bone bruise on my shoulder. 6 - 12 weeks before I am cleared for the weight room again. What a bummer just when I was getting my weight routine consistent.

Over the next few weeks I will need to heal and take a look at my goals. I can do some non impact cardio for now, and maybe some body weight exercises for my legs. I'm going to take the next week off just to regroup and lay out a plan. Having goals is great, but you have to adjust when you run into something like this.

So What is BFFM Anyway?

2006-07-25T09:13:00.000-07:00

I have a lot of friends, and friends of friends that have now seen my Blog. I'm getting a lot of questions on just what BFFM is, so I thought I would take a minute to explain. BFFM is an ebook written by Tom Venuto who is a natural body builder. The book is called Burn the Fat, Feed the Muscle. You might say, wait, I don't want to be a body builder? That is OK, this book shows how to lose fat without losing muscle, and that is what most of us want. Tom Venuto is more about looking good, he is truly concerned with people being healthy.

The main areas that the book covers:
1. You must set goals so that you know what you are working towards.
2. Nutrition is 80% of any fitness plan, so Tom teaches you what to eat and HOW to eat.
3. In order to not lose muscle while losing fat, you need to do some type of weight program (yes even you ladies who want to be "toned")
4. To burn the fat, you need to do some type of cardio exercise.

Tom says in his book that BFFM is simple, but it is not easy. He is right. If you are looking for the next quick fix, this is not the answer for you. If you want to understand why diets do not work and want to change your life for good, then this book has the information that you need. If you read this book you will have all of the information that you need to achieve your fitness goals. It is up to you at that point.

If you want more information do a google search for Burn the Fat Feed the muscle or Tom Venuto. Also check out my links to the other BFFM bloggers.

I wish you the best on your quest to be healthy!

Failure...(Is a state of mind)

2006-07-21T09:00:00.000-07:00

One of my goals was to eat clean for the next 3 months. Man, I blew it! I woke up late, missed my AM Karate workout because of it and set me up for a bad day. I was mad I didn't get up so I could do a workout, and now I feel like a loser. I am also stressed out because I haven’t started my weight routine yet. Then I start to doubt that I will ever be able to achieve any of my goals. Dude, you already blew it you might as well go to have a 14" Buffalo Chicken Sub, some chocolate milk, and a big fat cookie to go with it. You are fat, you are always going to be fat, you might as well forget about ever being lean. You are never going to get this monkey off your back (emotional eating). You are always going to sabotage your results with food. That picture you sent to your wife of what you want to look like, what a joke. She probably laughed when she saw it; she knows too it isn’t ever going to happen.

That pretty much sums up what I was thinking yesterday. I felt like crap all night because of what I ate. I felt like crap in my head, as well as my stomach. Those negative thoughts drove me nuts yesterday, they have such a way of building on each other don’t they? OK so I did mess up yesterday, but I did not fail. I have only failed when I give up. Only then will I fail to succeed in what I am trying to do. I will face setbacks that might slow me down a little, but as long as I keep moving in the right direction that is all that matters.

So what did I learn from this? It is interesting to me that I was so on while we where on vacation, and I fell apart when we got home. For one thing, our meals were pretty planned out while on vacation. I plan ahead my lunches for work, but nothing beyond that. This needs to change, I need to plan all my meals 3 days ahead of time. Also on vacation I didn’t have the day to day stress. The everyday stress seems to make me want to eat foods that are not on plan. I guess that is the definition of emotional eating isn’t it? I need to work on this and reflect on it.

I feel great today; I got up this morning before work and ran 3 miles. I was just going to cruise through at 5.5 MPH, but I bumped it up to 6 when I got to the 2 mile mark. I felt so good running at 6, I bumped it up to 6.3 at the 2.5 mile mark. Even that was good, so for the last ¼ mile I ran at 6.5. I feel like I did something today and it is only 7:30. I know my food is going to be right on today. I know because I believe today that I can reach my goals. My big goals that get me really pumped, I can picture me achieving them. With that picture in my head nothing can stop me.

Progress Pics

2006-07-15T07:22:00.000-07:00

Here are my progress pics(before on the left, current on the right). 50 lbs of fat lost makes quite a big difference.
Start: 312 41% BF
Current: 261 33.7% BF
I have a long way to go, but I'm looking forward to the next 50!

Do you have 50+ lbs to lose? It starts by making a decision to do something about it. Making a decision to live your life, not let it pass you by. Making a decision to stick it out for the long haul. Making a decision to make a lifestyle change, not to go on a diet.

Next set of 3 month goals

2006-07-10T08:46:00.000-07:00

July 3rd was my target for this round of 3 month goals. Did I meet my 3 month goal? Well I weighed in at 261 lbs this morning @ 33.9% BF. I met my weight goal for the past 3 months, but my BF % was not even close. The only thing that can mean is that my LBM has dropped, which is very bad. But like any BFFM'er knows, they are just results so we adjust and move on. So here are my goals for the next 3 months:

I no longer live for my cheat meals. I have been cheat free for the past 3 months. My results have been amazing!
The base of my success has been consistently following my weight program over the past 3 months!
Someone at work asked me what I am doing to achieve such awesome results.
My daily and weekly goals have become the cornerstone of my success.
It felt so great to ride the Superman at Darien Lake! I know I'll never be in the position that I was in last summer!
It is 10/2/2006 and my BF is < 29%
It is 10/2/2006 and I weigh less than 245 lbs!
I feel great since I weigh less than I did when I got married!
I will be the example for my wife and daughter to follow in their fitness journey.

I am going to focus on a consistent weight routine. This has been lacking and my drop in LBM is the result. I am going to up my cals to 2500 per day to also help with the LBM loss (this will put me right at 20% below TDEE). My other focus is I am going to avoid cheat meals for the next three months. Karl inspired me to do this (check out his link) in order to gain control over food. There are certain foods that are trigger foods for me such as dark chocolate, chips, cookies, sugar, fried foods, pizza etc. I will eat none of these foods over the next 3 months. I want to be the one in control. This won't be for the rest of my life, but I am going to show who is boss!

I had a great vacation last week. Took the family to meet my brother, sister, and mom in VA. It was nice to get away, and I still managed to eat well during vacation. How did I say no to the M&M's, ice cream, s'mores, cake, chocolate, pop tarts, etc. etc. etc.? I set my goals for the next 3 months before I left! I also knew I had to weigh in when I got back to see how I did for my previous set of goals. When you know where you want to go, it is a lot easier to get there! It is pretty easy to say no when you have a picture in your mind of where you want to be 3 months from now. Of course some people think I am crazy, but I know in 3 months I will have the results that I want.

Where will you be 3 months from now? Will you be closer to your goals? Do you even know what your goals are? Maybe your goals seem impossible? Picture it in your head as already being achived, and keep in mind the journey has to start somewhere.

"Don't ever give up on a dream due to the amount of time it will take to achieve it. The time will pass anyway."

Introduction #2 - Where I am

2006-06-15T12:14:00.000-07:00

It felt good to get started exercising & eating better, but I didn’t feel good about my game plan. I had done this twice before, saw results, and then had it all go bad. Both times I ended up more fat than when I started. So doing the same thing again seemed crazy to me, but I didn’t want to sit around and do nothing. I started checking around trying to learn everything that I could about fitness/nutrition. During one of these searches I came across Burn the Fat, Feed the Muscle by Tom Venuto. This book has been a real eye opener for me, and it is the piece of the puzzle that was missing. I have answered why I have failed in the past, and know what I need to do to achieve my dream of being a role model for my children, and being around for them for a long time to come.

When I have exercised in the past my cardio of choice has been running. Well jogging is probably a better description of it J I don’t fit what you might consider a runner build, not even close. But when I run I feel like I really did something. I feel like I worked hard, and it gives me a sense of accomplishment. I did a few things wrong though. I pushed it way too hard too fast, which led me to being injured. Nothing major, but shin splints are not pleasant. I also had some knee problems in high school from a football injury, so running 5 times a week did not work for me. Both times when I stopped exercising because of these issues, I went right back to old eating habits. I found that I have an all or nothing mentality. If I’m not exercising then I can’t be perfect. If I can’t be perfect then why bother? Both times after I stopped exercising it took a single act of lost control to send me in a downward spiral. One time it was a bag of BBQ chips, the other was 2 mint brownies. I let a few hundred calories completely derail my progress. The first thing I realized is the all or nothing mentality had to be the first thing to work on. Nobody is perfect and I had to be able to overcome obstacles like injury or an unplanned cheat meal.

So, what do I need to do differently this time? First of all I still run, but I only run 2 times per week. I gradually increase my distances, and I run on a treadmill to take some of the impact. The other days I do lower impact cardio on the elliptical or the cycle. I also eat more this time around. Seems weird at first, but I know I am not going to screw up my metabolism, and it helps with the emotional eating. I’m still working on the all or nothing attitude; it is a work in progress. I have problems with emotional eating, so this piece is really important to me. If I eat something I did not plan, I try to get right back on track ASAP. I am relieved to say that I am not perfect. I have had a bad day or two, and even a bad week recently. The difference is that this time I REFUSE TO FAIL, I refuse to not be successful. I keep working at it and learning from my setbacks. Each time I have a setback, I really do learn something from it and then move on. I’ve lived with my head in the sand for too long, and I won’t do that anymore. I will analyze what is going on in my life, make adjustments, and move forward. Have you lost weight in the past but have gained it back? There is a reason why it did not work for you. Find out what it is, make your adjustments, and try again.

At my most recent weigh in I was at 266 lbs with around 34.8% body fat. So far I have lost 45.5 lbs and around 6% of my body fat. I have been implementing BFFM slowly over the past 4 months. I started by trying to eat more frequent meals while eating cleaner foods. Now I eat 6 meals a day and plan my meals ahead of time almost without thinking about it. I’ve progressed from not being able to run at all to running 4 miles in just over 40 minutes. I can now do 35 pushups. I wear size 40 pants (down from 46) and XL shirts (from XXXL). So that is where I am currently at, but I am excited for where I am going!

Introduction - Where I was

2006-06-15T09:16:00.000-07:00

I think I am a pretty average guy in most ways. I'm 32, been married for almost 9 years, I have a job, a mortage, etc. OK, so I do have 5 kids, so I guess I'm not average there...
My wife and I thought we couldn't have our own kids, and we wanted a big family, so we adopted 4 kids (age range now 2 years - 17) and then a month later she was preggers :) So we were blessed with 5 children in 10 months.

I haven't been average as far as my weight either, not since I was 19. December 6th, 2005 I weighed in at 311.5 lbs. At 5'9" that was morbidly obese, and I felt like it. I decided it was time to do something about it. At first I did what I have done in the past to lose weight, I started exercising and cutting calories. I had done that successfully two times in the past (2000 & 2002) and lost around 40 - 50 lbs. However, I did some thinking about this and it didn't seem like I was so successful after all, I mean I gained the weight back plus more! I really wanted a lifestyle change so I could be healthy for the rest of my life. I wanted to live life, not let it pass me by. So this time around I set out to educate myself and determine what had gone wrong in the past.

When I started exercising I could do 7 pushups. I couldn't run at all. When I carried my son upstairs to put him in bed I would be gasping for air hoping that no one could hear me over the monitor. It is so discouraging when you are in this state. You think, "How can I possibly do this?". I had no idea what to do for exercise. In the past I would jog, but no way I could do that. I thought about walking but it was December, and cold, and well walking is just boring for me. I decided to jump rope. Why? Well I had a jump rope already, it didn't require that I join a gym, and I had done it in High School. I had to rest a lot, but I got started by jumping rope 3-4 times a week for 15 - 20 mins.

The key is to find something that works for you. Don't be discouraged because of where you are starting out. There are some great advantages when you start out really out of shape. First of all, you are going to see some vast improvements pretty quickly, both weight loss and performance wise. Also, it won't take 60 mins of cardio in order for you to see these results. If you have been inactive for a long time, just doing 15 mins of some activity is a huge change for your body. And a huge change for your mind. When you see those changes happening, you can't help but to feel better about yourself and to have more confidence. The key is to just get started and let the momentum carry you forward.

As far as eating, I think most of us know pretty much what is good for us and what isn't. Should you drink soda? No. Should you eat fried food? No. Will cookies help you be lean? Nope. Is an apple good for you? Yes. Veggies. Yes. Whole grains? Yes. I think most people understand this. Forget about your macronutrient ratios & how many grams of protein do you need, those are the details. Start out by doing something for exercise and eating better. Last December that is exactly what I did. By eating better I mean when I went to Burger King & got a grilled chicken sandwich, and either a salad or chili, with a diet drink. Is this perfect eating? No. Is it a million miles better than eating a whole medium pizza & 24 oz of soda? You bet it is. It got me moving in the right direction. Even taking Christmas week off I lost over 10 lbs that first month. I didn’t know what HIIT was, I didn’t know what a superset was, I doubt I could have even told you what a yam was. It didn’t matter because I was so much better off than where I was. I got results anyway. You can too just by getting started.