I remember sitting in an Arby’s restaurant in upstate NY one summer with a good friend and he had mentioned that one of his closes friends and someone I had the pleasure to work for, had been diagnosed with diabetes due to him being overweight. He then went on to tell me that with this diagnosis, he ended up losing his pilot license which grounded him from flying. I then thought to myself; here was a guy that had built a successful company on Wall Street and sold it for millions, retiring to do what he loves, fly planes. The good news is he was now on a diet. If he drops the weight his diabetes more than likely will get better. He can pass his physical and will be able to fly again. So I asked how his diet was going, to which I got an answer that has stuck with me. He said “Terrible, it would be like a cigarette smoker being told by a doctor that it was going to kill him, but he couldn’t stop smoking, he just could only smoke 3 cigarettes a day instead of the whole pack. You can’t just put it behind you, you have to face it every day at every meal” I think he summarized perfectly the challenge someone faces when losing weight. I’ve fought this battle many times, and lost every single time, often with me weighing more than when I started. So what is going to make this any different? The Goal is far beyond just losing the weight. It’s about living the life I always had imagined so many times as a child. That little boy woke up every day with the promise of his own dreams filling his heart and I’m not going to let him down. I’m not just focused on the weight lose, but all the things I will be doing once I’ve reached my goal. Finally, the one difference I have now that I haven’t spent the time to do before, I have a plan. No gimmick diets or fades just plain old diet and exercise.
The moment I got out of bed yesterday morning, the first day of my 90-day Lifehack, I immediately succeeded in one of the first steps in my plan, wake up early. I got out of bed at 4:45am and made a beeline to the scale, 330 pounds. I must say, there is nothing like numbers to put some reality to any situation. I threw on some shorts and sneakers and headed for the gym. I was surprised to see the gym so busy at 5am and I took it as solid evidence I was on the right track. I did 40mins of cardio trying to keep my heart rate under 130 the whole time to focus on fat burn. I also brought my video media player which helps the time pass quickly otherwise I’m just a mouse on a wheel and bored out of my mind. When I got back home I had a 190 calorie shake to fill my stomach and headed out the door to work.
At the office I had 3 shakes at 10am, 1pm, and at 4pm totaling 570 calories and managing to stay away from snacking on junk like chips and soda. When I got home I was greeted with the smell of bar style wings my wife had made for dinner. God did they smell good. Wings with an Ice cold beer after work, now that’s a tough combination to resist. I didn’t touch the wings and prepared my own dinner. A cup of broccoli (30 calories) , Tilapia (100 Calories) and a table spoon of olive oil (120 Calories) pan seared together with a lemon pepper seasoning for a healthy 250 calorie dinner. This ended the day with a very positive start with 89 days left to go.
With that there are a few adjustments I need to make in the coming days. The first is I ended up eating less calories then my target of 1200-1500 calories a day. Anything less than that will be too restrictive to maintain for any length of time. I didn’t remember to take a multivitamin, can’t forget that. I didn’t drink enough water.
Summery
Exercise – 40 minutes of cardio
Water – N/A
Breakfast – 190 Calories
Snack – 190 Calories
Lunch – 190 Calories
Snack – 190 Calories
Dinner – 250 Calories
Total = 1010 Calories
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