Ready, set, GO! Day 1 of 60 in 60...

My scales on Day 1, this morning.

Well, day one of my 60 in 60 program is coming to a close, so I figured I'd log on an let you all know
how it's going.

First, I know, I know, I said my goal is 48 pounds in 60 days, and that remains the plan. But you gotta admit, 60 in 60 sounds better than 48 in 60. Right?

Okay, I started out day 1 with measurements, to see just where I am, and I'm telling you it's bad. I tipped the scales this morning at 288.6 pounds.

Wow.

And I'm not about to tell you the rest of the measurements. Later, after I've lost a bunch of inches, we'll revisit what day 1 was. For now, I'm targeting 11 pounds in seven days. That's all that matters -- 11 pounds the first week.

The way I'll do this is I'll go through my day's eating, give totals for calories and certain micro-nutrient counts, then I'll give you the scoop on my exercise for the day.

This is Day 1, and I'm still feeling my way through this some. After completing the day, I realize my fat content is high, though the total calories aren't so bad. Still, that's something to work on.

Here's how my day went in terms of nutrition.

Breakfast
2 whole eggs
1.7 ounces lean ham

Lunch
Boiled chicken breast, 6 ounces
3/4 serving whole wheat penne noodles
3/4 cup mixed veggies
2 tablespoons reduced sodium soy sauce.

Snack 1
1/2 cup low-fat cottage cheese
1/2 cup canned pineapple

Snack 2
Fat free Greek yogurt

First Dinner
5 ounces ground chicken
3/4 cup mixed veggies, onions, papers

Second dinner
Two hamburgers (low-fat meat, 2.5 ounces each)
Two whole wheat buns
Super-thin cheddar cheese on the buns, along with tomato slices

Totals for the day
1,640 calories (not bad)
52 grams fat (kinda bad)
170 grams protein (okay)
Diet soda -- 48 ounces
Water -- 54 ounces

Okay, not a bad first day. More than half my fat came at second dinner. I had planned on a lower-fat meal, but when I returned home from the gym my wife had already cook the burgers on the grill, and they were made with low-fat ground beef, so I went ahead and ate them.

Tomorrow I'll do better.

As for the exercise, this was a cardio day. I'm not that big of a cardio fan, and you have to realize I'm starting from ground zero here with cardio -- I haven't done any real cardio in close to a year, so this will be pathetic, at least in the beginning. I enjoy the weight training days, and even through my fatdom, I've been doing a bit of weight work here and there with my sons, so I'm not actually starting as a beginner there.

Anyway, for today's workout:

Stationary bike (levels 3 and 4)
32 minutes
10 miles
365 calories burned.

I'm feeling pretty good right now. It's late -- nearly 11 -- and I have about an hour's worth of proofreading to do on a novel. Actually, a lot more than that, but that's all I'm going to get done tonight.

Any questions or comments, please feel free to post them here and I'll answer.

Thanks for stopping by.

60 pounds in 60 days?

Yep, that's what I've been looking for -- the perfect diet and exercise program, the one that has the weight just melting off of you.

It's out there, right? Every yahoo who's read a nutrition article or taken an exercise class thinks they have the perfect plan, it can't be hard to find, right?

Okay folks, I'll admit, my idea of a 60-pounds in
 60-days plan may be just a taaaad extreme.

Sorry folks, it ain't out there. I've searched high and low, Googled, Yahooed, WedMDed, I even Binged (we'll keep that just between the two of us, okay?). I've checked out bodybuilding sites, running sites, diet plans. I even made a visit to Oz (the doctor and the wizard),

Best I can find are a few plans that promise 8 pounds in two weeks! Up to 20 pounds in two months!
Up to two dress sizes in two weeks! (Um, not that I'm into, you know, dressing in dresses -- though, if it would get me 60 pounds of fat loss in two months I'd be tempted to slap that thing on and just call it a full-body kilt).

Of course, I knew going in there's no such thing as a 60-pound in 60-day plan. So I'm going to put together my own nutrition and exercise plan, with the goal of dropping 48 pounds in 60 days. Not exactly 60 pounds, but still -- 48, that's a HUGE challenge, you have to give me that.

Think I can do it? One of my kids has already weighed in saying no. We'll see.

Here are my weekly/monthly goals.

Week 1 -- lose 11 pounds
Week 2 -- drop 5 pounds
Week 3 -- drop 5 pounds
Week 4 -- lose 5 pounds
That leaves me two more days until a full 30 days are up, and I'll drop one more pound those days, for a grand total of 27 pounds the first month.

We'll take a look at setting weekly goals for the second month at that time.

Here are the ground rules I'll go by:

1. No drugs or supplements that screw around with your metabolic rate, heart rate, or anything like that. The ONLY supplements I may take will be protein powders/drinks, possibly some fish oil for achy joints, and maybe a few vitamins, though that would be a first for me, and a potassium supplement. The potassium is probably a must -- I've been down the road of severely low potassium levels before, and believe me it ain't pleasant (and it's far worse than a few cramping calves).

2. No days below 1,000 calories, and probably none below 1,200 calories.

3. Hold or increase strength over the two months.This is a key -- I want to exercise and eat in a manner that retains, or increases, lean body mass and strength. The weight loss has to be all fat!

Well, that's about it. All-natural, no ultra-starvation diets. Other than that, I'm pretty much anything goes.

I've already got a pretty good idea of what I'll be doing -- high protein with lots of lean meat, moderate carbs with lots of veggies, and low- to moderate fat, spread over five or six meals a day. Combine that with lots of water intake, three to four cardio sessions a week and three weight training sessions and it ought to be simple, right?

We'll see.

Anyway, that's the plan. Tomorrow morning -- Thursday. March 30 -- I'll do the official weigh-in and measurements. Every day, as I have time, I'll blog, telling you about the day, outlining what I ate for the day, what exercises I did that day, maybe tell you a little bit about what's going on at work, with my kids, my writing, whatever.

And each week, on Thursday, I'll weigh in and report the results.

Of course, if you have any questions or comments, feel free to drop them off here and I'll respond. Heck, go head and put in the comments whether you think I'm crazy or not....go ahead....

Ready?

Let's roll!

Uh oh...now life gets serious...

Hey folks, it's me...the fat boy who WAS going to lose all kinds of weight and get fit.

Remember?

If not, just scroll through my old blog postings, where I chronicled my amazing journey to weight loss, fitness....and failure.

A quick refresher.

I started last year, I think around the first of March, with the goal of losing 100 pounds. That's a lot, but I weighed in that day at 279 -- and I'm only 5'10". Heck, even at 179, I'd still weigh almost 30 pounds more than I did at my old high school graduation (more on that later).

Of course, I'm cursed with being the King of Yo-Yo dieting. If you look up that phrase in the dictionary, you may very well see my picture. It's nothing for me to drop 15-20 pounds in a month, only to gain it back the next month, and then some.

But 2016 was going to be different! First, I had never weighed that much, and something just had to give. I felt bad all the time, my blood pressure was through the roof, and it was just no fun being that big.

Second, I was going to do this handy dandy little blog, chronicling my efforts -- no, my success -- along the way. What was even cooler was getting a few tweets and comments from Mark Webster. Those of you who read my blog regularly back then (my sisters, my children, once or twice my wife) remember him as the Dude Who Ate (And Worked Out) Like The Rock For 30 Days.

So I was set, inspired, and rolling -- dropping 45 pounds in 60 days. And then...nothing.

No, worse than nothing. I started the ever-dreadful regain of the weight. I made a couple of half-hearted attempts at getting back on it, but I just got lazy, started eating bad, quit working out, and not only did I regain every single pound but...yes, you know what's coming ...I gained EVEN MORE. A few weeks ago I topped out at 298 pounds, if you can believe that.

Thiiiiissssss close to 300.

I've dropped off some since then, seemed to have settled around 285 pounds, but wowzers, that's just too much weight. Still, I haven't managed to get myself to any kind of consistent healthy eating plan, I'm not doing any cardio, though I have been hitting the weights some.

But then it happened. The notice that changed everything.

I discovered vanity.

Okay, let me explain. This morning, I received a FB message from an old friend from high school, a guy I graduated with. It was a group message, with a handful of us on it. Seems my alma mater -- Roanoke Valley Christian School -- will be marking 40 years since its first graduating class.

Let me take a moment to emphasize this is NOT 40 years since I graduate, but 40 years since the school held its first-ever graduation. We don't want any misunderstandings here.

Anyway, this friend, who I shall call...I don't know, maybe "Lewis," was asking out help in collecting the whereabouts of old RVCS alum, and in the course of the group message -- which kept growing during the day as we found more of us on FB -- someone suggested we have a reunion of our graduating class.

Well, that seems like a swell idea. Other than a dozen or so of us getting together a year or so after we graduated, we haven't had any kind of get together. Being a rather small group -- our class only had 25 students -- we were fairly tight-knit at the time, though we drifted apart relatively quickly.

Then it dawned on me -- no one will recognize me because there are freaking TWO of me now. I mean, I'm nearly twice as large as one my graduation day, when I came in at a svelte 150 pounds.

Given that the school's graduation is June 2, and any reunion we have would probably be around that date, I am in full panic mode! This is, after all, March 27. That's only 66 days away.

You better believe, I've spent my spare time today hopping around the net, looking for the miracle fitness plans that melt 80 pounds in 60 days. Yeah, yeah, I know, I'd still need to drop another 20 to 30 pounds, but hey, let's not go overboard -- 100 pounds in 60 days might be just a tad unreasonable.

So, my search for the 80-pound-loss-in-60-day plan took me to...well, it's late, this has gone on really long, so check back with me tomorrow when I share the miracle plan I found.

See ya then, and thanks for checking in after all these months...