Third time's a charm!

All right, this time I really mean it!  Honest. No, seriously, I'm going to do it. 

I went to the doctor about a month ago for my normal sugar/bp check up.  Everything is under control, but Doc brought up gastric bypass again, and I started considering it again.  Every time I start considering it, I almost have myself talked into it and then I realize that if I have the surgery, I'll have to start exercising and paying attention to what I shove in my face.  Then I realize that if I start exercising now, and pay attention to what I shove in my face now, I'll lose the weight without the surgery.  So...

I found out that one of the things you have to give up after GB surgery is soda.  I love Diet Mt. Dew.  It's the thing I drank 95% of the time.  I was drinking between 64 and 84 ounces a day.  3 or 4 bottles a day.  So I gave it up about 3 weeks ago.  I now drink water, brewed iced tea with artificial sweetener or Crystal Light.  Yes, I know.  I'm still drinking caffeine and I'm still drinking chemicals.  Deal with it.  After about a week, I noticed that I wasn't snacking nearly as much.  I used to snack all the time, especially between 8:00 and 11:00 at night.  Now I might have a bowl of cereal or a few pretzels and that's it.

Next thing I did was to rearrange my exercise room.  I have a Weider weight machine and Pro-Form treadmill in a spare bedroom.  The original layout had the treadmill facing away from the door and the Weider was situated so that I didn't have room to do seated rows.  The treadmill freaked out my wife because she saw an episode of Criminal Minds that showed a killer sneaking up behind a woman exercising and I wanted to do seated rows, so I flipped everything around.

A week after I quit soda, I started exercising.  I gave up the idea of doing it in the morning.  It was just too easy to stay in bed.  I now do it in the evening, after dinner.  Mon, Wed, Sat I use the Weider and do 15 - 30 minutes on the treadmill.  Tues and Thur, I do 30 minutes on the treadmill.  I've only missed one day in the first 2 weeks, so I'm pretty pleased with myself.

Yesterday, I started tracking my calories.  I'm not specifically watching what I eat yet.  I'm just recording what I eat and eating normally.  In about 2 weeks, I'll really start watching, although I suspect that it will happen before then.  One thing I realized is that when you start seeing calories add up, you automatically start making better choices.

The way I chose my daily calorie target was pretty simple.  I went online and googled "how many calories should I eat?"  That resulted in a number of calculators that ask for your age, sex, height, weight and activity level.  I plugged in my goal weight and use that for my daily intake.  I figure it I get used to eating it now, it will be easier to maintain it when I eventually reach that goal.

2 weeks ago, I weighed 385.  Friday 3/23/12, I weighed 378.8

So far so good.