May 25, 2012 

Weight Loss À Gogo

Last fall Mel and I started doing a Biggest Loser weight loss challenge with some friends. Mel’s pretty skinny to begin with, and I’m not grossly overweight, but we both had some pounds we wanted to shed. It started out great – we were both losing a little bit at a time, but the progress was definite. Then, as could be expected when making lifestyle changes, we both dropped off and kind of plateaued. Hourray for sticking with things! ಠ_ಠ

Fast forward to this spring when the challenge ended. The winner ended up dropping over 70 pounds – holy crap! – and his wife came in being close to 50 pounds lighter! Unfortunately, I ended up right around where I started, with the last month or two really sliding downhill.

All is not lost, however. I started learning about the paleo lifestyle and read through most of The Primal Blueprint by Mark Sisson. Shortly thereafter I discovered reddit, and, amidst all the cat photos and memes, I found r/paleo. (All these years I thought it was just another digg.com.) It’s also worth noting I just lost 20+ minutes by visiting the home page of reddit, twice. You’ve been warned.

I’m still uncertain on paleo as a whole, though. It sounds fantastic, but I’ve been really struggling to adopt it, though I have incorporated things here and there over the months. At the vest least, it’s gotten me to look at my carb intake a lot more (that’s not to say I’m always disciplined when it comes to avoiding the bad choices still) and to realize that fat is even more important in your diet than I once thought. I’ll keep making gradual progress and see if it’s something I want to incorporate fully into my life.

So, paleo principals in mind, today I started logging on Lose It! again. Seeing what I’m taking in on a daily basis was a huge boon when trying to curb my poor eating habits last fall, and by doing it again – coupled with riding my bike more frequently and doing some core training – there’s no reason I can’t get into the shape I want to be (which is slightly less round, thankyouverymuch) over the course of summer. Yes, it’s a pain in the ass logging a bunch of stuff – especially if it’s not as simple as scanning a barcode or two – but it’s even more of a pain in the ass being overweight and out of shape.

Tags: , ,

  • Amy

    Wooo! Good for you (and Mel)!

    All I know about paleo is that a friend-of-a-good-friend wrote a cookbook or a book about it or something. Maybe I’ll look into it, though I’d miss all my baking.

    • http://mikebranski.com/ Mike Branski

      Thanks, Amy! I’ll have to write more about my trials and tribulations with paleo baking. I’ve been fighting almond flour tooth-and-nail for months now – it’s just so radically different and unpredictable when you’re not used to it, not to mention costly to experiment with. I’ve spent so much money and time trying to get stuff to turn out, all with little-to-no success. However, last night I made my first paleo dessert that not only turned out, but was delicious to boot!

  • NJ Weight Loss Surgeon

    Hi Mike, I really enjoyed reading your articles. As an experienced bariatric surgeon, I find reading the tales & journey’s of patient’s after weight loss intriguing. It helps me understand the common, yet unique experience each person goes through. Best of luck on your health and happiness.