Week 4 of Drop It: Into the Sixties We Go! No Hippies Allowed

It seems that in week four I have hit a wall. No matter what I eat or how much exercise I do at night, the weight seems to be shedding at a lot slower pace. I am still eating the same things in low-fat proteins, minimal carbs, and drinking at least 80 oz. of water. I think my body has slowed down on losing water weight and now is starting to burn off fat, which is a good thing. In the exercise dept. I am walking about 4.5-5.5/ miles a day on the treadmill. I am walking a little over five miles per hour with a steep incline. I will be glad when fall decides to get here where I can knock some of the walking and jogging outside. I can't get it done outside right now with temps way above 100.

The main reason I did all of this was I was on the verge of going on high blood pressure pills. It was a driving force to get healthy and live longer and live happier for my children. I have had in the past week lots of people come up to me and ask me if I had lost some weight. I was like "yeah" and "thanks for noticing". Below are some pictures of beginning week one and end of week four. I definitely can see the differences in my face.

Start week 1

Middle of Week 4

Start of week one weight- 299

End of week four weight- 267

Weight Loss for week four- 5 lbs.

Weight Loss overall- 32 lbs.

It is very nice to see the sixties again. I have not seen the sixties since 2006 when I opened the Sweet Peppers in Muscle Shoals, Al. I held my weight for a long time until a couple of years ago right at the 270-275 mark. It seemed it got easier to put on weight in the past couple of years than before.

I think the key to weight loss and the key to holding it off is minimizing bad breads (like white bread and regular wheat bread). Yes, there is a difference in wheat breads. There is whole wheat bread that is very good for you and regular wheat bread that is 75% white flour and 25% wheat flour that is very high in carbs.

I think the second thing is minimizing the soft drinks. One coke has enough carbs for 1.5 days in a regular, average, person. 

I think the third is starches. Things like potatoes and rice are good for you but needed to be consumed in modest proportions. One of my favorites is Uncle Ben's Broccoli Rice Au' Gratin and it has 43 grams of carbs per serving. When I was going low fat and gaining weight, I thought something may be wrong with me, but lets just say I ate two servings of the rice at dinner and one mountain dew for breakfast. I have already had 128 grams of carbs with only one drink and a side dish at dinner.

 I think another key is watching how much desserts we consume. Royann and I were laughing last night about how when we started dating, I weighed 225 in the fall of 03. In December 03 I weighed 255. How did I get to 255 so fast? Every weekend Royann would either bring me a Oreo Cake or have one for me when I was in Starkville. Desserts are pretty tough on the body when It comes to storing carbs as fat because they have so many carbs.

I think this last one is gonna surprise you. I know it did for me also. Only consuming moderate portions of fruits. Whenever I have gone on a diet in the past, I ate three oranges a day for snacks, an apple after dinner, and some grapes or strawberries for breakfast. This adds up to a lot of carbs.

I hope we see a little better number next week and I hope these tips from the dietician will help those that are struggling with their weight also. I think a neat article that came out this past week on Yahoo.com  was called the caveman diet. It pretty much consists of the things I am talking about above.