About Me

Buffalo, New York
Approximately 100 Million Americans are obese, and I am one of them. Now that I'm married with two young children, I'm starting to take my health more seriously. But while I've been converting steaks and chicken wings into love-handles and a gut, close to a Billion People Worldwide have been going hungry... What if we could do something about both problems?
I've started this blog to chronicle my own weight-loss and efforts to raise money and awareness to battle global hunger. If weight is an issue for you, I hope you'll join me; and if it's not, I hope you'll support me or someone like me as we work to lose weight so others can gain it.

Wednesday, May 25, 2011

Week #? Update

Well, I've lost track of the weeks... it's one week past my 3 month check-up, but I think one of those months had 5 Wednesdays... so, week 14 maybe...

Whatever week it is, I'm also not entirely sure what to write for weight-loss this week; do I go by the actually week or since the "bonus" update 5 days ago? I'll go by the actually week- it looks better :)

My Current Weight: 314 pounds
Change Since Last Wednesday: lost 9 pounds!
Total Change: lost 55 pounds :)

My Current Pledges: $82.75 per pound
Amount Raised: over $4500 (about 18,000 meals)!

Thank you to everyone has been encouraging and supporting me on this journey- together we really are going to make a difference!

Friday, May 20, 2011

Official 3 Month Update (plus Bonus)

So here are the numbers from when I saw my doctor on Wednesday:

My Current Weight: 323 pounds
Change this Week: 0 pounds
Total Change: lost 46 pounds

My Current Pledges: $82.75 per pound
Amount Raised: same as last week :(

Still on the plateau... Obviously what I had been doing wasn't working, so we (my doctor and me) talked about what changes I could make to get back on track. I've been doing a new program for 48 hours and here's the numbers as of this morning (from my home scale, so maybe a 1 pound margin of error):

My Current Weight: 318 pounds
Change Since Wednesday: lost 5 pounds!
Total Change: lost 51 pounds :)

My Current Pledges: $82.75 per pound
Amount Raised: $4220.25 (over 16,000 meals!)

The program is not Atkins but it is a low carb program that reduces insulin production, and its working very well right now (don't worry- I won't be sustaining this rate of loss, I know that would result in my body breaking down stuff that's not fat...) and can be translated into lifestyle changes that will help me keep the weight off. I'm excited to not be standing still anymore, and really excited to have broken the 50 pound mark! 20 more and I'll be under 300 for the first time since (a few months after) my accident :)

Wednesday, May 11, 2011

2 More Weekly Updates...

Well, apparently I never actually posted last weeks update... sorry, here it is:

My Current Weight: 321 pounds
Change this Week: lost 1 pound
Total Change: lost 48 pounds

So, the plateau continued. Unfortunately, that was the good news- this week the change was small enough that I can pretend I'm still stalled, but in truth I started drifting the wrong direction:

My Current Weight: 323 pounds
Change this Week: gained 2 pounds
Total Change: lost 46 pounds

My Current Pledges: $82.75 per pound
Amount Raised: $165.50 less than last week :(

For a while, I was hoping that I might hit my goal in 3 months (instead of the original 6 month time frame), but I only have one week left to 3 months and it seems pretty unlikely that I'm going to lose 24 pounds this week. Obviously, dieting with my wife hasn't really been working so I'm going to go back to my old program and look for other ways that I can help/encourage her. I still haven't had (or made...) the time to add significant exercise (which is probably what I need to get off this plateau) and, with the semester drawing to an end, it will probably be 2 more weeks before that's a real possibility. Hopefully, the weeks in between will be productive and I might still be able to reach my goal in 4 months.