Monday, October 30, 2006
Lose weight with TigerHawk
So, on Saturday night while dressing to go out for the evening I stepped on the bathroom scale. I am ashamed to report that I weighed in at 211 ghastly pounds, and that was before I slammed down a very nice dinner. And before the very fattening "holiday season," which, calorically speaking, now seems to extend from Halloween to Super Bowl Sunday.
Unfortunately, I can’t say that I’m surprised. In the last three years or so I have gained about 20 pounds, and my waist has gone from 33 inches to 36. And that’s using the “belt under” configuration.
Point is, TigerHawk has become TigerLoad.
Whatever the reason for this weight gain – and it has something to do with eating too much and exercising too little – it is time to draw a line in the fat. Since losing weight is easier said than done, however, I am going to keep the pressure on myself by periodically posting my weight, with the goal of getting down to 190 pounds by the end of March. That’s roughly a pound a week for five months.
If you, too, want to lose weight until TigerLoad becomes TigerHawk again, feel free to weigh in, as it were, in the comments whenever I post an update. Or not. For all I know, you’re all thin.
Of course, you need to use the same scale at the beginning of the period and the end to measure the ultimate weight loss consistently. Since I travel a great deal, I will probably post interim weights using hotel scales, but the gold standard will be the Tanita digital scale in my bathroom, and I will report on that basis as often as possible.
Naturally, if – Allah forfend -- I don’t hit the target I expect you all to mock me. Avoidance of that, after all, is my greatest motivation.
20 Comments:
By 
, at
Mon Oct 30, 05:15:00 PM:
TG,
You got it. I'm 185 and my target weight is 160. But since I post Anonymously, I guess I need a tag to go by. I'll go by "185".
By , at
Mon Oct 30, 05:18:00 PM:
Good luck. I've lost about 40lbs over the past year-and-a-half. For me it required some major lifestyle changes, but it was worth it. I've never been in better shape.
By , at
Mon Oct 30, 05:39:00 PM:
Wouldn't TigerHog be more fitting? I have to say, though, that I have seen TH around and have not noticed any bloating. I would have guessed 190, meaning you have already reached your goal.
By , at
Mon Oct 30, 05:51:00 PM:
Hawk/Load,
Losing weight is really quite simple as my slender wife recently explained to me - "Well, you just don't put everything in your mouth that you'd like to."
By 
cakreiz, at
Mon Oct 30, 08:10:00 PM:
Locker Room's got it. Calories in v. calories burned- the body doesn't lie. Add to the burned side of the equation that metabolism slows as we age, and it gets tougher. Quit going out for lunch and find some time for exercise.
By , at
Mon Oct 30, 08:55:00 PM:
You could do something extreme and go vegetarian. Besides the fact that it's a lot harder to eat 3000 calories a day without eatting meat, it also has the amusing effect of taking the moral superority away from liberals. At a screening of An Inconvient Truth, I got into a discussion with a grassroots, anti-global warming activist. It sure took the wind out of her when I told her that I thought global warming was a crock and even if it was true, I still consumed vastly less fossil fuels then her simply by not eatting meat. Since feed animals eat grain grown on petro-based fertizilers, not eatting meat creates petro savings. Plus trucking, processing, and various other savings. How's that for a patriotic statement: Go Vegetarian, Save Oil.
By Dawnfire82, at
Mon Oct 30, 09:03:00 PM:
"Add to the burned side of the equation that metabolism slows as we age, and it gets tougher."
Ain't that the truth. I graduated High School a rail-thin and muscular 145. I am now 195, and I'm not even 30 yet.
That's not all fat, of course, I'm a fairly muscular guy. But the difference is staggering. 50 lbs!
By cakreiz, at
Mon Oct 30, 09:13:00 PM:
I'm sitting at 172 lbs at 54 years. Almost 20 years ago, my waist size ballooned from 32 to 34.5 over a winter. I've been exercising faithfully ever since. Discipline. Something conservatives purport to be good at.
By , at
Mon Oct 30, 09:18:00 PM:
As GARFIELD once said DIET IS DIE WITH A T AT THE END
By , at
Tue Oct 31, 12:27:00 AM:
My husband and I have been doing this, too. It's harder for me because I'm female, and because my job has me on the road 100% -- I manage to get home roughly every other weekend.
He's dropped 30, and I've dropped 11. We both have a ways to go.
The bottom line: calories_in - calories_out must be a negative number to lose weight. Sedentary living and big portions at meals (not to mention snacks and seconds -- I'm a sinner) have put us in this position.
We bought a food scale -- a good one, weighs in grams, zeros out so we can accurately evaluate exactly how much x went into the portion (amazon.com carries it). We keep a spreadsheet, noting every single thing we take in, including the 15-calorie LifeSaver or sugar-free Popsicle for dessert. *Everything.* And we track our exercise -- both aerobic, for most calorie burn, and strength, which is really, REALLY important. The latter is because muscle tissue actively burns energy to live, while fat cells barely do. Increase your muscle and you increase your basal metabolic rate. A half pound of muscle burns the equivalent of 5 pounds' worth of calories over the course of a year.
If needed, I can provide a spreadsheet to help others.
Females have a weight loss disadvantage because we have less muscle mass, and we don't gain it as readily as men. Oh, well. It ain't easy, but it can be done, even on the road. I've learned to eat an apple from the hotel (sometimes) for dinner, because the restaurant lunch has satisfied me for dinner, too. I hit the gym -- and a good gym is now a prerequisite for my hotel selection.
Monitor your intake and your expenditure (there are basal metabolic rate formulae on the web, gender-specific). You can make estimates for energy expenditure during various forms of exercise. Whack down the portion size. Be patient. And don't quit just because you had a bad day.
Annlee
By ben, at
Tue Oct 31, 12:59:00 AM:
I promise to help mock you, but in additon, I'll give you some advice and encouragement. In the begining of the summer, I weighed in at a whopping 278. Now, I weigh in at a modester 239.
I used the nutrisystem plan, and while I didn't follow it completely, it helped. Plus, exercise and portion control.
Anyway, you know all that, and good luck, but know others have been able to do it, and you have at least as much willpower as we do, right?
By , at
Tue Oct 31, 10:48:00 AM:
It's pretty simple:
Exercise. Duh.
Eat no deep fried, no dairy, nothing baked, nothing with processed sugar, nothing that comes in a package.
Drink nothing but water and gallons of it. If you're peeing yellow you're not drinking enough. No Coke, no beer, no wine. Only H20
Plain oatmeal for breakfast with fresh fruit, raw veggies and fruit for lunch with a boiled egg and either tuna or other lean meat (turkey is best followed by chicken don’t eat cows) and more raw vegetables.
Never, ever eat at 7. Go to bed hungry so your body spends the night eating fat.
Vitamins, get the all in one kind and something to get you the good stuff in dairy.
For this to work you need to look at eating as something utilitarian rather than a source of pleasure.
I lost about 60 pounds on this in about 6 months and never felt better. While I eat a bit of dairy and other forbidden foods I’ve kept it off by balancing with regular exercise.
Because in all honestly being fat sucks and it’s a good thing to be ashamed of. Stop being fat now will save you so much pain and misery when you're older.
By , at
Tue Oct 31, 10:49:00 AM:
Never, ever eat after 7pm is what I meant.
By , at
Tue Oct 31, 12:09:00 PM:
TH - here's a modest proposal:
Why not try amputation? It's hard to imagine a faster way to weight loss than having your arms cut off. Also, think of all the household chores you'll get to avoid.
By , at
Tue Oct 31, 03:16:00 PM:
A calorie is a calorie, no matter what time you eat it.
A food contains the same amount of calories whether you eat it at 7 am or 9 pm.
Not eating after 7 pm (or 8pm or 9pm, depending of the version) is a pseudo-science myth regarding weight loss.
By , at
Tue Oct 31, 07:29:00 PM:
1 lb = 3500 calories they say, so burning 1000 more than you consume every day means you will lose 2 lbs per week. Excercise on top of that and I've found it goes much faster. I've lost 24 lbs in the last 41 days, and have 20 lbs more to go to reach my goal. My average daily loss rate has been .585 lbs/day so far.
I found nutritiondata.com quite helpful for figuring out a baseline and looking up the caloric content of foods. Then I just made a spreadsheet to keep track. My MO is weigh every morning, plug my new weight it into my spreadsheet, and then plan out what I'm going to eat for the day BEFORE I eat anything.
Another thing I've found is that foods with high water content keep you full longer and are low calorie. Melons have been the best for me in this regard, followed by asparagus, apples, and lettuce. Just remember that salad dressing has a lot more calories than the lettuce you pour it on. Serving sizes of salad dressing are usually shown as 1 Tbsp, so I suggest using a tablespoon to measure salad dressing as you pour it on to keep you aware of the consequences. I've also found tea to be a good way to get through a rough patch.
I hope that helps. Good luck, and thanks for the excellent blog.
By Georg Felis, at
Tue Oct 31, 08:26:00 PM:
In my opinion, 1 pound = 3,500 calories to put on, but 10,000 calories to lose. So eat less, exercise more, and do not eat up all the leftover Halloween candy :)
Good luck!
By Sissy Willis, at
Wed Nov 01, 01:02:00 PM:
I threw my scale down the stairs and out of the house years ago.
By , at
Sun Feb 10, 12:08:00 PM:
What do you think about this fastest way to lose weight? I think it's great one:)
By quickest way to lose weight, at
Mon Nov 29, 12:29:00 AM:
I read with great interest this article. I especially liked your statement "the tiger hawk became a tiger load". I quickly looked through your blog and could not find out if you were successful in getting the weight off. Off course I did not comb every page and this article is 4 years old. It is always interesting when someone realizes that they have crossed the line as many people have challenges realizing these limits. And then they get up one morning and start looking for the
Quickest Way to Lose Weight. Weight loss requires a higher awareness that something is not going right and also the discipline and the guts to do something about it when the line is crossed. I would really like to hear about what happened after this posting.
