OLD 210 West Magazine

Dan Nied's Fortress of Weight Loss: Day 35

Turns out I'm not doing so bad

WHAT I ATE TODAY
Here’s the thing about the food journal: I love it, but I hate it. And though I think it is important for you to know what I eat, I also think that it takes absolutely forever to code and add everything up. And sometimes, like tonight, I am quite tired, and I can’t even remember everything.

So here’s the deal. On nights like tonight, I will just run things down and give you a basic overview off the top of my head. I won’t leave anything huge out. If I have a meatball sandwich, you’ll know about it. You’ll know if days are good or not. Likewise, when I am peppy and full of energy, I will gladly run everything down for you complete with portion size and calorie intake. At this point in my knowledge of the diet, it isn’t as important for me to know exactly how many calories I have in one day, so long as I know the range.

So, here is what I ate today: A bowl of Rice Chex (or is it checks? Hmm.), 1 lowfat salami sandwich with orange, another orange, a tiny bag of beef jerky, a big ass salad, a can of turkey chili with two pieces of toast.

Approximate calories: between 1,700 and 2,000. It wasn’t the best day, but again not the worst. Too much sodium, obviously, but I fit it all within the context of what I am trying to do. And really, I’m not gonna worry all that much about sodium, as long as the fat and calories are in line.

THE REAL REASON I BROUGHT YOU HERE TODAY
If you have been reading this for the past month, you’ve certainly shared some very low moments with me. I’ll have to admit that this has been one big manic-depressive project so far. Though I don’t apologize for my mood swings, I do apologize for sometimes being a Grumpy Gus when I screw up. Although, I definitely feel that this works better when I am emotional, and you get to see the failures a little more clearly than the success.

That said, I got up today and had the official weigh in that I pushed back from Sunday. The results…281.8 pounds, a 3.4 pound difference from nine days ago, and a shattering of the weekly two-pound goal.

This might have been the first real revelation for me through this diet. I can now see that, without a doubt, this is working.

Yes, I wasn’t so sure before. No, I don’t really know why. But here we are, 35 days in, and I’ve lost 17.2 pounds. No matter what agony I’ve expressed before, no matter what doubt crept into my head over the last month, it is clear that this is all working out for me.

I’ve made the changes necessary to adjust my weight. I’ve made eating low-fat, low-calorie foods a habit instead of a choice. I wake up in the morning looking forward to a bowl of healthy cereal instead of eggs and sausage, and I come home at night craving a big salad instead of going to Jack in the Box.

For the most part, I go to the gym now without thinking about it. For the most part, I always feel great about it afterwards. Instead of worrying about life over 300 pounds, I am fantasizing about life at 260, 250 and definitely 240…(maybe even 230? Who knows?).

The transformation isn’t nearly complete. I am still not lifting weights, and I do have the occasional urge to binge. But that comes with the territory, right? There is time to work on those things.

It may seem odd that this epiphany occurred to me 17 pounds in, instead of say 10, 20 or 25. But it seems perfectly normal to me. See, for the first three weeks, I was obsessing over the scale. Though the numbers went down overall, they also shot back up too often for my tastes. Likewise, I couldn’t be so sure about the progress I was making because too often I would make choices that may have been fine in the long run, but were bad for me in the short run.

Once I stopped weighing myself every day (or twice a day for that matter), my mind went back to the land of sane people. Now, individual meals don’t mean as much as the whole menu for the week. One elliptical workout doesn’t carry nearly as much importance as the three or four over the course of seven days.

Last week, when I was 285.2 pounds, I could sense the progress. But still, I wasn’t sure. After all, I had bottomed out at 284 a week prior, though that was due to the flu. But in a real week’s time (ok, nine days), I saw actual progress being made. Going from 285.2 to 281.2 is undeniable progress. I now know that if I continue on this path, then my goal will be achieved.

Certainly there are adjustments that will have to be made along the way. After all, I am only a quarter of the way through the process. And every pound is more difficult to lose than the last one. But I sit here today, at my messy desk writing on my old computer monitor and I am working with lower numbers than I was last week.

The 270s are right around the corner, and the 260s aren’t that far behind. I am an optimistic man right now.

35 days, 281.8, 17.4 2 pounds. Not too bad, eh?

Dan Nied's Fortress of Weight Loss: Day 33

The emotional ride. Oh, and comments are back on

Note: Good news people. We have officially turned on the comments for these posts. However, I can’t fully grant you instant gratification. In order to avert spam, comments must be approved by me. However, I promise that any comment you leave will be approved no matter what you say. I also promise to check for comments throughout the day, making sure to approve them as quickly as possible. That’s it. Go nuts telling me how much I suck.

There is one thing that I have to deal with this time around, that didn’t exist during the 100 days.

This diet, for some reason, is an emotional rollercoaster. I am up, I am down, I am focused, I am not. I have really been all over the place with this. One day, I am going to get to 270, the halfway point, by the middle of February. Other days, I am doomed to live life at 290 pounds.

So of course, there are swings of successes and failures to go with the emotions. Though I should say, for the record, the successes have been much more plentiful.

During the 100 days, there was never a sense of pending failure. It kind of just all felt right.

I am not really sure why that contrast exists between the two diets. But I have a few theories.

The “THE WORLD IS AGAINST ME” theory
I don’t really believe the world is against me. Just certain factions when it comes to this diet.

The real problem here is that it is much more difficult to tune out others this time around.

Back in old Sterling, Colo., there was really only one person I hung around with. And though he was morbidly obese, he respected the diet.

I lived alone, and there was no real social life to speak of. I had no problem sitting around in my apartment on the weekends and going to the gym when I had some free time.

In fact, the gym was much easier back then. If I went directly after my morning shift at work (I split the shifts up), when I basically had the place to myself. Add to that the fact that the people who ran the gym were coaches for teams I covered, and generally people I was friendly with. Because of that, there were always words of encouragement flying at me. They wanted to see me succeed, and I sometimes felt like I rewarded them by letting them see me succeed.

Here in old Vallejo, Calif., I live in a much different world. While, on the whole, it might be a better place for me to live, it is an atmosphere much less conducive to weight loss.

First, there are people here. Theoretically, I could pick up the phone and call a few people to go drinking on my night off. I haven’t done that yet, but I am sure I will someday.

Second, I have roommates, and they eat like shit and offer me their leftovers. I usually appreciate that. But right now, I do not.

Third, I work in a place where people love to bring in food. Though that happened in Colorado from time to time, the food was usually tucked away in the break room, where I could ignore it for the two hours per day I was in the office.

Here, that food is out in the open, taunting me every chance it gets. Damn food better shut its mouth.

And those are just a few things in the world that are against me now.

The “THIS JOB IS HOLDING ME BACK” theory
Let’s go back to that job I had at the Sterling newspaper.

I was the only sports writer on staff. I did the work of at least three people, and I did it damn well. The only perk was that I got to make my own schedule.

So I was in the office only from 10 a.m. to noon most days. Then it was to the gym and back home. I worked out nearly every day because it became part of my schedule. Since I couldn’t take overtime, and because I had to work every day of the week, I usually worked for only four or five hours per day.

That left a lot of time for focusing.

Here, I am on a set schedule and other people depend on me. Sadly, I don’t make the rules anymore.

I’ve mentioned my work shifts, usually 1 p.m. to 11 p.m. four days per week. I might not have mentioned that I hate doing anything before work. Why? I don’t know. Laziness is one answer. Probably the right one.

Though I have done a great job of going to the gym on my days off (went last Monday, and then on Friday and Sunday, and I am going today), it’s been a struggle to go on work days. It’s hard to find the time, really.

But Dan, you say, you have until 1 p.m. to go to the gym. Why aren’t you getting off your ass and going on Tuesday, Wednesday or Thursday? A fair question, and one that really has no good answer. The bad answer is that I get up too late: around 11 a.m. And by the time I eat breakfast and shower and catch up on the news, it is 12:30 p.m. And then I have no time.

But like I said, there really is no good answer for that, and it is something I need to start getting into the habit of doing.

Likewise, work days leave too much room for eating screwups. And though I have become better about planning out my day’s meals, I still slip up from time to time and find myself going to the vending machines for pretzels at 8 p.m. because I am hungry.

The job is certainly not an insurmountable problem. In fact, it is quite surmountable. It’s just a matter of surmounting it.

The “SENSE OF URGENCY” theory
Two years ago I was super fat. I mean, I was very nearly morbidly obese. If I had been 46 instead of 26, I likely would have had a heart attack.

I can’t stress enough how fat I really was. I couldn’t weigh myself on the scale at the gym. The 370 pound number I have used as the starting point? That’s totally made up. Or, I should say, that’s an estimate. I really had no clue how much I weighed, because I didn’t have the machinery to weigh myself. (Oddly, I do now, as the scale at the new gym goes up to 500 pounds. Where was that thing when I needed it?) So I chose that phantom number 370 because I knew I was more than 350 (the limit on the old scale), and I knew it wasn’t even close. But I also knew that I wasn’t 400 pounds because… well, actually I might have been 400 pounds.

So I needed to lose weight. Not only was I going down a very dangerous path, but I was also throwing away any chance I had to get laid again. When you are 400 pounds, generally the only women that will have sex with you also weigh 400 pounds. At least that’s what my experience tells me.

That might be why it was so easy. It was totally clear to me that I was wasting, not to mention shortening, my life. I had become a lot of things I never wanted to become. It was just time to do something about it.

But now, that’s not really the case. Do I think I am too fat right now? Yep. But I also remember the celebration I had in April 2006 when, on the 100th day of the diet, I weighed in at 299.8 pounds. That was one of the happiest days of my life. How can I complain about it now?

So I know how bad it really could be. The reason I started the blog up again wasn’t because I was getting too fat. It was because I wanted to eliminate the possibility of ever getting that fat again.

To be honest with you, 299 is kind of a misleading starting point. I’ve fluctuated between 275 and the 290s ever since I moved to Vallejo. When I showed up in July 2006, I was around 275 and looking pretty good. Though the working out stopped, resulting in some muscle loss, I managed to keep the weight off. But last summer I let myself go, and crept back up to about 295. It took about a month of exercise and eating right to get back down to around 280.

The only reason I got back up to 299 around Christmas was because of surgery. I haven’t talked about it yet, because I was planning on making it a blog entry at some point. I still am, so I will only gloss over it at this point.

But in early November, I had surgery to remove my gallbladder. The 100 days diet, and the speed with which it was done, gave me gallstones. I am happy to say that was the only negative of the entire process.

The problem was that fatty foods caused very bothersome stomach pains that lasted up to 12 hours. The stomach pains were mysteriously talked about at length in the 100 days blog. When the attacks came, it crippled me for the day. That led to bouts of purging after I thought I ate too much. Trust me, the bulimic rout was necessary to stave off these pains.

So anyway, after the surgery (I weighed about 280 or so at the time), I could eat whatever I wanted with no fear of stomach pains. I decided to go crazy for a month or so. That stretched to two months, and I gained 20 pounds. Not surprising. Actually, I had planned for it, and I didn’t think it would be all that hard to rebound from it. (I know this brings up a lot of issues: like maybe I kept the weight off because I couldn’t eat fatty foods, the fact that it is unhealthy to gorge for two months, and the idea of a 28-year old male bulimia survivor. But trust me, all of those issues will be addressed when I write the entry, which will probably come later this week.)

But my point is that I could have just lost that 25 pounds quietly and been fine with it. Instead, I chose to go through another major life overhaul. Where the last one was totally necessary, I can safely say that this one is more cosmetic.

Cosmetic means less urgency. Cosmetic means more cockiness (after all, I don’t really need to lose weight, right?). And cosmetic might also mean less focus.

All of that plays into the emotional roller coaster of this whole thing. I’m focused on this, but maybe not as focused as I was two years ago. So I should really work on that.

Dan Nied's Fortress of Weight Loss: Day 30

The temptation gets to be too much

Everything in my mind told me not to write tonight, to just leave you hanging through the weekend until I triumphantly return on Monday.

But if I were to do that, I would only be cheating myself.

Part of this blog effort is to showcase my failures as well as my losses. As a journalist (well, sportswriter), I am often faced with the task of reporting someone else’s failure. I have to do it, too. That’s my job. So in my personal writing, as informal as it may be, I need to keep the same standard.

Thursday was not a good day. I gave in. A little too quickly. So quickly, in fact, that I am more ashamed of speed with which the decision was made than the actual decision itself.

You want the story? Here:

In the office at 4:30 p.m., someone shouts out “Food at Five!” I am annoyed, I am flustered. Why do these office people constantly insist on bringing in food? In the last few months, there has been caramel popcorn, a big ass jug of Red Vines, all the Christmas candy you could ever want, and vegetarian, cheese, supreme and pepperoni pizza.

These fucking people have a death wish for all of us. Someone needs to look around my office. There are not many attractive people there, The majority are old mid-level writers hardened by either the blood of murder scenes or the boredom of city council meetings.

We don’t even have windows in our newsroom. Believe me, the last thing we need is four kinds of pizza.

Anyway, it turns out that today was “Office Space” day, or as they called it, “Employee Appreciation Day.” Because I generally avoid these things at all costs, I was not aware of this event before I was called into the sparsely decorated advertising room with the rest of the staff.

On a table were chicken wings, cake and cold cuts. Beyond that was our publisher, who had written out a state of the paper address to advise us that our newspaper was losing money, but assured us that staff layoffs were “the last resort.” I’d say I’m not worried, but… Well, we can tackle my feelings on the newspaper industry another time.

Anyway, I seem to be getting off of the food part. Wait, just one more thing on the inanity of all this: This happened at 5 p.m., right after the advertising people were done with work, and right when the news editorial people had their deadline. So basically, we had to sit around at this thing for 45 minutes while the people off work weren’t getting paid, and the people who were working weren’t allowed to actually put out the paper. I mean, thanks?

Ok, done with that. Now, back to the matter at hand. I stayed away from the food for the most part, not really wanting to mingle all that much. But after an hour or so, everyone cleared out, leaving a healthy amount of cold cuts and chicken wings.

I went for it. What can I say? I wanted some wings. They were good, and I didn’t fight the urge much. Oh, and the cake was amazing.

So what do I read into this? Well, for one, I am not perfect, and I don’t think I should expect myself to be. I also don’t think anyone else expects me to be perfect.

But I also know that this is a pretty critical part of the diet. I’ve certainly jeopardized my chances of reaching the 283 pound goal weight on Sunday. It doesn’t help that I haven’t exercised since Monday, or that I haven’t been totally happy with my eating choices this week. I haven’t fucked up until this, but I also haven’t turned in a string of perfect days either.

A bit of refocusing might be in order. I am going grocery shopping on Friday, which should give me a good opportunity to get back on schedule. Perhaps, for my own sanity, I could push the Sunday weigh-in back to Tuesday, and get on the elliptical at least three times before then.

But this isn’t really about fixing my mistake. It can’t be fixed, because it will be gone by tomorrow morning. But what does need to be fixed is the ease in which I permit myself to cheat. This all works perfectly in my own little structured setting. I know how to avoid temptation in my own house and, for the most part, at work. But it’s the rare instances when someone just offers you something for free, and it looks really good at that, that I have to get through.

The next scheduled off day is Super Bowl Sunday. I need to make sure that is the next off day altogether.

I suppose part of this is about exposing weaknesses and then taking the necessary steps to fix those weaknesses. Certainly a little bit of mental toughness wouldn’t hurt on this endeavor.

So I gotta start working on that.

Back Monday.

Dan Nied's Fortress of Weight Loss: Day 28

Coming up with a new goal

THE COUNTER
Starting weight: 299 pounds
Last weigh-in: 285.2
Total pounds lost: 13.8
Pounds until 240: 45.2

IS ANYBODY OUT THERE

I hope a lot of you read yesterday’s post. It’s not that I think it’s a life-changing group of words or anything, it’s just that I am hoping I didn’t spend nearly two hours forming a 3,400 word post, thinking of thoughtful answers to comments and questions, and pouring out my heart for nothing.

Actually, those might be my favorite posts to write, since it might actually offer you some insight to how I feel on a certain subject you were wondering about.

Though I have been mildly disappointed with the relative lack of comments so far (does that mean nobody’s reading?), I am hoping that they will pick up to the point where I can do a “reader mail” type of post about once a week. So please, if you have any questions or comments, just publish them.

NOT THE BEST DAY, BUT CERTAINLY NOT THE WORST

Now that my pandering is done (and I thought it was good pandering) I’d like to take a second to discuss my Tuesday.

It wasn’t the greatest day I’ve turned in, but I don’t know how much I can really complain. At this point, posting a food journal would just confuse me, but I can run down the meals quickly:

Honey Nut Cheerios (too much sugar, I know, but still decent on fat and calories), Tuna on whole wheat with fat free mayo and a pickle, a bag of beef jerky, three low-fat hot dogs, a grapefruit and fat-free yogurt, a fairly large salad.

I ate six times, which has to be a new high for this diet. Even on the old one, I think I only ate six times in one day about twice. I am comfortable with five meals, six is good though. Of course, there was the big bag of jerky, which I am also pretty ok with. It’s like a sodium rosin bag, but still low in fat and calories. I grabbed that during work, when I couldn’t get home for lunch for another two hours. I’ll deal with that.

Of course, between the jerky and the hot dogs, there was probably a lot of processed shit running through my body. I have said before that I would like to cut down on that. And I’ve been pretty good about that. So I won’t beat myself up for a day in which I had what looks to be about 2,000 calories and less than 25 grams of fat. Like I said: Could be better, could be worse.

The only thing that I should take away from that menu is that it wasn’t planned out. At this point, the food is getting sort of low in the house, which makes convenient options a little more scarce. At the same time, I am working both Wednesday and Thursday, so convenient options would be ideal. It’s a tiny problem, you see, so I should really have an idea of how the day is going to go before I hit my second meal. I think I’ll make that a goal on Thursday. Perhaps a trip to Subway is in order, since I haven’t been there in a while.

I’ll let you know how that goes.

THE REAL REASON I BROUGHT YOU HERE TODAY

I said yesterday that I have been rethinking my goals a little bit. Nothing drastic, mind you. The goal is still 240 pounds, or 59 total. I still don’t have a set timetable for that number, and I don’t plan on changing either of those things any time soon.

But my expectations have been way off on this diet. In the beginning, I was thinking like the 370 pound man I was two years ago. Back then, I could take off 10 pounds in a week, no problem. Life’s one gift to fat people is that they can lose weight remarkably quickly.
The Biggest Loser is proof of that. Those contestants are on a 100 day program (at least it was 100 days when I last watched), and they go absolutely nuts with diet and exercise while being pushed and prodded by a personal trainer. And the fattest always lose at least 100 pounds over that time.

And I didn’t come that far off of that back in the day. But now my body is playing with a different set of rules. I started at 299 pounds, a stark difference from 370. While I was expecting to lose at least 15 pounds in the first week, I was just setting myself up for disappointment. I never sat down to think about how long this would take, or how long I wanted it to take. I expected plateaus around 270 and 250, but not around 290. So I was ill-prepared for that first obstacle when it came.

Finally I sat down and figured it out. To lose a pound, you must burn 3,500 calories. Using an internet calorie per day calculator that I choose to trust, I burn about 3,400 calories per day as a 28-year old, 6-foot-3, 285 pound, lightly active male. (I chose lightly active instead of moderately active just to be on the safe side.) On this diet my usual caloric intake is between 1,500 and 2,000 per day.

Not counting exercise, and accounting for the occasional off day, it seems that I should have a caloric deficiency of about 1,000 per day. Easy math here: That’s 7,000 per week, which is exactly two pounds.

I like that number. A lot. It shouldn’t be that difficult for me to burn 7,000 calories per week. Since I am about 45 pounds from my goal it figures that, with a 2-pound per week average loss, I should be rolling up around 240 sometime in late June.

Personally, I feel that’s the best measure of success, rather than one big loss or one big gain during a week. One question: Am I averaging two pounds per week?

I came in ahead of schedule for the first four weeks, dropping 14 pounds, or an average of 3.5 per week. Having realized that, I now feel much better about the numbers I agonized over for the first month of this.

I weighed in at 285.2 last Sunday, meaning that the goal for this Sunday - the next weight in - is 283.2. Perhaps it will be lower, maybe even higher. I really don’t know. But I do know that I should burn at least 7,000 calories this week, even if I don’t include the three (at least) trips to the gym.

See, it’s all about a level head when you do this. I made myself crazy for a month, and now I have settled down and figured out a nice little plan for myself.

Dan Nied's Fortress of Weight Loss: Day 27

Answering your comments

THE COUNTER
Starting weight: 299 pounds
Last weigh-in (Sunday, Jan. 20): 285.2
Total pounds lost: 13.8
Pounds until 240: 45.2

Hey hey, what’s up people? Hope everyone had a good weekend and had a chance to celebrate the life of MLKII. I celebrated by only eating twice and going to the gym for a 40-minute ellipticising session.

One of those was good, the other not so good. I actually forgot to eat twice on Monday. Never thought that would happen. Oh well. What I did eat (bowl of Honey Nut Cheerios and a Big Ass Pimped Out Salad – the Big Ass Salad just has vegetables and some form or protein, the Big Ass Pimped Out Salad has vegetables, protein, and fat free croutons and fat free cheese – came to about 1,100 calories by my unofficial calculations. Not perfect, but I’ll take it.)

Anyway, I am going to answer some of your comments today, but before we get to that I want to catch you up on some things.

1. If you haven’t read the last post, you don’t know that I have scrapped daily weigh-ins in favor of weekly ones. The daily weigh-in was screwing with my mind, and I have to admit that I am not sane enough to handle it. So weigh-ins will occur every Sunday morning from here on out.

2. I finally lost some weight! Yep, that’s right, two and a half pounds last week. So I am now feeling pretty confident about this process.

3. I’ve thought about my entire goal (60 pounds), and realized that I haven’t made up any short-term goals to enable me to get there. Previously, I was just trying to lose the weight as fast as possible, praying that the scale would be my friend. Well, I’ve set some short term goals, which I will talk about more tomorrow.

4. I’ve made the decision to cut this blog from five times per week to three times per week. So from here on out, expect entries to be posted on Monday, Wednesday and Friday. I am doing it to keep it sort of fresh, and not have to rehash things every day. Trust me, you’ll thank me for it.

Now that that’s out of the way, let’s get to your comments, all of these come from Blogcritics. That is because the comments are turned off on my site. Though we will hopefully be turning them on very soon, which means a lot more comments from people who know me well. Most of them are assholes, so that should make it interesting.

Anyway, let’s get down to business:

From: Phillip Winn
Comments: Your project was definitely a source of inspiration when I launched my own 20-week 70-lb weight loss, and I, too, have a final bit of weight to lose. The hardest bit, of course. It may take me as long to lose my 20 as it takes you to lose your 60, though!

Now when are we going to start hearing about "the second hundred days?"

That first one from Phillip came right at the beginning of the Fortress. The second one came right at the end of the 100 days. Certainly I have not gotten around to answering that. Phillip did his own weight-loss project for Blogcritics and, as far as I can tell, was pretty damn successful. Now, it would be crass and conceited for me to take credit for Phillip’s weight loss, so I won’t. But I will point out that I have the power to change lives.

Now that my god complex is noted, I will have to agree, that final weight is definitely the toughest. In fact, I never lost my final weight from the 100 days. I wanted to get to 270, I ended up at 275 and figured it was good enough. Believe me, when I hit 270 on the Fortress, there is going to be a celebration of mythic proportions. The 100-pound mark will be a great day in my life.

From: Hucbald
Comments: 1) Throw the scale in the trash.
2) Fill a liter mug with ice cubes all the way to the top first thing when you get out of bed in the morning, fill it with water, grab a multi-vitamin while you let the water chill, then drink the water as quickly as is comfortable. Refill the mug until the remaining ice barely floats, and repeat until you have melted all the ice.

My nickname was fatso as a kid. I know how this works.

Now this is advice I like. Is there any way in that I am going to do this in its entirety? Nope, I am on a different diet. But there are certainly some useful points that I can integrate into my plan. For one, I like the logic of making your body burn calories by heating up near-freezing water to 98.6 degrees. I also like the idea of the split workouts. I might try that one of these days.

So Huc, your nickname was fatso as a kid, eh? Lucky you, the kids weren’t very creative at your school. Here are the nicknames I have enjoyed since my youth:

Fatass
Fat Dan
Tank (Freshman year of high school)
Meat Box (Basketball camp)
Slim (Another basketball camp in which I got to meet Isiah Thomas, back when he was an awesome point guard for my Detroit Pistons and not a sexual-harasser and shitty coach)
Moose (That’s what Isiah called me when we met. One of the highlights of a 10-year old life)
Fat Dan’s ride (Not me, but my car in high school. My friends were kind of dicks, and they made that up)
Big Dan (College, they weren’t very creative there either)
One Man Gang Bang (This really has nothing to do with my weight. However, I do have to credit college roommate Brendan Cullen for coming up with that joke. I stole it from him)
Dookie Dan Nied (From college roommate Jeff Kostic, who was referring to my lack of cleanliness in our otherwise pristine household.)

From: Alexandria Jackson
Comments: I am so impressed with your honesty and your willingness to share your vulnerability here. Maybe it doesn't feel vulnerable to you, but it sure would be to me. I'm rooting for you to find and marry that 240 girl across the room. I'm looking forward to marrying my own fella...and you give me motivation to keep the goal in sight. Good luck with the fortress!

Again, I admire you for putting it all out there.

A few things to address within these comments.

Alexandria, you are definitely my favorite poster. I hope I keep motivating you, and if I ever let you down, please yell at me. You should come around more often.

Finding an active hobby is definitely something I would like to do. A few months ago, I looked into joining a rugby team, but decided against it for fear of death and broken bones. I am not getting any younger. I need an adult basketball league or a softball team, for sure.

As for the vulnerability, I feel it, but not that much. Of course, there are some things in my life I don’t share here. But those are the things I don’t share with anyone that is not a lifelong friend. As for this weight loss, I don’t see why it shouldn’t be public domain. If I can have people rooting for me (or against me) then that just provides more motivation for me to succeed.

My favorite book is the memoir “A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius” by Dave Eggers. In one of my favorite parts, Eggers is confronted with the question of why he would pour his tragic and fucked up life out in the pages of a book for public consumption. His answer is simple: What am I giving you that makes a difference in the world? You read this story, and you think you know me, you think you’ve got it down. But what do you really have? He goes on to list the phone numbers of his friends, and some other personal information (it’s been a while since I read it).

To me, that was the perfect answer to the question. I am not really vulnerable, because I am offering to share this part of my life with you on my own terms. Perhaps I am doing it with a great deal of emotion, surfing the good and the bad and letting you know exactly how I feel. But I have to do that in order for it to work. Otherwise, I could just post daily progress charts, and there would be no human element to it.

I want people to see that I am a normal guy with his fair share of problems. I want people to understand that I am doing this fully on my own, even with many real-life forces working against me. And if I have to embarrass myself from time to time in order to that, if I have to discuss my bowel movements and my moments of weakness, then so be it. That’s the real story of what is happening here.

From: Bill
Comments: Dan,

Bill Geronimo
President

Bill Geronimo, everyone. He’s, apparently, the president of Eat Smart Products, which does indeed have a very nice Web site.

Bill, if you are offering a scale, then I am accepting. Feel free to email me at nieddan@gmail.com. Actually, I have been thinking hard about getting a food scale, especially with the addition of non-labeled vegetables to the diet.

I am loving the Big Ass Pimped Out Salads these days, but the problem is that I really have no idea how many calories are in there. I do know there are 90 calories in two servings of Just 2 Good Blue Cheese dressing, and I know there are 90 calories in a half cup of fat free shredded cheddar cheese, and 60 calories in two servings of fat-free crutons. But that’s about it for the measurables. My friend Guy (who will be heard from in a bit) just purchased a food scale and is raving about it. I might take the plunge. We’ll see.

Of course, if Bill wants to hand one over, then I’d be happy to offer my endorsement.

From: Guy
Comments: Good work on not ordering the pizza! And consider yourself lucky you are not within the grasp of Mike Ilitch and his Little Caesar chain's $5 Hot 'n' Ready pizza here in Michigan. Sure it tastes bad (well as bad as pizza can taste) but it's $5 and there's no wait.

As for the roommate...I'm sure Ruben is a good guy - I mean he obviously is good at sharing. But a role model he is not -- so best to keep your distance, at least in the beginning.

Ruben is a great guy and a fantastic roommate. And I have done a great job of resisting his generosity.

And Guy, I actually do live in the land of Little Caesar’s $5 Hot ‘n’ Ready pizza: The greatest deal known to man. And since Mike Ilitch owns the Detroit Tigers, my favorite sports team ever, I sometimes find it difficult to resist supporting the company. But luckily Little Caesar’s is a bit of a drive away.

From: Purple Tigress
Comments: Lots of sodium and not only in the salami and pretzels, how about the bleu cheese dressing?

You definitely lack a well-researched plan and discipline and I wonder if you don't need to deal with some emotional issues.

This is running long, I know. Sorry about that. Hope you had some time to kill. But we end today with Purple Tigress, one of my favorites. This woman has been berating me almost daily, telling me where I am going wrong, why I suck and how I can get things turned around quickly. I fully appreciate the advice. I love it, actually. She has been correct on many points.

But I still have to refute this latest comment. So let’s break it down for the finale:

Lots of sodium and not only in the salami and pretzels, how about the bleu cheese dressing?

As I have said before, sodium isn’t my main concern. However, fairly recently I have wondered aloud about it. That was when I was mistakenly eating condensed soup a few times per week, and having trouble with regularity.

But I am not cutting sodium out completely, nor am I really paying attention to it for now. Now that I have added vegetables and started drinking more water, I feel comfortable with the sodium intake from packaged, low-fat foods.

Better than lettuce would be spinach -- more nutrition.

True, but I don’t like spinach salads. So I am not going to eat them.

You might try to stop eating after 6 p.m.
A sound argument for someone who goes to bet at 10 p.m. But in fact, at 6 p.m., my day is barely half over. I go to bed at 3 a.m. and wake around 11 a.m. So my eating schedule is a bit unconventional. My final meal comes just after 11 p.m., usually, which actually would be 6 p.m. for a normal person.

You also eat meals that aren't particularly appetizing. A sandwich is a snack? That's more like breakfast 1 and breakfast 2.

That’s certainly a subjective view on this. I think sandwiches are quite appetizing. I could eat them at all times if I had to.

Also, I’ve made the mistake of labeling my meals by traditional standards (i.e. breakfast, lunch, dinner, snacks). But really there is not traditional meal other than breakfast. Everything else just kind of goes together. If I say I have a sandwich for a snack, then it just means I ate a sandwich for my second meal of the day. It doesn’t affect the calorie intake of the day, outside of the 220 calories it contains. I don’t aim for larger meals at certain times, though maybe I should. The thing is, I have no idea when I eat dinner. Is my dinner the 5 p.m. meal on my work break? Or is it the 11 p.m. meal, the last of the night? It’s all just labels anyway. I think I’ll change the food journal to Meal 1, Meal 2, etc…

My friend commented recently that athletes eat to perform well as opposed to exercising so they can eat. I think overweight people, if they exercise at all, exercise so they can eat.

That might be an objectionable comment. I am not sure. But I certainly don’t “exercise so I can eat.” When calculating expected weight loss, or planning meals for a certain day, I don’t take into account what exercise I have gotten. I look at exercise as kind of a bonus. Whatever it does, it does. I do it to be healthier, and to get into shape.

You also seem to have slightly defeatist attitudes. At one time it seemed as if you were weighing yourself more than once a day.

True! I was weighing myself more than once a day. I had a good two-week string where I weighed myself at least twice a day, because I expected the pounds to be gone quickly. I wouldn’t say I was naïve, as much as I had unrealistic expectations and too much curiosity. That’s why I’ve scaled back the weigh-ins to once a week.

As for defeatist attitudes, I don’t know if I would agree with that. I think there have been some defeatist activities along the way, but the attitude has largely been one of confidence and determination. If I was a defeatist, I would have given up on Day 3, when I gained three pounds. But I stumbled ahead, and now I am very confident that this will be a success.

You definitely lack a well-researched plan and discipline and I wonder if you don't need to deal with some emotional issues.

Of course I have emotional issues! Haven’t you gathered that by now? Well, obviously you have. I’m not crazy, but I do wonder why my father doesn’t love me (Actually, that’s true), and I am dealing with a lifetime of being fat. So yeah, there is at least a little bit of baggage there.

And you may be correct, in one sense, about the lack of research. Obviously, this isn’t a diet that was developed by a doctor or nutritionist (Though both were minimally consulted on this). This diet was developed with one scientific fact, though: Burn more calories than you consume, and you will lose weight. And it turns out that is right. One month in, 14 pounds lighter.

There also was a very valuable bit of usable research going into this: The research of my own body. I’ve done this before with great success. The last time I did it, I had no scientific basis at all, but now I do. I conducted an experiment with my own body, and it turns out my hypothesis held up. Seventy pounds in 100 days, 95 pounds in seven months, and I kept it off (yes, yes, I gained 25 back in the two months prior to this, but there was an explanation for that which I will get into at a later date).

So I know what works for me. It may not be for everybody, but then, I’m not trying to convert anyone. I’m not publishing the diet, I’m, not writing a book about it (unless someone offers. Then I would be all ears).

All I am offering is proof that losing weight is possible if you really try to do it.

Dan Nied's Fortress of Weight Loss: Day 23

Not quite down with the daily weigh-ins

note: This was written on Thursday night, but didn't get up until Saturday because Blogcritics took a little while to publish it. It's gotta go there first, which is ok with me. But sorry I couldn't help you kill time on Friday.

It’s cold in my house.

It’s a 100-year old (at least) Victorian set on top of a hill near the Carquinez strait. Strong winds have been known to blow in off the water, which doesn’t help on 50-degree Northern California days.

It’s not that cold that bothers me. I’m from Detroit. I embrace outside cold. It’s the heaters in my house. They don’t work. Actually, I should say they do work, they just don’t heat anything outside of a three-foot radius directly in front of them.

Instead, my two roommates and I have turned to space heaters for bedroom warmth. Trouble with space heaters is that don’t want them on at night. That would just waste electricity and give those bastards at Pacific Gas and Electric a few more dollars out of our pockets.

So in the sleeping hours, it can get down to about 55 degrees in my room.

I wake up a little bit before noon, under two blankets and over two pillows, and I lay in bed wishing I didn’t have to get up at all. It’s that indoor chill that I loathe so much, combined with anticipation of those few seconds when that frost hits my naked chest and legs. I hate that moment more than any other in the day. And on one hand, it can’t get any worse, but on the other, the day has already gone to hell.

But I’ve gotten out of bed these last three weeks with little problem, willing to brave the cold and hit the bathroom, then come back into my room, strip down and step on the scale.

In the moment before I climb on, I am convinced that this is the day I’ll have a major breakthrough. In those moments, I weigh at least two pounds less than I did the day before. I am already forming the blog entry for that night, trying to word my bragging just so, so it seems like I am a person who knows what he is doing.

After I get on the scale, I watch the three dashes on the LCS display screen. It’s interesting how this works. Three dashes in a row like Morse Code, representing the numbers I’ll eventually see. They bounce on and off for a few seconds, not willing to reveal my fate. Is it a good day? Is it a bad day? Only the dashes know for sure.

Inevitably they relent, and usually the room gets a little colder.

I’ve stayed the same. I’ve gained a pound somehow while I was sleeping. I’ve lost maybe two-tenths, a negligible number.

And I quickly jump off the scale and punch the air in anger. Why? What did I do wrong? How does this scale continue to defy the simple science of losing weight? Calories burned minus calories consumed should equal success.

I’ve counted. I know how many calories are in me. I have information as to how much I should be burning. Fifteen hundred calories in a day consumed, and a 6-foot-3 inch, 290 pound, 28-year old man should be burning at least 3,000 in a sedentary life.

To lose one pound of fat, you must burn 3,500 calories, so the experts tell me. Do that math. If the calorie counter that I use is correct in telling me I should burn 3,417 calories per day – given my age, height, weight and activity level – and I ingest 1,500 calories per day through four to five strategically spaced meals, then on an average day I am burning 1,917 calories.

Well over a half a pound per day.

Over three weeks, by my calculations – (1,917x21 days)/3,500 -- that is 11.5 pounds.

And at last weigh in, I had lost a total of 10 pounds.

The science tells me this is working, and I can’t honestly deny that 10 pounds in less than a month is real progress.

But I am a hard-headed emotional man. I need to see daily results, no matter what variables are in play. In my mind, 287 one day and 289 the next is failure. The ups and downs of daily information warp my mind. For one, I’ve spent the last week fluctuating between 286 and 289. For another, I was down four pounds the first day and have lost only six since.

But dammit if the math doesn’t add up to a remarkably sensible figure.

But what of the daily defeats I’ve suffered lately, the ones that make me wish I had never gotten out of bed to meet the cold?

With every stagnant weigh-in, and every anger-induced punch of the air, I am driving myself crazier and crazier. The number I see is the number I invest in throughout the day. Every meal is meant to lower that number, every second spent on the elliptical is part of a grand design to never see that number again. But somehow they always seem to pop back up. 289 down to 287 back up to 289, down to 288, back to 289. How am I supposed to gauge progress from that?

Experience. That’s the answer. I remember that I’ve done this before, going from 370 pounds to 275 in six months. How did I do it? When did I weigh in?

I didn’t own a scale back in Colorado. I weighed in at the gym, always after a workout, usually once a week on the same day. The numbers always seemed to be falling. If they didn’t, it wasn’t any huge deal because I had an entire week before I had to face that fate again.

But so many people who know about these things have said I should weigh myself every day, at the same time, on the same scale. But that’s their advice, that’s what works for them and the people who trust them.

What works for me? What do I have to do to get my head on straight throughout this entire process? Why do I feel shame more than triumph? What’s wrong with 10 pounds in three weeks?

Well, for one, it’s not 20 pounds in three weeks.

Also, the number doesn’t seem to go down. When you are posting your daily weight to an audience of who knows how many people (1, 100, 1,000, 10,000?) you can’t take pride in the status quo. I am trying to paint myself as an example of what can happen when an average person takes on an extraordinary task. But as long as the numbers spring upwards, no matter what the time frame or variables, I am simply showing myself to be a failure.

At least in my mind.

So stop doing that. Stop trying to inspire people with daily numbers. After all, I’m not really doing this for you. Instead, I am using you to keep me motivated. If you get something out of it, great. But the bottom line is what works for me.

Daily weigh-ins? They don’t work for me. I can’t handle it. I can’t judge my progress on one day’s fairly arbitrary number. It has to be a real period of time where one slip, or one momentous stand won’t have so much influence on my psyche.

Once a week, on Sunday. That’s the only way I can stay sane. Once a week, with as little expectation as possible. If the number is lower one Sunday than it was the last, then I am doing fine. If it’s higher, then it’s time to figure something else out.

But I won’t break because of the pressure. I won’t let the numbers defeat me. Their influence will not be greater than that of my own mind.

Dan Nied's Fortress of Weight Loss: Day 21

Three weeks down

Note: Just woke up on Tuesday and weighed in at 289, a 1.2 pound weight gain from yesterday. My overwhelming feeling is: Fuck this. I am so fucking sick of this goddam game. It's getting tiresome trying to figure out how I took in less than 2,000 calories but still gained two pounds. I mean really, fuck this fucking shit. I'm not even mad at myself, I am doing a lot of reasonable things to make this happen. Maybe the expectations are too high, but all I am asking for is some fucking stability in this goddam process.

287 one day, 289 the next. I could eat 1,000 calories today and I wouldn't know what to expect on the scale tomorrow. Honestly, my head is fucked because of this. Seriously, what the fuck am I doing here?

Anyway, on to the entry.

THE COUNTER
Starting weight: 299
Last weigh-in: 287.8
Total pounds lost: 11.2
Pounds until 240: 47.8

WHAT I ATE TODAY
Here’s the rundown, but with only approximations on fat and calories. Now that I am eating non-labeled vegetables, it’s kind of hard to tell. I will say, though, that I need to invest in some measuring spoons.

Breakfast:
2 cups of honey nut cheerios
1 ½ cups of skim milk
Calories: 400
Fat: 2 grams (I am guessing. Forgot to read that label. Damn!)

Snack:
1 serving (5 slices) of super duper lowfat salami
2 slices of whole wheat bread
Fat free mayo
Mustard
Calories: 220
Fat: 3.5 grams

Dinner:
1 big ass salad with
Lettuce
Half a green pepper
1 medium-sized tomato
Several mushrooms
5 slices of super duper lowfat salami
2 servings of Just 2 Good Blue Cheese dressing
1 serving of nonfat cottage cheese
Calories: 340 (guessing)
Fat: 6 grams

Dinner 2
A few too many pretzels (in my defense, it was 9 p.m., and I had to scramble back to work from a game. A little less than half the bag was left over from the last shopping trip, and they were the only thing in the house I could eat while I was writing a story on deadline. Better than getting a whopper, eh?
Calories: 500?
Fat: 4 grams?

Dinner 3
3 lowfat hot dogs
Calories: 135
Fat: 4.5 grams

Total calories: 1,595
Total fat: 20 grams

Exercise: None.

ON THE LOW-FAT BANDWAGON

So the salad was a big success, and I am grateful that I bought a lot of vegetables. However, after spending $114 on food Monday, I am realizing I might have a little too much in the house.

Certainly that’s not a bad problem to have, other than the fact that I shouldn’t have spent that much (the budget allows $100 every two weeks for food), I am quite worried that I will have a refrigerator full of rotten vegetables by this time next week. It’s happened before.

Still, though I didn’t break away from sodium-rich food (see salami and hot dogs above), I was happy to finally eat something green and unprocessed today. In fact, I’d venture to say that salad was easily the best thing I had all day.

Although there is a bit of a catch on all this. Let’s examine Tuesday’s eating a bit. However, we’ll throw away the pretzels because those were kind of an emergency time-crunch grab. Well check it out: Honey Nut Cheerios, lowfat salami and hot dogs, and a salad. Not a bad haul, eh?

See, I thoroughly enjoy all of those things, and that is why I actually look forward to eating in the morning. A little bit of an admission here: I was more excited to crack open that box of Honey Nut Cheerios on Tuesday than I was about eating the off-day pizza on Sunday. For one, there wasn’t any guilt associated with the cereal. Hell, if I don’t eat a good breakfast, I will be pissed at myself. So I actually had to have that bowl of cereal.

As for the lowfat salami, I have been looking for that product for months. Finally I found it on Monday, and I had to shell out $5 to get a decent-sized package of small salami slices that don’t taste like total shit and had 60 calories and 1.5 grams of fat for every five slices.

I mean, seriously, if that doesn’t scream “Fuck Yeah!”, I don’t know what does.

Of course, what definitely screams “Fuck Yeah!” are the hot dogs. Before, I was just living off of regular old fat free turkey dogs, which are great by all means. But I recently discovered that Hebrew National, the same people that bring you the 1-pound, 32-grams of fat footlong artery-clogging sausage, also makes hot dogs that have only 45 calories and 1.5 grams of fat. While they may not pack that hurts-so-good, heart-attack-inducing kick of the 32-gram of fat dog (and really, if you haven’t, please try that. It’s the Hummer of hot dogs), they are still pretty tasty when grilled on the Foreman.

And, as we noted, the salad was great.

I suppose the whole point of my telling you this is to just give you a sense of where you can cut calories while still eating some things you love. Obviously, I am no advocate of healthy living (if I was, I wouldn’t be doing my second weight-loss blog right now), but the lowfat versions of your favorite foods are the perfect way to make a radical change not so radical.

THE SCALES
Good news from the scales this morning. After Sunday’s binge, and a decent Monday, I was down to 287.8 pounds. Since I was bracing myself for something around 291, I was happy.

However, I know how this game is played. We’ll see what the scale says on Wednesday.

Still, I am wondering if this is a perfect opportunity for me to begin a steady decline in weight loss. The real short term goal here is to keep the number going down every day.

If I am 287.8 one day, I can’t be upset with 287.4 the next, right? That’s a sign of progress. The only thing that screws with my head is when the number jumps for some unknown reason. To avoid that, I am trying to eliminate all variables by drinking plenty of water during the day, and eating the vegetables in an effort to up my regularity. Hopefully you’ll never have to hear about my backed up bowels ever again. I think we can all be thankful for that.

But we’ll see how this all goes, I suppose. I am not about to get all hopeful today when I know 500 calories in pretzels at 9 p.m. might have derailed the whole thing.

Anyway, that’s it for me today. I’ll be back tomorrow with some more sweet updates.

Dan Nied's Fortress of Weight Loss: Day 20

Trying something new this time

And we’re back.

Did you miss me? Maybe you did, since I am kind of addictive.

I took four days off from the blog, and one day off the diet. Why didn’t I write on Sunday when I said I would? Well, I didn’t feel the need to tell you the story about the pizza I devoured on Sunday. Here’s the short story: It was good, but not that good.

The time away gave me a chance to think about what I am doing with this weight-loss plan.

The main problem I have with the first 20 days is the erratic nature of the scale. Granted, I understand variables and have a working knowledge of how weight loss sometimes manifests itself. However, the yo-yoing back and forth has been nothing short of ridiculous. Let’s note the peaks and valleys:

1. Lost four pounds in the first two days.. Awesome, right?

2. Had a terrible binge on Day 3 and gained three pounds back over the next two or three days…sucks, right?

3. Managed to get a few good days in and got down under 290 pounds…fantastic.

4. But, for some reason, kept inching up over 290 pounds for a while…not good.

5. Got explosive diarrhea last week, actually got down to 284…hell yeah! (for the weight, not the diarrhea.)

6. Predictably gained some weight back the next day, and finished 13 straight days of eating a low-calorie, low-fat diet weighing in at 289 pounds.

So here I am, Day 20 in the books, and I have lost 10 pounds. It’s progress, undeniably concrete progress at that. But it’s not the kind of progress I expected with this. (And, as of Monday night, I haven’t weighed myself since Saturday morning. The off-day pizza probably did a number on the scale. I am hoping I countered correctly with a decent, but not great, day of eating and a decent amount of exercise on Monday).

Sometime over the weekend I had to ask myself why this isn’t working the way I thought it would.

The easiest and most convenient answer is nature. Simply put, this rate of weight loss is an exact result of my process. This is how my body will react to this entire eating overhaul, and this is the rate I’ll have to get used to.

But I didn’t buy that. Instead, I wondered if I was doing something wrong. Obviously I am not perfect, nor am I doing this with any scientific knowledge or consult. What I am using is the trial and error method.

And I realized it might be time for a new trial.

Honestly, I have not attacked this with the vigor it deserves. Instead of exercising and eating actually healthy food, I’ve chosen to allow myself to be talked out of trips to the gym and eaten simply low-fat, low-calorie food that really isn’t all that healthy.

The result of eating condensed chicken soup and Spaghetti-O’s for two weeks was a little bit of weight loss and a digestive system that was backed up beyond belief.

I paid no attention to fiber, sodium, vegetables, fruit, protein or anything else. If it was low in calories, it was ok.

I’ll admit to being a little cocky when I started. I thought I knew exactly what I had to do to quickly lose 60 pounds and be happily on my way. But now I have to believe that I was wrong in all that, and I am still learning this entire process.

The answer, well the hypothesis, to my problem is simple. I am going back to nature.

Which is why, after a $114 grocery trip on Monday, my refrigerator has an entire crisper filled with fruits and vegetables. There are tomatoes, onions, carrots, lettuce heads, broccoli stalks and grapefruits, to name a few. There is even an eggplant, and I have no idea what the hell I am supposed to do with that. (By the way, if anyone has any easy and healthy eggplant recipes, I am all ears).

As to the gym, I realized that I just have to go. It’s like homework, you may not want to do it, but you know you have to. You have to force yourself to do it, and that’s all there is to it.

So I went to the gym today, and upped the elliptical time to 40 minutes, instead of the usual 30 (40 minutes, by the way, was the normal time for the 100 Days diet). I didn’t lift, but I am going to ease into that. For now, I want to force myself -- on Mondays, Wednesdays, Fridays and Sundays – to go do cardio. After a few times, I’ll be used to being there. Hell, I’ll even like being there. And after a while, I’ll just gravitate towards the gym. I know this from past experience, but now I realize I am starting much further behind than I thought.

So all I ask of you is to bear with me while I figure this process out. Some of you have sent along suggestions, which are greatly appreciated. I am always open to suggestions about improving this quest. And if you are beside yourself thinking that you have it all figured out while I flail around every day, wondering why the weight isn’t coming off, then I understand. The problem with me is that I am stubborn. I love hearing your suggestions, and I take them all into consideration, but that doesn’t mean I am open, immediately, to enacting them. I’d rather strike out on my own first.

But the good news is that, with the power of elimination and my penchant for striking out, soon we’ll all be on the same page.

Dan Nied's Fortress of Weight Loss: Day 16

I'm back, and with only a minor (I hope) affliction

After not writing anything for Thursday, I felt bad for the readers. And, though I have perfectly good reason to not write anything tonight, I am trudging ahead so as not to leave you hanging through the weekend.

The reason for the trudging? I am a nice guy.

Let me start this with a question: Have you ever had liquid shoot violently out of your ass?

Maybe you’re lucky. Maybe you haven’t.

I hadn’t, at least until I woke up on Thursday morning.

That happened about five more times over the course of the day. I’m still not going to bed for another few hours after I write, so we may have one more completely liquid form of diarrhea happening on this beautiful winter day.

Yeah!

Funny thing was, I was feeling kind of backed up on Tuesday and Wednesday. I guess I somehow prayed to the patron saint of loose stool, because the rains poured down from the heavens all day on Thursday. Like fucking manna.

So as you might figure, I am not at 100 percent right now, nor do I know what caused the illness. Could be something I ate, could be my roommate, who had the flu earlier this week (however, I am reporting only minor and fleeting flu symptoms). It seems I can keep solid food in ok (not that I ate much of it on Thursday), but liquids come out both holes. So maybe I should be worried about that, eh? Is there a doctor in the house?

I would apologize for my graphic descriptions of my diarrhea, but I think we’re all mature enough to handle it.

As for the diet, I took Wednesday night off of the blog to sort of clear my head, and go about this with one night of not worrying what to write about, or how good my writing will be. I was also kind of embarrassed. Even after a sub-1,700 calorie day on Tuesday, I gained two pounds. I was getting kind of pissed off about that. I still am not sure what it was, but it might have been the backed up feeling I alluded to earlier. Let’s just say I felt heavy.

So on Wednesday I decided that I was going to attack this diet. Instead of hoping it kicked in, I was going to force it to. I didn’t do anything drastic, just ate right without any minor slipups. After I got off work, I went to the gym and ellipticised for a half hour, burning 500 calories off my 292 pound body.

So, as you can see, I finally broke through that barrier. I exercised after work. It was nice, for sure. In the morning, I weighed just over 289. So I lost just under three pounds over the course of the day. Not bad, I suppose.

Of course, my current affliction is fantastic for the purposes of this diet. By the middle of Thursday, I was down to 286.4, easily a new low for this venture. Predictably, I didn’t eat much on Thursday. However, after work I did force myself to down a can of soup, a can of turkey chili (it’s been sitting in the cupboard for months), and two pieces of dry toast. All told, I probably ate about 1,150 calories on Thursday. We’ll see how that all works out.

The only other note about the Fortress is that, diarrhea permitting, I’ve scheduled my off-day for Sunday. There is a chance of a pizza in my future. Needless to say, I am kind of pumped about that.

So that’s about it from here. I’ll be taking the weekend off from the blog, and I will be back on Monday to tell you how that pizza was.

Dan Nied's Fortress of Weight Loss: Day 14

My Dumb Decision, and Why I Don't Work Out

THE COUNTER
Starting weight: 299
Today’s weight: 290
Yesterday’s weight: 287.8
1-day difference: +2.2
Total pounds lost: 9
Pounds until 240: 50

Breakfast
2 cups Wheaties
1 ½ cups Skim milk
Calories: 375
Fat: 1 gram

Lunch
1 Subway Club, no cheese, all vegetables except jalapenos and cucumbers
Calories: 640
Fat: 12 grams

Snack
2 slices whole wheat bread
3 slices lean turkey
2 servings, fat free mayo
Calories: 240
Fat: 3.5 grams

Dinner
5 fat free turkey hot dogs
Calories: 225
Fat: 0 grams

Total calories: 1,480
Total fat: 16.5 grams

Exercise: none….see below

Because I have a tendency to write long, and I am always looking to make this more readable, we’re trying out subheads today.

MY THOUGHTS ON THE DAY
You know, I look at the numbers of the day, and I am pretty happy. Less than 1,500 calories and 20 grams of fat is always good (At least in my book).

I suppose I grouped nearly half my calories into breakfast and lunch, which came within two hours of each other. And I suppose I should really cut back on the Subway, at least for the sake of my available funds.

But Subway is one of the things I allow myself to be talked into. Even during the 100 Days, Subway was a major food source. You could argue that it is where I get the most vegetables on this whole diet.

Actually, it might be the only place I get vegetables on this diet. I’ve sort of sworn off fresh vegetables because I never eat them before they go bad, and throwing out slimy carrots and celery is not appealing to me. Still, I should look into buying them again, but just not as much.

But after a somewhat poor day Monday, I am happy to buckle down again on Tuesday. There were no cravings, no problems eating what I did. In fact, if anything, I had to force myself to eat dinner at 11:30 p.m., a little later than normal.

So I suppose I should be happy with that. But still, the Subway habit needs to be reduced significantly.

THE DUMBEST DECISION I COULD EVER MAKE
There is a real yo-yo saga going on with me and my scale right now.

I can’t blame anyone else. It’s my own fault. I am just an idiot.

See, for fun, I’ve taken to doing an unofficial weigh-in at night, to go along with the official weigh-ins in the morning. I usually like to see how much weight I’ve lost simply by sleeping.

I try not to put any stock into those night-time weigh-ins. After all, who knows what extra baggage you are carrying around? Inside your body is the remnants of any food you ate since your last bowel movement, plus any liquid you drank since your last piss. That stuff adds up.

But there have been times when I have lost a significant amount of weight during the day (last Sunday being the most obvious drop when I lost 4.4 pounds during waking hours), and I can’t help but get a little giddy when that happens.

But the numbers, predictably, are usually higher before I go to bed. I’m prepared for that, but when they are higher than I expect, I can’t help but feel a little frustrated.

Tuesday I awoke weighing 290 pounds, a shitty number to begin with, as it was 2.2 pounds higher than the day before. Just for kicks, when I got home from work at 11:30, I decided to weigh in again. The catch there was that I had to pee and, being the inquisitive and gross kind of guy I am, I was wondering how much that pee would weigh. So I climbed atop the scale and was shocked to see 295 pounds. That’s right, only four pounds under the diet’s starting weight, and a full five pounds over the day’s starting weight. To make matters worse, it’s 7.2 pounds higher than Monday’s official weight.

But hey, wait a second. A person’s weight is the most fickle thing in the universe. It goes up and down constantly, and can fluctuate up or down up to 10 pounds in a single day.

True, but I was still hoping that this would be one of those days in which I would lose weight during the day, giving me reason to be optimistic when I woke up for the official weigh-in on Wednesday.

I’m not really upset about this. I just think it’s kind of annoying. But, like I said, I really shouldn’t weigh myself at night. Hopefully I will learn that lesson.

By the way, if you were wondering, after I took that piss, I weighed 294.4. So that particular pee was .6 pounds.

Someone commented that this wasn’t really a scientific blog. Well I beg to differ. I am teaching you all about water displacement.

WHY CAN’T I JUST GO TO THE GYM ALREADY?
I officially have a gym membership. The gym itself is about three miles away from my house and is open 24 hours a day (it says it right in the name, actually). My work schedule is favorable to working out, and I love the way I feel after I work out.

So why do I insist on staying at home all the time?

I haven’t worked out since Friday night, and then the only reason I went was because we had a power outage that lasted 13 hours. Since then, I have wasted two days off of work, and two days in which I was working but could have fit in some elliptical work either before or after my shift.

So here I am, not really attacking this whole thing with everything I have. I don’t really know why, either. I suppose precedent was set by the 100 Days diet. During that, it still took about a month for me to start working out regularly. Once I did, I felt bad if I took even one day off. Working out and ellipticising became part of my life. It was what I did for fun.

But I don’t know if that’s it. Certainly, I can’t rely on the idea that in a few weeks I’ll just magically begin working out. Hell, if I don’t work out, I am cheating myself out of money. Meanwhile, I eat decently well, but am not getting everything out of it that I could.

As of right now, I am indeed confident that the working out aspect will somehow be resolved. I think I need to simply force myself to do it four times in a week. After that, I should be able to get used to it.

Still, it’s somewhat distressing to continually talk myself out of one of the biggest parts of this diet. It’s almost like I am setting myself up to fail. Or maybe I just want to see this blog go on as long as possible. But, of course, that’s not it.

So I’ll work on that. My next day off of work is Friday. I should set a goal to get to the gym either Wednesday or Thursday. Once I get used to going on work days, the rest should fall in line.

Dan Nied's Fortress of Weight Loss: Day 13

Almost stumbled, stayed upright

THE COUNTER
Starting weight: 299
Last weigh-in: 287.8
Total pounds lost: 11.2
Pounds until 240: 47.8

What I ate today
Honestly, I really need to start tracking calories better.

Breakfast
2 Cups of Wheaties
1 ½ Cup of skim milk
Calories: 375
Fat: 0 grams

Snack
1 Handful (1 serving?) of what apparently are “Cheetos Puffs Cheese Flavored Snacks” (according to the website)
Calories: 160
Fat: 10 grams (I guess)

Lunch
1 Footlong Subway club,
1 Footlong Subway veggie
(yes, two feet of sandwiches, only four more for a party sub!)
Calories: 1,100
Fat: 18 grams

Dinner
2 Chicken breasts, 1 big, 1 small
Calories: 325 (a guess, since the bag of chicken says 120 calories per “piece”, yet one of these pieces was better than twice as big as the other. Somehow I don’t trust their rationalization on serving size.)
Fat: 4.5 grams

Total calories: 1,960 (according to my calculations. However, I don’t believe for a second that it was under 2,200)
Total fat: 32.5 (yikes)

Exercise: None. I am, for some reason, staying away from the gym right now. I don’t know why, but I do know that I will think about it and talk about it tomorrow.

So Monday was a bizarre day in the old Fortress.

As you can see, there were some odd eating choices. Will I rationalize them? Nope. But I will, however, point out that even with a handful of some sort of puffy Cheetos product and two footlong subs over the course of 15 minutes, I still managed to have a semi-acceptable calorie count.

I am fairly confident in those numbers, I suppose. Though I can’t be sure I only had one serving of the Cheetos product (but if not, it wasn’t much more), I used the nutritional value provided on the company’s Web site, as I did for Subway (I knew the count on the club, wasn’t sure on the veggie. By the way, it is less calories and fat if you get a double meat footlong club instead of a footlong club with a 6-inch veggie. Interesting, eh?)

But I think I should explain what happened on Monday, though it might not be that interesting.

The Cheetos came from my roommate, Ruben, a portly guy himself who, to be honest, eats like total shit at all times. He went shopping, as he is known to do, and came home precisely at the time that I was debating ordering a pizza. When I saw the Cheetos, which were not normal Cheetos but some sort of white-cheddar puffed out variation of Cheetos, I decided to go nuts. He offered, I accepted and grabbed a handful. Hey, why not warm myself up for that pizza?

But ultimately, I walked away from totally gorging and went to Subway instead, where I beefed up the normal club order with the veggie sub. That was sort of to reward myself for staying on the diet (sort of) and also to ensure that I would not want to order a pizza later on.

It worked, I’ll say. And I am proud to have salvaged a potentially damaging situation.

Now, why was I about to order a pizza? No, it wasn’t some irresistible craving, and it wasn’t a total breakdown of my self-concocted system. It was actually a give-and-take with myself, and a little bit of frustration at the limitations I’ve currently set in place.

There were two factors at work here.

1. When I woke up, I weighed a slight 287.8, a full 11.2 pounds less than when I began 12 days before. That, in my book, equals success, especially with how difficult it was to get started. So don’t I deserve a reward? Maybe. (Though I suspect weight gain tomorrow, based on high fat intake and a fairly high intake of sodium. Gotta hit that water tomorrow.)

2. Sunday had been my seventh straight day without a major screw up. My goal, if you remember, was to go 14 straight days without a screw up before my next scheduled off day. But after breaking the 10-pound barrier, I kind of felt I deserved a break. Perhaps the reason I felt I deserved a break is because I am kind of sick of eating low-calorie, low-fat foods every day. Yeah, it only took a week, some resolve I have. But still, the idea of choosing from the same six or seven foods I’ve had for the past week, and knowing that none of them tasted like melted cheese, was kind of frustrating.

So played a little game with myself, as many dieters do, in which I tried to convince myself that I deserved a day off. I’d been good, I’d seen results, I knew I could go back on the plan the next day (and I know I can). So why not let loose, especially with a major sporting event happening? (BCS title game, if you weren’t aware) So I briefly moved up the planned off day a week, and started thinking about most delicious yet economical pizza I could get.

In the end, though, I had to say no. The reason wasn’t just for the numbers on the scale, but really to set some sort of precedent with off-days.

I’ve said before that I will be taking off-days throughout this process. But I also have said that I want those to come on my terms. They won’t be the product of frustration or cravings. If I let that happen, then this whole thing could fall apart at any time. Indulgence one day leads to indulgence the next. I can tell myself that I can get back on the wagon at any time, but if I keep indulging, then the wagon will have passed me by, and I’ll have to wait for the next one to come around, which could take months.

Instead, I have planned the off-days, though they are subject to change within a reasonable time. The next scheduled off-day is on Monday, however I have given myself the option of moving it up to Friday, my next day off of work. I’ll decide by Thursday if I’ll take that option. Much of that will depend on the numbers on the scale, and the strength of my frustration with the current food choices.

But though I might be indulging on Friday or Monday, I also know for certain that I will be back eating low-calorie, low-fat food the next day, and the day after that, until the next scheduled break.

Dan Nied's Fortress of Weight Loss: Day 12

Water weight, I think I love you

What I ate today:
I don’t have calorie or fat counts. But my guess is not that many calories, and a little more fat than usual.

What I ate:
Breakfast

• 7 slices of turkey bacon (20 calories, no fat per slice!)


• 2 servings of Wheaties with skim milk

Lunch

• 1 Salmon steak


• 2 slices of wheat bread with fat free mayo

Dinner:

• 1 Tuna steak

Snack:

• 1 tub (4 servings at 80 calories each) of fat free cottage cheese.

THE COUNTER
Starting weight: 299
Current weight: 290.0 (unofficially)
Total pounds lost: 9
Pounds until 240: 50

Exercise: None. I stayed in and watched football all day.

Today was fish day! The salmon was better than the tuna. The tuna tasted like it was from a can. I don’t understand that. It was fresh from the Safeway, and we all know Safeway has the best seafood. The salmon was great, I’ll buy that again. Not the tuna. Still, I have no clue what the nutritional value of frozen fish is, which makes me a little nervous.

But it must not be that bad, because I lost four pounds during the day. I weighed in at 294.4 in the morning (same as Saturday) and then, after a late-night shower, weighed in again for fun and was down to 290 on the dot; a stunning loss for an exercise-free day.

Weight is based on a series of variables, you see. Sunday, it seems, everything lined up perfectly. I think I know what happened, and I think it has a lot to do with water weight. Now, I don’t particularly understand the idea of water weight, other than the idea that water has volume and it makes you weigh more when it is in your system. But I don’t really understand why drinking more water helps you get rid of water weight. (Yes, I know you pee more, but then, aren’t you just peeing out what you simply put into your body?)

I guess the idea is that water helps flush your system of anything you might have left over from before. Anyway, I know that I drank liquids pretty much from wake to sleep on Sunday. Coffee, diet Mountain Dew, water, green tea, more diet Mountain Dew, more water. It just went on. I probably pissed 13 times on Sunday. Meanwhile, everything I ate was high in protein and generally low in sodium (I am guessing), which means that all the water I was retaining by eating sodium-rich food such as condensed soup and canned spaghetti probably was flushed from my system.

This is what I am guessing.

Meanwhile, a fairly brisk workout on Friday night, and some decent eating on Saturday (not great, but good enough to maintain my weight exactly), probably contributed to what may just be the first official breakthrough of the Fortress. It is almost certain that when I weigh in on Monday morning, I will be under 290 pounds, meaning it will be the first real milestone of this journey. It will also provide some proof that this is working as I had hoped.

The key, however, is to realize that my goal wasn’t to get under 290 and that I still have 50 pounds to go. I should also realize that this will be the easiest 10 pounds to lose.

But a rapid weight loss now moves me closer to getting out of weight purgatory. That’s my term for the first 24 pounds on this quest. My low weight before was 275, so right now, I am just losing weight I’ve already lost and then gained back. It won’t get truly exciting for me until I hit 274 (the real first pound) and then 270 (the 100-pound mark from when I began two years ago).

After those milestones, this could really start to get fun. I can’t wait to see myself at 260 or 250. I surely can’t wait for 240. And honestly, right now those numbers don’t seem all that far off.

Of course, there will be times when they seem very far off. And I have no clue if I will reach them within two months or four months or eight months. I have a frame of reference for going from 370 to 300 -- 100 days exactly -- but not from 300 to 240. That could take a while.

So I am not looking too far ahead right now. If, as I assume, I am under 290 by the time you read this, I need only to look as far as 285 for real motivation. That’s the next increment in what is surely going to be a slower process than I would like.

Certainly, I’d like to wake up tomorrow at 240, write a nice, emotional farewell entry and hit San Francisco looking for chicks, but that’s not gonna happen. So I’ll be happy if I am 289 tomorrow.

Dan Nied's Fortress of Weight Loss: Day 9

A little late, but still posting away

Editor's note: First, I apologize for this going up at 11 p.m. Pacific time on a Friday night, 21 hours after it was written. See, Blogcritics insists this gets posted to that site first, and because they get 50,000 readers every day, and 210west.com gets about 17, I abide by their rules. I usually post this as soon as I wake up, but today Northern California was beseiged by heavy winds and rain, and of course the Dan Nied compound suffered a power outage around 10 a.m. (or sometime before I got up). You gotta hand it to those people over a Pacific Gas and Electric, they responded quickly and seemlessly, and had the power going no more than 13 short hours later.

Anyway, the power outage forced me to the gym today, even after work. So you'll be happy to know that. But that is why this is being posted so late.

Second editor's note: Some of you (well Bryce Thornton of Columbus, Ohio being the only one actually) complained that you couldn't leave comments on 210west. That is true. During the 100 Days blog, we got spammed pretty bad, so we have to keep them off for now. Ken, my web guy, will be upgrading our systems fairly soon. After that, I am hoping to turn comments back on. I need them on, as I am not sure anyone is actually reading this right now (Except you, Bryce. Thanks buddy).

What I ate today:
We’ll go through it quick, as it is nearing 2 a.m., and today wasn’t a particularly great day at work. We won’t go into that so much, but let’s say I am not feeling at my perkiest right now.

Still, the food journal must continue, even without the fancy bullet points and such:

Wheaties for breakfast, apple and yogurt as a snack, Subway club and some pretzels for lunch, apple and yogurt as a snack, Four fat free turkey hot dogs (45 calories each), two slices of bread and a boneless, skinless chicken breast for dinner.

Total calories: Roughly 1,940
Total fat: Roughly 17

THE COUNTER
Starting weight: 299
Yesterday’s weight 298.0
Current weight: 297.8
Total pounds lost: 1.2
Pounds until 240: 57.8
Bonus! Pounds I lost between the time I wrote this entry and the time I posted it: 1.8
Another bonus! Weight as of Friday morning: 296

There are a few things of note about the information above. First, I was quite disappointed to weigh in on Thursday and be only .2 pounds less than I was on Wednesday.

That was after a buckling-down effort of 1,500 calories and less than 20 grams of fat. But I understand variables, and I understand that weighing yourself every day completely screws with your mind. But what I need right now is a bit of a breakthrough. Sad thing is, I’ve already wasted one breakthrough, coming on Day 3 when I had lost four pounds. I gained nearly all of that weight back.

But here I am nearly 10 days into this and I have lost just over one pound. Perhaps that is the healthiest way to do it, but I don’t know if I can really keep interest in this endeavor for the next 60 weeks. Sure, sometime in March 2009, we can all throw a party celebrating my arrival at 240 pounds. But by then, won’t you be as tired of reading this as I will be of writing it?

So it is clear that the pace must be picked up. However, that is really out of my control at this point. All I can do is keep the calories and fat down, find a suitable workout routine, and let my ever slowing metabolism work its magic.

And that is exactly what my plan is. I am currently trying to find the right mix of economically affordable and heart-smart food that will allow me to do this on my own terms. I’m not taking this diet from a book, or some crazy hyped up dude with a shaved head who swears he can melt inches off my waistline. There are no supplements, no shakes. It’s just me, armed with a $200 per month grocery budget and a newly purchased gym membership. If that isn’t enough to get it done, then I guess we’ll all learn a valuable lesson here.

But we all know that is enough to get it done, don’t we? At least I do. It worked once before, it will work again. Of that, I am confident. Still, for the sake of my mental state, I need a breakthrough soon. To do this without obvious results is a surefire way to jump head first off the wagon.

Perhaps it would be smart to lay off the daily weigh-ins. I should tell you, for entertainment purposes, that the weigh-ins occur every morning after I evacuate my bladder. They take place in my bedroom on a digital scale that I bought about six months ago, just to make sure I was maintaining my weight. You should also know that I am fully nude for each weigh-in. Just a giant 6-foot-3 inch ball of peach-colored flesh sporadically covered in brown hair. How’s the mental image coming for you?

Maybe what I should do is mount a mirror in front of my scale. That would scare the pounds right off. But the mental torture is enough right now with only the ever-slowly dwindling numbers.

I spent some time Thursday trying to pinpoint what variables went into the day’s paltry weight loss. It dawned on me that I drank a fair amount of diet Sierra Mist right before I went to bed. Now, I don’t know much about body science, but I wondered if I was retaining that. Then I realized that, between eating pickles with dinner and having two cans of condensed chicken soup on Wednesday, I was loading my body up with sodium.

I am not much for watching my sodium intake, at least not for 10 years or so. But I do somewhat understand the consequences of high sodium intake, most importantly the retention of liquids.

So I was thinking a lot about liquids on Thursday, and realized again that I drank almost no water on Wednesday. I thought that to be bad planning, so I ratcheted up the water intake on Thursday, falling just short of my goal of drinking at least one pitcher. So that’s encouraging. I don’t remember peeing too much on Wednesday, but I do know that I peed a lot on Thursday.

I guess we’ll see how that works out.

Ultimately, my confidence is still high. Thursday was the fourth straight day of relatively healthy eating, and the second straight day in which I came in under 2,000 calories (though the totals can be disputed somewhat) and 20 grams of fat. I also tried to boost my protein a little bit with the chicken breast at dinner.

Eventually, I am going to figure out the system, and that is when the pounds will drop off.

Dan Nied's Fortress of Weight Loss: Day 8

Buckling Down For the Long Haul

What I Ate Today
Breakfast

• 2 cups of Wheaties (Red Sox pitcher Josh Beckett on the box)


• 1 ¼ cup of skim milk


• Calories: 300


• Fat: 2 grams

Snack

• 1 apple


• 1 fat free yogurt (black cherry, my favorite)


• Calories: 150 (assuming 50 for the apple)


• Fat: 0 grams.

Lunch

• 2 slices of whole wheat bread


• 4 slices of lean turkey


• 2 servings of fat free mayo


• Mustard


• 1 can of Safeway brand Noodle Mania chicken soup


• Calories: 450


• Fat: 8 grams

Snack

• 1 apple


• 1 fat free yogurt (strawberry, my second favorite)


• Calories: 150 (again assuming 50 for the apple)


• Fat: 0 grams.

Dinner

• 2 slices of whole wheat bread


• 4 slices of lean turkey


• 2 servings of fat free mayo


• Mustard


• 1 can of Safeway brand Noodle Mania chicken soup


• 4 pickles


• Calories: 450


• Fat: 8 grams

Total Calories: 1,500
Total Fat: 18 grams

I should mention, also, that somewhere between lunch and the second snack, I had approximately five tortilla chips that were neither low fat nor low calorie. However, I had five of them and stopped, so I feel ok about that. If you have a problem with it, please get the hell off my back.

Exercise: None. My body is dead after lifting on Tuesday. I probably won’t get back to the gym until Friday, at which time I will begin regular lifting every other day, and hopefully cardio 4-5 times per week.

Starting weight: 299
Lowest weight: 295
Current weight: 298
Pounds lost but then gained back: 3
Total pounds lost: 1

I should mention that I am tinkering with new ideas to add to the top of these posts. The food journal, while being quite tedious to code to the standards of Blogcritics (and most likely, I did it wrong anyway, so an editor will have to go through and change all of my attempts at using code for bulleted lists. If so…sorry.) is still one of the most important parts of this whole thing.

So I wanted to add more things like it. I work in the newspaper industry, and still have to lay out pages at least once a week. We are constantly being told about entry points and breakout items: information boxes that enable a reader to get the feel of a story without actually reading the story. As a writer, I absolutely hate that stuff, but as a designer and reader, I am always grateful. So yeah, I am tinkering with different items on the top of the posts. As you can see today, I’ve installed a pound-counter that details the weight loss to date. As I am planning on weighing in nearly every day, this could be a very useful box for readers. See, I am always aiming to please. If you have any other suggestions for breakout information, feel free to let me know.

Ok, on to the day. As you can see, 1,500 calories, under 20 grams of fat. I am quite happy with those numbers. Wednesday was a day of honest effort in regards to eating well. I knew I fell off the wagon a few times in the early going, so I made the conscious choice to buckle down and count the calories as closely I could.

I repeated my meals – having the same snack twice and the same thing for lunch and dinner – partly because of my tastes for the day, and partly to make it easier on myself during the work day.

One of the most complicated issues I’ve had to work out is what to do during work. My schedule is, if nothing else, odd. I work only four days per week, for 10 hours at a time. I go into the office at 1 p.m. (ok, 2 p.m.), and I come home around 11:15 p.m. Around 5 p.m., I come home for an hour lunch.

But as you can imagine, having to go into work at 1 p.m. allows me to keep the hours of a 15-year old kid during summer vacation. I wake up no earlier than 10 a.m., but more likely at 11 a.m., and I go to bed anywhere from 2:30 a.m. to 4 a.m. As I write currently, it is 1:58 a.m. here in the Pacific Time Zone, and sleep is at least an hour off.

This schedule does nothing to help accomplish the goals of the Fortress. Normally, I am at work when it is time to eat a real, honest-to-god dinner. I am lucky, however, in that I live half a mile from the office, and can come home for my break. Still, for over a year, trying to eat well during work days has been a struggle.

So I devised a little schedule for myself that was fairly obvious once I figured it out. I wake up and eat breakfast, usually around 11. Before I go in around 2, I eat a light snack. Then, I come home and eat lunch around 5 or 6. Easy so far, right? Well, then it got tricky. I now have to remember to bring a snack back to work with me to eat around 8 p.m., and then dinner when I come home.

I know, I must be a dumbass not to have devised that sooner, right? Anyway, Wednesday was the first day that actually worked, and I came in right where I wanted to – at 1,500 calories – for the day.

I have also devised a little game within the Fortress, just to get me started. After Sunday’s off day, I realized I need a true extended induction phase into this diet. There has to be a period of time when I am rigid with the rules in order to shock the body and get rid of the water weight and have a nice little pick-me-up of insane weight loss numbers.

I don’t know if the insane numbers will happen, but I decided to try and go two weeks without screwing up the diet. That’s 14 days of scrutinizing what I eat, figuring out the best times to eat it, and making sure I get to the gym as much as possible. Wednesday was Day 3 of the induction phase, and so far so good.

On the 15th day, I have tentatively planned an off day. As much as I hate to say it, off days are going to be a part of this journey. I, for one, can’t imagine eating like this forever, or even slowly increasing my daily calorie intake to meet my maintaining needs. But I do believe that I can eat like this for a certain amount of time, before taking a short break to eat whatever I want for a day.

I know it sounds like I am playing with fire here, and I definitely am. But I am not a heroin addict, people. One slip does not equal the end. The key, I am thinking, is to control those slips and have them on my terms. One ultimate goal I haven’t talked about yet is easing myself into a fairly normal eating lifestyle. In that world, I will eat healthy almost all of the time, but will allow periodic indulgences when they present themselves.

After all, I am not training to win Mr. Universe, nor am I planning on joining the Marines any time soon. I want my body to be smaller and firmer, and I know what I am willing to sacrifice to make that happen.

But I also know what I am not willing to sacrifice. And right now, I can’t give up good food altogether. I don’t think anyone should. I just have to take control over when and how I enjoy it.

That’s it for today. Back with more tomorrow.

Dan Nied's Fortress of Weight Loss: Day 7

The first week is done. How did I do? Not that great.

It should be known to you that I almost decided not to write tonight. But now, aren’t you glad I did? I know I am. I needed to.

I’m not trying to convince you that you should feel lucky that I got off my lazy ass and wrote. Instead, I am trying to illustrate a point.

And it’s a point we will get to in just a little bit.

For now, let’s talk progress.

So Jan. 1 was Day 7 of this magical experiment in deprivation. If you read the Day 3 entry, which is the last on record due to the long weekend, you’ll know I had to wrestle with some meet-craving demons on Friday.

It wasn’t a pretty sight. Instead, it was the exact opposite of pretty. It was gruesome and pathetic. But, I made it through and Saturday was a solid day. I even found a smart use for chocolate (quick story: I was at work Saturday night and had forgotten to bring in a snack. However, I noticed someone had brought in miniature Hershey’s bars. Instead of accepting the equally unappealing options of A. gorging, or B. starving myself, I decided to eat three wee-little, fun-sized, candy bars over the course of three hours. Was it the optimal choice? No. Was it the best option available? Yes. I am confident that made the right choice, keeping the old metabolism going while not totally screwing up the day).

Anyway, Saturday was good. However, I had already planned an off-day on Sunday. The reason was that I was covering the Raiders/Chargers game for work, and would be offered free and delicious food before the game, and less-delicious, but still free, hot dogs at halftime. I am lucky both the Raiders and 49ers suck and missed the playoffs. Otherwise that little free-food charade might have to continue for a few more weeks. But that was the season-finale. Thanks Raiders!

On Sunday night, I had my ceremonial last meal, which I never really got to have the night before I began the Fortress. It may sound like a silly excuse to binge, but I actually take it pretty seriously. Before I go into a serious weight-loss quest (I am sad to say, there have been more than a few in my life), I always take time for one final unhealthy splurge. This time it was two chicken burritos from the good people at Chicken Express on Broadway St. in scenic Vallejo, Calif.

The point of that meal is to sort of bridge two phases in my life. I look at it as a transition between Fat Dan and Determined Dan. I enjoy every bite, but in the way you enjoy a last kiss with a newly dumped girlfriend (or boyfriend, if that’s your thing). The night before the 100 Days quest, I ordered a meat-lovers pizza from Pizza Hut. This time, it was chicken burritos, and it was more than just an excuse to eat like shit for a night.

Monday, New Years Eve, was good, but not spectacular. I ate ok, including a guilt-free trip to Subway, but I also talked myself out of going to the gym. The problem was that I was planning to embark on the first “super workout” of the Fortress. The “super workout” consists of 30 minutes on the elliptical, a full upper body lifting session, laps around the pool and an undetermined time in the sauna. The estimated time of all this is about 90-120 minutes. I have never done this workout, and I am only a little bit ashamed to say that the thought of this process nearly made me crap my pants.

So instead of doing the “super workout”, I lay in bed and, I swear, watched the shadows on the wall. It was a pathetic low point in my social life, as I had long ago decided I wasn’t going out for New Years Eve, and I felt kind of lonely…(reflective ellipses)…

Of course, that put the onus on Tuesday, Day 7. I had to work out, and I nearly talked myself out of it again. I decided to put the “super workout” on hold for the time being so I wouldn’t psyche myself out again. Instead I started the lifting program and went on the elliptical machine for 20 minutes. It was the toughest workout I have had since I moved here, and I was pretty damn happy (and tired) when I got done. In fact, I was happy enough to grill up a pound of extra-lean turkey burger and have a heart-healthy celebration of the New Year (about 700 calories, and about 2,000 total for the day. Not bad, eh?).

I am sorry to say, though, that I fear much of the weight I lost in the first two days has returned. Indeed, after Day 2, I was down four pounds, to 295. On Sunday morning, I was at 298. And that was before free media food and two chicken burritos that night. I haven’t weighed myself since Sunday, and am not particularly excited about returning to the scale on Wednesday morning.

But it’s ok. I have started to look at the first seven days as something of a bonus week for this whole endeavor. Seriously, what normal person would start trying to lose weight a week BEFORE the New Year? Of course, I hope we have determined so far that I am not quite a normal person. I am a sadistic idiot.

So it was a tough, and not fully successful, first week. But again, I am fine with that. What I learned in the first seven days is that this is going to take a lot of effort from me; much more effort than I thought, actually. I figured that if I just started the weight loss blog again, then the rest would take care of itself. But I forgot that, the first time around, the blog wasn’t the reason I lost weight. While it certainly kept me on the straight and narrow, and was an integral tool in the process, it was only a product of my own effort.

I think I realized that fact right before I started again, but somehow forgot in the excitement of the first few days. In fact, I have to actually concentrate on this. Damn, I have to really try to fight the urges and I have to force myself to drive to 24 Hour Fitness instead of watching the shadows move up on the wall as the sun sets. I’ve done some research: Watching shadows on the wall for a half hour burns absolutely no calories, while using an elliptical machine for the same amount of time burns several hundred. Don’t say I am not a wealth of knowledge.

But that brings me to my opening line about why I needed to write today. It is true that I almost decided to bag this entry, using the built in excuse of New Year’s Day. But I couldn’t do that, not if I wanted to take myself seriously.

See, the reason I picked the title “Fortress of Weight Loss” is because the key to being successful in this quest is to cocoon myself into this whole thing. I have to build it up all around me, so it is always at the forefront of every decision I make. Perhaps that sounds like I am putting too much pressure on myself. However, it’s what works for me, and every person must find the means to their end.

The fortress is built from two main ingredients. First, there is the support network, which hopefully will come from this blog. No, I didn’t start this to entertain you with my successes and failures. I started it so I could build an audience (of 1, 100, 1,000, 100,000? It doesn’t matter) that would actually care about how this turns out.

I am not strong enough to simply do this for myself. The possibility of personal pride is not nearly enough to get me through the rough times of this diet. I need to have someone else to let down. I need someone to be disappointed in me, angry with me, or disgusted at my actions if I fail. It also doesn’t hurt to feel like I’ve rewarded someone else if I succeed.

Second, the fortress is built on repetition. I need to create habits, things I do just because I am used to doing them.

That’s how I got fat, actually. I was used to getting three double cheeseburgers and three chicken sandwiches from McDonald’s after work. I was used to ordering the aforementioned mead-lovers pizza from Pizza Hut, or getting bagels and cream cheese for breakfast. And I was used to sitting on my ass and picking lint out of my belly button, and wondering how, exactly, it got there.

But it is also how I succeeded in the 100 days. I got used to going to the gym and eating at the right times. I got used to buying healthy food at the grocery story. And I got used to doing this blog.

I am trying to recreate those habits in order to succeed this time around. And I think that’s where I went wrong last week. I started off herky jerky, not really knowing what to do next. So Friday night, I found myself with nothing to do, in a situation that I had not adapted to habit. How do I treat a boring Friday night alone with no entertainment? I panicked and reverted to my old ways.

I needed to write 1,600 words for Day 7, because I have to get used to doing this every night. No, maybe not to the tune of 1,600 words, but to the tune of coming up with insightful observations that reveal my honest feeling towards this entire process which will, in turn, allow this process to evolve into something successful.

That’s how I build the fortress.