It's been a while since I posted an update on my weight loss progress. On week 14, my weight rose up to 193lbs and on week 15 and 16, my weight stayed at 191.0 lbs, which is not too bad considering not much activity during last 3 weeks. I still can't exercise or move a lot due to my injury, but I'm picking up slowly. I'm walking more and try not to just sit around while I'm at home. But it's still challenging for me to do any activities yet.

Here are the photos.

Week 15 - 191.0 lbs

Week 16 - 191.0 lbs

Recovery from the injuries is taking longer than I've expected, especially the muscle around my neck.

Week 13 Weigh-In

This update should've been posted on Last Sunday, but couldn't find time to get to my PC. It's a bit delayed, but here we go. On Sunday morning, my weight was 191.2 lbs. I've gained another 0.6 lbs. I'm not happy with the number at all.

It's been about a month without any time at the gym. And I ate horribly for the entire week. It didn't feel that bad during the first few weeks, but right now, without any exercise, my head is foggy again and I don't have any energy left in me. I think this feeling caused me to make bad decisions on what I eat. For the first time in a long time, I visited McDonalds, and I even had 4 slices of Dominos pizza.

On Monday, I'm going to ask my doctor if I can start exercising again. I have bad pain on my foot and neck, but I think I can start working out. My weight-loss progress is still ahead of schedule, but last week's number was discouraging.

188.8 lbs

Last week was really tough for me, not because of dieting, but because I couldn't exercise!

This is funny, but it was really hard NOT to exercise after weeks of hard training.  I just wish I can go back to gym soon.

My back is getting better, but my foot is the problem now.  It's still hurting badly when I put my full weight on my right foot.  I'm going to be taking a MRI on my right foot on Friday morning.  I hope nothing serious is wrong.

Since last week, my weight scale is not letting me measure body fat %.  I think it's broken.  I might invest in a brand new scale if I can't fix it.

Last Sunday, which was my weigh-in day, I weighed 188.8lbs

Considering no exercise with not-so-good eating plan of last 7 days, it was surprising to see my weigh staying below 190lbs.  I ate a lot of junk food last week.  There was a 0.6lbs of weight gain, but I think I can manage it.

My goal this week is to find some ways to burn more calories without any serious exercise and stay below 190lbs.  that's all.  If I lose a pound or two, that would be great, but my goal is to maintain the current weight.

Week 10 - 188.2lbs

This morning, I hit my lowest weight in decades, once again. 188.2lbs!

I lost 2.2 lbs in just one week, with little exercise because of the auto accident on Thursday morning. I watched what I was eating more carefully since Thursday, and it paid off.

My new concern is next 3-4 week. I was told by my doctor that I shouldn't exercise at all for about three weeks because of my back and neck injury from the accident. Right now, I don't know what to do. I really don't want to gain any more weight while I'm recovering.

I think I have two options.

1. Try to maintain current weight by eating healthy and really count calories I eat.
2. Try to lose a pound of weight by lowering daily calorie intake.

Because I'm ahead of my weight loss schedule, I think I will take the first option.  I will try to maintain my current weight, 188.2 lbs, for next three weeks.  My muscle mess will shrink for sure, so there might be some weight loss due to that.

190.4 lbs

Weight loss plateau already?  Maybe...  I'm 190.4 lbs again despite all that extra exercise I did last week.  What's going on?

Well, I don't mind much at all.  What I feel about my body is more important.  I've never felt healthier before even compared to last week.

Fortunately, my body fat percentage went down to 21.4% from 22.6% last week.  I don't think that body fat % is accurate, but because I'm using the same scale, I know my body fat % went down for sure.  That's what is important.  I don't care much whether or not the number is correct.  What is important is that it is going down.

Last week, I ramped up my routine cardio exercise by half a mile and I'm sticking with that plan this week.

But I will be tweaking my diet plan.  I'm going to be eating little bit more, more often to give a shock to my body and metabolism.  Thinking now that, I ate about 3 cheat meals last week with high carb, that may be the reason why my weight was stuck at 190.4 lbs.

My goal is to weigh at 189 next week; nothing less, nothing more.  That's all I want.  And the week after, either 189 or 188 is fine with me.

Also my diet plan will not have any beef.  I'd like to see what it will do to my weight loss.

Last week was a historic day for me.  For the first time in a decade, I weighed in at below 190 lbs.  As I mentioned, I weighed below 190 lbs when I was in high school, 15 years ago.  But during last week, I've gained some weight.  I believe I've gained some muscle because I ate healthy according to my diet plan.  I'm still sticking with low-carb high-protein diet as recommended in the Metabolic Effect diet book that I read.

This morning, my weight was 190.4 lbs and my body fat percent was 22.6%. That is 0.6 lbs more than last week.  See if I really wanted to, I could've skipped the last meal and the protein drink and still weigh below 190, but I felt it was kinda of cheating.  So I'm satisfied with my weight loss progress so far.  I'm far ahead of the schedule anyway.

One thing I noticed though is that it is already harder to lose weight compared to when I started.  My goal this week is to optimize my meal plan by eating high quality foods plus sticking with low calorie protein shake or protein bars instead of the one's with chocolate and all kinds of sugars.  Also, my optimized exercise plan will include just little bit more of cardio.  I'm doing 3 miles daily currently and I will try 3.5 miles on elliptical.  Hopefully that will bring down and hold my weight at around 187.

According to my original plan, I'm supposed to be at 204 lbs at this moment, but I'm about 14 pounds ahead of schedule.  I'm sure it will be more challenging when I hit below 180 to lose weight.  So I'm trying not to be too happy with my current progress.

Here are my goals for the coming week

1. Do more cardio by adding 0.5 mi to the current daily plan.
2. Switch to low-calorie protein sources for in between meals.
3. Aim for 187 lbs
4. Measure body fat %

I did it! I did it!
I finally broke the 190 lb barrier!

My typical meal :)

I think the last time I was in 180's was when I was in high school 14 years ago. This is just incredible. I'm so excited.

Last week was really challenging for losing weight because of a relative staying at our home. We rarely ate at home during her stay. That alone was a big challenge for me. To top it off, we had a huge family gathering at a buffet, the infamous Old Country Buffet!

I have to rant about Old Country Buffet before I move on to a different topic. Man.. their food is not edible. Plates were nasty, food was terrible. I only ate salads and steak, but I couldn't finish the salad because it tasted like.... as if... it was washed with a fish. It was just terrible. I'm never going back there no matter what. I will fight like crazy to avoid having a dinner meeting there.

Anyways.. last week, I focused on exercise: less cardio, more lifting weights. You may think why less cardio.. well, more I read weight loss books and forum posts from various places, it was apparent that muscle gaining and weight training in addition to cardio exercises was the best way to lose "fat". So I'm simply following the advice and it's working fine for me.

During my attempt to lose fat, I only focused on cardio exercises. My cardio sessions were at least 40 minutes long. Now, I only do 3 miles (takes about 15-20 minutes) on the elliptical machine plus another 20 minutes on hybrid weight lifting.

When I do weight lifting, I try to focus on the muscle groups that I don't like to exercise. Just until a year ago I only worked on my biceps and chest just like many others do. Now, I focus on core exercises, shoulder, and my leg.

I had a shoulder injury about 8 years ago which required me a surgery. That really weakened my right shoulder. It was always in my mind that I need to strengthen my shoulders, but never took steps to do it. So this time, I'm going to really focus on strengthening both shoulders.

So this week, I will pay more attention to my diets by planning carefully each meal and exercises. Hopefully that will help me stay in 180's all week long. Thanks for reading.

It's week 6 already. Time flies... Last week was really a challenge for me because of the 3 day family vacation to Great Wolf Resorts.

York River State Park

I spent most of the days at the water park with Candice, my daughter. That must have burnt few calories, but not sure how much. Eating wise.. I must say I did OK. We packed a giant bag with healthy foods that was supposed to last all three days, but it lasted only a day or so. So we had to go eat out. First night, we went to a huge Chinese buffet. I ate relatively healthy there staying away from fried foods. On second day, we ate ribs and pulled pork sandwiches for lunch and sushi for dinner.

There was a great buffet inside the resort, but we stayed away from it just because of me. I thank my wife and Candice for helping me out there. Anyway.. last week, I managed to gain some weight back. I exercised only two days out of seven days plus I ate so much crappy food. But I did get good rest from the vacation.

My weight is now 192.4 lbs. Here is the video capture of weigh-in week06.

I'm ramping up my exercise load plus sticking with low-carb high-protein diet this week.

It's already my 5th official weigh-in day!  Last week was really tough for me because of so many eat outs.  I'm really proud of myself though.  I always chose salad or something healthy, such as grilled salmon and chicken.  One of the hardest thing I had to pass was the warm bread with olive oil.  I had a bite, but that was eat. :(

Anyway, my weight is now at 191.6 lbs! Here is the video capture of my weight.

Weigh In Week 5

My goal this week is to go below 190 lbs.  If I make it, it would be a historic day for me because the last time I weighed below 190 was about 10 years ago or more.  I will have to watch my diet plan today especially because of Memorial Day's barbeque party tonight.  Other than that, it should be an easy week.

Last Sunday was my official 4th week weigh-in day. Rather than just reporting the weight, I recorded a short video clip of it.

Week 4 Weigh-In Video

On Sunday morning I was at 194.6lbs! considering the calories I ate each day, I was little surprised to see how much weight I can lose just by avoiding crappy food plus abandoning extremely high level of bad carbs in my everyday diet.

Funny thing is that I weight 193.2 on Saturday morning. But 194.6 isn't too bad.

So far I'm on the right track. I can't wait to see my weight a week later :)