4XLT

Today’s Weigh-In: 307.8 pounds
Change: – 1.0
Pounds to go: 7.8

This morning, I figured I had to quit all my weigh in cheating, especially after Mary called me out on it. From here on I’m going to do my best to just give myself a “best of three” weigh ins about 12-20 minutes after I wake up in the morning and avoid all the cheating.

I was rather surprised to see I had dropped a pound yesterday, because my food wasn’t exactly fantastic. Nah, just make that pretty bad but not horrible. Kinda ironic, I figure, as I’m trying to get back into the health and weight loss fight, having been drinking my water, doing my cardio, and eating pretty well this week so far. I can only chalk it up to the fact that I’ve been running on 5-6 hours of sleep the last three days (got almost a full 8 last night) and had just got worn down physically and mentally. My guard went down and so Burger King onion rings went in my mouth.

And in keeping with the lackluster theme of the day, I didn’t make it to the gym last night, either. I’ve got the happy problem of having two freelance design jobs I’m working on. So, I tried to get some of that worked on before I went to sleep early to try and place catch up on my rest.

Trouble is, neither of those things really happened. I didn’t get much appreciable work done, and although I wasn’t up too late, I didn’t get to bed any earlier than normal.

So in total, Wednesday was pretty much a wasted day all around. I’m trying to remedy that today. I may not make it to the gym, and because of that, my nutrition is going to be spot on. We’ll see how my third day of no-cheating weigh ins treat me. I’m hoping down into the 306.X range.

Today’s Weigh-In: 308.8 / 304.2 pounds
Yesterday’s Weigh-In: 304.4 *

When I was 400+ pounds, I was forced to man up, deal with the shame, and go to the hospital to weigh myself on the big industrial linens scale, because there simply aren’t personal weight scales made for super-obese folks that weighed as much as I did. I was actually pretty lucky to find one that went up to 400 pounds, even. Ever since I got thin enough to actually use a bathroom scale like a normal human being, it’s been a delicate ballet dance in the mornings to see how low I can get the numbers to display.

You know exactly what I mean, don’t you?

My morning ritual typically goes something like this:

1. Stumble out of my bed groggily and shamble my way onto the scale. Rub eyes and look down in half-awake horror, then realize that the first weigh-ins are always a good 2-4 pounds high than what I settle down to.
2. Shamble and stumble my way back to the bathroom. Rub eyes some more. Do morning bathroom stuff.
3. Recheck weight. Still high.
4. Go sit on my couch for about 5-10 minutes. Check email, news, weather, Facebook.
5. Return to the scale. A-ha! Now, we’re starting to get there…
6. Begin reweighing myself a half dozen times, carefully shifting my body weight/balance around.
   • Weight forward on the balls of my feet: no good – always a higher number
   • Weight back on my heels: much better – lower numbers
   • Feet in the middle of the scale: bad, higher numbers
   • Feet barely on the edges of the scale: better, lower numbers
   • Hands & arms stretched out against the walls “supporting” me to stabilize my weight: fantastic! – my real pièce de résistance
7. Satisfied with my weigh-in, I grab some breakfast, hop in the shower, and speed off to work.

Trouble is, I’m not sure what I really think of my “advanced weigh-in-terogation techniques.” They started out as a perfectly valid way to stabilize my weigh-ins. Some mornings, the number would bounce around so much that the scale would eventually read out just an error. But in time, they’ve become something that I know I can do to tweak my weigh-ins down a decent amount.

They just reek of cheating, if I’m gut-level honest with myself (and you guys, dear and wonderful readers). So, they need to stop. After about eight or nine hops on and off the scale this morning trying to get below the 304.4 mark from yesterday with greater and greater tricks getting used from Step 6 – and eventually hitting 304.2 – I just had to stop. This was ludicrous.

I get on one last time, prepared to take it like a man. No balancing arms, no feet barely on the scale, I stand up straight and towards my heels, but don’t work to get as far back without falling over. The number floats around 309, and then drops to 308.8.

If 308.8 is what it is, then that’s what it is. I’m determined to get going again, and if I’m going to do it right, then I’ve got to do it honestly.

So, if I play my cards right, I’m hoping that when I write next on Friday, I’ll be able to give another honest weight in of 306.8 or less.

Today’s Weigh-In: 306.2 pounds

My apologies for those who tried to get to the blog the past few days. WillPhillips.org, along with all the other websites hosted on the same server, was down for several days when a hard drive on the server failed and the whole thing went tumbling down (much like the economy! Hey-oh!).

Things around 4xlt here are back up, albeit minus two posts from last week, in which I complained about myself and my lack of forward progress for the last five months or so (a common theme throughout 2009 if you’d like to skim through the blog some).

So, it seems rather fitting that I take a chance to reintroduce myself, share a bit of my story, and explain why in the world I’m sharing something so personal as weight loss, lifestyle transformation, and all the quirks and personal issues that go with it with the world through this blog.

Hi, I’m Will…

I’m an Okie transplant to the fantastic city of Portland, Oregon, where I originally moved to work for a nonprofit Christian ministry called Chi Alpha Campus Ministries. Last year, I transitioned out of nonprofit work and am now happily employed by a large corporation.

I’m a print & web designer by trade (seem my recent work on Flickr ), a Seattle Seahawks fan, and possess a geeky side a mile wide that I try to carefully keep hidden from the world. I’m a textbook ENFP personality type, love being around people, but enjoy the daylights out of living by myself.

…This Is My Story…

Cranking in at 6′4″ with a freakishly giant head (ask me about the hat), I’ve always been a big guy. Biggest and tallest from elementary throughout high school. And so, I came to accept my role as any group’s token fat guy and resigned myself to that fact.But by the end of 2007 I wore 4XLT shirts, barely squeezed into size 50 pants, and weighed a whopping 440 pounds.

I got sick and tired of it all. I got fed up with my life and the pervasive sense of surrender, apathy, & self-loathing my obesity represented and decided to radically reinvent my life. I’m closing in on 150 pounds lost and have found that it has set off all sorts of positive changes in my life: physically, mentally, spiritually (particularly unnerving and substantial for a guy who had expected to be a hyper-Charismatic and clergy for the rest of his days), and socially. You can read more of my story at the blog’s About page.

…& This Is Why I’m Blogging

Originally, I went public with my weight loss fight as a very blatant plea for help. I needed accountability and honesty in how I was trying to radically reinvent my life, and I think it worked. I look back over the last year and a half, and the times I’ve consistently been losing the most weight and steadily been eating right & working at the gym have been when I’ve been blogging regularly.

I’m not saying that it’s a direct corollary, but over the past five months, my weight loss has slowed to a crawl (around twenty pounds) and my blogging has become nonexistent. Time to change both of those things.

So here I am in the spring of 2009, feeling that same rumbling of discontent I felt a year and a half ago. Sure, I’ve lost over 130 pounds, but I’m still cranking in over the three hundred mark, still am fat, still have man boobs, still lack self confidence, still don’t want to take my shirt off in public, still doubt myself around the ladies, still am apathetic. And I don’t like that.

It’s been quite some time (months and months) since I set myself a serious weight loss goal, so it’s time to get back on track for one. I am resolving to be 285 pounds by the Fourth of July. And how am I going to get there? By getting back to eating right and sticking to my gym plan that includes smart cardio and whole body weight training.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to get to the gym before it gets any later and I give myself an excuse not to go.