Project New Me: Week #1 or The Weight Loss Begins #newme

Weight: 201 lbs (down 6 lbs)

Average Hours of Sleep: 7.14 hours

Total Workout Time: 0 minutes

This first week of Project New Me has brought about many upheavals. First of all, simply needing to track my points again was something to get used to. I couldn’t just toss a ton of snacks in my lunch bag and eat as many of them as I felt I needed during the day. I had to think more about what was going in my mouth. This is a good thing. When you mindlessly shove food into your mouth, you forget about the calories you’re ingesting and you are more likely to gain weight.

Secondly, we found out about a Social Media convention that was going to take place in Disney World. The price it would have cost was just too good to pass up, so we did something very unlike us – we planned an entire weeklong Disney World vacation spur of the moment for next month. The convention’s only for 3 days, but if we’re paying for airfare down, we might as well get some additional Disney days in.

This is good in that we’ll be able to network and meet some folks in person whom we’ve only spoken with online. However, this is bad because Disney has great food. You just cannot diet in Disney. Ok, perhaps you can, but I refuse to. The food I’d need to pass up is just too good and much of it is stuff I usually would never have a chance to eat. On the flip side, Disney World means a lot of walking. A whole lot more than I usually do sitting behind a desk for 8 hours a day, 5 days a week.

Given the new Disney trip in our future, I’m altering my goal slightly. I’m still looking to lose 20 pounds in 20 weeks, but I want to maximize my weight loss now to buffer against weight gain while at Disney. Last year, I wound up gaining 5 pounds at Disney (my wife lost weight). I’ll assume a similar weight gain this time. By the time we leave for Disney World, I want to have lost 10 pounds. (Call this my Disney Goal.) If all works out as planned, I should return from Disney with 15 pounds and 14 weeks until my goal. Definitely doable.

The third upheaval came about when I weighed in on Sunday. I couldn’t believe the scale’s number so I weighed myself a second and third time. I even moved the scale just in case it was positioned on a bump in the floor which was affecting the reading. It was no mistake. I had lost 6 pounds the previous week. I have no illusions that I will post numbers like this every week. More likely, this will be followed by a (hopefully short) plateau. Next week might only see a pound gone. Still, this means that I’m now 60% of the way towards my Disney Goal.

On the exercise front, as Lou Costello might have said, I’m a baaaaad boy! I didn’t exercise a single minute during the entire week. I kept meaning too but things came up and day after day passed. I’ll try to be better this upcoming week.

On the sleep front, I snoozed a respectable 7.14 hours on average. I did have a few low z nights including a 5 hour night followed by a 5 1/2 hour night. For this I blame Netflix. How dare they put Farscape Season 1 – 3 on streaming! Don’t they know I can’t resist watching "just one more episode" until it is 1am? And now they plan on putting more movies/TV shows on streaming? Oh, my poor tired yet addicted eyes!

All in all, I think this was a very good start to Project New Me. Here’s hoping it will continue quickly towards my goals.