Weigh-in tonight....

I'll be weighing-in tonight right after work before I head off to rehearsal. Hopefully I've done ok. I had eaten dinner out 3 or 4 times this week. I ate pretty well, so I think I've probably lost some. Won't surprise me if I didn't lose 4 pounds.
So far I've lost every week, so I hope to at least have done that!
Stay tuned for results tomorrow....

Last night's Move It story on channel 13....

First, before the news, during The Biggest Loser, they aired little promos for the news where Sonya and I were on the cross-trainers and she said something like, "Wanna be one of Iowa's biggest losers?" Then I said, "Take the Move It Challenge. I'm Dave Williams and I've lost 60 pounds!"
Last night's story was great. I think it really told the story well. Some good sounds bytes from me...my favorite is me saying that I'm part of the Fast Food Generation. Oooh...in hindsight I should've said I'm part of Generation 2X! Hmmm....I'll have to remember that one for my speech at the diabetes conference. It's kinda funny but true. People my age, and Americans in general, are at their heaviest ever. People my age were brought up on McD's as kids. Anyway...

An old friend of mine from before preschool sent me a myspace message today. Jason had seen me on the news last night and sent me a really nice message about my motivation and progress. I ran into him at the fair this year; it was the first time I'd seen him in several years since we were roommates right after college. He saw me at the fair at my heaviest ever -- 316. I also ran into my old classmate Jamie when I was at the fair. Jamie made a comment that stuck with me: "Wow. You haven't worked out at all since we graduated." It was said in a pretty rude way. When you're as fat as I was, and frankly, still am, people like to 'weigh-in' on your weight. I mean it's understandable to a degree; it's front and center and easier to comment on than "Wow. You sure have a great personality, feller!"

Anyway, Jason, thanks for reading! They're doing the stories weekly on 13 at 10pm. It's me and 3 women whom they alternate between.

Today's workout.... Fitness test results.... New measurements....

Today's workout....

Today's workout was a little different than normal. We had to do the exercise bike portion of the fitness test today because when we did it last week, the program wasn't working. So we ended up doing it twice today but we were getting inaccurate numbers. Anyway, so we did that twice which was maybe 10 minutes total. We then did 10 minutes on the cross-trainer. Next we hit the weights for 30 minutes or so plus some ab exercises.


Fitness test results....

Oct. 29th's numbers first....

• Weight: 286 pounds
• Percent Fat: 26.7 (High category)
• Bicep Strngth: 93 pounds (Fair category)
• Flexibility: 27cm (Poor category)
• Systolic BP: 137 (Fair category)
• Diastolic BP: 54 (Excellent category)
• Resting Heart: 72 (Fit category)
• Aerobic Fitness: 30.7 (Unfit category)

Today's numbers....

• Weight: 256 pounds
• Percent Fat: 23.1 (Fair category)
• Bicep Strength: 102 pounds (Fit category)
• Flexibility: 32cm (Unfit Category)
• Systolic BP: 136 (Fair Category)
• Diastolic BP: 70 (Excellent category)
• Resting Heart: 77 (Fit Category)
• Aerobic Fitness: Couldn't measure due to program not working properly.

Some great numbers there! A lot of improvement! Still a lot of ground to go, but for 1/2way to my goal, it's good.

New measurements....

October 29th numbers first....

• Chest: 51.5"
• Waist: 52.5"
• Hips: 50"
• Thigh: 26"
• Bicep: 17"

Today's numbers....

• Chest: 47.75"
• Waist: 49.5"
• Hips: 46.5"
• Thigh: 23.25"
• Bicep: 17.5"

I've lost 12.5" total in 3 months. I don't have measurements from when I started on my own a month before, but I'm sure I lost inches in those 30 pounds.

Ate dinner out four times this weekend....

So Friday night I went to dinner at Maxie's for my grandma's 80th dirthday. I ate pretty close to what I'd normally eat for dinner: I had salmon, and mixed veggies, and cottage cheese (I think I had cottage cheese). I also had a side salad though probably shouldn't have as I didn't need it. I didn't eat any bread. I had water to drink.

Saturday night my girlfriend and I and one of her daughters went to a friend's house for dinner and a movie. We had ham balls (they were good!), some kind of hashbrown bake with sour cream and cheese (also really good), and salad. We also had ice cream sundaes later for dessert. I had just two small scoops of ice cream and a little whipped cream and chocolate syrup. Probably should've skipped the dessert, but it was a once in a long time thing.

Sunday morning I went to breakfast with my dad. I had a garden scramble at IHOP which was basically scrambled egg substitute w/ veggies and 2 pancakes with just a little syrup. I had water to drink. I should've substituted fruit for pancakes; next time I will.

Sunday night me and the other Move It participants went to Jimmy's American Cafe on 8th Street in West Des Moines. Channel 13 bought us dinner. We just chatted with each other and Sonya. That should air in a couple of weeks. We were supposed to have a dietitian, but they weren't able to get one. I had Ahi tuna, and asparagus, and substituted cottage cheese for mashed potatoes. Water to drink.
It was a really nice night and all of the other participants were really cool! It was nice hearing about everyone's experiences.

Friday's workout....

I worked out Friday morning and did the usual.
8 or so on the cross-trainer to warm up before aerobics class. Then 30 minutes at aerobics class and I think I did another 10 or so on the cross-trainer then 30 or so doing weights.

Last Thursday's weigh-in results....

I weighed-in last Thursday night.
I lost 4 pounds! I'm now down to 256 pounds! That's a weightloss of 60 pounds so far; 30 pounds on my own the first month and 30 pounds on the program. That's awesome. I'm 2 pounds over the halfway point to my goal. I have another 56 pounds to go to get to my goal. I'll probably re-adjust my goal as I get closer to the 200 pound mark.

Today's workout with Sonya.... Fitness test today.... More info about conference I'm speaking at....

Today's workout with Sonya....

Sonya Heitshusen from Channel 13 worked out with me this morning. She does marathons and distance running. We did the cross-trainer for about 25 minutes together. She kept up a great pace. We also shot a promo for Move It.
From there, I hit the weights with my trainer and just did the upper-body today since we didn't have as much time due to the fitness test.


Fitness test today....

Channel 13 filmed my fitness test today. This was to compare my test with the one from October. God I hope they don't air the parts where I had my shirt off! Ugh.
I had improved in every category. We weren't able to do the exercise bike one as the program was throwing an error.... I'll post the updated numbers when my trainer sends them to me.


More info about conference I'm speaking at....

So I talked to Gregg, the PR guy from Mercy, today about the speaking engagement at Mercy in March. He said that I'm their first outside speaker since Mike Huckabee (who is now running for president). He last spoke there when he had a book out about his weightloss.
Interesting factoid.

Speaking at a conference at Mercy in March....

Mercy's Marketing and PR Department contacted me today and asked me to speak at a diabetes conference in March. I'm going to speak on my experiences with weightloss as a wholistic approach. Meaning behavior modification, exercise, diet, etc without surgery. I'm really looking forward to the experience!
Mercy has done so much for me in helping me to change my life and lifestyle; this is just a small way for me to give back.

Sonya Heitshusen is working out with me tomorrow at Mercy....

Sonya will be working out with me tomorrow morning. They'll be taping that for the news next week. My trainer and I are going to do another fitness test to compare with my baseline test from October to see how far I've improved. More tomorrow....

Yesterday's workout....

Yesterday's workout....

I did 25 minutes on the cross-trainer yesterday. From there I knocked out 8 minutes on the stair machine. Let me just say, I hate the stair machine! I hate the stair machine on 'random' setting anyway...and 'roller coaster' setting. From there we did the weights for 30 minutes or so. I did it all while having a sore throat and cough.

Last night's weigh-in....

I weighed-in last night between work and rehearsal.

I lost 3 pounds this week! I'm 2 pounds away from the halfway point of my goal! I have another 60 pounds to lose to get to my goal! Not bad! I'm now at 260. I haven't been 260 in probably 3 or 4 years.
The last time I was at 260 I was eating maybe every 3rd or 4th day and walking for an hour every day after work. Not a good thing. I put it all right back on right away. I haven't been below 260 in many, many years.

I'm so busy right now. I had to eat my wrap in my car on my way to rehearsal from weighing-in.

Awesome news!!!!

So I got an email earlier from Sonya Heishusen...
She said that she got a call from Gregg Lagan wanting to extend my program by a couple of months! I am sooo stoked! That gives me about another 2 1/2 months! I should be pretty close to my goal by then!
How wonderful of them to do that! Every single person that I've worked with at Mercy has just been awesome!

Thanks so much, Gregg!

Today's workout.... Menu change....

Today's workout....

We did 30 minutes on the cross-trainer then 5-8 minutes on the stair machine. The stair machine kicked my a__. We set it for some roller coaster program where it gets slow then fast and slow then fast and you never develop a rhythm or anything. We were going to go for 10 minutes, but stopped probably around 8 or a little less because it was just crazy. The program we picked the other day was fine.
After the cross-trainer and stairs, we did weights and abs. I started feeling kinda dizzy and light-headed. My mouth got really dry which it never does. I keep drinking water while working out, but I had total dry mouth. I kept going, though. I even ate a little extra for breakfast today (a large apple along with my normal breakfast).


Menu change....

Since I'm so busy with going to rehearsals straight from work, I'm switching things up with my menu. I'm going to eat my salmon, broccoli, and cottage cheese for lunch instead of supper and will have my wrap and edamame when I get to rehearsal. That way I don't have to heat anything up when I get to rehearsal. It's much easier for me to heat my salmon and broccoli up at work. I just cook it when I get home from rehearsal and throw it in the fridge to take to work in the morning along with my wrap I make the night before, too. I think it will work out well.

Busy bee with rehearsals for High School Reunion....

Pretty much Mondays thru Thursdays I have rehearsals from immediately after work (I get off work at 6 and have rehearsal at 6:30) until 9pm or so. Then I get up at 5:45am on M,W,F to work out. I'm going to have to find something to fix for dinner that I can take to work with me then eat at The Playhouse right before rehearsal. Tonight I'm going to stop at McD's on the way there and pick up an Asian grilled chicken salad and a bottle of water. I can't afford to do that every night. Now the real-life challenges start!

Cholsterol numbers....

I had my blood work done last week at Mercy. I wish we'd have gotten it done at the beginning so we could get a baseline to measure my progress that way as well.

I'm not sure what the numbers mean other than they said they're good. There's 3 pages of numbers. Some are urine test stuff. One of the things next to 'Pregnant' says '+', Not sure what that means.... (kidding)
I'll type the cholesterol numbers below how they are on the sheet:

Chol: 95 L
Trig: 67
HDL: 31 L
LDL Calc^: 51

Feel free to shed light on those numbers if you know what they mean.

Today's workout...

We switched it up a bit today due to all of the cross-trainers being used. I hit the stair machine for 10 minutes until a cross-trainer opened up. I did a random setting on the stair machine. WOW. That thing when it was on the higher side of the random setting got hard to do! You had to move really fast and it kinda sucked. Not too bad, though. We then did 25 minutes on the cross-trainer then hit the weights for the remainder. We increased the weight level on each machine. I'm feeling it, too!

I had my bloodwork done at Mercy the other day, but I keep forgetting to bring my results to work so I can put them in the blog. I'll try to remember for tomorrow. My cholesterol is really low! I wish they'd have tested me when I first started.

Last night's weigh-in results.... Today's workout....

Last night's weigh-in results....

Well, I only lost one pound this last week. It's in the right direction, though!
My trainer is talking about varying the workout a bit to try to jumpstart a positive change.


Today's workout....

So today's workout was about 7 minutes of cross-trainer, then 30 minutes of step aerobics, then 10 minutes of cross-trainer, then 30 minutes or so of weights, then a little stretching.

My boss' weightloss program was extended....

So my boss, Noel Nicholas, is doing the Move It program as well. She and another lady go to a center in West Des Moines while myself and one of the ladies goes to Mercy. Well, the place my boss goes to extended her program by two months! I'm jealous! I'd be at my goal with an extra two months. Oh well. I can do it on my own.

Audition results....

So I received the call last night asking me to come in tonight for callbacks. I am cast as Ted Edwards the 'stoner' again, though. They just want me to come in and work with the new people auditioning since I know the show well and have a background in improv.
It'll be fun working with a mostly new cast this year.

Today's workout....

So I did 40 minutes on the cross trainer. Knocked out 550+ calories and went over 4 miles. I was just under a 10 minute mile! That's pretty much the first time for that.
I then hit the weights and really pushed it! I'm sore now, but it's worth it.
I'm doing more curls than before. Previously I was struggling to get 15 reps. Monday I knocked out 20. Today I knocked out 25! Not bad!

Audition last night...

I auditioned last night for a play that I've done each of the last 3 years at the Des Moines Playhouse: High School Reunion.

I play Ted Edwards, the stoner character. If you've ever seen Tony 'N' Tina's wedding, it's that type of audience participation play. There's dinner, dancing, and a show all in one. The basic jist is that we (the class of 1984) graduated 24 years ago, however a prankster hit back then and some of us weren't able to walk across the stage and our prom was cancelled as well as the senior talent showcase.

The problem is that my character eats all through the show because he has the munchies. I eat a bag of Doritos onstage, a chicken leg, a Capri Sun drink pouch. Then down when mingling with the audience (our 'fellow classmates) in the dance/dinner area (Kate Goldman Childrens Theatre) the audience keeps pawning their hors d'ourves off on me (just those little packaged breadsticks with the processed liquid cheese stuff). THEN we eat dinner of lasagna, bread, cake, and salad.
I told the director that I'd audition but that I don't know if I can do the show because of my lifestyle change. I won't eat all of that unhealthy stuff thru the show this year. I think that the character could suffer if I don't eat, though, so either we'll need to make changes to the character or cast me as someone else or just don't cast me.

We'll see.... I'll know by next Monday. The director said we could work something out.

This morning's workout... New measurements...

This morning's workout...

So this morning I knocked out 40 minutes on the cross-trainer. I burned some 500+ calories and went over 4 miles.
We then hit the weights then used the exercise ball for ab exercises then a bit of stretching.


New measurements...

My trainer, Deb, took my measurements today.
I have lost 8.25 inches since 10/31!


10/31/07 11/30/07 1/07/08

Chest 51.5 51 49.75

Waist 52.5 51.75 51

Hips 50 48.5 46.5

Thigh 26 24 24

Bicep/Tricep 17 17.75 17.5

Almost at the halfway point!!!!

So with last night's 4 pound loss that I mentioned in the last blog entry, thatbrings me to a total of 52 pounds lost! Originally I was looking to lose 100 pounds, but I decided to take it to 116 pounds.
I'm 6 pounds away from being at my halfway point!!! It's been what, 3 months give or take?
I'm down to 2X t-shirts from 3X. I have plenty of room in my 2X t-shirts, too!
I'm down to 264 pounds from a miserable 316 pounds!

There's no doubt in my mind that I'll make it to 200 pounds in 2008! I think a goal of getting to 200 pounds by summer is quite reasonable!

Last night's weigh-in!!!

So I weighed-in last night....
Keep in mind that they thought I may be plateauing and that to get my weightloss back up that we may need to increase my calories. I had lost 1.5 pounds at least the last 2 weeks if not 3 weeks (I forget).

Last night I weighed-in and had lost 4 pounds!!!

That's awesome for one week. Sometimes on The Biggest Loser they don't lose 4 pounds a week and they're working out like 4 hours a day or something and do crazy-hard workouts. I work out 3 times a week for about 1hr or 1hr 15 mins and I'm doing better than they do at times!

What a great feeling to see that number pop up on the scale!!!

Tonight's weigh-in and increasing calories....

So I'll be weighing-in tonight right after work. Hopefully I've lost more than 1 1/2 pounds.

Either way, I think we're going to increase my calories some. Marcia, the manager of the clinic whom weighs me every week, said that my weightloss is slowing down some. I'm not sure if it's due to the holidays or if it's just my body's metabolism and my working out and it going into 'starvation mode' due to not enough calories for the amount I'm working out. My nutritionists and I looked at my caloric intake and figured we could increase my calories at breakfast since I'm only consuming 205 calories there and that's right before I work out. I might add a piece of fruit or an egg or a piece of lean meat or yogurt or something.... We'll see....

Updated weight tomorrow!

Last Friday's workout....

So my trainer was off last Friday and we had a substitute. She let us decide what to do in class. We ended up doing yoga. This was my first time ever doing yoga. I'll tell you, it's not easy! We worked up a sweat in the cold gym. She said a lot of yoga places set their thermostats to 80-90 degrees! Youch!
After yoga, I hit the weights then knocked out 10 minutes on the cross-trainer.

Wednesday's workout....

I did 40 minutes on the cross-trainer despite the cold that I have and being all congested. I then did the weights and the exercise ball for working my abs.

Monday's workout....

My trainer had Monday off as did I, but I still got up at the butt-crack of dawn (5:45am) and worked out on my own.
I did the usual: cross-trainer and weights. I even raised the level of weight on each machine by one level. I'm proud of myself for still getting up that early and doing it on my own.