Day 38

I'm going over a lot of mechanics of my diet today. My charts are all heading in the right direction, and I'm consistently losing weight. I have 22 days remaining of my fast, and there is no way that my overly-ambitious goal of losing 70 pounds will be met. However, my current weight is 227 and I have lost 32.6 pounds now, and that is nothing to baulk at. I added a couple of trend lines to my charts, and though my weight fluctuates here and there from day to day, I am finding that I am consistently losing .4 pounds per day.
So with 22 days remaining, I stand to lose an additional 8.8 pounds. This would have me losing a total of 41.4 pounds to end my fast with my weight at 218.2 pounds. This is amazing in itself, but I am now realizing that I have partially been struggling with this fast because I have thought that I would be losing at a rate much faster than .4 pounds per day. So the reality that sets in now is that in 22 days, at the end of my 60 day juice fast, I still have work to do in order to achieve my goal of 190.

My initial thought for the fast was that I would be able to hit the 70 pound weight loss mark, which would bring my weight down to 190, and that I would be able to use the Eat Clean Diet (an awesome healthy diet) and exercise to get down to 180 from there. I was looking that leisurely losing an additional 10 pounds after the 70. So now, I'm looking at having an additional 38.2 pounds to lose at the end of my 60 day fast. That would give me a total weight loss of 80 pounds.

I have done the Eat Clean Diet previously, and found it to be extremely effective. If you haven't heard of it, grab one of the books or check out the website. It is the best diet out there because its focus is on healthy foods, portion control, and boosting metabolism. It works very well by itself, but combine it with a workout routine, and you pour weight off. I was in a weight loss competition being hosted by a former employer several years back, and dropped a bit over 30 pounds in a month. I did not win the flat-screen tv grand prize, as I suspect some of my co-workers were dropping weight via some very dangerous means (binge-drinking with little food / possibly drugs). I can't compete with that if my assumptions were accurate. But regardless, I cut 30 pounds in a month, which was still awesome.

So that's the plan after I'm done with my 60 day fast. For dieting, I'll be using the Eat Clean Diet, and for exercise, I'll be using a plan off of Scooby's Workshop (scoobysworkshop.com), which is simple, and requires very little equipment to purchase. Scooby is a bodybuilder that doesn't believe in having to own a bunch of equipment or paying for gym memberships to be in shape. He provides multiple difficulty levels in a group of workout routines that are posted up on his website, complete with YouTube instructional videos for how to correctly complete each of the exercises that he is including. Scooby also provides very easy to make meal instructions (also complete with videos), and nutritional guidelines for different exercise goals. It's well done, easy to follow, and Scooby is pretty entertaining to watch as well. When the exercises require any equipment, he tells you how to buy it on the cheap.

So the focus for me today is on shifting my expectations. I've been expecting to lose about a pound a day for a while now, and have been disappointed when I hit the scale each morning and to find that I have fallen short on this goal. Reviewing my daily results charts, I'm seeing that my expectations were the problem, and that I am still cutting weight on a gradual and healthy basis. So I'm content now to do this for another 22 days knowing that I will likely only cut another 8.8 or so pounds. That's still progress, and I'll take it.

After the fast, I have to shift my focus to boosting my metabolism to continue to cut weight, and to ensure that after I hit my target weight, that I keep it off. Lots of work remains to be done, but all in good time, it will be completed.

Romans 5

English Standard Version (ESV)

5  Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we^[a] have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. ² Through him we have also obtained access by faith^[b] into this grace in which we stand, and we^[c] rejoice^[d] in hope of the glory of God. ³ Not only that, but werejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, ⁴ and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, ⁵ and hope does not put us to shame, because God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.

~Until tomorrow