Ok, so I haven’t been blogging much as of late on this old blog (ok, it has been a few months!) and there is a reason for that… I haven’t been going to the gym as much. Now, I know what you’re going to say, “Scott, have you given up?”

Never! I think it is crucial, though, not to let this weight lose thing get in the way of me living my life, and life has been pretty good and very busy.

Luckily, things have quieted down and I am back at the gym and you’ll never guess that I have been doing there. That’s right, I’ve been running on the treadmill for 26 minutes (doing about 2.3 miles, not too shabby).

Yes, I’ve gained a couple of pounds but I am still on the road to fitness.

I think my metabolism is gearing up or something.

You know what this means? Only 3.1 more pounds and I will have lost 100 pounds since I started this crazy adventure. It is hard to believe that not so long ago I was weighing in at 383 and looked like this. I look back at these pictures and I am shocked that I didn’t do anything about my weight sooner, however, that isn’t the point of this. No need to worry about what I didn’t do, but rather concentrate on what’s working for me:

• working out regularly (with some great folks)
• eating better (I am not doing the South Beach Diet anymore, but I am applying principles that I learned doing it, and I am eating some of the things that they suggest on a regular basis)
• actively thinking about my health

All of those points are important, but the last one has had the most impact. It is really very easy to slide back into my old habits of eating too much and moving too little. Thanks to this blog (which is a manifestation of my thinking about these issues, even if I don’t write too much on here) I am able to keep myself on the straight and narrow.

Let’s be real though, I’m not starving myself. This whole losing weight thing would be a mess if I changed my life in an unsustainable way. I have thought about going vegetarian, but that would just set me up for failure (I love me some steak), but eating more vegetables is something I can, and am, doing.

Life is all about being honest with yourself and knowing your limits. I’m not particularly strong willed, but I am able to follow routines. I have used my routine following skills to my advantage (going to the gym 5 times a week and doing the same thing every time might strike some as boring, but it strikes me as the way to a thinner, happier, and handsomer Scott) and replaced my old ruts with healthier ones.

I don’t have all the answers, but I do have a body that weighs 97 pounds lighter than it did 11 months ago and that’s good enough for me.

Anyway, enough of that! I have lost 91 pounds so far. That’s pretty incredible. You know what else is incredible? What I am doing at the gym. I go 5 times a week and do the following:

• 4.5 miles (or so) on the elliptical (that’s 30 minutes on the damn machine)
• 8 minutes on the treadmill (which is about .75 miles at the pace I go)
• some light strength training, very very light but it is a start

I’m turning into some sort of gym regular or something.

Over the last 8 months I have been doing one thing at the gym, the elliptical. I started off barely being able to stay on the damned thing for 5 minutes, and now… drum roll please… I am doing 30 minutes on the elliptical 5 times a week. Let me tell you, I ain’t strolling along on that damned thing either, I’ve been doing at least 4 miles in those 30 minutes. It really makes a guy sweat (and fat guys sweat with the best of ‘em).

The other day Joe was at the gym, pursuing his Joe Gets Fit Plan, and he challenged me to a treadmill race. A race! No man worth his salt can refuse a man to man challenge and despite my many misgivings about the treadmill, which included:

• I just spent 30 minutes going 4 miles on an elliptical machine, would this be pushing it?
• When I first starting doing the elliptical machine it frightened the crap out of me. Would I fall off of it? Would I hurt myself? Imagine those fears amplified several times. The elliptical isn’t a giant conveyor belt of Doom. I have seen more than my fair share of treadmill launched iPods smashed against the cruel, unforgiving gym floor. Imagine me in the place of that iPod, and you can imagine what I was thinking.
• Running, what’s it good for?

I accepted Joe’s challenge. With a little help I figured out how to operate the treadmill and I jogged a little (I won’t say who won the race, but I did).

That, dear readers, is how a few minutes on the treadmill has entered into the official Scott Gets Fit training regimen. At the moment I am only doing 5 minutes on the treadmill (after 30 minutes on the elliptical) but soon enough I’ll be running for longer and longer.

That being said, it is nice to hear the phrase, ‘You’re lost weight!’ from people other than ones self (I was recently looking at this picture of myself, and I thought, ‘Ye gods, I have lost a lot of weight!’). Today, after lunching, I made my usual afternoon Wawa trip.

Oh, how I love Wawa. Their sandwiches are tasty, the stores are usually well kept, and they even offer a number of mildly healthy snacks for someone trying to get fit (I also enjoy their chocolate chip muffins, but at 678 calories, not something I often eat anymore). So I was in Wawa purchasing some almonds and a Diet Cherry Vanilla Dr. Pepper, which is pretty usual for my afternoon snack, when something very nice happened. I was paying for my crap, and the lady behind the register, who I have been chatting with pretty regularly for the last few years, said, ‘You’re lost a lot of weight, haven’t you?’

Sure, it is a little vain, but that really made my day. Kudos to you, Wawa lady!

You read that correctly, I am starting to enjoy going to the gym. Sure, it sucks when you’re there. And I still feel out of place amongst the young, fit, and good looking people one finds at the gym (though I tend to feel out of place in most places) but yet I almost look forward to going to the gym at the end of the day.

What up with that?

I am also up to 25 minutes on the elliptical, mostly because Roz forced me to do it. Today I burned 380 calories, or so, and went 2.3 miles on the elliptical. It is hard to believe that a few months ago I could barely do 8 minutes on that infernal device.

There you have it, I may turn into a gym rat yet!

Fast forward 4 months, or so, and I am banging out a solid 23 minutes on the elliptical, and I just broke the 2 mile mark this weekend (the machine keeps track of how far you have ellipticaled in the time elapsed). Suffice to say I was feeling pretty good about my relationship wit the elliptical machine. I thought we had an understanding. I thought we were friends.

The elliptical is no man’s friend.

Today I went to the gym and had the worst workout ever. Something just didn’t feel right, and I only ellipticaled 1.9 miles, which was sad. I was feeling pretty down when the elliptical flashed ‘Workout Summary: Level 4.’

Goodness! I had been suffering along at Level 1 this entire time, and today I am on Level 4! I have no idea what that means, but the workout was pretty darned tough. I thought about stopping for a second but I ellipticaled it off.

Today might just have been my best workout ever (and I burned 400 calories).

You can read Colin’s answers, and the answers from:

• James (I’ve always liked his blog’s design)
• Chris

Here are my humble answers:

What are the top five reasons you started to diet in the first place?

I’ve been a fat guy for a long, long time. Nothing too shocking about that, but in the last few years even I thought I was getting a little too fat. I lacked motivation to do anything about it, and then I got an ear infection.

The ear infection started in my right ear, and somehow managed to get into my left ear. I had dueling ear infections. I was going to ride out the one ear infection, but I couldn’t stand the pain of both so to the doctor I went. The doctor looked in my ear, gave me a prescription and scheduled me for a followup appointment.

I figured the followup would be to check on ye olde ears, but it was all a ruse. A damn, dirty ruse! She did peep at my ears, but then said, ‘So, you’re weight isn’t where we would like it to be. And we looked at your bloodwork and you’re almost diabetic and your blood-pressure is high. We have to do something about this now.’

This didn’t come to me as a shock. I can even remember then I knew that I wasn’t the Scott that I wanted to be. I was at my mom’s house for Christmas, and I just recently cut my hair and shaved off my beard. I took this picture and let’s just say I wasn’t very happy with the way I looked. I wasn’t that fat was I?

Yes, yes I was.

The doctor’s words finally motivated me to do something, and so I would have to say my top five reasons are:

1. To no die
2. To be healthy
3. Did I mention the whole death thing?
4. I felt it was now or never
5. To look more like I do in my mind’s eye

That last one is the real clincher. I have a healthy self image, one that doesn’t really align with reality. More and more often over the last few years I would look in the mirror and think, ‘Oh, yeah, that’s what I look like.’ And not in a good way.

What was your biggest failure on the diet, and how did you overcome it?

Hmm, I don’t think I have had any major setbacks as such. I mean, going to the gym sucks. Not being able to shovel whatever I want into my big, fat face sucks but overall it is working.

I have been snacking at night a little more than I should, so that is probably the biggest failure to date, but I haven’t overcome it yet. I’ll let you know when I do.

Did blogging help or hinder your success?

I started this blog the on August 17th, and I haven’t looked back. If I weren’t blogging this, I wouldn’t be doing it. I can’t stress that enough. Even though Scott Gets Fit has turned into a list of my weigh ins it has helped motivate me (and it is fun to track how I have lost about 50 pounds in real time).

Plus the blog got me to publicly say that I weighed 383 pounds, and that was important to me. I needed to ‘own’ the problem. I was scared for a long time that if people knew how much I weighed they would stop liking me (I actually just wrote ‘stop licking me’ by mistake. Sadly, no one has been licking me in awhile). It makes no sense, since my friends are awesome, but it was just something I had to come to gripes with. Blogging helped me do it.

Plus, if I fail all my friends will know and I’d be embarrassed.

What things did you do to help ensure your success?

Colin says :

Simple. I do what I find fun and don’t do the stuff I hate.

That is the exact opposite of what I have done. I hate going to the gym, but I do it at least 3 times a week (I try for 4 but I’m only human). If I weren’t exercising I would still be losing weight thanks to my diet, but it would take much longer.

The key to my success is routine. I do the same thing at the gym every time I go, and I try to go at the same times every week. Without that routine I would be skipping the gym left and right, and that wouldn’t be very helpful at all.

What is one recommendation you’d have for someone on Day 1 of their diet?

This is a cliche, but only because it is true: losing weight is a marathon, not a sprint. What does that mean? It means that you won’t always stick to your diet, and you won’t always be working out. You’ll gain back some weight you lost, but that’s ok! You can work it off again. This is a long term thing you’re entering into, not a get skinny fast plan. Hard work will pay off, but it won’t be quick and it won’t be easy. It will be very satisfying though.

Now, I can only speak for myself when I say this, but I have a feeling that I am not alone . Whenever I go to the gym (about 3 times a week) what do I find myself surrounded by? You guessed it: people in very good shape who are only getting in better shape before my very eyes. This phenomenon isn’t helped by the fact that I am working out in a Univeristy’s gym. I find myself in a building full of young, fit, good-looking people at their physical peak.

Sure, it makes for nice scenery but I’m just a fat geek wearing a nerdy tshirt, so you can see how it might be intimidating. Factor in the fact that I am going to the gym to do something I don’t enjoy to begin with (working out sucks) and this is not exactly the best situation for success.

I will not let this get me down though, because the other day whilst I was glowing my ass off on the elliptical it dawned on me. I looked around the room, filled with good looking young people, and realized that they didn’t even notice me. They were either too busy emitting pheromones in hopes of wooing a member of the opposite sex (or the same sex for about 1 in 10), or they were absorbed in their own workouts. No one cares about the fat guy!

Hurrah me…. I think.

You see, Apple and Nike have teamed up to create the Nike + iPod which is a doodad that snaps onto your iPod nano and a sensor that slips into your shoe. It tracks how far you have ran, and how long it took you to cover the distance. It also syncs up to some Nike website where you can track your progress and ‘challenge friends,’ which I don’t think I would be doing (the challenging that is).

So, I need to get a new iPod nano and a Nike + iPod sports kit and I will be totally hot, or something. Who’s with me?