I've been reading this thread since it started and just couldn't seem to motivate myself. Then the kids started back to school and well I'll tell you, my wife started me on the 21st of July on "her" diet for me. Forget Jenny Craig, my wife is awesome.
I've been driving the 3.5 miles north to the mountain each night and I've been hiking up a half an hour and then back down...takes almost an hour just about everyday with the exception of Thursdays and the Sabbath. (Sunday) I teach a class in Spanish on Thursday nights so I just walk around the neighborhood when the class is over.
For breakfast I have an orange or a grapefruit and sometimes a small cup of yogurt. A couple of times a week I take a boiled egg for a mid morning snack.
For lunch I have cabbage soup and then she will give me an icecream sandwich for desert. If I get tired of the soup she gives me a garden salad (out of our garden!)
The key is, I don't eat ANYTHING but ice water or flavored ice water after 2PM... she says, "Why put gas in the car if you are going to park it in the garage (bed) at night?" She is right.
I also do multivitamins and at least 2g of chewable Vitamin C.
It hasn't been easy. I would love to sit and watch the Olympics with a bag of chips but I just have the ice water instead.
So far I've lost 20 lbs. and she's taking some of my fatter clothes to the thrift store to give away and my legs are getting all muscular. She tells me we are not going back to the big and tall store ever again and that little by little I'm going to clean out my closet.
Back in June my blood pressure was running about 145/95 with a pulse of 72. Yesterday my BP was 109/60 with a pulse of 56. It's working.
I'm a BIG believer in getting on a scale at the same time every day. It keeps you honest. If you cheated, you'll see it in the scale. I have a calendar in my bathroom and my new scale weighs to the 2/10 of a lbs. Everynight when I'm hungry, I just think about how wonderful I'll feel in the morning if I've lost a couple tenths of a lb. Of course there are some days when for "no apparent reason" I'm back up a lb. or two. That just motivates me more and so I've started keeping a journal of ABSOLUTELY everything I put in my mouth. If I bite it, I write it. If I nibble it, I scribble it. With six kids, my wife has food everywhere in the kitchen and in the past it was so easy to just graze and nibble.
The key for me is accountability: SCALE & Journal EVERYDAY.
My wonderful skinny wife wants me to loose a bunch more we'll see how it goes. She reminds me that God put us here on this earth to overcome the flesh, that our spirits are to rule our bodies and not the other way around.... and she is right.