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Back in the Saddle

It's been 4 years since I updated this blog, so I feel like I finally owe my legions of readers who refresh this site every day in hopes of seeing some kind of update with their long-awaited payoff. In that time, the good ship Cheapo sprung many leaks and ran aground several times but through it all remained somewhat in tact.

One of the key lessons I learned along this journey is that making a series of life changes, even if you fall off the wagon with a lot of them, the ones that you stick with will  at least hold some of your progress together. 

For me, it was the routine of eating my balanced power breakfast every morning. No matter how many sedentary, unlogged gastronomical disaster days I would have, sticking to my power breakfast routine every morning meant that there was at least one meal that would help somewhat contain the damage of even the worst days.

Another lesson that I learned is patience and persistence are at least at odds with if not enemies of perfection.

If we all sought out to get really fat, there would be some discouraging days where we stepped on the scale and were completely demoralized that the three McDonald's value meals we ate the day before didn't materialize into immediate weight gains. But, you never hear about the trials and tribulations of the few who set out to get fat since stuffing your face requires no patience and the persistence part comes naturally. Losing weight requires more work and effort, so patience and persistence are easily lost.

Related to this lesson: don't obsess over the scale, which means focusing more on your routine instead of the daily weigh-ins. It's too easy to get discouraged, particularly after a weekend that you decide to cut loose, to step on the scale on Monday 5 pounds heavier, freak out and fall out of your routine. This has happened to me many times, particularly going into holiday season. Going to a big family wedding with lots of drinking and eating? Skip the scale for a week after while you focus on getting back into your routine immediately upon getting home.

The last key lesson I learned is that food logging is really irreplaceable unless you're a highly disciplined eater and you do heavy workouts a lot. This is the part of the plan that is most easily abandoned because it involves the most work.

I tried going the route of skipping food logging with upgrading my activity levels, but it doesn't work. I'm nearly 45 years old and anything besides walking seems to break my body quickly.

Last summer, I tried shooting hoops as a fun break from my normal routine of walking, and the stress on my feet from shooting jumpers flared up my plantar fasciitis for nearly a year before my feet stopped hurting. I picked up cycling again, but then the weather got cold. My wife has a Peloton that I tried using, but I couldn't get into it.

I just love walking, but it just takes a lot of time for me to burn the same calories as someone doing shorter high intensity workouts which isn't always possible. I have to log my food or I gain weight, simple as that.

Well, that about wraps up the lessons learned portion of my update. Through it all, my weight ballooned up to 186 by January 1st of this year. That's still 10 lbs lighter than my heaviest point before embarking on the cheapo plan 5 years ago. I've since shed another 10 lbs, down to 176. My target is to get down to about 160 or so by the summer, which should be achievable now that I've identified all of the problems that got me off track in times past.

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