05 Saturday Sep 2020
Posted in Photography
19 Wednesday Aug 2020
Tags
When I started riding back in 2013, I rode a total of 1700 miles. I know, to some of you that’s a drop in a bucket but I was pretty proud of my accomplishment. 2014 is when I was diagnosed and because of my health issues, I was only able to ride 530 miles. I was able to increase my mileage somewhat to 890 miles in 2015. 2016 was a different story. I stayed in the hospital for several weeks because of complications and I never had the energy nor the strength to ride therefore I rode zero miles that year. In 2017, I was determined to start again and I did get a decent start with 150 miles but it soon faded because I was plagued with complications again. In the next two years, I was lucky to get 100 miles or less because of fatigue and weight issues. Because of this challenge that I’ve signed up for, I’ve pretty much-given caution to the wind and I’m going to ride if it kills me.
Today I was able to ride six miles, most of it pretty well. I did have some issues going up against some steep hills but I think once I lose some weight and get more in shape, I’ll get better with the hills. The only way I’m going to get better is to keep doing it. In 2013, I had worked up to 25 miles every time I got on my bike and I was riding close to four days a week during the Spring and Summer. There’s no way I can do that now but that’s my goal.
Stay safe everyone!!
22 Saturday Feb 2020
Posted in diet, Gym, Weight Loss
Tags
I did not go to the gym today. I could have and if the truth is known I guess I should have. Since I’ve joined the gym on the 14th of February, I have been four days out of the last eight. I’ve been told not to overdo it. But what is overdoing it? I only work with the trainer for thirty minutes and then I hop on either the cycle or the treadmill for another thirty. Friday, I had gotten there thirty minutes early so I hopped on the cycle before my thirty-minute session with the trainer, then another thirty minutes on the treadmill afterward. Tomorrow I plan on doing thirty minutes on both the treadmill and the cycle and maybe some weights in between.
What is your opinion? How long should a workout last? As much money as I’m paying out I want to get my money’s worth. Also, and I know this is a loaded question, what sort of diet, if any, should I be on to maximize not only my weight loss but to help with getting my body in shape.
15 Tuesday Oct 2019
Posted in Weight Loss
Tags
Accomplishments, diet, Exercise, goals, Low Carb, Weight loss
As I figured, it’s been a little difficult hitting some of my goals. I’ve only reached half my 10,000 step goal for the last two days. Tomorrow I plan on changing that. With my daughters having a birthday celebration on Sunday, we still have cake and pie laying around. Be proud of me because I haven’t had any so that’s a huge accomplishment. I haven’t had any carbs to amount to anything in two days. Another big accomplishment. Even though I’m not getting the exercise in like I want, the scales did see a smaller number this morning.
14 Monday Oct 2019
Posted in Weight Loss
Tags
Apps, Blood Sugar, Diabetes, Fitbit, goals, Insulin, Journey, Low Carb Diet, Measurements, MyNetDiary, Overweight, Weight loss
Good Morning!! Today is the day that I start my weight loss journey. Posting these pictures are the hardest thing that I’ve had to do. I can’t stand to see myself in this shape. What better way to start a diet right?
I have weighed and taken my measurements this morning. I’m not too surprised at what I see. It could and has been worse. I’ll post everything later on in this post. My plan is to weigh every day and take my measurements once a month.
The Plan
I have been on hundreds of diets in my lifetime. The only one that really works for me is the low carb diet along with exercise. Another thing that I have found that works is being able to track my intake as well as my exercise. One of the best ways is through some apps that I can use on my phone. I have a couple of apps that I like. One is Fitbit and the other is MyNetDiary. Both of which have similarities but differences as well. The MyNetDiary app allows me to track my insulin and my blood sugar as well.
Fitbit offers a way to track your exercise on a daily basis. It counts your steps for which you can set different daily goals. The default is 10,000 steps. It counts stairs or sets of stairs should I say, it counts the total miles that you’ve walked in a day, it counts the calories that you’ve burnt or used and if you want, it will even count the hours of sleep you had the night before. Each one of these have a goal that you can set.
So, let’s get into the plan a little deeper. Like I said earlier, I will be on a low carb diet. I will stay at or below 2,000 calories/day. And by way of the Fitbit, I will try to get at least 10,000 steps per day and at least if not more than 30 minutes of exercise per day.
I will log everyday but not necessarily on here. You can though, expect a weekly report. If you would like to track my progress more closely then you can request to join my Fitbit group. To do so all you have to do is send me an email at timhughes1963@gmail.com and I”ll hook you up.
As promised, and I’m embarrassed to say, here are my measurements.
Well, there you have it. Like I said, I’ll post updated pictures about once a month to see if you can see any changes and I might post some weekly stuff as well but I’ll try not to make them boring.
I hope some will follow this journey with me. I really think this will help me to stay on track. I nearly forgot, my weight loss goal for the three month time period is 15 pounds. I have no doubt in my mind that I will be able to reach this goal. I will have to stay on my diet in order to reach it though.
Wish me luck.
04 Sunday Jun 2017
Posted in Cancer
Tags
Bad news first. My Leukemia is back. Got a call from my oncologist on Friday and he told me that my numbers were back up. I’m to increase my dosage and go see him in six weeks for more blood work. Nothing else to do until then so there’s no since in crying over spilt milk.
Now for the good news. I’ve started doing the low carb diet. I’m limiting my carbs to 35 to 40 per day. I started last Saturday and I’ve lost close to ten pounds this week. I know most of it is water weight but hell, then pounds is ten pounds. Another plus is that my sugar has been a lot better as well. It dropped about 30 points this week.
I went hiking yesterday with the wife. I won’t go into too much detail here because I want to do a review of this waterfall on another post. It wasn’t but a two mile hike but the steep hill made it much more of an exercise event for me. We had to stop several times comeing back for me to catch my breath. I can’t wait until I get back in shape again.
On another note; my weight loss journey started when my weight got to 345lbs. My ultimate goal is around 225lbs. Until recently I thought I’d never reach that goal. I can now see a light at the end of the tunnel. It’s very dim mind you but it’s there. Today’s weighin was 268lbs. It won’t be long until I reach my mini goal of 265lbs. It’s taken me five years to get down to where I’m at. Will it take me another five years to reach my ultimate goal? I hope not.
12 Thursday Nov 2015
Posted in Photography
When we thought my son was going to graduate on December 10th, I decided then that I would set a weight loss goal of 285lbs. I’ve been dieting somewhat but not seriously until the first day of November. Hence the Day Count. When I set the goal I weighed in at 305. This morning I weighed in at 289 lbs. If I go by the past few weeks I should reach this mini goal by sometime next week.
All my adult life I’ve been doing some type of dieting. I’ve been setting goals and rewarding myself with different things such as a cheat day, a special meal or I’ll even go buy a special something that I’ve been wanting for a while. As you can guess none of these really help me especially the food. I really want to stay away from rewarding myself with food. That’s never a good thing.
For those that do a lot of dieting and rewarding yourself with rewards, what are some of the rewards that you give yourself for reaching your goals?
Today’s total was three miles at 3.4 mph.
“Life Goes On!”
25 Thursday Jun 2015
Posted in Photography
I took a nutrition class a couple of years ago that my office offered and we were asked to fill out a survey and one of the questions asked what was my weight loss goal. At that time I weighed a lot more than I do now so I put down I wanted to lose 100 pounds. A couple of days later I got an email requesting that I meet the instructor and go over the survey with her. The first question was regarding my goal. It’s too much she said. You need to start off with smaller goals and work toward bigger goals once you meet the smaller ones. So with that I started off with 5 pounds the first month then 5 more the second month and so on. I lost 60 plus pounds doing that.
Goal setting is not only for weight loss. I do it for my cycling as well. When I started riding my bike I could only do about 5 miles at a time. The only thing I did different was that with each goal that I met I would always increase the goal for the next month so 5 miles became 10, 10 miles became 15 and so forth. Within about six months I finally reached my last goal of 50 miles. Pictured here is a group of scouts that I rode with during my 50 mile bike ride. We all had a blast that day.
Remember when setting goals, make them attainable. Make your goals challenging but not too high where you may lose interest or get discouraged. Give yourself an award for reaching your goals. I remember reading where one lady put up a $1 bill for every pound she lost. She set her main goal of $50 and when she reached her 50 pounds she had $50 to spend any way she wanted too. I thought that was a pretty good idea.
If you’re trying to lose weight I hope you’re meeting your goals. Good luck!!
“Life Goes On!”
24 Wednesday Jun 2015
Posted in Photography
Tags
365 Day Photo Challenge, Alabama, Cycling, Eating Healthy, Exercise, Exercising, goals, Healthy, Weightloss
Pay attention to your health NOW! Don’t wait until you get to be an adult, don’t wait until after you’re out of shape and don’t wait until you’re so big you can’t do anything about it. Do something now, even if it’s just 30 minutes a day, do something to get your heart rate up and burn some calories.
In the last two years, I have had eye surgery, 25 doctor appointments and 6 days off from work mostly due to my diabetes. I have hardly any vacation built up and my sick time is non existent. The diagnosis of my CML hasn’t helped matters none but there’s nothing I could’ve done to prevent this cancer but the diabetes is another story.
I’m not telling you this to gain sympathy or to draw attention to myself. I’m doing this so that you won’t have to go through what I’m going through. I want you to be my friend for a long time.
Trust me when I say that it is MUCH HARDER to lose weight as an adult than it is while you are younger. I’ll be 52 in a couple of months and I honestly think I”ll never get to where I want to be because my metabolism just doesn’t function like it used to. Either that or I still eat more calories than I burn. I do exercise more and I feel that it’s still not enough. I love to ride my bike for hours at a time but it takes too much time away from my family.
My son will graduate college in the first week of December.of this year. I have a goal that I want to get down to and it’s going to be really hard for me to get there. It’s not an unrealistic goal but it’s just going to be a challenge to get there.
Again, pay attention to your health now. No one knows better than you if you need to do something or not. I know I need to work on my weight and I’m trying to do better.
There’s no need respond or reply unless you just feel the need too. If you know someone who is having health issues due to diabetes and you know they’re having difficulties with their dieting, say a word of encouragement. A little encouragement goes a long way.
Thanks for reading this and thanks for being there for me.
30 Friday Jan 2015
Posted in Photography
Tags
365 Photo Challenge, bicycling, Cancer, Cycling, diet, goals, Photo, Photo Shoot, Photography, Pregnancy, Trainer, Tredmill, Wedding, Weight, weight gain, Weight loss
This year has been full of “New Beginnings” and not all of them have been all that good. I refuse to concentrate on the negatives and I’m trying to focus on all of the positives. Last year started off really bad and I was hoping that this year would be somewhat better.
My dieting hasn’t been very productive and I haven’t started exercising like I wanted and it’s already February. It just seems like there is always something preventing me from getting on the trainer or the treadmill. I’m always finding excuses and it’s always “I’ll do it tomorrow. I’ve lost 40 lbs in about four months two years ago and I know I can do it again it’s just getting started that’s the trouble.
I’ve got my first photoshoot tomorrow afternoon so my plan is to get up early, get on that treadmill for at least thirty minutes then get my day started. I need to set up a goal to reward myself for every so many pounds I lose. It needs to be something that I really enjoy, not food, and that it will be worth losing the weight other than my health. Any suggestions? I was thinking that every 20 pounds I would reward myself with something.
The above picture is of a couple that I shot for their engagement. It’s been over a year since they’ve been married and now she is currently pregnant and not doing to good. She’s in her final trimester and the poor girl has been sick since she’s gotten pregnant. She’s a sweet young lady and I’m sure she’ll be a great mother. After this one she’ll probably not get pregnant again. lol
It’s the weekend. I hope everyone has a great weekend and I hope you get to spend time with your loved ones.
“Life Goes On!!”
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