Isagenix 30 Day Cleanse: Video of Day 147 lbs LOSTso farAugust 15, 2008 by Israel Lagares | 20 comments
I was contacted by someone I respect with the idea of cleansing my system to help with my some stubborn weight loss. Over the last month I have lost 6 lbs since getting back on track with my eating. After a month of doing some digging into the product, I decided to go ahead and give it a shot. I’ve got nothing to lose but weight right? The following video blog is goes over my first day on the Isagenix 30 Day Cleanse. Check out the video below.
I am looking forward to some great things. Day 1 and 2 of the cleanse is pretty simple: during Pre-cleanse I need to replace two meals with their IsaLean shakes and eat one sensible meal a day. So far today I am feeling pretty good. I followed the rules and am not the least bit hungry. The plan allows for you to snack or cheat if needed, but it’s best not to. Like I said, I haven’t been hungry all day. I don’t have a desire to binge or snack either. They also have this chocolate candy you can eat!!! Chocolate. That’s right. It’s called IsaDelight.
As promised in the video, here is the link to the Isagenix 30 Day Cleanse page so that you can check it out. Search around and explore. Check out the ingredients and nutritional content of the products. I highly suggest that you watch the videos. There are some professional athletes and bodybuilders that swear by this stuff. Speaking of which, they have whey protein too. So, it’s not just for fatties like me. I would love for you to join me on this 30 day journey and see where it takes us. I know of some people that have had great results with the program, because they followed it correctly. If you do decide to take the leap, let me know so that we can work together as a team. Support is crucial during weight loss, I know that for a fact. Having this blog has already helped me lose a significant amount of weight and I think that adding Isagenix to the mix will be even better.
There’s only one way to find out though! Have you tried Isagenix and had success? Failure? Let me know, I am extremely interested.
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Consistent Weekly Weight Loss: 1 More Pound Lost47 lbs LOSTso farAugust 13, 2008 by Israel Lagares | 48 comments
Consistent weight loss is where it’s at. For me at least. As long as I keep seeing that scale drop on a weekly basis, I am satisfied. Now, I only lost one pound which is 4 off of my 5 pound goal for the week, but I will take it and run. That makes me officially 314 lbs. I’ve updated my weight loss chart in case you were wondering how I’ve progressed over the last month.
I am dying to take a picture for my photo update, but I won’t be doing that until I fall under the 300 lb mark! That is part of my mini goal, along with losing 20 lbs in August. So far, I have only lost 1 lb in August, so I need to step my game up. I am not sure what’s going on really especially since my workouts are pretty intense and effective. I have been eating healthy, proportioned, counting calories, and not depriving myself, so that can’t be it. Can it? I am going to keep doing what I have been doing for another week and see if the weight loss number increases. My goal for next week is 5 lbs again.
In case you were wondering, I don’t have a twin and you aren’t hallucinating. I just Photoshopped two pictures of myself. 
Did you notice the sweat on my arms? That’s right, it’s not oil I put on to look more muscular. LOL. I love my recumbent bike, it gets the job done and is so low impact! I think I look pretty damn good in the photos. Looking at these pics, would you think I weighed in at 314 lbs? C’mon, really? I don’t think so. I look like a big guy, maybe 260 lbs, but not 314 lbs!
That just goes to show that I am going to look awesome when I drop all the weight. Oh, before I forget, I think a weight loss competition is brewing against me and someone in the weight loss blogosphere, stay tuned (leave a comment if you would be interested in participating in the challenge).
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Another Pound Bites the Dust47 lbs LOSTso farAugust 6, 2008 by Israel Lagares | 43 comments
Uh, uh, uh. And another pound bites the dust. And another pound bites, and another pound bites, and another pound bites the duuuust. I’ve lost another pound since getting back on track with my eating. A pound is a pound. Like my high school football coach used to say, “A win is a win.” I will take a 1 lb loss any day. As long as I keep shedding the weight I am happy. I won’t lie, I have been expecting bigger numbers, but what can I say?
This officially puts me back at 315 lbs. That is my one rep max on the bench press. The last time I weighed 315 lbs was October 2007, my reaction post from when I reached that mark last time was one of dissappointment. That is not the case this time. Looking back, I had a different goal in mind. Maybe it’s what led to my failing the first time around?
I think this week I am going to kick it up a notch in the intensity department. Maybe that will do the trick. Eating wise, I have been doing great. I don’t feel restricted, but I don’t feel like I am overindulging either. I think I am slowly finding that balance that I need to sustain for the rest of my life. As I continue to get used to my new eating habits, I think I can hold back on more things without feeling the urge to binge on “bad” food choices.
I’m going to keep it short today, just wanted to announce my weight loss for the week. Hopefully next week I can post a bit of a larger number. I’m aiming for a, drumroll please… 5 lbs loss.
Can Israel make his 5 lb loss? Will he be able to increase his intensity without injuring himself? Will the Dynamic Duo escape The Joker’s deadly trap? Stay tuned next week for the exciting conclusion…
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The Weight Loss Continues…2 More Lbs.47 lbs LOSTso farJuly 30, 2008 by Israel Lagares | 29 comments
Awwww yeah boyeeee! Lost another 2 lbs this week. I will take that any day. I knew I was going to have a loss this week because I had been busting my butt in the gym and in the kitchen. Well, let me rephrase that: I wasn’t doing the cooking, but I was making healthier choices. My wife was also a big part of this week’s success. She made some healthy, yet delicious foods that left me satisfied. A big shout out goes to my love!
Enough of the sappy stuff. Guess what? I ate Thai food and a chicken a Parmesan sandwich this week and still lost weight. So, I didn’t deprive myself. Oh, almost forgot about the the Dove dark chocolate treats that my rock star friend bought. Those things were fantabulous. Simply amazing. Dove, you’ve got a winner. Aside from that I ate a lot of chicken, salad, fruits and veggies. I drank plenty of water and green tea too.
My workouts were focused on multijoint, compound exercises and my cardio was a mixture of HIIT, walking, and biking. I am staying away from isolation exercises for the time being. You can check out my workout routine to see what I do. I go heavy or I go home. Wait. I workout at home. [scratches head] Uhm, I go heavy and I stay home.
I have also updated my weight loss chart. It’s good seeing the number go down. Real good. I get a warm fuzzy feeling when I look at the chart. Those of you out there that track your weight loss know what I mean.
So where do I go from here? I do it all over again. Something I have adopted recently is taking one day at a time. Not dwelling on the past or on the potential future. I know that what I am doing today is what matters right now. So I eat right, workout hard (smart) and do it all over again the next day.
For those of you wondering: that’s a Stony Brook University Seawolves football shirt, I read, collect boats, light houses, and snow globes (for the misses), and I love tattoos.
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Victory! I Lost 2 Pounds47 lbs LOSTso farJuly 23, 2008 by Israel Lagares | 31 comments
Yeah, that’s right. I lost two pounds this week. Take that flabby sides and belly! It doesn’t sound like much weight lost, but I will take a loss any day. Last week was a bit of a shocker when I realized I gained back a significant amount of weight.
This week is a huge relief to my psyche. I focused on eating the right things, eating frequently, and working my butt off in the gym. It paid off. Now I just need to continue to take one day at a time so that I don’t go backwards anymore. The major kick in the pants I got from last week’s post woke me up. I received a bunch of emails full of support.
As a matter of fact, here is an email I got from a friend/reader:
—-
“I am committing to weighing myself once a week from this point on until I reach my first goal. ”
July 16th,2008
It’s a week.
How’s your eating?Here’s the picture:
Israel, age 45 a chronic morbidly obese man died today of complications from diabetes. He acquired diabetes from a life of overeating, and after 5 years suffering with the disease, and not regulating his diet or exercise, succumbed to congestive heart failure. Heart and vascular problems are all to common with obese people and particulary with those who’ve acquired diabetes as a result of their weight. His wife now works 2 jobs to support their 2 children who will now NOT go to college and will work to support their mother as soon as they are able. 6 months ago on his fat man blog he lamented ’slipping up’ and all the folks who cut him slack.Not me.
Get off your fat excuse making ass and stop making excuses for yourself. The mental process which allows you to make excuses for yourself is the same mental process that allows you to slip into bad eating habits. You need to find the root of your self excuses, some piece of your psyche thinks you need the excuses, or you aren’t worthy of success, so you try, but build in excuses to fail so you don’t have to feel bad about having tried your best but not succeeded. Figure this one out and you’ve unlocked the key to real change.
I love you man, get back on the program. You said 1 week, it’s 1 week, weigh in.
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If that’s not enough to motivate me then I don’t know what is. He touches on a very key point, building in excuses.
Anyone else suffer from that? Care to share?
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Overeaters Anonymous (OA) Meetings - An Inside Look47 lbs LOSTso farJuly 19, 2008 by Israel Lagares | 10 comments
Editor’s note: This is a guest post from Jenny Clark. She primarily blogs about teaching and education related issues. She teaches 2nd grade in an urban Midwest school. You can see her blog at http://doinitjensway.blogspot.com.
First I’d like to say that I’m no expert on this. Please see the Overeaters Anonymous (OA) website www.OA.org for official information. Okay, now that that’s out of the way, I’d like to share my story. I’ve struggled with my weight, and had body issues for as long as I can remember. I remember thinking that I was fat as early as 1st grade. I went on the grapefruit diet when I was in third grade. I’ve since tried: the egg-banana-hotdog diet, anything a magazine told me to do, bulimia, Atkins, South Beach, medical research programs, poopy pills (they blocked the fat, but gave you the poops), and almost any other diet program you can think of. Regardless, my weight just kept increasing. I’ve had a few short lived periods of success, but in general, I’ve always failed. It didn’t make sense. I’m an over-achiever. I’m successful, why is it I couldn’t manage this?
Several years ago, I heard about Overeaters Anonymous meetings. I attended a couple of meetings… cried, listened, read, and decided that it wasn’t for me. I wasn’t ready yet. Finally, this summer, I’d had enough. My doctor had started mentioning my weight at every visit. I was constantly worrying that I would have a heart attack, and felt terrible. I decided that things had to change. I decided to approach this from all my angles. I went to my doctor and got some blood work done. I started seeing a therapist, I’ve met a couple of times with a nutritionist, I started reading, exercising, and I began attending OA
meetings.
It started out rather uncomfortable. Overeaters Anonymous was definitely the hardest. It was hard just to get to the meeting. At the meeting it was hard to speak. It was hard to believe that I was in the right spot. I spent a lot of my time at those initial meetings judging the other people. I sort of knew I was in the right place, but I didn’t want to admit that I was the same as the people I was judging. Then, at about my 5th meeting, a person made a comment about stealing food from the families they were babysitting for. I flashed back to my babysitting years. I totally did that. I would eat little bits of lots of their food and try to put it back in just the same spot so it wouldn’t be noticed. Other people in the room also admitted to doing the same thing. It was then that it clicked. I was among people who, for whatever reason, shared my story. We don’t, and probably never have responded to food like most people. Many of them have overcome their weight problems by working the OA program (not just short term- these folks have been successful for years, and they keep coming back to sustain their success, and to help us newcomers).
After that I got “abstinent.” In Overeaters Anonymous (OA), abstinent, means that you pick a food/life plan, and stick to it. They don’t tell you what to pick, you know your trigger foods better than anyone else. Just like in AA, you keep track of your abstinence. I’ve now been abstinent for 26 days. I thought it would be terrible. I thought I’d constantly be feeling sorry for myself. Honestly, there have been hard parts, but overall, it’s been the most freeing thing of my life. I’m not constantly thinking about food. I’m finally free to be me. I’ve spent my whole life eating to deal with a painful experiences, now, I’m finally dealing with life without eating. I’m finally finding my spiritual path. I’m finally finding my voice, and letting it shine. After a year of abstinence, a person celebrates their “birthday,” now I understand why.
The things I hear in OA, the people I meet, the literature I’ve read, has all been amazing (once I got over the initial discomfort). I feel like a new person. I know that I’ll always have people right there to support me when things are tough. There are no fees, there’s nothing commercial, just people in all different stages of recovery to support each other.
*Image Courtesy OA.org
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This Weigh-in is a Huge Disappointment47 lbs LOSTso farJuly 16, 2008 by Israel Lagares | 52 comments
Last week I confessed about not having been eating properly. I haven’t weighed myself in a very long time. I finally weighed myself today, it was not a pretty sight. I’m extremely disappointed with the number I saw on the scale. I clocked in at 320 lbs.
That sucks! Big time. I gained back over 16 lbs. I’ve been hammering out some killer workouts, but I guess my eating poorly has caused me to put the weight back on. I have gone ahead and added the weight lost back to “Lbs Lost So Far” area above. I have also updated my weight chart, something I hadn’t done since December 2007.
I am committing to weighing myself once a week from this point on until I reach my first goal. What is that goal? To lose the weight I put back on. How am I going to achieve that? Working out and controlling my eating. When I ate healthily, in moderation, and frequently I lost weight. That’s the piece of the puzzle that I need to add. I lost track for a while, but now my eye is on the prize again.
Now everyone knows how big of a disappointment this weigh-in was. Next week won’t be so bad because I am going to crank it up a notch!
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Fasting Diet: No Food, All Water47 lbs LOSTso farApril 1, 2008 by Israel Lagares | 41 comments
I have decided to test my inner strength by undergoing a grueling fasting diet. I won’t be eating anything and will only be drinking water and possibly green tea. I will however take a multi vitamin each morning. This isn’t something I am used to so it should prove to be a challenge.
Why am I doing this? I want to test my will power and test my body. I read and hear of countless people fasting for days on end and they live to tell about it. I plan on doing it for a few days at most. I have read of 2 week fasts. But that’s not something I am interested in doing. I will continue to exercise and go throughout the day as I normally would. That won’t change. I hope.
Now usually I would not do something like this, but I think it’s a welcomed shock to my system. I will make an update the minute I start eating again, which I hope isn’t until Saturday at the earliest. Wow, just thinking about the possibility of fasting for so long amazes me.
I guess we will see if I can last being stranded on a deserted island.
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A Benefit of Losing Weight: Fitting Into an Airplane Seat47 lbs LOSTso farMarch 4, 2008 by Israel Lagares | 11 comments
I generally dislike traveling via airplane. Sitting in the same position for too long isn’t something I enjoy. I also don’t like uncomfortably sitting in a seat that’s made for someone half my size. I don’t know if it’s me, but are airplane seats shrinking? It seems like every time I take a new flight the seats and aisles are smaller and narrower.
I recently took a few flights and am happy to say that I actually fit comfortably into the seat of the airplanes I took. That was a major relief for me because I dread not fitting into airplane seats. I also dread sitting in the middle of a row, in between two people that can’t stand the “fat guy.” That always happens to me, it’s just my luck. Having lost some significant weight since my last plane ride has paid off big time. I can now fit into a seat, buckle my seat belt with out using an extender or pretend to have the seat belt buckled because I’m too embarrassed to ask for an extender.
This may or may not be true, but I have heard of obese people having to pay for two seats since they take up a lot of extra space. The airline companies would lose a customer if they allowed a fat person to only pay for one seat, but take up two. It has to be true since it makes sense. Also, airline companies have started to charge for EVERYTHING. I booked a flight and was charged a fee for selecting my own seat!!!! Then on the flight, they tried selling me $2 cheap earphones. They were also selling $8 ham and cheese sandwiches. It’s pretty ridiculous.
Don’t get me wrong, I may fit into a seat now but my shoulders and arms are still too wide for the narrow spacing of the seats. I still overflow into the other seats due to my abundance of width, but I don’t care that much about that. I’m just glad my butt doesn’t get numb anymore from being stuffed into a tiny space.
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Do Weight Loss Competitions Really Work?47 lbs LOSTso farFebruary 13, 2008 by Israel Lagares | 19 comments
More often than not, weight loss competitions are successful. When ever I have participated in a weight loss challenge I have lost weight. This may not apply to everyone though. It takes determination and a desire to compete.
A great thing about weight loss competitions is that every one wins. There may be one overall biggest loser, but every participant usually loses some weight. If you follow the rules of the competition correctly and lose only one pound, then you are a winner in my book. So what makes weight loss competitions so successful? I think it has to do with the team/community and the competitive aspect that is fostered.
Having played sports I am accustomed to exercising with my fellow teammates. It took me years to break the habit of needing to work out alongside someone. After I stopped playing team sports I joined a gym so that I could workout with other people in the room. I have since then gotten used to working out alone, but it was very hard for me to build a consistent routine. It also helped that I got so fat and uncomfortable with my looks, that I did not want to workout in front of other people. I had to make a choice: either workout alone at home or go to a public gym and feel embarrassed. I chose to exercise at home and it has worked.
I am a big fan of having support in everything that you do in life. I wouldn’t have been able to lose the weight I have so far without this weight loss blog. This blog has helped me build a virtual support group. A community of individuals that are helping me along my weight loss journey. That’s why I think competitions are successful. They bring together a group of people with the same goal in mind. What better solution is there then to team up and tackle ones problems?
I was recently contacted by Tristan over at the Angie’s List to give some feedback on how communities can help with weight loss. We spoke for a bit and he added me to their List-en up! podcast. I think it covers a good topic and is worth a listen . Head on over and listen to it. There is also a transcript of the entire podcast for those that don’t/can’t tune into it or for the hearing impaired.
To listen to the podcast visit this page and use one of the options made available. To read the transcript visit this page.
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Early Morning Workouts: 6 AM Lifting47 lbs LOSTso farJanuary 14, 2008 by Israel Lagares | 10 comments
Today I finally performed an early morning workout. Not my typical morning cardio only session, but instead a strength training session. I was up at 6 AM and it was still dark outside. Not only was it dark but it was pretty damn cold too. My initial reaction was to go back to bed, especially since The Shack is in the backyard, but I resisted the temptation.
There was no way I would be able to get up in the early morning without the proper rest. So I made sure to get at least 6.5 hours of sleep (still working on that ever elusive 8 hours). Sleep and rest are an important part of this journey that I am undergoing. Without them I will burn out. Burning out is not an option. Not for me at least.
What did I do this morning? I squatted, benched, and did incline dumbbell presses. It was a quick hitting, multi-joint, heavy lifting session. It only took about 40 minutes or less, I lost track. But it was great. The one thing I didn’t like was that I barely broke a sweat. I like sweating when I workout because it gives me a sense of accomplishment. I then hopped on my recumbent bike for a quick morning cardio workout. The bike made me sweat. It was a good morning.
I like the whole morning workout idea because it makes my entire day better. I get the training part of my day over with and can focus on other stuff without having to worry about training. It also gives me a shot of adrenaline that propels my days.
I have this competition all but wrapped up. Those other guys ain’t got nothing on the Fat Man.
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