31 Dec 08 2008…The Year of Transformations
Two thousand eight…2008….wow what a year. I don’t even know where to begin. I started the year off…well I don’t even remember what I did for New Year’s Eve last year. The year started off though for me when I joined a gym and actually started going for real. I set a goal in February to change my life and body and come down from my all time high weight of 220-230 down to 160 within 120 days. This was surprisingly not as difficult as I would of thought, and while I still hate doing the weights at the gym, cardio is something I am less scared of now. I met my goal ahead of schedule, in time for the 2008 San Francisco Pride fest.
Speaking of which, I also finally came out this year. It was one of the scariest few weeks of my life as I drafted my email/post which I would send to my family and friends, and post on the site here. I got a reply from my mom a few hours before I had planned on posting it on the site and to my shock they took it a lot better then I would of thought.
It was one of the biggest reliefs after I hit submit ever. It was like a weight lifted, and I finally feel free to be myself without trying to hide who I am.
I got to travel quite a bit this year as well. I went to Toronto, Chicago, Milwaukee, Las Vegas, Seattle, Los Angeles, and back to where I grew up in Tampa Bay, Florida to see my family for the first time since I moved out to San Francisco nearly a year and half ago.
HA! I also finally cut my hair, after years of growing it out and thinking that it looked good…wow was I blind or who knows what. It really was a transformational year for me. Quite a lot of changes, and hopefully 2009 will lead to more changes.
I am really proud of myself and accomplishing nearly everything I set out to do in 2008. In 2009 I want to set some tougher goals and hope that I can be as successful. I want to not just lose weight, but tone up and get over my dread of working weights at the gym. I want to more then double what I can bench press, which isn’t much at all, and have a body I am proud to show off when I head to Gay Days Disneyworld in June. I also REALLY need to get my finances in line. I am looking to getting a second job part time in order to help jump start this process, but I would really like to set aside 25% of my paycheck into a savings account, and build up a few month buffer as a ‘rainy day fund.’ Right now I am literally living payday advance to payday advance and often have little to no money by the time it is time to pay bills.
Also a sort of major thing for me is to get out more (I know I go out to bars all the time, but I mean in other venues), and go out on dates which hopefully will lead to a relationship. I have been single since 2002, when I was living with a girlfriend in Portland, Oregon. A lot in my life has changed since then, and I would like to share my life with someone else. I’ve signed up for 6 months on Chemistry.com (for $159) and hope this jump starts the process. I might sign up for Match.com as I sort of have become not a fan of the way Chemistry.com works by sending you only a select few matches.
I also want to develop friendships in 2009. I have a TON of “friends” as I see it. Plenty of people I see at various parties, clubs, bars, etc who know me and vice versa
and the conversation is always small talk yet nothing of substance. Sometimes it is nothing more then a, “Hey…” I really feel as if I don’t have any REAL friends here though. I want to develop friendships hopefully with some of the people already in my life, but also others who I might not know yet. I really feel alone here in San Francisco at times, like there is no one who KNOWS me. I know that a lot people who read my stuff online know more then anything my “friends” here know about me. I don’t even think a single one of my gay “friends” know that I lived in my car for over a year, or any of the other major events which have shaped my life. It really is depressing at times feeling so alone in a city where I know so many people.
Well that was my 2008, and hopes and dreams for 2009. I hope that I can be as successful this upcoming year as I was last. Regardless I’m sure that there will be no shortage of stories and exciting adventures which I will be sure to write about here as well as on Twitter (my microblog). I look forward to seeing what the future has in store.
Tags: 2008, 2009, coming out, gay, gym, new year, new years eve, nye, pride, san francisco, sf, toronto, travel, weight, weightloss
05 Aug 08 The secret to my success…
HA! If you know me for real, you know that I am not a wildly successful person, but recently I have been quite successful at losing weight. I remember going clothes shopping with my mother and buying size husky as a child. I’ve always been heavy as far back as I can remember, and was picked on at school for it. I got down to 177 back in 2002 in order to join the Navy, but haven’t been that low until now. Recently, I have gone from my all time high (that I measured on a scale) of around 220 (but there was a period where I didn’t get on a scale because I knew I had been eating poorly and gained a lot of weight since the last time I weighed myself and topped at around 250) all the way down to 155 where I am at now. I’m in the best shape of my life (including most of high school). How did I do it? Let me tell you.
Feb 2005
First off I started as most people do at New Year’s thinking to myself that I would love to shed some extra pounds. My friend (at the time) Billy and I were hanging out and going to the gym. He told me he wanted to lose weight in time for Pride, which I had no idea about at that time. Pride in San Francisco is the last weekend in June, which put the goal about 6 months out. I figured this was a good goal to set and decided on 165-160 as my goal. Quite lofty for a guy in his 200′s, but something to strive for.
Feb 2006
Before this I was doing a high carb; low fat diet. I would eat all the foods I wanted as long as there was little to no fat in them. Pretty much my diet consisted of beans & rice. While this diet might of been effective for some, it wasn’t working for me very well.
May 2006
I decided to go with an old diet I had done in the past with mild success. I got down to about 185 with it before and figured I would give it a full go this time. It isn’t the Atkins diet and it isn’t the South Beach diet, but somewhere in between. (Let me also interject here that I drink a SHITLOAD of water every day. While I do still occasionally drink diet soda, I make sure to have at least 9-10 8oz glasses of Voss water a day.)
Sept 2006
Breakfast: I would eat depending on time (which most days was very little) an Atkins breakfast bar or shake shortly after waking up (6am-8am). These chocolate shakes turn out to be pretty yummy. If I had more time, I would fix up about 2 eggs as scrambled or over medium. When I got to work, I would microwave 2-4 pieces of precooked bacon as a 9am-10am snack.
March 2007
Snack: If I got hungry outside of the bacon, I would have a string cheese. Cheese turned out to be one of the best snacks for me, as it is something I love, but also is very low in carbs. I would get 50% reduced fat cheese and other low-fat cheese to help reduce the daily fat intake.
June 2007
Lunch: Now let me explain that I am very much a meat and potatoes person. I don’t like most vegetables, fruits, salads, etc. I am one of the pickiest eaters I’ve ever met. My lunch would consist of 2 turkey sausages or 2-3 turkey hot dogs. I would microwave them for about 30-45 seconds, then pull them out and slice them down the middle. Pour my favorite condiment of the day on, then finish cooking.
Sept 2007 (I didn’t eat anything for 3 weeks)
Here is a HUGE tip…these meals are quite repetitive, at least they were for me. Here’s the tip on mixing them up. SPICES & SAUCES! Every day I would pick a different spice, mustard, etc to put on my meals to help mix things up and keep the tastes different. I love Emril’s Essence, Boar’s head spicy mustard, and low-carb/reduced sugar Heinz ketchup. BTW be careful with mustard, almost all of them are zero carbs, but once you start getting into honey mustards the carbs rack up quickly.
Sept 2007 (Obviously started eating again)
Snack: In the afternoon I would grab another string cheese or more often a sugar free Jello. Throw on a dollop of light whipped cream (0-2 carbs) and you have a yummy and low-carb snack.
November 2007
Snack: Between leaving work and dinner I would sometimes have a snack. It might of been a carrot, piece of cheese, or Atkins bar (which are going up in price recently, but still worth buying to help fight those chocolate/sugary cravings).
December 2007
Dinner: Being new to California and not used to the expensive cost of living, I would stay clear of eating out as much as possible. Instead I would buy frozen or raw chicken breasts and cook them up at home. There are plenty of great zero/low carb dressings to marinade your chicken in. This is where spices would play a huge factor as well. Every night a different spice or different sauce to pour on. I would occasionally eat a helping of cooked broccoli (with melted cheese on top) to round out my dinner and keep me from being hungry the rest of the night.
Feb 2008
Here is the key though…as much as diet played a factor….EXERCISE is what helped me lose the weight. I would go to the gym, even if I didn’t want to 3-6 times a week and do at least 30 minutes on the elliptical machine. I would go and work on some of the equipment as well, and always do at least 100-200 crunches. It wasn’t an intense workout, but I would maintain certain goals while on the elliptical.
April 2008
Working out became something that I looked forward to (so cliche I know), but it is true. I would typically go after work, but have recently started toning up more and doing more machines, so I go in the morning to do weights and still do my cardio on the way home from work.
May 2008
I also for a large portion of the diet have taken Alli. It is one of the first OTC diet/weightloss drugs the FDA has approved. It has some crazy “treatment effects” which I am glad to say I never had, but with the wrong intake of fat you are in for some nasty times. I would take one pill with each meal. Alli isn’t the answer for everyone, but it does help eliminate up to 25% of the fat put into your body while eating.
June 2008
That’s about it….diet, exercise, and Alli were the main secrets to my success. I am still not exactly where I want to be and with such rapid and dramatic weight loss I have some left over areas I am trying to tone up now. Am I where I want to be? No way…Don’t get me wrong, I love the new me and feel great as I went from a size 36 to 34 to 33 to 32/31 and now to 31/30. I just want to feel more comfortable nekkid and specifically with my shirt off. I am sure that I will get there with time and effort.
July 2008
I hope this helps you, I know this plan isn’t right of everyone, but being a very picky eater I think I can maintain the diet for sometime to come…as long as they keep slaughtering those stupid chickens, I will be sure to have them for dinner.
Tags: 155, 220, alli, alli weight loss, atkins, cardio, exercise, fat, fatso, loss, nick, nick starr, pride, pride sf, south beach, starr, weight, weight loss
08 Jul 08 Time to set some new goals
When I first started off at the beginning of the year, I wanted to get to 160lbs before Pride. I managed to reach that goal weeks before Pride and according to my scale last night I am down to 155.1 lbs.
When I was in Toronto, I couldn’t help notice that I still am not where I want to be with my body, and personally with my life. My room (and this is no shocker to anyone who has known me) is quite messy…I still haven’t really unpacked things after moving in a few months ago. Financially, quite honestly I am not well off at all. Finally, physically I want to be….and this is a major thing for me…able to take off my shirt and not be embarrassed or scared.
Ever since I was a little child, I can remember my mom going and picking out the “husky” sized jeans for me to wear. I for an entire summer didn’t eat very much in high school, and dropped to the weight in the picture above. That was my junior year of high school…and I had girlfriend after girlfriend. I felt confident and good about how I looked.
Now that I am down to the weight I want to be at, I would like to start working on more then simply cardio and a little weights. I want to tone up, as I am now left with the flab of a former 220 lb frame. My tummy still sticks out some, my arms are flabby and not muscular at all. Now I HATE physical labor and working out…so this is going to be a HUGE challenge for me.
I am going to with everything in me start working out on a bi-daily basis. I will do weights & gym equipment in the morning, followed by my standard 30 minutes on the elliptical machine. I also want to incorporate maybe another 30 minutes on an exercise bike to make my cardio up to an hour long. Also doing crunches every time I am at the gym should help work my stomach out.
Now I mentioned before that I am not good with money. I spend it like it is going out of style, so getting a personal trainer is a priority for me, but I want to make sure that I am secure financially first.
Finally, my room. I am going to, after working out tonight, start to clean up. It is quite a mess, and I have 2 cabinets that are still not put together. Like I said, I hate HATE HATE cleaning…so it is going to be quite a task. I also think I want to get rid of my queen sized Aero bed, as it takes up a large majority of my room. I’m thinking a futon might be a better and more reliable choice, and will take up quite a bit less space.
I think with a cleaner room, it will help motivate me to be less lazy and be happier….being around a mess can be depressing, especially when you know you “should” clean it up.
I want to blog more, I just feel like I am short on time. I think getting my life into more of a pattern and schedule will help me. I am not good at sticking to things…AT ALL, so maybe some structure will help me out.
BTW I don’t want to set any hard and fast goals on this one, but I would like to be able to post a picture with no shirt on by the end of the year, and be comfortable with it.
Tags: abs, pride, tone, tone up, weight, weight loss, weightloss, work out, workout
