Calorie Tracking

As I get ready to go off my weight loss medication, I know that tracking my calories will become very important. Since May, I’ve been using Lose It! to track my meals and snacks on my iPhone.

I’m feeling pretty good about going off my meds, but also concerned I can do it and continue to lose weight. I feel great about maintaining my weight.

Many weight loss gurus recommend weighing yourself once a week or maybe once every two weeks. That’s never worked for me. When I’ve consistently weighed myself daily, I’ve dropped the most weight. I’ve considered weighing myself twice a week. I may give that a shot.

Tracking My Health

I plan to use this space to track changes to my health.

In April of 2025, I stepped onto the scales at my doctor’s office. I knew I had gained weight, but didn’t realize I was at 294 lbs.

That day, as I discussed my health with my doctor, he recommended I try a weekly shot of Terzepitide. A week later, I started giving myself the shot.

Today I weigh 244.

I have half a week’s dose left of the medicine, and then I plan to go off it. I believe I have developed the skills and habits to not only maintain my weight, but to lose another 50 lbs.

This is my journey, and I plan to record my thoughts and progress here.

Feeling My Age

I can’t say exactly when I started to feel it.

As is the case with many things in life, it was just there one day.

I feel my age.

Injuries that took a few days to heal now take weeks or months.

My mind tells me I can do it, but my body won’t cooperate.

So maybe I can’t keep up with my kids on the slopes and mowing my lawn closes all my Apple Watch rings, but I can still move pretty well. I can still walk 3-4 miles a day without many issues besides sore feet because I need to lose about 100 lbs.

That sounds insurmountable in writing, but I know it’s not. I’ve lost 60 to 80 lbs twice so I can do it again.

I’m reminded that I need to get in shape whenever I see my 11-year-old son. I want to be around for as much of his life as possible. The same goes for our four other children. I want to be able to hold and play with their kids someday.

The best time to start was a year or two ago. The next best time is today.

Ration your Opinion

One of the most valuable passages I read this year is this: “I don’t need to provide my opinion on every subject.”

It’s OK to simply listen. Most times, my opinion isn’t going to change minds. In fact, it seldom does.

Next time you read something on social media that makes you angry, ask yourself, “Do I need to engage? or “What do I hope to accomplish by engaging with this person?”

Not everyone has earned the right to hear your opinion. Share it with those who will respect you, no matter where you come down on a subject.

The Backstop is Gone

The backstop area behind home plate separates the spectators from the baseball players. It also helps corral baseballs that get past the catcher or are fouled off by the batters. In a sense, it’s a safety net.

Losing my mom and dad within the span of three years has me feeling like I’ve lost the backstop to life. No matter how my relationship was with my parents (sometimes rocky) I could count on them to be there to provide a helpful word of advice or simply listen as I talked through a concern that was on my mind at the time.

My mom was my primary backstop during my teenage years. I could go to her with any issue. Usually she just listened. Sometimes she would share a similar experience she had while growing up. As my mother’s health worsened, my dad took over the role until he passed away earlier this year. My father is more of a problem solver, so his approach was different than that of my mom’s. But I learned a lot from both of them.

Losing my parents has encouraged me to intentionally engage more with my sisters and seek out a deeper relationship with them. A lot of time has passed since we were close, and honestly, we weren’t all that close growing up due to divergent interests and age differences. But it doesn’t have to remain that way.

Last month I met my youngest sister in Las Vegas for lunch. I enjoyed catching up with her and hearing what is happening in her life. Listening to her I realized we have a lot more in common than I imaged. She listened to my concerns about my health and attempts to get in shape and provided encouragement. I left lunch in Vegas with a closer relationship with my sister.

I still have work to do with my siblings. But I’m hopeful.

My parents are gone, but maybe amongst siblings we can provide support and compassion and be a backstop for each other. Seems like that’s what my parents would want.

Getting in Shape

I had my big toe fused in November. For the next few months I went back to the doctor who performed the surgery, and he would take x-rays to determine if my body was healing properly. This went on for about four months before he determined I could resume most physical activity.

The only activities I can’t do at this time are running, jogging and jumping. Sports like tennis and racquetball are out because I risk jamming my toe into the end of my shoe. But I can walk. I can ride my exercise bike. I can do floor exercises and work out with resistance bands.

I focus on what I can do instead of what I can’t.

At one of my last visits to the foot doctor I asked what I could do to accelerate my recovery. He said, “Drop some weight.” So I bought an Apple Watch for Christmas, but didn’t do much with it until the end of March. I almost returned the watch, but I’m glad I didn’t.

From around the first of April till today I’ve dropped just over 45 lbs. I thought I would share how I’ve done that and what I’ve learned about myself over the past few months. I’ll start with my least favorite part of the process: tracking calories.

I’ve tried to count calories in the past, but after a few days I’d give up. It’s just too hard to remember. But I knew monitoring what I was putting into my body would be as important as any new exercise routine. So I downloaded the Lose It! app on my iPhone and started. I still don’t enjoy it, but I’ve made a habit of tracking each item I eat. This one change has brought about big changes in how much I eat. I decided I wouldn’t deny myself most foods, but that I would monitor the amount of food and calories I was consuming each day. I quickly realized how many sweets I was eating each day, and began replacing them with fruits I enjoy like blueberries, strawberries and cantaloupe.

Selfies help track my progress – Nov 2020 till Aug 2021

The other big change I made was set a daily exercise goal on my Apple Watch. I started with 10 minutes and added another five minutes every other week until I’m now up to 50 minutes a day. I don’t stress about what type of exercise I will do, but I have a couple of favorites which include my exercise bike and walking around my neighborhood. One tip I have is to set small goals you can reach. It’s easy to get discouraged when you don’t see instant progress, so I decided to focus on tracking my calories and exercising a few minutes each day. I didn’t make drastic changes to my daily schedule, diet or daily routine. It was also important that I be able to put on my shorts and tennis shoes and start working out quickly instead of driving to the gym, and then figuring out what to do.

About 14 years ago I dropped 65 lbs on the Atkins Diet. But I found it really hard to keep the weight off because the diet wasn’t sustainable for me. I removed entire food groups, banned sugar and most carbs, and the weight came off fast. I was a miserable person to be around though.

But I’ve learned that losing weight fast isn’t the most sustainable method. I’m learning to cook healthy foods at home. I’m drinking a lot of water instead of fruit juices. I’m one of those dorks who carries around a 40 ounce Hydro Flask! I keep a drawer of healthy snacks like nuts and protein bars and string cheese so I’m not tempted to down a Snickers and bag of gummy bears. If I have a day where I go over my daily calorie allotment, I’ll try to spend extra time on my bike or walking the next day, but I don’t get down on myself. I also found inspiration for losing a lot of weight by watching Chris Terrell on TikTok.

I’m at the half-way point of my weight loss. I have just over 50 lbs to go to get to my weight goal, and I figure I’ll be able to meet that goal sometime in the first few months of 2022. Slow and steady.

Fragility

2020 has been quite the year.

About three months ago my father had a heart valve replaced which put him in the hospital for almost two weeks.

A couple of weeks after returning home to begin the long recovery routine, his closest friend caught COVID-19. Each day his son posted updates on his condition, and things went from bad to worse until he passed away two weeks ago.

Another friend’s mother tested positive for COVID-19 the day after Thanksgiving. I spoke with another friend today who tested positive. It feels like every day we learn someone close to us has tested positive.

Last week it was my brother-in-law who was admitted to ICU with the virus. One day he’s making progress and the next he’s in bad shape. It’s one big terrifying roller-coaster ride of emotions.

On a much smaller less critical scale, I had my big toe fused to my foot with two screws last week during out-patient surgery. The recovery is a long 8-10 weeks, but I’ve already noticed a substantial decrease in pain so I’ll deal with the recovery just fine.

2020 has taught me how fragile life is. One day everything is fine, but the next can bring heartbreak. I’m so glad my father made it through his heart procedure, and I hope my brother-in-law makes it out of ICU soon and is able to recover at home.

Before this year I was more likely to text my dad or maybe call him if I had something important to share with him. But not this year. This year I like to FaceTime so I can see his face. He has lost over 100 lbs. this year and I barely recognized him when we started to FaceTime. Like, is that really my dad? I always see a bit of myself when I look at my dad, and that brings a lot of joy.

Man, am I glad to still have him around.

I hope in 2021 I can replace those FaceTime calls with in-person visits.

Roll of Quarters

Fresh off a divorce, I moved into a one bedroom apartment near downtown Seattle in the Capitol Hill neighborhood in the spring of 1995. My possessions included an aging computer, an old Aztec patterned couch, and a calico cat with a bad attitude.

My post-college life wasn’t on the trajectory I had anticipated.

Finances were tight, and I was beginning to understand the cost of living in Seattle was a lot higher than Rock Springs, Wyoming, where I’d moved from a year earlier. I’d recently taken a job with an internet service provider, and I was learning skills that would pay dividends much later. But I didn’t make a lot of money, and those last few days before payday were rough.

My apartment was small. It wasn’t particularly modern, but it was clean and well maintained. And best of all, it was free because each month I took deposited checks from the 19 other tenants and occasionally showed apartments to potential renters on the weekends.

Near the end of each month, a maintenance man would show up and make sure the two washers and two dryers in the tiny laundry room were working properly. He also dropped two rolls of quarters through my office letter box. The first time he did this, he included a note detailing how the quarters could be used for refunds if a tenant had a problem with a machine. Otherwise, I could keep them.

What the maintenance man probably didn’t realize was that $20 worth of quarters often was enough to cover food for a week or more until my next paycheck arrived. When I’d open my office door to retrieve the rent checks at the end of each month, it felt like Christmas seeing two rolls on the dingy orange carpet. That $20 felt like $200.

Even today, when I hold a stack or roll of quarters I’m reminded of that incredibly kind gesture from a man I might have seen three times in the four years I lived in that apartment.

My Coffee Subscription

As I improved my coffee-making skills in the French Press, AeroPress, and Chemex, I began to consume more coffee. Coffee I purchased at the grocery store was fine. Here in Southern Utah, we have a few local coffee roasters that sell beans I can grind at home. But over the past year, I got bored with my limited choices. So I began to search for a coffee subscription service.

trade-coffee-new

I decided to give Trade Coffee a try, mostly because I like the design of their website. I signed up, and my first bag of beans arrived about a week later. Besides offering coffee beans from dozens of roasters around the US, they have some features that keep me with the service. Among them:

Ability to change order date (earlier or later)
Coffee rating system
Gift service (sending my favorite coffee to friends!)
Tips on different brewing techniques

I didn’t expect to be so satisfied with my first foray into a coffee subscription, but Trade has been fantastic in exposing me to coffees I wouldn’t have otherwise tasted. When I signed up, Trade asked me to answer a few questions to determine the type of coffee I might like along with my preferred brew method. Of the dozen or so bags of coffee, Trade has sent, only one bag wasn’t that memorable.

A couple of my favorite coffees so far: Colombia San Roque and Guatemala Finca Nuevo Vinas.