Come Visit Me At My New Blog!

This will be my last post at this blog.
Come visit me at my new blog: http://JackBergstrom.com.

Blogger was a great place to start and I will continue to grow my knowledge of blogging on this platform, but for me, WordPress and hosting my own blog on my own domain was the way to go.

All 4 of the Blogs that I formerly updated on Blogger will be represented on my own site now, as well as lots of new information on new topics.

What a hoot! Come visit me!

See you there,

Jack

Exercise at Last!

I am finally feeling well enough to start exercising again. Over the last weekend I did 14 minutes of a 25 minute high impact exercise tape. It was a hoot! I was sweating for an hour afterwards! Next time I will go for a full 20 minutes of the tape. My initial plan is to do some type of aerobics like that every other day. For now, that feels like enough.

Till next time...Jack

Sorry about that!

Wow! Did I get behind with my blogging. For my concerned readers, I am back and should miss no more. At least no more than a day or two! I got so busy, largely due to my blogs, and then stopped blogging. I just hadn't made it a must and now I have.

Thinnest in 3 years now and headed down rapidly. I will get a current photo taken and get that posted. Still huge, but less huge! I would now only be a first or second year sumo wrestler!

Bye for now...Jack

Atkins and Allopurinol

I have decided on a mix of diet strategies that I think will maximize my fat and weight loss without causing gout to flare up and without driving me insane. I am going to rotate thru the following diets:
Week 1: Atkins with one treat meal per week
Week 2: Atkins with one treat meal per week
Week 3: Pure protein...195 grams of protein per day...virtually no fat or carbohydrates
Week 4: South Beach

I will take allopurinal during this time to suppress the purine production that has been causing so much gout.

Now I need to choose my meal replacement supplier and my appetite suppressant supplier.

Till next time...Jack

Do Calories Count on Vacation?

I just got back from a few days on a ranch in Kansas. It was a wonderful trip and I was determined to enjoy it and continue to lose weight. This is what I did and it worked: I used the techniques explained in "The Carbohydrate Addicts Diet".

Basically, you eat only protein for 2 meals and then you eat whatever you want for your third meal, as long as you start with salad and finish your meal within 60 minutes. There are lots of reasons why the authors of this book believe in this system and I encourage you to read the book. This is is bottom line for me...as long as I followed this system as the authors suggested, I was able to have one wonderful treat meal per day and continue to lose weight. Yes, my weight loss slowed down, but it continued and that was the point...to vacation and lose weight!

Till next time...Jack

P.S.: I am behind on my photos, but they will return with next Monday's entry.

Tennis Shoes

I bought a pair of tennis shoes, real court shoes this week. This is the first pair of shoes specifically designed for playing tennis that I have bought in more than 20 years. When I played on the tennis team in college, I wore Adidas Stan Smith tennis shoes. These had not been around for years and then they were rereleased. Now I own a pair...I took it as a sign that I should be playing tennis again.

Now, to quickly knock off 50 lbs. or so to make it safe for me to play!

Till next time...Jack

5 Pounds Per Week

It seems that the outer limits of what I can currently lose, in 1 week, without a massive gout flareup is 5 pounds. 5 pounds per week. 20 pounds per month. Approximately 250 pounds per year. I guess that is really no excuse at all.

This week, I had lost 5 pounds by Thursday morning. Great. Now I can practice maintaining a weight for the rest of the week.

Gout is better, now officially the worst bout in my personal history. Still some swelling and still some pain, but I was able to present my seminar this week and I was able to ride my bicycle today. Good enough.

Till next time...Jack

Photo Day Again

Well, I am not sure I look thinner, but my hair looks longer! Anyhow, I am thinner than the first photo. No shirt off photo for awhile, image the trauma if some young reader were to find this blog! It could take years of therapy to put them right again! (I am perhaps exaggerating just a bit, but that helps me to stay motivated.)

Weight today...336 lbs. Gout was terrible over the weekend, but I still managed to go bike riding...walking was completely out of the question.

Till next time...Jack

4 lbs week Consistently

What will it take for me to consistently remove 4 lbs. of bodyweight per week and make sure that I am removing just fat? Good question. And this will be rephrased just a bit right now:

What will I need to do to consistently remove 4 lbs. of bodyfat per week while remaining healthy, very active and making sure that I have an absolute blast in the process? Now that is a good question and one that I will work each and every day to answer.

Here is another great question: What can I do to leverage this process of losing weight and make enough money from the leveraging to make one of my major financial dreams come true?

More about both of these questions later.

I feel decent today. Energy levels fair, gout still there but fading, upper body sore from a great weightlifting session yesterday!

Bye for now...Jack

Smaller Chunks

I currently weigh 338 lbs and I intend to weigh 195lbs in approximately 54 weeks. That is 143 lbs to remove in 54 weeks or approximately 2.75 lbs per week. I know my ability to lose weight will slow as I get closer to my ideal weight so I will need to lose more earlier on to compensate for this. Mentally, I want to think about 4 lbs of weight loss per week until I get much closer to my goal.

I am feeling perky today. Weight lifting went well. I am getting stronger very quickly. I have decided to focus on adding upper body muscle and stripping off lower body muscle. My legs are already much more muscular than I will need in my future. So I do lots of reps and sets when I am working my legs and fewer reps with more weight when I am working my upper body.

I am looking forward to visible results of this soon. The photo I posted of myself at 360 lbs was more than a little scary!

Bye for now...Jack

Photos and Goals

I am going to start posting pictures of myself each week along with my weight. I think this will be interesting over time and will also be motivating to me. That said, I will start with of photo of me taken just before I started my fast...just before I started on The Way Back.



So this photo is me, Jack at 360 lbs. And the posting of this takes more courage than most other things I have ever done! I even made the post large sized so all of the detail would show up. Wow! That is a fat Jack!

So Goals:

I will just put down a couple tonight:

I will weigh 195 lbs. by Monday, May 5th, 2008. This will be a total weight loss of 165lbs.

I will run the Bolder Boulder, a local Colorado 10k race in 60 minutes or less in May 2008.

That's it for tonight except for one thing:

My weight Monday, April 23rd, 2007 338 lbs. Total weight loss since the beginning of this process: 22lbs. Bye for now...Jack

Walking and Biking and Tennis

My feet are continuing to improve, slowly. I can wear an oversized pair of "tennis shoes" now. (I call all athletic shoes tennis shoes, but these are actually trail running shoes from Nike. Excellent and designed for someone as large as me, and that is not easy to find!)

I walked 45 minutes today. That would be my longest walk in nearly 6 months and I am a little sore now, but it was so nice out! Spring is here in Colorado as I write this and the flowering Crab apple trees are gifting us all with their incredible fragrance! Wonderful!

I have been lifting weights this week as well and I will be curious to see what my weight has done when next I check in with it. In the meantime, I continue to dream of playing tennis again and will continue to exercise to the edge of the envelope, exercising to soreness and fatigue, but working to avoid damage. This is not as easy at it was getting in shape when I was in my 20s!

Till next time...Jack

Tennis Continued

I love tennis! I started playing when I was a little boy, around 6 years of age with my father, and I just kept liking it more and more as I aged. I played on the tennis team in high school and on the tennis team in college. I toyed with turning pro in 1976, but my parents convinced me that I was better off to continue college. Who knows if this was the right choice, but it was the choice that I made.

I went thru a horrible divorce in the early 1980s, I had zero time, was working my self nearly to death to pay my attorney, and I just quite playing and never went back. This is strange to me now, that I just put down such a critical and huge part of myself and only now am going back...but going back I am!

I will let you all know how things progress after a mere 25 year layoff. Even the equipment has changed! What the heck is an oversized racquet and how on earth are they using "nano" technology to make my new fancy racket? It will be fun to find out!

Till next time...Jack

Gout Continued

Still fighting with Gout. No particular results to talk about with Celery or with enzyme tablets. Basically, my feet hurt most of the time and have for more than 2 weeks now. I am tired of this and very motivated to make it go away. I am only going to report my weight weekly now, on Monday, or the soonest day that I post around that time.

I expect to be losing around 2 to 3 lbs. per week from this point out, and daily weigh in sessions are just not motivating at that rate.

So, next week we will look at this again.

Started tennis again. Very very exciting! More about that next time....Jack

Day 24

Went to my acupuncturist today for my biweekly tuneup. He is helping me to stay balanced and doing what he can to increase my energy levels and my energy reserves.

We are going to try 2 new things for gout: celery juice and a enzyme supplement called Marcozyme. I am taking 5 of these tablets 4 times per day and our hope and expectation is that these will help reduce the swelling and inflammation caused by gout. I will let you all know. Celery juice, well I will let you know about that as well.

I can fit into 2 pairs of shoes today! Wowsers...what a victory! (although I am still walking like a drunken sailor.)

Weight today 340 lbs. (Stable, but I am ready for another drop cycle) 20 lbs. of weight removed since Monday, March 19th, 2007

Day 23

I am continuing to recover from gout. It feels great to be able to walk around again! Yes! I have felt so crippled by this last gout attack. Anyhow, as I continue to lose weight, these attacks will become less frequent and severe and eventually go away.

I still need to lift weights today, I will start that as soon as I finish updating my blogs for the day.

Any great low carb flan or custard recipes out there? Would love to know about one!

Weight today: 340 lbs. 20 lbs. of weight removed since March 19th, 2007

Day 22

I was able to walk today for 30 minutes. Slow, painful, but I was able to walk! That is a victory. My walking shoes would just barely fit on to my still gout enlarged feet, but they would go on. Yes!

I would guess that I walked at less than 1/2 of my normal pace, but it will still help. I am going to go out walking again tomorrow.

Still craving carbs. I am doing a decent job of avoiding the really harmful carbs, but still no additional weight loss since I ended my fast. Not surprising given my virtually complete lack of exercise. Well, this week will be better.

Weight today: 340 lbs. 20 lbs. of weight removed since Monday March 19th, 2007

Day 19

Hungry today. I don't know why, but I have been craving carbs all day. I think I need to eat more filling meals and snacks. I am going to increase the serving size of salads and cucumber and celery at my meals. That may well help with these cravings.

Not being able to walk is really cutting down on my exercise plans. Very frustrating. I will need to compensate with weightlifting until this changes.

Weight Today: 340 lbs. 20 lbs of weight removed since Monday, March 19th, 2007

Day 18

I still have gout today. I wanted to attend a convention today, which I did, but the walking and standing was not much fun. I am looking forward to the end of gout...which will come along the way towards getting back in shape.

I think the bounce back from my fast is over now. 10 lbs of weight came back on and that was virtually certain to happen. Still, sad to see it, even knowing that it is normal and okay.

I am currently eating close to the South Beach diet program. I will probably stay on this diet with some variations for at least a few weeks.

Weight Today: 340 lbs. 20 lbs. of weight removed since Monday, March 19th, 2007

Day 15

Gout! Ouch! I have exactly one pair of very soft shoes that I can wear to my seminar tomorrow. My feet have moved up nearly 2 sizes in just a few days. I find this less than convenient, but it is what it is.

Other than gout, I feel great today! Very energized and vibrant. This is quite normal coming off a fast. I have healed much damage and cleared out lots of toxins. Now to keep the fat loss going.

I am already experiencing weight bounce back. Probably close to 10 lbs. of weight must come back on. This is normal and nothing to worry about. The habits that got me to the old place, those are things to worry about!

Weight today: 337 lbs. 23 lbs of weight lost since Monday March 19th, 2007

Day 14

I had to end my fast today. Gout flared up at a level that prevented me from functioning...walking, and I must give a seminar on Tuesday. So, I have shifted to a lower carb, reduced fat, quality protein diet and that should tame the gout well enough for me to walk in a couple of days.

Sad about ending the fast early, but happy to begin heavy exercise again. Spring is here.

I printed a picture of myself at a seminar in early March of 2007. It is not a flattering picture! I put it up on my wall. Below it is a picture that I found in another magazine that closely resembles me when I was in great shape. I have a great picture of what I don't want and what I do want.

Wonderful Spring day! Very exciting! Bye for now...Jack

Weight today: 330 lbs. 30 lbs. of bodyweight removed since Monday, March 19th, 2007

Day 13

Good Day to everyone! Had to take my 4 year old daughter to the dentist, she had her first cavity. This is not one of those firsts that you look forward to! Poor little thing, but the dentist was very gentle. She will need to go back a few times to handle this issue. Oh Well.

Still have gout today, not a badly as yesterday, but it is still there.

The big issues that I wanted to heal during this fasting stage are:

Gout completely gone.
Significant bodyweight and bodyfat removed.
Chronic sinus infection and accompanying left eye light response healed.
Knees and Achilles tendons healed from the effects of gout.
Deposits cleared out of my cardiovascular system.
My right leg circulation returned to normal and the leg back to normal size.

So far, all of these issues are better, but none of them are completely gone yet...so the fast continues.

Feel decent today. Took my usual lime water and added 1/8th of a multivitamin and 1 flax oil tablet. I think it helped.

Weight today...330 lbs. 30 lbs. of weight removed since Monday, March 19th, 2007.

Day 12

Gout is flaring up today in my feet. That is great! It reminds me of why I am absolutely going to do what it takes to remove this excess bodyweight and bodyfat and get back into awesome shape.

Wow, I really do hate gout. Called the rich man's disease, because it was typically a plague for royalty in the old days. Only the rich could afford enough protein to drive the gout and eat enough calories to be fat!

So, what causes gout?

Genetics...you must have the genes to allow this affliction.
Fat...you must be significantly overweight.
Protein...you must eat a diet high in protein.
Drinking...heavy drinkers can actually get gout while ignoring the being fat part...but I barely drink at all.

Well, that's it for today. Maybe more than you wanted to know about gout.

Weight today: 332 lbs. No loss of weight since yesterday. 28 lbs. of weight removed since Monday March 19th, 2007

Day 11

I am feeling pretty perky today. Went out for breakfast with some friends and business associates and just watched them eat. I watched them eat and just sipped at a little herbal tea. That felt really powerful to me, the ability to watch others eat while making the conscious choice to continue my fast and continue my healing.

Water. You must drink lots of water each and every day while on a fast. Your kidneys are trying to get rid of toxins as fast as they can. Make this easier and drink lots of water. Do not drink: diet soda, coffee, green teas, juice or anything that contains any calories at all. Calories are not your friend on a fast and caffeine and other chemicals in coffee or tea or soda will not help you at all during a fast.

I do recommend drinking the juice of one lime per day. I get a 32 ounce glass and squeeze in the juice of 1/2 of a lime and sip away. This settles my stomach and gives me just a little bit of nutrients with only very minimal calories. Then I have the other half of the lime later in the day. I have found this very soothing.

Weight today 332 lbs. 28 lbs. of weight removed since Monday, March 19th, 2007

Day 10

Starting to feel thinner today. I am going to start posting, as soon as I can figure out how, pictures of me once a month. That will be motivating and hopefully not too scary for myself and you my readers.

I have become hyper sensitive to smells. Very interesting. I have had a sinus infection on and off for a couple of years now, antibiotics of limited use, and it is finally healing now that I am losing weight and fasting. Temporary side effect is that I smell everything, at a level that I cannot ever remember. Dish soap, new carpet, new cars...I have been looking at these with my elder daughter, shampoo and even toothpaste have an overpowering smell now. This is a very temporary phenomenon I am sure, but a great sign of healing.

333 lbs. this morning. 27 lbs. of weight removed since I started on the way back Monday, March 19th, 2007...bye for now...Jack

Day 9

Dreamed of bacon and eggs last night. Felt great eating them, but then I was bummed out because I had broken my fast before my committed time. I am glad it was only a dream, but it did taste good! I expect bacon and eggs will be on my post fast menu somewhere in the first 2 weeks!

I was feeling kinda lousy yesterday and found myself mentally complaining, to myself and the universe, about how I was feeling. Then I remember my father going thru chemotherapy to attempt to kill the cancer that was killing him. The process failed, my father died, but he did have 18 more months of life than he would have had otherwise. And I know he would not have given up even one day of those 18 months, even though he felt like utter crap most of the time. And complain? Never.

I am taking his lesson to heart. I am going to feel less than my best for just a handful of days and I am giving myself perfect chemotherapy, chemotherapy designed by my body for my body. I am adding untold years and vitality to my life and if I feel lousy for awhile, well what a trivial price to pay for the benefits I will experience.

So, no more complaining. Beautiful day here in Colorado...hope you are enjoying your day.

Weight today: 335 lbs. 25 lbs. of weight removed since I started on the way back Monday, March 19th, 2007.

Day 8

I have fasted for 7 full days. Good for me! Feeling a little better now. I thought it would be good for me and my readers to review the positive results in just 7 days.

My gout, the condition that finally convinced me I needed a long fast, is in complete remission.
Gout related improvements:
My feet have reduced in size nearly a full shoe size.
My Achilles tendons are much more flexible and I can walk up and down stairs without pain.
My knees have stopped popping and hurting.

Other improvements:
My ongoing sinus infection, another major worry, is the best it has been in more than a year.
The swelling of my right leg, caused by overweight and old damage, is nearly gone.

There are the easily seen improvements. Inside my body many other beneficial changes are being created. More about those later.

Weight this morning...336 lbs. 24 lbs. of weight removed since Monday morning, March 19th, 2007. In other words, 24 lbs. of weight removed in 7 full days. A great start.

Bye for now...Jack

Day 7

I feel better this morning. Still lots of skin eruptions, but they are starting to heal or at least become smaller. I know that they will be gone soon.

So what is it like to fast for 6 days? There is a sense of pride that you can do this, it is a voluntary action. There is a sense of excitement that weight is coming off so quickly. There is a really powerful sense of caretaking and nurturing...I am doing something great for my body and my future. There are lots of feeling of discomfort and sickness, especially in these early days. My stomach is upset a lot of the time. I don't have my normal energy. My mouth tastes constantly bad, even right after brushing my teeth. I can easily get dizzy if I stand up very abruptly. I have lots of acne like skin outbreaks. My sense of smell is getting so acute that even teas or other flavored drinks are just too much for me.

So, the good and the bad. I expect this will be the last really long fast in my lifetime. I will certainly fast in the future, but for shorter periods of time. I will never again allow myself to get this out of shape or toxic.

Weight this morning...338 lbs. 22 lbs. of bodyweight removed since Monday, March 19th.

Bye for now...Jack

Day 6 of The Way Back

Still sick to my stomach this morning. Energy level is low and I have lots of skin breakouts. All normal. Not pleasant, but normal. The early days of a fast are much like being a teenager again, at least as far as skin is concerned. I have acne like breakouts on my face and neck and back and then randomly just a little bit. I am not sure of the exact cause here, it could be massive toxin levels in my blood, it could be my body using my skin, the largest organ of cleansing I have, to clear out even more toxins, or something I don't even know about. What I do know, from study and past experience is this, when the skin eruptions end, then my body is mostly cleansed.

Every day that a fast continues, the percentage of bodyfat burned to muscle burned goes up. The first few days of a fast, your body is mostly burning stored glycogen and muscle. As the days continue, the glycogen is gone and stored fat is used as fuel along with muscle. Day by day, less muscle is burned and more fat is burned. This is how the process works.

Worried about the muscle loss? Don't be. It comes back after the fast...it must! If you do even moderate exercise after the fast and eat a great diet, more about that later, the muscle will almost literally jump back onto your body. It is amazing.

Bodyweight this morning...340 lbs. 20 lbs. of bodyweight removed since Monday morning, March 19th, 2007.

Day 5 of The Way Back

This is my fifth day of fasting. I have decent energy but I am a little sick to my stomach today. Not unusual. My body is taking this opportunity to dump all sorts of toxins out of my body. Additionally, the almost certain yeast overpopulation that was running around in my body causing so much loss of energy...well, they are dying right now. Within just a few more days, virtually all of the yeast, in my bloodstream and my gut, will be dead. That is the good news. The only bad news, and I know it will pass, is the sick feeling that I will have while this process is going on.

Fasting is about cleansing, cleansing at a level that most people never experience. Fatty deposits will be cleaned out of my cardiovascular system...burned as fuel or just dumped. Old injuries will heal. When your body does not have to spend time on digestion, it can focus on lots of other great housekeeping...housekeeping that in a normal American life will never happen. How many people do you know personally that have ever fasted?

Bye for now...and my weight this morning...343 lbs. 17 pounds of bodyweight removed since Monday morning. Wowsers! Jack

Fasting

When I was in college, I was fortunate to take a course in human biology that dealt with fasting. The instructor had studied fasting extensively and fasted herself twice per year for two weeks at a time. She spoke of great health benefits that her studies of human biology had helped her to uncover and quite frankly, to my 18 year old eyes, she looked incredible. She was in far better shape than most of the girls my age that I was sitting next to in class. Wow! Here was some information to store away for future use.

I never really used this information, how to fast and how long, until I was injured on my summer job working on the railroad in Chicago. Some equipment failed and I was thrown from the elevated service areas to the tracks below, probably some 10 feet. I landed badly with my then thin and trim waist hitting the track first. The pain was incredible and within a couple of hours my waist had grown from 33 inches to nearly 40 inches with internal bleeding. I was saved of course, but I ended that summer with a lopsided waist and extensive scar tissue in the right side of my body. Here is where fasting entered the story. More on this story next time.

My weight today, Wednesday, March 21st, 2007...348 lbs.
My weight starting, Monday, March 19th, 2007...360 lbs.
My ultimate goal, Monday, May 5th, 2008...195lbs. again and fit and vital!

bye for now...Jack

The Beginning

This blog is my public commitment to restoring my health. In high school and college I was an athlete and I played tennis and football competitively. For many years I exercised 3 to 4 hours per day and I stayed in wonderful shape. When I graduated from college, I made little time for exercise and I had never worried about my diet. So, I was in awesome shape in March of 1974.

Now let's fast forward to today, or yesterday to be more precise. (Since yesterday was the day that I decided that I had finally had enough!) It is now March of 2007. 33 years have passed. My elder daughter is 25, my first marriage is ancient history, and despite my best efforts, my weight is now 360 lbs. Wow! Amazing to even think about. In college I weighed 195 lbs. and my waist was 33 inches. Now, at 360 lbs., my waist is 48 inches (the part that doesn't hang over my belt!) and I do not even recognize myself in the mirror.

Worst of all, I am a public speaker, I speak in front of groups for a living and I teach them how to change their lives! Wow! Talk about feeling like a fraud! My material is great, and people love what I do, but I know that many people are wondering why in the heck this guy they are watching is so large.

I had a dream last week that gave me the answer, or at least the beginning. I dreamed that I attended my own seminar and actually applied what I was teaching to my own life! What a concept!

More to come...bye for now...Jack