Category Archives: FitBlog

Day 672: Monday Time

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So I’m going to keep the short and beautiful. I promise tomorrow will be good SINCE IT’S MY FIRST WEIGH IN ON A TUESDAY (are you stoked? Well you should be!)

Breakfast: I wanted to make a Egg McMuffin without going to the Gold Arches (I mean…my last name is MacDonald so it’s close enough right?) Anyway, I had a cooked egg on a Thomas 100 calorie english muffin with two slices of ham and a little cheese. It was an awesome 4 points! 

Lunch: I came home and another fantastic Skinny Taste recipe: Baked Potato Soup! It was only 4 points a cup so I had two bowls so it was 8 points!

Snack: I had about 4 points of sunflower seeds. Yumtastic.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Dinner: Tonight, we had a meal that would be have been a caloric nightmare if I had ordered it a place like Chili’s. We had jalapeno poppers and chicken fajitas without the fixins. (It makes a difference to cook at home. Not only is it cheaper, you have a much better idea of what’s going in to your food. The more you know folks.) The poppers were only 3 flippin points! And the chicken and peppers was only 7 points  (5 points for the chicken and 2 points for the oil in the veggies.)

So today I totaled out at 26 points which is awesome with me. I didn’t cheat today and drank water like a fish. I was doing what I was suppose to do. (I also has a 10 calorie Monster energy drink.) We’ll see what the scale has to say. See ya tomorrow.

Day 664: Weigh In Day of Epicness!

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What up everybody!!!

Sorry I have been on kind of a blogging hiatus this week. Between watching Matt Lauer and Meredith Vieira painfully explain the Opening Olympics like those annoying friends we all have and hanging out with friends, we have been keeping pretty busy this weekend.

So today, I have finally broken through the my 235 barrier that I have been fighting with since November of last year. 2012 has been a rough year for weight loss; there have been a lot of ups and downs, plateaus and just wanting to give up. I have finally hit my stride though! I have been doing a running regiment and I have been working on strengthening my core with yoga, not to mention really watching what I eat through out the week. (A lot of that has can be attributed to not eating out as much and just plain eating less.) So this week, I was able to pull a sick number. I lost 3.4 pounds this week!!!!! I have lost 7.8 pounds in three weeks! I am down to 233.2 which is the lowest I have weighed since… I don’t know… probably 5th grade. It’s an awesome feeling and I’m ready to blast in to the 220’s pretty soon. (Hey, it’s Doctor’s orders!)

Breakfast: This morning I have two pieces of toast with peanut butter. Nothing special but still delicious.

Lunch: After church, we went with some of our friends to this place called Azu. We knew it was going to be a buffet so we had prepared ourselves to eat right while we were there. Overall, I did alright! I avoided everything fried (except a crab ragoon and one piece of General Tso’s chicken. I literally just got one piece.) and simple sushi that was just tuna and a little riece. I also ate a lot of fruit too. I obviously could have done better, but Sundays are suppose to be my higher calorie days. It’s also hard when you never eat Chinese food or have access  to anything you want so you do want to try everything. Either way, I didn’t aim to get my money’s worth which was my mindset all of my life. I learned a lot about control today which is a start.

Coffee: This afternoon, I was jonesin’ for some iced coffee but I didn’t want to go spend $3 on cold bitter coffee. So, I went to the interwebs to find a solid recipe and I found this awesome article from The New York Times! It was awesome! The secret was using my ceramic pour over thingy that I got from World Market a while back. If you want some cheaper iced coffee, give this a shot!

Dinner: So neither of us were hungry until around 8 so we had to figure out something random to eat. Megan, the hodge podge dinner wizard, made this awesome concoction of shredded chicken (which we just keep in our fridge at all times now for salads and nights like this) black beans and corn. I put it on a my La Tortilla tortillas that have 13 grams of fiber and are low in fat too! It turned out to be a pretty good thrown together dinner.

So today was a great boost for my confidence. I know what I am doing is right and working for me. I can’t wait to see what this week holds. Time to keep at it! See ya tomorrow.

Day 661: Thursday Exercise Stuff

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Hey I just met you, and this sounds crazy but here’s my blog post. Read it maybe?

So today was SAWStastic. There was a lot of exercised involved which is important to get any way you can in the day!

Breakfast: I just had two servings of my favorite standby: Kashi Go Lean! It’s the most filling cereal on the market today. (On the black market, it’s this rice pellet cereal that you can only get in North Korea.) 7 points with milk

SAWS Part 1: Today, since my job is awesome, I got to check out the FSU Walking Tour. It’s your standard awesome college campus tour except that FSU is an awesome school. Anyway, it was insanely humid so I was sweating like crazy as we traipsed across campus.

Lunch: Since Megan has been under the weather for the past few days, I brought home some Jimmy John’s for lunch. I was going to have a Beach Club for lunch, which is what I ordered, but when I got home it was something completely different with their ridiculously fattening mayo and other stuff not on a Beach Club. I was kind of frustrated about it, but geez was it delicious. It was only 12 points but that’s a lot more points than I was anticipated. That’s the plight of the eating out dieter. I also had one square of that chili chocolate which was awesome.

Dinner: Megan was able to make this delicious Skinny Taste Chicken Enchilada Soup. One serving was only 5 points so I had 2 delicious servings with some cheese and sour cream. It was around 12 points. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

SAWS: Today was our running day at Godby! Luckily, it had rained and cooled off everything by around 7. I was suppose to run three miles so I ran one mile to try to calibrate my Nike+, then I took it easy the second mile and then on the third mile, I decided to really push myself. On the third mile, I sprinted the straights and jogged the curves. It was exhausting since it was my last mile of the day. I ran a 8:53 mile! That was the second fastest mile I have ever ran. The fastest was 8:40 during the Trick or Trot last October and that was my first mile. I think if I can push myself like that from now on, I could really build my endurance to crank out some awesome run times.

When we got home, we did some yoga and it felt magnificent. I also had a about 3 points of peanut butter and a banana. IT was also magnificent, but for a different reason.

So that’s about all I got for today. It was pretty good stuff. See ya tomorrow.

 

Day 658: Yoga Stud Edition

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Sun salutations my dear reader!

Well today was another win (or lose, however you look at it) for weight loss. I stayed within my calories and did my share of exercise. Let’s talk…

Breakfast: This morning, I had two eggs in a burrito format. I found these whole grain tortillas at Publix that had 13 grams of fiber and low in fat. It was delicious!

Lunch: Today was my first meeting with the FSU Communicators’ Network since I was an intern. It was awesome to see my old coworkers and I’m excited to work with them in the future! Anyway, they had pizza for lunch along with a veggie plate. I stocked up on veggies and had one slice of cheese pizza. The only thing I did “wrong” was I did have two delicious chocolate chip cookies. Don’t worry, I did what I could to burn them off later in the day.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Dinner: In case you haven’t noticed, we are Skinnytaste fiends up in here. Tonight, Megan made this awesome Lighter Eggplant Parmesan. Basically it was a lasagna with eggplant instead of pasta. It was fantastic and it feels like you’re indulging like crazy. Fantasticness.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Exercise: Tonight, I decided to go for a swim and did some laps. It felt good to stretch out  via swimming. When I got done with that, I went in and Megan and I did yoga. We did Rodney Yee’s Ultimate Power Yoga. Again, it felt amazing. To re-cooperate I had watermelon. Awesomeness.

So that’s about it for the day. Good times. See ya tomorrow.

Day 657: 50 Shades of Weight Loss

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(This post has nothing to do with the book. I just wanted to be topical.)

So this has been a pretty epic week for weight loss. I was able to drop 2.2 pounds, putting me at 236.6 at this point. So far, my lowest weight has been the bottom end of 235 so I’m really going to shoot to get below that this week. Like I was saying in yesterday’s post, the doctor told me to keep doing what I’m doing: that I need to keep losing weight and to keep exercising to get in to shape. I know that if I got rid of what’s left of my hanging gut that my hips would feel much better. Today we bought matching yoga mats and a yoga DVD to help with stretching and to help start building my core muscles back to where they were when I was SAWSing it up with Joe the Trainer (miss that guy. Joe, if you read my blog, thanks for being awesome.)

While I love to run, I really want to try out some new forms of exercises. If you have a class that you really like or just something that you like doing, comment below! I want to hear what gets your SAWSing goat!

Anyway, let’s talk about food and stuff…

Breakfast: This morning, I had another heaping bowl full of delicious oatmeal with craisins, sliced almonds and brown sugar. Yumtastic.

Lunch: Today, we had a going away lunch for our good friends Stacy and Emma who are moving to Memphis next week. This was the second going away party of the weekend (last night it was our good friends Daniel and Leah) so this weekend has had a certain wompiness to it. Anyway, we went to Bandido’s Burritos and packed the joint. It was even more sentimental to us because one of the first times we went there was with Stacy and Emma so we laughed, we cried and I won a dollar by bouncing a rolled up napkin in to a cup of water. Now, today is going to be my pseudo “splurge” day since it’s my rest day. When I say “splurge” I don’t mean dominating a buffet, but just eating more calories and then being strict for the rest of the week. Anyway, I got the chicken quesadilla which was massive and delicious. I also came with black beans and rice and they were awesome! I thought they were some of the best black beans and rice I had every had (really savory) but I was the only one who thought that. So while it was delicious, I still have that “I ate a lot of sodium taste in my mouth” even though I have drank easily 100 oz of water today. I’ll try something different next time, but it was still pretty awesome. (Oh yeah, I didn’t even touch the sour cream. Small changes folks!)

 

Dinner: Tonight we went to Publix and bought some wild caught Alaskan sockeye salmon that was on sale. For those who don’t know, I lived in Alaska for a summer as a youth ministry intern and while I was there, I ate salmon for about 70% of my meals. I flippin’ love salmon. I want to move the Northwest just so I can eat salmon and drink Starbucks every day until the day I die (where was I going with that? Oh yeah…) Anyway, Megan made this special Asian sauce that she found on Skinny Taste that is actually suppose to go on drumsticks. It turned out really well! It was spicy and delicious… dare I say spicelicious.
Speaking of spicelicious, we bought this dark chocolate that’s made with chiles and it was epic! I just had two squares and that all I could handle. Megan and I were both sweating by the end. Awesomeness.

So overall today wasn’t too shabby. I’m ready to continue this trend of healthy living and eating that we’ve got going. I’m really reading to break out of the 200’s. Heck, I’m only 36.6 pounds away! I’ve got this. See ya tomorrow.

Day 656: [HEALTH UPDATE]

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[HEALTH UPDATE]

So I don’t have hip bursitis like I thought (don’t self diagnose folks) I actually have arthritis in my left hip and my left knee. Nothing life threatening and I can still run a half marathon but I need to alternate it with other stuff.

The first thing he asked was if I had had any significant weight loss not knowing that I was a weight loser. Come to find out the arthritis was from all of those years of being obese. I am so thankful that I started my weight loss journey when I did, because the prognosis could have been much worse.

 For all those years I thought I was relatively healthy. I still exercised pseudo-regularly and my cholesterol was actually pretty normal. I hid behind those two pointless factors even though I was rapidly eating myself to death. In hindsight, I wish I would have gotten a physical when I weighed 357 to find out what was all wrong with me. I know my blood pressure was terrible and odds are (between my weight and family history) I probably had some type of diabetes or was at least on the road to Diabetesville.

What I’m trying to say is if you are thinking about losing weight and have put you keep putting it off, start today. Eating brocolli instead of Whataburger is way less painful than hip arthritis. Trust me. Make a change people! Even if it’s just going for a walk or drinking water instead of Dr. Pepper, do something that your future self will thank you for later. Get to it. See ya tomorrow.

Day 655: Ouch Edition

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So as most of you know, I have been having issues with my hip when I run. While it has been pseudo bearable (even for a guy like who has a lackluster pain tolerance) it was painful to even run three miles last night. I stretched after I was done, which helped, but when I got home I noticed I had a super dark bruise around where the hip meets the femur. After much research (and pending a doctor’s review soon) it looks like I have bursitis of the hip. It hurts to sit in a chair and I have to gingerly walk up stairs. Needless to say, sitting for eight hours straight was not fun.

So what does this mean? It looks like I’m going to have to rest and hold off running for a while. It’s not ideal, but I can still swim and I’m planning on focusing on strengthening my core and arms. Trying to make the best of a bad situation. Good times.

Breakfast: Today I just had two pieces of toast with a little more than a tablespoon of peanut butter. Around 11 I realized that’s not enough breakfast. I was starving by then. All this week, I have been eating either oatmeal or a breakfast burrito. Both of those are full of protein and really sticks to your ribs. PB and toast isn’t going to cut it anymore.

Lunch: I had some whole grain spaghetti with spaghetti sauce (no meat.)

Dinner: As you can see, at this point I hadn’t had a lot of calories. I was tired, I was in pain and frankly, I was still really sad about the shooting Colorado. It was kind of a downer of a Friday. Now, I don’t usually eat my feelings (not like I used to anyways. I’ll write about about eating your feelings sometime.) but today, Megan (who was also feeling really wompy) and I both needed some comfort food. So, we went out for some therapeutic Pho. It hit the spot. The aromatics of the basil and sprouts, the heat from the siriacha and jalapenos and the succulent beef just made my evening. I felt better.

A Little Exercise: After we let our food settle, we decided to take a dip in the pool. I did some laps just using my arms. It was invigorating.

So that’s about it for the day. It’s been a good one. See ya tomorrow.