Category Archives: FSU

Day 647: Thursday Run and Stuff

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Today was a day of getting stuff done.

You know the kind I’m talking about. When you go all Tasmanian Devil on your house and donate the majority of your old fat clothes to Goodwill and run six miles? Yeah, it was one of those days.

Run and Stuff: So this morning I just had a two pieces of toast with peanut butter, a cup of coffee and a glass of water. I would go on to greatly regret that I did not eat more around mile 3 of my run when it felt like I was literally running on empty.
For those of you who are new to the blog (if so, welcome!) I live in Florida, where the humidity is above 100% more than 90% of the year (why yes, that is a made statistic I just made up.) I decided to go on a run since I had taken a gander at the weather and it was suppose to be in the 90’s the majority of the day. So, I suited up… in to my workout clothes… and took it to the streets! (Michael McDonald style!) My first two miles were both under 10 minutes and then the someone turned up the heat in Tallahassee [insert global warming joke here] and it got brutal. I pushed myself like crazy and it paid off. Lately I have been battling with the mental aspect of the weight loss game. When you’ve been “dieting” this long, you begin to rest on your laurels and think of it all in some formulaic way that takes the passion out of it. Today, I put my heart back in to it and it started with conquering this run. So, my time wasn’t too bad considering the heat and the hills. I obviously want to get better, but that will just come with time. I also burned a crapton of calories which was awesome as well.
One thing that did suck was that my hip/left leg started to give me trouble again. It was fine during the run, but later in the day it would hurt to walk. It felt like it was seizing up or something. Whatever it was, I wasn’t a fan of it and I need to go get it checked out soon. Either way, I got my SAWS in today which is what matters!

Post Run Re-Fueling: When I got home, I immediately drank a ginormous glass of water followed by a glass of chocolate almond milk. I have always heard that drinking chocolate milk after a run was good for you, I just figured that almond milk would do the trick too. Anyway, I also made salad with peppered turkey deli meat, a cap full of olive oil, a pinch of parmasean and some balsamic vinegar. Needless to say, it was delicious.

Lunch: Megan, being the awesome wife that she is, made some French onion soup with low fat swiss. It was epic and really hard to describe. You’ll just have to come over sometime and try it yourself!

 

 

 

 

 

Smoothie Time: Megan is the Smoothie King Queen of the household and since it’s summer, she whipped up some of her classic super berry smoothies! It was actually more a delicious sorbet so I ate it with a spoon. All she did was put a banana, frozen mixed berries and a little orange juice in our Ninja and whipped it up! Awesomeness!

Dinner: For dinner tonight, I whipped up some quarter-pound burgers and cooked them on my grill pan. I also ran over to Wing Stop and ordered one basket of fries and had them as a side which is only 5 points for half a basket which is a normal point amount for a side. The burgers turned out amazing. Not to mention we just used low-cal bread instead of a bun. Pretty awesome “cheat” day!

So overall, today was pretty good! I’m going to try to swim or some sort of exercise for the rest of this week to drop some pounds! See ya tomorrow.

Day 644: Monday Time People

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Why hello!

So today was a little different than planned with the food, but that’s how that goes sometimes right?

I don’t think it was necessarily horrible, but I realized that all you can eat places are not good for me. More on that in a bit.

Breakfast: I woke up this morning to the beautiful aroma of pancakes wafting through the house. Yes, my wife is awesome. I had five silver dollar pancakes with a little maple syrup. It was a nice surprise at 6:30 in the morning. Awesomeness.
Surprise!: During the weekly Monday morning meeting, Jill the Boss brought some mini cupcakes to celebrate my departure. (Does that mean they were celebrating me leaving?) Anyway, they were intensely sugary but awesome.
Lunch at The Suwannee Room: My friend Juan wanted to go to lunch to celebrate my leaving. (Seriously, are people just happy for me to leave?)

Anyway, I haven’t been to a college cafeteria since the good ol’ days in The World Famous Bean. (Yes, that was the name of our old food trough at Abilene Christian.) I have only been to one other All-You-Can-Eat joint since my weight loss journey began and that was for a birthday party. I didn’t anticipating it being a challenge, but it was. Growing up, eating at an AUCE was a place to get your moneys worth. I didn’t get that mentality from anything that a parent had said, it is just the inherent nature of the buffet, plus I wanted to try out what they had. I ended up eating a burger, a slice of pepperoni pizza, two chicken kabobs, two small glasses of skim milk, three slices of watermelon and two chocolate chip cookies. Yeah, that’s quite a bit of food. The scary thing is is that I wasn’t super full after. It all goes back to eating what is in front of you. I would have been fine with the Chicken Suaza I had in the fridge at work, but I was also fine with all of that food. Now don’t get me wrong, the food was really good and the Suwannee Room kind of looks like Hogwarts, but I’m just not that disciplined. Which sucks, because it’s only $7.99! If I could hold myself to a burger, a salad and some watermelon, it wouldn’t be that bad. At this point though, I still have some things to work out until then.

Dinner With The Wolf: (Any time I write The Wolf, I imagine Harvey Keitel in Pulp Fiction. Sorry Andrea, but you are no Harvey K.) So for dinner, Megan made some awesome split pea soup. It was awesome and super filling! Then, Megan also made this faux cookie dough dip with chickpeas. I know it might sound weird, but us three all loved it! (Unless Andrea was just being polite…)

So like I said, today was a little weird with food. My bruise is finally healing up so I’m going to at least go for a wog tomorrow morning. Either way it’s going to be 800,000 degrees outside so sweat will be abound. See ya tomorrow.

Day 643: Weigh In Day

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So this week was kind of crazy. It’s hard when you have a holiday in the middle of the week and a lot of celebrating America’s awesomeness in there.

It was a tough week with food and I ended up gaining 2.4 pounds. Am I mad? Yes. But with that has created a fire under my feet to really get at it. My last weigh in was so inspiring. I see this week as a hiccup and a time to move on. As you’ll see, today has been awesome food wise. Get stoked… for my food pictures.

Breakfast: I just had the good ol’ 4.5 points of peanut butter and toast. Yumtastic.

Lunch: After church, some of the Young Pros went to Pho7 for some Vietnamese deliciousness. Megan and I split an order of egg rolls and then I had the beef pho. You would think that I wouldn’t make it so spicy with siriacha and jalapenos after how many times I have eaten it, but you’d be wrong. Nothing like a good sweat while you eat. 15 points 


Snack: Later in the afternoon, I was getting kind of hungry, but I wanted to avoid a carb/fattening snack. So, I had a banana and a tablespoon of peanut butter. It was the perfect afternoon snack! 2.5 points

 

 

 

 

 

Dinner: We hadn’t gone grocery shopping yet so we decided to hit up Bandido’s for dollar tacos. I had the chicken with hot sauce. 6 points. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Movie Snack: We decided to watch the original TRON and we were both looking for a snack. I decided to broil two FlatOut flatbreads in the oven and then broke them up. It was almost like eating chips! It would have been perfect if I had some sort of dip, but it totally worked. And since two flatbreads was only 2 points it was totally worth it.

So today I got to 30 points which isn’t bad at all! I can’t wait for this week and all of the awesomeness that will ensue.

NSV: I am going to post my awesome non-scale victory on The Fotographing Fat Kid Facebook Page at midnight tonight! (Eastern) Head over there, Like the page and enjoy! See ya tomorrow. 

Day 640: Thursday Trials and Stuff

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Jeff Daniels is my hero. Just throwing that out there.

So far, this week has felt like a disaster in regards to weight loss. Last week, I was able to drop 5 pounds while this week it feels like I have been swimming in sodium, fat and calories.

Yesterday, Megan and I went to Chili’s for dinner since we were in between 4th of July activities. I figured only eating half of a burger and fries (I literally counted out the fries) would be okay. Little did I know I was eating something that was 19 points for only half. That is just plain ridiculous.

To make things more complicated, last week I was playing basketball and my knee collided with another knee which created a ginormous bruise. It still hurts to walk a little and my nurse/mom said it might not be the best for it which has made running out of the question for now. Needless to say this sucks. It feels like a mulligan week, a week to reset and pick up where I left off next Sunday. Weight loss life is like this sometimes. Either way, I have had some awesome times with awesome friends this week which counts for a lot. I guess we’ll see how this all goes.

Moving on to today…

Breakfast: I started out the day with peanut butter and toast. A MacDonald staple.

Lunch: I was in a rush this morning so I threw together a wrap with deli meat and this artichoke spread. Between that and some almonds held me over surprisingly well.

Snack: I met up with Megan and our friend Catherine (aka the Youtube sensation The Maddest Cat) at Starbucks. I had the classic Dirty Coffee (iced coffee with non fat milk and a pump of mocha) which hit the spot.

Dinner: For dinner, Megan made the best batch of mac n’ cheese ever. No words can describe it’s awesomeness other than the word “yum.”

Snack: Megan and I went to cheap theater in Tallahassee (which is surprisingly nice!) and saw the animated Pirates movie so we split a small bag of popcorn.

So that’s all there is to the week. It has been fun (really fun) but it’s just one of those weeks.

See ya tomorrow.

Day 637: Let’s Catch Up Shall We? Edition

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So the time between last Wordless Wednesday and now has been a whirlwind. I’m talking “Auntie Em! Auntie Em! It’s a twister! It’s a twister!” awesome craziness.

On Friday, I was offered the media specialist position in the Office of Admissions at The Florida State University! It has always been my dream to work in higher education in some capacity and especially for my childhood dream school: Florida State. (For more on my affinity for FSU, click here.)

Since then, I have been incredibly giddy about this new chapter in my life. It’s my first “grown up” job! I know it will be a challenge, but hey, I like a good challenge 😉

Speaking of awesome challenges, sorry about the lack of posting last night. We hung out with our friends Stacy and Julie all day yesterday talking about life, love and other mysteries. (Whoever gets that obscure reference will get a gold star.) We also celebrated Canada Day. The only day that I celebrate my Canadian roots (other then the Winter Olympics.) Anyway, I was good last week overall and it paid in the end. I lost 5.2 pounds this week!!! I haven’t lost that much in a long time. I think my body has been in a stressful state during this whole job hunt so now that I have some direction, my body won’t be as out of whack as it has been. So now I’m back down to 238.4 and I’m happy to be back out of the 240’s. I’m going to be good this week so I can lose some weight. I have been stuck in the 230’s/240’s for a long time so I feel like when I finally get in to the 220’s, my body will start to really change. I’m ready for that. I’m also ready to get back in to the gym. If anything for the air conditioning.

This is all I have for now. More later tonight. See ya later.

Day 631: Back on the Horse Edition

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I have been in a whirlwind of emotions dealing with my weight loss for the past few days. A lot of self doubt, a lot frustration, and a lot of thinking “why do I keep having this conversation with myself?” Every time I see an ad or an e-mail that says “Drop 30 pounds in 3 months!” I immediately click on it to find out what theircureis. The thing is that I know the cure: diet and exercise. I’m proof that it works! And I think when I get these negative thoughts in my head, I need to sweat them out of my body. It’s amazing how much clarity you gain from exercising.

So today I was really good with my food. Yesterday, I went on a mini-binge of “healthy” carbtastic snacks in the 3:00-4:00 window. It’s part hunger, part boredom and part lack of discipline. Today, I made sure that didn’t happen! Here we go~

Breakfast: I had the standard peanut butter and toast with banana.4.5 points

Lunch: I was on the run this morning, so I pulled a Lean Cuisine Chicken Enchilada Suiza out of the freezer. I usually get the Smart One version, but I thought I would give the LC version a shot. It took 9 minutes to microwave (which made my co-workers incredibly jealous because it smelled so good) but it was worth the wait. It was pretty impressed! 6 points.
I also had a 40 calorie Dove Chocolate and five M&M’s .5 points.

Pre-Run Meal: Instead of eating junk food after work, I had a salad with a little lunch meat, a cap of olive oil, some balsamic vinegar and a sprinkle of Parmesan. It was only 5 points and then I had 3 points of almonds.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 
Run: #FFK Tip of the Day: if you are scoping out a run on Google Maps, be sure to look at is from every angle. What goes down must go up… in a very steep fashion.

I decided to go for a 5 mile run since Debby has finally decided to peace out of Tally. It was cool for the first mile, but then it got super humid. My first mile was a solid 9:25, but then I hit a lot of hills on some roads I haven’t been on before. It turned out to be a rough, but exhilarating run. Between the run and the cool down, I burned 950 calories total. The issue is my left hip has been acting up a lot which has made my running a little painful at times. I need to look in to that.

 

 

 

 

Dinner: I came home to delicious tacos and plenty of water. They were epic and around16 points(4 points a taco.) For dessert I had a banana and a large Tervis full of hot green tea. Pretty delicious stuff.

So today, I got to 35 points and with my run and doing pushups, situps and squats during the commercials of Extreme Weight Loss, I am in good shape. I have set a good example for the rest of the week, and it feels great. See ya tomorrow.

Day 629: Sodium is the Devil Edition

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So it’s raining… a lot.

So at the beginning of the week, I was pretty good with food and exercise. I was counting my points and running like my feet were on fire, but it seemed like on our trip I was eating nothing but salt the whole time. I hate sodium. I’m going to do what I can to get it out of my diet as much as I can. Even though around the middle of the week I was in good shape, I still gained 2.8 pounds this week, but I think a good portion of it is water weight and such.

With good ol’ Tropical Storm Debby coming our way, I don’t know how the whole running thing is going to work out. So I’ll be getting creative on the workout front. This should be an interesting week, but I’m going to proactive to lose some weight. Time to get out of the 240’s… again.

Well my head is pounding like a drum (you know… the whole weather changing thing) but in lieu of words, here are some pictures of our trips to St. Augustine, the oldest city in the U.S. I’ll be more talkative tomorrow. Enjoy!