Category Archives: Weigh In Day

Day 574: Post Graduation Weigh In

Posted on by

Welcome to my retirement. From school.

It has been an intense two years, before that it was an intense fours and before that it was an intense 13 years (including preschool.) While grad school was a great challenge where I spent a majority of my time in the fetal position in UCC 3116 (but that’s just because it was -30 degrees in there,) there wasn’t a day that went by where I questioned if it was the right choice for me. Florida State helped me become a better student of my craft, helped me realize my calling and facilitated friendships that I will cherish forever. It feels like only yesterday I was talking to this black-haired goofball on the bus who convinced me to get Amazon Student to save money on my textbooks. Come to find out he would become a key source of support for my weight loss. I’ll also never forget that kid who sat behind me in class whose car was struck by lightning. Then there was that kid who looked so much like Edward Cullen. Finally, there was that kid who is one of the few people I know who can pull off saying their first and last time together. These four guys were in one of my first classes at Florida State. Thanks for being awesome guys.

So I have been getting the question “What’s next?” a lot lately. A fair question to ask a recent graduate. The answer is I don’t know. I have applied to my share of agencies, organizations and other establishments, but unfortunately so is everyone else. So right now, I’m going to start to losing weight like it’s my job. This is my time to establish some good habits from working out to eating better. This semester was rough. Heck, I gained about 5 pounds in the past two weeks. (Yes, I gained 2.2 pounds this week.) I’m ready to eat start counting points again. I have felt like a Weight Watchers hypocrite recently. I can’t remember I have reported my points on this blog! It’s crazy! And it’s time for that to change. Now I’m not saying I’m going to be perfect. That’s not going to happen. However, I have big plans for this blog and more importantly my life. My weight has gotten in the way of that and that’s going to change.

Alright, now that that’s all out of the way….

So here are some pictures of this past week with my folks and other stuff. Tomorrow, it’s getting better. Losing weight like a boss… of my life. Enjoy. See ya tomorrow.


 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Day 567: Weigh In Stuff

Posted on by

So it’s done. Just have to graduate. (I’ll talk more about that later this week.)

I knew that the weigh in was going to be bad because I gorged myself yesterday. What do you know? I was right! I gained 2.6 pounds this week. I know it’s bad, but it is what it is. I weighed myself on Friday morning and I was 235.2 so I know I can get down there, but I just need to keep consistent (as of late I have been consistent, but consistently bad…) So I’m up to 239, but I’m really going to try to count points this week starting tomorrow. This weekend I tried to get all of the bad eating out of my system because start next week I will be starting a new chapter in my life. This summer I want to lose 30 pounds. Time to get busy.

Breakfast: I just had an english muffin with about a tablespoon of peanut butter. Awesomeness.

Lunch: After church, I bought our friends Julie, Stacy and Emma for lunch  our awesome friends Stacy and Emma took us and Julie out for a graduation lunch. We went to Bandido’s Burritos because, you know, it’s awesome. I had the chicken burrito and some chips and salsa. It was fantastic.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Dinner: If you follow me on The Facebook (as my dad would call it) you probably know that I have been working on my final paper of grad school. Well this evening, in a spat of stressful eating, I said screw it, let’s go out in style. Let’s go to Wing Stop, indulge with the guarantee that we will be awesome this week. I had the lemon pepper and cajun wings with some fries. Wing Stop isn’t terrible if you share, but we ate our own 10 piece. Lame.

After I turned in my paper online, we went to Yogurt Mountain. It was ridiculously good.

So that’s about it for today. I can’t really justify how bad this weekend was food wise, so I won’t. That’s life and I’ll move on. See ya tomorrow.

Day 561: Weigh In Day

Posted on by

(Tonight’s episode of MadMen was the best one this season so far. I love this show.)

Why Hello folks!

So this is my last week of school. Ever. It’s going to be a photo finish. 40 pages in five days. Holy crap. What then you ask? Well, my parents are coming the week after that (SO EXCITED!) and then… I guess we’ll see…

Alright, now that I’m done being mysterious…

So the second half of this week was incredibly stressful for a myriad of reasons and I really thought it was going to affect my weight loss. I still somehow came out losing weight! I lost 1.2 pounds. Not a a huge loss, but I will take what I can get at this point. I’m still making good progress even though life is insane right now. I’m going to try to count points this week, if anything I’m not going to eat out as much. I guess we’ll see how it all goes. On a note of awesomeness though, I have finally figured out how to tie a self tie bow tie! It’s epically awesome and I have to thank our friends Brian and Kimi for teaching me. (Oh, and Megan is a bow tie stud now too! We are a family of Bert Coopers now.)

Breakfast:I just had multigrain waffles with peanut butter. Magical.

 

 

 

 

Lunch:After church, we had to leave kind of quickly so I could spend the rest of the afternoon locked up in the frozen tundra of a library. I tried the Healthy Choice tortellini meal. I was really impressed with how much food there was!  Awesomeness.

Oh yea, the green beans were good, but they needed a little salt. Be forewarned.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Pre-Dinner Snack: So before the epic meal we had planned, Megan made the best bowl of guacamole ever. (The best, Jerry! The best!)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Dinner: The other night we saw this episode of Man v. Food and they featured this burger called the “Juicy Lucy” from Minneapolis. (Actually two restaurants claim that they created it and one of them actually spells Juicy without the i.) Anyway, the Juicy Lucy is burger with cheese in the middle. We decided to recreate this awesomeness and I think we held our own. To further assert our culinary awesomeness (and my goal to become the next dean of Bar-B-Que University) I even grilled bacon in my grilling basket. The first batch was good, but the second batch was a little grey. I’m not sure what that was all about, but it still was delicious.

So that was about it. Like I said earlier, it’s going to be an epic week. If I can lose weight this week, I can lose it any week. See ya tomorrow.

 

Day 554: Easter Weigh In Time!

Posted on by

Happy Easter everyone!

(Yeah, I know it’s Monday Morning for a lot of yall but it’s still Easter for those on the Best Coast.)

So I figured my weigh in was going to be bad, but it wasn’t as bad as I had thought. (I need to get out of that mindset any gain is bad.) I gained .6 pounds this week. Again, not a ton, but I’m having issues with consistency this semester like I was talking about last night. I just really need to get out of these next three weeks alive and things will get much better.

Breakfast: Before church I had two pieces of toast with peanut butter. Standard yuminess.

Lunch: After church, we went with our friend Julie and her friends Sam and Liz  to Sweet Pea, this awesome vegetarian/vegan place in Tallahassee. Today I had the tofuevos rancheros. It was delicious and fresh. I also I had their cucumber lemonade which is refreshingly awesome.

Later in the afternoon, I had a bowl of Kashi GoLean to hold me over.

Dinner: I gave up deep fried food for Lent so today I was ready for some fried food. I know, this sentence should not be on this blog. Anyway, after Megan’s awesome Old Time concert today, we went to Harry’s for an early birthday dinner for Megan. I had their wings and some fries. Not gonna lie, it was good. I only ate half of my wings and took the rest home.

A lot of Coffee: If you can’t tell, it’s a fun time in my semester so I am relying on coffee to keep me alive. (I prefer working out, but my gym time is a little limited at this point.) Anyways, I had a Skinny Caramel Machiatto at Starbucks and then we went to Atomic Coffee later and I had an iced coffee that had ice cream in it. I’m insane. I need to stop sucking.

So that’s it for today. I’m going to get better. I have to. See ya tomorrow.

(P.S. Mad Men was INSANE tonight. I love this show.)

Day 547: April Fools Weigh In!

Posted on by

Gather ’round young children and hear the tale of The Fotographing Fat Kid!

Okay, I’m back. It was a very long and stressful week; sadly the fun has just begun. I am now on the homestretch of grad school. 28 days until I walk across the stage (I wonder who my commencement speaker will be… I’m hoping for Oprah or Al Roker. OR the greatest Seminole of them all: Burt Reynolds.) Anyway, there is a lot to do in 40,320 minutes and it is going to be a strain on my weight loss. Have you may have noticed (for those of you who are doing content analyses on my eating habits) I have eaten out a crapton the past few weeks which may have been to the lack of counting points. Well, my awesome dietary architect of wife has created a two week rotation of meals to cook to minimize the amount of eating out ergo better use of points ergo more weight loss! Hooray! As you’ll see in a bit, we know how to cook delicious comfort food for less calories. (All the comfort food without the greasy Southern Old Woman taste)

So I was actually not too bad this week. Dare I say I was good. But I think my intense Saturday morning workouts are skewing my weigh in numbers a little bit. Yesterday I actually cramped up in the middle of a station of the circuit I was doing. Joe the Trainer said I need to rehydrate more. It was shocking because I have always been the promoter of clear pee, but I guess I need to work on that. Anyway, whether that’s the case I don’t know, but what I do know is that I had a body comp test done on Thursday and I found out that I only have a 23.8% body fat count! Last semester I was at 33%! 23.8% is like borderline obese/acceptable! It feels so great to be far away from morbidly obese. This is so awesome! Finding that out gave me a lot of confidence to keep at it this week. Although my quads and glutes are more sore than ever, I have did awesome things for my body this week and I’m going to keep that trend alive! OKAY! So back to the weigh in, I lost 1 pound exactly. I’ll definitely take a loss and I almost made up for last week’s gain (by .2. Close enough) So now I’m back to 120 pounds lost. It’s a pretty awesome feeling. If I could get to 125 pounds lost by graduation I would flip. April is going to be a month of work. No foolin’.

Breakfast: this morning I had two waffles and a little peanut butter. Then at church, my good pal Julie made some delicious pumpkin muffins so I had two. They were epic! Thanks for being awesome Julie!

Lunch: So the plan was to go home and eat leftovers, but since we haven’t been to the grocery store in a while, we didn’t have any leftovers to eat. So instead, we ended up going to Bandido’s for lunch since it is about as cheap as eating at home. I had the chicken burrito with their legendary chips and salsa. They are even more cheap from 4:20-7:20 everyday when they have $1 tacos that are the size of your head. Today I realized that I need to start eating like I am 235 and not 275. I’m still eating the same portion sizes that I was half a year ago. They way my diet is, I should be able to eat two tacos and be fine because that’s within my points. Has anyone else had that issue when they have lost weight?

Snack: Megan made homemade lattes and then after grocery shopping she made pineapple floats (just like at Magic Kingdom! I’M SOOOO READY TO GO TO DISNEY WORLD AGAIN!!!!) She is awesome.

Dinner: Tonight, Megan made the Oven “Fried” Chicken out of the WW cookbook with some mashed potatoes and brussel sprouts (which is a new favorite in the MacDonald household.) Anyway, all April Fooling aside, it may have been the best meal I have ever eaten (except for when we went to The Salt Lick with my parents and our awesome friends Scott and Tabitha last June. Sorry Megan, but you know thatTexas BBQ will always be the great equalizer in our marriage.) The chicken was perfectly not-fried-but-tasted-fried, the mashed potatoes had the perfect amount of lumpiness and the brussel sprouts were cooked to perfection. AND IT WAS A FREAKIN’ DIET MEAL! Everything was light! For those of you who think you have to sacrifice taste for calories, you are dead wrong. While you do have to get creative every once in a while, the benefits are astronomical.

So that’s all I have for tonight. It was a rejuvenating Sunday for my weight loss journey and for me. It’s a new week with new obstacles. Bring it on. See ya tomorrow.

Day 540: Weigh In Day And Stuff

Posted on by

Okay Mad Men is over. I can finally blog.

Today I gained 1.2 pounds. Not sure why. I’ve heard that if you’re really sore that your body will retain. I don’t know what it was, but it really frustrated me more than I thought it would.

I don’t know what my deal was, but I was a bottomless pit of hunger. I have no clue what’s wrong with me. In the interest of time and that I don’t feel well, here’s a list of all of the food I ate:

3 slices of cheese pizza

2 servings of Kashi Go Lean

A bowl of Captain Crunch

A bowl of Corn Flakes

A Chai Latte

A Kashi granola bar

Half of a cantaloupe

and

Ice cream.

Like I  said, I’m really not sure what the deal is. I think I need to go grocery shopping and get better snacks.

I’ll talk more about this tomorrow, but right now I’m about to fall asleep on my keyboarddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddd

 

See ya tomorrow.

Day 534: Weigh In Day!

Posted on by

First off:

GO NOLES!!!

Alright where was I? Oh yeah, the epic day I had. So I was good pretty much all week and my body was introduced to new and exciting exercises. Sometimes when that happens, your weight can do weird things. This time however, it was a good thing! I lost 3.4 pounds this week! Holla! So what does that mean you ask? Well… plenty. I am now in uncharted waters with weight again. I don’t think I have weighed below 237 yet but I am now. 236.8! (Barely, but who cares?) SO… that means I have officially lost 120 pounds! It’s pretty nuts! I can’t wait to get to 125 soon. That’s going to be epic. Also, today I looked and at this point, I am 30 pounds away from being out of the obese range according to the BMI scale! That’s pretty cool considering I was 150 pounds away from it when I started. Awesome stuff.

Breakfast: I just had a banana because I knew my friend Julie was going to bring breakfast for our class at church. I had one of her sweet rolls. It was probably around 3 points. Then during the sermon, our good friend Chris preached and mentioned my blog. He was talking about accountability and staying the course. I was honored that he mentioned. Thanks for such a great lesson Chris!

Lunch: I didn’t have much time, so Julie, Stacy, Emma and I went to Bandido’s Burritos for lunch. If you may recall, they have THE BEST chips and salsa in Tallahassee. It was epic. I had the chicken burrito with chips and salsa. I’m not sure exactly how many points it was, but with the next paragraph in mind, I was okay with points today.

 

 

 

 

 

SAWS! So the plan was to play racquetball, but the person I was going to play got tied up so I decided I was going to still workout. As I was walking around, I saw Joe the Trainer. He asked me what I was going to do in the gym. Since I had two rough training sessions, I was going to just do my thing on the elliptical. “Don’t do the elliptical” he told me. I thought he was telling me to not overdo it, but instead he told me to do something intense like the bike or something. It was so awesome to be pushed like that! It’s so easy to get complacent in the gym and just do what you are used to. So instead, I did 20 minutes on Stairmaster which is a record for me. My heart was pounding and I was sweating buckets, but it felt so legit! This happenstance of a meeting with Joe reminded me that I need to up my workout game. I’m not 357 anymore! I need to workout like it!

In here somewhere I had some dark chocolate almond milk and popcorn. Yum!

 

 

 

Dinner:Megan is finally home! So I picked her up and we went to… where else? Jason’s Deli! I had the salad bar but they didn’t have light ranch! AAAAHHHH!!!! So instead I had the low cal honey mustard. It was fantastic! It even has a little zing to it! It was a great dinner. (When isn’t it awesome at Jason’s? Except for the time when my dad was at a Jason’s in Waco and the police took down and arrested a person in the parking lot. That’s awesome in a “COPS is still a show?” kind of way.)

So that was my day. It was a pretty epic Sunday. This week is going to be bananas, so it’s going to be important to plan out my meals and at least have eating down to have some structure in my life. Usually when you have that, everything else falls in to place. See ya tomorrow.

 

Day 527: Weigh In Today!

Posted on by

Why hello young reader!

Remember that time my Super Seminoles beat UNC for their first ever ACC championship title? I DO!!! What an epic game! (I apologize to my neighbors who heard me yelling like a banshee this afternoon…) Anyway, so last week had its ups and downs with eating since I was gone for a few days but it came out okay. I lost 1.2 pounds this week. Not much, and I am 240.2 so I am so close to break in to the 230’s (again) but this week is all about counting points both on the front end and the back end. Thursday on has been the issue. Anyone who has counted points or calories knows that it does get tiring so I have just been losing steam at that point. I’m just going to get through it this week and try to get a rhythm going. We shall see what happens.

Breakfast: I had a wafflewich with a delicious organic banana from Earth Fare. If you really want to taste the difference between organic and conventional, taste test a banana or an apple. The difference are very apparent. Anyway, pretty delicious and a hearty 7 points.

Lunch: Yesterday, we made these epic lettuce wraps from the always-awesome Cooking Light (this is the recipe from a blog. Enjoy.) and we had leftovers. Hooray! I only had 4 points of leftovers but it was super filling!

Snack: When I watching history unfold this afternoon, I had a Lean Pocket. We don’t have any chips really to snack on (in hindsight I should have made some popcorn but I just now thought of that) so I went with something that wasn’t great. Fail? I wouldn’t say that (but at this point I’m sure thinking that it was…) 6 points

 

 

 

 

Yumtastic Awesomeness: After to our excursion to Lucy & Leo’s on Friday, Megan decided to try her hand at baking. It was a fantastic success. She made these epic peanut butter and chocolate cupcakes with peanut butter frosting. While they are delicious, they were about 8 points a piece so I ate only one today.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Dinner: Tonight, Megan and I went to Pizza Hut for a “season finale” if you will of Spring Break. We ordered a large Thin n’ Crispy with cheese. Don’t let the name fool you though, it’s still 6 points a slice. However, a slice of large pan with pepperoni is 9 points a slice, so there is still quite a bit of difference. I kind of went nuts and had three slices along with a salad. Dinner was 20 points. That is bad, no doubt, but it made me think about all the times I would go to a pizza buffet and eat 5 slices a plate! I did that all my life from elementary on! I’m still eating less at 25 than I did when I was 10. Pretty crazy. I’m glad that I have been blessed with the new willpower I have to live better and to eat healthy.

So today was bad, but I’m actually tracking my weekly points now (which I have 35 of) so the cupcake and my extra points will go in to my in to that. In total though, I got to45 points.Yikes. I have 17/35 extra points. This week will be interesting.

So here’s what I need from you, dear reader, keep me in check. If we eat together or you see me around, ask me how it’s going in the ol’ food department. Or, if you want to work out or play a sport give me a call! Let’s get physical, physical. See ya tomorrow.

Day 513: The Fat Kid Learned to Count

Posted on by

The Oscars. They are entertaining. I wish Billy Crystal did more movies. I also wish I would have picked Hugo in more Oscar categories.

Okay, where was I?

So I made the premonition that I wasn’t going to lose this week and I was right. I spent a lot of this week stressed and eating things I shouldn’t be. I haven’t counted points in a long time and this week I felt like I had just hit rock bottom. Today, even though I had a big lunch that I thought was way worse than it probably was. I counted today. I realized that I haven’t been counting because I didn’t want to admit to myself that I have been slacking in the food-eating category. I’m finally ready to get back on the horse AND THEN EAT THE HORSE!

Anyway, I gained 2 pounds. It is what it is. Frankly, I thought it was going to be worse. I mean, one bowl of the chili we made for the cook off was 500 calories. No more gains.

Breakfast: I had some Bare Naked chocolate granola. It was really good, but definitely not worth the points. 6 points (and that’s for only 1/2 a cup. Granola is overrated for a dieter. True story.)

Lunch: After church, Megan and I went up to Thomasville Georgia (35 minutes north of Tallahassee) for the Antique Crawl they had there. Essentially it was a sidewalk sale (that is if it wasn’t cold and rainy.) Anyway, when we got in to town, we realized that the epic and much hyped Jonah’s Fish and Grits was open even though they are usually closed on Sundays. It was fate, delicious… delicious…. fate. Their signature item was the shrimp and grits so that’s what I had. They also give out hushpuppies as appetizers, but I was good and didn’t eat a single one. I’m glad I waited because the shrimp and grits was one of the best meals I have ever eaten. I did the figures and based on some recipes I had found, I’m pretty sure my meal was about 16 points.

 

 

 

 

Coffee and Dessert: After we strolled around town, we decided to go to Grassroots Coffee (one of our favorite coffee places) for some press pot awesomeness. We tried their Ethiopian blend which was really strong but delicious. Then we split a chocolate chip cookie so there was 2 points. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Dinner: Since I was still pretty full from lunch, I made a 4 point salad with chicken lunch meat, Parmesan cheese olive oil, and  some tomatoes. It was fantastic.

So that’s about it for today. Time for a good week and a great loss. See ya tomorrow.

Day 506: Weigh In Day Time!

Posted on by

Hello!!!

So the 500th episode of The Simpsons was on tonight… it was disappointing. Awe well. Anyway, so after Wednesday night, my stress level went down considerably which in turn made the rest of the week much better. I only got to work out once this week, but I was good with my food. With that all being said, I lost 2.2 pounds this week! This doesn’t get me back down before last week’s super gain, but I’m going to work really hard this week to get down to where I was two weeks ago (but if I lost more I would be cool with that too 😉 ) I’m really ready to even just be at 237 because that will mean I would have lost 120 pounds which would be pretty sweet. Also, I looked back in to my blog and I realized I have been stuck in the 240’s region since October… OCTOBER! In a way, I kind of feel I haven’t lost really any weight for a while. It’s time to get crackin! I know today wasn’t great, but this week is going to be Healthfest 2012! (Whatever the crap that is…)

Breakfast: This morning, a small group at church hosted breakfast before Sunday School (did I ever mention I’m teaching a Sunday morning class called “The Legit Women of the Bible?”) so we hit up that deliciousness. As you can see, I had a muffin, a piece of banana nut bread and fruit.

 

 

 

 

 

Lunch: So the plan was to just go home and eat whatever leftover we had lying around in the fridge. As we were taking our awesome friend Julie home, I thought about this one place really close to campus that was suppose to be pretty good called Bandidos Burrito Company.  Since we have moved to Tallahassee, we have been on the hunt for some decent Mexican food or at least decent chips and salsa. Our epicurean prayers have finally been answered! Their salsa was fantastic and chips were epic. I had the chicken and bean burrito (which was the size of a roll of paper towels) and Julie tried this really cool sampler of mini burritos (chicken, beef and bean) that I thought would be noteworthy as well. (Or Julie did, I can’t remember…) Anyway, it was reasonably priced, they had a $1 Taco Tuesday and it’s within walking distance to my part of campus. It’s pretty hard to beat. I can’t wait to go back!

Snack: When Megan and I did some clothe shopping at the mall (where I bought this studly blazer and new jeans a size smaller!) I had a skinny caramel machiatto from Starbucks. Pretty good stuff.

So yeah, about that new jeans thing… I’m down to 40’s! Pretty awesome considering about 17 months ago I was year size 54 pants. (At one point I was even wearing 56’s…) Anyway, so since I bought my new jeans from Old Navy, they are having a promotion that you can buy another pair between March 1-31st. My goal is to buy a new pair of 38’s on March 31st. This is going to require a lot of core workout and sadly… more Insanity. Better get started…

 

(Somewhere in here I had some hummus and chips…)

 

 

 

Dinner: I just had some leftover chili with some basmati rice. I also had some light strawberry shortcake. So today wasn’t too bad, but there is always room for improvement. Last week, there literally wasn’t enough time to work out, but this week there is a little more room in my schedule so I’m going to work out more to get some inches off of my body. See ya tomorrow.