Day 852: Wordless Wednesday
Category Archives: Weight Loss Goals
Day 851: A Frustrating Weigh In Day
Today has been one of those days…
It’s one of those days when I just eat whatever. It all began with me not preparing my food in the morning which lead to just eating random things (not like tin cans or other random random things…I’m not a goat.) Really, it would have been considered a terrible day, and I guess other than second breakfast the content of the meals weren’t bad, but I’ve just been stuffed all day. Even after working out, which is a gross feeling.
But before all of that, there was a weigh in…and it went way better than I expected! I lost .6 pounds this week! I’m back in the 220’s! Sure it’s 229.6, but things are going well! I have a good feeling about where things are going…DOWN!!!
Alright, back to food journal stuffs…
Breakfast: I had a sliced hard boiled egg (yeah…I eat a lot of those now) on top of a sprouted-grain english muffin. That was delicious…then the roof caved in.
Breakfast Part 2: So like many offices around the U.S. (and like in Office Space) there are monthly activities such as potlucks to boost morale and to feed the poor college student workers. Today, everything looked amazing. There were casseroles, monkey bread (sadly not made of monkeys) and even deer sausage (God bless the South.) I stacked my plate. While it was pretty delicious, it threw the rest of my day off. Next time: all fruit. (Fun Fact: I ate everything on my plate in a counter-clockwise fashion. No clue.)
Lunch: I didn’t prepare my lunch and since I had my class, I resorted to buying the most overpriced sandwich of my life. I even ripped off the price tag to hide the fact that I paid so much for a tuna salad sandwich. Either way, it held me over. Between that and the banana I had in my backpack.
Dinner: So we needed to go across town to run some errands and since by this point we were both pretty hungry, we decided to go to dinner at Newk’s. We haven’t been there in a long time, but I had remembered that their salads were the size of small children. I had the Ultimate salad that had ham, chicken, cucumbers, and other salad stuff. Not to mention their awesome honey mustard. The salad was filling beyond belief, and really the only non-skinny rules thing about it were the croutons. But like I said, I’m still full which is always weird.
SAWS: After all of this eating and such, I was ready to come home and workout. I’ve been wanting to try this spin workout for a while, but I’ve been a little worried about it. I thought today would be the day to break through my eating funk.
So here’s the breakdown:
5 minute warm up
1 minute mountain climbers
4 minutes on the bike with 80% resistance (aka biking through mud)
2 minutes of slowly decreasing resistance
2 minutes of sprinting on the bike as hard as you can
1 minute of bicycle kicks on the ground
Repeat intervals three times and then finish off with a 5 minute cool down.
I burned 541 calories in something like 46 minutes. I pushed myself a lot harder than I have in a while and it felt awesome. It was what I needed to reset from today. I’m going to be sooooooooore tomorrow. #Jellolegs
So even though it was just an off day with my eating, it’s just a day. Time to brush them shoulders off and get back at it on Wednesday. No pity party. No frustration. No down talk. It’s just a part of the process. Keep your chin up folks! You got this! See ya tomorrow.
Day 850: First Day of Being 26
Fact: 850 is my area code. Random.
I’m so stoked for Day 1,000!
So today was the first full day of being 26. So far, so good!
Let’s do a quick break down the day shall we?
Breakfast: A cup of oatmeal AND (yes…and) a 1/2 cup of greek yogurt with blackberries.
Snack: I had an apple and an ounce of white sharp cheddar cheese. So filling!
Lunch: I had leftover chili from last night and 1/2 cup of instant brown rice. Epic meal indeed.
Snack: I had a banana and a tablespoon of peanut butter. It was scrumtralescent.
Dinner: I made an FFK classic: Monterey Cheddar Turkey Burgers. We ate them without the bun and with Brussels Sprouts. It was sooooo good! I forgot how amazing those burgers were!
I know this is a short post, but I have a couple things I need to do tonight. Tomorrow is weigh in day! I’m not sure if my body has completely recovered from the combination of my birthday weekend and running a half marathon, but either way I’m keeping strong with the Skinny Rules and that will mean next week will just be even better! See ya tomorrow.
[ONE MORE THING]
Have you been watching The Biggest Loser this year? What do you think so far?
Day 849: Birthday Post!!!!
So I’m 26.
Another year older.
Another year to be healthier so I can add on a few more birthdays.
It’s been a crazy passed few days. A lot of celebrating, a lot of fun and a lot of miles ran. Lots and lots of miles.
Yesterday, I ran a half marathon just to prove to myself that I could do it. Three weeks from today, I will be running in the Tallahassee Half Marathon. Up until yesterday, I had only ran 10 miles. Yesterday, the first 10 miles were bearable…but the last 5k was brutal with a capital holy crap. I pretty much walked the last mile. My body was tired, my joints were sore and my feet felt like cement blocks. Either way, I maintained a good pace. My first mile was 9:16 and my last mile was 15:53 so my average was 11:40 which really isn’t that bad. I thought I had kept enough in the tank for the last 5 miles but evidently I didn’t. It’s also worth mentioning that I didn’t stop to stretch or drank any water for those two and a half hours.
Regardless of my time, I am the guy who could barely run a 5k in April 2010 to the guy who can run a half marathon in January 2013. I’ll take that as a win any day.
So today I got back on track from splurging yesterday. Going in to the day with a 2,100 calorie deficit yesterday was hard. I needed to recover from the run but I might have overdone it a little. It is what it is. Either way, I kept within the rules today and my body already feels better.
Tomorrow is a new day. Make it count.
See ya tomorrow.
Day 844: First Weigh In On Skinny Rules!
Timon and Pumbaa make eating insects sound so appealing. Or is that just me?
Hello everybody!
So today, it was time to get on the scale and see if my hard work had paid off. By that I don’t mean “I hope this hippy-dippy eating is worth it” but more of “I pushed it hard on the bike and one my runs. I’ve torched my share of calories this week.” Well boys and girls, my hard work paid off! I lost 6 pounds this week! So I am down to 230.2 pounds and have lost a total of 126.8 pounds. I am 52 pounds away from my 2013 goal. Things are going awesome so far! Like I said last night, my birthday is this week so I’m going to do what I can to stay on track because this hard work is totally worth it. Time to keep on keepin’ on!
Breakfast: I had a hard-boiled egg, a handful of strawberries and a piece of toast.
Snack: An apple and string cheese.
An Oops Moment: So Jimmy John’s brought a sleigh of delicious mini (like a quarter-sized) sandwiches. I accidentally grabbed a Turkey Tom without thinking about it. I ate it in all of its white flower glory and I moved on. It is what it is and I am totally okay with it.
Lunch: After my class (which is going to be awesome) I had leftover chili with brown rice. It was even better as leftovers like all good chili batches.
Snack: A banana and some peanut butter from a bag. That I found on the ground.
SAWS: Did a 5k run out at Southwood. It was a rough run, but my time was still decent. I’ll take it. I’m running a crapton on Saturday so that should be interesting.
Dinner: I had some delicious leftover salmon and peas. YUUUUUUUUMMMMM!!!!
That’s all I got for tonight. Take it easy yo! See ya tomorrow.
Day 843: More Biggest Loser and Skinny Rules!
So Biggest Loser is over on the East Coast and the BCS game might as well be over so it’s time for some FFK awesomeness!
Also, I have no clue how people on the West Coast deal with not having a show spoiled by being three hours behind. Do you guys just stay off Facebook and Twitter during the 5-8 pm PST hours? Can’t wait to have that problem one day because that will mean that I will be living on the Best Coast. Worth it.
In other news, tonight they showed Biggest Loser contestant Joe Ostaszewski working out in the weight room inside of Doak Campbell at Florida State! Then I found this article by the Tallahassee Democrat from December about how he was going to be on the BL and how he was a lineman for the Noles from 1988-1991. I’m really hoping that he will go pretty far because when Antone Davis was a finalist, he went back to the University of Tennessee, where he played college fooball, and they had a huge thing for him. That would be awesome if they did that at FSU. Either way, I’m going to try to meet him at some point. I know I sound like a Biggest Loser-crazed loon right now, but it’s such an inspiring show to me. Always has been. I remember watching it when I was newly married and eating a fast food cheeseburger thinking “shoot, I would beat them all” then I probably started wheezing because I used to eat so much so quickly that I would lose my breath. However, there were other plans for me. I took a different path to weight loss awesomeness and I have never looked back.
Oh yeah…and Bob Harper replied to one of my tweets tonight. Consider myself swooned.
Alright, let’s talk food!
Breakfast: 1/2 cup of oatmeal with a pinch of brown sugar (an actual little pinch, not a grab) and a 1/2 cup of nonfat greek yogurt with blackberries. This was definitely a “stick to your ribs” kind of breakfast, but not the “stick to your ribs” kind that sticks to your internal organs and kills you. What I’m trying to say is that it’s super filling.
Snack: A string cheese and an apple. The best snack for the 11:00 am hour.
Lunch: So for lunch we made what I’m affectionately calling “Bob’s Dump Soup” since it doesn’t have an actual name (even though it’s a recipe in Skinny Rules.) All it was was chicken broth, a bag of frozen gumbo mix veggies (Publix brand), a can of cannellini beans and a can of chickpeas. All it was missing was the pasta and it could have been the minestrone from Olive Garden. I added some red pepper flakes and crushed red peppers for a little more flavor. It was incredibly filling for only being something like 100 calories for a cup! Then I just had a piece of bread for dipping and a pineapple spear for dessert!
Snack: I had a banana with a tablespoon of peanut butter. I didn’t have a decent container for the pb so I put it in a ziploc which was pretty weird. I cut the corner with my scissors and spread the pb on the banana like I was frosting a cake. Props to my friend Melanie for giving me that idea a looooong time ago. She said that’s what she does with her hummus so it made sense for pb too!
Dinner: At this point, I hadn’t really eaten a ton of calories but I wasn’t starving at all during the day. Pretty awesome feeling. It’s nice because when you eat an afternoon snack, you don’t come home hungry and crazy. You can actually relax for a while and then think about dinner. Anyway, tonight I grilled some salmon and some squash. I brushed a little olive oil on both (I used a total of three cap fulls for three sliced up squash and three large salmon steaks) and put the salmon on some aluminum foil in the grill. I was absolutely thrilled with how it turned out. (Another reason to move to the Best Coast: I LOVE salmon. Especially the good stuff from Alaska.)
So as you can see, I did pretty well!
Okay…LAST FIVE SKINNY RULES!!!!
Rule 16: Banish High Salt Foods
I’m not really a fan of adding salt to food anyways so this isn’t a huge issue. What is an issue is how much sodium is in most foods. That’s why it’s important to read your labels!
Rule 17: Eat Your Vegetables-Just Do It!
Well…you heard the guy.
Rule 18: Go To Bed Hungry
We usually eat dinner around 6 or 7 so since that is the last thing you eat, it’s easy to go to bed hungry. I’ve always been bad about late night snacking, but I’ve just been keeping myself accountable not to snack after dinner. Even if that means not going back in to the kitchen for the rest of the night. Does that sound crazy? Probably. Awe well, it works.
Rule 19: Sleep Right
Trying to get in to that habit so let’s wrap this up so I can go to bed…
and finally…
Rule 20: Plan One Splurge Meal A Week
We did our splurge meal on Saturday at lunch which kind of turned in to a splurge day, but like I said yesterday, we weren’t crazy or anything. I am going to have to pick my splurging carefully this week because my birthday is on Sunday and I don’t want to overdo it and put me back a few steps. Food isn’t worth it to me anymore.
So that’s the whole list. What do you think?
See ya tomorrow.
Day 842: Biggest Loser and Stuff
We’re watching Biggest Loser instead of Downton Abbey tonight and we don’t have DVR. We are dedicated.
So Skinny Rules are still going strong. Yesterday we had our first splurge meal which really turned in to a splurge day. We went to Momo’s and we shared a medium pizza (I had about four slices of pizza) which was really my real splurge other than “splurging” by having a Subway sandwich for dinner. (CARBS FOR DINNER???? AHHHH!) So really my splurge day would just be another day before Skinny Rules.
Today I was back to my new normal and it felt great. Clean eating just makes me feel better, so much lighter. I feel like it has cut out the calories that were just waste in my diet. I wasn’t counting those extra handfuls of chips or that extra plop of peanut butter which kept me from losing the weight. It’s those extras that you see on the scale. Can’t wait to see what the scale will say on Tuesday! Either way, I’m going in the right direction for me!
Breakfast: I had a sprout grains English Muffin with a tablespoon of peanut butter and of course a cup of water when I woke up and a cup of water before breakfast.
Snack: Like I was a toddler, I had my own little snack while sitting in church. Instead of Cheerios in a ziploc, I had a cut up apple and a stick of string cheese. It was perfect, because after church you go in to “I’M SO STARVING! LET’S EAT OUT RIGHT NOW! I’M SO HUNGRY I COULD EAT THE LINT IN MY BELLY BUTTON” (Don’t worry, it never came to that.) But what usually happens is we go eat out and not always at the healthiest place. Since I had had a snack, I was thinking clearly and we made lunch instead of undoing anything.
Lunch: Megan made a small batch of chili. It was glorious and I didn’t overeat which was even more glorious.
Snack: During the Seahawks game (BEAST MODE!!!!) I made a protein plate of deliciousness. Now, I’m notorious for hating hard boiled eggs by themselves. The smell drives me nuts (just ask Megan or our friend Julie who eats them in our car sometimes.) But they have slowly grown on me. I’m starting to really like them sliced with a little cheese on my apple that I use as a cracker. Pretty delicious looking plate huh?
SAWS: Also during the game, I did 40 SAWStastic minutes on the bike. I would speed up during certain plays. I was really pushing it when Marshawn Lynch was beasting out those runs. I heart the bike.
Dinner: Megan made a tofu stir fry. It was the first time she had ever cooked with tofu and she rocked it! Deliciousness.
So that’s it for tonight. I’ll talk about the rest of the Skinny Rules tomorrow night. For now, watching the Biggest Loser weigh in. Fun stuff. See ya tomorrow.
Day 839: Thursday and Rules and Stuff!
Why hello!
I didn’t post last night because Megan and I were having an in-home date night. Sometimes cuddling with your wife while watching Fellowship of the Rings and eating kale chips is more important than blogging :).
So let’s get to it!
Here are Skinny Rules 11-15
Rule 11: Get Rid of Those White Potatoes
I heart potatoes. Sooooooooo much. I thought this was going to be an issue, but it hasn’t been yet! Plus I love sweet potatoes and there’s always purple fingerling potatoes which are awesome too!
Rule 12: Make One Day a Week Meatless
We’ve been trying to do that for a while and sometimes it just ends up happening.
Rule 13: Get Rid of Fast Foods and Eat at Fried Foods
Fried food has been an issue in the past. Sometimes it’s just easier to get something “healthy” from Wendy’s. It’s probably my biggest trigger food. With that being said, when I first started Weight Watchers, if it was fried brown, I would not eat it down. I’m just getting back in to that mindset. That’s been the biggest deal with these rules. I would have handled them fine when I first started losing weight 120-some pounds ago. There’s no reason why I can’t do them now!
Rule 14: Eat a Real Breakfast
I also heart breakfast. A lot. I love an excuse to eat breakfast. I’ll take it.
Rule 15: Make Your Own Food and Eat at Least Ten Meals a Week at Home
This has been pretty awesome. We haven’t eaten out at all since we started which is pretty crazy. We love to eat out and it’s so easy when school is going on. This is going to be a challenge when school starts back up because there is a lot of prep for these rules. We’ll probably do a lot of it on Sunday afternoons so we’re ready for the week!
So that’s about it for tonight. What do you think about these rules so far? Doable or just straight-up cray?
I know it’s a short post. More on Friday. See ya tomorrow.
Day 837:First Post of 2013!
GO NOLES!!!!!!
If we don’t win…well, let’s not even go there.
So today was the first day living under the tyranny of the Skinny Rules! (I use the term “tyranny” psuedo-lightly, and by that I mean it’s going to be quite the adjustment.) It probably wasn’t the right day to run 7 miles while burning 1,200 calories. On paper, I should be emaciated. But the way the rules work, I feel pretty full. I think it’s the combination of A LOT of fiber and protein along with a gallon of water.
Here are rules 6-10:
Rule 6: Eat Apples and Berries Every Single Day. Every. Single. Day.
That’s a lot of fruit. Good thing we live in Florida: the delicious fruit capital of the USA. (I made up that, but the fruit is good.)
Rule 7: No Carbs After Lunch
I can see this being rough eventually. Like you, yes you, I heart carbs. I love crunchy things like chips and cereal, things I would always eat after work. It’s going to be important to have my snack planned out before I come home from work to avoid being tempted by the carb beast. (There are carbs in fruit, but thankfully Bob says that’s okay…because it’s fruit.)
Rule 8: Learn to Read Food Labels So You Know What Are Eating
I’ve been doing the whole reading labels things for a while, but I haven’t paid close attention to looking at ingredients. Since I’ve had to do that because of Skinny Rules, it makes you realize what you really are putting in to your body.
Rule 9: Stop Guessing About Portion Size and Get it Right-For Good
It’s so easy to just guestimate your portion sizes because it doesn’t require a a measuring cup or a food scale. Time to get back to that.
Rule 10: No More Added Sweeteners, Including Artificial Ones
This might be the hardest one for me. I LOVE Diet Coke. No more sodas…well no more a lot of things. This will be a challenge, but if it’s off limits, it’s off limits!
So here’s the breakdown of the day…
Breakfast: We started the morning right with a glass of water, followed by another glass of water and then breakfast! A delicious veggie omelet with strawberries and an Ezekiel English Muffin made with sprouted grains. The muffins taste more like a thick bread but tastes great! Not to mention high in fiber!
Snack: I had a sliced apple and one ounce of Cabot’s Seriously Sharp Cheddar. Great snack to keep you full.
Lunch: Bob is a big fan of ground turkey. It’s a great alternative to beef, especially when you get the ground breast. (That means it hasn’t been ground with dark meat.) Anyway, Megan made these delicious turkey burgers with diced tomatoes and a spring mix salad with light dressing. The turkey patty was juicy and the salad…was salad.
Run: For the first run of the year, we decided to do it in style and run on the St. Mark’s Trail. I’ve been having issues with my toes bruising on my right foot so I looked up some remedies. One of them is relacing your shoes a certain way. I gave that a shot and my foot was in even worse pain. No bueno. I think I might just go back to the way I had them. Anyway, the run was rough since I haven’t ran in about a week or so. Either way, the first two miles were solid 8:34’s but then the others weren’t as awesome.
After Run Drink: We made a kale green drink that was gross-looking but still drinkable. I’ll spare you from posting a photo of it.
Dinner: Tonight I grilled some chicken and had a mountain of green beans. It felt like a lot of food…because it was! I also had a glass of milk.
So that’s all I’ve had today. A big difference from the last few weeks in December. I was not doing too well with the whole eating well thing.
Weigh In: This morning I weighed in at 236.2 which is up 6.4 pounds from two weeks ago. I know that’s bad, but before we went to Texas, I was already up to 235 that morning we left. It was a combination of stress and just plain eating bad. I feel lighter and healthier than I have in a long time today which is awesome.
So what’s the deal with the number 58?: So I haven’t really laid out my New Year’s resolutions yet, but I do have one big goal for 2013: to lose 58 pounds. I am 58 pounds away from being half the man that I used to be. That will put me past the 178.5 pounds mark which is the half way point. I was shooting for it in 2012, but I honestly didn’t put in the work that it was going to require. After a year oh just being meh with weight loss, I’m ready to melt off some weight! Time to get busy. See ya tomorrow.
Day 836: New Rules For the New Year
I hate clothes that fit.
I’ve spent the majority of my life wearing clothes that were to snug, that made me feel uncomfortable. In 2010, after having to buy a pair of size 54 pants, I decided it was time to make a serious change in my life. I revolutionized my diet, I started to run and I started this food journaling on this little blogernio.
Fast forward to now. On the threshold of 2013. My life has been completely changed and has even been elongated by a few years. Now instead of worrying about dying while incapacitated in a hospital bed, I worry about being attacked by a mountain lion while hiking or taking a racquetball to the temple and/or jugular. (Or insert some other awesome way to die here.)
So although I have been exercising like a boss in 2012, my eating was less than awesome. I cheated…a lot. You can ask anyone who has been doing this weight loss thing for a while and they will tell you that it just gets tough. It gets hard to choose the steamed veggies over the mac n’ cheese, it gets hard to not eat that second serving and it even gets hard not to eat fast food when you are in a rush on a road trip. The old me (the Year One of losing weight me) would not have stood for it. It’s time to get back to that. I’m sick of my clothes fitting. That first year I was having to buy a new pair of jeans every few months. I’ve been wearing the same pair for seven months now. Time to break out of these 40’s into the pair of 36’s I bought this summer.
Enter Skinny Rules.
A few weeks ago, Megan downloaded Skinny Rules by Bob Harper and got inspired. She said “We should totally try this” and naturally I gave an apathetic “sure.” Then I started to read through what I had signed up for. Oh boy. In his newest book, Bob lays out a set of 20 rules that will make your friends think you’ve turned in to a crazy-mung-bean-eating-nature-loving-wheat-hating health geek. So I guess that’s my new year’s resolution: to become a crazy-mung-bean-eating-nature-loving-wheat-hating health geek.
Not gonna lie, I haven’t done well with being restrictive with what I eat. Like most people, I like having the freedom of eating what I want (i.e. the dieter’s dream.) In the past, I have had that had that freedom with Weight Watchers, but with WW you have the responsibility of recording what you eat. For about a year now, I haven’t been doing that. I have eaten what I wanted and then acted like I was recording it with an imaginary pen in the sky. This hasn’t gotten me anywhere. I only lost something like 10 pounds this year. I act like I’ve been plateauing while in reality I have just gotten lazy and have gotten good at maintaining. So this is the next logical step to kickstart my weight loss. From what I’ve read, a lot of people who have been in the same situation as me have gone through the Skinny Rules and have lost some serious weight.
Now…I’m not treating this like some fad diet. I know the keys to successful weight loss, and these rules are it. With that being said, I’m trying this out for the month of January to see how it goes. I fully anticipating it become my lifestyle from here on in. Either way, good things are going to come out of it. Between new dietary outlines, my new spin bike (your butt stops hurting from the seat eventually right?), my access to Leach once again and the half marathon in Feburary, I’m ready to demolish some goals in 2013!
The Rules!
So there are 20 rules, and I’m going to go through them over the next four posts. Here are 1-5…
1) Drink a Large Glass of Water Before Every Meal-No Excuses!
Seems pretty easy to me. Lately I’ve been drinking a ridiculous amount of Diet Coke and when that happens I don’t drink the amount of water I should. Luckily, we have a few big Tervis cups lying around the house and my folks bought us an awesome PUR water filter that’s attached to our faucet. So there’s no excuse not to gulp down some water before dinner. Not to mention you feel full so much quicker after you’re all H20’ed up!
2) Don’t Drink Your Calories
This is definitely an issue for a lot of people. Between drinks of the libatious nature and such, it’s easy to drink all of your calories and not even realize it. I know that can be something that you “forget” to record when you’re tracking calories. Normally I don’t drink things like tea or coffee with any sugar or milk so I’ll definitely be drinking more of those.
3) Eat Protein at Every Meal-or Stay Hungry and Grouchy
When you’re not eating a meat-heavy meal, it’s easy to choose carbs over other protein to get full, even if it’s only for a while. As you’ll see in the rules later on, carbs are restricted down to where they probably should be in our diets anyway. Eating more protein will be rough for a while, but your body eventually adjusts. Plus, I love things like canned tuna and peanut butter which are both packed in protein (and no, I don’t make peanut butter and tuna sandwiches).
4) Slash Your Intake of Refined Flours and Grains
This is what Bob has to say about refined flours and grains:
Grains-mainly in the form of refined flours-dominate our modern diet. Pasta is king. Bagels are everyday. Grains in all kinds of shapes and sizes are cheap and tasty and everywhere. (Yes, he wrote that run on sentence…not me.) They might be marketed as ‘low in fat,’ ‘all natural,’ ‘whole’ and even ‘heart healthy.’ But if they are all refined-from rice to bread-they make you fat. That’s because grains are a lot like liquid calories once your body processes them.
He’s not really saying anything different from what we’ve heard for years, but for some reason we always return to our delicious master: the grain seed. (That was kind of a Seinfeld reference. Except in the episode it’s about the cocoa bean. BOSCO!) Anyway, Bob suggests breads with sprouted seeds like Ezekiel Bread (the kind you find in the freezer at the grocery store.) In reality, they are not much more than regular bread. In fact, the Ezekiel English Muffins (that I’ve only seen at Earth Fare) were only 20 cents more than the Thomas English Muffins at Publix. Not to mention they look a lot yummier than the Thomas muffins.
5) Eat 30 to 50 Grams of Fiber a Day
It’s a lot of fiber.
So those are the first five rules. You think you could handle them? See ya in 2013!