Category Archives: God

Vacation Reflections (So Far)

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Neither do people pour new wine into old wineskins. If they do, the skins will burst; the wine will run out and the wineskins will be ruined. No, they pour new wine into new wineskins, and both are preserved.” -Matthew 9:17

Since I have gotten off the plane on Wednesday, my inner foodie has been released like a gluttonous kraken. “YOU CAN AND SHOULD EAT ALL THE THINGS!” said my inner gluttonous  foodie kraken. “YOU ARE ON VACATION SO YOUR BODY IS IMPERVIOUS TO CALORIES AND WEIGHT GAIN!”

This past weekend, I ate a lot. My meals were as followed:Friday: three meat plate of greasy BBQ
Saturday: greasy Mexican food from a place that I haven’t eaten at in four years
Sunday at lunch: even more greasy BBQ
Sunday at dinner: a fantastic burger with bourbon bacon onion jam and other greasy topping
Monday morning at 3:39 am: vomit central

I ended up getting food poisoning from one of these items. My guess is the medium-cooked fantastic burger. (I haven’t eaten a medium-cooked burger in a long time. I usually avoid undercooked ground beef unless it’s organic. Even then I’m a little leery.) But to me it was more than that. It was body saying “this is not you anymore. You can’t abuse me like that any more.” For most of my life, I lived with the consequences of becoming physically ill from food as long as it tasted good when I ate it. I wasn’t just addicted to food, I abused my body with it. That’s not me anymore. I’m not the guy that can clear a buffet, I’m the guy that tries to count his Weight Watchers points and makes healthy decisions. I’m the guy people don’t recognize anymore (that happened multiple times in Abilene). I’m the guy who has friends tell me how proud they are of me. I’m a new wineskin.

Day 1,178 Weigh In Time!

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WIHello!
So Thanksgiving week was a little crazy. I eat my share, I avoided pooping myself during a race, and I played caretaker for a flu-ridden wife. I weighed in at 241.4 last Saturday and it nearly killed me. I sat in that Weight Watchers meeting feeling humbled and frustrated. Our group talked about remembering why were trying to lose weight in the first place and what our goals are. I realized that I had lost sight of why I was trying to lose weight. I have stayed in the 225-235 weight range for the past two years because I’m just happy to be this small! Going beyond that seemed a little scary. (Call it fear of success.) But I’m still in the obese category and I really do want to get below 200! So for now, my short-term goal is to get to 213.2 pounds which will put me at a 10% loss since officially starting Weight Watchers. This is definitely possible, but I need to do what I did this week: track my points, drink my water and be as active as possible. Here’s to another awesome week! See ya tomorrow.

Day 1,173 Tuesday Time

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So I’m going to keep this quick. Here we go!

Breakfast: Jimmy Dean Breakfast Sandwich 5 points (I really need to change up my breakfast…)

CARROTS???Lunch: Had to scrap my initial lunch plans and ordered Jimmy John’s (I know, there are worst things, right?) I had a Turkey Tom with Thinny Chips. I should have scraped the chips. Tomorrow is going to be about making those small changes that are costing me like that. 15 points total.
One healthy choice I did make was I didn’t go to Starbucks because the line was waaaay too long (last week of classes problems) so I came back to my office and ate carrots! Way better option! Not to mention, it was in the high 70’s today. Pleasant, but lame.

Chicken Dinner BBQ ChickenDinner: If you haven’t figured it out yet, I love to grill…like…a lot. Tonight, I grilled up boneless and skinless chicken thighs with a baked potato. It was a pretty epic meal. It ended up being about a 25 point dinner because I had seconds on the chicken. YERM!

So today I got to around 45 points which is liveable. I ended up missing my workout group because of a meeting so I’m super stoked to get in to the gym for the last time with my workout group this semester! See ya tomorrow.

Day 1,172

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SEAHAWKS!!!

Okay…now that I have that out of my system…

So today was full of random eating, but I counted it all which is important! I used a few weekly points and that’s okay! Here’s the breakdown of the day:

Breakfast: A 5 point Jimmy Dean breakfast sandwich. An easy breakfast choice when you’re on the go.

pepperoni pizzaLunch: So I usually try to come home for lunch, but today I stayed on campus. I was planning on just getting cheese pizza from Papa John’s. I even put it in to Weight Watchers before I went to lunch to make sure I didn’t deviate. Then when I got there, they were swamped and out of cheese pizza (I guess that’s possible…). Anyway, I ended up with pepperoni pizza which was just a few more points per slice. Not idea, but it is what it is. 18 points


cold stone MoesDinner: Tonight, we ended up at Moe’s for some burrito deliciousness. I accidentally ordered the wrong thing which sucked, but was delicious (go figure…) I didn’t order the jr. size and I didn’t realize it until as I was plugging it in to their nutrition calculator. Lame. So with chips it was 31 points. Oops.

Dessert: The Moe’s was next door to Cold Stone and Megan and I both felt like a little cold treat. The last time I had been inside a Cold Stone was when we lived in Abilene. I remember going in there and getting a Gotta Have It calorietastic sugar bomb of craziness on a regular basis. I also remember the first time I tried Weight Watchers back then and getting their sinless sweet cream. It was like eating poison to me back then. I felt so robbed and horrible. My body and my taste buds were sick. Anyway, I gave their Like It sized Skinny Vanilla with Oreo and Heath mixins. It ended up being 12 points (6 of that was the actual ice cream which isn’t that bad) and it was waaaaay more ice cream than I’m used to. It was just a reminder of how far I’ve come.
So today was kind of a bizarre day and it had its share of issues, but that’s just the way the process goes. I racked up 66 points which is a lot, but I tracked it and that’s a huge thing! It was worth the extra points. I’ll shoot to be better on Tuesday. That’s all I can do. See ya tomorrow.

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Day 1,171 Sunday on Track

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It has been kind of a whirlwind of a Thanksgiving week. So much so I’m not really sure where to begin…

This poor sap has no clue...

This poor sap has no clue…

weird routeLet’s start with a bitterly cold 15k on Thursday that was unforseeably miserable. This year’s Turkey Trot was easily the coldest one I’ve ran in. In fact, it was the coldest race I have ever ran in. It was in the low 30’s at the start of the race and I didn’t know how my body was going to respond to the conditions. Well, as usual, my body surprised me in an awesome way. I started off the race with an amazing pace of 9:00/mile. Now usually I start to taper off after the second mile and jump up to about a 10:00/mile, but I consistently conquered the first 5 miles with a 9:00ish/mile pace! I was on the way of destroying my 15k time from last year! I was soooooooo stoked!
Then, I had to poop.
Out of nowhere, my body started to scream “find some bushes” which was impossible since a) I was in the middle of a subdivision and b) there were way too many runners that I knew to do something weird like that. And of course, thanks to the way this route was laid out, I was literally the furthest away from the finish line (for those of you who have ran the 15k, I was around the turnaround on Biltmore at the bottom of the giant hill). I’ll avoid being graphic, but I was in physical pain to the point that I could only run a few steps without having to stop. With about 2 miles left, I was close to a community center that I had been to that had bathrooms. I deviated from the course by about 100 feet to get to it. Doors are locked. I see some people and I ask them if they have access. They didn’t, but they pointed to the Southwood Clubhouse which was another 200 feet away off the route. Thankfully, they were open. I went it, used their facilities, looked incredibly out of place, and got the heck out of there (and no Alex, I didn’t ask any of the caddies if they knew you. I didn’t have the time to make small talk 🙂 ). Anyway, after that I was back on track and I finished the race while tacking on an extra .65 miles on to my run. The thing was, I wasn’t too far from the finish line, but I panicked and didn’t know what to do. It was something I’ve had to deal with during a race. It was miserable. I’m planning on running a 15k in December (anyone doing the Magnuson Holiday Fun Run in Seattle on the 21st?) so I’ll have to redeem myself then. Anyway, other than that, Thanksgiving went off without a hitch!

So let’s skip to this weekend, shall we?
I also had an amazing Weight Watchers meeting where our leader Dee encouraged us to re-think about why we are trying to lose weight. I opened up about my weight loss journey (something I hadn’t talked about with the group before) and how I have been at the same weight for the past almost 2 years. I explained that I’ve been comfortable both physically and mentally in the 230’s because I haven’t been at this weight since…elementary? This weight has allowed me to run 10 milers on a whim and keep up with my compadres in my workout classes. That’s so awesome to me! Now, I want to take it to the next level. I don’t want people to look at me and not understand how I’m such a fast runner (my response is “yeah, I don’t get it either”). I want my outside to match my inside while both becoming more fit. One of the biggest roadblocks with this is fueling my body right after a big run or workout. I think that looks like more water, more protein and just staying within my points. Once I get that in line (which I have been researching. Any suggestions are welcomed.) I know that I’ll be back within striking distance of getting below 200 pounds for the first time in decades. 

So that’s about it. Today, I was well below my points and was super full. I even weighed out my leftover turkey on our food scale before I turned it in to a delicious BBQ turkey sandwich. It was magical. See ya tomorrow.

One more thing…
Don’t forget to donate to Movember if you are a Stachetastic Run Sponsor! (I know a lot of you are still reeling from the weekend, but don’t forget!) I have provided super easy setp-by-step instructions here!

 

 

Day 1,166

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Still not completely sold on The Biggest Loser this season… It’s all feeling kind of forced. Not sure how many more seasons the shows has left. The issue is, I love what the show does, but I just doubt that it will be on much longer. It’s a shame the Biggest Loser Ranch wasn’t a RIDICULOUS amount for people to go to. Anyway, Biggest Loser rant over.

Let’s talk food. Delicious, delicious food.

Atomicpumpkin yogurtBreakfast: Jimmy Dean Breakfast sandwich followed by a non fat Honey Bear latte from Atomic (pretty, huh?) and then delicious container of Trader Joe’s Pumpkin Yogurt. YERM!!!!

 

 

 

 

 
Whole Foods LunchLunch: We had to go pick up our racing packets and shirts for the Tallahassee Turkey Trot (which is going to be FREEZING COLD. That will be interesting…) at Capital City Runners which is next to our brand-spankin’ new Whole Foods! So we stopped in for lunch. I have to say this photo did not do this meal justice (my dinner photos on the other hand…) The cheese on the burger was muenster and it was scrumdulescent. I’m so glad that we have a Whole Foods in Tallahassee…:)

 

 

 

 
Steak 1Steak 2Dinner From Heaven: When we were at Whole Foods, we bought some deliciousness for dinner. We bought a pound of grass-fed sirloin along with some organic fingerling potatoes. I put chunks of mesquite in my BBQ chimney and lit up! I then cut the sirloin in half, padded it down with paper towels, sprinkled sea salt and some Cooper’s BBQ seasoning on the steaks and let them sit for a while. They were on the grill for about 25-30 minutes since they were cooking with indirect heat. I finished them off with a sear on the heat. I usually cut into my steaks to see if they are done, but this time I a meat thermometer which retained the juices a little more. When they were done, we tented them with foil and finished up the collard greens and potatoes. It was probably the best steak I have ever cooked. The meal was about $7 a person which was actually less than our lunch. The joys of eating at home…

 

hand turkey
So today was pretty awesome. Let’s finish off this post with a photo of a hand turkey. See ya tomorrow.

Day 1,165 Monday Update

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I’m going to keep this kind of brief because I’m working on a few different things…

First: This morning, I took the Keep It Up, David’s Thanksgiving Pledge to: not have seconds, photograph what I eat, not to graze (a HUGE deal for me) and exercise! Read the whole post and take the pledge here! More on that later.

seared tuna saladsushiSecond: Megan’s brutal semester is finally coming to an end so we celebrated by going out for some delicious sushi and seared tuna salad. It was flat-out delicious. Love me some Jasmine’s! (Looks good, doesn’t it Chris Williams? Let’s do lunch sometime.)

Third: We continued our date night by seeing Catching Fire. I was really impressed. I think if I was chosen, I would immediately go to the Biogenesis Lab and roid up on A-Rod strength PEDs and then find those bath salts that made that guy zombie crazy (which also happened in Miami…WHAT THE CRAP IS WRONG WITH THIS STATE???) and then just destroy everyone. No trip to the Cornucopia needed. I’ll let my roids-rage-fueled blood lust do the work (yeah…I thought this a lot during the movie. I also thought about the possibility of Phillip Seymour Hoffman’s character was actually his character in Doubt and how that would play out.)

Movember Ad 1
Finally: It’s not too late to donate to my Movember page or to become a Stachetastic Run Sponsor!
Donate here and help us find a cure for prostate and testicular cancer! 

See ya tomorrow!

P.S. the Fotographing Fat Kid actually foto’d yesterday. More on that soon! 🙂

 

Day 1,161 All the Desserts Edition

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So today…well…I ate a lot.
I have a thing for sweets. My sweet tooth takes up the majority of my mouth (and has severe cavities.) Today was his Christmas…but we’ll get to that later.

Stache Day 21Movember update! Some of you have been asking about Movember and how my mustache is growing. Well, here you go! It’s not great, but it can sure raise some money! As you can see, I have kind of a Reverse Hitler growing where that space under my noes doesn’t grow well. Hi Ho. Anyway, it’s been fun to grow it. Ready to grow a beard in December…or at least try to anyway.

About yesterday’s photos: So you might be wondering about those workout photos from Wordless Wednesday. Well, those were from my Start 2 Fitness exercise class! Yesterday, we have a few competitions like who could plank the longest, who could do the most pushups, that kind of stuff. All I wanted was to get first place in a competition AND I DID! Truth be told, it was a game that was totally in my wheelhouse: shuttle-run trivia. (Fun fact: kind of a trivia nerd who plays on a fantastic team called STEVE HOLT! and yes we yell that every time someone says our name.) Anyway, you had to guess a certain celebrity in the shortest time. The catch? You had to run 100+ feet to someone to get a clue and then come back to give your answer. My clues were: female, singer, debuted in 1999. Boom. Britney Spears. I got mine in three tries in 44 seconds. First place in that competition! Holla! Celebrate the small victories! Shout out to Ernst, Brendan and Angela at FSU Campus Rec for an awesome semester of getting fit!

Board Room?Breakfast: What’s the opposite of getting fit? Oh yeah, eating a sandwich with hashbrowns on it. Because that happened at breakfast. Not a good indicator of things to come. On a different note, people were having a business meeting inside of Atomic Coffee this morning with their own giant pad of paper. And before you ask, no, they don’t have a conference room. It was painful to watch and listen to (especially because they were talking about social media. I’m not sure they knew what Facebook was…). Anyway, the sandwich was good, but not the healthiest option. But somehow still healthier than most of my other meals today.

 

 

All the Desserts Candy ApplesI Ate Dessert For Lunch…Because I’m An Adult!: So today at work, we had a bake sale that benefited the United Way of the Big Bend. You were encouraged to try everything and then vote on your favorites. So I took that to heart. I didn’t even bother trying to add it all up. Don’t worry, I didn’t eat all of those apples. They just looked awesome. Funny story: the guy who made those is on WW too so I jokingly asked him how many points those were and then he laughed in my face and said “it’s for charity! When you eat something for charity, the points don’t count!!!” So I’m going with that delusive ignorance and calling a mulligan on this meal. Don’t worry, I paid for it later. I felt terrible the rest of the day. In other news, I love my job.

 

hot dogsSecond Lunch: After all the sugar, I needed something else in my body or I was going to die of my newly discovered diabetes. So what did this smart guy eat? Two delicious hot dogs from the iconic hot dog stand on campus: Mom and Pop’s. Ironically, Mom and Pop’s is the only food stand on FSU’s campus that isn’t owned by Aramark. Making it one of the few Mom and Pop shops that stood up to a big conglomerate and won. Anyway, yeah…they were good. But it’s ok! I had a Diet Coke that canceled out any calories I ate at Second Lunch! Hooray denial!

 

 

 

 

Chili!Dinner: To balance and completely cancel out every other calorie I ate in the day, I made chili for dinner. It was delicious, but I still kind of feel sick from eating all that sugar. Ready to run A LOT tomorrow evening. See ya tomorrow.

Day 1,153 That Time I Posted About Food

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Alright, back to the basics. It’s not going to always be interesting and sexy (whatever that means for a blog) but this is what I need right now. Even if I don’t post, or have giant posts, know that I am tracking. Time to REALLY REALLY REALLY REALLY get out of the 230’s for good.

Let’s begin, shall we?

SBUX Breakfast SandwichBreakfast: I had a turkey bacon breakfast sandwich from Starbucks. FSU’s President Eric Barron and his sweet wife Molly are usually at the Starbucks on my side of campus. They are usually in workout clothes. Basically, our President is baller. Fun fact: he’s an avid racquetball player. President Barron, if you are reading this, let’s play some time. I’ll even let you win. When I say “let you” I mean you would destroy me no matter what. Anyway, the sandwich was 8 points. 

 

 

 

 

 

OrangeSnack: We bought some satsuma oranges from Trader Joe’s. The are little flavor grenades of deliciousness. NO POINTS! 

 

 

 

 

 

 
CurryLunch: Speaking of Trader Joe’s, I had some chicken tikka masala. It is easily the best frozen meal on the planet (I’ve heard Mars has a pretty killer version of a Hot Pocket, so I’ll go with best meal on our planet.) 8 points. And yes, I look ridiculous. Then I had some TJ’s Greek yogurt for 3 points. 

 

 

 

 

 

skyBy the way, it was a beautiful day in Tallahassee. It was cold and actually felt like fall. I wish it would stay this way….

 

 

 

 

 

 
PhoDinner: After a long day on campus, we were ready for some delicious (and hot) dinner. We ended up at Pho7 for some soup. It was magical as always and roughly 16 points. 

Dessert: We went home for some delicious, low-cal hot chocolate. It was about 4 points with the amount of marshmallows I had.

So today I got to 39 points. Pretty good considering I was full all day! What’s better? I didn’t cheat. At one point, I had my hand in a candy jar and I had the willpower to get my hand out of there! BOOM! Weight loss win. See ya tomorrow.

 

 

 

 

 

Dead ActiveLink, Bruised Toes & Other Adventures in Weight Loss

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It’s funny when you leave open your blog post in your browser and how what you are planning on writing will be completely different in a matter of hours.

My WISo it’s been a pretty crazy week. In fact it’s been a pretty crazy start to the month. I am in a pretty rotten place when it comes to weight loss. My weight has been fluctuating like crazy, but I physically look smaller. My Start to Fitness cross training class twice a week is getting me ripped. I especially see and feel it in my back, my arms and around my stomach. Between that and my running, I have been getting fit in the gym (and track), but haven’t been losing weight in the kitchen.

As you can see from the graph, I’m struggling. It’s hard not to go a little overboard when your favorite team (i.e. my FSU Seminoles) are going gangbusters for the first time since…well…since we were worrying about Y2K. It shouldn’t be an excuse, but it’s been the reality of the situation. My eating is out of whack in the week and then it’s not much better on the weekends. At this point, I feel like I need to have just one good week of eating right, exercising and drinking all the water, I could kickstart my weight loss into gear!

 

 

 

RIP AL
So what’s standing in my way?
Well, like I said, I have had a couple of crummy weeks and days.
First, my ActiveLink fell off my pants. I run with it on my waistband all the time, but some how it got knocked off my jeans when I was walking to work. Crazy right? Where did it fall? It fell on to a busy intersection without me even realizing it. When I was in a meeting, I realized that it was gone. I thought I had left it at home, so I went and looked for it in an attempt to assuage my fears. It wasn’t at home. After lunch, I came back up to work while retracing my steps. Then, I saw it…in pieces…on a busy intersection of campus. It was pretty sad, and I’m pretty sure I looked crazy picking up the pieces while cars were driving by. Anyway, in a way it was a little comical. It’s just a part of life. It could be worse…someone could have stolen my shoes (oh that’s right, that’s happened before…). I know that not having an ActiveLink doesn’t physically stop my from being active, but it’s awesome to have that gauge to know how much more active I need to be during the week. It was just kind of a bummer.

my foot
Well that sucks, what else is going on, FFK?
Do you have a piece of furniture in your house that loves to destroy your toes? So do we. We have this black chair that has a leg that has bruised many a toes. Yesterday, I slammed my left foot in to the leg of the chair and as you can see, my toe swelled up almost immediately, followed by turning a black/purple/blue/redish color all around. Followed by pain while walking. It wasn’t fun. So today I went to the doctor and got some x-rays done. I usually wouldn’t go for something like this, but I am training for the half AND I have Stachetastic Run Sponsors depending on me! I found out that my toe wasn’t broken, just has a bad contusion. She suggested taping those piggies together (according to the doctor’s sheet, “taping to the buddy toes”) and it should heal in the next two to three weeks. Not awesome.

So what does that mean for your running?
Well…I’m not sure. My toe has felt better since it’s been taped. I’m already a little more mobile and I think I would feel a lot better if I had taken some pain meds today. So I’m going to rest it tomorrow and just listen to my body. That hasn’t failed me yet. What sucks is that I haven’t ran since Thursday because I was resting my body for some long runs this week. For those of you that don’t know, I am raising money in a special way this month. Last week, I challenged my Facebook friends to donate a dime (yes, ten cents) to Movember for every mile I ran this month. So far I have 14 Stachetastic Run Sponsors and have raised $18.20 by running 13 miles. My goal was to run at least 50 miles, but that might be an issue considering my toes. That’s why I need more sponsors, so that every mile counts. If I could get six more sponsors, I will been raising $2 for every mile. If you are willing to help change the face men’s health, this is a motastic way. No if you will excuse me, I’m going to burn a chair to the ground.

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