Category Archives: Legit

Day 497: 11 Things About Me Edition

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What’s up everybody!

Sorry about no post last night. I went to the midnight showing of Star Wars Episode I in 3D. (Yeah, I’m a nerd.) So I won’t be long tonight. I have two papers I need to be working on so I need to get at it. Today has been pretty normal, except that I SAWS’d it hard at the gym today! I did a cardio circuit of my own that felt awesome: 20 minutes on the spin bike (hello wedgie!), 30 minutes on the elliptical and 20 minutes running. I burned 730 calories. It was brutal but awesome. Nothing like doing homework high on endorphins.

So my good blogging pal Jennifer from A Girl Who Loves Cupcakes added me to this 11 question list so I thought I would respond to it and that would be it for tonight. I promise tomorrow will be an epic blog!

  1. What’s your favorite fashion accessory?
    Ummm… you know…
  2. If you could only save 1 picture that you’ve ever taken, what would it be of?
    This one of Megan and I right after I proposed with a ring made of grass. (Real ring to follow.)
  3. What book are you currently reading?
    “Multicultural Intelligence” and a bunch of journal articles. I really want to start the Hunger Games though!
  4. What’s your favorite place to visit?
    Any one of these counties
  5. What’s THE one thing you can’t leave the house without?
    iPhone. iCantdoanythingwithoutit
  6. What’s your favorite movie?
    Dumb and Dumber… hands down
  7. What color best represents your wardrobe?
    Since 90% of my wardrobe is a shade of blue, I’m going with blue.

  8. What’s your favorite breakfast food?
    Bacon. In any way, shape or form. (I know it’s made of pigs, but I can’t help myself…)

  9. What’s your favorite kind of exercise?
    Racquetball. My record might be something like 5-60, but I has been the single biggest factor for my weight loss other than eating better. True story.

  10. What’s the best piece of advice you’ve ever received?
    I have received plenty of good advice while drinking coffee with old coots growing up (you know, those guys who drink coffee at Whataburger in every small town in Texas/America.) Most of it was emphasized doing what you love which makes work not so much like work. Good advice.


  11. What’s your most expensive purchase?
    My undergrad education. Thanks ACU!
    Thank God I won’t look like this for my FSU graduation…
    See ya tomorrow

Day 495: Wordless Wednesday Stuff!

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[#meow]

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Day 494: A Not As Epic Post

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No, I didn’t meet the President or anything today, but I did torch a crapton of calories in racquetball. That’s pretty cool too!

Alright, so as some of you know I’m a huge Biggest Loser fan. I’ve been watching the show off and on for about six years and I wanted to be a contestant for a long time… that is until I just lost the weight with no show needed :). Anyway, this week, amongst all the annoying drama that has been added this season to make the show more soap opera-ish, the theme of this week was “No Excuses: I Can’t Lose Weight On My Own.” One team had to work out on their own without their trainer and overall they did pretty well. While I see where they were going with it, I think it misses the bigger picture. For me, even though I have a ton of support on multiple levels, I’m losing this weight on my own.

I’m the one who decides whether to work out when I’m tired

I’m the one who is deciding whether or not to eat that extra piece of cake

I’m the one who said “it’s time to lose weight”

Obviously it is helpful and important to have your friends and family’s support, but that can only get you so far. They only need to be a source of support, not a crutch for your excuses. Granted, this is a harder path, but it will make you all the more stronger in the long run. Once YOU make yourself a priority, everything will fall in to place. You got this yo!

Alright. Where was I?

Breakfast: I had two eggs over hard and two pieces of toast. I always dread making eggs until I just do it and it takes like a total of three minutes. It’s a super filling breakfast!

Lunch: We decided to go to Monk’s for lunch since it was nice outside and they have a really cool outdoor area. We split the artichoke dip and I had the vegan burger with jalapenos, onions, creamy havarti and a hot BBQ sauce. It was the best custom burger I have ever made there. I ate all of my fries and half of the burger. While Monk’s is really good, it’s pricey and the service is hit and miss. I’m kind of ready to just eat at home for a while. It’s usually way less calories (and less sodium) and it’s way cheaper.

 

 

 

SAWS!: Last week, my friend Andrew (the one that kind of looks like Edward Cullen) told me he wanted to play racquetball this week so we set up a time and our other friend Alex joined in on the monotony. We played for a little more than an hour and after five or six games of cut throat, we were all pretty beat. While I love singles, cut throat is more entertaining to me because it’s 2 on 1 so the game gets pretty intense (not to mention there are three uncoordinated out of shape grad students flailing around a small room with racquets attached to their wrists.) Anyway, I burned almost 700 calories (694 to be exact) in a little more than an hour which is an awesome burn.

I still want to do Insanity, but honestly I’m a little scared of the second phase of Insanity. I need to at least give it a try because the results have been epic (it seriously reduced my love handles in a few days) and it’s not that long of a work out. But running and racquetball are so much more fun (he said like a 5 year old while complaining to his mom). I’ll see what mood I’m in tomorrow morning and go from there. Any words of encouragement out there?

Dinner: So after that craziness, I came home hungry. The danger for me when I work out in the afternoon I want to come home and eat dinner but it might night be quite time for dinner so I’ll graze. Today, I took a few bites of the rest of my burger and that was about it (but it’s usually worse.) Anyway, Megan made this awesome skillet of spaghetti so we had that with some bread and an awesome salad with honey mustard. I only ate a serving or so of spaghetti, but I kept creeping in to the kitchen to snag a few fork fulls. That is definitely the worst habit that I have yet to break. I would be much better off just to have another serving. I really need to work on that because those are just pointless calories.

So today was good-ish. I ate too much bread for dinner (and the worst part was it wasn’t really that good. Again, pointless calories.) but overall it was okay. I need to drink more water and less soda and I need to eat out less which is hard because this is the semester for both of us. Between Megan working on her thesis and my teaching, going to class and working, making meals at home isn’t always a top priority. We are both committing to work on that so we can save some money and lose some weight in the process. I have some big goals for myself (like being at least in the 210’s by graduation on April 28th) so each cookie, that extra sprinkle of cheese or that extra helping of spaghetti is going to make a difference. Time to blitzkrieg some calories. See ya tomorrow.

 

Day 493: The Time the Vice President Came to Town Edition

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What up G!

So today was an adventure. I could just leave it at that, but I’ll humor you and continue.

Today, Vice President Joe Biden spoke at Florida State regarding the cost of tuition and other fun things. I work in the University Communications office at Florida State and we worked side by side with the White House media relations staff to help direct and control the media. It was really cool to watch them work and it reinforced my belief that I am in the right profession. Anyway, I was a press volunteer so I while I answered any questions the press might have, I ended up with other roles as well. First, I played hero by saving a Secret Service agent from a giant (okay… tiny) spider that was crawling on his back. Don’t worry, I made him aware of the spider before I brushed it off of his shoulder so he didn’t think I was karate chopping him. (If that were the case, this post would have been called “That Time The Fotographing Fat Kid Ended Up in Guantanamo Edition”). I also played the role of “Seat Filler.” Some silly student left their post of sitting down in the rafters so I ended up sitting in (pardon the pun) for them. (That’s me. My non-scale victory is that I honestly didn’t recognize myself when I first saw this picture. That’s such an odd yet awesome feeling!!!) Anyway, so while I didn’t get to shake his hand, I got dang near close to him which was cool on its own merit. It was an exhausting, yet really cool experience. I’ll post a lot more pictures on Wordless Wednesday!

Lunch: So I had been on my feet basically from 8 am to around 2:00 and I was spent. Our awesome boss Jeanette offered us lunch at Mellow Mushroom as a token of her appreciation. Since I had two pieces of toast with pb early this morning, I was starving so I had and destroyed a cheese calzone. I spend the rest of my day in class praying that a hammock would appear in an Old Testament-like fashion. (“Then the Lord saw favor in his servant the Fotographing Fat Kid and laideth beforeth him a hammock made from the finest strands of fibers and the finest cotton. The Fat Kid relaxethed and found favor in his sight”) Where the crap was I going with that? Oh yeah, I was full the rest of the day. It was delicious.

 

 

Dinner: So we didn’t get home until kind of late and since we both weren’t incredibly hungry, I made some Spaghetti-O’s and two ham sandwiches. Yes, oh so exciting. At that point, I was up for anything so that’s what I went with. Yum!

 

 

 

 

 

So as you can see, it was quite an eventful day. And to top it all off: IT’S MY DAD’S BIRTHDAY! Yep! He’s… older than he was yesterday ;). My parents have been such an encouragement to Megan and I through out this weight loss journey (this is Dad and I from the Turkey Trot in 2010.) It has been such a blessing to have such support. It has also been awesome to hear from other people and to hear them say “yeah, your Dad always talks about how awesome you are doing with your weight loss. He is so proud of you.” It’s really a great feeling. Happy birthday Dad. I love you.

 

See ya tomorrow.

 

 

 

Day 492: Super Weigh In!

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GO COWBOYS!… oh yeah.

(Well this is awkward…)

Ahem… So the Giants won and since I had absolutely no dog in that fight, I was able to enjoy the game stress free that turned out to be pretty epic. For me, the true fun was the socialmediasphere that was blowing up with tweets and post about every thing from people’s favorite commercial to the Puppy Bowl (oh yeah, and some about the game.) Super Sunday always reminds me why I love social media so much and why I believe it can be so effective. Granted with the Super Bowl you have a pretty captive audience, but with such big events its as if you are at a party with your friends from across the country. It’s something special and I’m glad Mark Zuckerburg stole the idea from those Winklevoss twins to make social media the powerful communication that it is today.

Okay, moving on. So I wasn’t really good this week, but I worked out and drank my water and it really paid off! I lost 1.2 pounds this week! I have lost 119 pounds so far! I can’t believe how close I am to 120 pounds! I’m going to have to be extra careful this week because I have a developed a “two steps forward and one step back” pattern (yes, the Paula Abdul pattern.) Since I have made such good progress the past few weeks (five pounds in two weeks to be exact!) I need to keep the ball rollin’ to avoid being stuck in that 239-241 plateau region. I’m glad my body finally decided it was time to lose weight again! Huzzah!

Breakfast: I had two pieces of toast with peanut butter and honey. It was nomtastic!

Lunch: After church, we ran to Subway and split a Sweet Onion Chicken Teriyaki (hooray $5 footlongs!) and then went to the TCBY next door and had dessert. I was bad and had a parfait which had your choice of three toppings and two scoops of yogurt. My toppings were epic, but contextually wrong: hot fudge, peanut better cup and heath bar. Not my brightest moment.

Snack: I had a piece of low fat cake that Megan had made with applesauce. I was really impressed! It was fluffier than regular cake and less fat and calories! (True story: I was in a Facebook group called “I Brake For Cake” actually I probably still am.)

Super Bowl Progressive Dinner: This year, we stayed at home because we both had homework and really we are just exhausted from school. Anyway, we found a few different recipes off of Skinny Taste to try… and we didn’t make any of them 🙂 (We will make them this week though so stay tuned!) We started off with chips and salsa during the pre-game/Puppy Bowl, then Megan made these twice baked potatoes with light sour cream, bacon bits and low fat cheese. They were basically a meal in themselves. During the game, I fired up the grill and cooked up some turkey Italian Sausages and suited them up with sauerkraut, spicy mustard and ketchup. After that, we were both in our own food comas. Then the game was over, The Voice came on, I was still trying to figure out if Cee Lo Green was a warlock or not, and then I started this post. Now you know Nathan’s complete life in real time!

So that’s about it. Pretty good day. Great weigh in and a great day of socializing on the interwebs. See ya tomorrow.

Day 491: Saturday Yo!

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Greetings!

So I just tried on this Calvin Klein button up that I have had since July that hasn’t fit… UNTIL NOW BOY! Not gonna lie, I be lookin’ fine. The awesomeness just keeps coming and it is flippin’ fantastic.

Breakfast: I had a group meeting this morning so I got up, made some press pot coffee and had some dry toast. Yum.

Brunch: After my meeting, I came home to breakfast! Megan had made some eggs, cheese and bacon. It was awesome as well. (A lot of awesomeness going around today.)

 

 

 

 

 

 

SAWS!: I was in the mood for a run so I strapped on the ol’ five fingers and hit the trails. Recently, it feels like I’m running a lot faster than I was even since October. I’m doing a 5k in April and I can’t wait to see how that goes. Anyways, I when I was running, my form felt a lot better and frankly I felt like another awesome guy who ran in the forest… I ran for about 40 minutes and torched 602 calories. Legit.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Dinner: We had some ground chuck from The Fresh Market that needed to be eaten so I made the best burger I have ever made. I have finally figured out my Weber and how to wield its awesomeness. Megan made some killer guacamole and we also had some Publix macaroni salad left over (which was not worth the calories.) It was a pretty epic meal.

So overall today was a pretty awesome Saturday. Got a lot done and got a fantastic run in. I have a decent feeling about tomorrow, I did eat my share of guac but not a lot of chips but the macaroni salad was just a bad choice. Won’t be doing that again. See ya tomorrow.

Day 489: Thursday With Pictures!

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Sorry for no post last night… As you can see, last night was not good. I didn’t post last night because I was just exhausted. For the past couple of days I have been stuck in a feeling that could be related to that moment when you get off of the merry-go-round and everything is disoriented and you are wondering what you got yourself in to. I think I’m just mentally fried. I be slowly getting out of this funk this evening, but it’s lingering like that weird black hole thing in that antidepressant commercial.  I don’t know. But, you aren’t here to read about my stress-induced life (or are you…)

Breakfast: I had coffee for breakfast, yes… the breakfast of champions. Nothing like starting off your day with 21 ounces of caffeine scorching through your veins. I had a “dirty coffee” (name penned by my good blogger friend tracey) which is an iced coffee with a shot of mocha syrup. It was particularly good this morning.

Lunch: Megan and I went to this awesome place called Bada Bean that we have never to before. The “bean” works on multiple levels (well at least in my case) because they serve some awesome coffee and they make the best black bean burger in town! I had the steak fries with it (should have picked a better side. Fail on my part.) and it was topped with avocados on ciabatta bread. It was epic.

 

 

 

 

Snack: I bought some peanut butter from Earth Fare and some local Tupelo honey (evidently if you eat local honey once a day it will cure your allergies) so I combined those two delicious entities to make a delicious wafflewich.

Dinner: We didn’t eat until around 9:30, but it was worth the wait. While we were at Earth Fare, we also got these chicken thingamabobs that look a lot like chicken cordon blue but not as heavily breaded on the outside. They have different variations, but we went with the chicken stuffed with feta and spinach. They turned out really well. We were both really impressed.

So that’s really about it today. Although I am incredibly tired, I’m off to do Insanity because I didn’t last night. At this point, Insanity is like going to your friends house every day and when you ring the door bell, your friend comes out and slaps you in the face. It’s not fun right now, but I can’t argue with the results (the results part doesn’t apply to my analogy.) Anyway, here are the pics I would have posted yesterday. I hope you like them (if not, don’t tell me. At this point I would cry with the force of a hundred waterfalls.) See ya tomorrow.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Day 487: That Time I Got an iPad Edition

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Yes, it is true. My life is complete. I guess that’s all I can say.

I’m going to keep this quick because my battery icon looks like that which means I have no clue when my computer will shut off. Awesome right?

Anyway, today was obviously pretty good, but I discovered my kryptonite: rotisserie chicken.

Breakfast: I had to be up on campus a little kind of early so I went for some coffee and bagels and cream cheese. Their Vanilla Hazelnut is usually spot on but tonight was a little burnt. Awe well. Overall it was pretty good.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Lunch: I know I know, animal crackers and Diet Coke: the lunch of champions (and grad students.) I didn’t have much time between classes so I grabbed that out of the vending machine. Yummy stuff.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Dinner: I wasn’t really hungry until kind of late so we went to Publix for some food. They had a deal where you got a rotisserie chicken and two sides for pretty cheap. We kept the sides small and the portions of chicken regular, but that temptress also known as leftover chicken kept calling my name every time I would go in to the kitchen. What was even worse was that I would eat the dark meat and the skin which is the worst part! AHHHHH! It was no bueno. I need to work on that. If I could conquer rotisserie chicken, I would be able to conquer anything.

Insanity: This week is the calm before the storm: Cardio Core and Balance. After this is when Phase Two and it gets just plain sadistic. Anyway, the workout was bad, but it hurt so good. I feel nice and stretched out.

 

So that’s about it. Tomorrow is Wordless Wednesday! If you have a question for the video, post a comment below or on The Fotographing Fat Kid Facebook Page. See ya tomorrow.

 

 

 

Day 486: The Case of the Mondays Make Me Sad Edition

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Today was rough. Grad school is so stressful sometimes. I’m really ready to graduate, get a job and not have to worry about school anymore. What I am ready for though is to lose some weight this week! It felt awesome to get on the scale yesterday and see that I had made some killer progress! I think I’ll be able to replicate that this week even though I felt like death today for the majority of the day. Nothing like having to present for a quarter of your grade in your class while sick. No bueno. Luckily though I think it went well! Anyway, as you’ll see, I didn’t eat much today. So let’s talk…

Breakfast/Lunch: I had a Tervis full of hot green tea because my head and throat were not doing too hot. Even though I slept like 11 hours between a nap yesterday and sleep last night, I was not feeling well at all. I went to work for two hours and then realized if I stuck around, it was going to be bad news bears because my stomach started to hurt like crazy too! No fun. So, I went back home, crawled in to be like Rip Van Winkle (side note: I was in a Christmas play one time called Rip Van Christmas when I was in 5th grade in Abilene Texas. I rocked it.) and took a power nap while watching a show about knitting on Create (I heart PBS.) After I woke up, I had a ham sandwich with some Cape Cod reduced fat chips. It was weird because I felt so much better after that. 6 points

Dinner: Somehow, that sandwich and chips really held me over (as if my stomach was smaller than when I was 350 pounds or something…) but when 7:30 rolled around, it was time for dinner. Megan and I decided to hit up Mellow Mushroom for a calzone. We kind of burned ourselves out on MM so it was good to go back again. I just had a regular cheese calzone in all of its oozing cheesy goodness. I would have taken a picture, but it was trivia night and I didn’t want to get disqualified. Figure this out though, I didn’t know the answer to the question “Who was the 1989-1990 NBA Rookie of the Year” (answer: David Robinson aka my idol) but I did know the answer to the question “Which fictional book by H.P. Lovecraft was also called ‘The Book of the Dead?'” (answer: The Necronomicon.) Hooray for knowing the name of obscure early 20th century literature but not knowing any sports trivia. Fail. Anyway, a whole calzone was 18 points.

So I had no idea that I hadn’t eaten much today until I was writing this. I was full all day, but I could have drank much more water especially since my sinuses were dried out. I guess I’ll do that tomorrow. I didn’t do Insanity today, but I will tomorrow since I should be feeling better by then. I was also a little apprehensive to do it today because my heel was hurting still today from I guess all of the roots I ran over. Plus my quads are super sore too, but I guess I could just stretch them out though… I’m not smart sometimes. See ya tomorrow.

 

Day 485: WEIGH IN TIME!

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What up G!

So since November, I have been in a weird plateau that has kept me in the same weight area off and on. I’ve been ready to drop enough weight to get in to the 230’s and stay there. All of the work I did this week helped put me in the right direction and to drop the weight that I need to! I lost 3.8 pounds this week! I haven’t lost that much since the week before Thanksgiving! (Except for that time I lost nine pounds in 24 hours thanks to food poisoning, but that doesn’t really count.) So now I am down to 239.2. I think if I can lose some more this week, it will take care of at least this plateau. I was looking at the Insanity calendar of doom and this week is cardio power and balance every single day. Then, Phase Two of death starts. This ought to be fun.

Breakfast: This morning, we actually got up early enough to get some breakfast before church. We went to our old standby Jim and Milt’s for their cheap $2.55 breakfast. The coffee is always good and I think I have figured out the best way to eat plain grits: brown sugar, butter and Louisiana Hot Sauce (give it a whirl and thank me later.)

 

 

 

 

 

Lunch: After church, we went to Publix on the hunt for some lunch. It’s always dangerous to go to Publix while your starving, but we decided on something delicious: roast beef sandwiches! (Billy… don’t forget your sandwiches! Did anyone catch that reference?) So Megan made some roast beef sandwiches with au jus and topped with some reduced fat gouda we bought last week from Earth Fare. They were flippin’ epic, and as you can see they were delicious.

Also, we both ate some Cape Cod chips when we were in the car after Publix (yes, were ridiculously hungry.)

 

 

Dinner: Since it was Chinese New Year… at some point, our great friend Julie invited some people over to celebrate the occasion through the act of eating and watching Mommie Dearest (those ideas were mutually exclusive.) Anyway, since Julie lived has lived in China, she knows how to whip up some wicked awesome Chinese cuisine. I started out with rice, dumplings and cold cucumber. After I tried a few other things, Julie brought out this awesome kung pow chicken that was the best I have ever had. We had a great time and the food was fantastic. Thanks for a good tie Julie!

So that’s about it. I can feel a cold/allergy craptasticness coming on so I’m going to bed almost immediately after this. This week is going to be nuts with Insanity, but if I count my points and drink water like a fish (hey George… the ocean called…) I will be in good  shape. See ye tomorrow.