Category Archives: Legit

Day 484: Saturday Stuff

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Okay where was I? Oh yeah, allergies in January are a pain. Luckily though the weather has finally started to feel at least fall like which I will take at this point! Okay, food and stuff time.

Breakfast: I just had two waffles with peanut butter. Standard deliciousness. Definitely nothing new.

SAWS Part One: This morning, I went to Leach and played squash for the first time ever. To quote one of the guys I played with, it was like playing racquetball with a pomegranate. The racket (and in essence, the game in general) is a hybrid of a racquetball racket and a tennis racket. The ball however is basically a small sphere of rubber that has little to no bounce. Anyway, I didn’t do too well but I didn’t care. I’ve never been super competitive in sports. I was just there to learn the basics and burn some calories. Good times.

Lunch: We just went to Subway and again just did the basic ham and cheese awesomeness. Good stuff.

Coffee Break: This afternoon, I spent some time at the newest coffee establishment in Tallahassee: Atomic Coffee. They have a couple of different ways to make iced coffee. I tried the Thai coffee which was sugar, half and half, spices and whip cream (I skipped on the whip.) It was fantastic. I think I have my new place. It’s not Starbucks and it’s not hipster-filled… yet.

SAWS Part Two:  Like I said earlier, the weather was fantastic today so I thought it was time to field test my Vibram Five Fingers with some trail running. We ran in the trails behind our house and it felt great. I haven’t ran since I started Insanity and I could really feel the difference in my for and in even my footwork (I had some quick feet!) After running up and down everywhere, I burned a crapton of calories. Between that and squash I burned a total of 730 calories. WHABAM!

Dinner: We have already been to Jason’s Deli three times, but at this point, it’s one of the cheapest places to eat out and some of the healthiest food around! I had the salad bar (as always) and Megan had soup. When you buy them together it shaves off like $3. What a deal. (“There’s still plenty of meat on that bone. Now you take this home, throw it in a pot, add some broth, a potato. Baby, you’ve got a stew going!”) (the people who are suppose to get that quote will get it.) As you can see, I dominated and made an epic salad. Awesomeness.

So overall was a pretty awesome Saturday. Food was good and I burned a ton of calories. Hopefully the weigh in will show. See ya tomorrow.

Day 482: Thursday Stuffy Stuff

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It was a dark and stormy night…

Yeah I know, generic beginning. Get over it.

Well, I did Insanity last night and it was epic. I went to bed and woke up still high on endorphins (it also helped that I had a Venti Americano so I was wired like a mad man.)

Breakfast: I just had two pieces of toast with peanut butter. Best breakfast ever (except for a wafflewhich or the Paris Coffee Shop in Fort Worth.)

Lunch: I went to a job fair today at the Civic Center and under the guidance of the always-wise Andrea de Lobo, I went the lounge/dining area in the FSU Law School. They were selling Pollo Tropical chicken with rice and beans. It was good. And delicious.

Snack: When I got home I had a bowl of Cheerios. Yum.

Dinner: (I know, FINALLY A PICTURE!) Tonight we went to the Korean BBQ place on Tennessee for something a little different. Every time I have gone there, the dumpling soup always sounds appealing, but I could never steer away from their Korean Pork. Tonight I finally gave it a whirl. It was really good, but I think I’ll stick with my pork from now on.

Workout: The other night, I met some of the members of the FSU Racquetball Club and they said they play a couple nights a week. Tonight I decided to join them and I got worked. I’ve essentially been playing the same 5 people for about 2 years so playing people with a different style is challenging. I only got to play two games until they evacuated Leach because there was a tornado warning. Awe well.

So that’s about my day. Nothing too exciting. I’ll make it more interesting next time. See ya tomorrow.

Day 481: Wordless Wednesday With Video and Big Announcement in Said Video!

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Day 480: Tuesday

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So I know this is a late post and it’s going to be short and sweet. Sorry that I’m not dedicating the time in to telling you all about my day but Papa Fotographing Fat Kid needs his sleep. It’s one of those days where you look back and realize you have been doing work in some capacity all day whether you wanted to or not.

Anyway, to summarize my day in one fell swoop of a sentence, I did the following awesome things:

homework

taught public speaking

made a grilled cheese sandwich on my Weber

ate at the awesome Jason’s Deli

had a doughnut GASP!

more homework

listened to a lot of Baroque music (because if it ain’t baroque don’t fix it! Yuck yuck.)

 

So that’s about it. In lieu of a comprehensive post, I thought I would share an article I wrote for Fitblogger last January about my thoughts after losing 50 pounds. Consider it a bonus post. Let me know what you think! See ya tomorrow.

 

Day 479: Manic Monday

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So this week was about dominating my eating habits and burn some serious calories to get the crap out if the 240’s! Today was a good day but just a weird day with food. I tried the eat the “eat every two hours” method which really kick starts you metabolism and it really worked because I was hungry all day. Okay let’s get to it to it to it to it to it… (JACK SPARROW! I’ve lost my mind.)

Breakfast: I brought a bag of Cheerios and a banana for the first installment, follow by one of those Smucker’s Peanut Butter and Jelly Unwhiches which are actually pretty good! I also had a banana. Yumness.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Lunch-ish: Today at work, my work buddy (and real life buddy as well) Andrea and I worked with the media at an event in the College of Law. What’s a fringe benefit of being a PR stud like me? FREE FOOD! I had four little meatballs, some cheese and crackers, a little sandwich roll and one chicken wing. Hooray for free food!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Dinner: Tonight I had leftover chili with some leftover cornbread. It was just as spicy and awesome as last night.That’s all that needs to be said (other than I can eat much less chili than I used to.)

SAWS: Tonight I got back in to Insanity and it was brutal. I did the Pure Cardio and Cardio Abs, two programs back to back. I was doing really well in Pure Cardio, but during the re-warm up during Cardio Abs, my right calf always seems to cramp up. The rest of the session is on the ground though so you it was okay to keep going. I’m not sure if it is the Fivefingers or the fact that doing anything after a long session of Pure Cardio is nuts, but I’ll keep my eye on it so I don’t do damage to my leg.

So like I said today was weird and I didn’t track my points really. Tomorrow is going to be a lot better about that. Mark it. See ya tomorrow.

Day 478: Weigh In Time

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The 240’s will be the death of me.

After having two slow weigh ins, I took one giant step back. This week I gained 1.8 pounds. It sucks, but like I said last night, I made some bad choices on the second half of the week and I kind of crapped out on Insanity. Tomorrow though I’m going to be back on it. I’m ready to hit it hard and drop some weight. I have been in the flippin’ 240’s for at least two months so I’m ready to say goodbye and never look back. Game time.

Breakfast: I had a Chobani with some Kashi Go Lean. After church, I had two pieces of my friend Julie’s fantastic apple coffee cake. It was epic.

Lunch: Megan made her awesome Uncle Jim’s Famous Chili but with a new spicy ingredient: chipotle peppers. Not only did it make it much spicier, it gave it an awesome new flavor. Megan also tried a cornbread recipe in our new skillet and it was some of the best cornbread I’ve ever had.

 

 

 

 

 

Dinner: Our awesome friends Emma and Stacy invited us over for dinner for… Taco Bell? Well… kind of. And when I mean kind of I mean something completely better. They make their own Crunchwrap Supremes so we built our own! Back in the day, I would dominate some Taco Bell because you could eat a ton for super cheap. The last time I went to a Taco Bell was when we lived in Abilene so the idea of a lower-calorie CWrap Supreme with turkey and other better ingredients was fantastic. They lived up to my hopes and dreams. They also had some awesome chicken and rice that’s hard to describe but all around delicious.

So today was pretty good, but I’m ready to eat well and workout hard this week. When I say the week I mean the whole week. Time to fight through. See ya tomorrow.

Day 477: Saturday Stuff

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Hello. Welcome to my blog.

So the Seminoles dominated another ACC rival today. Please file this under things that the Fotographing Fat Kid loves. I’m soooooo ready to go to a game! Okay, I know this isn’t a sports blog, either way it’s still an exciting time in Tallahassee.

I also have a confession to make: I haven’t done Insanity in the past couple of days. On Thursday, I wasn’t feeling that well and I went to bed early. On Friday I played racquetball with my friends Jonathan and Alex and burned about 900 calories. Today, I just kind of ran out of time. I’m at that point in Insanity when it has gotten a little repetitive (this is nothing new to anyone who does workout videos. It’s the circle of life) and eventually the program shifts to a different set of videos that are incredibly harder. For now though, I guess I’ll bear through it until then. Hmmmm… The issue is I love the results I get from Insanity, but the 40 minute workouts dominate the rest of your day if you don’t do them early in the morning or really late at night. It’s tough. Any suggestions? Has anyone else been in the rut I’m speaking of? Help a brotha out!

Breakfast: This morning, I went with Megan to Breugger’s Bagels which is pretty close to our house. They had a “healthy” bagel sandwich option with egg whites and turkey sausage with some red pepper pesto. It wasn’t bad, but then I read online that is was 9 points and had 38% of your daily allotment of sodium. I say healthy in quotations because while it’s still better than other breakfast sandwiches, 6 points of Kashi Go Lean is waaaay more filling and less points. Just kind of how it is. I also had a 3 point plain bagel later in the day. Even if you’re not on a diet but you are just watching what you eat, it’s still important to look at nutritional information online. The term “low-cal” and “healthy” are all relative. Just a thought.

 

 

That Time Megan and I Made TCBY Change Their Rules: (No, seriously.) So Megan and I are froyo fiends. It’s a little cray cray. Anyway, we have this coupon card that gives us BOGO at any TCBY and the one next to our house has a 30 cents an ounce promotion right now. Basically, we were getting froyo for 15 cents an ounce… that is until they issued a decree banning our extreme couponing of sorts (we also bought $122 worth of stuff at World Market today for $14, but that’s for another blog.) So I know what some of you are thinking “Coming Fotographing Fat Kid! They couldn’t have made that rule for just you and Megan!” Well get this JACK! So we go to pay and we told them we had a card and before we explained it the cashier said “BOGO right?” It’s like they had a picture of us behind the cash register or something. Coincidence? I don’t think so.

Oh yeah and the yogurt was good and that’s what we had during lunch time. We weren’t really in the mood for an actual lunch. Around 3 I had some spaghetti.

 

 

 

Free Pizza and Iced Coffee: While on our expedition out and about in the burg that is Tallahassee, we went to RedEye for some coffee and we found free pizza (don’t worry, it wasn’t on the ground. IT WAS IN A DUMPSTER! DUMPSTER PIZZA IS THE BEST!) Actually, there is a little place in Midtown called Luna’s  that had a trailer/pizza oven parked out in front giving away free pizza. They told us they were going to be selling pizza there on Friday’s and Saturday’s from now on and they were giving away free samples today! It was fantastic! The ingredients were fresh and their meat pizza was sinful. So many animals on one slice of deliciousness. I was impressed and I can’t wait for next Friday, Friday, getting good pizza on Friday!

Dinner: So after free pizza and afternoon spaghetti, we were pretty full for a good while. It worked out though because I was marinading some chicken breasts from Fresh Market in Stubb’s chicken marinade. They had been soaking in his delicious concoction of spices in the fridge for about 8 hours so it was sooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo good! Before though, we had a delicious salad with Bolthouse honey mustard that’s made with yogurt. It’s only 45 calories for a serving of dressing! We also had some sweet potato fries which were good but random :).

 

Overall, it was a good day. As always though, the first half of my week was good and then after Wednesday I make some bad decisions with my meals and my snacking. I really need to work on that! Anyway, I’m about a pound and a half away from being in the 230’s which would be so awesome. Just seeing a different second number would be so much more encouraging. I guess we’ll see. See ya tomorrow.

Day 474: Wordless Wednesday Yo!

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Day 473: Paula Deen and Other Fun Things

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I love Paula Deen. When I look in to those gorgeous baby blues, my soul just melts. Now, all I see is a PR nightmare meets a dangerous image of food that will kill people. (I won’t even get in to her being paid off by a pharmaceutical company. That’s for another blog.)

For those of you who haven’t heard, this morning Paula Deen was on Today this morning and proclaimed that she has Type 2 diabetes and that she doesn’t see it as a death sentence. Instead of recommending that those afflicted with the same illness should exercise and abstain from eating her fattening food, she believes in her support program and some medication that she (and Al Roker) is a spokesperson for.

The tone of the Paula Deen Interview was frustrating to me. She made it sound as if type two diabetes was like a cavity or a canker sore that you just bear with until it goes away (or kills you, or takes a limb like your foot, or… well you get the idea.) I understand her motive to down play diabetes, she has an image to protect and a product to sell. Sadly though, she represents the American ideal that it’s our right to eat all of the fattening crap we want and no one can take that away from us. Who cares if it rots our insides? Who cares if it builds up plaque in our arteries? Who cares if it makes us contestants on the Biggest Loser? As long as our taste buds are happy right? While Paula Deen repeatedly says in the interview that she stresses moderation on her show (which I have never heard her say that, but that’s beside the point) most people have no idea of what true moderation actually looks like. Heck, I don’t even know. I’m still trying to figure that out. I think this all really hit me hard today because I just dealt with the idea of food rewards this week and how crappy I felt after the fact. I know it’s cliche, but food really is fuel and nothing else.

On a lot of levels, I can relate to poor Paula. In an interview I heard with Deen on NPR a few months ago, she talks about each recipe and each meal as a way to commune with loved ones that she has lost. For the longest time, eating out equated to community. I’ll never forget all of the Taco Bueno and Pizza House I ate with my brothers in Frater Sodalis at ACU and the fun we had around those tables even though we were going through the hell of pledging. Since then, my idea of food has had to change. I’m now to the point where I finally am able to balance the social aspect of eating out while being able to stay within my points. With that all being said, coming from a family of diabetics, I knew the danger I was in when the scale kept climbing and my waist kept expanding. Even in middle school, I wanted to get tested for diabetes (I was 275 pounds in 8th grade with a 44 inch waist along with the genetic history. I was a prime candidate.) because I knew the dangers of it. I had already accepted that the Big D (and I don’t mean Dallas) was going to be a part of my life. Thankfully, the changes I have made in my life are constantly lowering those chances.

As a society, we need to rethink how we view food. A lot of us are still eating the way our grandparents did, except they were out in the fields or in the mines while we are sitting behind a desk in a sedentary lifestyle. I think this new concept looks different for everyone. Either way, you have control of what you put in to your body. Don’t let food have so much control over all of your life. When you are able to say no, it slowly (emphasis on slooooooooowly) becomes easier which helps you in turn make better decisions.

So Paula, (oh yeah, that’s what the post was about) you have a platform that could be used to show that diabetes could be overcome (or at least handled) with eating right and exercise. Instead, you are once again promoting the lie that pills make it all better. I guess we’ll see how that turns out for you. See ya tomorrow.

 

 

 

Day 472: Monday and a Late Weigh In

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I’m kind of a slacker and I was out and about with friends last night. My bad.

So yesterday, I was hoping for a big loss, but the last half of the week was full of eating out and overindulging. Either way though, I still lost .4 pounds so basically half a pound. Overall, I’m happy about my loss. I’m ready to drop in to the 230’s (which is 1.2 pound away). Hopefully with all of the Insanity this week I’ll be able to drop below.

NSV: There is a silver lining to all of this. To the left is 2011 Nathan who was barely below 300 pounds and the right pic is from last night. I can’t wait to see what I will look like in January 2013.

 

Breakfast: I got to sleep in this morning (which was glorious) so I had a quick breakfast. I just had an English muffin, a little pb and a banana. Yumness!

Lunch: After wishing on every shooting star and rubbing every lamps with genies religiously, they have finally opened a Jason’s Deli in Tallahassee!!! While they have awesome sandwiches and potatoes, their salad bar is the best thing on this earth. I stacked up that salad like a boss, not to mention dominating their awesome roasted red pepper hummus. I can’t wait to go back… like… tomorrow.

 

 

 

 

 

Dinner: When we were out and about, we went to Black Bean for a quick dinner. I just had some black beans and rice and some tostones. Pretty good stuff.

Insanity: Tonight was the second fit test for Insanity and overall it went pretty well. I improved in most of the areas so that’s a good sign. Either way, I was exhausted. After my workout I had one of those awesome one point Healthy Choice fudgsicle bars. And now I’m watching Arrested Development (going through the series for the third time. STEVE HOLT!) See ya tomorrow.