Day 2071 “My Arms are Tired” Edition

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I lifted a lot today.
It’s hard to type. My arms are tired. The Rock is a jerk. I’ll explain in a minute.

Breakfast: I kept it simple (and ordinary) and had a waffle with peanut butter. 9 points

IMG_1004Lunch: I had to make a TJ’s run for work so I went ahead and picked up my favorite frozen meal…well…only second to Amy’s Enchilada Verde. SOOOOOOO GOOOOOOOOD!!!!! Anyway, lunch was only 9 points. Yerm!

Pre-workout snack: I had a piece of Dave’s Killer Bread with peanut butter and raspberry spread. 7 points. 

 

 

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Yeah…I have some work to do.

Workout: The other night, Megan showed me this crazy blog where this guy named Mark C. Webster challenged himself to not only eat like The Rock but work out like The Rock for 30 days back in February. While The Rock’s meal plan is flat our koo koo bananas, his workout plan is pretty awesome! Tonight, I decided to start his workout plan. I’m not going to make a challenge out of it or anything but I think it’s a good way to kick start my weight lifting regimen. Tonight, I did his chest workout which was brutal. I did 30 minutes on the elliptical and then started to lift. I am pretty wiped. Anyway, my Underoath Pandora station got me through it. Thanks, band that got me through my teenage angst!

FullSizeRender (1)Dinner: Have I mentioned that my wife was a culinary magician? Tonight, Megan transformed a 39 cent box of mac n cheese into something that would make any hipster restaurant incredibly jealous. Thanks to the magic of Tillamook Cheddar, bacon, panko bread crumbs, pickled jalapenos, and love, Megan made one killer batch of mac n cheese. It was soul foodtastic. Yep, my wife is a stud. (Oh yeah, I had some pineapple juice too.) 31 points. 

So today I had about 55 points. Not too shabby! Overall, I’m feeling pretty good about the week. I have surpassed my Fitbit goal every day so far and I’m drinking my share of water. It’s been kind of a hard week having this blog as my #framework has really kept me on track. See ya tomorrow.

 

 

Day 2069

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Why, hello! Let’s get this going!

(Oh yeah, tomorrow is Wednesday. Get stoked for…wait for it…WORDLESS WEDNESDAY!!!!)

Breakfast: Waffles and peanut butter. Nothing new. 12 points.
lunchLunch: Today was day of our photo shoot at work so I took the photographer to our college’s cafe. Now, the College Cafe at Edmonds is not your average, run of the mill, World Famous Bean. No sir, our cafe has table service and everything is made by our students! I had the pesto pasta with seared shrimp and red peppers. It was magical! I had one of their delicious chocolate chip cookies for dessert. YERM!
24 points 

 

#POWERSTANCE

#POWERSTANCE

Exercise: After work, Megan and I went for a walk around Greenlake, the best walking trail in Seattle! The weather was perfect and the puppies were plentiful. We even saw a few ducklings! Nothing like a long walk with your boo after a long day/week/month/year.

 

 

 

 

tofu tacosDinner: Since we were down in the area, we stopped by Shelter for dinner. And no, not a homeless shelter. Far from it. Shelter is this super trendy restaurant with massive windows and a spectacular view of the lake.  I went with with the fried tofu wanton tacos with cilantro slaw. Megan and I split an order of their avocado fires which are just as indulgent as they sound. Dinner was about 20 points. Give or take a few points.

 

So today I had about 56 points which wasn’t too shabby! While I only have 10 weekly points left (not counting my activity points which are still a thing…I think?) I am learning something new about my eating decisions and why I pick certain foods and how much. It’s only the third day in but I’m feeling great. See ya tomorrow.

Day 2068 Meowtastic Monday

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Before I get started thank everyone for your love and support over the past 24 hours. I have the best readers on the interwebs. You all rock! Now, back to your regularly scheduled blogginess.

Breakfast:  Peanut butter and two waffles. Keeping it simple. When I got home from work, I had another waffle and a little peanut butter which is a pretty big win on its own. I still have issues with post-work eating. It’s hard not to eat all the things before dinner.
14 points 

burgerLunch: Today was the first of a two-day photo shoot with a professional photographer on campus. We trapezed across campus and took photos of hundreds of students (trust me, I have all the waivers to prove it.) Anyway, as I’ve mentioned before, Edmonds Community College has an amazing culinary program which means our campus grill is fantastic! I ordered a cheeseburger with fries. Everything is was made in-house down to the bun. Go Tritons! 19 points

workoutWorkout: After work, I had a date with Senorita Elliptical and it was magical…and by magical I mean painful but awesome. When I was done, I had three Starbursts which was 3 points. 

 

 

 

zombie cupDinner: Tonight, we had an FFK classic: UNCLE JIM’S CHILI!!!!!! Nothing like an amazing bowl of yuminess to finish the day. 20 points. 

Dessert: Megan and I are desperately missing Disney so we made pineapple ice cream float in our favorite Disney cups. I went with my zombie cup from Trader Sam’s. GAAAAAHHHH I miss Disney. 10 points. 

 

(FFK 101: If you’re new to the FFK, 90% of this blog of me taking weird selfies. This is my reality. Enjoy.)

Anyway, I had 66 points which is a lot but didn’t feel like a lot. If anything, I think that’s telling about how much I’ve been eating sans counting. The past two days have already been a pretty big eye opener in the best way possible. It feels good to have my life back on track. See ya tomorrow.

Day 2067

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Sooooooooooo….yeah.

I’m not going to act like I haven’t posted in four months. I’ve wanted to blog about all the things from Game of Thrones to eating to the Biggest Loser study to how I have struggled with this whole plate spinning adventure that is my life. While living in Seattle has been a hard adjustment at times, it has provided me with some amazing opportunities in other parts of my life which has made it all worth it. But now that the honeymoon is over, (well, whatever honeymoon comes after a hellacious six-day trek across the country anyway) I am ready to get back this part of my identity. I miss being the FFK. I miss my fitness tribe. I miss losing weight. It’s time to get that part of my life back. So, why now start from the very beginning? It’s a very good place to start!

Weigh in: So I’m not going to sugar coat it…I gained 5.4 pounds the week before last. Spring is a crazy time in higher education which leads to a lot of stress eating. Last week, while I still didn’t eat super well, I made smart decisions and drank a lot more water. Plus I had some more time to reflect on my life which really helped my stress levels. I lost a pound this week which was awesome! I’m ready to get the rest of that gain off!

(To avoid any confusion, I am not in the 220’s like this photo that recently circulated around the interwebs. I’m not there…yet. I weighed in at 263.6 this morning. That’s still a 93.4 lb loss for those playing at home. So yeah, I’ve still kept that much off since 2011. That’s an amazing win on its own! Anyway, where was I? I’ve missed these parenthetical rants.)

Breakfast: Megan made this delicious crustless quiche with asparagus, mushrooms and gruyere. It was only 16 points. 

FullSizeRenderLunch: This afternoon, Megan and I went to the Starbucks Roastery for some Serious Pies. Yes, the Roastery is so epic that is has its own Tom Douglas restaurant in it. While we usually get our own pizzas, we decided to share one and got a salad too. We split this insanely scrumptious oil-based wood fire pizza with smoked mozzarella, garlic, chive blossoms and this some cured pork that I can only describe as Bacon’s hipster cousin. Half the pie was about 15 points. 

Snack: My coworker brought me a few bags of ketchup chips from his recent trip to Canada. Sooooo good, eh? I weighed out a few grams to make sure I was eating an actual half serving. They tasted like childhood. And ketchup. 4 points for a half serving.

After some serious spring cleaning, I had a 4 point piece of Dave’s Killer Bread and 2 points of peanut butter.

We also went to the Lake Forest Park farmer’s market and I had a kona coffee popsicle from the Seattle Pops stand. It was about 5 points. (There was supposed to be a selfie of me and an alpaca here but it won’t upload properly. I’ll post it to Instagram. Oh yeah, I forgot to mention that there was an alpaca at the farmer’s market. Because…Seattle.)

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Check out my strong neckbeard game. And my strong fat neck game.

Dinner: Last night, we made some halibut fish tacos with this cabbage slaw with cilantro, lime and purple onion. Since we still had some slaw left, we made them again! Halibut is not only in season right now, it’s only one point for three ounces. Score! We lightly breaded the fillets with flour, egg and panko. Add some avocado and sour cream? Money. Anyway, four tacos was 21 points. Not too shabby!

So today I ate about 63 points which is over my 52 point daily allowance. I dipped into my weekly points which was definitely worth it.

Well, there it is. More to come. See ya tomorrow.

 

Moving Across the Country and Other Adventures

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Moving is hard.
If anyone tells you otherwise, they are liars. That, or they had professional movers.

(I’ll get to that in a minute.)

For the past month or so, I have tried to put my finger on the proper word of the year for 2015 because it truly was the tale of two years. I started off the year by running the most exhausting trail run I’ve ever taken on, the Swamp Forest Half in Tallahassee, where I relied on salt tablets from strangers and the shear will to survive (and shower) to make it through. In a way, that race was some weird metaphor of the year itself with its unexpected adversity and with my hobbling away knowing that I would eventually race another day. After a few other awesome races with friends throughout the year, we flew up to Seattle to take on the Seattle Rock n’ Roll Half and coincidentally (as in I got off the plane and the HR department called me to asked me set up an interview) interviewed for the job that would have us back up in the Evergreen State less than a month later. That time, we packed a little heavier.

Back to my opening line, moving across the country took every ounce of marital fortitude and luck we could scrounge up. At this point you’re thinking “but Nathan, it’s just driving a truck! How hard could it be?” Well…it’s not just driving a truck. It’s driving a GIANT truck with your car attached to a trailer that’s held on by a few chains with all of your worldly possessions inside. It’s also the getting stuck on an abandoned road with a locked gate at the end of it in Monroe, LA and you have to back the truck up 100 yards with no shoulder and with the help of Monroe’s finest all because you tried to take a shortcut to Cracker Barrel thanks to Google Maps NOT ONLY to get your truck stuck at a gas station 5 hours down the road in Canton, TX. It’s the getting through the 75 mph winds on a two-lane stretch of stretch of interstate in Wyoming for nearly 200 miles. And it’s the driving into a new town and your bank freezes your account because you are trying to pay for your first month’s rent with it and then you spend all night moving everything up the stairs with no A/C during a freak heat wave. (Shout out again to my brother-in-law Andrew, cousin-in-law Darby, and my in-laws Mark and Pattie for helping us get everything in the apartment.) Then, your wife flies to ENGLAND the first week of living in this new place and you have to figure it all out pretty much on your own. So yeah, it’s not the driving that makes moving across the country. It’s everything else.

Now I’m exhausted from just writing that. Someone get me a Powerbar.

Where was I?

Like all moves, those first few months are hard. Everything changes from a new phone plan, to where you run on Saturday mornings, to where you get takeout, to who you hang out with, to dealing with a new job. I simply spent August through November trying to establish some semblance of normalcy in my life. Thankfully, I have an amazing wife and live in a city that I absolutely adore. And while I was trying to get back to normal, I ended up scaling back on the other facets of my life that make this blog interesting. You see, blogging, running, and healthy eating are all these muscles that you have to continuously work on to get stronger and to make them easier. 2015 essentially gave me this trauma-inducting atrophy that affected all of those things. While I’m nowhere near back to square one (square one was almost 100 pounds ago) it surely feels that way.

So now we’re here in 2016. I’m 29, have a new job, live in a new city, attend Weight Watchers meetings with some truly amazing people, and am slowly easing my way back into this fitness identity that I have missed dearly. This blog gets me out of my head. I can be open about my life and hopefully inspire others during their own fitness journey. Expect a lot more from the FFK this upcoming year.

Call it FFK: Seattle.

YEEEEEEOOOOOOOOWWWWWWWW!!!!!!!!

[Insert some weird The Who and Soundgarden intro music mashup here]

 

My First Blush Notions of the New Weight Watchers System

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As a graduate student, I became fascinated by the process of introducing new innovations and the consumer response and their adaption rate to said innovation. When our amazing Weight Watchers leader Jodi started to drop hints that big things were on the horizon, I was stoked. All I could think was “GAAAAAHHHHH CHANGE MANAGEMENT AND DIFFUSION OF INNOVATIONS!!!!!”

If you think about it, the idea of changing someone’s eating habits is a herculean task. How do you retool a system that’s been implemented for nearly half a decade without hacking a few people off? (PointsPlus came out the first year I started losing weight. It didn’t affect me because I was doing the old system on my own.) Don’t believe me? Just ask the lady who got up in the middle of my Weight Watchers meeting this morning and yelled “this pisses me off!” Or…ask a Weight Watcher how many points are in a tablespoon of peanut butter (3ppv) or a square of dark chocolate (2ppv). They know the point value of their staples down to the number. But what happens when you know the point value of everything? You know where the loopholes are, too.

And this is why I am looking forward to the new Smart Points system. In the previous incarnations, you could easily cheat the system to your gain (pun intended). With Points Plus, you only had to calculate fat, carbs, protein, and fiber; in the older system, you only had to track calories, fat, and fiber. While those are significant numbers in the world of macro nutrients, they don’t tell the whole story. Think about a nutrition label. What are you missing from that equation? Think about sugar and saturated fats and folic acid…wait…OK not the last one but you get the idea. The new system finally addresses those blind spots that we knew were there but just avoided. But if I’ve learned anything while losing weight, it’s that you have to confront the unpleasant bits if you want to grow. It’s like opening the envelope of a bill that you know you need to pay but for some crazy reason think that if you don’t open it, it’s not due. I learned early on that it’s never nearly as bad as we think and that it will get easier with time.

I thought a lot about the head-in-sand concept during my meeting this morning. This week, I didn’t eat really well. I made some smart decisions, but I also indulged a bit. Enough to decide to quit counting because I felt guilty about how bad I was doing. During my weigh in, Jodi asked me how my week was. Softening the blow for a gain, I told her “not great. I was sick all week and I just sucked.” “Well,” she said. “You lost 3.4 pounds!” “WWWWHHHHAAAAATTTT!” “Yeah! You know, you shouldn’t be so hard on yourself. It’s never as bad as you think.” That idea really resonated with me, especially considering how well it ties in to the new system and its focus of eating the right things for your health and loving yourself in the process through positive affirmation and fitness. (I could talk about excited I am about the new emphasis on fitness, but that’s another blog post.)

The new system will be an adjustment. No bones about it. For the first time, chocolate is more points than chicken and white and whole grain pasta is the same amount of points. I also have less daily points and weekly points. From the discussion in the meeting room, it seemed like most men got less points and women actually got more (if that’s the case for you, comment below!) But I think if we want to improve and lose weight as a community, we have to throw a wrench in the system every once in a while. It was time for an update and I’m ready for the new adventure.

What about you? What do you think of the new system? Any crazy stories from your meeting? Comment below! 

One piece at a time

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Growing up, I was obsessed with this one up and coming artist who got his big break by playing a space coyote on The Simpsons. His name…was Johnny Cash. Have you heard of him? Anyway, while ol’ JC had plenty of classic hits, one of my favorites is the song “One Piece at a Time.” The song is a story of an auto worker who steals a car part every day for years. Thanks to the advancement of the automobile, by the time he had all the parts for said automobile, it was one weird looking jalopey. But hey? It ran! 

What does this have to do with weight loss, you ask? Hang tight, I’m getting there. 

This week was the first time in a loooooooong time that I actually tracked what I ate. For the past two year or so, I have tried anything to lose weight from eating almost completely vegan to joinging classes to halfway training for a half marathon. I did everything BUT track my points. You know, the way I lost 100 pounds. 

My issue was that I was overloading myself with an insane amount of things that have worked for other people instead of what worked for me. You see, after I lost 100 pounds, I tried to keep the momentum going by trying other things instead of being patient and let the process work. Before I knew it, I was completely bogged down with trying to do way too much when in fact all I needeed to do was listen to myself. That’s when I decided to take a sabbatical of sorts from weighing in and just caring. I knew that that one added stressor on top of my incredibly stressful summer would have put me over the edge (and trust me, I was already there.)

So this past week, I kept it simple: I tracked most of my points, I talked myself through the multiple work dinners I went to, I ate when I was hungry and didn’t when I wasn’t, and I ran because the weather was awesome yesterday.  

I focused on me this week. 

I have a lot of emotional scarring from the past year and I needed some healing. While I still have some work to do on that front, I needed to get back to the simple things that taught me to love myself and my health when I started five years ago. I feel like losing 6.6 pounds this week is just an awesome byproduct of that time, love and tenderness. 

Eventually, I will join a gym, maybe the join the running club that meets by my office, and maybe even join the Seattle Curling Club. But for now, I’m going to just take it all in one piece at a time.   

 

A Fresh Start

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“So I can delete your old account information and your weigh in of 269.4 pounds can be your new starting weight. Would you like to do that?”

“Yes. It’s time for a fresh start.” 

Moving across the country takes a lot out of you. From getting stuck on a dead end road and having to back a moving truck with a car trailer attached back 1000 feet with the help of the Monroe, LA Police Department, to driving with crosswinds of 60+ mph in Wyoming, it’s safe to say that I ate my feelings hard during those six treacherous days. 

But now we’re here in Seattle. And it feels like home. I want to live here forever.  

The blessing and the curse of a new city is having a million new restaurants and eateries to try along with the new-to-you offerings from other ethnicities (we even have a Nepalese place next to our apartment. Seattle is awesome.) Like when we moved to Tallahassee, we wanted to eat anything and everything. I’m pretty sure I was eating the equivalent of six vats of a lard, butter and gravy concoction each day. Thankfully, the gorging stopped when we decided to start losing weight. 

I would like to say that wasn’t the case when we got here, but it was. It’s too deliciously easy to order REALLY GOOD Chinese food out here! Ironically, I got on the scale about a week into living here and I had actually lost weight since the last time I weighed in Tallahassee. Of course, I got cocky and thought “well I can eat anything! I AM INVINCIBLE!” But like poor Borist in Goldeneye, I too was frozen in liquid nitrogen (wait, what?) I mean, I too got my comeuppins and gained a significant about of weight in a matter of days. Megan and I both knew it was time to take control. So this morning, that’s what we did. 

The opening conversation happened when we went to Weight Watchers meeting for the first time in two years. Today, we signed up for a new membership. A fresh start to match our new adventure here in the northwest. When I attended meetings in Tallahassee, I had a weird feeling towards them. I had lost around 130 pounds “on my own” but I had stalled and I had hoped it would help. Instead of taking in the information, I just sat there and stewed over my gain. It probably wasn’t what I needed then, but it is what I need now. I need that weekly tribe of folks to grow with and a weekly weigh in that will hold me accountable. Like when I first start my weight loss journey almost five years ago, I’m desperate but I’m not going to overthink it and I’m ready for a healthy life. I’m incredibly excited for the meetings, to work with the WW leader, Jodi, who also went to FSU (because this world is tiny), and I’m ready to explore all of the healthy foods and activities that this amazing city has too offer. I am ready for this fresh start.  

The FFK is on the Move

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So I realized that I haven’t talked about it here on the ol’ bloggy blog, but I have a pretty epic announcement!

WE ARE MOVING TO SEATTLE!!!!

Seattle Bound

Space Needle not to scale to human person.

A few weeks ago, I was offered the marketing manager position at Edmonds Community College in Lynnwood, Washington! My first day is August 3rd and we are moving next Friday. (Yes…as in seven days from today. Holy Moses.) Ever since our wedding day, we have wanted to move to Seattle. It’s been a dream of ours for so long and now that it’s finally here, I still haven’t completely processed that it’s actually happening. It will probably hit me when we’re driving through Colorado or something.

It’s weird because while I am still in pseudo-disbelief, I’m doing everything I can to remain present in this moment. My time in Tallahassee has been so pivotal both as a professional and as someone who dramatically changed his life by losing more than 100 pounds. It didn’t, but a lot of times it feels like my life began in Tallahassee. It’s when I took on this new identity of a fitness blogger who runs half marathons and names his kettlebell. Over the past week, I’ve passed certain parts of campus and I think back to these key moments in my life and all I want to do is write about it. But I’m pretty sure that would just end up with me bawling on my computer which is not good.

It’s also weird because it feels like Megan and I have been in Tallahassee over three acts: Act One) Graduate School
Act Two) Working at Admissions
Act Three) Working at the Center
While we have had some of the same close friends over the past five years, we have also been close with others who have come and gone. Specifically my close friends in grad school and from our church when we first moved here. That cast in Act One were there from the very beginning of my weight loss. They watched me slowly shrink into a completely different person and supported me the whole way through. I can’t thank them enough. I couldn’t have done it without them. But Act One feels so far away now. Since then, I feel like I’ve gone through all these other incarnations with other awesome supporters along the way.

I am starting another Act One next week. A new chapter in my life where people don’t know my story and that I wore a size 60 suit to my wedding. It’s a fresh start and that’s kind of refreshing. For a long time, I thought about taking the “1” off my weight loss number to see if that would motivate me to lose more weight. It was easy to get complacent when I could say “I’ve lost 130 pounds.” But I knew that wasn’t possible if I was in the same place where I weighed 357 pounds. While that first 100 pounds is still a part of my identity, I can now think of my current weight as my starting point. Recently, my feelings about my weight are very similar to how I felt when I first started: I know I need to lose weight or it could get ugly fast. So this new phase is kind of like American Horror Stories or True Detective: it’s different characters with the same theme under the same title. Either way, I’m incredibly excited for this new adventure and what it means for my journey up Mt. Fitintoskinnyjeans. See you soon.