tallahassee democrat | The Fotographing Fat Kid

What a day!
So a while back, I became a community blogger for the Tallahassee Democrat thanks to a run-in with the awesome TD editor Bob Gabordi. On Sunday, I finally posted my first first article about New Year’s resolutions and how it is never too late to make a change. (A lot of it was inspired from this post I wrote a while back. It’s a personal favorite.) Anyway, I was told yesterday that they were considering putting it in today’s newspaper. So this morning when I was driving to work, I made a short stop to buy a paper and sure enough, it was on page 6C! How awesome is that!?! While I love the visibility of my work online, there is always something kind of validating to see your name and work in ink. Even when I covered golf from The Optimist, my paper in undergrad, I still loved reading my work hot off the press. So, yeah. Pretty awesome way to start off the day! Read the article here!

On the other end of the spectrum, I was interviewed last night by Adam and Devon Bate from the Lifestyle Accountability Show: Health and Fitness Podcast! We talked a lot about my journey, the blog and everything else in between. I said the other end of the spectrum because I frankly can’t stand the sound of my voice. So future apologies for when you listen to my terrible voice and my awkward banter. (But seriously, you should listen to it!)

So on to today!

I had one of those awesome days where I thought I was going to be uber over on my points, but I ended up being okay! Here we go!

Breakfast: PB and toast. Always a winning combination! 8 points

Their tables have comics on them. I take a photo every time. This time: Transformers

Lunch: For lunch, I met with with one of my marketing buddies Louise at my absolute favorite place in the world: Gaines Street Pies. I also ran into Monica from Running Happily Ever After! Incidentally, I won a Sport Kilt from her blog on Sunday! Anyway, I had two slices of delicious pepperoni and meatball pizza. YERM!!!!! 19 points

Dinner: After work, my buddy Tim and I decided to hit up the driving range. There’s nothing more cathartic than aggressively hitting golf balls and them traveling to upwards of three….feet. Before I went, I had a 6 point pb sandwich.

Anyway, after we were done we went over to Tallahassee’s favorite delicious shantytown Barnicale Bill’s. I decided to go delicious and healthy with a grilled grouper sandwich. Yes, I did have fries (what? I said delicious too!) and they were fantastic. Dinner was about 16 points.

So today I got to 49 points which is only a point over! I got around 3 exercise points from golf so it all evens out in the end! See ya tomorrow.

So Biggest Loser is over on the East Coast and the BCS game might as well be over so it’s time for some FFK awesomeness!

Also, I have no clue how people on the West Coast deal with not having a show spoiled by being three hours behind. Do you guys just stay off Facebook and Twitter during the 5-8 pm PST hours? Can’t wait to have that problem one day because that will mean that I will be living on the Best Coast. Worth it.

In other news, tonight they showed Biggest Loser contestant Joe Ostaszewski working out in the weight room inside of Doak Campbell at Florida State! Then I found this article by the Tallahassee Democrat from December about how he was going to be on the BL and how he was a lineman for the Noles from 1988-1991. I’m really hoping that he will go pretty far because when Antone Davis was a finalist, he went back to the University of Tennessee, where he played college fooball, and they had a huge thing for him. That would be awesome if they did that at FSU. Either way, I’m going to try to meet him at some point. I know I sound like a Biggest Loser-crazed loon right now, but it’s such an inspiring show to me. Always has been. I remember watching it when I was newly married and eating a fast food cheeseburger thinking “shoot, I would beat them all” then I probably started wheezing because I used to eat so much so quickly that I would lose my breath. However, there were other plans for me. I took a different path to weight loss awesomeness and I have never looked back.

Oh yeah…and Bob Harper replied to one of my tweets tonight. Consider myself swooned.

Alright, let’s talk food!

Breakfast: 1/2 cup of oatmeal with a pinch of brown sugar (an actual little pinch, not a grab) and a 1/2 cup of nonfat greek yogurt with blackberries. This was definitely a “stick to your ribs” kind of breakfast, but not the “stick to your ribs” kind that sticks to your internal organs and kills you. What I’m trying to say is that it’s super filling.

Snack: A string cheese and an apple. The best snack for the 11:00 am hour.

Lunch: So for lunch we made what I’m affectionately calling “Bob’s Dump Soup” since it doesn’t have an actual name (even though it’s a recipe in Skinny Rules.) All it was was chicken broth, a bag of frozen gumbo mix veggies (Publix brand), a can of cannellini beans and a can of chickpeas. All it was missing was the pasta and it could have been the minestrone from Olive Garden. I added some red pepper flakes and crushed red peppers for a little more flavor. It was incredibly filling for only being something like 100 calories for a cup! Then I just had a piece of bread for dipping and a pineapple spear for dessert!

Snack: I had a banana with a tablespoon of peanut butter. I didn’t have a decent container for the pb so I put it in a ziploc which was pretty weird. I cut the corner with my scissors and spread the pb on the banana like I was frosting a cake. Props to my friend Melanie for giving me that idea a looooong time ago. She said that’s what she does with her hummus so it made sense for pb too!

Dinner: At this point, I hadn’t really eaten a ton of calories but I wasn’t starving at all during the day. Pretty awesome feeling. It’s nice because when you eat an afternoon snack, you don’t come home hungry and crazy. You can actually relax for a while and then think about dinner. Anyway, tonight I grilled some salmon and some squash. I brushed a little olive oil on both (I used a total of three cap fulls for three sliced up squash and three large salmon steaks) and put the salmon on some aluminum foil in the grill. I was absolutely thrilled with how it turned out. (Another reason to move to the Best Coast: I LOVE salmon. Especially the good stuff from Alaska.)

So as you can see, I did pretty well!

Okay…LAST FIVE SKINNY RULES!!!!

Rule 16: Banish High Salt Foods
I’m not really a fan of adding salt to food anyways so this isn’t a huge issue. What is an issue is how much sodium is in most foods. That’s why it’s important to read your labels!

Rule 17: Eat Your Vegetables-Just Do It!
Well…you heard the guy.

Rule 18: Go To Bed Hungry
We usually eat dinner around 6 or 7 so since that is the last thing you eat, it’s easy to go to bed hungry. I’ve always been bad about late night snacking, but I’ve just been keeping myself accountable not to snack after dinner. Even if that means not going back in to the kitchen for the rest of the night. Does that sound crazy? Probably. Awe well, it works.

Rule 19: Sleep Right
Trying to get in to that habit so let’s wrap this up so I can go to bed…

and finally…

Rule 20: Plan One Splurge Meal A Week
We did our splurge meal on Saturday at lunch which kind of turned in to a splurge day, but like I said yesterday, we weren’t crazy or anything. I am going to have to pick my splurging carefully this week because my birthday is on Sunday and I don’t want to overdo it and put me back a few steps. Food isn’t worth it to me anymore.

So that’s the whole list. What do you think?

See ya tomorrow.