Day 227 - F-18 Flyover Accomplished

Monday was owned. Food near perfect, Exercise nailed!

Queue the anthem and the F-18 flyover... Ok, maybe the fly-over would be a bit much. But that feeling of accomplishment where your are brimming with pride for a job well done, that is how my Monday came off for me. Of course you really can't get the full effect of that feeling until you wake up the next day when there is no longer any opportunity to ruin yesterday.

One key to yesterday's feel-good, how I balanced the days food. The picture there is of my lunch for Monday. Where Monday was spot-on for me is that the calories on my lunch plate exceeded those of my dinner plate. Why is that a big deal?

For so very very long (yes 2 very's) that has not been the case. Even while on this mission which has been largely successful I have struggled to avoid eating 40-50% of my days calories at dinner.

What you see there is garden salad with egg splashed with a bit of sesame oil & ranch accompanied with a bowl of veggie chili; this meal rang in at about 625 calories. My dinner (not pictured) of turkey breast (yes leftovers from Thursday) & fruit salad rang in at about 350 calories.

Over the past several months I have come to know my body fairly well. And I know it feels better, performs better, and maybe even looks better (underscore maybe) when I eat in better balance and when my mid-day meal is larger of the three meals. This I need to remember and strive for daily for what I hope are obvious reasons.

Now I am writing this post read as if such feelings of accomplishment are rare for me. Not the case, they are far more a regular part of my days these past 7+ months than ever. Such feelings of accomplishment can motivate greatly and ought to be recognized and sought after; my opinion.

Hit me with what gave you your last F-18 flyover feeling of accomplishment.

Oh, and for those who may not know what I mean by F-18 flyover, then for crying out loud get yourself to a big time football game, or better yet to a Nascar race; stand, salute, cheer & hang on... Until then just watch THIS.

Responsibility 199 - Gotta Do It!!

Day 221 - Holiday: Bring It

source

Who doesn't enjoy a holiday? Well, there are plenty of people that do not look forward to holidays for a variety of reasons. So the question instead should be who doesn't enjoy the holiday food? In less time than it takes to dredge a forkful of turkey through gravy I can answer that question myself with a I DO.  

Tomorrow is a holiday, Happy Thanksgiving in advance. We will be entertaining family and serving a very traditional Thanksgiving spread. I will say without reservation I am looking forward to the time with family and also the food that will surround us like a coyote would surround a helpless rabbit. Bring it on I say!

Getting healthy, I say bring that on too. And I've been bringing it since April. Is getting healthy hard work? Absolutely! Is it difficult? To a degree it is especially when getting started and sifting through the mazes of how to do it.

We are humans, so it is natural that we make most everything we do more difficult than it really is. On holidays, we can really make a twist out of enjoying the day while staying healthy. I have done it as recently as this past Independence Day and Easter. Fretting over the menu or the buffet that would be there that day; spending the day doing a careful tip toe through the maze of food before me.

I am not, NOT, doing that tomorrow or ever again. I am not making holiday's difficult anymore because they shouldn't be. Simply, what we do everyday is what we should do holidays. Sure, the food on a holiday is different in that it is more tempting. But our approach to the food that day should be no different than any other day. Practice the same good sense where portion size and nutrient balance is concerned. Don't make it any harder than that.

Enjoy whatever food it is that is part of your holiday within the same guidelines you'll apply to your food today, and the day after the holiday.

By the way, what is going to be on your holiday table?

Responsibility 199 - Gotta Do It!!

Day 212 - Judging My SEE

Today is day-1 of today's mission to be healthier, tomorrow will be day-1 of tomorrow's mission. That is what I posted to twitter this morning. It is true as cheese tastes better than chalk. Success yesterday doesn't bring with it a guarantee of success today. Yesterday's success does provide reason to believe you can succeed today, but not a guarantee.

In kicking off today's mission I am looking to the word judgement. This morning I sit here reflecting and judging myself, specifically my success over the past few weeks. Yes, I have made progress; but not at the pace I desire. In my reflection I believe that I can and should expect to achieve at my desired pace. The reasons I have not come from honest judgement of my actions.

In weighing the facts of my actions I honestly cannot find issue with exercise, I am getting that done. The bottom line is that my eating remain inconsistent. I write this at the risk of sounding like a broken KC and the Sunshine Band record; awful broken or not but terribly annoying to listen to broken as it skips the same line over and over.

It does no good to judge through the facts, and then not decide on a solution. And I have that, I stated it two weeks ago when the month started and I scripted how I will SEE November. In judging myself here I struck-through the lines on my plan where I have not executed consistently. I need to look no further than them for reason and solution. Here is that plan...

Set for November if a goal to Weigh-In on Nov. 30th (a special Tuesday w/i for me) at 249.5 or less. My scale reads in tenths, but I record in 1/2 pound increments and I round the tenths up to the next 1/2, so 249.6 will not cut it, 249.5 it must be.

Establish a plan could be as easy as just doing what I have been, here is my plan...

1. No Fast Food, Candy, or similar food as poor in quality
2. Exercise 5x week; 2x Cardio & 2x Strength & 1 Flexibility Workout (that will be new for me)
3. Drink 2 liters, or more, of water a day
4. Participate in #NovGTD, log my miles and tweet it up each day
5. Calorie intake will be no more that 2000 calories and carb controlled
6. Avoid inducing fasting response, eat 6x a day; 3meals and 3 snacks
7. Eat breakfast at home to avoid skipping it
8. Take fruit to work for snacks to avoid grabbing poor quality snacks at the office coffee shop
9. Every other lunch at work will be a visit to the salad bar which is a treat since it is a good one
10. Plan out evening meals to avoid creating last minute high-calorie dinners of convenience

Execute the plan.


I do not need a new plan.
I do not need to reinvent how to get healthy.
I do need to execute the plan I have.
I do need to remember that I know how to do this and I believe that I can achieve my goals at I desire pace.

Today is day-1 of today's mission to be healthier...

 

What is your plan for today?

Responsibility 199 - Gotta Do It!!

Day 74 - Semi Complete

The last day of June is here. Half of 2010 is just hours away from being history. Did you hear me; HALF! Where does the time go?

Seriously; Where does the time go?

For me it used to get thrown away waiting 6 cars deep in a drive-thru line for a Big Mac value meal and 2 double-cheeseburgers off of that lovely dollar menu (where was that when I was in college?). The doubles were my appetizer before the Big Mac main feast; anyone else do that before?

Time was also given up to watching hours, 4-5 hours an evening, of TV. Crap like reality shows and how-to shows. Did I really need to learn taxidermy & how to grout tile on the same day? Will there ever be a time I do either; let alone do them both on the same day?

Oh let's not forget those hours I punted by napping on weekends if I didn't have anything else to do or because I was stuffed from stuffing my face. Just how relaxed does one person need to be? Plus dreams from naps aren't as good anyhow.

That's where too much of my time used to go to waste when this year began. Today Big Mac's have been replaced by balanced & portion controlled choices, most TV time has been replaced by blogging, and extra sleep has been replaced by weight lifting & walking.

How is today different for you from your days just six months ago?

Did you make any resolutions on Jan. 1, 2010 (I didn't) and if so how are you doing against them?

Responsibility 199 - Gotta Do It!!

Day 58 - Change #8

As I noted yesterday I did order my new laptop computer back as my reward for attaining & holding 20% progress, it should arrive in a week or two tops. It slipped my mind last week to mention that I had posted my progress pictures for hitting 20% progress. So far so good, I see a bit more progress in these latest pictures. Next set will come when I get to 30% progress.

Want to see a real cool before and after set. Just Look HERE at John's before and after! I read a few articles about his loss, none go into any detail on how he did it other than stating it was diet and exercise that helped him lose more than 100 pounds.

The word diet can mean many things; was John on a certain diet program or regimen? Perhaps a FAD diet of pre-boxed foods, pills or anything other commercial product we'll soon see him as a spokesperson for? Or was good ole eating balanced, portion controlled meals John's method of success? How about John's exercise, did he just get out there and move his body? Or did he Tae-Bo his loss away?

Celebs who have rapid body transformations and do it without surgery usually have allot of help getting it done. Generally they can afford to hire the best trainers, nutritionists, personal chefs, etc. to get the job done. Good for them for being able to do so. Certainly I wish I could dump a bunch of dollars, and added time, into getting this done smarter and faster. But we know that is not necessary. A slow, steady, disciplined approach to exercise with balanced & portion controlled eating will get the job done. I'm just curious what John did. Oh, and King Ralph is still one of his better movies in my silly opinion.

Changing subjects to the subject of change. It is time for another change to be added to the list of those I intend to commit to. This latest change...

Change 8...

• Drink 2 liters of water a day

Really, is this really necessary? Honestly I have no idea how much water one should drink or whether or not increase water intake really helps shed weight. Recently I read that you should take in 1/2 ounces of water per pound of body weight each day. Yeah, sorry but I doubt I have ever drank over a gallon of water a day which is what the math here would come out to for me.

This change makes sense to me because I have found on days I drink a liter during the day at work and then another in the late afternoon through the evening I have better days. With the water in the gut those voices that would have me believe I am hungry are not as loud. Yes, I am in the USA, so why liters? My water bottle is a 1 liter bottle. Fill from the Brita UltraMax dispenser I purchased just for this & placed in our refrigerator each morning before I leave and then again when I get home, that's the plan.

Do you drink a predetermined amount of water daily?

Responsibility 199 - Gotta Do It!!

Day 52 - You Are What You Portion

What is in a portion size? Everything quite simply. Every calorie you choose is in that portion, whether it be a little or a lot. Portion little, you will be littler than the person who portions larger. Generally speaking that is without due comparison to activity levels, etc.

Being large, I've been there and still am to be honest. Just not as large as 52 days ago. Going large at every opportunity, that was me. Large steaks, large ice cream sundaes, large tubs or movie pop corn. Portioning large was my way of life. Go large I did, all the way to a 320 pound body.

Finally I seem to have this portioning thing figured out. Engaging in a bit of simple 'than & now' comparison really drives this learning in for me.

A 20 ounce steak, or 2 thick cut pork chops, or 3 bratwursts; that was how I used to portion meat. A healthy serving of meat is 2 - 3 ounces or some say visualize a deck of cards.

A 4 egg omelet or 4 fried eggs; that was how I used to portion eggs. A healthy serving of eggs is half that, two. You can visualize two eggs I hope :-)

Italian restaurants, so much to gobble up there while waiting for the entree to arrive. Especially Bread! Easily 4 - 6 bread sticks, or half of the loaf in that basket is what I would draw through a saucer of oil & parm; that was how I used to portion bread. A healthy serving of bread is a single slice of the typical white, or better yet a whole grain bread. Look at one slice, and move on.

Chinese or Japanese restaurants, they are so much fun especially in buffet form. Rice used to land on my plate in 2 - 3 cup servings and I'd have 2 - 3 servings in a sitting; that was how I used to portion rice. A healthy serving of rice one-half of one cup or some say visualize a golf ball. Fore!

Oh I shouldn't ignore fruit & veggies in my reflection here should I? Fill up my 20 ounce glass to the rim with orange juice please, or give me any amount of veggies as long as it is covered in a cup of cheese sauce; that was how I used to portion fruit & veggies. A healthy serving of fruit or vegetables is one piece of whatever you are having, without the cheese sauce tsunami. Ok, eating a whole pumpkin (considered one piece) is way more than 1 serving. A healthy serving of juice is 6 ounces, that is six shots of OJ for my fellow whisky drinkers.

Folks, I got large because I ate large. Me, I did it, nobody else, sad as it is to confess. But the good news is that today, from now on I potion to be healthy and I do feel this is making a difference. I so look forward to experiencing the difference of being truly healthy.

Make sense? Do you see portion discipline as an important factor in the state of your health?

Responsibility 199 - Gotta Do It!

Day 35 - What Today

Saturday is here. Saturday, what oh what shall I do this Saturday? What, I really have no idea. Saturday's are when we usually run a variety of errands, but maybe today we won't. All I know for certain is I need to find something fun to work into the day. I'm sure we'll figure it out.

So yesterday I was not in the mood to chat about exercise, food intake and that lot of usual subjects; it was Friday. Today, we'll give that serious stuff some time...

EXERCISE > I've been getting in daily exercise most of this week.Yesterday I set the treadmill for a 500 calorie burn and completed that in 57:24 minutes covering a distance of 2.75 miles. That was the first time I set the treadmill to go until I hit 500 calories, so I have no idea if that is a good time or not. Having covered 2.75 miles caught my attention more so than the time. I didn't plan to use the treadmill but my elliptical had a bolt break so I need to get to the hardware store and fix that. Put that on the list for today! Hope I can fix it, hate to think it can't keep up with me :-) Today I'm going to go for a walk around the Rollin's Savannah Forest Preserve which has a 3.5 mile loop walk/run/bike trail around it. That will be a challenge for me but I feel up to it. My wife is off on a challenge of her own doing a 5k walk with some friends from work. So there is our exercise planned for today.

FOOD > I've been eating good lately; a good sense of balanced nutrition and portioned right. What is that you say; what about the lasagna? That was Thursday night's indulgence but I had just a single serving, and not a huge hunk for a serving at that. Heck, it may have been the smallest hunk I've ever put on my plate. It was awesome and I could have had 2, 3, 4 more hunks for sure. But I held back, I didn't have any of the cheezy-garlic bread, just that single serving of heavenly lasagna. We had watermelon too for a light side dish to the lasagna and I did eat some of that up. Other than that meal, I've done well all week I believe. Tonight, I feel some fish coming on tonight. That is if the grocery store has anything fresh and inviting on hand. Tomorrow is weigh-in day, we'll see how the week's exercise and eating translates onto the scale.

I'm not the only one who weighs-in. Here is another one of our cats, this is Nacho.

A few weeks back he settled into this bucket at the vet for his own weigh-in, he weighs 11.2 lbs which the Vet said is perfect. Hmmm, if 11.2 is perfect I have a heck of a lot more weight to lose than I thought.

Saturday is happening, go gett'em people!

Responsibility 199... Gotta Do It!!

Day 25 - Mad Cat

My wife & I have 4 kids, all teenagers. Yeah I know, what were we thinking? We also have 4 cats. Yeah I know, just how hard did we hit our heads?



One of our cats, Crush (pictured), has a lot of dog in him. His primary canine trait is that he begs for food while we eat dinner. And because we apparently hit our heads rather hard we will indulge him with a small bite or two at most meals. Meat, just about any meat, he works those big eyes hard for a taste.



As of late Crush has not been so happy. For 25 days now he hasn't been getting the goodies as he used to. Simply our meals have been healthier; more veggies, fruits, better grains and a bit less meat. Just a bit less. Getting healthy or not, I am a carnivore; always will be. However since I've been eating portion-wise I have been less generous in giving into his pandering. Poor Crush; he can get healthy too.

Tuesday was a good day. Ate good, didn't exercise though. After four days in a row getting the exercise in I decided to take a day off. My lazy-boy needed me you could say.

Stairs, a quick stair thought. Recall my change #2 was to take the stairs at work. And I have been doing so, two or three times a day. Yesterday I ascended the four times; my first four-peat! May not sound like much but I got a small 'Oh Yeah' out of it.

Busy day today; work, lunch with a colleague, dinner with one of my sons, then a school event with another son. I'm ready for it and I'll have it my way, healthy!

Its hump day, what are going to do with it?

Responsibility 199... Gotta Do It!!

Day 8 - 2% Progress

Happy Sunday to all; Sunday is weigh in day for me. Good news is that I lost weight this week - whoo hoo! Bad news, no doubt I left some of my potential one week progress on the dinner table last night at Maggianos. Overall, I didn't over indulge last night as I would have in the past especially at such a great restaurant. However I certainly ate more than a man on a mission to lose a large amount of weight should have eaten. Oh, I weigh 317 pounds today!

In reflection on week one, Maggianos aside, I did well on the eating for balance & portion. To aid in reflection and keeping myself honest on food intake I have been keeping an eating log. Just a small notebook where I jot down what I eat and when. With it I use one of the classic white & blue plastic Bic pens with four ink colors to choose from. If what I've ate is well balanced and portioned then it goes in the book in green ink. If it was just OK, not bad or great; then blue ink. And if I've missed the mark entirely then red ink it is. For the past week I have 4 such entries in red. Not surprisingly two of these are restaurant visits; Bill's Pub & Maggianos. The other two were evening slips, also not surprisingly, where I took liberty to enjoy this Russian dessert my son made for a school project. I forget the name of it but it was a highly sugary & fatty little treat. Otherwise many green entries and a few blues fill my log for week one.

As for exercise I exercised just once, yesterday, which of course wont cut it going forward. My intent is to add more exercise in week two and begin to put a routine together. Going to need help with good routines for someone just starting such a mission.  

With an initial 2% weight loss one might expect that I should plan on this mission taking 50 weeks. But we all know that's not an exact correlation I can make. When I started this I figured this will take between 1 & 2 years; so if I do accomplish it in 50 weeks I'll exceed expectations. Something to hope & strive for.

Looking at he picture above I know it is hard to see the 2% loss from Day 1 to Day 8, but trust me there is 2% less width there. Going to be less width a week from now too!

Goals for the coming week will be to have less red entries and exercise more than week one.

Responsibility 199... Gotta Do It!!

Day 3 - Portion & Balance

Yesterday was good day. I ate at good intervals and ate well portioned & balanced meals. For good portions sizes I am shooting for simply trying to follow serving sizes as recommended on packaging. For good balance I am shooting for meals that aren't too high in anyone of either fat, protein or carbs. Having dieted many times before I have a decent sense of when a food item or a meal is unbalanced; at least I think I do.

At present I am not following any specific diet plan or any of the zillion commercially sold programs. In the past I have tried and followed a few. Some worked well for a while, others didn't. But I failed them all in the end; yes I chose to abandon those efforts and cannot say that any of them would not have worked through to my goal had I chose to stick with them. Therefore we (my wife & I are as we are trying to lose weight together) have decided to take it day by day by just eating better. She is being a bit more strict than I am as she has established a daily target of no more than 1,200 calories. For me that number seems low and I want to believe if I stay away from the food that is obviously too fatty, carby, or both; and maintain portion discipline then I should be Ok. Should be that is; perhaps wishful thinking on my part.

To help hedge my thinking I am keeping a food log in a small notebook. If I don't see the progress that I need I can go back to that and calculate the nutrition information and see where my thought here may be flawed. As a hedge to giving into temptation to eat poorly when we are hungry and don't know what to eat we have decided to add some menu planning discipline. Basically coming up with a list of menu choices for breakfast & dinner daily, we both eat lunch in our respective work cafeterias, and sticking to what we have planned. This should help the madness of grocery shopping too; I hate grocery shopping so anything that gets it accomplished quicker is all good in my eyes.

Portion & balance is what is on my mind today. I hope my thinking on them is right and will contribute to my success. Should know in a week or so.

Responsibility 199... Gotta do it!!