Cheater!

gahhh! fruit? on a low car diet? well technically no you shouldn't but if you are going to live like this for a couple years, you need some antioxidants and whatnot that don't come from a pill.

this is an actual pic of the actual ramekin of blueberries i ate

i'm not going to hell

lightening didn't strike

key is when i'm 'cheating' i dont cheat big, i try to do this and when i do this i try not to go heavy on the heap on the butter fat side of low carb, those are leanish otherwise good days.

happy living!

epic noms keep ya goin

Salmon, normandy mix, curry powder and something creamy like alfredo, but half and half is great, coconut milk etc.

the great thing about this kind of recipe is that its quick, easy and flexible, i could have done this with cheap salmon burger patties (relative to filet) brats, leftover burrito meat, spam if yer into that, and for the most part its dump dump heat up, simmer, just toss it in there, don't try to give it a name or measure anything, very satisfying and filling and nummayy.






If you don't yet know that you like curry, work your way up, for some westerners this flavor can be offensive when its at full volume but after you've been to a dozen concerts you'll find you crave the stuff like chocolate at times.

this might be because the turmeric in curry actually shrinks tumors, yes, this epic meal right here is the cure for many cancers, google that shit, people in india eat curry all the damn time and they don't get nearly as much of many forms as we do.  read this example blah blah blah i'm not a doctor disclaimer.

Lunch and DINNER!!!!!

so this looks like a small amount of food.  i used to always fill up much bigger containers and try to eat it all but generally the low carbish action is really dense and after not very long this much food (bout the size of a hotel cereal bowl) is plenty if you are getting enough water (exhibit a)

this is 2 different wierd looking couldnt identify them leftover things of chicken i found in the fridge, the rest of my normandy mix from costco, maeploy red curry paste ( a lot ) and water this time instead of coconut milk.

its a little bit too salty, probably what was already on the chicken but palatable and the last thing you want when you are eating it daily is boring and plain so err on the side of too spicy imho.

anyway what is far more important about this meal is that i've been having it for lunch for a week and a half, you see that carrot there? thats not really 'on the diet' but yea, there's only one of those puppies in this bowl theres some squash too, thats not so bad and its not a lot of food and there's no sugar and there's no bread.

so today is much like the last 6 work days but what makes today special enough to post about? dinner last night! my brother came to town on business, he gets these junkets once in awhile that afford him a short visit before getting back on a plane and dinner is on the junkets tab so we had some of that omfg food. even then, i made choices, skipped the bread and croutons, ate the lettuce and bacon, had some escargot with buttery nom nom happy sauce, a filet mignon with crab and bearnaise on top, a cesar salad, WATER then bent a bit and did that cheesecake again.  bro had this chocolate madness that he later said had no flour, ingredients seemed very much on the plan so i had like 3 spoonfuls, insanely delicious.  however, me thinks it had way more sugar than it let on, metabolic boost actually gave me a sweaty fever for a couple hours.

so last time i was 'on the diet' I would have though, oh jeez, i screwed up, i cheated, hell i'm already off, man i should woof a massive bowl of cereal the next morning, whats one more day? well i can tell you what it is, its one more week, month, a few years and 75lbs back on your body.  the guilt of that is not useful, what is useful is having zero guilt over having a nice dinner with my bro.  he comes to town once or twice a year, maybe there's a birthday or thanksgiving or a bbq where i bend and have a corn bread muffin but in each case i make sure to enjoy, not deprive and continue to be making choices and more importantly the next day i'm eating what you see here, day in and day out.

happy living!

sugar vs fat - splenda, probiotics....

So there's sugar in EVERYTHING its insane sure we all know theres 20lbs of sugar magically crammed into one 12oz coke but shit like bread and ketchup and vitamin water everywhere you look sugar.

one of the things i've changed is the need for everything to taste sweet, sometimes i use splenda to balance the flavors of something spicy or often for that first cup of coffee but even though its 'zero calorie' its got other problems (read this) splenda's not so splendid - does a better job that i can. basically we are all so fat because we have wiped out our good bacteria with things like this and of course antibiotics.  now very recently a doc giving you a zpack might tell at least a woman to just eat some yogurt to keep from getting a yeast infection, what i now understand is that that is like putting on some ray-bans when a nuclear bomb goes off.

yeast going nuts can cause a seemingly unending list of problems and there's little yeast likes more than sugar and hates more than good bacteria and we are all doing a fantastic job giving it everything it wants and its doing a great job making sure we feel like WE want that.  its like when your baby in yer belly demands chocolate milk when you really don't even like that (true story)

this is worth a watch, its splattered with f'ing ads and in the end they want to sell you an expensive probiotic which might very well be worth it but if nothing else its a good education that can lead you to your own research on the subject watch here - candida overgrowth epidemic - .

Dad the baddy when he was 28

Worse than that, in very extreme cases it can actually kill you. 20 some odd years in hindsight lack of good bacteria actually killed my father.  He flew 6,000 hours in a nav chair of C-130 cargo plane, stood with his hands in the air in front of 50 M-16s in bogota, pioneered navigating over the magnetic north pole using only the stars and thats all the stuff we are allowed to know about as he worked for those spookie kinda peeps back in the day that exposed him to god knows what.  17 trips into vietnam taking AA every time and the list goes on.  way too young he got sudden onset acute leukemia.  though he died only 6 weeks from the onset of his first symptoms neither the leukemia or even the chemo killed him.

They kept giving him different antibiotics to make sure he didn't become resistant and get infected and one day when he seemed to be doing okish, program working and probably giving him at least a few more months of life they gave him a new one. suddenly his lungs filled with yeast and they had to intubate by the time I was able to fly in he'd gone from "its not like i'm going to die or anything" to unable to open his eyes or speak ever again, took about 4 days to take down a pretty badass dude.

From what I understand today, a massive dose of probiotics might have actually saved his life.  now this sounds like yet another one of those ooh now you have to take THIS vitamin because its all the rage. but this stuff is normally living in your gut its a massive and critical part of your internal ecosystem and we are killing it.

some of the evidence I have is going on atkins has always and has this time as well totally removed the need to take ranitidine, omeprazole, flovent and albuterol yea, massive acid reflux AND even with that treated COPD, all that shit, gone because I don't eat bread or sugar. (oh yea and major bonus, my blood pressure, heart rate, blood sugar and everything else are all fantastic and i havent even started exercising yet) but wait, there's more! those antacids also are now shown to cause a B12 deficiency and that is shown to cause peripheral neuropathy which i have, diagnosed by the same docs that said taking those antacids til the cows come home was just dandy despite the label. thanks.  anyway, in theory that doesn't ever get better but by stopping those it shouldn't get worse.

on top of that after watching that video I decided to try out some probiotics, they did wonders for my wife and i both, since we were already low carb much of the difference we had already achieved but a very very noticeable shift in digestion and more than that not just energy, not that coffee zing feeling but like alert clarity like a massive fog had lifted.

those were 100 billion live organism 34 strain REFRIGERATED! probiotics, the max out wamma jamma at a whopping $38 for 30 days for one person, ouch! so when those ran out we scored some at costco, non refrigerated, 20billion (10bil is the recommended) for $20something and it was like 3mo supply for 1 person.  I can tell that they are helping and maybe when my body is all the way there those would be good enough to maintain balance but i'd say they are about 1/10th as effective.  key thing is i can really feel it and that is even with the very strong bias of i really want the cheaper stuff to work.  $38 is going to sting but i'm gonna do it.
Here's some i found online that are the ones i'm going to go back to taking come payday, I get them at my local organic grocery, I don't recommend doing online if you can avoid it because the cool pack might not last long enough to really keep all them critters alive, you'll still get some benefit but for starters you really want the max.

sweet in the coffee.  i have to add splenda to my first cup but then i just suffer with bitter.  there's a couple joints around here (seattle area) that do the super duper ultra just roasted action (ahem, hint starbucks aint one of them) they are boutique joints. long story short good beans that were just roasted within the last 5 days (today is better) you wouldn't even recognise.  you can make an espresso straight up with nothing added at all and it is actually very sweet AND creamy tasting.  all that bitter that you are throwing gut wrecking sugar and farty makin milk on comes from the fact that that shit is OLD. blech. well i aint that rich so i've learned to take my drug bitter like a good little boy but if you've got the means, ditch the additives and go for the fresh gold

happy living!

weeknight dinnertime, this is howya dooo it.

Dinner last night was great noms, weekday tired notalottatime get er done kinda deal.  but get into a nice rhythm and its easy to be good.

salad, just iceburg, slices of cucumber whole sliced avocado, so far 100% low carb action.  but I also got a tomato, most of it went to the non-dieters but i put like 4 chucks on my salad too, all about feeling satisfied without going overboard.

the only thing i'm skipping that i used to like is croutons, love the crunch, cucumber slathered in ranch comes close enough.

side of that i had 3 johnsonville brats that were leftover from the night before. [pikchur comin soon]

each day you have to imagine, what if i always ate like this, what if I was still doing this exercise or eating this way 10 years from now, if you can't imagine 'hanging on that long' you're doing it wrong, maybe you wont have to but when you are pulling against yourself hard enough that you feel that way you set yourself up for failure, this aint so bad is the mantra.

parallel to that is losing say 2lbs in 6 weeks where you were losing 10 or 12 before, that aint so bad has to go along with that.  sure you want to get there sooner, just not at the cost of never getting there, 2 years from now do you want to be vibrant and fit and fast and FUN? if you quit that wont happen, if you stay on that horse however slow, you will get there.

the other thing is that there's this goal in mind, and goals are good but they have a sneaky way of making us not really appreciate the journey or even the great destinations along the way.

good example, little guy likes to go down to the yearly local '....fest' used to be we'd drop him and his big brother off cruise around and fetch them when they were out of steam and money.  last year we moved to where its only a couple miles away which is nice but at some point his big bro finally flew the nest off to chart his own course elsewhere.  so this year little guy is digging for who can take him, everyone is busy or cant be reached or..... and he starts getting really sad and upset til I say to him, I don't know exactly about the timing and the parade and whatnot but i'm sure that at some point this weekend i can take you.  but dad? your back, your knees, your feet? not a problem anymore kid, i'm good.

we were out walking around for at least 4 hours, 5miles, up and down hills, standing, going on rides, something i could not have done a year ago.  I'm not 'there' i'm not fit, i'm still 'really fat' but so what, my kid just got a huge amount of 'dad' added back to his life.

that there's gold kids.

happy living!

Fathers day brunch and the prescient score

MMMM cheeez blintzeseses! (said in smeagols voice)

So i got ot have this awesome fathers day brunch with my 11 year old son, his eyes were as big as saucers as were mine when we soaked in all the possibilities.  we both loaded up way too much on our plates but ultimately did ok.

One mindset to overcome is but i've spent so much money i must eat all that i possibly can! fooey.  You'll be even hungrier for dinner if you stuff yourself, you really really aren't saving a dime by woofing til it hurts.  so, diet, buffet, nightmare! not really.  I wasn't strict but I also wasn't that lax.  I loaded up on eggs (didn't eat them, ick) eggs benedict, planned on not eating the english muffin, ended up eating none of it, wasn't tasty (see, skip it if it isnt good!)

ate a pound of  bacon. mmmmm.

honey walnut shrimp mmmm (see now there's some sugar but honey - hopefully) and that's no candy bar.

cheese blintzes a plenty, went back for seconds, sure there's some sugar in there but its eggs wrapped around cream cheese, now compare that to say a waffle or french toast? previously i'd kill for those but now, not really worth it especially since i can have something soooo good and not be doing all that bad.  really the biggest cheat was 5 strawberries with the non-cheat of redi-whip (check that action out on the low carb thing, its much joy, just dont over do it)

all told I have no idea how many carbs i had, but i wasn't stuffed and what I ate didn't expand later (any bread or rice or potato type thing will stretching out your stomach making you more hungry later)

most importantly though, i didn't go 'off' any 'diet' even if ultimately i totally binged my mindset was not like that at all, I was making choices based on my new lifestyle making sure not to feel like i was gorging OR depriving myself on a special day.

next day i'm back to sausage patty's and protein shake for breakfast chicken and veggies for lunch, back when i did this before the mindset would be eh, i already 'screwed up' anyway, whats one more 'cheat' day? bad bad bad mindset.

The key mentality to have is not how much did i lose or how perfect have i been but how much have i really honestly stuck to my own plan? for me, I haven't deviated an inch in 6.5 months because I gave myself a plan that was not super hard to stick to for at least a couple years.  you have to think, honestly, can someone who eats like this and moves like this day in and day out for 24 months possibly still weigh x or possibly still have difficulty tying shoes or walking downtown... no way, so who cares if you stall one way or another if you stick to the plan you will get there inevitably.


That being said, the universe jumped out at me.
This puppy jumped out on the highway the day before
covered in dirt and birdshit it was not too hard to talk the guy into taking $60 for it, these go for $1300-$2k online so this was an unbelievably good deal.

like many things, sure you could just use a brick or do pushups or... but again this makes me feel like i'm not depriving myself while still not just throwing a fortune at something i might not stick to, load on the guilt, woof down another sheet of brownies action, nope, not a lot spent and the whole family can use this.

i'd been thinking about scoring one of these for a few months, need to tone those muscles to get the most enjoyment out of skiing when i get to the lightness i need for that as well but now that I have stalled a bit on weight loss i've got some pretty simple stark choices, knuckle down on the intake (booo!) or bump up the jam on the burn side. simplest way might be to just keep carrying around all that extra weight in a backpack but my body was not loving that before, not sure i want to experience that any longer than I have to, so get my butt out of bed 45min earlier and get on this puppy is the plan.

now, at this point you're saying puh, if i had that kind of motivation i'd already be there. if you haven't started yet on your journey this isn't for you...yet.  I'll share later the stuff i did to drop that 50 but thats something i've done before and maybe you have too, maybe several times thats not the problem that needs solving its the what now and thats why i'm getting this down, this is the new territory, the psychology I need to crack to get where i want to be.  its a process, its a shift in lifestyle, not from sloth to jock but from lower activity to living more.  its gradual, little shifts here and there.  one of the biggest hurdles we face is that what would do a great job at maintaining the level of fitness and energy you want cannot be done when you are starting out, every exercise you can think of is painful so i did absolutely none up to now, just the diet shift, modified atkins (no ketosis) now that i can move more easily and I have a lot more energy, looking at this thing doesn't make me groan.

when i get to my goal i might find that I'm able to do so much mountain biking, skiing, golfing that I can be far less good about what i'm eating but likely money and time will stop me from doing any of those nearly enough so having built of a routine that can keep me there will allow me to really enjoy those on the rare occasion that I can get out there and do it.

happy living!

belly bag of dog food and the 24/7 workout

As i stood there in line holding this 50lb bag of dog food my feet began to hurt, then a lot, my back grew sore, i was strong enough to hold it for a long time, the muscles were all there to go the distance but the sheer weight of my body holding up all that weight was painful.  6 months ago i could run up a flight of stairs, ride a bike 7 miles with THIS permanently on my belly.

try to remember how strong you are, also try to realize how much more of a workout you get just by existing, grab a 5lb sack of sugar and walk around with it, you get that workout just going down the hall to the bathroom, you are doing triathlon training just walking to the bus or climbing the stairs. ask some skinny hot shot jock to achieve their feats with a backpack full of sand that weighs as much as the extra weight you have on.  chances are you are stronger than them and without the weight you could probably go farther, your killer workout is 24/7.

the problem im having now is that mine is THIS much less, i think thats why i have stalled a bit, its just so much easier to do my daily stuff that i'm no longer getting as massive a workout, to that end i've added a bowflex to the basement, scored it off the side of the road for $60, dirty as hell but i'm just going to sweat on it anyway, get up 45min earlier and build me some strength and agility.  I don't care that i might actually gain weight from building muscle, its critical to remember that or you will get discouraged and give up, if you are like me that emotion, discouragement is responsible for 80% of your weight.

i'll post some pics of the new gym later and what i've learned on how to use it, also going to start a post where i just keep adding things i eat, maybe even throw in a video or two on how to make some really good eats that make it easy to get through the dreaded work lunch every day and still be on track.

happy living!

50 pounds in.....

344

Yay another picture of a fat guy and later a picture of a skinny guy or maybe a chubby guy in between.

I was going to call this blog 50 pounds in but that was taken, not like i didnt think of journaling yet another salvo at losing weight...again... but i figured, who the hell cares, we all do this, I only want to share when i feel like hey! i'm on to something.  I am, and what i'm really on to is how to shed all that crap about try THIS diet do this exercise blah blah blah and your doc will tell you well if you stick to this you will get that and so when you dont its your fault feel guilty have another sheet of brownies rah rah rah.

first can we all agree to stop taking advice from skinny people? i mean really stfu, ok if you used to be massive maybe i will listen but even then i'm sorry but 'i dont work have independent wealth and lost weight eating gourmet food and hiking in my tropical back yard, good for you, that is great but how the hell does that help me?

294

I'm 44, I've got 3 boys and an amazing wife.  new years i clocked in at 344lbs sure i'm 6'5" but dayum, i've got a doctors scale and it was 6lbs from telling me to piss off.  Its june, i'm 294 now, have been for a month.

my life is very challenging, with my commute my normal work day is 12 hours, I do the shopping, cooking, cleaning, tech support at home, car repairs you name it, I have no time and even less money.  I live paycheck to eh, bout monday after payday.

I'm not bitching, I love my kids and my wife and are are still nuts about each other after 14 years, I'll take all this stress over the hollow lives that so many people suffer.  I only tell you how hard it is because its essential to you being able to say "i can do this". every person I've ever seen succeed has had major advantages over me, time and money are huge, access to tools etc... every time, i feel like oh, yea, well, not me. damn.

then there's the reality of what stress does to you, it makes you "go. off. the. diet." ugh. or "i cheated" or "i had a cheat day..." stop that. stop, don't even start working on your body til you can shed some major mindsets that we've all been programmed to think.

130lbs to freedom.  its not about that number, i put that there because that's what you will connect with only to tear you away from it.

When i was a teenager i was a ski instructor and extreme skier, I was an athlete.  I could ski 12 hours a day for 17 days straight, i could wrestle 5 tiny kids and a rope tow for 5 hours a day and consume 9000 calories a day without gaining an ounce except to add even more muscle to my already massive thighs.

in my 20s i worked in a furniture warehouse for years, got pretty buff, added big arms and big shoulders to those legs.  then i moved to sales, on my feet but less lifting and sweating. then a major bout with depression over a blind siding cheating break up with my fiance (+30lbs in a month) but the doozy was when i got paid to think, i'm a geek, I hack shit, my index finger moves more than the rest of my body all day long.

I added kids to my life, money, poof, gone.  out the window with that? eating well.  I was never great about eating lite, i was used to eating like a jock but i was focused on quality but with kids, screw yourself, grab the top ramen, eat taco bell hot sauce packets for lunch before you let them go hungry (there should be a daddy scout badge for that one) and on the pounds came.

so, a couple times we did the atkins diet, its awesome, amazing, it does really really work and very fast and its not nearly as hard to stick to as any other.

but.

oh, wedding, we'll go off for that, wait bbq at so-n-sos after that ok lets take 'off' the whole month.... same old exact boring stupid story as every one else, lost 50lbs in only six months, yay, gained it all back + a buttload more in another 6 months booooooo!

so why bother trying?

keep making new mistakes.  this is true for most things in life. so the mindset of i need to go back 'on' the diet and just try harder is bullshit, it doesnt work. and this is really key, its not about what the docs say and its not about the detailed plan that gets broken its about what can you personally realllly stick to?

and thats where the numbers come in, 130lbs lost puts me at something like 214, thats roughly what i probably weighed the last time i skied and it didn't kick my ass, i haven't skied in years.

this is what you need to think about, what is your "I just want to ski again" ? screw i want to be a size ... or weigh x c'mon! really? dont know about you but middle age is a time of freedom where you can stop worrying about that crap ok? you want to go dancing, you want to take the kids to the beach, you want to go shopping at the mall and not think about people staring at you you want that hug where their arms fit around you. you want to RUN!

let that be your guide.

THE SCALE

my scale is in my garage downstairs, its very very rare that i can actually do a pure full up underwear only in the morning after i peed weigh in. remove the scale from your bathroom, seriously throw it away if you have to DO NOT weigh yourself daily, at the very most weekly but far better is monthly.  I haven't lost a pound in a month but i don't care, i went to pennys the other day and grabbed a suit coat of the rack in the 'normal' people section and just put it on, just threw it over slid it down and buttoned it. it felt fabulous. i cannot tell you how many times i've gotten stuck because everything was too fat or gotten sticker shock at the big and tall store or had those extenders put in to get a tux rental for a wedding, humiliating! but i just put it on and it felt sooo nice. man did that make me smile. NOT some number on some machine, the feel of a suit, the sprint up the stairs, thats what matters. trust me.

so in this blog I will try to share what i've learned and more along the way, what i do when i'm broke, when i have no time and just how far off the map i can go to put one thing ahead of another: staying on my lifestyle change way over thinking "i'm on a diet" when you feel deprived its not long before you 'cheat' like, you shouldnt have regular peanut butter or an insane amount of alcohol but, those vs a snickers?

best example so far: my birthday, 3 months in, dreg, what a downer! I cant have anything herumph! nope, I had cheesecake and avoided the crust because it was very little wheat, less carbs, less sugar but really reallly good and rewarding, I didnt feel cheated and THAT is what made a week of 'good' stuff easy to stick to thereafter.

I'm also a great freestyle cook, I'll share some ideas, probably not 'recipes' those are instructions and I hate instructions, i'm an artist dammit :)  but you square folks i'm sure can codify these as you go and nail them down to that pretty bullet pointed stuff.

happy living!