musings on health and fitness

dinner

2012-01-01T18:46:00.000-08:00

shishito peppers as an appetizer, braised beef shank, and spinach

snack

2012-01-01T18:43:00.001-08:00

couple of slices of bacon leftover from the kids breakfast and a handful of raw mixed nuts

http://pedersonsfarms.com/products/bacon/uncured-hickory-smoked-bacon/

breakfast

2012-01-01T08:23:00.000-08:00

fasting this morning, but cooked bacon and eggs for the kids

http://pedersonsfarms.com/products/bacon/uncured-hickory-smoked-bacon/
http://www.organicvalley.coop/products/eggs/omega3extralarge/

past the halfway mark

2009-07-18T04:00:00.001-07:00

well, it was a bit of a plateau there, but i've pushed past the halfway point. scales today show me to be down 27 pounds from the start -- over the course of about 16 weeks or so. my body fat is down to a reasonable 16.6% (skin fold measurement) from an unmeasureable amount at the beginning and over 23% a few weeks in.

still haven't posted pics, but i've got them in the camera.

low fat chili recipe

2009-07-04T06:59:00.000-07:00

while i'm trying to take in about 200g of protein a day, it's important to find good sources of this in the foods that i eat. one of the staples in my diet is lean beef -- i eat eye of round and lean ground beef quite a bit. i'll go a few rounds with skinless chicken breasts, but i just can't do it often.

in any case, here's my chili recipe, that i've refined to some pretty good measure. i have done it with everything from 93% lean beef all the way to 98% lean. it's good with everything. i don't measure things, so be sure to adjust the seasoning to taste.

ingredients:
3 lbs 96% lean beef
1 yellow onion, diced
1 green bell pepper, diced
1 jar spaghetti sauce (i use classico spicy red pepper)
1 tablespoon onion powder
1 tablespoon garlic powder
1 teaspoon ancho chili powder
1 teaspoon chipotle chili powder (optional)
1 teaspoon cumin
1 teaspoon fennel seed
4 tablespoons paprika
1 can kidney beans (optional)
1 can pinto beans (optional)
kosher salt to taste
cracked black pepper to taste
1 can beef broth, chicken broth, or water
non-stick cooking spray

start the spaghetti sauce in a crock pot on high. without any oil brown the beef in a skillet on medium, medium/high heat -- you may have to do this in 2 or 3 batches. add salt to the meat -- if you are using kosher salt, which is less salty than table salt, you'll use a good bit -- remember it's 3lbs of beef! try to get some real browning and caramelization going. this is difficult without oil, but you should see some once the water content in the beef is cooked off. place browned beef into crock pot. deglaze skillet with a few tablespoons of beef broth and pour into crock pot. spray skillet with non-stick spray and cook onion and peppers on medium heat. again, try to get some caramelization during this process. once the vegetables are soft add all the spices to the skillet and cook a 1-2 minutes. this will help them develop some depth of flavor and release some oils. deglaze with beef broth and introduce to crock pot. if you'd like beans, open the 2 cans and pour into the crock pot. add salt and pepper to taste. pour in enough beef broth to barely cover everything. leave the crock pot on high for 15 minutes and then reduce to low and allow to simmer for 4-6 hours (i even let it cook all day/all night). this makes about 8-12 servings, depending on the size of your bowl/appetite.

nutrition info (with beans):
260 calories
5.5g fat
22.1g carbohydrate
31.7g protein

nutrition info (without beans):
170 calories
4.8g fat
4.7g carbohydrate
25.9g protein

double digit weight loss

2009-04-11T07:42:00.001-07:00

scales show me 12 lbs down today versus day one -- that's pretty good in 3 weeks. in fact, a lot of folks will tell you that's too much, but i don't expect i'll sustain those kind of numbers. they'll creep up to the 2-3 pound a week range here, but the first few weeks, it's easy to shed water weight and such. one thing is for sure, it's great for motivation.

brown fat

2009-04-10T17:35:00.001-07:00

an report came out early this week about "brown fat" -- a good kind of fat found in babies and present in adults. the purpose of this fat is to burn energy and release it as heat (something about mitochondria). this is key for babies because they don't have other good means to regulate body temperature -- they can't as easily wander over to their coat closet and throw on another layer.

in any case, the interesting thing about this is that scientists have found that this fat gets energized when the air temperature drops and it burns calories to provide heat -- even in adults. so, what does this mean? brown fat can burn an extra 500 or so calories per day, and researchers are no doubt searching for the next diet drug, but it may not take that at all -- just crank the a/c down and let the brown fat do its thing.

missed workout!

2009-04-08T05:29:00.000-07:00

i missed my first workout since i started going regularly yesterday. sick in bed the whole day -- i came home and collapsed at 5pm and slept 'til 9am the next morning. feeling much better this am, however, and got right back at it.

that's what it takes to lose weight -- there will always be some mis-steps, but if you get right back on, you'll do fine!

hardest thing about working out / dieting

2009-04-04T18:16:00.000-07:00

my workout partner asked me the hardest thing about our workout / eating routine. for him, it was giving up the 2 pots of coffee a day. for me, i thought it was going to be getting up at 4 in the morning, but so far, no complaints.

now, i'm not going to say that it's easy, but it is something that anyone can do. if you can follow directions, you can lose weight. all it takes is planning and sticking to the formula.

2 weeks (10% complete) in, and i'm going strong.

first compliment

2009-04-04T04:35:00.000-07:00

barely a week into my workout and eating regime, i received my first notice. a co-worker mentioned that she could tell that i was losing weight, that she could see it in my face. it's nice to hear, but of course, there are other places that i'd like to lose weight :).

actually, i'm about 6 pounds down now and my belt is feeling looser.

. . . all good things. more to come.

cheat meal

2009-03-29T18:02:00.001-07:00

i had my first cheat meal yesterday: tex-mex. and, it was pretty good, but i tell you, i managed only to eat 1/2 my meal and i did feel a bit nauseated. i think they call that food hangover.

the other thing is that i was really warm after the meal and was actually sweating a bit. i did have 2 cups of coffee with lunch, but i think this was just a natural reaction to the food.

week 1

2009-03-29T08:59:00.001-07:00

well, the first week is in the book and i'm feeling great. on a cycle of m-w-f weight training and t-th-s for cardio. i'm starting a series entitled "how to lose 50 pounds" and you track my progress here.

for weight training, i alternate upper and lower body and the cardio is high intensity interval training.

nutrition follows a pretty strict plan as well. get ~1 gram of protein per pound of weight with a ratio of 2/1 of protein to carbs and let the fats fill in. plus, one cheat meal a week.

my nutrition and activity logs are out there on fitday already, but i'll follow up with pictures, detailed workout plans, etc.

a year and a kid

2009-03-24T05:34:00.000-07:00

well, more than a year of the fast-paced startup life style and the addition of a new family member has taken its toll on my body. i've gone far and beyond and set record highs in weight, body-fat percentage, and bmi.

so, i've started working out regularly, starting yesterday . . . at 5:30am. this means i get up at 4:15am.

yesterday was a strength training day and i hit upper body: chest, shoulders, bis and tris, in that order.

nutrition wise, was a little low -- you can see it on my fitday.

workout 4

2008-02-13T17:25:00.000-08:00

yesterday was yoga x. it was really tough! there were several strength, balance, and flexibility components to it.

workout 3

2008-02-10T20:17:00.000-08:00

arms and shoulders. it was not a bad workout, but the workouts need a variety of weights. think about kickbacks versus curls versus shoulder presses. if you just have a pair of dumbells, it ain't gonna cut it.

workout 2

2008-02-05T18:51:00.000-08:00

plyometrics. kicked my butt. but, a pretty decent workout! after i was done, i could hardly stand up.

workout 1

2008-02-04T19:38:00.000-08:00

man, the p90x workout is something else. i had eaten a little something about an hour or more before my workout. well, the intensity was such that, i didn't get to keep that food.

bleh.

but, wow! what a workout!

p90x

2008-02-03T20:24:00.000-08:00

i'm starting the p90x system now by beachbody. after falling off the wagon (for a variety of nonsensical reasons), i decided to go with a program that seems to get pretty good reviews.

i start tomorrow.

vitamin c

2007-06-13T19:46:00.000-07:00

i've started taking a vitamin c supplement (though, it contains a lot of vitamin b and other vitamins and minerals). they say that vitamin c helps you burn fat. i don't know about that, but my guess is that it won't hurt.

they also say that calcium is good for losing weight. i get a decent share of that, too. mainly from light yogurt and fat-free cheese.

week 1 summary

2007-06-11T18:41:00.000-07:00

after one week, i'm down 7 pounds. now, that's a fairly inflated number for a number of reasons. i started after a few days away from home on vacation (read: binging), so my starting weight was actually a bit lower than what was measured. also, you generally lose some significant water weight when you go from eating everything in sight to a more moderate diet. and, there are going to be weight fluctuations from one day to another. i'll try to temper this last bit by always weighing in sunday nights, but who knows what my body is going to think about that.

free meal

2007-06-10T06:40:00.000-07:00

once a week, i have a free meal planned that i can eat whatever i want. yesterday that was a ginormous steak with all the fixins, a couple of martinis, salad, appetizer, and dessert. it was a whopper, but i know that 'going off the reservation' one meal out of 35 (that's my 5 meals or so daily by 7 days a week) isn't going to throw me off my goal.

i've heard lots of reasons that a cheat meal or free meal is good and lots of reasons why they are bad, but for me here are the reasons that i do it:

sanity. it doesn't seem like i'm depriving me of anything since i know i can have whatever i want saturday for dinner. and it keeps me from going hog wild and losing it to cravings. i'll just put that on the menu for my cheat meal.
refuel the glycogen stores. it may be in my head, but after eating a pretty strict low-cal diet most of the week, i seem to be able to lift a bit heavier in my workouts the day after my cheat meal.
recharge the metabolism. my metabolism is naturally going to slow down since i'm consuming a pretty low number of calories. it's been said that a big meal can jump that back up a bit.

it may be mostly psycological, but it works for me. now, what am i going to have next week?

dining out

2007-06-09T08:38:00.000-07:00

i went out to eat three times this week, but i didn't have any problem ordering.

we went to friday's for lunch one day and i ordered the lunch portion of the dragonfire chicken, which according to their menu is about 400 cals. i replaced the side of rice for extra broccoli.

we went to a local dive for lunch another day and i ordered a grilled chicken salad with salad dressing on the side, which i dipped my fork into.

another day we went to applebee's and i ordered off the weight watcher's menu.

there are a lot of times when i simply have to dine out -- because of personal or business reasons, but at most places it's actually very easy to get something very sensible and not throw you off track.

food diary

2007-06-05T20:13:00.000-07:00

so, i keep everything i eat in a food diary -- i use fitday -- it does a decent job of allowing me to track what i eat and my workouts and provides some nice tools so i can check my progress. the basic idea of my eating plan is this: eat small meals every 2 hours or so and try to get at least one gram of protein per pound of desired body weight. why? well, for one, it keeps me from getting hungry, but more importantly, it allows me to feed my body doses of protein in small enough chunks that it can process it efficiently and eating this way also supposedly keeps pushes my metabolism up.

in short, i am aiming to get at least 185 grams of protein daily, while keeping my calories down. this is pretty hard to do without supplements, so i usually take a protein shake in the morning and one in the evening.

day 1

2007-06-05T08:11:00.000-07:00

yesterday was a struggle food-wise. we just returned from a trip to nyc and had very little food in the house. i made do with some protein bars throughout the day and a real meal at dinner. i ended up having about 5 meals and 4 protein supplements. i take a protein shake in the morning for breakfast and just before bed to try to put off any muscle catabolism. in addition, i had a protein shake just before working out and just after. the one just after i worked out, i took with a powerade to spike my insulin level to really try to get the protein into my system faster.

my workout was an upper body workout consisting of: push ups, bench press, seated shoulder press, reverse flyes, barbell curls, reverse barbell curls, standing triceps presses, and narrow grip bench.

after dinner, we headed out to the grocery store, so today's food should be much better.

my 300 body

2007-06-04T18:02:00.000-07:00

so, after watching the movie the 300 i decided that i was going to dress as one of the soldiers for halloween. that gives me about 5 months to get into tip top shape. i've done it before, so i think i'll be able to do it again. the crux of my plan is a strict combination of diet and exercise: eat small, high protein meals throughout the day, strength training three times weekly, and cardio three times a week.

i am planning on going into the painful details of my daily menus and workouts and am also using fitday to keep track of everything to the finest detail.

first post

2007-06-04T15:39:00.000-07:00

so, a little more than a year ago, a was in the best shape of my life. unfortunately, i fell back into my same old routines and now find myself in the worst shape that i've been in in the past year and likely much longer. however, i have resolved to trim down from my current 223 pounds to 185 and i'm going to share how i'm going to do it.

i've done it before and this time, i'm going to stick with it.

stay tuned, pictures, recipes, and everything you ever wanted to know about health and fitness coming soon!