Hello lovely people. Today was pretty unextraordinary. I had my oatmeal breakfast as usual, cheese burger with onion rings for lunch, and a few bites of Egg Fu Yung for dinner.
I know this does not sound at all like diet food but, I honestly feel that whatever I do to lose this weight has to be sustainable, otherwise it will all come back as it has before. I probably used to take in 2500-3000 calories a day, whith a nice chunk of them being right before bed.
At this point, It seems like I'm having trouble clearing 2000. I mean, the oatmeal in the morning is about 350 (including a tablespoon of sugar and a half tablespoon of margarine. And lets just say that a burger with fries is 750. That still leaves me with 900 calories to play with, and I'm probably only using about half of them.
Does this "eat what you want, just watch the amount" logic make sense to anyone else? Have any of you found it to be effective over the long haul? Im interested in hearing your feedback. Until then...
Greetings all! It's been a few days. Anyway I'll start with Sunday becasue Saturday was my free day, and I indulged in all sorts of guilty pleasures. Both of my meals on Sunday consisted of Corned Beef and Cabbage with cornbread. All I drank was water.
I'm noticing that I get too busy to eat regularly, and since I cant just grab whatever anymore, I'm just not eating as much. I suppose it's a good thing for now, but I know it wont be sustainable so I am going to have to plan my meals better.
Today was more of the same as far as eating patterns. I had some oatmeal this morning around 9am. Then I had some Red Bean & rice soup and a piece of Southwest Cornbread from Au Bon Pain around 8:30pm. In between the two meals, I just drank a bunch of water. I will start my workouts by the beginning of next week.
Everytime I try to leave bad things in the past, something keeps pulling me back. Today, that something was Pizza...and Bar-B-Que. But lest start at teh beginning. I had my oatmeal this morning along with my two cups of water as planned.
A little later in the afternoon, I went to the doctor's office where I discovered that while my blood pressure was not as high as it had been last week, it was still a little too high. My doctor has started me on some BP medication for the next couple of weeks. We'll ee waht happens.
Anyway, after I left the doc's office, I went straight to the Barbershop. By this tiem, I was super hungry, and there were KFC comercials coming on TV. The Subway next door was closed for repairs, so my options included the vending machine, and 6 fast food restaurants. I opted for peanuts out of the machine.
When I got home, my mom ordered pizza and rib tips for dinner. I told myself I would just have a little...I realize now that was like a crack head saying "I'll just sniff a little..." I went to to town on pizza and BBQ. I do feel bad about it, but tomorrow is a new day so all I can do is focus on not doing it the next time. IN light of tonights events, tomorrow is going to be a very limited free day for me. Until then...
Today was a decent day as far as diet. I started the day off with two cups of warter and a healthy helping of oatmeal. This was at 7:30am. My next meal (a cup of loaded baked potatoe soup and a turkey and swiss on wheat from Potbelly's) did not come until 12 hours later. I didn't do this on purpose, I just got really busy during the day shopping for a new car. I finished the evening off with a small bite of lean steak my mom made for dinner, and another two cups of water. I can do this...
I have decided to use this space as sort of a food journal as well since the one built into the site is kinda cumbersom. Although I have not come up with a very specific food plan as of yet, my strategy is basically going to be cutting back my serving sizes, and cutting out a lot of the really bad stuff I would normally eat (gizzards with fries, covered in mild sauce, oink!)six days out of the week. The seventh day, which will probably be on Saturdays but could possible be moved to accomodate a special occasion will be my free days when I can eat whatever.
I will also be starting some sort of work-out routine in the coming weeks. This too will be five-six days per week including cardio, free-weights, and stationary machines. Stay tuned for more details.
So I actually got up this morning and had oatmeal for breakfast. It felt good to actually eat somthing that was healthy and filling. My plan is to make oatmeal a regualr part of my day since a:) I like it b:) Breakfast is important c:) It keeps me from using the excuse "it's my first meal of the day" to max at lunch. d:) it's relatively lo-cal.
Lunch consisted of a cheesebuger, fries, and a 20oz diet lemonade. I even put some nice fresh tomato and lettuce on it. I have been drinking the diet lemonade for a while now. It tastes good and it only has 5 calories per 8oz serving. Before ,I used to drink raspberry Iced tea which has 120 calories per 12oz can. The lemondae is a much better calorie bargin.
Dinner consisted of simply a beef bolonga sandwich wiith cheese. It was interesting though, becasue when I got home, I found my Mom had gone shopping. There is now a huge bag of Doritos (my favorite chips) sitting in the kitchen saying, "Try me." It's alright though, I'm not going to. The chips aren't worth my life. Until tomorrow...
Like many people, I closed out 2006 with a set of resolutions or goals for 2007. Each of my goals fell into one of three categories. I had personal goals, spiritual goals, and financial goals.
One of my personal goals (of course) was weight loss. Unfortunately, I made the biggest mistake a person can make when setting a goal, I failed to put it in writing. So here we are, 65 days into the New Year, and I have not moved any closer to achieving this goal.
As you may or may not know, I actually work in a hospital, educating people about the importance of health maintenance among other things. I must look like a big (pun intended) hypocrite! Anyway, I was at work the other day, and I decided to have one of my co-workers take my blood pressure.
Normal blood pressure in a health individual should be something like 120 over 80. Now for an overweight person such as myself, a slightly elevated blood pressure is completely normal (notice I said normal not health). My blood pressure check was in December at my last Doctor's visit and the reading was within my normal range.
This time around, it was very much out of my normal range into almost Stage 2 hypertension. (This may have been an isolated incident so I will be going to the Doctor at the end of the week to get reassessed.) Because of my job, I am all too familiar with the devastating effect hypertension can have on a person over time. It is often regarded as a silent killer because it can go unnoticed for years until serious complications arise. There is also a strong correlation between hypertension and diabetes and heart disease.
So, evidently now more than ever, I need to get in shape. This is something I have tried to do on more than one occasion over the past several years to varying degrees of success. I have gotten as low as 235, and been as high as 308.
Please understand that this is all very difficult for me to talk about and share for multiple reasons. Besides the general embarrassment that comes with admitting a problem like this, I also have some pride issues in play. As you all may know, I am the type of person who really like to be there for and go out of my way to help other people. When it comes to my own problems though, I have always preferred to deal with my own. The last thing I want to be viewed as is dependant or needy.
However, I have come to the realization that this may be a challenge that is a little bigger than my ego and I. To this end, I am very humbly reaching out to the select few of you whom I love and trust and consider family to help me reach my goal.
How can you help? You can help by simply checking in with me from time to time on my progress, and by being there to offer tough love, encouragement, and emotional support if and when I need them. I will be bogging here at least twice a week on the trials and triumphs of my journey. Please feel free to weigh in with thoughts, comments, concerns and suggestions. You will also be able to track my progress towards my goal on the colorful tracker located near the bottom of the blog.
Thank you all in advance for your support. More details to come...
