Wordless Wednesday
Category Archives: FitBlog
Sunday Stuff!
(Not sure what day it is…I need to figure that out.)
Hello everyone!
I’m watching the King of the Hill episode when Bobby has to buy clothes at the fat kid store H. Dumpty’s and I’m having childhood obesity PTSD right now. I’m so glad I’ll never have to shop at a Casual Male or any of those incredibly uncomfortable palaces of stretchable polyester ever again.
Alright, back to other things and stuff.
Today was a bit of a food challenge but we totally got through it! I forgot how counting points makes such a difference instead of just saying “merh…I’ll just wing it.” I’m also not as tempted to peek on the scale anymore. I don’t have to. I know that if I stay within my points, the rest will follow. This feels amazing. Weight Watchers Points Plus is the bomb!!! (And no, I’m not getting paid to say that.)
So here is the breakdown of the day:
Breakfast
A delicious cookie from my friend Cynthia: 2PP
Maple Ginger Dreaming Cow yogurt: 3 PP
A slice of Ezekiel bread with spray butter: 2 PP
Lunch
We went to lunch at Bandido’s with the always-awesome Julie and Melissa the fantastic! My eyes were bigger than my stomach so I ordered a breakfast burrito and a bean burrito. I ate the breakfast burrito and was ridiculously stuffed (Mexican food is my kryptonite…or gluttonite). So after I was done, I added it all up in my Weight Watchers app. I didn’t feel guilty, I felt good knowing the points of what I was eating. I felt accountable to myself. Something that I haven’t been in a while. 33 PP
Dinner
After a doing a good chunk of housework, I just made a Smart One since I didn’t have too many points left at that point.
Teryaki Smart One: 6 PP
Cereal: 3 PP
Two peaches: 0 PP
Non-fat French Onion dip with sliced cucumbers: 1 PP
Total for the day
50 PP
I ended up using 2 PP which is fine. That’s what they’re there for!
Tomorrow’s a new day. Make it awesome. See ya tomorrow.
Why You Shouldn’t be Afraid of Success.
Tonight, I’m reflecting on a few other things I’ve realized after 1,000 days in to this crazy weight loss adventure. I’ll have more tomorrow night too! Enjoy.
Also, a quick shout out to the NSA agent reading this while tapping in to my data. Read as much as you want. I could use the views :).
Don’t be afraid of success.
For most of my life, I have been afraid of success. I used to be scared to get out of my comfort zone. When I did, I would freak out one way or another. A lot of the times, I would do and say crazy things (like yelling/singing the Disney song “A Whole New World” to a group of girls I didn’t really know. One of which I ended up marrying…) to hide away the fact that I was incredibly insecure in my own skin. If people were laughing with me, they weren’t laughing at me, right? But with that came the inevitable backhanded comment: “You know, you sure don’t act like you are fat. You are fun and comfortable in your own skin!”
Ouch.
I tried to not let that comment affect me, but people have said it to me way too many times in my life not for it to hurt a little. I felt that the only success I could achieve was under the provision that I was successful…for a fat guy. That didn’t sit well with me.
For most of my life, I was an average student. In fact, I had a teacher in high school that told me that I was a B student and I always would be.
Well she was wrong…I did worse than that in college.
Sure I did decent in my majors classes, but I slacked off in everything else. (Why did I have to take Geology? More important, WHY WAS GEOLOGY ONE OF THE HARDEST CLASSES I EVER TOOK???) In my hard classes, I strived to just pass because that’s what I expected of myself. At that point, grad school sounded like a great experience (the idea of just learning about social media, PR and marketing sounded amazing) but it was a pipe dream.
I left ACU with a crappy GPA. I knew I could have done better, but I was scared of succeeding. I was scared to put it all out there, to really study and actually act like I cared. What if I had put it all out there and I failed? What would be the point? I wish I could go back to that younger me and say “So what if you fail? You at least gave it your all!” (Then I would probably say “Oh yeah, you’re going to lose 130 pounds one day” to which Younger Nathan would have laughed and then ate a whole bag of Skittles in one gulp (yes, I have done that before.))
So when Megan got in to Florida State University, my dream school ever since I was in 7th grade, I was incredibly excited for her. One day when I was looking for a job in Tallahassee when we were still living in Abilene, she said “I think you should apply for grad school at Florida State.” At this point, I had been on their website 1,000 times, wishing and dreaming for the chance to apply. I knew I was a long shot, but I was going to give it my best.
Then, I took the GRE. I didn’t do well…at all. My dream was slipping away.
Fast forward to July 2010. We were sitting a Starbucks (since we didn’t have cable for our new place yet) and I got an email from FSU.
I didn’t get in, but they invited me to apply as a non-degree seeking student and to take two classes to prove my way in to the program.
“Maybe this isn’t for me,” I thought.
So I took two classes that first semester: Hispanic Marketing and an entry level stats class. I was scared of the unknown. How was I going to do in these classes? I finally said to myself “give it your best shot. Don’t worry about if you fail. What if you succeed?” So I did the work.
Not only did I pass both classes, I was even offered an assistantship for the following semester.
Three years later, I now work for my dream school and I will be starting an amazing new position within the university next week. This all began with me putting it out there and not being afraid of falling flat on my face. It was that step of confidence that lead to me taking an even bigger step months later: my weight loss journey.
Be bold. Give it your all. Don’t be afraid of success.
See ya tomorrow.
Weight-Loss Journey Reflections: What You Can Learn From 1,000 Days of Choosing Veggies Over Chicken-Fried Chocolate Pork.
Friday was a milestone in my life. I have been proud of many things in my life, but I think this is one that I haven’t emphasized enough in my mind as I should.
It’s a well-known fact that most diets crash and burn in a glutinous rage of glory. Until September 2010, I was a part of this statistic. It’s also a well-known fact the overwhelmingly majority of obese children remain obese for the rest of their lives. Until September 2010, I was a part of this statistic as well. On Friday, I celebrated that I have risen above these statistics and have broken out of these sad norms within our culture for 1,000 days. It hasn’t been easy, and I have had my share of setbacks, but at its core, losing weight is inherently easy and possible for every single person.
As you can imagine, I have learned a lot about weight loss and about myself over these past 1,000 days. While most of it has been positive, there are some things that I think we could work on as a society. Here are just a few of those realizations. Enjoy.
Don’t glorify food.
We’ve all done it. Late night when the family is asleep, we turn on the TV and turn it the to dirty channel.
That’s right: Food Network.
We sit and stare at the mounds of sloppy, greasy burger, stacked with gooey cheddar, mounted with piles of bacon and sautéed onions.
It’s lust at first bite.
I am here today to say that food porn is wrong.
When I was obese, I would sit and watch hours and hours of Man vs. Food. Adam Richman was my hero. Getting paid to go across the country and eat as much as possible? I wanted to find a way to be his understudy! You see, for most of my life, I have treated every meal like it was a contest. I wasn’t good at a lot of things, but I was good at eating. I was undefeated in every single Whataburger Milkshake Drinking Contest I ever competed in. I would could go round after round at every All You Can Eat restaurant. I would eat until I was physically ill. That is what shows like Man vs. Food promote, that that kind of eating is okay. The worst part of it was that when I would watch that show, and others like it, I would want to eat something gross like that. Because I thought that that’s what comfort food was. I thought eating that way was my right and something I deserved. (Meanwhile, there were homeless people not knowing where their next meal was coming from…) This was a vicious cycle that I had to break out of and it’s still something that I struggle with daily.
With that realization about the power food shows have over me, I’ve had to reassess how I look at food in my life. Is it fuel? Is it pleasure? What is it? I have realized that at the end of the day, it’s just calories. For my whole life, I have been letting my tongue and tastebuds dictate the success of my weight loss and my overall health. In order to be successful with weight loss, you need to be okay with every meal not being your “last meal” meal. I was most successful with my weight loss when I ate a sensible breakfast, a frozen meal with veggies for lunch, and a grilled chicken breast with veggies for dinner. Did I always want to eat that? Heck no! But I knew in the grander scheme of things that I wouldn’t remember one boring meal when I had a low number on the scale. I would think, “man, I’m glad I ate well this week!”
You can still be a foodie and lose weight. I’m proof. You just eat less of it. What I have been doing is eating simple meals throughout the week and on the weekend indulge a little or try a new recipe at home. Programs like Weight Watchers fit that kind of thought process into their points system. Obviously you don’t go crazy, you just eat less than what you would eat regularly. Yeah, it’s that simple.
So, I still have a lot more to say about what I have learned over the past 1,000 days, and I’m going to share it with you this week. Each night will be a different lesson so stay tuned.
I want to truly thank you for reading my blog. When I first started blogging about my weight loss, I had my share of reservations. I remember when I tired to lose weight a few years ago, I thought “what if I just posted my weight as a Facebook every day. What if I wrote ‘Nathan weighs ______ pounds.’ Man, that would be weird. That’s terrifying. I’ll never do that!” At the beginning, I didn’t post my weight. But I had so much support from every single one of you, that I eventually did. That speaks volumes to the level of love I have felt and the amount of accountability I have with you. I love you, dear reader. Thank you for making this weight loss journey so special. Here’s to another 1,000 days of weight-loss awesomeness. See ya tomorrow.
Sunday!
Hello!
I’m going to keep this short because Mad Men is on in 16 minutes…
Breakfast: Toast, peanut butter and banana. YERM.
Lunch: Megan and I made some delicious creamy stovetop mac n’ cheese for lunch. I had a small serving first, followed by a smaller serving with a bag of Brussles sprouts. It was fantastic. Meanwhile, in the crockpot, we were slow cooking a soon-to-be-succulent pork loin.
Then, I ran. It was hot. I’ll talk more about my awesome Brooks shoes and incredibly comfortable Balega socks. My body was exhausted in that 96 degree heat, but my shoes and socks felt amazing.
Dinner: A few hours, and a pair of never nude cut offs, later we shredded and sauced the loin and let it simmer for a little while longer. It. Was. AMAZING!!!!! I added a little more sauce with hot mustard and then, wait for it, some left over mac n’ cheese from lunch!!!!! All on top of a Martin’s 100 calorie potato roll. Indulgent? Yes. Delicious? Uh-huh. A much better and lighter alternative than eating out? You bet. Skinnytaste is my hero.
So that’s about it for now. I’ll talk about my shoes later this week. I also posted a NSV on my FFK Facebook page. Click here to check it out! (Don’t forget to like my FFKFB page too! I’m trying to get to 1,000 likes!)
Thanks for being awesome, dear reader. You’re my favorite deputy.
See ya tomorrow.
Day 958: Thursday And Stuff
Your body feels awesome when you feed it right.
HELLO!
I feel awesome right now! I won’t bore you with the details, but my body feels better even after just eating right and a little bit of exercise. Basically, I’m glad to be back on the weight loss wagon. L
Let’s talk food!
Oh yeah, I live in a beautiful place.
Breakfast: An egg and a piece of toast-4 points
Snack: Cheerios-2 points
Lunch: Two salmon salad sandwiches (using a can of salmon from Sam’s Club)-13 points
Dinner: Two slices of homemade pizza with chicken sausage-10 points
Exercise: So I’m doing a May challenge with Jenny Hodges of MetamorFit fame (she’s lost more than 200 pounds! You may have seen here on the Yahoo! homepage and other shows) to burn 500 calories of exercise everyday. That’s 15,500 calories!!! If you want to join the challenge, join the event here!!! Anyway, so yesterday I played some serious racquetball and today I did a healthy combination of spinning, lifting, jogging and shuttle runs. I feel awesome and I smell gross. I win.
So that about does it! I got to 32 points so I’m AOK. See ya tomorrow.
Day 948: Run Recap and Such!
Before I start, I have to get something off my chest that I have been struggling with. While I used to definitely have binging qualities when I was severely overweight, a lot of those issues have been surprised. I guess I put all that chewing energy in to running or something…Anyway, while the super binging isn’t so much an issue, I am a leftover eater. After we are done with dinner and it’s left on the stove or whatever, I will sleuth my way in to the kitchen and just go to town on what is left. Usually it’s chili or pasta. When I do it, it’s really hard for me to stop. What’s worst is that those bites taste better than my actual dinner. (Maybe that means I’m eating dinner too fast?) It has always been an issue for me, except I don’t have my sister here to tattle on me when I do it now lol (I remember that specifically happening when we were eating at another family’s house when I was in middle school. You know I love you, Brittany :)) I really feel like that’s my biggest struggle to overcome. It doesn’t happen as much now as it used to. I think it means that I need to eat more filling foods through out the day instead of just carbs and things like that. If you have any suggestions, I would gladly listen to them.
Phew, glad to get that off my chest.
SO LET’S TALK RUNNING!!!
This was the weekend of running all the things. First stop: The Palace Saloon 5k, one of the oldest races in Tallahassee. It starts at a park and ends at, you guessed it, a bar called The Palace. The race boasts itself as the fastest and flattest 5k in Tallahassee. They were half right. The race was flat for the first 2 miles or so, then I notice people running up in to the clouds like it was the Transfiguration or something. Instead, people were just running up a massive hill. When I say that, it was a massive hill in the context of the race. It actually wasn’t that big. Anyway, what goes up, must come down. The last mile or so was pretty much straight downhill which was epic. I looked down at my Nike+ when I was crossing the finish line and I was rocking a 7:05/mile pace which was crazy for me. So the downhill awesomeness helped my time. One thing that also helped (I think) was that I took Energybits for the first time before a race. You can click on the link to learn more, but basically they are all-natural protein tablets made from algae that give you a nice little boost of energy when you’re running. (Don’t worry, they’re not some HGH or anything. A lot of runners swear by them…although Barry Bonds, Mark McGuire, and Roger Clemens all endorse them…hmmm…. :)). Placebo or not, it definitely helped me get up that hill when I thought I had nothing left in the ol’ tank. Anyway, I set a 5k PR of 26:04 which is SO AWESOME! I’m really wanting to run a sub 25:00 5k before the end of the summer. Time to start training!
Run 5.2 For Boston
I know you’ve heard me talk about it all week, but on Sunday, we finished the race for those who couldn’t. You see, most of the Boston Marathon runners were stopped at Mile 21, not getting to finish what was most likely was an ultimate goal for them. So some people in Tallahassee started to plan a 5.2 mile run to finish the race. What started out to be 50-60 runners quickly turned in to a run of more that 1,100 people! There was not a race fee, but donations were accepted and stores from across Tallahassee donated gift certificates and such to be raffled off (I won $50 for a running store in Tallahassee! So stoked to get some new shoes!) Overall, the run raised $13,000 that is going directly to the Boston One Fund and the Boston Red Cross. People truly are good. We might fight over things like religion, politics, or even the Great Pumpkin, but when we see others in desperate need, we are there to help. It’s pretty amazing.
The actually running part was pretty awesome as well. I was making killer time (but the run wasn’t officially timed) and then around Mile 2.5ish, I thought “you know, it’s not too often you can stop in the middle of a race this size and just cheer on people…” so that’s what I did. I got to the side and gave high fives, made silly running jokes and spurred my fellow runners on. One guy thought I was drunk, but that’s okay :). Anyway, I ran some more and then I stopped again right before the last big hill (the race was in Southwood so I knew the route like the back of my hand) and I encouraged people up the hill. I hope I gave them that final push that they needed. I’ve never volunteered at a race before, but now I really want to. The biggest advantage is that you can tell the same silly joke every time and no one will hear it twice :). Anyway, I ended up running it in 49:03, but that’s with long periods of me pausing my Nike+. It was an honor to cheer everyone on like that. For a lot of people, it looked like it could have been their first race. I hope this was a catalyst for them to run in the future.
All in all, the two races this weekend provided some much needed closure to what was an incredibly stressful week. I know the road to recovery for Boston is far from over, but see all the amazing philanthropy for both those in the Northeast and those in my old backyard in West, Texas, you can’t help but have some of your faith restored in humanity. Like I said on Monday, good was going to come out of that tragedy and so much already has. What a great way to end a week and begin a new one. See ya tomorrow.
Day 922: Wordless Awesomeness
Day 909: 30in90 Explained
Sorry if I cut off anyone midfunk…
So if you are my friend on Facebook or on Twitter OR if you Like my FFK page on Facebook (only four friends away from 800! Like it now! Please?) you saw that I hinted at a new thing going on on the blog called 30in90. What does that mean you ask? Well it’s pretty simple.
You see, 90 days from Friday, I will be reaching the 1,000th day of the start of my weight loss journey! Pretty crazy huh? It has had its ups and downs, but it has been a pretty epic journey so far. As most of you know, I have kind of been on a plateau for a while now. The 230’s have been my home base and 227 is still my weight loss threshold. I just can’t seem to break it. So when Megan brought up the 1,000 days thing, we started to plan our attack on our weight. Thus, 30in90 was born.
Tomorrow morning, we will weigh in. Our objective is to lose 30 pounds in 90 days. Day 1,000 is June 15th. It seems far away now, but it’s closer than we think. By then, I’m planning (not hoping) to be weighing in the 200’s, knocking at the door of Onderland. What’s even more of an encentive is that our 5-year anniversary is June 22nd. We really wanted to get new wedding photos done to show just how far we’ve come (and no, I will not be wearing my size 60 wedding suit…yes, I wore a size 60 suit jacket at one point. That’s five feet around. It still bothers me when I write that out loud.)
So how are we going to do this you ask? Simple: I’m going back in to crazy, dedicated, super weight loss mode. I was just thinking the other day about how my new friends/coworkers didn’t really know me when I would only eat the stuff I knew the calories of and stuff like that. This is a goal I am striving for. I’m going to work as hard as I can to get to that point. It might mean two-a-day workouts sometimes and not eating if I go out with friends, but it will totally be worth it. I’m doing this for me and my health, which also means I’m not going to starve myself, but rather taking the healthy path no matter how much it might suck sometimes. I can’t wait. Challenge accepted. So what do you think? Are we crazy? Or do you think we can do it? See ya tomorrow.
Day 885: Back on Track Like a Boss
Last week was kind of nuts. We had made plans to prepare our food at the beginning of the week, but it just didn’t happen. Which resulted in eating out every night and making just bad decisions.
Then, we went to Disney World this weekend. While you walk a ton at Disney, you can also EAT a ton at Disney. I made an pseudo effort to make healthy choices, but sometimes something would pop up. For example, I posted on the FFK FB page about my healthy breakfast one morning: a massive bowl of fruit inside of a hollowed-out half of a pineapple and a bowl of oatmeal at Kona Cafe inside the Polynesian (we didn’t stay there, but we dreamed that we did by going there everyday because it’s our favorite. By the way, I’m a massive Disneyphile. Have I mentioned that before?) Anyway, so we were finishing up our delicious breakfast, and then they brought us out two of the most sinfully delicious chocolate cupcakes we have ever eaten. Yes…they brought them out…for breakfast. They were bringing them out since it was our sixth anniversary of us being together. The old-point-counting-sticking-to-his-healthy-guns Nathan wouldn’t have eaten it. Well, I did. Along with a lot of fantastic food that weekend because Disney is delicious. (I mean, I don’t really know if Cinderella’s Castle would taste good if you bit in to it, but I’m pretty certain it would be.) I know that some people think that vacation is a time to splurge and I can understand that. But for me, vacations have been my downfall for a long time. I’ll come back from a trip and have gained/retained like crazy. I am working on being better about that. I think it goes back to not surrounding what I do around when or what I eat, which is really easy to do on vacation. Time to work on that.
So during this what felt like a gorgefest of a weekend, I felt down on myself. I left for Orlando on Friday morning weighing almost 240, a number I haven’t seen in a long time. It started to scare me. I felt like I was losing my grip on my weight loss. I was worried that this was the point where things were going to start to unravel for me. That this whole weight loss thing was just a phase in my life. It scared me. It really scared me.
How did I handle it? Not really that well. I still ate pretty bad on the trip. The worst part was that at each meal, I felt a little guilty about what I was eating because I knew that I was making a wrong choice at every turn. This all lead up to Sunday when we were getting ready to leave the parks.
This is my Florida driver’s license photo. It was issued to me in August 2010.
Like I was saying, on Sunday I was still feeling pretty crummy about my weight. My jeans were a little tight, my shirt was pulling in certain ideas, I just felt fat. When I left the World of Disney store in Downtown Disney, that all changed. I was in line to pay for a pin lanyard (oh yeah, I collect Disney pins. Don’t hate.) but the line was painfully long, so I went to another register. I paid for the lanyard, and the lady asked to see my ID. She looked at the photo, looked at me, looked at the photo, and looked at me again. “You need a new photo!” she said. “You’ve lost some weight!” I thanked her and began to tell her my story. She told me that she always makes an effort to say something to people that look like they have lost weight from their photos. From them on, my view completely changed. Yeah, I’ve been far from perfect with my weight loss, but no one is expecting me to be. I shouldn’t get down on myself each time I make a bad decision. I need to move on and learn from it. I’ve come a long way from that photo, both physically and mentally. I know that I can keep on keepin’ on to reach my weight loss goal. It’s going to happen, it just might take some time. And you know what? It truly is the journey and not just the destination. See ya tomorrow.