Category Archives: Food

Day 37 A Declaration

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This morning was hard for me. I woke up just feeling like crap about my weigh in and just how I kind of trashed my body over the weekend. I know I’m human and I like to indulge, but at what cost? Is it worth eating until I’m physically sick all night into the next day? No. My body deserves much better than that and I’m the only one in control of it.

While I have made some awesome strides in the past few weeks, I have realized that I need direction with my weight and health. After losing 100 pounds in the first 11 months of this journey, I have been in a weird lose/gain/plateau cycle for the past three years. Am I just going to stay some terminal weight loser who keeps losing the same weight all the time? To quote Brooke Birmingham: I want to be an “After.” You see, I have big plans for this body. Loose skin and all. I have already taken my current body to the limit. It’s time to take it up a notch.

I am at a point where I have completely lost sight of the finish line and that scares me in a lot of ways. This is my pivotal moment to take that turn around the trail and finish the race.

So…

Starting today Monday, June 9th, 2014, I am committing to lose 75 pounds by June 9th, 2015. Which means I will weigh 180 pounds.

Now this might sound crazy to some of you and that’s fine, I know your heart is in the right place, but the fact of the matter is that I need a long-term goal to focus my energy towards. I can’t just run around in a circle like I have been. While I have lost a lot of weight, I’m still considered obese. I need to fix that.

So this is it. It’s time to get to a healthy weight.

So this it, dear readers. I need your support now more than ever (I seriously hate that phrase. Sorry I used it).

If I don’t accept your offer of cookies and chocolate covered pork rinds, please don’t take it personal.

If I decline an invite to a restaurant full of my favorite trigger foods, it’s not you, it’s me.

If I look like I’m phoning it in at the gym, call me out on it.

So here we go. The final push towards my goal. See ya tomorrow.

 

Day 23: Monday Stuff

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Happy Memorial Day Everyone!

It felt awesome to actually count my points today. Was it easy? Not always. Was it a pain? Kind of. Will it be worth it in the long run? Yes, because I actually knew what I was putting into my body. When I don’t keep track, things can go south…like last night when I ate 500 calories worth of Corn Nuts because they were there. I didn’t record them so they didn’t count, right? WRRRRRRRRROOOOOOOOONNNNNNNGGGGGGG SON! Like my blogging buddy Dani posted this morning with Weight Watchers, or any plan, we are responsible for it all! It might sound crazy, but that kind of crazy helped me lose over 100 pounds once upon a time!

So today, I got serious with it all. Thanks to the awesome WW app, I could check most of the food easily with the barcode scanner feature! I’ve never really talked about how much I love the app, BUT I’M A HUUUUUGE FAN! But I digress…let’s talk food!

IMG_3450Breakfast: I’ve always been a proponent of breakfast. Frankly, bacon is 90% of the reason why I wake up every morning (the other 10% is combination of my love for coffee and Megan). Anyway, this morning I made a delicious breakfast sandwich with three perfectly cooked slices of bacon (if I do say so myself. BTW, the key to cooking perfect bacon, in the words of Michael Bolton, is time, love and tenderness. Seriously, cook your bacon low and slow and then pat it down with a paper towel. You won’t regret it!) and two over easy eggs. Gotta love some yokey goodness! 10 points
IMG_3452 IMG_3464Activity: So since we had the day off, we decided to head out to FSU’s awesome outdoor facility called the Rez (yes, short for the Reservation) for some paddleboarding and kayaking, or that’s what we had planned for at least…So since I’m a staff member, it’s $10/hour to rent a paddleboard, which is super reasonable and I was willing to pay it.
Well, for some stupid reason, they only took cash. They use a computer system to check in and out equipment, but they don’t have the power to take debit. I wouldn’t have been so disappointed about it, but they didn’t mention that on their website. So since we had already paid to get in, we decided to play a round of frisbee golf out there which was actually a lot of fun! It was a relatively easy little 9 hole course through the woods. It ended up being a pretty awesome trip! I’ll just bring cash next time…;)

IMG_3458Lunch: For lunch, we just made some simple sandwiches and just relaxed around the house. 13 points

Snack: While we were watching Goldeneye (aka the inspiration for the best video game ever (yes, ever) created) I had some light brie from Trader Joe’s and some water crackers. It’s easily my favorite afternoon snack! Oh yeah, and I even weighed my brie to get an accurate amount. That’s a non-scale victory…kind of…I guess that uses a scale so I’m not sure if that counts….5 points

IMG_3466Dinner: So last week, Megan and I had some pretty big ideas about what we were going to cook today. We were thinking about smoking ribs, maybe grilling steaks, or something delicious and monstrous like that. No matter what we were going to make, it was going to be unhealthy and plentiful. Now, it’s no secret that we love cooking. It’s something that we love to do as a couple, but in this case, it was going to be a meal that was going to take up most of our day. When we were buying food for dinner tonight, I told Megan “I don’t want the rest of our day just to be about food.” That was a really big deal for me! I knew that eating healthy needed to be a priority for me today so I made it one! It felt good to put my health ahead of my tastebuds. Win one for the FFK!
Anyway, we had some Johnsonville brats with potatoes and sour cream. It was a delicious 21 points!

Today, I got to about 49 points out of my 48. Win!
So this week, I’m starting my Start to Fitness workout class again! I’m so flippin stoked. Between that and my new swimming regimen thrown in there, (oh yeah, when we were at the beach yesterday, I did some laps in the open gulf. That was awesome!) I can tell good things are on the horizon :). See ya tomorrow.

Day 22: Weigh In Day!

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Hello kids!
photo 2I’m still reeling from a long day at the beach and an epic season finale (except back in my day, 7 episodes did not a season make…) so I’ll keep this brief!
This week, I started swimming and was overall pretty active. However, my eating wasn’t always the best. I started strong, but I let life get in the way and used it as an excuse to eat bad food. What I’m slowly learning is that you really can’t out-exercise bad eating. I’ve heard that for a long time, but I never really took it to heart. Now, I’m a firm believer and I’ve learned my lesson. With that being said, I lost 1.6 pounds this week! I’m still in the 250’s, which I am not thrilled about at all, but I’m slooooowly getting there! That’s the only way I can look at it to keep it going. Slow and steady right?

So, elephant in the room blog, I haven’t been posting my food like I said I would for a while. Well, that’s about to change…starting tomorrow! I am sick of being at this weight and I’M READY TO HIT MY FREAKIN’ GOAL!!!! Like I’ve said recently, I am the most active I’ve ever been and my eating is close to being on track. It’s time to get it all going and to treat my body the way it deserves to be treated. Get stoked for awesomeness. See ya tomorrow.

P.S. This is a cute kitten.
photo 1

All the Zoodles: An Unsolicited Review of the Kitchen Basics Spiral Vegetable Slicer

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I guess I should start this post with the statement that I am not a vegetarian (If the moon was made of spare ribs, I would eat it), I am not vegan (diary is delicious bliss in any form…except cottage form), nor am I a paleo (I am not a Flinstone), but I am a guy trying to lose weight who loves to try different kinds of food. That’s why after almost everyone I knew became obsessed with spaghetti squash and zucchini (colloquially known as zoodles) (fun fact: I actually can’t pronounce “colloquially.” It’s really weird.) I had to give them a shot!

A while back, Megan and I made this killer baked spaghetti squash and cheese recipe from SkinnyTaste so we knew that we liked the taste and the texture which wasn’t as big of a jump for your palate as you might expect. Last week, it felt like my Twitter feed was clogged up with zoodle recipes and Tweets about how easy and delicious it was to make. Even the Huffington Post wrote an article about it! So, I took to the interwebs on the hunt to find the right spiral slicer. After reading a few reviews and avoiding the As Seen on TV model, I went with the Kitchen Basics Spiral Vegetable Slicer. It had the best reviews and it was on sale when I bought it.

How do I like it, you ask? WELL KEEP READING, SON!

First of all, it’s essentially a pencil sharpener.
Spiral Veggie SlicerThere is a cap that goes on the end of your vegetable of choice, but I found it easier just to grab it and turn. It’s in an hourglass shape so as your turn the veggie, it cores on the other side. You don’t have to apply a lot of pressure either! Even the skin of the veggie is easy to get through. I would also make sure to cut off the ends and cut off any blemishes if needed.
IMG_2751This is all I got from one squash…
IMG_2752and this is what I got from a pretty big zucchini!
IMG_2753This time, we only did two veggies which ended up being more than enough for the two of us. Since most of it was just a giant strand of vegetable deliciousness, I gave it a rough chop to before I put it in the pan.
IMG_2755I had seen a couple of different ways to cook up the veggies if you want them to be like spaghetti. While I think about of people boil them, I just added a little olive oil and sliced garlic into the pan on medium to high heat. Pretty soon, they started to sweat and pretty much saute.
IMG_2758It took them about 4-5 minutes to get soft. A LOT of water came out so it would be smart to drain them before serving.
IMG_2760AND HERE’S THE FINISHED PRODUCT!
When it was cooking, I whipped (opened) up a simple spaghetti sauce for a topping and we dug in.
The result? Delciousness!
Megan said it best though; “pasta” made this way is not really a substitute for your typical grain/carbtastic pasta. It’s really a dish of its own. Now that we have this nifty gadget, I can’t wait to put it to good use! The possibilities are endless…and delicious!

Do you have a veggie slicer?
How do you like it?
Any good recipes to pass along?

Trying to Get it All Aligned

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“When the mooooooooooooon is in the seventh house
and Jupiterrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr lines with Mars…“

Wait…that’s not what I mean…

You hear it all the time “get fit in the gym, lose weight in the kitchen.” While I have fought with this notion for a long time, I’ve seen how true it really is through out my weight loss journey. With that, it’s been easy to have one component of that statement down and have the other one completely lopsided.When I lost my first 100 pounds, my eating was at the forefront of this journey. Sure I worked out, but making smart decisions helped peel off the weight. Some time after that, I lost sight of that. I got caught up in the fitness side a little too much and it seemed to throw me off because I didn’t know how to refuel properly with my eating. Then, I started training for my first half marathon which kind of put my weight loss dead in the water because, contrary to popular belief, you don’t always lose weight when you train for long distance races like half marathons. So right now, I’m not training for a specific race. I’ve put on about 15 pounds since December so I want to get that off ASAP to get my weight loss momentum going.

Since I’ve been working out regularly, usually a combination of running and circuit training classes 3-5 times a week, I feel awesome and actually strong for the first time in close to forever. In the past, I’ve been quick to beat myself up when I want to go work out in the “bro den” (the part of the gym that has free weights, benches, awkward grunting) because I don’t feel like I belong. But how can I make progress if I don’t work out in there? (I’m going to talk about more on that in a post I’m working on. Stay tuned.) Anyway, the point is that good things are happening. After working out regularly like this for the past ten weeks, it would be really hard to stop. I just love it too much!

So now that I’m in such an awesome place with my fitness, I’m really working to change my eating. I’m eating fruits and veggies like they’re going out of style and I’m incredibly intentional about drinking water (#alltheclearpee).

But I’m not perfect…
Can I still pound down a bag of potato chips? Yessir.
Do I hoard candy sometimes like those spoiled brats in Willie Wonka? Sure do.
But…Do I immediately regret it? Now more than ever.

I really hate that feeling of regret after a mini-binge, so I’ve been trying to combat that with just abstaining as much as I can. I tell myself that I won’t miss it in 5 minutes because all they are are just impulses. For example, we walked by a cupcake store in Tallahassee and I thought I really wanted one.

I knew I had two options:
1) Keep walking and go on with my day
or
2) Go in, spend money on a dessert that I’m generally kind of ambivalent towards, and then sulk because I could have spent those Weight Watchers points on bacon.

So, I’m making progress with my eating! I really feel like I’m on the verge of everything lining up for some serious weight loss awesomeness.

Speaking of weight loss…

I lost 2.8 pounds this week! After losing 3 pounds or so two weeks ago, I gained it back last week. (Between kidney stones and traveling, the MacDonalds have been a little cray…) This week, I wasn’t perfect at all. In fact (and if you try to troll me on this, so help me…) I had McDonald’s for the first time since we’ve lived in Tallahassee. I drove to Jacksonville twice this week and I really needed some coffee and breakfast. So, I had an Egg McMuffin and a hash brown. It was 12 points. I counted it and I moved on. I also ate at Hardee’s for breakfast one day and I counted it too. So I wasn’t perfect, but I counted my points and I exercised to bring balance to the Weight Watchers force. This past week was once again proof that when you count regardless and exercise, everything will fall into place.

Count all the points

 

‘Biggest Loser’ Winner Rachel Frederickson Admits She May Have Gone Too Far

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Interesting update to Rachelgate2014. At least she admitted that she might have taken her regimen a little too far. Hopefully she truly believes that and is not just saying it to save face. Thoughts?

(You can check out my original response to the Biggest Loser finale here.)

Day 1,172

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SEAHAWKS!!!

Okay…now that I have that out of my system…

So today was full of random eating, but I counted it all which is important! I used a few weekly points and that’s okay! Here’s the breakdown of the day:

Breakfast: A 5 point Jimmy Dean breakfast sandwich. An easy breakfast choice when you’re on the go.

pepperoni pizzaLunch: So I usually try to come home for lunch, but today I stayed on campus. I was planning on just getting cheese pizza from Papa John’s. I even put it in to Weight Watchers before I went to lunch to make sure I didn’t deviate. Then when I got there, they were swamped and out of cheese pizza (I guess that’s possible…). Anyway, I ended up with pepperoni pizza which was just a few more points per slice. Not idea, but it is what it is. 18 points


cold stone MoesDinner: Tonight, we ended up at Moe’s for some burrito deliciousness. I accidentally ordered the wrong thing which sucked, but was delicious (go figure…) I didn’t order the jr. size and I didn’t realize it until as I was plugging it in to their nutrition calculator. Lame. So with chips it was 31 points. Oops.

Dessert: The Moe’s was next door to Cold Stone and Megan and I both felt like a little cold treat. The last time I had been inside a Cold Stone was when we lived in Abilene. I remember going in there and getting a Gotta Have It calorietastic sugar bomb of craziness on a regular basis. I also remember the first time I tried Weight Watchers back then and getting their sinless sweet cream. It was like eating poison to me back then. I felt so robbed and horrible. My body and my taste buds were sick. Anyway, I gave their Like It sized Skinny Vanilla with Oreo and Heath mixins. It ended up being 12 points (6 of that was the actual ice cream which isn’t that bad) and it was waaaaay more ice cream than I’m used to. It was just a reminder of how far I’ve come.
So today was kind of a bizarre day and it had its share of issues, but that’s just the way the process goes. I racked up 66 points which is a lot, but I tracked it and that’s a huge thing! It was worth the extra points. I’ll shoot to be better on Tuesday. That’s all I can do. See ya tomorrow.

Movember Ad 1

Why You Shouldn’t be Afraid of Success.

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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.

Day 958: Thursday And Stuff

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Your body feels awesome when you feed it right.

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.

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
PizzaDinner: Two slices of homemade pizza with chicken sausage-10 points
ProofExercise: 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.