Category Archives: Seminole

Day 16

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GOOOOOOD MORNING VIETNAAAAAAAAAAM!!!!!

(Did anyone get the reference yesterday?)

Today was awesome! Not just because the Noles won, but it was great just to have some time to hang out as husband and wife. Grad school has become both of our mistresses.

This morning we went downtown to the Farmer’s Market. There were a lot of cool booths with everything from art to walking sticks. We were on the hunt for some fresh produce and of the three booths, we only found one that looked legit (the produce at one booth had stickers on them like they had just bought stuff from Walmart and brought it there. Shady City my friend.) Anyways, we came upon this cute old couple (that didn’t look like they could pick up a watermelon) and oh boy what a spread they had! We got, peppers, zucchini, red potatoes, and whatever else is in the picture. We bought pretty much all of our weeks worth produce for $12.50! Can you say deliciously legit? There is something about organic food that just feels, and/or tastes, right like it was the way God intended produce to be: without all the harmful stuff. I would definitely suggest finding out about when your local Farmer’s Market is open. Living organically is not necessarily important for a diet, but it is for a lifestyle change.

Breakfast: Just an orange for 1 point

Lunch: Since the FSU game was on at noon, we wanted to make some concession stand food again like last week, so we did frito pie again but this time with a freshly cut up jalapeno. So good! The chips (1 1/2 serving) was 4.5 points, the chili is only 5 points and the cheese was only 1 point. My mouth was burning after so I had a 1 point Fudgesicle to extinguish the flames.

Dinner: Tonight Megan made an awesome oven baked fried chicken with her famous sour cream mashed red potatoes that we got today. Since we got jalapenos from the Farmer’s Market, I wanted to make some jalapeno poppers like my dad does, so we cut them in half , filled them with low fat cheddar, and wrapped them with center cut bacon. It was a fantastic meal to say the least. The chicken was 5 points, the potatoes were 5 points as well and 4 jalapeno popper halves were just 3 points.

So far today I’ve tallied 25.5 glorious points. So I’ll probably have some dessert or some milk or something like that. Just out of curiosity does anyone have a good Iced Chai Tea recipe? I’ve been looking for a good one.

Anyways, tomorrow is weigh in day (hooray!) I’m always scared of being optimistic but I’m hoping between the working out and staying within my points I should be alright. So this week I’ve thought a lot about creating some goals and I have figured a big one out. Stay tuned tomorrow and read all about it. Until then, see ya tomorrow.

Day 12 (Drummers Drumming)

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Salutations!

It was a gorgeous morning here in Tally. I love living in a part of the country that actually has seasons. In Texas there was hot, really hot and then really cold.

Breakfast: a few blogs back (the first one I think) I talked about cooking up some turkey bacon and how it was such a good alternative to regular bacon. Later on someone wrote me that center cut bacon is just as good so we picked some up this week. She was awesomely right. It was actually lower points for 3 slices. Only 2 points! Although iwas less points, it was still weird to see all of the grease come off the bacon, so I was sure to pat off all the grease I could. I also I cooked up some eggs (cage free of course) and made them over medium. Back in my bigger days, I would just fry up the eggs in the bacon grease which tasted (ana) divine but today the thought of doing that made me sick so my body is still surprising me about what it’s craving. So sans the bacon grease the eggs were only 4 points.

I also tried to make a bacon face, because they’re awesome.

Snack: I went straight to workout after my class so I packed a Emerald Trail Mix pack because I knew I would need to eat something in that time. It’s always good to have a healthy snack in your backpack, satchel, la mochila, or even your trapper keeper. So that was 5 points.

Exercise: I went to Leach so excited to exercise it up! It felt like it had been forever! I hopped on the treadmill ready to jog/run, but I usually start off slow with a warm up walk. So I was on my iPod (answering fan mail lol) and I just kept walking and turning up the speed. Before I knew it I was up to 4.3 mph (at this point I would have been jogging) so it was feeling good and I just kept doing it, and I was feeling the burn! So I briskly walked and threw in a couple of jogs in there during certain songs.

I have a running mix on my iPod and I keep it on shuffle, but there are a few I will play at certain times for that extra boost. The first song is always Live Your Life by T.I featuring Rihanna since it’s 5 minutes and a good warm up song. Then about 15 minutes in I turn it to I’m Shipping to Boston by Dropkick Murphys (that awesome song from The Departed) and I’ll kick up the acceleration and run since it’s only 2 1/2 minutes. Finally when there’s about 9 minutes left the last two songs are D.A.N.C.E. (MSTRKRFT Remix) and Wolf Like Me by TV on the Radio. Wolf Like Me is good because towards the end there is a slow part and then the last 1:30 is super intense. If you were cool you would download these songs right now and start sweating to the awesomes.

So overall I wogged 4.11 miles in about an hour, burning 829 calories according to the treadmill (I had the soaked shirt to prove it.) I’m sure you’re wondering if that number seems to be a little high, well… it is. When you’re has big as me, it’s a lot quicker to burn off calories. I was a great day.

Lunch: So thanks to a long workout and bus snafu (long story) I didn’t make it home until around 3 so I was starving!!! I warmed up my favorite Amy’s meal: Tamale Verde. It was fantastic. The best 9 points I’ve ever eaten, and the 1 point orange was great as well. (At that point, I could have eaten a piece of tire and enjoyed it.)

Dinner: 2 hours later I had dinner. When you start WW, it’s hard to find a restaurant that not only has their nutritional value available, but are also a place where you can eat and still have points left. This is especially annoying since most local places (the good places) generally don’t have that information. Anywho, after about 30 minutes of investigating, I found the Pita Pit Website where you can build your pita and it will calculate the nutritional value. I found the Chicken Souvlakia and it was only 12 points. It was a really good alternative to the gyro I wanted which was 17 points because they use the same Greek seasoning on the meat. It was a good choice.

Megan being a cute little food model.

Today I racked up a total of 33 points which was my limit today. BTW we are using an older WW system so I’m actually suppose to have something like 44 points but I couldn’t eat that many points a day if I tried. Anywho, usually you get exercise points (here’s a way to calculate it oh and read her blog it is really good!) but I’m not hungry so why eat? See ya tomorrow.

Day 10 Weigh-in Funfest!

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Good Sunday to ya!

It has been a cool and rainy day in Tallahassee. It’s a nice change from the sauna it has been. This morning, I hopped on the scale (actually I didn’t hop on because it’s generally dangerous for fat people to jump on anything) and I lost 1.6 pounds! At first I was a little disappointed, but then Megan put it in context for me. She pulled out a can of soup and said “you lost this off your body this week.” That’s pretty cool (my wife is a stud) and considering I didn’t work out at all I’m pretty stoked about it.

Lunch: (I skipped breakfast again unintentionally. Fail.) Today we had a luncheon after church and they had sandwich stuff available so we ate there. It was a pretty good spread and the fruit medley was fantastic (I have always been an endorser of fresh fruit, especially when it’s only 1 point.) They had some bags of chips and I saw that the regular lays had 10 grams of fat in them for the serving of the small bag. Bad news bears. So I snatched the last bag of Sun Chips which was only 3 points. I figured out my sandwich was 5 points (skipping the gross looking processed cheese was worth it.) and I just stuck with ice water.

Snack: So since I started this thing I’ve been going on and on about the Emerald Trail Mix Berry Blend pouches that I thought were only 3 points. Well folks I have been duped. I’m usually really good about reading nutritional facts but this packaging is really confusing. I guess in my mind (even though I’ve looked at the facts many times) something in individualized packets would just be one serving. Turns out there are 2 servings in a 1.81 ounce pack, making it 5 points instead of 3. This is really frustrating to me because it is obviously intended to give the consumer a false sense of how healthy the product is for you. Granted, it’s still only 5 points and they are super filling. Anywho, the moral of this story is to watch out for these traps because next time it could be on something really bad like a doughnut or a candy bar. (This is The Scandal referenced on Facebook BTW)

Dinner: we had some amazing Tacos with Salsa from the WW cookbook. They are super filling and only 4 points for one taco (that’s with light sour cream and salsa.) So I had 3 tacos for 12 points.

Dessert: This evening I learned a lot about how much your eating habits and tastes can change over a short period of healthy eating. Tonight we went to Hiro’s Yogurt on Tennessee which is one of my favorite dessert shops in Tallahassee. It’s one of those places where it’s self serve yogurt and self serve toppings and you pay per ounce. Last time I went there (the first day of my diet pre-blogging) I went a little off the deep end.

Exhibit A: This is what I had the first time I was there. (This picture is named “ice cream fail.jpg” on my computer)

Exhibit B: This was tonight. Instead of chocolate I got Taro flavor and instead of sundae toppings I got strawberries and blueberries. The yogurt was 102 calories for 1/2 a cup so it came out to 4.5 points. I was really proud of myself about this because my sweet tooth is what got me in to this obese mess so I know substituting fruit for refined sugar is going to make this sucker work.

So today I came out at 30.5 points. Which is funny because I was full all day long but yesterday after eating out twice totaling over 40 points I felt empty.

My Tip of the Day: If you want to keep track of your points or to at least try out WW, bookmark this points calculator on your iPhone or iPod Touch (or what ever inferior product you might have) and just try it out this week. All you need to calculate your points is the calories, fat, and the fiber content. So try it on this week.

Day 9

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Howdy!

It has been a whirlwind of a day! The Noles won big time and the Rangers clinched the AL West so I would classify that as a legit day.

Lunch: Before the game we indoor tailgated at Wingstop with our bud Matt. Wingstop is one of my favorite eateries ever so it was a real treat but my first real eat out  challenge. For some frustrating reason, they don’t have their nutritional information on their website (which is shady) but luckily when I was doing my calorie homework (which I suggest everyone doing when they know they are going to eat out) I found them online posted independently. Megan and I split 5 lemon pepper and 5 garlic parmesan and each had our own fries (I think their fries are better than their wings. Any time you sprinkle sugar on fries you know it’s going to be epic.) The wings were 8.5 points and the fries were 9 points of pure Heaven. I know that’s a bit much but we have been pretty good so it was a nice little treat.

Dinner: We had two (delicious) challenges in one day! We went out with some friends to celebrate our friend Leah’s birthday (the same Leah from yesterday’s post) at Outback. Once again, we had done our homework and found out that The Grilled Chicken on the Barbie was the only pseudo low point entree  in a place full of high calorie bombshells. It was a real eye opener to us because like most of us we always filled up on their awesome bread. I was good and only ate one piece (about an 1/8 of the loaf) with no butter which was only 1 point. Since my side was only steamed vegetables, I decided to get a house salad which in hind sight might have been a mistake. Outback only has one light dressing which was a variation on french dressing (super lame) so I was got ranch which I knew better but I didn”t want to eat it dry. So that was an 8 point mistake. The Grilled Chicken on the Barbie with the veggies side was a whopping 14 points (delicious fail.) Thank goodness for flex points right?

So today I totaled out at 40.5 points which was 7.5 points over. Frankly I’m mad about it but we did eat out twice in one day and we never do that (and probably won’t from now on.) Luckily though I was good and had only used 6 flex points in the week so I used 13.5 out of my 35 available flex points.

Tomorrow is weigh in day!!! and I’m really nervous about it. I don’t feel like I’ve done near as well as I did last week since I didn’t get to workout this week. However, next week is a clean slate and that’s what we all have to remember. See ya tomorrow.

Day 8 (IT’S FINALLY FRIDAY!!!!!)

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Sup G skillets!

It’s Friday! I don’t know about you but it has been a long week and I’m ready for some college football and maybe a Cowboys win? (If you are reading this Jerry Jones… call up Bill Cowher and offer him a coaching job… or at least meet me halfway and fire Jason Garrett.)


Breakfast: So I don’t know if this is a trend, but in both at ACU and FSU there have been a Starbucks in the libraries. Which is fantastic because I had an early study group today and I needed the caffeine. But anywho, earlier this week I posted a question about what was your favorite Starbucks light drink. As I was rushing through my iPod Touch to find the responses while I was in line, I was asked what I wanted (I hate it when they ask the people further back in the line what they want. I know it saves time and all but we have been conditioned to know what we want when we are at the cash register, not 4 people back, but that’s for another blog.) In my haste I looked up at the board and saw Mocha Light Frappuccino. So I decided to go with that. I have to be honest it kind of tasted like Chocolate Slim Fast which is not my favorite but my breathe still tastes like toothpaste so who knows how good it actually was (but I’m not optimistic.) One the other hand, its not too bad for you. It only had 167 calories, 2 grams of fat and 3 grams of fiber so it was only 3 points for a Grande. I did miss the whipped cream but you gotta do what you gotta do right?

Lunch: Once again, I was on campus and I didn’t bring a lunch (which I should have brought one but I kind of ran out of time this morning and we are out of lunch meat (Fail2 ) but it worked out because I ate a Pollo Tropical with some people from my class. I tried the Chicken TropiChop with Bean and White Rice. Last time I didn’t get the combo and I wished I had because they don’t have free water cups (lame right?) so I go the combo which came with a side and a drink. Sides are usually what got me especially since one of the sides was mac and cheese [insert Homer Simpson mmmmmmmm soundbite here] but I was good and had the Balsamic Tomatoes which were really good and only 2 points! The TropiChop was only 11.5 points so so far so good today!

Snack: 14 amazing almonds for 2 points

Dinner: We did the leftover dance this evening which was fine for my because I think Uncle Jim’s chili gets better after aging in the fridge for a day or two. Growing up in Texas, Friday nights in the fall (but in Texas it was still summer) were dedicated for high school football and nothing else. My favorite concession food (other than sausage in a tortilla) was Frito pie. Tonight, in honor of Hillsboro playing Maypearl (not really) we made Frito pie with tortilla chips. As always, it was awesome. 12 tortilla chips were only 4 points, the chili was on another 4 points, and the WW cheese was just 1 point!

Dessert: We had some friends over and we made our favorite Disney World treats: Pineapple Floats!!!!! We originally found these treats during our honeymoon at Disney World and it hit the spot during that super hot July. They are a great lighter answer to root beer or coke floats and if you get some Publix Low Fat Vanilla Ice cream it’s the prefect treat. The 1/2 cup of ice cream was on 2 points and a cup of pineapple juice was only 3 points!

(Left) Megan slurping her float down

(Below)Our friend Leah trying not to laugh

So today totaled out at: 31.5 points so not too bad of a day. Enjoy your Friday evening and I’ll see ya tomorrow. Go Noles!

[insert Tomahawk Chop here]

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The year was 2004. Bush was in office, I still lived at home, and the “Awkward Nathan” stage of my life was quickly coming to a close. During Christmas break that year, my family and I drove the exhausting 17 hour to Walt Disney World from Hillsboro, Texas. The trip was amazing. As I recall the lines at Disney were short and the weather was in the 60’s which was just swell. Anyways, on the way there we stopped in Tallahassee, Florida to see my childhood mecca: Doak Campbell Stadium. You see growing up, I had always dreamed of going to either Florida State or Michigan but after I stood under the statue of Renegade outside this glorious brick monument to the institution of the gridiron, I knew that one day I would come back as a Seminole.

As most of you know, I ended up going to Abilene Christian University for my undergraduate, but I still knew that one way or another I would eventually end up in Tallahassee. I now know that I ended up at ACU so I could meet my awesome wife Megan. I knew it was true love when one day we were talking in the computer lab in the WPAC and she was talking about the different options she had for grad school. She said “One of the best music schools is actually Florida State.” I could feel the grin on my face grow disgustingly to Joker proportions thinking “Okay, I already knew I loved this girl, but now it’s providential.” After hours of prayer and asking God why certain doors weren’t opening, Megan found out she got in to the FSU School of Music.

After she got in I started looking for a PR job in Tallahassee (you know… my major) and nothing was working out. I knew I was particularly in trouble when I called about a pretty low paying menial and they said I was one of 76 applicants. Then one night Megan turned to me and said “I think this is a sign for you to apply to grad school.” The next day I bought a GRE book and started the application process. I found out last week that I got in to the graduate program as a non-degree student which means I’ll take classes this semester and if my GPA is acceptable I’ll be able to be in the program as a full-time student.  I know this might not be ideal, but I regardless I am super stoked to be here. I know that God put us here for a reason and I am stoked to watch his plan unfold for us.

I say all that to say this: for so long I really didn’t think that my dream of going to Florida State would ever become possible. I had honestly come to terms that that dream wouldn’t ever happen. During that time I had applied for a lot of different jobs in all over the country, thinking that this or that job was the end all be all of jobs. Every time I didn’t get it I would get really frustrated, thinking that my career life was over. Now I know that these closed doors were just leading to the eventual (and the most awesome) open door. So just remember, there is an open door out there, it just might take you a while to find it.

Oh yeah, I know the last time I posted something was 11 months ago. I’ll be sure to work on that.

Thanks to “iEverything” I can’t stand the way the letter I looks capitalized. Is that weird? But that’s for another blog another time…