317.2 lbs. and Counting

My progress may not be fast, but it's consistent.  Maybe that's a good thing.  My weight increased consistently for more than a decade, about 10 lbs. a year.  At least it's decreasing faster than it came on, and I'm getting better at picking up heavy objects and putting them down, especially the putting them down part.  So, there's that.

Two observations:  1) Working out needs a name that's less stupid and doesn't include the word work.  2)  I don't like the term resistance training to describe picking up and putting down heavy objects or stretching a large rubber band.  I'm resistant enough.

My biggest goal in life as I live it is to work hard at things that are bigger than I am.  That's getting easier--for a couple of reasons.  Going to the gym now.

319 lbs.

Can get a shout out here? A little something? A woo-hoo? That's a negative 15 lbs, and I'm working hard. A little gentle affirmation? How 'bout that!

Horseradish Realization

So, since there are 16 tablespoons in a cup, it turns out that horseradish wins the potassium battle over onions 744 mgs to 234. That's probably why horseradish is the herb of the year.

Who can eat a cup of horseradish, though?

Potassium Update

First, it turns out that a tablespoon of horseradish has 44 mgs of potassium. Second, July is National Horseradish Month, and horseradish was named the 2011 Herb of the Year by the International Herb Association. Last (This just keeps getting better) horseradish has its own website: http://www.horseradish.org/ brought to you by The Horseradish Information Council.

The onion has a pretty significant potassium punch, too. A cup of onion has 234 mgs of it. As anyone would expect, the onion has its own PR people: The National Onion Association at http://www.onions-usa.org/. Of course they get all patriotic with the onions-usa bit, but horseradish took the big prize this year. Must have been a big upset for the onion people.

321.2 lbs.

Big News: 321.2 lbs. That's a net loss of almost 13 lbs., and I'm right on target since I established new goals about a month ago--1.5 to 2.5 lbs. a week. The best part of this week is not the weight loss; it's that I made ice cream on Monday and have eaten only one small scoop a day since the initial binge. This fits my original goal of raising the quality of food I eat while reducing the quantity. There's nothing better than home-made ice cream--right out of the canister after the motor stops churning.

About a month ago, I started using MyFitnessPal to record the nutritional values of the food I eat, track things like sodium and potassium, and keep a diary of my exercise. The name is silly, but it sounds better if you try to pronounce it like John Wayne might have (my ... FITness ... pal) with an inflection that rhymes pal and pilgrim. I don't have too much trouble staying at my goal of 2050 calories per day, especially when I carefully track what I eat after 3:00 PM, but I love salty food.

Standing at the deli counter a couple of weeks ago, I thought, turkey has to be better for me than salami, so I bought Cajun-spiced turkey. One slice of Sara Lee Cajun Spice Turkey has enough salt to raise the blood pressure of North America, and so does a MacDonald's Sausage Biscuit. I love both of them, but I also love low-sodium roast beef with horseradish--a more-than-satisfactory lunchmeat replacement that also gives me an excuse to eat a big slice of onion, and I bet onions have potassium.

About the time I learned the salt content of Cajun-spiced turkey, I read something about the effect potassium has on helping the system manage sodium, so I started watching my potassium using MyFitnessPal's database. It's hard to eat enough potassium. Bananas have it, but it's hard for the system to get shed of a banana. Cantaloupe has it and doesn't have a banana's unfortunate side effect, so cantaloupe it is and a few other leafy and fruity things. What if horseradish was a good source of potassium! I better go check.

Super Mango Chicken-o-Matic?

The story today isn't really my lbs. I've been having trouble getting two meals under control--breakfast, the most important meal of the day, and lunch, my favorite meal of the day. I thought I had breakfast down pat, but, as it turns out, the lack of structure of the summer is harder to deal with than the hyper-structure of the other three seasons. So, I'm trying to add a little bit of mealtime structure back to my schedule. Today is the first day of the newly structured meal plan.

Breakfast:  bowl of Cheerios, cup of blackberries, and a cup of skimmed milk. The book I'm reading, The 4-Hour Body, suggests eating more for breakfast, and I'm good with that, believe me. But, I'm not as clear on what to eat.  Ferriss suggests three hard-boiled eggs. Can't do that. Nope. Ick. Next he suggests low-fat meat. For a few months several years ago, I ate a chicken breast for breakfast. That's not bad. It gets a little boring, but that's probably okay. His third suggestion was the protein shake.

Okay, I'm trying to drink one of those right now. I bought it at the grocery store yesterday. It's a mango flavored Mix One enhanced protein shake. It has a lot of sugar, so I was reluctant to buy it. I'm trying not to drink calories, another Ferriss suggestion, and one that I like a lot. Easy to remember and pretty easy to do. The taste, smell, and mouth-feel are killing me. This is like trying to down medicinal mango, sidewalk chalk, and Golytely colonoscopy preparation drink.

Tomorrow, I'm going back to chicken--easy to prepare and delicious. Breakfast is going to look a lot more like lunch. Perhaps, this is a sign. I love a good Mexican breakfast. The problem is the making of it, not the eating of it. I have time now, but I don't really have time to prepare food the rest of the year. At least, I've learned that the protein shake is not the way to go.

Lunch: Easy when the ingredients for a great sandwich are in the house. So, I went shopping yesterday. In fact, it's 11:00 AM, almost time for lunch. It has to taste better than the stuff I just forced down. I keep waiting for the blow back. With apologies to the good people of Max One, I'm never touching the stuff again.

324.0 lbs.

My break from my blog has come to a close, so now I'm on summer break. I'm even dressed to work out today, and maybe I will.

324.0 isn't bad for having been on the road for about a week and a half, eating cafeteria food and fast food for most of the time. During the first week, I ate 19 cafeteria meals! I think the only thing that helped me was the fact that I knew this day was coming. I knew I'd have to weigh in. I knew I'd have to make a public statement about it.

In the meantime, I've been reading Timothy Ferriss's book The 4-Hour Body. He is, perhaps, a nut job, but some of the advice is helpful. Don't drink calories is nearly possible. His observation that awareness of weight is a factor in weight loss is fascinating. There are some things to think about here. I know I've been reluctant to weigh in since I got home. I was up a pound on my official weigh-in day, and nothing more powerful than knowing it got me back on track. Truely, if there had been no scale in the bathroom, this project would've been derailed.

Measure. I'm not sure I'm really interested in things like total inches or body fat. It's all about the lbs. for me. I can measure them down the the 100th lb. And 1/100th makes a big difference.

I'm not sure I'm rsponsible enough to put his Saturday blowout principle into practice. He suggests that one day a week anyone who is faithful to the slow-carb diet should eat until comatose. His words, not mine. The problem for me is that I will. Comatose is strong; sleepy is more my style.