Vegetables that look like what did you say?

On the subject of juicing and that movie I watched Fat Sick and Nearly Dead I started and still am considering trying a variation of what is suggested in the film with my intake. I believe that getting nutrients via vegetable juice or smoothies is a very solid way to incorporate more veggies into ones diet and I am playing with some ideas. It dawned on me that I would not need to buy a juicer to try this out when I remembered that I have a small blender called the magic bullet, I have had it for years and used it primarily to mix protein drinks so that they were smooth. My discovery of this under utilized appliance brought me to the internet, of course! the internet! and I found something called the nutribullet which was being used for making fruit and veggie smoothies and the funny thing is that its the same appliance that I already have. 

I pulled the blender out, washed it up and decided to add some smoothies to my intake mind you this is only the second day I am doing this but so far the drinks are decent. Last night I made a spinach, grape, strawberry and apple smoothie and it was honestly really good even with the slight grass after taste so I decided that this morning I would try a breakfast blend. 

Two Roma tomatoes, a handful of spinach, 7 baby carrots and a slice of onion turned into the concoction that you see above. Something funny that I found was that in the first image it looks like the beginnings of a good salad, very appetizing, and in the second image the veggies all chopped up in water gives a fresh clean aura and in the last image, the final product looks like it came out of a sick baby. I will admit that this was very spinach heavy and its where most of the flavor came from, I also added a small amount of sea salt and black pepper after taking a sip and I think that tomorrow I will add more tomato and less spinach and try to bypass the salt and pepper. 

I am not going to go full on with this but I don't think adding veggie smoothies to my routine is going to effect me in any kind of negative way and if it gets me eating more veggies then so be it. I am considering becoming Vegetarian again as well, since my gallbladder surgery a couple years ago I have found it very difficult to drop weight even when I am eating within my allotted calorie range, if there is fat involved and I mean the smallest amount the weight just does not want to budge.

Over all I am doing well with this "restart" if you will, I am finding it easy to stay within my calorie range and honestly feel better. I wanted to say thanks for the support since I started writing here again, it helps more than you know and the personal emails I have gotten have been great! loads of support in the comments as well and truly, it is appreciated. 

Time for some baby calisthenics so in the words of the eternal porky pig..

That's all folks!

Until next time.
As Ever
Me

Baby Calisthenics and a workout is behind me.

Here we are a few days into me getting back to the regularly scheduled programming where posting to my blog goes and I am feeling pretty decent as to where I am. My intake is going well and I am almost done with coffee again, next on the agenda is getting to bed early again as I end up staying awake until at least 12AM most nights. Sleep is a very important ingrediant in a solid weight loss better health plan and I know this yet I am still staying up late because its what I have been doing, it will come together.

 

What I need to do is ramp my exercise again, I am currently just doing what I am calling "Baby Calisthenics" as I am home with the 20 month old all day I may as well incorperate her into my exercise rght? so today I did crunches in 3 different positions while she beat on my abdomin and dove across my mid section. Following the crunches we did some "Baby Bench presses" This is where I lay on my back on the living room floor and do exactly that, I bench press the baby! She counts along and laughs and since my hands are very close together I can actually feel it a bit in my arms with the high reps. After the presses we did some squats, I held her in front of me and when I came up I tossed her into the air and caught her then back down for the next rep, talk about making getting some light movements into your day fun! I closed with some push ups, she mainly watched me and tried to mimic what I was doing but it was fun and thinking about how I may be installing good habits into her gray matter made it that much sweeter.

 

Over all I am feelig better than I was 2 weeks ago and its amazing how just eating better will do that, go figure! who wouldda thunk? As I sit here typing this post out I am thinking about my bike riding or I should say the lack of my bike riding in the recent months, this must be remidied. My trainer is set up with my K2 and the Trek scowles at me as it sits next to my bed for tha lack of riding time its gotten last year. My legs are far from what they were when I was riding regularly but I am going to slowly get them back so that hopefully I can get back out there sooner than later and hit the trail.

 

Later than normal this post floats into the blogosphere but alas! Baby Calisthenics was more important and truly more fun! Making batter choices with my intake once again is proving positive of course and hopefully the pounds will start dropping from my bones and I can get to posting images of items matching what I weigh. Friday I will post my weight good bad or ugly and I am so far from where I was that its gonna be ugly any way its cut! BUT it is what it is and it shall be so.

 

Thats all I got for today, check me out again tomorrow and remember don' be shy! leave me a comment, opinion, reccomendation in the comments, its always good to get those.

As Ever
Me 

Vegetables and weighing in.

I did not get a chance to post yesterday as life got busy but I wanted to get on today and get some chicken scratch added to the blog so here goes. I did well on the intake for Friday and ended up with a total of 1775 calories for the day which felt good, it didn't take long for me to stop with the hungry feelings so this is awesome.

After flipping through netflix last night I found a documentary called "Fat sick and nearly dead" which follows a man from Australia on a Juice diet trying to lose weight and cure a chronic illness that he has. It was late but I figured what the hell and dialed the program up, I have to say that it was interesting if not obvious that he would drop weight bu juicing only but as I was a vegetarian many years ago it does hold validity as an option. After watching the program I found myself searching the web for some info on the subject and will be exploring a sort of hybrid plan which incorperates some of the theories and ideas that I have about how to drop weight and some of what was said in the show.

 

Sometimes we can be inspired by something that we did not expect to try, something new even if its an old idea that already been tested, meaning if I was a vegetarian so long ago why would it not work again? and why have I not explored the option since starting on my drop the pounds campaign? I suppose its as I said, we gain inspiration or get an idea sometimes randomly.   

 

On an different note, this morning I was able to weigh myself which is awesome even if I did not appreciate the number that I saw. This coming Friday I will post what I weigh at that point and will also reveal what I weighed this morning through letting you know what the loss for the week is as long as there IS a loss. Instead of giving the number right now in this post lets just call it a wake up call and shit just got real, not that it wasn't real already with much of my wardrobe not fitting but seeing the number plain as day was a kick to the face that I needed to open my eyes.

 

Wrapping up I wanted to say that I will not let anything get in my way, I need to take the weight off and I need to do it in lieu of anything happening around me or any negativity that flows in my direction because without the discipline to let it roll from my back the other options are not good. I do not believe that everybody understands just how fragile the situation is and how negativity effects outcome of any given day, but we must stay on point because no one else can do it for us, we ate the food thats hanging from our bones and we need to be the one to take it off.  

 

Random perhaps, maybe not, either way the train is rollin again.

As Ever
Me

A menu and some insight.

We hopped back on that wagon so in the spirit of that I've decided that posting my daily menu couldn't hurt and maybe give you all a window into what went into me yesterday. This is something that I use to do and found it helpfull to look back for ideas on meals as well as giving me an online base to look back on and find trends in the ups and downs of weight when compared to the weight chart that I keep. The idea behind what I do is counting calories while cutting out as much processed foods as possible, if I can acheive a completely whole foods intake I am where I want and need to be and the weight seems to come off steadily, this is my goal. Going from where I am currently to a mostly whole foods intake is not an over night process, sure I can cold turkey go to whole foods but I find that weening off of them slowly "hurts" less and sticks in a more permanant way so it begins and transitioning into whole foods has begun.

 

Throughout this process I have kept to a lot of whole foods even when eating badly, it seems that I just eat the junk in addition to the good stuff and this I believe will make things easier to get back where I need to be as I do have a love for whole foods. You will see with my intake that I currently have a cup of coffee in the am, this has got to change back to a cup of hot green tea but like with the whole foods I am weening off of it this week and am hoping to be done with it by next Friday or so. With that long lead in here is the menu from yesterday.

Breakfast   
7:00 AM 
        Coffee/light creamer  75
   
8:45 AM 
        7 egg whites  105
        7oz potato  175
        Onion/Green pepper  35
   
11:00 AM 
        1 Banana  125
   
Lunch   
1:15 PM 
        1 can of Tuna  120
        < 1T Miracle whip  45
        2 deli slims  200

2:00 PM 
        Greek yogurt  120

4:30 PM 
        Green Giant Cauliflower/cheese  150
        2.5oz potato  65
   
Dinner   
6:15 PM 
        2 Tortillas  200
        3oz Ground turkey  150
        1 T lite sour cream  15
        1 T salsa  25
        1/2 cup kidney beans  100
        1oz shredded cheese  90
        onion/jalapeno  15

That list comes to 1810 total calories and thats not too bad as I aim for 1800 per day, when I began losing weight I had no idea how many calories to take in and started way too low and eventually came to 1700 which worked for well for me. I decided on 1800 for now because even though I did have awesome results with 1700 I thought it was slightly low but this is subject to change as I go and may ultimately drop back down to 1700.

 

Getting  daily walk back into my day has to happen as well and its the plan, I set up my Cycleops trainer so that I can get my biking legs back but for now at least the rides are short to save my arse from being sore all the time and walking is such a fundimental exercise I need to make time for it.

 

Weighing in, as soon as I get a scale that works I will post my weight, for me I need to weigh myself often to stay in control of what I need to do day by day, some people do it once per week some don't weigh themselves at all, I am that guy that wakes up and steps on the scale to see the trend day by day. Making time to write in this blog is in my lans as well, when I started off I had zero readers like any new blog but before long I had support coming from many directions and its so important to have support that I would be doing myself an injustice if I did not utilize this as an option to connect with like minded people so the blog is going to become a priority again. Please subscribe to the blog if you are a new reader and if you are an old reader finding me on your feed again add me to your things to do list again, You can also follow me on facebook via the link at the top of the page or just search Zeusmeatball.. and add me.

 

Straight forward and informative is the way this post went, just something to sort of layout the plan, getting back to my old self on this blog is coming so grab a big ol glass of Green tea, sit back and watch me drop the weight.

 

Thanks for all of the support, it is more than appreciated.

As Ever
Me

Day 1 .... which really means Day 1826

Today marks the fifth year to the day since I started writing this blog, when I began this journey I was a 534 pound man that had not many options as far as what he could do physically and things felt pretty hopeless when weight loss was the subject matter. I had worked my way down to a low weight of 305 pounds "new low its weigh in day" in May of 2010 and then leveled off at around 320 pounds and stayed there for a bit while I honed my bicycle riding skills while falling in love with cycling once again. The yoyo game which many of us call weight loss/dieting began sneaking into my way of life as I got more comfortable, this is something that I noticed so I took measures to counteract it. I ate mostly whole foods, stuck to my low calorie high nutrition eating plan which was working but I came up to roughly 330 pounds as cycling became a huge part of my life everything was awesome in my world as far as health went.

 

I have mentioned in this blog in the past that there are some stress points in my day to day that I cannot do anything about and will not talk about in this blog but have worked through them the best that I could, most of the time I am able to keep my Diet/Health/Workouts out of the way but many times its a turning point for me and I found myself "stress eating" because of it. Yes yes, get over it fat boy, figure it out and work around it... if only it were that easy. June 2011 I was doing awesome again, that unstoppable kind of awesome, my weight had stablized around 330 pounds again and I was on a warpath to get under that mythical line in the sand that I had drawn so long ago..299 pounds. An extremely stressful day became so much worse when I learned that I had lost my mother, I was in California less than 24 hours later to be with family and handle all that comes with that and held my own with staying mostly strict while there.

 

Slowly but surely I put weight back on, the loss of my Mom impacted me as it would anyone but what it meant for me was weight was coming back on and I did not know how to get back into a mindset that would allow me to be successful with my health program. The day that I learned about my mom I weighed 339 pounds and had written this post  "you fat fuck" earlier in that day and was on a roll with getting my shit back together as far as my health went. Today as I write this I am unsure what I weigh because my scale in the house is broken and I haven't cared to replace it yet but I am fairly certain that I have crossed out of the 300's even if only by a couple pounds. The fact that I allowed myself to slip back so far after beating the hell out of myself and getting down as far as 305 pounds pisses me off to no end.

 

For the past few weeks I have been getting myself back into the better eating thing once again and while I feel better as I said I need to get a new scale before I know an exact weight to see just how far I allowed myself to slide backwards. I cannot and will not blame anything or anyone but myself for the backslide and have to remember that I am human and will screw up, we all do but making my way back down the path and reaching a healthy weight that lets me live how I want to live must be a priority for me. As hectic as my life has become I am going to try to write here as often as I possibly can as I believe this blog was a major part of my previous success, having a place to draw on my own words and feelings as things change is an awesome tool for anyone.

 

I am planning on posting my weight as soon as I have it and going back to my oldschool style of posting a weight with objects that weigh what I have lost each week etc, any of my old readers will understand this but the visuals are amazing motivators!

 

Five years ago I decided to change my life for the better and I have by leaps and bounds, this is just another chapter in that story and I hope that you will follow along and cheer me on or tell me to buck up and get a workout in, either way here we go...

 

As Ever

Me

Mid week update post and a Thank You.

Sliding back into a groove is how the last few days have gone, making good decisions where whats going into my mouth is concerned has not been the easiest thing in the world and I am feeling hungry starting about 4pm daily. My body wants more and it wants it right now dammit! but I know that walking through this initial burst of rebellion that will eventually subside needs to be done, then things can get back to normal.

 

 

 

Sticking mainly with whole foods as I was doing before I fell off of the wagon is my plan, I have also started counting calories again while my drinking has remained the same since 2008, 1 gallon of green tea and close to if not more than another gallon of H2O daily so no change was needed there besides stopping with the coffee in the morning.

 

Over all this "restart" is going as I would hope, the scale is cooperating, getting in some movement is happening and all while I nurse a shoulder injury. Posting in the blog again is helping I think as it gives me a place to "put it out there" how things are going so I will continue to post as often as I can.

 

Today the post will have to be short, sweet and to the point though as I have my daughter that just woke up so my attention is needed elsewhere, Thank you for the support as of late, the emails are great and the comments help more than you would think.

 

Until next time

 

As Ever

Me

534 pounds to 305 pounds to somewhere inbetween....

Restarting is not as easy as one would have thought, I mean, I've done this before right? Just jump back into the pool and swim away no? No... My good habits have slipped away somewhat so getting back into a groove is tougher that I want it to be but hey! If I don't put on my big boy pants.. And unfortunately I mean that literally and figuratively this time around its not going to get done on its own, so away we go. I tried that wish into one hand and shit into the other thing in an attempt to get some results but I just ended up with a stinky hand... so I suppose I will have to bust ass again to get where I need to be.
 
When I was 534 pounds I started off slow because I had to, there were no options other than slow and that’s what I did and eventually I dropped a total of 229 pounds at my greatest number. I am in the mindset of a guy that is 300 pounds and can ride 30 miles on his mountain bike in a couple of hours with no side effects besides a big shit eatin' grin stuck to my face for the rest of the day when in reality I have no idea what my limits are currently as I have not ridden my bike since late July. I can tell you that I am not in the shape that I was when 534 was what I was carrying around but I don't think I am close to what I was June of 2011 either and finding a middle ground is proving to be a tad more difficult that I would have expected.
 
I know, I know... just do what ya can man! indeed this is how it will pan out I am sure but getting my 300 pound mind to understand that I am not there any more is the trick. It seems like I was just convincing myself that I was not 500 pounds any more and when I get a handle on that (which I believe is part of my problem but that’s for another post) I now have to realize that I have put on some significant weight in the last year or so.
 
The plan..
 
When I started off I would walk as far as I could daily, that distance was first measured in minutes, 10 minutes at a time at the pace of my then 2 and a half year old daughter, this pace increased to carrying her on my shoulders for the walk and eventually turned into 30 mile bike rides. I have begun doing my morning stretch routine again, holy hell am I tight! and as I type this there is a road crew outside my house finishing laying a new road, starting tomorrow morning (looks like the road work will be completed today) my walks will resume, this time with my new now almost 2 year old, and no not at her pace, she will ride in the jogging stroller. My intake has been slowly getting back to where it needs to be, I have started logging my intake daily once again and may start posting it on here again the next time I post, which hopefully will be tomorrow. I did keep one of my good habits and that’s drinking the green tea, I refuse to drink calories so I do still drink 1 gallon of green tea per day and it’s been that way since whenever I started that. I mentioned that I refuse to drink calories, that’s almost a whole truth because I have been drinking coffee in the am, I've quit that as of this morning switching it back to a cup of hot green tea instead.
 
As I type this post out I feel motivated to get my shit back together and start pushing the scale down again, as I mentioned this restarting is almost as hard as the start, I have the knowledge in my belt this time around, I have a taste of what being a "normal" size is to hold onto and we're ready for round two.

All of the comments on the last post helped immensely! Reading some encouraging words, some tough opinions and a few emails from old friends was a really good kick in the ass so thanks for that.
 
I will attempt to make time to post as often as I can so please stop by again and comments/opinions are always welcome so don’t be shy... lord know I'm not.
 
Until then.....
 
As Ever
Me

Could use some input, Please read me...

There use to be a guy that wrote a blog and lost a bunch of weight, people said that he was inspirational and that what he had accomplished was amazing and to be commended. That fellow once upon a time weighed in at an amazing 534 pounds, life was less than peachy for him at a quarter of a ton. He fought his way down to a for him svelte 305 pounds at his lightest, I admired that guy myself if I am being honest, if you read this blog at all then you know I am that...Honest. Life happens sometimes and using that fact as an excuse is not how this guy gets down but I have to admit that when you are shoveling shit against the tide it’s an exhausting task to say the least and that’s how this ride feels for this fine young lad at this current time in the story line.  
 

I have had zero to no time to sit down and write this blog, or should I say that I had no desire to do so, when the stresses of life step in at times they can feel like trying to push boulders out of the sand with a popsicle stick.. yeah, like that. I have put on more than what I could call a considerable amount of weight since reaching that 305 pound mark, the weight crept up slowly and leveled off then it started creeping back on as I became less conscious of what I was putting into my body and I am currently paying for it in the way of about 75 or so pounds. Fuckin A man, all that hard work and I am allowing it to pack back on, why? Focusing on me is not a luxury that I have right now but that has to change so I figured that perhaps a post on my blog could sway the direction for me back into something that is going to get me back into a groove.

 

Riding my bikes has not been happening, my daily calisthenics is but something that I use to do and my walks around the lake are non existent, this is starting to look a lot like what I had when I was 500 plus pounds and I will be completely honest with you it scares me. More than a few attempts to get back on track have faltered after only a couple weeks, at times its been days.. being unable to focus on me because of other things happening in my life are taking precedence frustrates me because I know that if this item on the list does not get attention the house of cards can easily fall behind that single card.

 

What do you do when you know what to do yet are unable to execute the task as it should be? The tools are there, the experience is there and the will is there yet the struggle feels so much harder than it ever has, if I knew the answer to that question I would not be in this situation.

 

I have to push forward, I need to make my health priority over everything else and I need to do it yesterday not next week or next month but how?... to be continued I suppose and I am going to try to get on and posting more often once again, if you have any suggestions or straight up reality check shit, click that leave a comment button because I could use some fresh perspectives right about now.

 
As Ever
Me

                                                                                            

 

It's alive!!! but I ain't got no bolts in my neck.

Its been a while where I find myself with some time to sit down and write a post so since I had a couple minutes I thought it was time for an update. Point blank I have been struggling since June 2011, a personal tragedy is making things hard on me and focusing has not been easy so we get what we have here, some weight gain. I hit a point where I started remembering some of the struggles of being 534 pounds and with a lot of thought ie: Jedi mind tricks on myself, I have been on a roll for about a month now again where I am doing everything right.

To say that weight loss is a mental game would pretty much sum it up because if you are defeated mentally I doubt many people would be able to keep it together when it comes to something as difficult as staying focused in the face of stress. Losing weight is not easy for any person and someone who says that its easy is just plain lying to you, its a simple thing but easy it is not and there in lies the problem. I have come from 534 pounds down to as low as 305 in the last four years, I am currently as of this morning at a rotund 363.0 pounds but am riding my bikes almost every day now along with the most basic item in my bag of tricks which is a simple walk every day.

I won't complain or whine about things that make it hard because we all have them but shit just ain't easy sometimes and I won't get into it more than that as focusing on the negative never helped anyone. Instead I chose to focus my energy on a couple things that are possible causes for an issue and I have seemingly come up with a solution as I am again able to stay focused and the weight is coming down again but then again when someone walks a few miles per day and then rides a few more it tends to help in that department so who knows.

Short and sweet is this post so I will end it here, I will also try to get a post up more often because when i start getting emails asking if I am alive obviously someone out there still follows.

Thanks for all of the support over the last couple years its been invaluable.

As ever
Me

An update of sorts and some vintage steel for your morning Joe.

I cross posted this with my cycling blog so you can check it out there if you haven't seen it, My weight has how do they say? plateaued? lately, I can't figure it out because I am eating ok, exercise has been coming more often with the weather I have been taking the little one out on rides on the Adams trail a bike but the weight loss has stalled. I am not going to worry about it but will keep on doing what I am doing and call it a slow time because if I let it get in the way I will undoubtedly gain weight in the long run and I ain't down for that. I mentioned the weather warming up and its got me in a bike kind of mood, like I said me and my eldest daughter have been going on rides out on the lake with the trail a bike and I started working on the old Motobecane again, we're getting close on that bike I tell ya! soon enough I will have a new ride in the stable even if its short lived as I am unsure I am a roda bike kind of guy but we will see.

I needed some down time so I headed off to work with the Motobecane yesterday for a couple hours and finished up cleaning the rear derailleur, the shifters and I got the cables/housings installed. I am still not done by a long shot and there is still a lot to do before the bike is done I did make some good solid progress on the bike last night. I chose Jagwire platinum braided cable housings to blend in with the frame a bit and I really like how they look on the bike! I did make a couple decisions on just how closely I was going to polish things up, I was thinking about the fact that I am planning to ride this bike and polishing everything to a mirror finish didn't make a lot of sense because of that fact, I mean if its going to get grimy anyways why make it shinier than when it was new?

With that said, I did not skimp on the polishing! I think that the bike is starting to look pretty nice even if this shot makes my basement look like a dungeon! who am I kidding.. it IS a dungeon! I still have to completely do the wheels (I just tossed them on to see how the bike looked) as I have not touched them other than a small test spot where I polished the rust off of the chrome and I do believe that the wheels will look pretty good after some elbow grease. You can see that I laid the rack on there just for a look at how it would play out and I think that I like it and will stick to the original plan of doing fenders and rack on this bike.

Above is a closer shot of the braided cables installed on the shifters, I think they compliment the silver frame pretty nicely! I am still on the fence with what color I should do the tape/hoods/saddle in but I am sure that it will come to me... eventually. I originally wanted to do the bars and saddle in brown/honey but that is more expensive than the other options and since I am not 100% on whether I will keep this bike in the long run I keep going back to just do the bars red, black saddle and brown or black hoods, I am very on the fence with the whole thing. I don't really ride road bikes let alone vintage road bikes! and that is why I am unsure about whether this will become a permanent ride in my ever growing fleet of bicycles even though I have put a good amount of thought and time into this bike.

Finally a shot of what I started with compared to where I brought it, I think there is a big difference and when I am done I think it will be even bigger! Next on the list of things to do will be the tape and saddle and I am very anxious to see how it looks with a bit more of a finished feel to it. Now the decision must be made on the tape, once that happens I can choose a saddle and finally hood color, some new tires and we will be off for a ride to snap a couple photos in a nicer setting than my dungeon... er I mean basement!

Over all I am on the right road and with the spring right around the corner I am expecting the biking to pick up some which will hopefully help tear away some of my winter jelly that I have packed on during the hibernation. I will never stop striving to get to my goal and some day I will be able to say that I weigh 250 lbs, it may not be in a week, or a month but the day is coming because I will not let weight control who I am or what I do in life and that's that!

Until next we meet, keep on pedaling!

As Ever
Me