LOST

I lost those nasty two pounds. Nuff said!

Not to shaby

Uh huh, that's right. I'm up to 2 pounds. Well, what can I say except the last couple of weeks have been rough. Didn't eat all that well and work has been keeping me pretty busy so I missed a lot of workouts. I took that picture on Saturday morning but haven't wanted to share it. Time to be honest though. You have set backs, It's a part of life but I'm still on track. I'm watching what I'm eating and I've been back in the gym working harder on the weights and as far as my running is concerned I'm running farther. I'm consistently hitting 5 miles in less than an hour. It used to take me an hour to run 4.

So, that said I feel great and yea, I'm not afraid to think I look a heck of a lot better than I used to and feel better as well.

When it's cold I love hot stuff like chili, soup, etc...You know - Comfort food. So what does a guy do when he likes comfort food and he's trying to be healthy. Here are some options I found on Runners world Magazine.

comfort-food-gets-healthy-makeover

Chili
Make a chili with 95% lean ground meat, or a mix of lean ground meat and ground turkey breast. Add some beans, canned tomatoes and spices for flavor.

Soups and stews
Stew meat is extremely lean. Add veggies (fresh, frozen or canned) for a comforting meal that tastes great. When making chicken noodle soup, think more broth and veggies and less noodles. Try using a whole grain—like barley—instead of noodles for a nice chew.

Hot cereal
This is one of my personal favorites. Instead of buying the presweetened varieties, buy plain oatmeal and add a protein source (skim milk, soy milk, hemp milk, almond milk or protein powder), a sweetener (preserves, maple syrup, honey, brown sugar), fruit (fresh, frozen or dried) and spice (ginger, cinnamon, cloves, allspice, even a dash of cayenne).

Mac and cheese
Play with a mac and cheese recipe too much and you may get a very unsatisfactory dish, but you can swap a few ingredients for a lower calorie treat. Try using evaporated skimmed milk instead of whole milk or cream. You can also use less cheese if you use a variety with a stronger flavor like Gruyere or Fontina.

Chicken pot pie
Mark Bittman offers a great recipe for this true comfort food, which is typically full of fat in other recipes. Click on the link above to see the full article and a link to this recipe.

Trigger Happy

Stopped tracking the days as of today
Ran 5 miles today in 50 minutes

As I was crossing over Monument Ave. and running into the neighborhood I saw it. All by itself, crumpled up and waiting for me. I was feeling lazy today and really did not want to go for a run but the sun was out again for only the second time in the past week and a half I almost felt obligated to go and just "be" in the sun. I also "OVER" ate big time last night. We had steaks and my wife makes this amazing homemade pasta alfredo. I started out ok only having half of the steak but then
I dove into the pasta. It's my favorite thing other than chocolate. I love pasta. So, of course when I saw that dollar bill just laying there I was like "wow, that's awesome. This literally paid off today." Cool.

So I've been thinking about my triggers. Those moments when I feel the urge to eat my self silly for absolutely no reason at all. Here's the list:

1. Boredom
2. Tired
3. Bad mood /Bad hair day/ Apathy all around kinda day
4. Eating while I'm watching my favorite shows. It's like I feel this mental "need" to eat while I'm watching television. It's weird!
5. About 30 minutes after lunch and 30 minutes after dinner. Even if I ate a big dinner or lunch I still have this weird "need" to fill my stomach.

Couple of small goals I'm setting for myself starting now:

• T.V eating - "Ok" to have a snack but nothing after 8pm
• Issues after eating lunch and dinner - Make sure I'm eating enough for breakfast. It's the champion food right?
• Smaller plates at dinner - Trick the eyes to the soul into thinking I'm filling up my plate.

Here are helpful links on "Triggers"

Weight Watchers - Eating Triggers

www.eatingwell.com - Get a nonfood life

www.mayoclinic.com - Gaining Control of Emotional Eating

Hedonic Hunger

 

Smaller plates

 

 

Thought for the day: I feel more motivated to be careful about my eating when I'm exercising

Just 5 more to go

DAY 71

• Last weekend - 5 mile run 500 calories burned
• This week - daily walk with the dog / Gym twice this week - total hour and a half
• Eating - Not so good. I devoured a Pizza Hut pizza last night with bread sticks.

I haven't kept the blog up for a while I know. It's been more than 10 days and to be honest I have not been moving the needle. I've been stuck at 160+ . I'm officially plateauing I think. The body has become comfortable with the routine and the new eating habits. All that means is that my body is finding ways to become efficient. At this point my body has stopped burning energy and is now storing it. This made perfect sense back in the "hunter-gather" times but at this point it's really more of an evolutionary annoyance. I don't want to hang out here and to reach my weight goal I need to get to 155...only 5 more pounds.

I have been over-eating. Not crazy but I've been going over my allotted W.W. points by 5, sometimes 10, points. That said, I also have my extra points that I get for working out and I've been going over on those as well. A friend of mine sent me a website that picks out workouts of your choice and it helps you shake it up. I'm going to give it a shot this week and try to really focus on the eating this week.

http://www.wodshop.org/wods.html

 

 

The truth of the matter is that I've been making poor choices. Just this week I got a kick in the butt from a friend who busted me eating a brownie this week at a get together. What he saw was me eating one brownie. What he didn't know was that I had already eaten like 5 of them. I need to take control of things before they take control of me as they have the past. If that happens again I am destined to end up back near 170 and I DO NOT want that again.

 

So, here we go - 5 pounds here I come. I need some ideas for ways to shake it up, so please tell me yours in the comments section. I would love your thoughts or things you've found to be successful. I came across another blog today that had some interesting, creative ideas by a Mom who is committed to healthy living. A few of her ideas I liked and I might try:

• Drink a lot of water - I've been really busy at work. This is a trigger for me, meaning that I tend to drink a lot of coffee when I'm busy.
• Wear a bracelet or something around your wrist that I can assign super powers to. Basically it will remind me of my goal when I go to reach for snack food that I do not need to eat. I admit that this sounds a little corny but what the heck. I'll give it a shot. It's my personality as well to need little things like that to help me along (I am king of sticky notes) and hey the MC from the  Sons of Anarchy T.V. show wear cool stuff on their wrists. Why not me?
• Make a list of triggers: I've never really thought about this but I do tend to eat during certain times or when I'm feeling a certain way. I need to think through the major trigger times for my more emotional and distracted eating.
• Shake up the points by eating only my points and then eat less than that once or twice this week. The object is to wake my body up from its nice happy comfortable nap. She also had the idea to switch out a processed food for something natural.

Wellness without pity at http://diaryofareluctantathlete.blogspot.com/

 



 

 

Thought for the day: I usually think of Saturday as a day for "whatever". Today will be different though. Today I will be focused.

 

 

Another interesting site I came across...8-foods-we-eat-in-the-us-that-are-banned-in-other-countries