As I’m writing this post I’ve just gotten home from work (and Costco) and I’m blasting some Jimmi Hendrex on the PA. I was thinking [...]]]> This has been a tough month and a half; we are house hunting, the dog died, a little depressed but we are coming out of it. Today is a great day!

As I’m writing this post I’ve just gotten home from work (and Costco) and I’m blasting some Jimmi Hendrex on the PA. I was thinking about being bad tonight as my wife’s sister is having a b-day dinner in old town and my wife is away!

Well you know what they say – watch this video.

Funny huh? Well I ended up buying trout I’m going to BBQ tonight! I’ll cook them up after I got done with a bag workout and have them with a few beers!

I had the oppertunity but not the will to be too bad! Hang in there all – just keep it up even if you end up treading water for a while! TGIF!!!

Well lets talk [...]]]> I’ve wrote about this before and even took shots at the idea one has to keep a food log to lose weight. While I think it is a good idea, I also think it is easy to eyeball the food one eats all the time and stay on the straight and narrow [path].

Well lets talk about that for a minute, is eyeballing food as good as keeping a food log? I used to think so but I’ve noticed over the last couple of years that my biggest weight loss has always come when I kept close track of every calorie.

In this post I’ll talk about the value of keeping a food log for a reduced calorie diet. I will point out when it is ok to “eyeball” food to stay on track and how I keep track of my calories.  Here is a video that talks about why and how counting calories work.

First off while I have endorsed a low-fat diet (I have a free e-book on this website), I now think the easiest way to lose and keep the weight off is with a sensible low calorie diet. It is as simple as the guy in the video states, first use the formula he suggests or an internet calculator such as this one here.

Find the information based on maintaining your weight, losing one pound a week and losing two pounds a week. For me it is:

• maintain per week           = 2500 calories
• lose 1 pound per week    = 2000 calories
• lose 2 pounds per week  = 1500 calories

Generally speaking a woman should eat no less then 1200 calories per week and a man should eat no less than 1500 calories per week. You see it is important to figure out how many calories it takes to maintain your weight so you can not eat more that that on average.

Now as I have already stated, I think you should devise a system of keeping track of your calories. I have heard there are great internet sites you can join and they will log your calories and perhaps make some really great looking reports. One can also just write down the daily counts in a journal or as I do – in an excel spread sheet.

Before I show my spread sheet I would like to mention that if you are doing an Atkins, South Beach, Mediterranean, Weight Watchers, low-fat or whatever – counting calories might not be too important. But you might be counting carbs, fat grams, points so keeping a journal might make just as much sense.

Ok I have been on a really long plateau (months) but I have finally made stead headway for the last two weeks all because I decided to keep track of the calories and fat. The fat counting is not to do a low-fat diet but to ensure I don’t do a high-fat diet. You see if I ate a high-fat diet I would end up getting very hungry because I would not be able to eat as much food (higher fat has more calories).

Here is how I count calories. I hope you find some way of keeping track of whatever you are counting that works for you too!

John's Food Log

I hope you have enjoyed this glimpse of what is working for me.

Starting my third year of recent fitness aspirations, I have high hopes to continue what was successful last year – weight loss! If [...]]]> Welcome to the new decade (2010)! I saw an encouraging report here, that stated that while Americans have not gotten skinnier, we have leveled off of the increasing obesity! That is good news!

Starting my third year of recent fitness aspirations, I have high hopes to continue what was successful last year – weight loss! If you click my “Progress” tab at the top you will see a story that showed some success the first year but a total relapse during the end of year holidays. Last year I started from 255 and got down to 228.

Well this is a new year and am starting out at 233 (some bounce ) pun intended

The goals for this year are to buckle back down and get into a groove again. I am adding the wife and pets into my overall plan because we have to support each other. We have started back up with the walking two miles in many evenings.

Further goals are for me to spend more time at the karate school this year, getting into better fighting shape and helping the youngins along and to continue everything last year that worked. This includes jogging, bag work, free weights, walking and perhaps some body surfing (this is kind of a risk as I might be mistaken for a whale in the surf)!

I will still try to update this blog every couple of weeks and visit you all out there in the blogasphere.

I hope the holidays has left you refreshed and ready to accomplish you goals this year!

When I left home at age 17, I ended up living on tips (I was a [...]]]> I remember as a young man watching a MacDonald’s commercial about how you could still feed a family of 10 for about $10! I was amazed by this but sure enough a hamburger, small fries and a small coke cost under $1.

When I left home at age 17, I ended up living on tips (I was a busboy at a local restaurant) and took advantage of Burger King’s 25 cent hamburger sale one month. That sale fed me for two months (I froze some burgers).

In this post I will try and explore some of what is making us as a society fat! I will try to place blame squarely where it ought to be and try to deal in reality for the other pesudo-issues that are bandied about such as the myth that fast food is “making” us fat. First to set the stage, take a look here or at the video of the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute’s slide show about portioning.

For those of you that don’t remember pre-big gulp days, sodas have not always been 32 or 40 ounces. Yes I remember that a glass of beverage used to be 8 ounces.

So what is with this calories in, calories out balancing act displayed in this power point? As I recall as a small child watching a Marcus Welby episode, one cannot eat more calories than one’s body can consume in a day to maintain a healthy weight!

Is that TV doctor’s advice proven wrong over the years? NO!

Are there many more ways to skin the same cat in today’s multi-billion diet industry? Yes!

What is healthy eating anyway? When I was a kid there were four food groups. Nowadays there are about seven or eight but the advice has not changed much. One should not over indulge in fat, and the amount of carbohydrates and protein vary depending on the flavor of diet you decide to follow.

Why is fast food deemed as evil by the diet powers to be? Because of the high fat and calories (and low nutritional value inherinet in highly processed foods).

Here is an example of fast food gone wild, complete with girls in skimpy attire for you viewing pleasure (as well as an obscene amount of fatty, salty, caloric foods!)!

All I can say to this is, “Doctor, Doctor, Give me the news… I have a bad case of loving you…”

Now for a counter point before I launch into what I view as the only viable solution to fat food!

I find that I agree with the main points of this video, yes, cheap – highly available, fast food is part of our obesity problem!

Now I probably will never be able to eat at the heart attack grill because even one “regular” sized meal at that establishment would be more calories and fat than I am allowed for a whole day! But having said that, I do not think fast food is the culprit here and I would defend this restaurants right to exist in America!

I think people are responsible for themselves! If a person knowingly or unknowingly decides to become obese – that is his or her problem.

Luckily we are about to get health care that will hopefully cover people that make bad choices but the blame rests squarely with a person’s choices in life.

Now unless America decides to adopt communism as a political system, I think personal choice is here to stay. Now for the obvious solution.

Portioning!

What did I say? Portioning? Yes!!!

No one is making anyone super-size anything! You cannot blame that on hunger or a insulin rush and just make fast & junk food illegal. A person decides what to put into his or her body.

Is it hard to come to grips with reality? Sure. Do some people need help? Sure. Can web 2.0 help? Sure. Will some people fail and die? Sure.

My point is as a people or individually, we can only control so much. Why not focus on what we can control, whether we know it or not?

Let me tell you a quick story of what I have been able to do lately. I have been trying to eat right more often than not but when my wife and I have eaten out - we have controlled our portions.

Friday we (my wife and I) decided to eat out at one of our favorite restaurants, Filippis Pizza Grotto. We ordered the King large pizza and the small salad (enough for both of us).

Now in the old days when I was in my 20’s, I would have eaten two of these pizzas by myself! I ate my salad and two pieces of pizza for dinner and was totally satisfied. We took three-fourths of the pizza home and I’ve had one slice of pizza for lunch for the last two days. The dogs have helped us finish the pizza.

Now I don’t know about you but there is plenty of good tasting food in my house and about 50 fast-food restaurants in my area. I cannot get away from food. The only thing I have control of is myself. I have come to terms with the fact that I cannot eat the way I used to when I was a young man and live a healthy life.

The only viable choice I have is to control how I eat food. Portioning works good for me.

Diets Suck!!!!

Sorry for the plain talk but so long as your diet (way of eating) is nutritious - you don’t have to follow any-one’s plan. You might have to initially look at diets to learn how to eat again but once you have done that – try portioning.

I hope this was a post that helps you (if you need it). If not – I realize there are other approaches that will work. Portioning does not take much will power though and except for the extreme examples of fast/junk food, you can still eat some and come out ok. Just stay within your allowances for the whole day. That is what is working for me.

Happy Turkey Day! 

I am very happy to announce that the eating season, for me, is beginning Tuesday, September 29! It is my 8th year wedding anniversary (second time around)! What do I mean the eating season has begun for me? Well that will be the subject of this post as well as my goals and progress for this “season.”

To many, the holidays are a tough time. It was for me last year not only because of the extra food around but we had just moved and had other stresses. Many people (like me) set unrealistic goals for this period and then if they fall behind – they just chuck the whole kit and caboodle!

I will speak about how to instill some realisim into your plan and how I plan to come out on top. Here is a video I found about the eating season.

I like how this video talks about choices. For me I am a planner. I try to make certain assumptions about how many calories I will consume as well as how many days a week I will exercise. The bad thing about the holidays is everyone around me wants to eat and make merry!

So in a nut shell the problem to me is how to keep making some progress in light of social eating and less exercise?

My normal plan has been to lose two pounds a week but I am always happy with one pound a week. Heck some weeks I have hit plateaus and just held my own!

This holiday season I am going to shoot for a half-a-pound a week as a goal but I will assume some weeks I will not make that. I will have a backup position to not lose any ground from today! My weight on Friday was 228 pounds!  The hard thing is the weight varies as much as seven pounds a day!

Here is my holidays to the end of the year:

• Anniversary!
• Oktoberfest
• Thanksgiving
• Wive’s B-Day
• Christmas
• New Years (really the next year)

Now  all of these holidays have some eating requirements before and after many times. My plan will be for the days in between to cut calories on other meals if I start partaking in snacking!

I am not going to worry about the my holidays per se because I cannot eat too much in any one day to “blow” my diet. The only real worry is if I go off the of diet because the scale shows I have gained 5 pounds in a day!

By the way there is no way to gain 5 pounds in one day. That would take 3500 extra calories consumed in one day times five! I could see if someone was really pigging out, gaining a half-a-pound in one day (1750 extra calories consumed)! But no way more weight than that.

So you see? Having pointed out the obvious – the only real dangers are if I continue to snack (without making up the calories elsewhere), or if I get depressed (on bad evidence) and quit the diet!

I did three bag workouts this last week but I messed up my right hand (wrist this time) again. I went wrong trying to incorporate ridge hands into my workout. I found a video so you can see a ridge hand (not me).

I guess you can see why my wrist might have been tweaked. I guess even though I wrapped my right hand and wrist, I should have just stayed with straight strikes.

This upcoming week will have mostly running becauseof my new injury. I did a couple of 5 mile runs this last week so I will try to continue with that strategy!

I hope your plan is working for you!