Thursday, April 23, 2009

Day 44 - Thursday, April 23

Previous night's sleep - off track - 6.5 hours - start/stop - poor

Consumption - good at work, terrible after.

Breakfast - baby carrots + Bear Naked Banana Almond Crunch Granola
Lunch - Caesar salad - romaine, light caesar dressing, parmesan cheese, and some croutons
Snack - tossed salad, light caesar dressing, parmesan cheese, and some croutons
Dinner - 3 ribs + rice
Snack - two chicken teriyaki and ginger sausages, one nathan's hot dog, 2 eggs, rice, and a whole wheat sub roll
Dessert - Turkey Hill banana split ice cream - 3 big scoops

No workout.

Wednesday, April 22, 2009

Day 43 - Wednesday, April 22

Previous night's sleep - on track - 7 hours - start/stop - terrible

Consumption - good at work, terrible after.

Breakfast - fat free vanilla yogurt w/ Triple Berry Crunch Bear Naked Granola - Dannon low fat yogurt
Lunch - Son of a Gun beef stew with a couple of croutons
Snack - Caesar salad - romaine, light caesar dressing, parmesan cheese, and some croutons
Dinner - two foot long hot dogs w/ chili, mustard, and onion + onion rings + french fries w/ ketchup and mayo - from Jak'n Jill's and a rib that Visa made. Craptastically good and tumultuous for my so called healthier living experimental phase.

So, after running errands today, which included picking up a 25lb bag of charcoal at the Mexican grocery store along w/ a bag of bay leaves for $1.69 and a bag of Zaffron for $1.99, I ended up driving home around 9:30pm. I hadn't eaten since around 3:30pm, when I ate that salad. My mind raced toward food. I definitely had the intention of eating ice cream tonight, but didn't. Not because I am so grounded in my healthy habits, but because after my massive consumption, the thought of eating ice cream was very unappealing.

I am definitely, a creature of habit. Those habits are hard to change, hence the whole 90 day committment. I have come to realize in my more than quarter century of a lifetime that it requires pain for me to change. Sure, after an oil change or a car accident I will drive more safely, more conservatively. But given enough time, I forget that misery or that cost paid, and resume my inclinations of driving quickly and with disregard for gas conservation.

I want to turn the corner. I want to look back and think, wow, I used to look like that. I used to eat like that. And I have. I look back at pictures, not even two years ago. I used to look like that? I can't remember what it feels like to weigh less than 200lbs. Maybe, I am not self-conscious enough about my body. Both a pro and a con. Every good quality that I have, taken to the extreme, is a fault. Read - wanting to help others - good - white knight syndrome - bad.

So, re-committing and making promises is bunk. An empty exercise based in the absurd premise that I will keep them and that my will power at this very moment, sated, not even 4 hours ago by mounds of fried, unhealthy food, will carry me through a lifetime. It is simply time to start taking action. Ultimately, it's about accountability, and there aren't many people out there that I am accountable to in the world when it comes to my eating habits and level of fitness. You can't get arrested for being obese. You don't get fired for being fat (jobs I would have anyway). When it's just you and the drive-through, it's just you and the drive-through.

But who do I want to be? Do I want to grow up and be a firefighter? An astronaut? I don't know. But I do know, that I don't want to grow into my 30s and 40s as a chubby guy eventually dying at an absurdly young age due to high cholesterol, diabetes, heart disease, or something else I could have helped to prevent.

It's not that I don't want to be fat. It's that I want to be healthy.

We'll see what tomorrow brings.

Tuesday, April 21, 2009

Day 42 - Tuesday, April 21

Previous night's sleep - decent - 6.5 hours - I woke up around 7:30 and instead of going back to sleep like I always do, stayed awake and went to work

Consumption - excellent at work, terrible after


Breakfast - fat free vanilla yogurt w/ banana almond crunch Bear Naked Granola - bought the fat free Kroger brand
Lunch - Son of a Gun beef stew with a couple of croutons
Snack - Caesar salad - romaine, light caesar dressing, parmesan cheese, and some croutons
Post Work Out - Whey + water (1.5 scoops)
Dinner - 17 wings - 7x boss, 8x slayer, 1x virginia fireball, 1x gold rush + celery + 2 bleu cheese dips - at Wild Wing Cafe
Dessert - a pretty big bowl of Turkey Hill banana split ice cream - decent - but my favorite is definitely Blue Bunny when it comes to banana split

Workout - after work - biceps and shoulders

seated curls dumbbells - 1x10, 1x8, 1x6 45lb
+ military dumbbell press - 1x12, 2x10 45lb
+ seated shrugs w/ dumbbells - 1x12, 2x10 45lb hold 10 seconds on last rep
+Leg raises on a decline bench - 3x20 - legs extended and coming up past 90 degrees from the ground - killer - done in between exercises - held legs above ground for 10 seconds after 1st two sets and on the last set, held legs off the ground for 20 seconds.
standing curls - E-Z curl bar - 1x12, 1x10, 1x8 approx. 70lbs - 30 on each side
+standing flies - 1x12, 2x10 15lb
hammer curls dumbbells - 1x12 20lb + 2x10 25lb
+front raises w/ dumbbell - 1x12 20lb, 2x10 25lb - one dumbbell, gripping each end with one hand
+ standing bent over reverse butterfly - hits the rear delt - 3x10lb
+ indicates a superset

Status Quo - working out, not sleeping enough consistently, eating better, but not well by any means.

Monday, April 20, 2009

Day 41 - Monday, April 20

Previous night's sleep - decent - 7+ hours - position - bad - I went to sleep on the couch downstairs and was sick when I woke up in the morning - hooray!

Conumption - great at work, terrible after

Breakfast - fat free vanilla yogurt w/ vanilla almond crunch Bear Naked Granola - bought the fat free Kroger brand
Lunch - Salad - romaine, ham, mushrooms, onions, parmesan cheese, croutons, and light caesar dressing
Snack - more of the aforementioned salad
Snack - some linguini and tomato/cream sauce - credit Visa
Dinner - a chicken tender crisp, whopper jr., large onion ring, and a spicy chicken wrap from Burger King
Snack - about 2x handfuls of popcorn at the end of 24

Day 40 - Sunday - Apirl 19

Previous night's sleep - good - 7+ hours - position - terrible - I fell asleep on Kiser's couch sitting up around 1am and woke up around 9am when he went to work. I had no intention of sleeping there.


Consumption - poor
Lunch - beef stew and rice + ramen and rice
Snack - 2 whopper jr.'s and a spicy chicken sandwich
Dinner - General Tso's Chicken, pork fried rice, an eggroll and a Pu-Pu platter - two chicken wings, 2 spareribs, 2 fried shrimp, 2 cheese wontons, an eggroll, and 2 x beef-on-a-stick - from Shun Xing
Snack - fried noodles w/ sweet and sour sauce + a rice crispy treat (little debbie's)

Day 39 - Saturday, April 18

Previous night's sleep - non-existent (terrible) - zero hours - I did not sleep - start/stop - N/A

Consumption:

Snack - beef stew + cornbread
Breakfast - 1 cinnamon roll + OJ + coffee
Lunch - a little bit of Caesar Salad (romaine, Parmesan, croutons, light caesar dressing) + beef stew + half a cookie
Dinner - Chef's choice - kebab platter, garlic naan, regular naan, samosa, rice, mulligitany (soup), and extremely thin and spicy bread/potato (not really sure what it was - but it was put out on the table like dinner rolls or breadsticks as soon as we sat down) from Ruchee on Midlothian (Indian Food) - I was not very impressed with the food, I wish I had ordered the "go-to" butter chicken.

So, Friday night, Saturday morning - I stayed up all night cooking for an event. The menu, "Son of a Gun Beefstew", Caesar Salad, Tossed Salad, and Sundried tomato and Garlic cornbread (I added fresh herbs to the top of the cornbread before baking - rosemary and thyme). I started earlier in the week buying paper goods and salad dressing. I thought I had finished buying the rest of the ingredients for the lunch, and luckily, after going to Sam's Club and Harris Teeter, I stopped by Food Lion after I remembered I would need potatoes. I got home around 9pm after shopping and picking up some chinese on the way home. Boy was I wrong. After reading the recipe for the stew, I realized that I had forgotten to get stewed tomatoes. It was about 10:50pm and I scrambled out the door. Food Lion closed at 11pm, and I got there with about 5 minutes to go. They had crushed tomatoes, whole, diced, and tomato paste along with a variety of tomato sauces. I gave up and went to Teeter.

It's now about 11:30pm and I start cooking. The stew takes forever, even if the prep work were done ahead of time, about 3 hours. I didn't know how many people were going to show up for the event, so I made about 4 gallons of stew. That's 3.5 lbs of London Broil, 5 lbs of red potatoes, 2 lbs of carrots, along with pounds of frozen veggies.

After I got the stew going, I mixed up the cornbread. I lost two little baking pans during our outing to Lake Anna a couple of weeks ago. After frantically scouring the house for them, Visa came up with a Pyrex casserole. Perfect. Armed with two of them, I managed to fix 6 boxes of cornbread mix + ingredients into both. Normally, when I follow the recipe (above) I make them into muffins or mini-muffins. I only have two muffin tins, regular sized and tiny. I wasn't about to make 6 batches, it was past 2 am when I started the cornbread. There was an issue - lack of texture on the outside of the cornbread - due to the shape of the pan - one ginormous rectangle vs. a small circle. Yes, the tops and sides were good, but I like more crunchy all around.

Maybe I will get another muffin pan. Who knows. After the cornbread was in the oven, I started cutting up the romaine for the salad. 18 hearts in all. I was finished and satisfied by about 5:30am. I knew that I could not go to sleep and wake up in time for the event, I needed to leave the house by 8:30am. So, I decided to stay up and watch the Dragonball Evolution movie - horrible.

I was on time to the event, but the doors were not open and I was unable to start breakfast - the cinnamon rolls. We got inside the building around 9:30am and I got to work. Pretty frantic, but we got it done and the day was a success. The crowd favorite was the cornbread. The event was over by about 2pm and I left for home around 3pm with about 1.25 gallons of the stew inside of a pickle bucket behind the passenger seat.

Day 38 - Friday, April 17

Previous night's sleep - on track 7 hours - start/stop - not so good

Consumption

Breakfast - fat free vanilla yogurt w/ vanilla almond crunch Bear Naked Granola - bought the fat free Kroger brand
Lunch - steamed broccoli + korean barbecue
Snack - cantelope
Dinner - General Tso's chicken w/ pork fried rice, an egg roll, 2 packs of fried noodles w/ sweet and sour sauce from Shun Xing + white rice from the house
Snack - piece of cornbread + beef stew - technically, I ate this snack on Saturday - please see the next post