Lentil Spaghetti

When I started my "physical transformation" I started two blogs. The first was called The Fleet Vegan. On it I was looking to develop alternative recipes to common favorites that could be made quickly and easily for busy people. I got rid of the blog because everyone started associating me only with vegan food (and I'm not a vegan). Plus, I wanted to be inclusive of other things besides just recipes. I was changing my exercise life and my way of thinking (I've become Mr. Life Affirming since those out of prime shape days). The Fleet Vegan format just was complementary to work out posting. It was too food concentrated.

When I started the blog, I made a few silly little cooking demonstration videos. This guy is one of them:

Week 6 Round Up

My physical changes seem to be slowing down. I lost a lot of fat over the first month, but the last little bit looks like it is going to be tough to get rid of. My muscles are definitely more toned and a little bigger. I'm stronger than I was 6 weeks ago too, but those changes are slowing down. I'm starting to get a little afraid that I'm going to look the same in the next end of the month picture. I see that the fat around my belly is slowly but surely leaving, but it is very slow going now. I was happy to see my hip bones appear again though. Oh, and it looks like I have to buy a new belt. And I see a strong change in my face/neck. My adam's apple is back.  So, positive things are still happening. They're just not quite as dramatic as the first month.

So, workout-wise I'm looking to make one change over the next two weeks. I will up the intensity of my cardio. Medium pace distance running has gotten easy and everything I've read says that if you do high intensity cardio work you will burn more calories and lose more fat. I had mentioned sprints before, but I hadn't done them yet. Well, I guess it is time. So, I'm going to go with 2 sprint work outs and 1 distance run next week. I have a funny feeling that my legs are going to be sore next week.

Diet-wise, I haven't been that intense this week. I've not eaten anything with sugar as an ingredient and I haven't eaten any bread. Although I do allow myself 2 servings of bread each week, I just haven't had any.  I have been eating more rice than I should, but only because my son loves Chinese food and I ended up having a fridge full of rice. I'm not doing a low carb diet so rice isn't off limits. Usually, I wouldn't eat white rice (I would opt for brown).

All in all, everything seems so much easier. I guess I'm just getting used to the fitness lifestyle. I'd still love to get up early in the morning and get my exercising in, but I haven't miraculously become a morning person. Can't have it all, I guess.

The Truth About Protein?

Trying to figure out the truth about protein is getting confusing. Bodybuilding/bodybuilders often recommend a much higher daily protein amount compared to USDA recommendations. I read and read and read about protein...

 http://www.webmd.com/diet/protein-shakes
 
...hmmmm. Let me give you a little personal history on bodybuilding. I did a bit of bodybuilding a little over a decade ago. I was very active at the time. I was skating, bodybuilding, doing Brazilian Jujitsu, and taking some pro wrestling classes. I drank two protein shakes a day. And I gained weight fast. In fact, I put on 60 pounds in 6 months. However, all of it wasn't muscle. It was the first time I really had any body fat on my body and tons of water weight from creatine (it has been a downhill struggle ever since).

The thing is, as I think back about my body then, I always think that I didn't have big muscles, but that I carried some protein shakes around in my muscles. It was as if the muscles weren't my own. Now, the idea of having bigger muscles does interest me, but I want to feel like they're mine and I don't want them to be covered in fat. So...I'm not doing the protein shakes. I am eating a snack protein bar everyday though. Why? Because it is super easy way to get a sweet treat at work with a protein bar (that doesn't have sugar). It is also a great way to have a sweet snack when I let my son have a bit of candy.

Other than the protein bar exception, I'm going to stick with whole food protein sources. After all, I don't want to look like a bodybuilder. I want to be "in my best shape" and that means strong and flexible with great cardio. Overall fitness is certainly not just having big muscles.

Plus, I found these websites about protein:

http://weighttraining.about.com/od/nutritionforweights/qt/protein_howmuch.htm

http://www.fitday.com/fitness-articles/fitness/body-building/the-best-protein-foods-for-building-muscle.html

It seems that I get enough protein by eating right to maintain and even grow muscle. So, while the rest of the world is supplementing, I'm going to continue improving my physique and health without any bloating shakes. I've been eating three eggs and some plain (well, cinnamon on top) oatmeal for breakfast. That is 23 grams of protein first thing in the morning, and each meal and snack adds on to that protein count. By the days end I'm getting more than enough protein.

Sugar, Protein, Pictures, and Circuits

I've been thinking a lot about my diet and the effects of different foods on my body. After all, I am now one week away from "picture day." In one week I have to post a picture of my shirtless body (gotta keep my word). I need to make as many smart (i.e. fat-burning) decisions as possible. Not that I haven't seen some great changes over the first few weeks. I feel like I'm much more toned, and I can see improvements in my belly.  Still, I want it all and I want it now.  Yeah, that is impossible, but I don't want to sabotage getting the maximum results by eating the wrong foods.

I've been eating a lot of fruit and flavored yogurt. Fruit? Sugar. Yogurt? Sugar. One thing I've not eaten is meat. If I'm trying to cut down on carbohydrates, I should cut them out even further. I've stopped eating most breads and almost all refined sugars. So, if I cut out a large chunk of the sugars in the yogurt and limit the fruit (no, I'm not giving up something as healthy as fruit) I should be able to cut down further some of the calories.  In their place, I'm going to add some low fat meats. I went with chicken and turkey sausages. They're easy to cook, portion controlled, and darn tasty while still being super low in fat and carbohydrates. Perfect.

Chicken sausage with fresh, vine ripe tomato, kale and some herbs.

Since my rough day, things have picked up. I'm still running for distance (I haven't switched to sprints yet), but I've started hitting my body in different ways in my workouts. I've found that I really like to work out in a circuit. My first leg workout went well in a circuit routine (Wednesday is now leg day). I've changed my weights workout to be a weight/body-weight resistance circuit. I like to keep moving quickly from exercise to exercise, it makes me feel like I'm maximizing my workout time with efficiency. Plus, the addition of new body-weight work moves my muscles in a little different way. I'm also thinking about adding some isometrics and some plyometrics after week four (I'll write about those when I start them). I've read about using new and different workouts to keep stressing your muscles in new ways every so often.

So, in one week from today we'll see the results of the first month!

Water My Thinking?!

First off, I'm thinking about water. I've read a bunch about water intake, and I'm pretty sure my way too much coffee-drinking butt has been dehydrated for a long time. Not serious, health disabling dehydrated, but not properly hydrated to reap health and weight benefits. It seems, and I'm no expert on this, but drinking water actually helps you lose weight.  Even CNN ran a story on drinking water to lose weight. It helps curb appetite (feel like snacking? drink some water.), it makes a person less bloated (your body isn't holding in water in fear of not getting enough), and if you're properly hydrated you'll be able to do more reps in your workouts without feeling fatigued.

My friend Kim pointed out some great flavored waters as well. Cucumber, lime, lemon? Sounds great!

That was only part of this post, though. The truth is that today has been the hardest day I've had. Here I am, in the beginning of week three, and I'm exhausted and craving a big, greasy burger and sweets (tons of sweets).

It all started at 2:30 a.m. this morning when my neighbor woke me up coming home. Follow that up with a 4:00 a.m. alarm to be at work by 6:00 a.m. (three hours earlier than normal) and skipping breakfast only to stare at cheesy sausage and egg biscuits, fresh donuts and cookies all day. Yeah, it was a rough day to eat right. Luckily, the water kept my appetite down for the most part (I drank about 3/4 of a gallon), but I didn't really eat much of anything all day.

Ten hours or so later, I left work and headed home. So, I went for a run that was really more of a walk. Well, there were a couple minutes of running involved, but it was pretty much a 30 minute walk. I finally ate dinner and felt a little better. I kept it healthy, but probably didn't take in 1,000 calories today...way too few calories.  I have to be sure not to skip breakfast anymore.  See, until I started this quest/blog/whatever I'm doing, I hardly ever ate breakfast. Today, I felt like I never really got going because I skipped breakfast. It kickstarts the metabolism and offers the calories to give a first burst of energy. Couple that with hydration...I'm ready to sleep and try again tomorrow.

Sifting and Drama

I've been doing some research on physical fitness. Well, I started out doing some research. I ended up sifting through all the differing opinions people have about what is right or wrong in diet and physical fitness. I read  vegans who said that we eat too much protein to bodybuilders saying we don't eat enough. I read something about aerobics causing cancer. I read about how eating too much fruit is bad for you.  I read so much that I gave up reading.  It seems everyone has a million different reasons why they're right, and it was all just too much for me.

One thing that made sense: Taste the rainbow! We're talking whole food fruits and vegetables (not candy). Red peppers, pink grapefruit, purple grapes, green asparagus...basically, eat a variety of fruit and veg. Well, that makes sense.

Another thing that made sense: Figure out what you want to look like and see what people that look like that do. Well, that makes perfect sense, and it totally makes me rethink running. I don't want to look like a runner, really. Well, at least HOW I run. I'm thinking about sprints. Look at a distance runner. Look at a sprinter. I'd rather have a sprinter's body than a distance runner. Hmmm....maybe sprints tomorrow morning? Perhaps a bit of both? I'm prone to hamstring problems so sprinting might be against me.

I'm hoping I get up early tomorrow. I'd like to begin doing all my training in the early a.m. starting tomorrow.

Oh, drama. After the inspirational night at the theater Friday, I went into total theater mode. I listened to a recording of a play, watched the film adaptation of two plays, and finally watched the blockbuster film version of Les Mis. I feel like I need to continue my long forgotten theater education over the next months. Perhaps this is one of the key aspects of my mental/spiritual fitness (becoming one with too much forgotten part of myself)?

Pizza. Burgers. Week 2 Complete.

When over the last week did I become a calorie counter?! I've never been a calorie counter. After years and years in the kitchen, I never even thought about calorie counting except when I was writing an article for publication.  And then, I just hoped nobody would ask me about calories!  Well, in theory losing weight is very simple. You decrease caloric intake so your body burns fat as energy. Simple enough, right?

Of course, it is the temptations of everyday life that get in the way. Enter Wednesday of week two. My son was adamant that pizza night was going to stay pizza night this week. It is a tradition, after all.

I gave in very easily (I was really hungry) and we got a cheese pizza. A delicious, cheese covered flat loaf of bread.  I could easily have eaten half of the pizza. In fact, here is how it generally goes down:

The kiddo eats two pieces. I eat three or four. That leaves two pieces leftover for me to consume after he goes to bed. Boom. One large pizza devoured in one evening.

Averaging at 240 calories per piece means that I was consuming 1,440 calories in pizza on Wednesdays. Holy crap that is a lot! No wonder I'm counting some calories!

So, I got myself a grapefruit from the fridge and ate it while the kiddo started in on the pizza. In fact, I ate the entire grapefruit before ever touching a slice of pizza. Then, I ate two pieces of pizza (80 calories for the grapefruit and 480 calories for the pizza = 560 calories). Then, instead of picking up those leftover pieces, I ate an apple for a snack. I got to have some pizza (so I'm not feeling left out) but I reeled in the amount to something reasonable.  Which leads me to Thursday, and my extreme desire to eat a hamburger!

Burger King has introduced a Veggie Burger to the menu. I tried it. It was good. However, if the calorie counter from about.com is right, this sucker isn't too healthy. According to this web site it has 420 calories with 16 grams of fat. The Burger King website says 410 calories and agrees on the 16 grams of fat. While this isn't terrible, it isn't low calorie. I had one, but declined to make it a combo so no extra 400+ calories of fries and no added calories or sugar of a soda. Instead, I brought the burger home and had an orange as a side making the whole meal about 500 calories.

I'll post about the end of the week fitness tomorrow as this post is getting too long today.

Sucker, Television, and Yoga

I'm a sucker for several things:

1. Cornrows
2. Manicured toes
3. Fendi capri pants
4. Cupcakes

And the cupcakes my friend/co-worker, Lindsey, makes are awesome. I ate three and regretted it the whole time (and loved them the whole time). Then, I went skating for a couple hours (built up a great sweat but who the hell knows what kinda calories a skate sesh burns?!).

What next? Fast food, of course.  Well, not bad though. I picked up a Subway Veggie Delight sub with no cheese and all the veggies on their 9 grain with oats bread. In fact, I've been adding up some calories everyday and I'm not taking in over 2,000 each day despite the fact that I'm not going hungry at all. In fact, it seems that, once you cut out the fried foods, most of the meats, and eat whole food ingredients, you really cut down on the calorie count.

Television. It seems that the brain rotting boob tube is actually a great exercise tool. Huh?!

Well, doing yoga on DVDs is the obvious first point. I am finding that I like to do my post-run cool down as a yoga workout. It stretches all of those muscles back out and feels great.

Secondly, let's see...I love British Mysteries, and I can easily watch three hours of British Mystery shows in one night. So, to give that a healthy twist, I now lift weights while watching them. I felt a little stronger this week so I upped my weight to 40# each dumbell and I did an overall upperbody workout (2 sets of each exercise listed below):

Military Press
Tricep Press up
rows
bench press
flyes
concentration curls
shrugs
push ups (using the dumbells as push up bars)

Taking Shape

The schedule, that is. In my first full week of exercise I ran three times, skated every damn chance I could (including a great session yesterday afternoon), did weights/bodyweight work three times, and did yoga once. Not too bad for a first week, I think. I would like to try and start getting up earlier and getting my workouts in before work, but I've never been a morning person. Who knows, we'll see. It didn't happen today. I'm looking at the rain fall down right now, and thinking about running.

This morning I had a great chat with an old friend, Kevin, about this project. I told him some of the goals, and we talked about other options. We discussed trying a month of Crossfit, but, as I said in my last post, I don't want to join anything. I want to come up with the workout/exercise plan that works for me. The best exercise is the exercise we enjoy. I can't tell you what YOU should do for exercise. I can share what might work for me. I know most people won't start skateboarding for fitness. Maybe they'll bike instead. Exercise is a personal thing. More personal than it gets credit for being.

Some of my week:

Tuesday made me feel a little more positive about running. I didn't walk much, and ran over 2 miles. I even started to feel like my old self again for a minute. That is LITERALLY one minute. Not to seem too positive, I learned that my additional weight has brought something new to my running adventures. It is a thing called chafing, and it sucks. My legs never rubbed together when I weighed 150 pounds and could run for an hour. 25 pounds changes the game a bit.

I worried about Wednesday. I have my son for the night on Wednesday, and I have called it "pizza night" forever. Well, he went for something other than pizza pretty easily and all was good.  I also never get any exercise on pizza night, er, "something healthier than pizza night," but this time I threw in a DVD after the kiddo went to bed and Rodney Yee and I got our yoga stretches on.  I just can't do any of the neck twists. If I try to twist my neck, I won't be able to turn my head sideways for a week.

Thursday was the real 1 week but Friday works better so Fridays will be my week's end posts.

So, one week down and 30-ish to go. Oh, I decided that at the end of each month (meaning 4 weeks, not calendar month) I'll post a progress picture of the damn near 40 year old body and we'll see if there is any progress.  Starting next week I'll begin posting some food/recipes/nutrition items. I'll also begin to discuss another item of fitness, namely mental fitness. After all, what good is having a fit body without a fit mind?