Ouch My Back

I have been staying on par with my exercising, UNTIL, Monday.  I kind of went to the extreme during my biggest loser competition in the fact that I forced myself not to cheat with my food intake.  I am still exercising twice a day but, I let myself cheat with some self-control.  I guess I have become addicted and really want to see if I can stay “fit”.  That being said, I woke up Monday morning and ran for about 45 minutes.  When I was finished I started washing the dishes.  My back decided it had enough of me and wanted to quit working.  I haven’t had the healthiest back but, in time it starts feeling better.  I just figured to help my back, I needed a stronger core.  Well I bunked that myth.  My core, abs and even my back are the strongest, fittest, and lightest they have ever been.  I iced it multiple times yesterday took some of those NSIAD’s and tried to rest.  I just can’t handle sitting in my house.  So I went out and pushed my daughter on the swing.  The swing set is right next to my garden.  I always have a camera in my pocket now.  I had to take pictures, right?  Then I went in and played WI Bowling with my other kids.

It doesn’t look like this anymore. They plants are about 6 feet now.

 

My back still hates me.  Now it’s two days with no Insanity.  I still tell myself I am going to do it tonight.  I will at least try to get some weight lifting in at lunch.  Please, back…back off!!!!

Commandments of Fat Loss

OK…I didn’t come up with this but I did read it and thought it was good enough to put some of it here.  The original can be found at MohrResults.com America’s Weight Loss Experts

The 10 Commandments of Fat Loss

1. Thou Shalt Plan Ahead.
2. Thou Shalt Eat Clean 90% of the Time…To me this means eating healthy foods
3. Thou Shalt Eat Breakfast Daily.
4. Thou Shalt Eat Protein with EVERY Meal & Snack.
5. Thou Shalt Lift Weights.
6. Thou Shalt Eat Veggies with Each Meal.
7. Thou Shalt Not Eat Cereal with Cartoons on the Box.
8. Thou Shalt Move Daily.
9. Thou Shalt Eat Fruit with Each Meal.
10. Thou Shalt Only Eat Ingredients You Can Pronounce…To me this means no added chemicals (Quinoa is healthy but I didn’t know it was pronounced keen-wa) 

Now onto the another list to help out with the top list.  47 Foods You SHOULD Be Eating is from Mens Health Magazine Blog via a tweet.

1. Spinach
2. Wild salmon (fresh and/or canned)
3. Blueberries
4. Raspberries
5. Swiss chard
6. Quinoa
7. Rolled oats
8. Pistachios
9. Barramundi (often called “the sustainable sea bass”) can be found in the frozen section of Whole Foods & has half the calories, yet equal omega 3′s to coho salmon)
10. Plain Greek yogurt
11. Apples
12. Red, yellow and orange bell peppers
13. Lean red meat (we prefer grass fed beef)
14. Whole eggs
15. Blackberries
16. Almonds
17. Sardines
18. Carrots
19. Black tea
20. Green tea
21. Pink grapefruit
22. Turmeric
23. Kale
24. Cauliflower
25. Red grapes
26. Nut butters (peanut butter, almond butter, cashew butter, etc)
27. Coconut (either fresh, where you crack the shell or unsweetened, shredded)
28. Strawberries
29. Avocados
30. Tomatoes (raw and cooked as both have unique benefits)
31. Pumpkin (we often add canned, unsweetened 100% pure pumpkin to our smoothies)
32. Unsweetened cocoa powder or cocoa nibs (also often added to smoothies or Greek yogurt)
33. Pineapple
34. Sweet potatoes or yams (technically not the same, yet they’re often used interchangeably)
35. Beans (black, kidney, chick peas, red beans, etc)
36. Lentils
37. Garlic
38. Broccoli
39. Red and green cabbage
40. Onions
41. Cherries
42. Cinnamon
43. Oat bran
44. Beets
45. Barley
46. Mushrooms (all types)
47. Canola and olive oils (replace other less healthy fats with these, don’t simply add these to the diet)

Not really funny, as in haha, but, funny how this is what I did when I was in my Biggest  Loser Competition.  Maybe I am smart!

My Lunch

I have a new phone now and can let everyone see what I eat. If I get good at this picture taking thing, hard telling what you may end up seeing in this blog. Just saying.

This is my usual lunch at work. Main course is a spinach salad with cottage cheese, tuna, a lot of hot sauce and a little bit of Balsamic Vinaigrette. Depending on what I have at home I usually throw in some fruit or veges on top too. Today, I had cauliflower. For dessert I go with the Greek yogurt. I have never counted calories. I probably should but, I am just too lazy.

Morning Workouts

I have switched up my workouts a little bit, actually, a lot a bit. I was running every day during lunch and then doing Insanity in the evenings when I got home from work. I have found that sense I am not heavily committed to the Biggest Loser Competition at work I have lost the desire to work out in the evenings when I am tired. To fix this I have started to get “Insane” in the morning and then lift weights at lunch. I still have the urge to run so, I am running on Wednesdays and on the weekends.

With that being said I have entered my 2nd month of Insanity. It is an hour long video of a lot of exercises that I struggle to do. I have to wake up at 4:00 AM to make sure I still have time to shower and dress before work. At around 2:00 PM, I do my weight lifting at work. I believe Insanity is a lot of cardio, a lot of lower body, and some whole and core body exercise. Right now I have set up my weight lifting to biceps, triceps, shoulders, and chest. I know there are other body parts but, this is what I am trying out right now.

Switching when I exercise has brought some pros and cons of the schedule. The pros for getting started early in the morning is that I get it done and out of the way. As long as I can get my lazy butt out of bed, I won’t have any excuses not to do Insanity. This gives me time to do my daily chore of laundry in the evenings. I have 3 kids so yes it is daily. This also frees up the much needed spring/summer evening yard work time. Now on the flip side, since I am not going to exercise at night, I have found it easier to eat/snack while doing these other chores. Eating is my downfall. I really like food and I think I eat just because I can. Exercising makes me thirsty not hungry. This is just my thoughts on this new schedule. When do you like to exercise? Do you see pros or cons when you do exercise?

On a side note, I mentioned in an earlier post that I lacked a camera phone and nor did I text. For Mother’s Day, I bought my wife a smart phone. I had to get one too (I couldn’t let her out do me). So, what that means is that I have no excuse not to post pictures of my food or of my unscenic running routes. I may not know how to get them from my phone to these posts but I will work on that too. And feel free to text me…I might be able to figure out what the heck my phone is buzzing about. Smart phones don’t make their owners smart.

About Time

Finally, I have my beginning and ending pictures up. WOW! I was plump in the beginning. You can check out my progress chart and the pictures on my Progress page.

At the start of the contest I always thought I would be able to win the percentage part of the competition. I didn’t think I would have to hit 22% loss. My numbers at the end were a bit deceiving. Like I said I had some tricks I was planning on using at the end. I noticed most of the people were working out right before weighing in. They also wore shorts for their weigh-in. I followed my workout schedule of working out at night before the weigh-in. I also wore jeans, golf shirt, t-shirt, underwear, socks, phone and wallet in pocket. The last week I practically went bare. I wore shorts, practically holey socks, light t-shirt, no wallet or phone, and no underwear. Then on the last weigh-in I worked out before weighing in. I figured this would make up quite a bit of difference compared to everyone else. They had been doing that all along.

I was dehydrated for my last weigh-in. A week later I am at 138 pounds. I am back on track now.

I am not planning on losing any more weight. I will take a weight loss but, that isn’t my new goal. I have added some heavy lifting as opposed to running 4-6 miles daily. I like running so, I will still run 2-3 times a week. I am also, half way into Insanity and I plan on doing that every day. Insanity is quite a bit of cardio and I wanted to add more heavy strength training to see what that would do.

I am still addicted to the blog thing so, I will update it with any progress or lack of progress I make. This blog may just turn out to be about stupid things I do. Maybe you can give me some suggestions or dares to have me do. I will take pictures and we can all have a few minutes of laughter from my stupidity.

Beginning	Ending

Weekend Binge

During my time with this Biggest Loser Competition, I learned a few things about myself and others as well. When I started I was overweight from inactivity that comes with wintertime and a shoulder surgery. Both of these excuses lead me to be lazy and eat just about anything in the house. I was always thinking I will get “healthy” tomorrow. Then the Biggest Loser came along. Tomorrow started as soon as the competition started.

I have always known the right foods to eat. I just don’t always eat them. It seems like everyone from yahoo to men’s health have easy ways to lose pounds by just eating this and not that. My problem was I rarely ate the stuff they say not to eat. To be honest I rarely ate the stuff they say to switch it too. For example, eat a grilled chicken sandwich instead of a cheeseburger sandwich. I know that would save calories but, it wouldn’t save calories if I were eating a grilled chicken with fresh veges already. I know the concept is a great one but it really didn’t work for me. It has worked for some of my competitors. They simply started eating 6-inch subways sandwiches and chips and were able to lose weight. I would gain on that diet. I had to find something that I could give up. That was alcohol for me. Captain and Diet Coke went on hiatus.

I remember the first few weeks the urge to just have a few jelly beans, a marshmallow, or pretzels. At the time I did have a just a few. As time went on, the urges for those things left. In the back of my mind, I may have been thinking I am in a competition don’t eat that. Actually, I think I was enjoying how I was feeling when I didn’t have that junk in my body. I really put that to test over the week end. After my last weigh in I went on a binge. Everything I ate, pizza, jelly beans, chocolate, beer, and chips all tasted great but made me feel blah and tired. I was falling asleep on the couch Sunday after noon. I had no energy but, I had plenty of food energy in my body. It just wasn’t the healthy food.

I am not sure if this rambling is even saying what I am trying to say. At first, I was sick from not having all of the junk food I wanted. At the end, I was sick from eating all of the junk food that I wanted.

I am still in the process of putting up my progress page with before and after pictures. I am heading to Florida in about a month so, with no competition pushing me, I will lean on this blog to stay the course.

Final – 131.0 LBS

I am done with my work’s Biggest Loser Competition.  The results are in.  I won the men’s most percent loss at 22.76 %.  That equates to a 38.6 pound loss over a 3 month period.  I am impressed.  It’s one of those things I knew I wanted to try and thought I could do it and I did.  I said back on day one that my goal was to be the winner of the biggest percentage.  I was going up against some bigger people so my thought is that I don’t have as many pounds as they have to lose.  I did end up coming in 3^rd with the total number of pounds lost.  I have been neglecting posting my progress pictures but I took one Friday morning.

I will post a few more times about my struggles and my plans and update my progress page but, I wanted to get this out there before I forget.  I know this last weigh in was a lot of water loss but, don’t scold me.  This was a competition so my goal this past week was a low number and I think 131.0 pounds is pretty low.

Home     131.0 pounds
Official    131.0 pounds

Tricks used last week:
1. Insanity (still)
2. No Cheating (still)
3. No Adding Salt – I am a saltoholic. (still)
4. Shorts – as opposed to jeans (still)

New Ones:

1. Watermelon (2 lbs) and Asparagus (2 lbs) only on Thursday – supposed to be diuretic
2. Light T-shirt (no collared shirt)
3. Commando – talking about weird showing up at work with no underwear, but then again…never mind that is for another blog.
4. Exercised the morning of weigh in.  I ran 4 miles at 4 am.  Told you I am weird.

And by the way…Happy Mother’s Day to all the mom out here.

Week 11 – 137.8 LBS

I am on the back stretch of my competition.  I can see the finish line.  My final weigh-in is on Friday within days I can count on one hand.  On Monday, I posted a 3.6 pound loss.  I am getting beat in the total pounds lost but, I have a firm grip on the percentage lost.  I am at 18.75%.  That is a little more than 2% better than my next competitor.  I keep goals in my head.  Rarely, do I write them or talk about them but, I have set a goal of 20% by Friday.  It’s going to be tough but, so has the past 3 months.  Once again, I am pictureless.  I figured with the last weigh-in less than a week I would wait until Friday to take the picture.

Home     135.5 pounds
Official    137.8 pounds

I know that losing 3 – 4 pounds isn’t really the healthy thing to try to achieve in a week but, this is a competition.  What I have learned going to the extreme is something that I can easily apply to maintain a weight that I feel comfortable with.  I plan on blogging about everything that I did or actually didn’t do during this 3 month experiment.

Tricks used last week:
1. Insanity (still)
2. No Cheating (still)
3. No Adding Salt – I am a saltoholic. (Still)
4. Shorts – as opposed to jeans

I have a few more tricks for my last weigh in.  I know you can’t wait to hear about them.  HAHA.

Chobani Yogurt

During my competition I have given up quite a bit.  Almost every day for lunch I have a Chobani Fat Free Greek Yogurt.  These are the ones with the fruit on the bottom.  Most of them have 19–21g of sugars.  I don’t stir and I don’t eat the fruit on the bottom.  Some of the flavor gets mixed in during processing, shipping and eating so it tastes a lot better than plain.  I wonder how much of the 19-21g of sugar I am giving up on the bottom of the cup.  It’s pretty amazing how easily the fruit and juice separates from the yogurt.  I guess I just like playing with my food.  See I am really weird.

This would be a good place to add a picture of my almost empty yogurt cup showing the remains of the raspberry juices.  I am old.  I have a flip phone with no camera and I still don’t text.  So, just imagine the picture.

 

Week 10 – 141.4 Pounds

I have been neglecting my blog family. I am trying to figure out what to blame it on but, I can only blame myself. I just have not been active out here in blog land. I don’t even have any pictures for your laughter.

I was not happy with this weigh in. I am getting closer to the end and I had a slight edge in the weight loss percentage. I only managed to drop 0.6 pounds (can I even use an‘s’ on pound). I know a loss is a loss but, this is a competition and a small loss will not get me a win. That brings my total loss to 28.2 pounds. I have a week and a half left. All tricks will be used.

Tricks used last week:
1. Insanity (still)
2. No Cheating (still)
3. No Adding Salt – I am a saltoholic. (Even my almonds were salt free)
4. No T-shirt under my Polo shirt

I will continue the above tricks and add a few more for the next 2 weigh-ins. Next week we have 2 weigh-ins, Monday and Friday.

Hint: Commando in shorts