Jumbo Rider’s BodyBlog

My wife and I took today and tomorrow off of work. The focus is on fall cleaning and recipe practice. After rearranging the living room furniture 5 times I was beat. I didn’t get in my cardio today and will need to make that up tomorrow. The furniture moving was a pretty fair workout, but it was not cardio.

One of the things we did was to move our Schwinn AeroDyne bike into the living room. The goal is to allow myself TV watching only if I am pedaling at the same time. The pedaling does not need to be fast and furious, but it needs to be continuous.

The eating was on the plan, but I had two more servings of fruit than I should have. As I continue eating this way my energy levels increase. As my energy levels increase I find myself wanting to move ahead in the program. That is when I pull back on the reigns and remember that I need to be 90% on plan for a few weeks prior to making adjustments. But how many calories am I taking in, and are my macro’s right? Who cares at this point. Eat healthy first as a no thinking habit and then we can talk. As it is missed veggies at a meal earning my first noncompliance.

Then watch this.

I suddenly realize that it matters greatly whom you surround yourself. This enlightenment occurred after reading Aluschka’s Transformation log. My transformation began June 2007.  At that time I frequented Bikenet Forums and Bodybuildin.com.  I was using FitDay to monitor my food intake and lost 20 pounds. Then I found a site called SparksPeople that I thought offered a better food database than FitDay. Soon after the switch I fell off the wagon and gained the 20 pounds back. Why did that happen?

Originally I attributed my setback to stress from work and family, but now I know that was not the cause at all. There is a big difference between the people found on Bodybuilding.com/Bikenet and SparksPeople. The former are filled with athletic people and people that have made tremendous changes to their body. There are also out-of-shape individuals like myself on those forums as well. SparksPeople on the other hand caters to weight loss. The people on those forums are almost exclusively overweight women (Note that they have many group forums and I belonged to several but no where near all so your experience may differ).

Before I go on I want to say that SparksPeople did not make me gain that 20 pounds back.

I don’t talk about losing weight with my family beyond rules for where food is placed in the house. I get my support from these forums and vent my angst to these same forums. Bikenet, Bodybuilding, and Precision Nutrition forums are filled with can do people. These people are not phony positive and they aren’t looking for any quick/easy fix. In many cases they are highly accomplished athletes. This is where reading Aluschka’s log helped me realize this. Aluschka was a pro beach volleyball player and is in great shape, but she is not satisfied. She wants to be in top shape. Wow!

While I was on SparksPeople there was tons of touchy-feely support. There were some that had lost weight, but most still needed to lose and they constantly needed help. These people were looking for the quick-fix. They played at getting fit. They were not really willing to change for good. They wanted their Transformation and Eat Junk too.

There is no place for that here. If I fall off the wagon it is expected that I get up, brush off the dirt, and soldier on to health. No one expects me to be a pro bodybuilder or bicyclist, but they do expect me to do, not talk, not think, Do. If I don’t do for a period of time I don’t post in these forums because I know that is not what these forums are all about. Sure people fail to reach 90% compliance at times, but they don’t wallow in it. They don’t want others to join them in their wallowing.

Surround your self with the best to be the best.  Surround yourself with doers to do!

Early morning and moving.  My HIIT cardio dropped down to a normal walk.  Never being one to push myself I am constantly wary of slacking.  What are the limits of my body?  Certainly my body limits are far beyond what I am pushhing it.  Even if this is true, I must be cautious of fatigue injury with the extra weight that I carry and lack of shape I am in today. So I am probably taking it easier than I should, but i want to make sure I stay active every day.  Right now I need consistency more than intensity.

Today was good.  We were successful.  Shopping and prepping food.  Eating clean takes so much more…..time?  Nah, it isn’t time, but effort…Yep effort and a ton of it.  What am I going to eat every 3 hours?  Will I get bored with the foods I have chosen?  Protein and veggies at each meal can take  planning.

In my previous life I would simply drive through some fast food joint and pickup enough junk to stay full.  The funny thing was I never seemed to get full when I ate junk.  Now, well now I almost dread the next three hours.  I don’t dread eating because of the taste, but I am simply full.  What a great way to live.

My energy level is better. My skin is better.  My blood glucose is better controlled.  All this at the price of being wiped out from a hard day’s work.  Shopping at Costco during the Sunday madhouse is not for the faint of heart.  The only thing Americans like more than junk food in bulk is free samples of that junk food.  But I survived.

We emptied the car and put frozen goods in the freezer and then back out to the local grocery store and a Wal-mart.  Once we got home from those stores we put the goods away, prepped the produce, weighed and bagged the meat, and finally sat down.  All this after a good hour of cardio with half of that being HIIT.

It was a good day.  Thank you God.

As posted on my Precision Nutrition log:

Today it is official. This is the day that aims for 100% PN compliance and accepts no less than 90% compliance. I have scoured the forums and read my binder. I have prepped my kitchen, refrigerator, and pantry. I have discussed the plan with my wife and she is on board with supporting me.

Today begins my first Sunday ritual. I anticipate that this will take me the majority of the day until I get in some practice. After I finish this post I will walk my hour and eat my first meal. Then it is off to the store, prepping the food, and pre-cooking what I can.

Today I weighed 374 pounds. That is 2 pounds down with a week that recorded to less than 40% compliant. I am so obese that I do not think I will get proper caliper readings, but I will try my best with my wife’s assistance. I will record my measurements every 2 weeks.

I want to thank the PN team for putting this together. The diet, as in way to eat not a special temporary eating style, that PN offers is very simple and to the point. If anyone asks me about PN I will simply point to the article that lead me here. In that article Dr. Beradi listed the 7 habits and that is truly all that is needed to be known. At this point, after saying that all the information you need to eat the PN way is in a free article, would I recommend paying for the PN materials. I would have to say yes and once I have dropped the weight while on this plan it will be an enthusiastic yes.

The money I payed bought more than a cookbook and guide binder. It bought access to this board, the PN members ant the PN team. This is a treasure chest of knowledge that I can trust. The team members are well established members of the fitness community and with Dr. Berardi bring an openness to fitness research that places me in an ongoing class. The responsiveness to questions is outstanding.

Wish me luck all. It is a long journey before I will even be as active as many of you at your worse stages of fitness. My journey will have ups and downs as it has already. The key is to stay the course. Live in the now. Do what I know to do. 90% or bust!

I have been a fairly negative person through my mid-life years.  Today I say SCREW THAT BS!  I expect greatness and will have it.

Have you ever wondered why some people struggle through life barely making a ripple in the stream, and then that person is placed in a severe, extreme stress filled situation and becomes a hero?  You hear about it often in the ranks of the military.  Even good men often become great when the situation called for it to happen.  Why don’t we handle everyday stress in the same manner as the extreme stress?

I think it is because we choose to wallow.  It is easier sleepwalking through life than being tested over and over again.  Sleepwalking never risks much, but never gains much either.  Chose to be great.  Wake up.   Measure yourself against the Gold standard.  If you don’t measure up, take a measurement, change, and measure again.

Breakfast - 1 cup oatmeal, 2 oz almonds, 1/2 cup cottage cheese, 1/2 cup blueberries, 1/2 cup fresh baby carrots and broccli

Walk - 30 minutes

The walk may not sound like much to you studs out there, but it is significant enough to get a good sweat for me at this time.  I will walk for 30 more tonight and lift.

Veggies for breakfast?  Yep, strange to me too.  If it is not onions, mushrooms, or peppers in an omelet I didn’t do veggies.   Hashbrowns don’t count.  I was following several posts in the nutrition forum that led me to John M Berardi and his Precision Nutrition 2.0 plan.  His general attitude and guide to eating healthy fell in line with what I am trying to do.  I decided to buy his plan and will give it 8 months of dedicated work.  That should be a fair test of the program, and by the end of 8 months it should be a habit.  I will keep you all posted here.

One of the things that Dr. Berardi advocates is veggies at each meal.  While   I have not yet received the PN 2.0 books, I have decided to incorporate veggies into each of my meals now.  Frankly, veggies are not the first thing I think of when someones asks me what I want to eat.  That must change.  If the best mineral and vitamins I can get are from food I had better up my veggie intake.  I think Dr. Berardi has some scientific reasons beyond this though when he advises veggies at each meal.

Trying not to think about my eating habits then DO something about my eating habits, but I find I need to think about my emotional eating to do something about it.  Emotional eating for me is normal;I grew up eating this way.  Many people out there may not understand why a guy eats due to emotion in much the same way a color blind person may not understand what I mean when I discuss the color green.  Sure, he knows about the green color, but it is gray to him.

There is something comforting when eating high fat foods.  There are numerous studies that show changes in endorphin levels when a subject simply thinks about high fat foods.  It doesn’t matter, I know that high fat junk helps to repress strong emotions in me……for a short time.  One reason food has this affect on me is nurture.  Bad day at school? Cookies.  Birthday? Cake and ice cream.   Party in the dorm?  Nachos and beer.   Another reason food has this affect on me is nature.  I have a long history behind me of big eating peoples.

Emotions need not control my eating; just like they need not control my reactions.  When I get stressed and pissed off because a guy cuts me off in traffic due I pull out a gun and shoot him?  NO!  But I will get home and binge on butter bread trying to feed that emotion of stress and anger into submission.  Well, if I can avoid being a homicidal maniac, I can avoid the binging too.

There are two things that can be done about emotional eating, and they both require knowledge and understanding of the root cause of the emotions.  First, and the healthiest, is to deal with the root cause of the emotions directly and quickly.  I am not so good at this.  I hate confrontation and this is where dealing with the root causes of emotion leads.  "But Dave, how would you deal with the guy that cut you off in traffic if you can’t shoot him?", I hear you saying.  Forgiveness.

We as a people are not very good at forgiveness, and often want something in return for granting forgiveness.  Forgiveness is more for ourselves than those we forgive.  If forgiven, that driver that cut me off would know nothing about it, but my emotional state, my soul, would know.  I could then move on and let go.  What actually happened to me when I was cut off in traffic?  If I did not wreck I suffered at most a loss of a few minutes of time.  No, what really got to me was that I felt wronged, violation of me.  The fact is I was probably in too much of a hurry and to distracted while driving in the first place.  I almost never get cut off in a way that upsets me when I am on a leisurely drive.

The second way to deal with the root cause of my emotion is not dealing with it, but not feeding it as well.  I can simply insert a workout in place of the junk food.  The same endorphins are released and I would burn calories instead of gaining them.  This is not the optimal response, but it is key to breaking the emotional binging.  Just like feeding the emotion, exercising the emotion is only a temporary fix.  If the emotion is caused by an argument with my wife and I do not confront the situation but ignore it with exercise, that emotion will remain and I will never be able to satisfy it.  This leads to a log jam of emotional stress and chaos.  This emotional stress and chaos will eventually break through in a temper tantrum of self-righteous rage.

Maybe the argument with my wife is not resolvable in my favor.  Let’s pretend that I am actually at fault for creating the argument; nah, never could happen.  If I do not openly confront the cause of the emotion and talk it through with my wife I will never get over the stress and anger.  Maybe my wife is not wrong, but not doing things like I think they should be done.  Maybe she wants to paint the house lime green and even after I said that would be horrible, she painted it anyway.  Well,  again we go back to forgiveness, and then I buy some paint and paint the house a proper color.

The point is to deal with the causes of the emotions.  Good emotions need to be celebrated with something other than food.  Edy’s is 4-5 bucks for less than a half gallon and the family eats a gallon at a sitting.  Buy some new music instead.  I think you get my meaning by now.

One last emotional area that is not covered by any of the above.  Irrational thoughts leading to bad emotional outlooks.  Thoughts like, "I’m too old to get fit now, and I am too far gone anyway.’, or simply, "I am garbage".  These negative irrational thoughts must be countered by positive thoughts.  When I am depressed I am flooded with irrational bad thoughts.  I will still suffer from depression when I am at goal weight, not as badly, and must get this part under control.

Well, I am working on it all.  Last night the wife brought home ice cream and offered some to me.  Instead of being strong I accepted.  After eating the ice cream I started to beat myself up over it.  I went to bed with those thoughts and this morning I was ready to pig out as the nearest junk food joint.  I was able to control myself this time.  I identified the root cause and mentally forgave myself. I adjusted my thinking for the next time my wife offers me junk and I soldier on.

Note to self, I must organize my food the day before I am to eat it.  I also need to have an emergency ‘quick’ food that can be eaten without cooking and on the road.  I woke up late and ate a Jack-in-the-Box breakfast on the way in to work.  All other meals were covered, but I could not simply skip breakfast.