For chicken note that  every weekend I make an entire bag of frozen giant eagle chicken and save to eat  through the week.  I still do this.  Also for the most part my diet does not  change except I snack slightly more after work.  This kills me.  I also drink  water constantly up to one gallon per day.

Breakfast one the  following with Orange  juice

Mostly egg white on  whole wheat bread

Oatmeal

Cheerios (The healthier  kind)

Snack:  1 apple, light  yogurt or banana and maybe 1 graham cracker

Lunch

Turkey, swiss (under 100  calorie cheese 2% milk fat), Romaine lettuce and tomatoe + 1 grahm  cracker

Glass of  water

Or

Boost energy  drink

Snack:  1 apple, light  yogurt or banana and maybe 1 graham cracker

Supper:  Glass of milk  with…

Romaine lettuce, large  piece of chicken, light ranch dressing, tomatoe

Or

Wheat macaroni and  diced tomatoes (making using full box of macaroni and 2 cans diced  tomatoes)

Or

Piece of chicken, yam,  vegetable and graham cracker

Or 300-400 calorie TV  dinner

Evening

Protein powder mixed  with milk (and banana if after a workout)

Or

Protein powder mixed  with water if really close to bed time.

Or

Yogurt   (rare)

So, that’s the first  part.  It took getting used to at first, but this is pretty much what I eat now  too.  (except I am getting away from the protein powder on non-workout days  because it’s expensive.  Nonworkout days my evening snack may be a handful of  raisins or peanuts or one of the snacks above.

You know when I first  started dieting before beginning “the program” I ate healthy too but my biggest  mistake I ate too much.  My role I try hard to live by is to never get full.   Take smaller portions, use smaller plates and get my mind on something else  asap.  If I cannot stand it, I give in and eat something bad but note, I do not  make cookies because I’d eat them like there’s no tomorrow.  I see paying $1.50  for a cookie the price of staying in shape.  (Even though I surely can make them  much cheaper)  Being “full” will kill your plans in weight loss.  Your probably  know how to tease your metabolism.  It’s like a log burning on the fire.  Keep  it burning, just one log.  If the fire gets too big you burn all your wood up  quicker and if it gets too small it goes out.  To lose weight you have to eat.   Never be hungry or full.  (Though I was pretty hungry going through the initial  change in my lifestyle last year.  Not this last time though)

The one thing you can  do to build your inner strength, character and help you to succeed in losing  weight weight is to walk away from a splurge.  This is where sticking to your  guns come in.  I believe in doing what I say I will do no matter the cost.   Separate your body and spirit much like a doctor does with his patient and his  emotions.  When I walk to work from the bus I freeze.  I freeze if my legs move  slow or fast, no different.  I’ll let my legs move a little quicker  but I am  fully focused on staying warm and not worrying about getting their faster.  I’ve  learned to do this quite well as a result of 20 years of strength training.  I  can pound the crap out of myself as long as I do not focus on the pain.  I have  2 TV’s and a radio to distract me.  I focus on pumping my muscles and the burn  is just a side effect.  It’s hard to explain but as you know there is a lot of  psychology to motivation and exercise.  You spirit is far superior to the body  that holds it.  When you can make your body align with your spirit, you will  have the body you want.  I know I am probably sounding nuts here as I am reading  a book on social intelligence and it includes a lot of psychological analysis.   (More then I care to read)

My goal if I had kids  would be to incorporate kids into the workout.  This could be a great thing for  you guys to do together if you can find the space and the place.  I know this is  hard so I’ll move on.

Journaling works and  can help you as long as it remains as a motivator and not a reason to quit.   Becareful of barriers such as, I will workout but before I do this I have to  make a protein drink, stretch for 30 minutes, take pictures of myself, do 30  minutes of cardio and then I can finally lift weights for one hour.  Oh and  after this, I need to shower, clean and iron my workout clothes, wipe down the  machines, take notes on how I felt during every exercise and then read a book on  nutrition.  In other words, try to keep it simple yet  effective.

I think most looney  parents just decide to stay fat.  Believe me, there aren’t that many people in  good shape that I see each day.  My bus ride is rather homely.

Discipline is the key  and the topic I would like to write a book around some day.  20 years is a long  time to do something and not have key values forcing me to keep at  it.

Lifting weights does  intimidate many people but it truly is the best way to get in shape.  I’m sure  you know the benefits such as muscle burns more calories while you sleep (the  more you got the more efficient your resting metabolism) , it makes you more  flexible and less like to be injured.  (knees are more secure and fewer twisted  ankles), and muscle keeps the body tighter (chest naturally lifts up, and  triceps no longer fly in the wind).  I have a list of like 20 things as to why  cardio is inferior to cardio.  My first 20 pounds came from doing cardio 1 day a  week and lifting 3 days a week.  The one thing to is that you do ever do get  into bodybuiding, you should look into a scale that looks at your % bodyfat and  not just your weight.  You would also focus on pictures and measurements.   Muscle looks better.  You guys should go with us to the PA Championships in the  spring.  Beth was actually inspired, I could not believe it.  Last thing I will  say on this issue is you will not look like those bodybuilding ladies that  compete.  You’d more likely look like a swimmer or some other less bulky athlete  at best.  Believe me, if it was easy to look like Arnold, I would look like  Arnold now.

My biggest issue with  cardio is you almost have to do it daily and I just don’t have time for that.   By lifting my metabolism is burning quicker when I sleep and also on the days  between workouts.  Ok, I’ll move on.  Remember though, I lifted for a long time  and the thing I had to change was my diet.  Working out alone was not  enough.

One diet a friend of my  suggested was to be extremely disciplined 6 days a week and do whatever you want  on day 7.  This is a guy promoting abs and I Have his book here somewhere too.   I didn’t really like him.  Very cocky.

Finally, it does seem  like you know what to do and it’s just a matter more so of splurging less and  watching some of the snacking.  I would not of done the 6 week program if I  would of thought of it in terms of forever.  I thought of it as, I’ll do it for  6 weeks and decide at that point to recommit or not.  If I can’t commit to 6  weeks, I can’t commit to anything.  During this process I began to reprogram my  life about food and the reality of why constant eating rather then 3 meals a day  works.  It’s counterintuitive but true.

 I also forgot to mention that on weekends I would go out with my wife for one meal and order the healthiest protein I can find on the menu.  Usually a fish dinner, or if at Eatin Park, I would pick one of their healthy choices.

Well hopefully I didn’t  write too much.  I’m a bit passionate about this topic.

Good luck on whatever  you guys decide to do.  I would be excited to see your  result

(This was taken from an actual email and explains my diet fine points)

Diet started 9/22/08

Today: 9 28 08 Sunday

So here’s the summary for the past week.  I have dropped body fat from 21% to 19%.  I am not journaling every day because I am unhappy with the fact that I had surgery on 9 9 08 (Stitches out 9 19 08) and my back wound keeps bleeding and I need to let it heal.  I am unhappy because I still am not lifting weights during this program.  Half of me just wants to have a normal diet and for that reason I have cut back some but not totally.  The other half of me wants to get this program over and done and have the results of course.  I’m still snacking on graham crackers through my work day.  I went out for lasagna with Beth’s family the other (Sat) night.  (I just didn’t over stuff myself, though it was very hard to eat healthy at the restaurant we went to)  I had lasagna with lots of Ricotta Cheese.  (A bit much).  Anyway this has been about the worst my diet has been in as far as going a stray.  For lunch I’ve been eating turkey and swiss sandwiches with water.

Each day this week except today (I gave myself a break); I started my day with 1.5 mile run at 5 mph/hr on the treadmill.  Once I can get a few days where I do not bleed, I plan to work out.  I may attempt exercises that don’t involve back stress this week.

For this reason, I haven’t been perfect with my diet.    I cannot do this for the wife, it’s not enough.  She’s not dieting with me.   I need to think in terms of being my personal best because I stand completely alone.

As far as motivation, I’ve been ok.  This diet is nice so far because other then all the additional junk food that no longer exists, I’m eating about the same way I did through my diet last year and ever since.  I have less desire to eat like a pig like I once did.

101608 Saturday

Unfortunately I never got around to doing this in week 2 and now week 3 has already ended.  During week 2, I finally got to lifting again.  My percentage body fat finally gave way.  I was running every day and that didn’t seem to do me any good.  Now I am lifting and my body fat does seem to be going down.  I’m doubling up on protein and eating salads after work.  I am also able to resist chocolate which is huge and am eating more fruit instead of graham crackers at work.  We have lots of low cal TV dinners, like 300 calories and these are actually making me full.  I am using barbells for curls, but I don’t seem to get as good of a workout as when I use dumbbells.  My changes for this upcoming week will probably be to change my ab exercise and do dumbbell curls.  I also would like to focus on core strength exercises for more sets.  I would also like to incorporate more variety, for example more types of aerobic activity.  At this point it seems my abs will never come but perhaps with more protein, variety, targeting key muscle groups, and eating smaller meals and more protein in the evening may help.  I may even get back to egg whites in the morning.  I had a hot dog and some zero calorie coke Friday night and a cow today.  That’s about all the cheating I have done.

10/19/08 Sunday

I am now starting week 4.  My body fat seems to be stuck and I am getting frustrated.  I’m still attempting new things.  I began reading about HIIT (High Intensity Interval Training) in which you increase your heart rate for short periods of time and I decided to begin to apply that to my training.  I am now doing cycle training in which I do 4 exercises in a row with minimal rest, take a minute to reload up the weights and adjust the equipment and repeat this 3 times.  The first day I did this, I saw my body fat percentage finally go down.  This was only the first time and then it went back up again.  My snacks have been mostly apples, bananas and at work graham crackers.  Stress at work leads me to eat more often, though just in little bits.  I am also trying some new ab exercises.  I’ve tried something called a figure 8 and just cannot get it.  My running is going ok, I am trying to run 4 days a week (instead of 6 days a week due to pain in my feet due to shoe rubbing) and it’s going ok, but I still question if I am accomplishing anything in the 1.5 mile 18 minute run at a 135 bpm heart rate.  HIIT advises a shorter workout but it will inhibit the body’s ability to recover from the regular workouts.  HIIT recommends either I do this, or jog at a leisurely pace with an elevated heart rate for 1 hours.  That’s just too long.  I do admit, I wish I saw better results by now and having abs is becoming less important.  Monitoring my diet so closely when I am a stress eater and going to work to feel stress is a challenge.  At the end, what does it all mean anyway?  I guess I can say I am healthier and I accomplished a dream.  A dream that I had no idea would be so difficult and it would probably be short lived anyway because this is getting a bit old. I will say though, this diet has been much easier then before because I have pretty much stuck to this diet for the last year anyway.  Will I continue to run after 6 weeks I wonder?  Well, perhaps as long as I begin to see progress.  If I don’t see progress, there may be better ways I can use my time.  We’ll see.

10/29/08 Wed

HIIT Training!  High Intensity Interval training.  I was reading up on this which is raising the heart rate to an extreme level and then slowing down.  This supposedly is great for burning fat, but then people tell me, no it’s burning carbs.  Ok so somebody does not know what the heck they are talking about.  I just do not know who.  I have been trying this by super setting non-similar muscle group body parts together in which I do 3 circuits of 4 exercises.  I run from station to station with very little time to catch my breath.  How well does this work, hmmm… I’m not convinced of anything yet.  Thus far my body fat is still in the 17% range and my workouts are very tough.  I think I may be eating too much when I return home because one day I ate at work instead and the next morning found myself in the 16% body fat range!  Could this of been a fluke?  I may need to try this more.  My gut has shrunk and I may look better then the last time I did this stuff for 6 weeks but man I sure need a good cheeseburger!  I have to be honest it hasn’t been that bad.  Heck, I’m not eating chocolate, I eat a few raisins.  I don’t eat peanuts though I may have 100 calorie popcorn.  Perhaps I am not doing enough though my results are not very encouraging.  I think I may move to super setting similar muscle group exercises but I am not sure how I will be able to get a full body workout in.  Perhaps each body part should get one exercise per week?    As for aerobic activity, I am not running on workout days 1.5 miles and this part is going ok.  I am now going for setting 6 on my treadmill instead of 5 since I didn’t seem to get anything out of 5.  I probably will maintain a few changes for my diet after this.  It is as frustrating as my body just does not seem to want to grow!!  Sometimes it feels almost as if I cannot get a good contraction.  Also the ab exercises I am doing now are not only confusing, but challenging to coordinate which of my body parts need to move.

11/2/2008

My weight is 169 and I am frustrated and pretty much have given up.  My body fat is now in the 16% range and There is a trend where it gets lower and lower.  This isn’t happening in 6 weeks, why, well in part because I’m not sure if any more sacrifice is made that it will do me any good.  I guess I could eat endless crap and lose lots more weight!  This week I will be doing some more aerobic activity, but at the end of the day, I just want to make it to the weekend so I can go get some ice cream.  I do admit though, I have some bad days on the weekends.  Friday for example I drank beer and had chips and cheese dip.  Saturday, I had a late dinner.  Sure these meals are as nutritious as I can find for the most part (except the beer and cheese dip where I didn’t really eat that much).  Anyway, I probably will continue to eat healthy but I need a slight break to eat some chocolate and ice cream.  I haven’t had an over abundance of anything, but I probably need to be more strict then I am.  I also have been drained by some intense leg training.  I’ve been placing emphasis on leg training because they are larger metabolism burners, though perhaps I quit early or something mentally, but the workout doesn’t seem to be as complete as it needs to be.  Where’s the pump!??!  Abs too, I’m trying new exercise and I am not sure if I get a good workout or I get so sick of doing abs I just basically quit.  There is such a mental struggle and super setting makes these workouts even more draining.

11/8/2008

I just spent the last hour on bodybuilding.com download pics.  In reviewing the pics, I actually can see some changes and this is truly inspiring.  I need to create a side by side sheet so I can look closely.  Already today I had about 6 peanut butter cups and am going the Chinese buffet with Beth today for lunch.  I have really wanted to eat a few things and through this process, all this self denial has made me blood thirsty for certain bad for me types of foods.  I’m sick of eggs for breakfast and not being able to go out at work.  I miss chocolate very much and Chinese food.  I also have been spending some serious time on the treadmill which hopefully I can replace with outdoor cardio once the weather improves again.  The hard part about a diet is that I am a stress eater and when I get sick of my work day, I like to break it up by eating.  Holding back has been almost a distraction because it’s harder for me to plow forward simply because there seems to be no better break then a small binge.  Don’t get me wrong, I am not in to being a pig right now; I just think perhaps one cheat day a week may suffice for a long term diet success.  Perhaps snacking during the work day could be ok as long as I maintain filler high fiber foods so I don’t over do it.  So let me just say this ab challenge is tough, I lost some weight and some muscle and still am not there.  I think I have been losing but painfully slow and I need to just break out and eat some of the crap I have been wanting.  This past week, I have spent much more time on bb.com and I even filmed my workout Thursday night.  The biggest motivator is in the pics where my stomach defiantly looks better!

I am still training very hard.  Personally, I am just proud I am keeping the weight off as this is where most people have problems.  I can say that even though the days of not thinking about food was a bit more fun, the belly I no longer have is not missed at all.  I am slowly becoming motivated again to get into another serious diet.  This time around I will increase protein and increase aerobic activity.  I am not prepared to do this yet so I will be conservative with my diet and hard with training for now.