thundergut’s BodyBlog

Seriously though, I love mexican food.  That’s my problem.  I love food too much.  The adjustment to eating smaller portions and healthier food doesn’t kick in when I go eat mexican.  I know everybody says "you gotta have a cheat meal!" but for me, that is a pit-trap lined with spikes of fried tortilla goodness, coated in the blood of tomatoes and peppers.

When I went to the mexican restaurant last night with 2 friends, it started from the moment I sat down.  Chatting.  Chipping.  Chatting and chipping.  Chipping and chatting.  Sure I’d like another bowl of chips, and more salsa please.  Thank you!  I’d like the fried chicken chimichangas.  Oh, and a diet pepsi.

A diet pepsi.  C’mon.  Seriously?  For all the fried chips I ate, and the fried chimichangas…and then finishing it all because I didn’t want to take it home, and I hate wasting food…c’mon…  I may as well have ordered a chilled glass of lard to go with my meal.  Yeah, and throw some cheese on that lard too.  Thanks.

My brain turns off when I’m hungry.  Sometimes I wonder if it ever turns on at all.

Well, last week wasn’t a resounding success, but it wasn’t horrible.  I didn’t make time to workout (ie: walk, jog around the neighborhood).  However on Saturday I skated for 2.5 hours in 2 different bursts.  Sunday I had hockey class, so there was an hour of solid skating.  I don’t know what it is about skating, but I bust a serious sweat.  Probably because I’m a FATTY. 

Anyways.  It wasn’t a complete bust.  I felt really good coming off the weekend, ready to look the beast in the mouth.  Lets do eet!

I’m an epic failure when it comes to self motivation.  I need some sort of external motivator.  Something like paying money for a gym membership.  I’m paying for it, so I may as well use it.

Up several lbs since last Friday.  It’s probably time to rejoin a gym.

I’ve quit my gym due to a management dispute.

I felt they should keep their promises regarding policies.  They didn’t feel the same.

They felt I should remain a member and keep paying membership dues.  I didn’t feel the same.

Anyways, here I am sans-gym for now.  Waiting to see if the YMCA will offer a deal with my employer.  Yes, I’m going back to the YMCA.  I’ll likely go back regardless, but it would be nice to get a discount.  Planning to use it for lap swimming at lunch time, or after work…possibly even before work.  We’ll see.  I plan to use it mostly for the swimming aspect.

I’m examining my diet, and I’ve realized my pitfalls.  Beef and pork.  Beef and pork are my trigger foods.  They say "It’s ok to have fries with us." or "It’s ok to soak us in sugar laden bbq sauce with hush puppies and mac-n-cheese."

I’m going to begin the process towards becoming an ovo-lacto-pesco vegetarian (if there is such a thing).  I don’t know how close I’ll get to the real deal (eggs / milk / fish doesn’t sound as good as chicken / turkey / eggs / milk / fish does), but I’m going to give it a shot.  I’ve got a couple friends who are looking to begin this transformation as well, and we’re hoping to make the change together and help monitor eachother.  These friends live in another town, so my biggest pitfall will be local friends…who are all rampant carnivores…in the red meat sense.

I view a good hamburger paired with anything but fries as sacrilege.  Pork BBQ needs to have something flavored with bacon paired with it, along with hushpuppies and possibly fries, all complemented with a mix of sweet, mustard, and hot bbq sauces.  There is no compromise.  It’s all or none.  I’ve tried.  My next step is to try and exclude these foods from my diet, and with it, take a great deal of the fat I was consuming.  Fish and chicken, even ground turkey - all work well with steamed veggies or a salad to me.

The first step is just eliminating beef.  No steak or burgers.  Next will be pork.  No bbq, chops, or hotdogs.  Then we’ll see about the chicken and turkey (which, to be honest, I’ll likely fight like a rabid dog for).

Exercise recently has consisted of ice skating.  Hockey style.  I’m learning to skate all over, and also learning the game of ice hockey at the same time.  It’s a great time, I’m loving it, but it gives me about 3-4hrs of cardio Fri/Sat/Sun.  I work up a good sweat, I feel good afterwards, and I’m having fun.  I’m hoping when I’m done with the "learning" portion, the "playing" portion will pick up and I’ll join a league and play a few nights a week.  That would be ideal.

Enough jibber-jabber for now.  I’ll try to update this thing more often again.  I fell off the bandwagon a while ago, and I’m going to give it a go again.

I fell off the bandwagon and pretty bad.  I’m currently hunting for it and hope to rejoin with it in the near future.  287.6lbs as of 6/13/08, start of our office weight loss contest running through the end of August.  Lets see how this goes.

Working out at the gym 3 days a week had me "maintaining" at 278-ish for the past few months.  It’s miserable.  I know my diet is out of whack, but I can’t cut like I want to on calories and still have energy to do anything at the gym.  It’s a tender balance between eating calorie/carb/protein/fat rich foods and having the energy, or cutting all of the above and feeling weak/sweaty/drained.  So I ate pretty much what I wanted (within reason) and busted my @$$ at the gym.  278…278…278…it’s like my scale was laughing at me.  I figured I could have a pseudo-cheat every day and manage to burn enough at the gym to make a difference.  You can read all of the articles, magazines, books, studies, etc…but until you find out what works for YOU, none of it will stick.

So, on to what I’ve found works for me:

Breakfast:  1c cooked oats  (w/ brown sugar & cinnamon, 1/2c of fat free milk, and 1 scoop of protein powder) and 4 slices of turkey bacon.  This keeps me charged and going (along with the 2 cups of coffee and 32oz of water in the morning) until 1130am when I go grab some lunch.

Lunch:  Whatever I want, reasonably healthy.  I don’t go crazy during lunch, but I do eat what I want.  Mongolian beef w/ white rice.  Speedy Gonzales at my local mexican place.  Burger and fries from the local grill.  Big slice of pizza from Sam’s Club.  Big thing about lunch is I no longer drink regular soda, I only drink diet.  Many of you reading this will cringe at what I eat, but I’ve tried the soup, I’ve tried the salad, I’ve tried cooking my own chicken and rice and broccoli for lunch…none of it satiates me or gives me enough energy for my evening workout.  I just don’t find it … pleasing.  I can stay away from the sweetened cereals, the waffles and syrup, the less healthy breakfasts…as long as I have lunch to look forward to.  Plus, knowing that I’m not as strict on lunch as I should be gives me a ton of extra motivation to hit the gym and go all out.
Mid-afternoon:  I usually have an apple and another cup of coffee around 4pm, to get me ready for my workout.  If my energy is flagging, this comes in really handy.  If I feel fine, this really revs me up to hit the gym.

Post-workout:  Just the staples.  16oz water, 2 scoops whey protein, 1 tbsp creatine and a few ice cubes.  Blend.  Consume.  Shower.

Dinner:  Always my healthiest meal of the day.  I almost always have either broccoli or asparagus, steamed.  Almost always have brown or jasmine rice w/ soy sauce.  The meat is either 8oz of ground turkey, 8-10oz chicken breast, or 2 tilapia fillets.  Sometimes I’ll buy salmon instead of tilapia, but I got burned out on salmon for a while.  Usually around 1/2c of rice, 2c of veggies.  Very low fat, good protein, good carbs.  Sometimes if I have another good veggie on hand, I’ll replace the rice with it…but most times my body is begging for rice or couscous or quinoa.

Post-dinner:  This is my treat.  I mix sugar-free pudding with couscous and some protein powder.  It’s awesome.  Depending on pudding flavour, I may toss in a sliced banana.  Maybe 0.5-1c of this post-dinner.  I usually have to wait an hour after dinner because I stuff myself on veggies.

I’ve learned that I don’t do diets very well.  I’m not disciplined enough that I can eat things that taste foul to me in order to lose weight.  I’d rather hit the gym so hard that I puke…and then reward myself with a good meal.  It’s just the way I am.  I know it’s not the "status quo" of bodybuilding, but it’s the way I have to handle my weight loss.

Now, meals aside…I’ve found that I have to hit the gym at least 4x a week, and really bust arse to drop the pounds.  Last week I went 4 days, did my weights circuit, and ran a mile each time.  I even went to the fair last week and ate (* Spoiler Alert * - if you’re a hardcore nutrition nut, skip this part) deep fried Oreos, had a bite of a deep fried Snickers, and a deep fried Reece’s cup.  I felt horrible the following day.  Last year I skipped on the fried foods, so this year that was my main reason for going - just to see how good/bad they really were.  And they tasted good…but were so bad…  I still weighed in, the following Monday….at 276.6…lower than I think I’ve ever been in recent memory.

This week is going to get the 4-5 day treatment in the gym…maybe even 6 days if I’m feeling fiesty on Saturday.

Lets see if I can drop another 2lbs this week.  If so, awesome.  If not, there’s always next week.

Tomorrow I visit a local swim store that I just found, and I buy a new pair of goggles.  After visiting that store and purchasing my goggles, I will visit the local YMCA to purchase a membership.  The "return" begins on Thursday at 5:45am.  Wish me luck…

Weight loss is a slippery slope.  Except everybody seems to be wanting to move down the hill, and keep slipping upwards.  Way to kill the laws of physics with a metaphor, eh?

Anyways, I just wanted to write a little something.  Not sure why, but it seemed like the right thing to do.  I was thinking to myself just now about things that would motivate me even further.

I have a whole laundry list of things that motivate me, but they’re not always front-and-center in my mind.  Over the years, for various reasons, I’ve gotten better and better at ignoring things right in front of me in favor of other, easier things.  Why go up the hill on the path when I can walk around the hill through the woods.  Sure I’m not doing what I should be doing, but it seems like the best thing to do at the time.  I guess that’s why I have a LOT of post-activity guilt.

I have an accidental cheat and I feel guilty moments after.  I see a cheesecake sitting there, and I KNOW I should NOT be eating it, but suddenly I’m eating a slice.  I realize it about halfway through when I come to my senses, but do I stop eating it?  Nope.  I don’t quite know what’s wrong with me, but that’s the way my mind seems to work.  Just peachy, eh?

I’ve been fit once in my life, for a few years.  I had a coach that I absolutely adored because he was the repository of all the knowledge of the sport that I was working to attain.  I also adored him because he didn’t let me off easily.

Humans, as a whole, tend to be lazy.  Myself most of all.  I got into swimming because I was in a new school and my mom suggested it to me, that I’d always loved swimming, and she wanted me to try.  I tried it, mostly for her.  It was embarassing as heck at first.  I was the fat kid with all of these fit swimmers.  Girls in tight swimsuits, guys in speedos, and me in my big baggy swim trunks.

It took the better part of a year for me to really learn what swimming was all about.  It was more than racing my friends to the other side of the pool.  It was more than "just a few laps."  It was hard work!  …and my coach was there, never letting me slack, because (I’m hoping) he saw greatness in me.  He saw potential…that same potential I still have inside of me, but am too lazy to grab hold of and pull out.

At the end of swimming for 3 years…many early hours of laps in cold water, many late nights of cramping and soreness…I did what I’d never thought was possible.  I got a swimming scholarship…and I owe it all to my coach.

When I was tired, he was there.  When I was sore, he was there.  When I was absolutely exhausted, he was there.  Always encouraging, rarely judging.  He only yelled at me once, and that was quite confusing.  I had just done what we call a "negative split" in my 500yd freestyle race.  I finished my last 100 faster than I finished my first 100.  That’s supposed to be unheard of in a sport where getting off to a fast start usually equates to victory.  I think I went out in a 56 second 100yd, and finished with a 53 second 100yd.  He was so pissed off.  I won the event, but he was so pissed off at me.  Not because I did a negative split, but because I didn’t believe in my ability enough to go faster at the start.  I see that now, and I know why he was upset.  He was upset for the "what could have been" rather than the "what happened."

So it is at this point in my life, I have to wonder if I need to seek out a coach, or if I can be coach enough for myself.  It is with this in mind, that I’m seeking out quotes to motivate me.  Coach used to have a little quote at the bottom of the workout board for our morning practice.  4:30am was a bit early for even him to be up and excited about…

One quote that has always struck a chord with me is from a cult movie named The Boondock Saints.  I discovered it in college and got all of my friends addicted to it.  But there is one quote in there that always comes back to me…  it’s when the long-lost father says to his sons, at the end of the movie…  "The question is not how far. The question is, do you possess the constitution, the depth of faith, to go as far as is needed?"

I now have to ask myself not how far can I go in my weight loss goals…but do I possess the constitution to go as far as needed…

Still holding steady at 278-280lbs.  I had the hardest time getting below 280, and now it doesn’t seem to want to go lower.

Something has got to change.  I bust my arse almost everyday at the gym and still nada.  Admittedly, this past week I’ve been slacking…hard.  Work got in the way on 2 days, and I also had about 2 cheat days.

I haven’t been doing weights this past week because my program was a bit…ugly.  I sat down this weekend and tried to setup a new, more balanced workout.  We’ll see how that goes this week.

Still below 280, so that makes me happy.  Next stop, sub-275.

Going to keep posting updates in my Transformation Journal at http://forum.bodybuilding.com/showthread .php?t=2641451

Trying to do it both here and there was a valiant thought, but impractical.