The long slog...

I've been doing some thinking as of late about the journey that I've been talking about in previous posts. And honestly sometimes I do get a bit discouraged, I mean I've probably walked enough miles from here to South Korea, and lifted the equivalent of a metro bus, and I'm still not where I want to be. But then I think back on my years of how I used to eat, and this weight didn't happen overnight. And since I didn't gain it overnight, I won't lose it overnight. Still it's hard to keep up the exercise, and food discipline day after day...

Either way, like I said in my previous post, I've come too far to stop now. I'm going to keep going...I'll keep fighting...and I will win!

Annual Physical

Had my physical today...and the doctor said he's pretty happy with the progress that I've made since I first attending his practice in 2007. My BP is a tad high, but he's attributing it to the multivitamins I am taking from GNC. So I'm pretty much going to be doing without those from now on. I will be supplementing my activities with things such as Vitamin A, B, and C, but no more of the herbals found in the GNC athletic formulas.

My DTG consisted of the Tomato Omelet, Meatloaf, and Herbed Catfish. All together those meals came to 1288 calories, and I burned about 1800 for the day. So if you add in my usual snack intake I came up to about 500 calories total for the day.

Overall, even though I am far away from my self imposed goals, I feel very good as I was able to to see progress (on paper), of my journey over the last 3 years. I've made it this far so there's no stopping it now!

Daylight Savings Time...sucks!

Well, today was the first day of the work week with Daylight Savings Time and to say I was dragging would be an understatement. Hard to get going all day, so I found a reason to get outside the office, but in my efforts to get out the office I ended up at Whole Foods Market. Other than the fact that WFM is expensive as all Hades, I have a couple of weakness at that store. The dark chocolate almonds are one, the General Tso's Vegan Chicken is another, and I had a yearning for sushi so I got some of that too. Either way, I didn't go too crazy, but I did have a few extra calories I had to work off at the gym because of my slip up. Speaking of the gym, I had a pretty decent workout. 393 with free weights, and 1438 calories on the elliptical. I keep saying that I'm going to change up a bit to "confuse my muscles", but I never do (creature of habit).

Today's DTG meals were pretty good as usual. For breakfast I had the Porkchop Egg breakfast (quickly moving into my top five all time meals), for lunch I had the hamburger pizza (solid meal not great, not horrible), and finally the baked salmon in Dill sauce (pretty avg meal, had to dress it up a bit with hot sauce but pretty good regardless).

Tomorrow I have a bi-annual checkup, and I'm pretty interested to see how my blood pressure is holding up. As a former high blood pressure sufferer, I try my best to keep my sodium levels down, exercise, and drink loads of water. We'll see how it goes!

Doing Pretty Good....

Been on the low carb meal plan for about two weeks now, and I must say I am really enjoying it. On average, the daily calorie intake is only about 1300 calories (in contrast to 1600 for low fat), and once you add in my between meal snacks and small splurges, I'm probably taking in about 2400 calories a day. Once you factor in my average exercise output, I'm averaging an total calorie count of about 500-900 calories a day.

Yesterday's meals were good as usual, I had the scrambled egg breakfast (think egg mcmuffin w/o the bread) with some spinach on the side, the chicken fontina for lunch, and the creole catfish for dinner. Per the DTG nutrional menu count, all those meals came up to 1058 calories. Add my usual daily snacks and I had a total intake of about 1900 calories.

This week was my birthday, so the love of my life made me a strawberry cake (pic is on FB those interested) and I went through that cake like a hot knife through butter. Though not on the meal plan, one slip up won't hurt me too bad...just have to make sure I don't continue slipping.

Also weighed myself at the gym yesterday, but got a result I could hardly belief. So I won't jinx it by talking about it too much. If you're interested just read the sidebar.

Back into the swing of things....

As the title states it feels like I'm back into the swing of things. Against my better judgment I weighed myself this morning and what the scale told me didn't depress me. Keep in mind I feel my electronic scale is highly inaccurate, and I rarely trust anything it says, regardless the reading put a smile on my face.

My workout today went well today. I spent 66 minutes on the elliptical (again) and burned an estimated 1560 calories. I followed that up with assorted free weight exercises and burned about 480 calories. Pretty soon I'll have to switch up my cardio workout to make sure my body doesn't get complacent and accustomed to the workout. I may try jogging, but I hate high impact workouts...but sometimes the things you hate are the best for you. We'll see how that works out.

On to the DTG menu for today:

Currently on the week 5 menu of the low carb, and I must say the switch from low fat is working out mighty nicely. Breakfast consisted of Andouille, Shrimp and Egg Hash which was very good (just wish I had some hot sauce to sprinkle on it lol), followed by a lunch of Portobella Mushroom Lasagna. I had this one time previously with DTG and hated it, I must say that I was very surprised when I ate it today, as I don't remember why I didn't like it the first time. Finally for dinner I had the Italian Meatballs, which were very tasty!

Fitness in America...

Well, after about 12 days on the mend I finally had the chance to workout. To make sure the workout was worth it, I made sure to take the good ole GNC multivitamin. Man, you talking about explosion!!!! I had noticed that the multivitamin wasn't having the same affect once I had been taking them for awhile, now after a 2 week hiatus the potency was back to normal. I had an average heart rate of about 175 and burned 501 calories lifting weights and 1600 calories on the elliptical. If it wasn't for that multivitamin, I probably wouldn't have made it through the first half of my workout.

Now onto diet to go...if anyone remembers I was complaining on a regular basis about how there was too much bread in the the low fat meal plan. I am now on the low carb meal plan, and I tell you I absolutely love it!!! Today was no exception...

Breakfast: Scrambled Benedict (scrambled eggs and Canadian bacon)
Snack: Greek Yogurt, blueberries, and flaxseeds
Lunch: Chimichurra Salmon with asparagus (in my top 3 of fav DTG meals)
Snack: almonds, cheese stick, beef jerky tearyaki (low carb snacking baby!!!)
Dinner: Beef Short Ribs with Bordelaise Sauce (very good, very tender short rib)
Desert: Probably some Mango Soy Creamy, haven't decided yet

Also, I have to confess those McDonald's Filet-o-Fish commercials are getting too me. I mean seriously a catchy tune, a funny commercial, and a 99 cent filet to boot!?!?!? How am I supposed to resist that? Man it's all I've been talking about for the last week. Bruce Lee...give me the strength to defeat the fish temptation!!!

Still mending, and still battling...

The Battle Continues....
Well, we're on to week two of my physical healing....I figure that I will be out of commission for at least another week before I can start working out again. I really do miss working out, but it has freed up time for me to catch up and actually get ahead on a bit of school work. One thing I do know is that with me not being able to work out I've really had to be mindful of what my daily food intake. As I have mentioned before, since I burned about 1500 calories a day exercising I took a bit of liberty eating a little extra at dinner. But since I don't have that luxury right now so self control is the key.

Today I started my low carb diet, and I must admit I can definitely tell the difference in not have carbs in my daily intake. I usually have a midday snack which consists of strawberry/blueberry mixed with granola and yogurt (CARBS!!!). Now, I've had to switch it up a bit and my midday snack consisted of blueberry, yogurt, and flaxseed (low carbs!!!). To say my head has been spinning today would be an understatement.


Today's intake:

PorkChop Breakfast: Egg, nice portion of porkchop, with cheese and bacon (I love da swine!!!!)
Yogurt, flaxseed, blueberries
Turkey Curry Cutlets with Cauliflower
Turkey Jerky and almonds, with fruit water
Alfredo Burger with asparagus, and califlower

So there you go my first day back on lo carb...and boy can I feel the difference...small but important steps, and I can't wait to see what happens at the finish line.