• Day 1 - Friday
  • Seated Row - 6-10 Reps
  • Pullup - 6-10 Reps
  • Barbell Pullover - 6-10 Reps
  • Close-grip Bench Press - 6-10 Reps
  • One-arm Cable Pushdown - 6-10 Reps
  • Barbell Curl - 6-10 Reps
  • Dumbell Hammer Curl - 6-10 Reps
• Day 2 - Sunday
  • Barbell Squat - 6-10 Reps
  • Dumbell Lunge - 6-10 Reps
  • Leg Extension - 6-10 Reps
  • Barbell Deadift - 6-10 Reps
  • Leg Curl - 6-10 Reps
  • Ab Crunch - 15-25 Reps
  • Oblique Crunch - 15-25 Reps
• Day 3 - Tuesday
  • Dumbell Bench Press - 6-10 Reps
  • Incline Hammer Press - 6-10 Reps
  • Bar Dips - 6-10 Reps
  • Dumbell Shoulder Press - 6-10 Reps
  • Upright Barbell Row - 6-10 Reps
  • Standing Calve Raise - 8-12 Reps
  • Seated Tibilais Raise - 8-12 Reps

When Will it Start?!

Right now I am pretty out of shape and I am afraid that if I just jump into the routine above I am going to hurt myself or at least stress muscles that currently assist weaker muscles. I will put together an entry to explain this a little better, but right now I will give myself 1-2 weeks of daily yoga in hopes i can tone the muscles i use daily and resurrect the ones i normally do not. Read my entry regarding yoga here!

Yoga originated in India thousands of years ago with classical techniques dating back more than 5,000 years. It is a science that systematically creates harmony of the entire body, mind and spirit. “Yoga” comes from the Sanskrit verb yuj, thus meaning to yoke or to unite. The practice of yoga brings union between one’s consciousness and the universal consciousness. Yoga combines physical movements with breathing and meditation techniques to bring forward physiological and psychological Health Benefits. Yoga provides improved health and longevity, as well as creates a heightened level of self-understanding and awareness.

The yoga poses were designed to revitalize and bring balance to the musculoskeletal and glandular systems. The breathing techniques (pranayama) are based on the concept that breath is the source of life and energy (prana) in the body. The integration of yoga poses and breathing techniques helps one attain a steady, quiet mind and a strong, open body. The yoga poses and breathing techniques are also vital for preparing the body and mind for periods of meditation. The combination of yoga poses, breathing, and meditation makes one more readily able to free oneself from daily pressures and stresses. Yoga is a life-long practice that focuses not on goals and achievements, but rather on experiencing a journey towards inner peace and freedom.

I feel this line holds great value:

The yoga poses were designed to revitalize and bring balance to the musculoskeletal and glandular systems.

I consider myself to be pretty out of shape at this point so I am feeling that busting out with some Yoga and core exercises will help align my muscles and bones a bit before I start seriously working out. My main concern is that i have spent a LOT of time behind a computer screen and this takes a toll on the body. I can feel that my back is a little squirrelly, and core muscles such as thighs, abdominals, etc are weak. This of course causes other muscles that rely on the support of larger more ‘forceful’ muslces to compensate for the dysfunction.

I think it is possible to actually make a dysfunction STRONGER by working out when you are not fit to be working out. What i mean is say you have a muscle that is compensating for a weaker one — if you start working out HARD and end up actually making the compensating muscle stronger due to the lack of mobility or whatever in the ‘bad’ muscle, I fell the dysfunction could actually be increased, lead to injury or simply render the exercise less effective. Now i am not 100% sure i have any type of dysfunction i should be concerned about but just to prevent anything i am going to start yoga and run with it for about 1-2 weeks before i actually hit the gym.

My personal opinion on the journaling is that it sucks. I hate writing lol. BUT i think that by journaling it keeps you structured and even if you pig out and eat 30 doughnuts in one day the structure part pulls you back the NEXT day and gets you back on track. I think sometimes people will binge or screw up one day, then the next day tell themselves that they have already messed up the day before, what good will it do to do well today, and spiral down from there. OK ok, I am talking about myself .

Back to journaling. In Weight Watchers the actual eating healthy part is easy but i find that i forget to journal things, because i don’t want to carry the actual journal & a pen with me when i am out and about, or bring it to and from work, etc.

Aside from Weight Watchers, many body builders track their diet down to minute details of protein, carbohydrate and caloric intake. At this point I am not interested in going that deep but maybe in the future.

What i am going to do is create a category for journaling my daily foods. That way I can keep an archive here on the site of what I eat and have the ability to reflect BACK and see what is actually going on.

This journal will begin NOW!

Fluids

• 2 cups of coffee, no sugar
  • Irish Cream creamer - NOT Core
• Three 16.9 oz bottles of water
• 1 cup Odwalla Super Food (The green one!)
• Safeway ‘Clear’ - diet soda basically

Breakfast

• Nothing

Lunch

• 1 can of Hormel vegetarian chilie. Based on the ingredients i deemed this as being core. It is fat free, delicious and extremely high in fiber and protein. 1 can is like 40% of your daily fiber!
  • 2 Slices of fat free kraft singles cheese
  • Hot sauce
• Dark leaf salad mixed with ice berg lettuce mix
  • 1 Avocado mixed in the salad (damn good!)
  • Dressing was miso salad dressing. There is a bit of oil in this but you are allowed to have a tiny bit of oil.
• Pear

Snack

• Orange
• Peanuts (bad i know)
• Fat Free kettle corn (entire bag is only 3 points and high in fiber)

Dinner

• Lean steak
  • Marinade consisted of soy sauce, ‘italian spices’, lemon, pepper, onion powder, and garlic powder
• Dark leaf salad and iceberg salad mix (again)
  • 1/4 of an avocado
  • Tomato
  • Cucumber
  • Miso salad dressing
• Steamed bean mix
  • Wax beans
  • Green beans
  • Carrots
• Whole wheat couscous with a TINY bit of oil and seasoned salt
• A ton of strawberries

Image: Downward Facing Dog

As you can probably tell from that picture of down dog, you are basically making a triangle with your body by lifting your ass/hips UP, and by doing this it pulls on your legs and back. Getting back to my POINT, the body is SO quick to adapt that when i started just 5 days ago i really only felt this pose in my legs but TODAY i felt it stretch my lower back out and when i took a deep breathe in my lower back actually cracked. What i think was happening before is that my legs were so inflexible that i had to bend them to avoid tension/strain on my hamstrings and upper calves. This bending hindered my ability to straighten from the hips as an axis point. So what i am getting at is that in just a few days my legs have adapted and become more flexible to the point that i can actually feel it all the way up my back. That amazes me.

One other thing i should point out is that if you have read my little ‘about me’ page, you know that i do a lot of computer work. My lower back normally has a tiiiiiiny bit of pain or discomfort at all times. It’s nothing serious or intense, but just enough to let my back say hello from time to time. The yoga flows have really reduced this feeling and i can feel with some spine twists and bridging that it is just working the lower back OUT.

I am going to continue this for a total of 2 weeks before i start weight training. I think the balance and stability i can ALREADY feel in just a few days will continue to grow.

• 3 cups of coffee, fake sugar
  • Irish Cream creamer
  • Fat free milk
• 2 16.9 oz bottles of water
• 1 Diet Coke
• 1 Diet Dr Pepper

Breakfast

• Oatmeal (Not instant) with a pear cut up and cooked in it.

Lunch

• Bean salad (This was VERY Good)

• Green beans
• Kidney beans
• Garbanzo beans
• Black olives
• Rice vinegar
• Tiny bit of oil
• Garlic powder
• Tiny bit of salt

Snack

• Orange
• Hard boiled egg
• 1% fat cottage cheese (i couldn’t find fat free @ Safeway)

Dinner

• My sister made some shrimp pasta which was pretty good

• Pasta was a mix

• Half whole wheat pasta

• Half normal pasta

• Tomato sauce
• Carrots
• Asparagus
• Garlic
• Onions
• Magic

• Small slice of french bread
• Tomatos
• Basil
• Garlic (maybe?)

• 2 cups of coffee
  • Fake sugar (Equal i think)
  • Nondairy powdered creamer
• 1 Diet Coke
• 1 cup black peach tea
• 3 cups of water

Breakfast

• None

Lunch

• Got lunch from the cafe @ work today. This is the description from the menu:
• Oven roasted salmon with whole grain mustard crust
  • Topped with pomegranate reduction
  • Brown rice
  • Vegetables
  • Cauliflower
  • Broccoli
  • Carrots
  • Zucchini

Snack

• Small amount of granola with fruit and yogurt
• Fruit with Cottage cheese (low fat)

Dinner

• Chicken and vegetables baked with a tiny bit of olive oil and spices. This was pretty good and if you want to make it yourself just do this:
  • Tin foil on a baking pan
  • Olive oil the foil a little
  • Add some raw chicken breast on there
  • Add some fingerling potatoes
  • Add some onions or whatever else you want. Bell peppers would have been good too.
  • Create an herb olive oil mix
    • Oil
    • Pepper
    • Parsley
    • Some Ms Dash
    • Garlic powder
  • Brush the mix onto everything
  • Bake until chicken is white
  • Take out and flip everything over and bake a little longer
  • For last 5 min, add spices on top of chicken (no oil, just sprinkle then on) and broil for like 5 minutes. It is really good!

• 2 cups of coffee
  • Fat free creamer
• 3 bottles of water

Breakfast

• Mix of carrots, grapes (which i soon found out had gone BAD) and strawberries.

Lunch

• I was up really early on saturday so this ‘lunch’ was more like my breakfast just @ lunch time, heh
• 2 Scrambled eggs with fat free cheese
• Famous potatoes. This is how you do it!
  • Put some olive oil in a pan and heat it up
  • Cut up some red potatoes and throw them in… like a professional, flip the potatoes by flipping the skillet. You do not need a spatula or any tool, just skill.
  • After the potatoes are browned a little, throw in a chopped green bell pepper
  • Next throw in some sliced mushrooms
  • Cut up some red onion, throw that in too
  • Be sure to constantly flip the mix around in order to brown on all sides and cook the potatoes all the way through
  • Last throw in like 3 cloves of garlic chopped. This has to go in last or else the garlic just burns and you cannot taste it
  • Add in some spices you like… parsley, LOTS of black pepper, ms dash, etc Sometimes i put cayane pepper
  • Cook until brown or almost burned if you like it that way
  • Add some salt and call it done.
• Crumpet - only 90 calories and 0 fat.

Snack

• Fruit with Cottage cheese (low fat) — im addicted to this

Dinner

• Taco BELL
  • Ceasar wrap crunch or whatever its called
  • Fiesta burrito that should have been a Chicken quesadilla but they screwed the order up.
• I know tbell is a bad bad idea but i broke down when it was suggested to me.

• 2 cups of coffee
  • Fat free creamer - vanilla cinnamon, its pretty gross.
• 2 bottles of water
• 1 Bottle of ‘Safeway Clear’… these things are really good but they HAVE to cause cancer.

Breakfast

• 3 Scrambled eggs with fat free cheese
• Potato hashbrownish mix i make you can find a link to the recipie here
  • Contains
    • Green bell peppers
    • Red onions
    • Garlic
    • Red potatoes
    • Spices
    • Olive oil

Lunch

• Not hungry, didn’t eat anything since the breakfast was so filling

Snack

• Peaches and pears with cottage cheese (low fat)
• Cereal
  • Kashi
  • Fat free milk
• 2 Apples
• 1 Kiwi

Dinner

• Gigantic salad with Miso dressing

I am also trying to get this graphing plugin for wordpress setup so i can kind of chart the weight progress along but that may be a little too detailed. lol

Pretty cool, eh? FYI, my lunulae are friggin huge and I have always wondering how i have managed to eat like 4 doughnuts, taco bell twice a day, ben and jerry’s cups to the head… without getting super mega fat.

• 3 cups of coffee
  • Fat free creamer
• 1 bottle of water
• 1 Bottle of ‘Safeway Clear’… these things are really good but they HAVE to cause cancer.
• 1 Diet coke

Breakfast

• 2 kiwis diced and mixed with low fat cottage cheese

Lunch

• Can of vegetable soup
• Bean salad that included the following
  • Green beans
  • Garbanzo beans
  • Kidney beans
  • Olives < -- YES!
• Medium sized salad with miso dressing

Snack

• None

Dinner

• 2 hamburgers made from low fat meat
• 2 slices of fat free cheese
• Lettuce
• Tiny bit of Mayo
• 2 whole wheat buns

FYI, this Xyience purchase parallel’s the third item in my weight loss plan and i am planning on starting to take it regularly once i begin working out.

Per the instructions on the bottle it basically says you take 2 of the pills in the morning before breakfast and another one before lunch. So with that in mind, lets check out what this stuff actually has in it:

Serving Size: 2 Capsules

• Hoodia Cactus leaves 150mg
• Sclareolude (Fermented Salvia sclarea leaf extract) 125mg
• Proprietary XFM AM Blend 720mg
  • Green Tea Extract (standardized for epigallocatechin gallate, caffeine, and polyphenols)
  • Yerba Mate ((standardized for caffeine and methylxanthines), infused with natural caffeine for a total of 300mg caffeine
• Acetyl-L-Carnitine 30mg
• Ginger Root Extract (zingiber officinale) Standardized to contain 5% Gingerols 45mg
• Cayenne 100,000 STU/gram 45mg

Wow thats a lot! Of stuff, but a couple stand out to me more than the others. Hoodia, Yerba Mate and Cayenne.

Hoodia is all over the place these days. It is a cactus from south africa that has been known to help local people with indigestion and appetite suppression when traveling across desert. Recently it has been marketed in the form of a diet pill.

Yerba Mate i know from experience is a good stimulant. While in argentina not too long ago my friend suggested we drink it. I CLEARLY remember being extremely tired and after drinking that stuff it was like a spell of light energy. Nothing crazy, just pep and i think this would be nice in a diet pill as the feeling of caffeine from yerba mate (in my experience) is not a CRaCKeD OuT feeling.

Finally, when i saw cayenne i thought wow that’s a unique ingredient. But hot/spicy stuff has been known to boost the metabolism and actually i just recently learned that it is an anti-inflammatory. Example of this would be after you have surgery or something there are specific foods such as hot/spicy foods and even avocados that can help reduce swelling.

• 4-6 bottles of water (wow a lot)
• 2 Cups of coffee with creamer
• More water! I was thirsty from kiting and the salty burrito i ate.

Breakfast

• No breakfast. It’s saturday! i slept in way past breakfast

Lunch

• Brown rice with “spanish” seasonings
• Took the rice and put it inside a tortilla along with black beans, fat free cheese, and hot sauce GOOD. I ate three of these.

Snack

• ‘Tropical’ canned fruit. Packed in its own juice (that makes it core, according to my gf)
  • Mixed in some cottage cheese!
• Grapple — dont ask. Its an apple that tastes like a grape. Its a gimmick.
• 1 Banana

Dinner

• Was out with some friends, and they wanted to get a burrito. So i had half of a chicken burrito. The burrito consisted of :
  • Tortilla
  • Chicken
  • Sour cream
  • Cheese probably
  • Beans
  • Salsa

So a few friends and i went out yesterday day and flew it… It has been a LONG time since i last used this thing and wow it let me know!  The act of flying this kite is similar to a pull up where basically you are pulling either your left arm or right arm back or pushing them forward.  Using the kite is actually a LOT of fun because when it pulls you up you float for a couple seconds.  I have attached a pic of me using this kite… kinda hard to see because it was taken with a camera phone but its still cool to see the contrast between a human body and the kite.

So i guess the point of this post is that it felt good afterwards to be tired and all exercised out.  About 1 hour of flying this thing with some people is killer because if they crash it you have to run like crazy to grab it and relaunch and if you are the one flying it, its a constant workout just trying to not get beaten down by the sheer force of the kite.

Anyways, i am currently @ about 250 pounds. So this means i have lost 7 pounds since starting this blog…thats about 2 weeks. 3.5 pounds per week i safe i think? I am going to try and include body fat percentages as much as i can. My girlfriend has a scale that tells that info but i do not, so when i head over there and have the chance to use it, i will get those numbers too.

So far so good! Looks like just yoga and core with a few minor eff-ups have done me well. When the exercise aspect starts (which is real soon) i think it will kick things up a notch, big time. I mean come on… my lunulae are huge right?

• 2 bottles water
• 2 cups of coffee with some creamer
• 1 Diet Sprite
• 1 ‘glass’ of water (probably close to 12 ounces i would assume)

Breakfast

• I was dead asleep!  Last night was LONG and i slept through b-fast time.

Lunch

• 1 apple
• Strawberries

Snack

• 1 Apple
• 1 Orange
• 2 handfulls of gummie bears

Dinner

• I ended up cooking dinner for my mom…. it was a steak dinner.
• Tri tip steak marinated in teriyaki sauce
• Salad with miso dressing
• Zucchini with rice vinegar
• Desert was mango slices with strawberries and cottage cheese and a little bit of cinnamon/sugar mix.  Pretty good actually.

• 2 bottles water
• 1 cup of coffee from the espresso machine @ work… i have NO clue what kind of milk went in there… or how old it is for that matter.
• 1 Diet Pepsi with Lime
• Safeway ‘clear’, grape flavor

Breakfast

• Bowl of Kashi cereal with fat free milk. Tastes Kinda good

Lunch

• Brown rice with Spanish seasonings
• Cut up pieces of tri tip that i had BBQed yesterday
• Daisy sour cream that i think is core

Snack

• 1.5 apples
• Small brownie that the boss offered me… how can you say no?
• An orange

Dinner

• The dinner we ate tonight was different… mainly because it was So meaty.
  • 2 servings of Cross Rib Roast that had been cooked in a crock pot all day marinating in Tomato soup, salt and pepper. (Good!) This stuff was FILLING DAMN!
  • Terriyaki sauce for the meat
  • 1 whole Zucchini

• 2 Cups of coffee
• 1 Cup of milk
• 2 cups of water

Breakfast

• A low fat cesar salad… i know — im wild AND crazy, but hey.
• Mixed fruit that consisted of pineapple, mango, grapes, canteloup and honey dew

Lunch

• Ate some more of the fruit
• Steak marinated in some good stuff for about 2 days
• Fingerling potatoes cooked in olive oil and covered in rosemary, parsley, pepper and onion power spice mix from mrs dash

Snack

• Ate more of the fruit… it was pretty big.

Dinner

• Made brown rice in my brand new rice cooker. Put some black pepper in the water before cooking the rice and DAMN that was really good rice!
• Mixed the rice with black beans
• Added a slice of fat free american cheese
• Added some hot sauce to the mix… it was really good.

• 3 cups of coffee with creamer — Gotta have it
• 2 pints of tea
• 1 liter of Safeway Clear (mango/peach)
• 1 Diet coke
• Some water
• 1 cup of milk

Breakfast

• Diddly squat — i woke up way too late for this. sometimes in the morning its either yoga or breakfast and the yoga makes me feel better than the breakfast does so i do that.

Lunch

• 2 ground beef patties they were TINY and cooked the night before
• Red bell pepper and black bean soup. ingredients looked pretty clean aside from some cream in it, but this is all i had time for.
• Salad with miso dressing on it

Snack

• Ate some dates. I have a feeling these are NOT core but i made a better choice than snacking down all of our cookies
• 2 small cookies

Dinner

• Stir fry from a Trader Joes frozen package including:
  • Chicken
  • Broccoli
  • Mixed veggies
  • Chow mein noodles
• There was also some sauce that came with it…this little package was REALLY good and its just another great product from Trader Joes.

So basically the mouse i used for an icon can probably bench more than me at this point. LoL.

On another note, I have been keeping up with the yoga pretty well and i am pushing about 30 min sessions per day on average and wow it is really amazing how much flexibility i have gained.  You know, the crazy part is that i don’t notice the increased flexability when i am actually doing the flows; it shows itself when i am bending down to get a can of soup from the lower cabinets, or my increased strength when i have to crawl or squat down and i can spring up without any heistation.

I think i will start a new post about yoga because it is truely a really great thing.

I said in the other post today that i have been noticing the changes in my body not during a yoga flows but while i am doing things that are totally unrelated.  Example — walking the dog and looking behind me.  This was pretty crazy but i looked behind myself about 1.5 weeks into the yoga and realized my head had a way bigger range of motion.  I could actually turn my head back more.  Yeah, i know it probably sounds stupid but my work/life style basically has 1 range of motion and that is look forward @ a computer screen, lol.  Gaining neck mobility is pretty damn sweet.  There are lots of other things such as while just walking i feel as though stability in my legs and feet has increased dramatically.  Only way i can explain it is as if each step roots into the earth just a tiiiiny bit, rather than on top of it.

This is the greatest benefit of all; i have had TMJ for who knows how long.  TMJ is short for temporomandibular disorder and basically is like chronic pain in your jaw.  Some people get headaches from it, some people can’t even eat.  I was never anywhere close to that, but i had a slight bit of tension/pain in there, especially on my left jaw joint.  Now its like non-existant.  I mean literally gone… as i type this i am trying to tweak my neck and jaw around to see if i can feel it and there is no discomfort.

Last of all, as i mentioned my life style is very computized and this takes it toll on the back.  Days when i skip yoga my back aches.  Days when i DO the yoga.. it feels fine.  There are a lot of core exercises in some of the flows that are effortless but when i do them its CLEAR that those movements are undoing the knots in my back and targeting the specific area of pain.  This picture i have below shows “bridge pose”, and that one specifically has REALLY opened up my lower back.  It looks tough i guess but it is very easy and if you cannot do the full motion, try doing just a half or less.

Illustration of Bridge Pose

All in all, i am Really happy with my decision to give yoga a shot.

• Venti starbucks mocha. Not sure how large that is in un-yuppie size but it is pretty huge
• .5 liter of water
• Two diet cokes

Breakfast

• No time for b-fast

Lunch

• Beef and barley soup that contains:
  • Carrots
  • Green beans
  • Potatoes
  • Beans?
  • Barley
  • And some brown rice i added

Snack

• Dates — they are GREAT.

Dinner

• GRILLED a “Sweet Burbon” tri-tip steak. DAMN this was so good. I had to google how to cook it AS it was on the grill but basically i blacked it on both sides and it was probably the best meat ive EVER made. The butcher i bought it from had pre-marinated it and wow, crazy delicious.
• Baked some yams and ate them plain.
• Brown rice
• Broccoli with vinegar

The way i look @ it though… its a vacation!  So i had a good time, but now im back on track.  Now… im off to do some yoga

• Lots of Coffee!
• Lots more Water
• Diet coke

Breakfast

• I think i skipped breakfast… too much of a rush.

Lunch

• Went to safeway and got an “oriental chicken salad”. Trust me, this salad is the one salad u should NEVER EVER BUY. I dont know how u can screw up a SALAD but it just tasted REALLY bad and i used some ginger/miso dressing that normally tastes really good. Maybe the produce was bad?
• Chicken was included in the salad.

Snack

• Peanuts, raisins mixed with Yogurt chips.
• Tiramisu - bad, i know but sometimes u just gotta give in

Dinner

• BBQed another Sweet Burbon tritip. This meat is Great and its huge. For $20 you can feed like 3 people and it tastes great.
• Baked yams
• Boiled some Carrots put salt and fake butter (0 cals)
• Sauteed green beens in a little bit of oil with garlic, onion powder, pepper and some salt. These were REALLY good!

• 1 cup of tea
• 1 diet coke
• 3 cups of water mixed with apricot juice

Breakfast

• Ate some baked beans this morning. Yeah, its kind of weird but they are good!

Lunch

• Sweet and Sour Tofu that contained:
  • Tofu
  • Brown rice
  • Onions
  • Bell peppers
  • Something spicey… dunno what it was
  • Sweet and Sour sauce
• Cut up a mango and ate half of it

Snack

• None

Dinner

• 1 cup of tea
• 1 liter of water
• 20 oz of coffee
• 1 diet coke

Breakfast

• Fat free cottage cheese mixed WITH…
• Mandarin orange slices (canned in juice, had to pay extra for that!)

Lunch

• Spicey tuna sushi with cucumber in the rolls
• Fruit salad

Snack

• Salted cashews. i have heard nuts are not core, but screw that, they are good for you.

Dinner

• Salmon terriyaki with Rice and Salad
• 1 California roll

It is clear that i have lost quite a bit of weight so far… my Tae Kwon Do instructor noticed it as well as a few other people who have made comments. I need to weigh myself again and get a new Progress Update on here, but it is hard as the scale i use is not located at my home.

The reason im not using my home scale is because it does not give body fat readings which are kind of cool because when you gain muscle your weight may actuall stay the same EVEN if you are losing fat…. so my having the body fat percentage its clear that the efforts are being rewarded.

Thats about it for now. I will have some new pics up soon enough!

• 2-2.5 liters of water
• 1 cup of coffee with creamer
• 2 Diet cokes

Breakfast

• Mixed a fat free yogurt with…
• Mandarin orange slices

Lunch

• Stir fry veggies.
  • Olive oil
  • Peas
  • Carrots
  • Water chesnuts
  • Onions
• A few fat free quesadillas
  • 3 - Fat free cheese slices
  • .5 can - Fat free chili
  • Lots of hot sauce
  • 3-4 tortillas (small)

Snack

• Handfull of nuts (yeah i know that sounds bad, lol)
• 1 huge Banana (nice follow up from the nuts)
• Mandarin oranges in fat free cherry yogurt

Dinner

• Finished the Stir fry veggies.
  • Olive oil
  • Peas
  • Carrots
  • Water chesnuts
  • Onions
• A few fat free quesadillas
  • 3 - Fat free cheese slices
  • Rest of the Fat free chili
  • Lots of hot sauce (almost hurt myself)
  • 3 tortillas (small)

• 1 liter of water
• Coffee with creamer/equal

Breakfast

• 1 apricot
• 1 apple

Lunch

• I ate what my work was serving today…
  • Salmon
  • Mixed veggies with:
    • Brocolli
    • Cauliflower
    • Carrots
    • Zucchini
  • Brown Rice
  • Crazy chinese hot sauce that was on the counter, lol.

Snack

• Bell peppers- raw!  green and orange, very good.

Dinner

• Had some pasta.  was supposed to eat whole wheat pasta, but my girlfriend forgot the whole wheat pasta @ her house before coming over… used mild portion control… i stress mild lol

• 3 bottles of water
• 3 beers
• Starbucks banana frap.

Breakfast

• 1 apple
• Miss Fields cookie with tons of frosting

Lunch

• Lots of sausages, some were chicken/apple, others were a mystery
• 2 crossant sandwiches with cheese, ham and mayo inside
• Japanese cracker mix
• BBQed chicken

Snack

• Fruit
  • Strawberries
  • Cant.
  • Honey Dew
• Pastry/Cake
  • Lots of frosting
  • Some kind of crunchy pastry layers on it
  • Frosting and custard INSIDE
  • Flakes of chocolate on top
• Crackers with cheese (i think it was cheese)
• Mixed nuts

Dinner

• Beer

• 2 pints of fat free milk
• 1 cup coffee

Breakfast

• Half can of canned pineapple
• Tortilla + 2 fat free slices of cheese + hot sauce

Lunch

• About 1 can of tuna with the following:
  • Fat free mayo
  • Pickles
  • Green olives
  • Lots-o-pepper
• Had about 15-20 black bean corn/tortilla chips. these are not core but i think they are not that bad considering i ate very few and u are allowed some non-core foods. not sure of the technical weight watcher term, but it might be a point allocation per week that is allowed.

Snack

• 1 large raw, red bell pepper. Delicious.

Dinner

Anyways more will be said soon enough!

• Two cups of coffee with cream and sugar
• 1 monster
• At least 1 liter of water
• 3 ice teas

Breakfast

• “Bacado Omlette” bacon, avocado with sour cream and cheeeese.
• Pumpkin pancake. I know that sounds nasty but that pumpkin pancake was Really good!

Lunch

• Nothing.

Snack

• The monster i listed under fluids.
• Cinnamon toast with natural peanut butter on it (100% crushed peanuts, no crazy oils and stuff mixed in).

Dinner

• Grilled salmon that had a light teriyaki/miso sauce on it. REALLY GOOD.
• White rice
• Veggie stir fry

For example last night i went for a run at around midnight and i was tired from the day but i felt like i needed to take a jog. So i walked over to the track (about 4-5 blocks away), walked a lap, and built up to running. During the first lap of actual running i felt like i was hurting my knees so i went back to walking. A few min later started running again only to find my knees felt totally fine. I did some serious running but had to stop due to asthma kicking in.

On days i run where i have lots of coffee, you would think I’m some kind of African Olympic running. Stamina is UP, ability to take in air is way up and i think it feels better. Only bad part is that since the caffeine makes your metabolism speed up I have noticed that it makes me much hotter when running.

[***]

I found a cool little write up today on someone’s blog today. The blog is called Bring It On and the post was titled Fat Girl Running (lol). Basically she says how she feels after running. I think the way she wrote it sounds really good!

• .5 cup coffee
• 2 ice teas
• 1 POM
• .5 liter of water

Breakfast

• Cinnamon toast with 100% natural peanut butter on it.
• Peach

Lunch

• The lunch was called a chicken rosti abbondanza. It is basically like grilled chicken, on top of salad that is on top of a pancake/hashbrown. They put a dressing on it that is REALLY good, but not too heavy. The place i get these at is called Pasta Grotto and it is a Swiss Italian place that is Very good. Amazingly i found a blogger who has a PICTURE of the exact dish!! Click here to view the chicken rosti abbondanza from pasta grotto.

Snack

• Almonds/Walnuts

Dinner

• 1lb Ground chicken cooked in a pan with like a teaspoon of olive oil.
• Lots of spices on it all.
• 1 bag of frozen peas/carrots/lima beans/green beans (you know, the preschool special lol)
• 1 box of cous cous.
• Mix all of that together and you get something that will bring a tea to your eye. Its Very good, but i wish i had added onions.

Starting weight on June 6, 2007 = 254lbs.
I joined weight watchers on Monday and so far im pretty happy with it.  On Monday i went to a meeting and it was seriously depressing…. lots of old fat women and a seriously funky smell… I joined the WW online setup they have which does not require going to meetings and like i said before… its actually pretty cool.

Well let me say it like this… if you eat healthy foods 40 points is a TON…. if you eat crap, its not much. The reason for this is that to determine a point value WW uses the calories, fat and fiber contents of whatever you’re eating. Fiber content really reduces points and obviously FAT increases point values significantly. While a pat of butter is high in points, so is 2 cups (!) of this delicious soup. If you look @ the contents of that soup you can see its mainly veggies and chicken… both fill you up BIG time. Which one would u rather eat? lol

Yeah i know people don’t eat STRAIGHT butter, but the point is the better the food is the more it fills you up and “economic value” of points to energy is much better.

Here are a few changes i suggest though:

• Double the carrots
• Double the green beans
• Use some olive oil to cook the chicken… then use some more when cooking the onions, carrots and chicken together
• Cayenne pepper it!!
• Salt it! Even better, use garlic salt
• Leave out the cilantro… IMO cilantro tastes like Crap.

OK here is the recipe:

Makes 4 servings - 5 POINTS per serving

Ingredients

* 2 tsp olive oil
1 lb boneless, skinless chicken breasts
Nonstick cooking spray
1 medium carrot, peeled and diced
1 small onion, diced
2 medium cloves garlic, crushed
15 oz canned kidney beans, rinsed and drained
14 1/2 oz canned diced tomatoes and jalapenos, with juice
1 Tbsp tomato paste
14 1/2 oz canned reduced-sodium chicken broth
2 tsp chili powder
1/2 tsp red pepper flakes
1 Tbsp fresh cilantro, chopped

Instructions

1. Heat a nonstick stockpot or large nonstick saucepan over medium-high heat. Add oil and turn pan to coat bottom. Add chicken and cook until brown, about 2 to 3 minutes per side; remove chicken from pan and set aside.
2. Offheat, coat pan with cooking spray. Add carrot and onion; sauté until soft, about 5 minutes. Add garlic, beans, tomatoes, tomato paste, broth, chili powder, red pepper flakes and cilantro; stir to combine.
3. Chop chicken into bite-sized pieces and return to pan. Cook over medium-high heat, stirring occasionally, until chicken is done and flavors have combined well, about 20 minutes.(Note: If stew comes to a boil, reduce heat slightly.)Yields about 2 cups per serving.

]]> http://www.fatzz.com/diet-nutrition/recipe-hearty-jalapeno-chicken-stew/feed/ http://www.fatzz.com/general-talk/stomach-shrinkage/ http://www.fatzz.com/general-talk/stomach-shrinkage/#comments Fri, 22 Jun 2007 19:06:45 +0000 fatzz General Talk http://www.fatzz.com/general-talk/stomach-shrinkage/ I found an interesting blog post on CathyM’s weight loss blog.  Be sure to check her post because she covers a question I’ve been wondering about for quite some time:

Does your stomach shrink if you eat less?

This is something of interest to me as i have lost a bit of weight and I’ve really noticed that i can’t keep up with the big dogs anymore.   Yesterday I went to a buffet with 30 people and had a plate of salad, a plate of 6 sushi rolls, and a plate of fruit… yes this sounds like a lot as it is (18.5 points baby!) but normally i would just be getting started… a few stretches later and I would be ready to handle some Serious food.

Fortunately yesterday i was Stuffed and couldn’t handle any more .

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