Sometimes you eat the bear: Weekly Weight Update

     Not every week can be a winner when you are trying to get in shape and shed some pounds. Sometimes you have a burger and fries for lunch one day. Sometimes you have family pizza night on another day. It happens and it is all part of life. This week I did both of those plus another two days at clients resulting in lunch at a restaurant. I still got in my four weekly runs, getting up to 22 straight minutes on my couch to 5k app. Rizzo and I also registered for a 5k on September 19th which I'm hoping to be ready to finish in a personal best time.

     In order to cut a few additional ounces before the weigh in today I hit the road for a 2.5 mile jog. It was dark when I left but since my running speed is just slightly faster than still, the sun was coming up when I returned. I felt like getting a nice picture of the sky since living in the suburbs it isn't the easiest thing to do. I took advantage and grabbed this picture of the sunrise over my neighborhood. If you have to exercise in the morning I suppose there are worse views.

     The result this week was a gain of .2 pounds meaning I'm now up to 219.2. I basically maintained my weight but anything that is up is disappointing. I should have had some coffee this morning instead of tea and I would have been down. But as the Stranger says, "Sometimes you eat the bear, sometimes the bar eats you". This week it looks like I ate the bear.

Into the Woods: Weekly Weight Update

     This week in weight loss presented some difficult challenges. I was scheduled to spend the week at a client location which meant no packing of lunch or snacks. Obviously eating out results in loss of control over what you are eating. It turned out that I was back in the office Thursday and Friday but I was still without meals to bring from home so I continued on the lunch-out train. I did the best I could and felt that I ordered well from the various restaurants.

 

   I've also been having a craving for pizza for a few weeks. I don't know if there is any science behind cravings but I was worried that if I didn't give into the delicious, cheesy, greasy mistress under my own terms I would fall into the over-eating trap. So on Thursday I walked from my office to the best pizza I could find in the area, Santini's, and ordered two slices of pepperoni. I count three victories in this meal. (1) I walked to Santini's. It wasn't like it was a long way (maybe 1/2 mile round trip) but it was 815% humidity and threatening rain. I could have easily hopped in my car but instead I made the right choice to walk. (2) I ordered pizza by the slice and stopped after two slices. I'm sure I'm not the only one that can crush some pizza. I have been known to eat entire Domino's pies. So getting the order by the slice kept my portion under control. (3) Take a look at the picture? Notice anything? That's right, I had my pizza with a bottle of water. I could have thrown caution to the wind since I was already "going dark" and eating junk food. Instead I kept myself under control, satiated my craving, and had a nice time eating at the counter.

     On Saturday the Clizzo clan attended a BBQ birthday for our good friend Chrissy. This could have resulted in some serious over-eating but I kept myself in check with just a few small pieces of chicken, fruit, and a boat load of pasta salad. I could have used with a little more fruit and a little less pasta but when at a BBQ its hard for me to stay away. I topped off the meal with a slice of peach pie. Chrissy make a hell of a pie and it was from local farms so I couldn't say no. This wasn't the best meal health wise I've had in my life but sometimes what isn't good for the gut is good for the soul.

     The final result:  down another pound getting me to 219 lbs. This brings me back to my pre-vacation weight and equals my lowest weight so far since beginning this process back in October 2014. Every pound counts so I'm happy with the results. Now I just have to make sure to keep myself in the 2-teens.

     And now I present a stupid video to show you a bit more of my typical running locale. 

Fashion: Weekly Weight Update

     I know that in my last post I indicated that I had met my self-set goal of blogging for five straight days and I would bring it down to only Tuesday and Friday. Well, I have changed that mindset already and I've decided to add a short Sunday blog for my weekly weight update. Since I decided to pick this blog back up as a way to keep motivated in my weight loss and exercise goals, I should probably write about, you know, weight loss and exercise at least once a week instead of only providing insight on how to avoid collisions with wild animals.

     This weeks weight-in went very well. I dropped 7.2 pounds from last Sunday's weigh-in and 1 pound overall. I'll try to give a better explanation of what that means. The last Weight Watchers weigh-in was over a month ago. It wasn't a matter of skipping meetings but a matter of not being in town due to vacation, mini-vacation, and wedding attendance. When all the various out-of-town obligations concluded, I had packed on 6.2 pounds from my last Weight Watchers visit. I wasn't downtrodden about this considering I was away eating ice cream and drinking beer at the Outer Banks. It just added some additional baggage to discard. So, upon return from the various adventures I had ballooned up to 227.2 pounds.

     I rededicated myself after the fun summer time treats, started up this blog, and reinvested myself with positive results. One week later I've lost all the vacation weight plus another pound, bringing me down to an even 220 for a grand total weight loss of 47 pounds. Not too shabby. Once I drop another 2.8 pounds I win myself a massage (a proper massage from a licensed professional, you animals. Get your mind out of the gutter).

Breakfast of Champions

     I'm not a breakfast food guy. Don't get me wrong, I love eating in the morning. Of course, I love eating in the afternoon. I also love eating in the evening and underneath the moon. I just love eating. I'm just not a big fan of breakfast food. Give me a turkey sandwich over a waffle any day. You can keep your eggs benedict and I'll take some left over General Tso's chicken. The problem is that most of the food I like for breakfast is either (a) a sugary, carb filled mess like Frosted Flakes or Honey Nut Cheerios; (b) leftovers from a bowel busting meal the night before such as pizza with italian sausage, mushrooms, and pineapple, or (c) beer. Unfortunately none of these things are keeping in the spirit of health and fitness. Luckily, I found my solution mixing three simple food items some will say don't go together; oatmeal, eggs, and red pepper flakes.

    

     The recipe is as simple as it comes. For starters, cook up some oatmeal. My preferred brand is Quaker Oats Old Fashioned Oats. This is my favorite for a few reasons.  First, the ingredients are simple.  The brand is made with rolled oats. That's it.  No additional nonsense included for flavor or preservatives. I suppose you could get the instant oatmeal if you want but then you are also getting calcuim carbonate, salt, guar gum, caramel color, reduced iron, and vitamin A palmitate. I love getting in some extra guar gum as much as the next guy, but it seems like a lot of extra ingredients to reduce your cooking time from five minutes down to a minute and thirty seconds. Second, purchasing this name brand oatmeal is a lot less expensive than getting the tree hugging, hippy douche oatmeal that comes in the fancy hand-blown glass container and was manually shucked by 19 year-old interns from the local all-woman college that are majoring in 17th century English literature but really they want to save the world one oat at a time. (A special hello to all my friends who went to an all-woman college. I love you all). I buy plenty of tree hugging, hippy douche products at the local farmer's market (I'm sure there will be a blog about this soon) so I don't need to waste money on a product when Quaker Oats oatmeal has only one ingredient.

   

     As you wait impatiently for your oatmeal to cook for what feels like 5-6 hours (or 5 minutes), you have plenty of time to cook up the next ingredient: eggs. I fry two eggs over easy. It's important to make sure to keep the eggs over easy because the runny yolk is vital in preparing this simple breakfast. Again, we don't by the tree hugging, hippy douche eggs from the farmer's market for $10/dozen because they were hand plucked that very morning straight from the chicken's ass. Instead we opt for the tree hugging, hippy douche organic free-range eggs from Harris Teeter that are $5/dozen because $5 is $5 and money doesn't grow on trees.  Give us a break, at least we aren't buying the chicken factory eggs that are produced by indentured servant chickens for $4/dozen because, I believe, allowing chickens to walk around is worth the extra $1.

     Depending on your timing, the eggs or the oatmeal may be done first.  It doesn't really matter because these two foodstuffs are getting mixed together. When the oatmeal and eggs are done, mix the two together in a bowl. I always use a soup bowl mainly because when Rizzo and I got married we registered for six or seven hundred of them and I'm going to use them for something, goddammit. Make sure to break the yolks so you get a nice and creamy mixture of oatmeal and eggs.

   

     Finally we come to the most important part of the whole process which is the red pepper flakes. I'm sure you have made those pansy-ass recipes that have you adding 1/2 tsp of red pepper flakes to a pasta sauce designed to serve 70. I say person-up (I would say "man-up" but that would be sexist and I'm nothing if not a lover of women so I wont be disparaging women unless I am mocking all-woman colleges) and use red pepper flakes like, well, pepper.  Cover the top of your egg/oatmeal mixture with lots and lots of red pepper. I won't give you a measurement because everyone's taste is different. I will say that I use enough red pepper flakes on my eggmeal to make pasta sauce for 4,000.

     Time to dig in!  Delicious, isn't it?  What?  What do you mean all you can taste is the burning on the inside of your mouth because you followed my lead and used copious amounts of red pepper flakes?  I can't help you with that but I find this breakfast to be delicious and nutritious. So much so that I have made this breakfast 6 days a week for the past nine months and I'm not tired of it yet. When you find something that works, is healthy, and only uses 8 Weight Watcher points, then you have to stick with it. Now if you will excuse me I have a doctor's appointment. I'm pretty sure the red pepper flakes are killing me. 

P.S. I have many friends that matriculated at an all-woman college, including my lovely wife, and they are all lovely, well-educated, and sophisticated members of society. Ok, not all of them, but at least the same percentage as those who didn't attend an all-woman college, so lets not blame the all-woman college. It's a joke people.


  

Topless Pics and Running

Pale

     Sexy as hell, right? I knew you would all dive right in when you saw the title of this post. Soak it all up, ladies and gentlemen.

     We all know that when you start a weight loss/fitness journey that you have to have the before pictures. Well, I missed that boat 9 months ago when I actually started moving instead of laying around like a sack of already consumed fast food haplessly discarded in the back seat of a messy vehicle. Instead of the before pictures, you wonderful people get to enjoy the "I've lost some weight but it's hard to tell because I was so big to start with" pictures.

     This is a proud moment because I don't think I would have ever revealed such skin in prior iterations of myself. I almost didn't post pictures of my belly this time but I couldn't keep this kind of sexiness to myself. I mean who doesn't love giant red basketball shorts?

Why am I staring like a creep?

     Immediately after taking these pornographic images, I hiked up to Herndon High School (almost 5 consecutive minutes of walking) for a run. I've been running for a few months now so that isn't really news. Usually I go for a jog on some wooded trails behind our house (remind me to write up the story about how I got hit by a deer while jogging). However, today I decided to run a mile on the track and get my time. There is no reason for this other than I wanted to see what my time would be. So off I went.

     I wasn't alone on the track. I like to run alone. Just ask Rizzo about some previous 5k races she has seen me run. I don't want someone cheering me on. I just want to get the shit done and then move on to something more productive, like eating cheese balls or listing to a podcast about the TV show Frasier. Instead of being alone on the track I happened across a full-blown pickup soccer game, a football practice, and several spectators sitting in the stands checking out the dudes playing futbol/football. I was going to have to do this with an audience.  Great.

    Off I went. The first lap flew by in a scorching 2:13 seconds. Yes, I know there are 8-year-olds who can cover twice the distance in the same amount of time. Well they don't have to battle unencumbered man boobs constantly hitting their chin and knees, so I give myself the benefit of the doubt. I pushed on through lap number two keeping the same pace and crossing the line at 4:26. I was surprised to see that I was keeping the same pace through two laps and actually on a pace to run a mile in under 10 minutes, something that I have never accomplished in my 35 years of existence on this planet.

     Lap three was where I started to hit a wall.  I've been covering 2-3 or more miles on my jogs lately, but I haven't really pushed hard for a time. My goal had been to get up and move and not die. I started having a pain in my gut. You know the one. The paid that happens when you have been out running but not getting enough oxygen. Or maybe it was because I hadn't eaten dinner yet. It was nearly 6:30pm after all which is well past my "I'm really old so I eat dinner no later than 5pm" standard meal time. Either way, I thought I was slowing down but I then completed the third lap at a time of 6:53. A bit slower than the first two laps but still respectable for a man of my girth.

     It was time for the final lap. I wanted that extra push to get me over the edge and perhaps break the 10 minute milestone. So I reached for my phone to crank up my running playlist. That is when the music stopped. Nothing was coming from my headphones. What the hell just happened? How can I possibly push myself to the finish line if I don't have Danger Zone by Kenny Loggins pounding in my ears? The silence made me aware that I was breathing like an asthmatic pug. I was going to have to get this music issue fixed while running.  I tried my best but to no avail. It was time to finish this out with just the music in my head. I made sure to keep my stride in the same pace I had been for the previous three laps but without Kenny I was lost. I pushed through the pain in my side and the lack of oxygen. I crossed the finish line and staggered about a bit to catch my breath. I looked down at my watch.  9:33!  That's right gentle readers, I ran an entire mile in less than 10 minutes for the first time in my life! You would have thought I had just gone 12 rounds with Ivan Drago based upon my appearance, but I was still happy. I had worked hard and accomplished a goal that I didn't even know I had. Now it is time to set some new goals.  Next up: a single pullup.

Losing Weight and Feeling Great

     To begin, let me say that I'm not going to give you one of those "previously, on the Green Bean Conspiracy" posts to catch you up on what I've been doing, or not doing.  If you are reading this, you already know that I haven't posted a single thing to this sad excuse for a blog for over two years and you also already know what I've been doing with my life.  So we are just going to pretend that I have been keeping up with this nonsense for the entire duration and get to the point.

     I have been out of shape for as long as I can remember. I've had spells of being in better shape than other times but I have never been in good shape.  Once Cece was born I made the decision to get healthier.  I often joked that my entire weight loss goal was to have an ab.  Yes, that is singular. Just one ab. That is still the case but with the kid in my life my weight loss goal is to not die. I'd prefer to not use a rascal scooter to attend my daughter's high school graduation. On the day we brought Cece home from the hospital on May 5, 2014, this was me.

Holy Cheeks and Neck Fat, Batman!

      I got to the doctor in July 2014 to start the process of not dying. I knew it wouldn't be good, but I decided that this time would be different. I wasn't going to worry about what the numbers told me and get all depressed. I was just getting a starting point to move forward. My starting point was 267 lbs. Yep, that is a lot of ice cream and beer filling those massive cheeks.

     I spent a few months trying to do my own thing. It worked pretty well and I had lost 10 lbs through October 2014 but I needed something more motivating. Rizzo had started Weight Watchers to kick off the baby weight (which she has done and more so by the way. She looks outstanding) so I buckled and joined the Weight Watchers group, as well. We have both been on the Weight Watchers bandwagon ever since. (This is not a commercial for Weight Watchers and this is the last you will hear of it).

     Another nine months later and I've lost another 30 lbs, bringing the grand total up to 40 lbs. I still have a long way to go but I'm feeling good. Here is a nice picture from a Memorial Day brew visit.

Less cheeks and neck, more baby.

     So why am I deciding to kick start this blog and write a few words now? Well, after a few summer vacation weeks I've put back on some of the weight. Nothing that is scary or unexpected when you take time off to relax so I'm not stressed about it, just enough for me to seek out an additional motivational tool. That motivational tool is going to be this blog.

     No I'm not going to only write about my attempts to reduce my gut from huge to slightly less huge. I think I may try to write about other stuff I like such as beer, baseball, beer, food, beer, travel, beer, history, beer, movies, beer, TV, beer, family, and beer. (Rizzo, I did sneak family in there so don't get mad at me).

    So let the games begin.