So today is new years eve. I start on my goal officially tomorrow. Tonight I'll be dining with My best friend Jamie and her beautiful friends Erin and her husband Justin. And then its off to party some and toast in the new year. I know it sounds cheesy me making this big weight loss commitment on New Years but i figured what the hell, the timing is right. I have never been one to make New Years resolutions. Everyone always fails at them, they are stupid. To me this is just a guide post, not really a new beginning. I'm marking this day to begin a new process of living. I wish more people could do the same thing. Instead of making resolutions to change who they are and what they do, it would be great if people would resolve to grow and better themselves through good and healthy choices and actions. So this year, I resolve to really act on the examinations of my life.
Its been pretty uneventful for me today as far as eating and exercising. The only real exercise I have had was dragging the 100 pound crate that contained my new printer up a flight of stairs and setting it up. Its been kinda a crappy day so I haven't really been that hungry. I'm hoping tonight I can just focus on what I do have and what I am; and have a really good time.
So here's my intake today.
Breakfast
1/2 cup cottage cheese with 2 tbsp's pear preserves.
- calories - 220
Half cup Kashi Go Lean Cereal (this stuff is loaded with fiber, ill have to buy some more. It has like 8 grams of fiber per 1 cup serving!!!)
- calories - 100
Lunch
2 once bag of Honey Roasted Peanuts
- calories - 310
Dinner
I'll be eating at bosco's tonight in the rivermarket. No clue what I'll have but I'll try to keep it reasonable. Im guessing its gonna be a 1000 calorie night with dinner and drinks. Then there is party drinking which is totally gonna blow it for me. But for now who cares, its my last night.
- calories - 1000 + whatever I drink after
Totals
Intake - 1630 + cals
Output - 3000 cals (basal metabolic rate)
Caloric Loss - probably a 1000 calories, give or take.
-jonny
Monday, December 31, 2007
Sunday, December 30, 2007
Food and plans
Another thing that you will see in each of my daily blogs will be what food I eat. Each day I will be posting everything that I eat and I'll try to estimate the calorie count of each thing that goes into my body. Ive decided I need to cut out all unhealthy foods.
By unhealthy i mean processed and fast. Not necessarily low in fat or calories, but just low in nutritional value as well as wholesome content. So this means no partially or fully hydrogenated oils. Ill be checking labels and if it doesn't have only real and unaltered fat from animals or vegetables in it, I will not be putting it in my body. This sucks because i have a sweet tooth, so it looks like if I want to have something baked or sweet, I'm likely going to have to make it myself. I'm also going to cut out all high fructose corn syrup containing products. So no juices, sodas, or sweets with that. If it is sweet, it better be plain old sugar or honey. I wont be jumping onto the no fat low cal food bandwagon. I believe that most low fat low cal foods are heavily processed and don't really have much to offer my body except guaranteed hunger an hour later. This means that I'm only going to be buying full fat dairy products with the exception of yogurt. Its really damn tough to find yogurt in anything stronger than lowfat, and im fine with that. The nutritional value of it is so high that I can give that up. Everything will be whole grain, and i'll be leaning more heavily on organic produce and dairy products. Meats will be lean, with an emphasis on fish more than chicken or beef. And snacking will have to become mostly fruits and vegetables due to their high nutritional values and low calorie values.
I am also going to have to cut out fast food completely, this will be really tough because my office is directly across the street from a burger king, and I love their 99 cent menu. I wish i was strong enough to act on my disgust for fast food. It tastes so good but it is so wrong. It really is America's original sin. We dont have a healthy relationship with food, its all too fast and too processed. I am going to be meal planning and cooking every meal that I have for the next month (starting new year's day). If I eat out, which will have to be rare, i'll do my best to make smart choices.
So tonight I was curious about what I have to do to lose weight. Its simple, I have to take in less calories than I consume. Its simple math, everybody knows this. So I went to a site that can roughly calculate how many calories a person burns based on their height, weight, age, sex, and activity level. I'm 5'10" tall, weigh approximately 280 pounds, 27 years of age, male, and unfortunately I had to pick the sedentary box for my activity level. To my surprise, my body consumes (needs) roughly 3000 calories a day! If I work out 1-2 times a week then my caloric needs will go up to about 3500 calories. Thats a whole lot more than i expected and a bit of a relief. Everything that I have read says that for about every 500 calories a day that I keep out of the equation, i can lose about a pound a week. So if I were to eat 2000 calories a day and do no exercise, I should lose 2 pounds a week. But that wont do, because I'll miss my goal come Feb. 1st by about 12 pounds. I need to lose 5 pounds per week. Im hoping that my loss will start out high as i begin so that I wont have to completely starve myself. But it is becoming more and more of a reality that I need to quickly step up my activity level so that I can burn more calories. My goal my first week is to consume 1500 calories each day and use 4000 calories each day through exercise and my own basal metabolic rate.
So this is what I did today :
Breakfast
*leftover spaghetti with 1.5 - 1 once meatballs and about a cup of cooked spaghetti (with marinara sauce). This was about half of what I was give at the restaurant yesterday and im guessing its realistically 3/4 of what a real serving should be.
- calories - 450
*about half of the tiramisu that came with my lunch yesterday with Kori (thank goodness it was gross)
- calories - about 250
Lunch
*3/4 of a cup of regular cottage cheese and 2 tablespoons of pear preserves.
- calories - about 280
*Egg-salad made with 2 large eggs, 1 Tbsp mayo, 1 tsp mustard, salt and spices served with 6 breton crackers.
- calories - about 680 (wow, a lot more than i thought was possible...eggs are jam packed with energy at 220 cals a piece. Next time ill be taking out the yolks)
Snacks
*3 breton crakcers
- calories - about 80
*Bottle of Gatoraid when i was riding
- calories - 140
Dinner
*Salad with low cal balsamic dressing, chicken breast strips and broccoli and carrots
- calories - to be determined
Total today (without dinner yet) - 1880 (perhaps ill omit the chicken with my salad)
Estimated Calories Spent - 3000 (basal) + 1273 (1 hour of biking 7 miles at 12-15 miles per hour)= 4273 Calories
Caloric loss = 2393 Calories!
Not too bad considering I havn't started yet.
By unhealthy i mean processed and fast. Not necessarily low in fat or calories, but just low in nutritional value as well as wholesome content. So this means no partially or fully hydrogenated oils. Ill be checking labels and if it doesn't have only real and unaltered fat from animals or vegetables in it, I will not be putting it in my body. This sucks because i have a sweet tooth, so it looks like if I want to have something baked or sweet, I'm likely going to have to make it myself. I'm also going to cut out all high fructose corn syrup containing products. So no juices, sodas, or sweets with that. If it is sweet, it better be plain old sugar or honey. I wont be jumping onto the no fat low cal food bandwagon. I believe that most low fat low cal foods are heavily processed and don't really have much to offer my body except guaranteed hunger an hour later. This means that I'm only going to be buying full fat dairy products with the exception of yogurt. Its really damn tough to find yogurt in anything stronger than lowfat, and im fine with that. The nutritional value of it is so high that I can give that up. Everything will be whole grain, and i'll be leaning more heavily on organic produce and dairy products. Meats will be lean, with an emphasis on fish more than chicken or beef. And snacking will have to become mostly fruits and vegetables due to their high nutritional values and low calorie values.
I am also going to have to cut out fast food completely, this will be really tough because my office is directly across the street from a burger king, and I love their 99 cent menu. I wish i was strong enough to act on my disgust for fast food. It tastes so good but it is so wrong. It really is America's original sin. We dont have a healthy relationship with food, its all too fast and too processed. I am going to be meal planning and cooking every meal that I have for the next month (starting new year's day). If I eat out, which will have to be rare, i'll do my best to make smart choices.
So tonight I was curious about what I have to do to lose weight. Its simple, I have to take in less calories than I consume. Its simple math, everybody knows this. So I went to a site that can roughly calculate how many calories a person burns based on their height, weight, age, sex, and activity level. I'm 5'10" tall, weigh approximately 280 pounds, 27 years of age, male, and unfortunately I had to pick the sedentary box for my activity level. To my surprise, my body consumes (needs) roughly 3000 calories a day! If I work out 1-2 times a week then my caloric needs will go up to about 3500 calories. Thats a whole lot more than i expected and a bit of a relief. Everything that I have read says that for about every 500 calories a day that I keep out of the equation, i can lose about a pound a week. So if I were to eat 2000 calories a day and do no exercise, I should lose 2 pounds a week. But that wont do, because I'll miss my goal come Feb. 1st by about 12 pounds. I need to lose 5 pounds per week. Im hoping that my loss will start out high as i begin so that I wont have to completely starve myself. But it is becoming more and more of a reality that I need to quickly step up my activity level so that I can burn more calories. My goal my first week is to consume 1500 calories each day and use 4000 calories each day through exercise and my own basal metabolic rate.
So this is what I did today :
Breakfast
*leftover spaghetti with 1.5 - 1 once meatballs and about a cup of cooked spaghetti (with marinara sauce). This was about half of what I was give at the restaurant yesterday and im guessing its realistically 3/4 of what a real serving should be.
- calories - 450
*about half of the tiramisu that came with my lunch yesterday with Kori (thank goodness it was gross)
- calories - about 250
Lunch
*3/4 of a cup of regular cottage cheese and 2 tablespoons of pear preserves.
- calories - about 280
*Egg-salad made with 2 large eggs, 1 Tbsp mayo, 1 tsp mustard, salt and spices served with 6 breton crackers.
- calories - about 680 (wow, a lot more than i thought was possible...eggs are jam packed with energy at 220 cals a piece. Next time ill be taking out the yolks)
Snacks
*3 breton crakcers
- calories - about 80
*Bottle of Gatoraid when i was riding
- calories - 140
Dinner
*Salad with low cal balsamic dressing, chicken breast strips and broccoli and carrots
- calories - to be determined
Total today (without dinner yet) - 1880 (perhaps ill omit the chicken with my salad)
Estimated Calories Spent - 3000 (basal) + 1273 (1 hour of biking 7 miles at 12-15 miles per hour)= 4273 Calories
Caloric loss = 2393 Calories!
Not too bad considering I havn't started yet.
December 30th bike ride with Charlie
So today I went for another bike ride with Charlie. He has been gracious enough to let me use one of his bikes to help get into shape as well as give me a verbal promise that he too will start working out and losing weight. I have a lot further to go then he.
Anyways, we rode for about 7 miles down at burns park. It was an incredibly beautiful day, with plenty of sun and warmth to make it bearable. This was in contrast to my first ride with him last week where it was just above freezing, overcast, and slightly windy.
I'm completely in awe as well as being disgusted by just how out of shape I am. I have always been the "big guy", "squishy", "cuddly", or any other complimentary self esteem booster you can think of, but i don't think I have ever been this out of shape. Growing up I was always very active on the farm and at school and in church. I lifted weights heavily throughout high school, I played volleyball competitively on a church league, I wrestled and ran track (well really i threw shot and discus, but there was a good deal of running involved too) in junior high, and I rode and trained horses for almost 10 years during all of this. Not to mention all the farm work; shit shoveling (40 pounds a day per horse!!), wood chopping, grape tending, and other crap my dad would come up for me to do. I have also been an avid bike rider during most of my life. In high school, I would bike all over the countryside. It wasn't unusual for me to bike 40 miles on a ride during the weekend or at least 10-20 during the week when I would ride to school. I also rode a lot after college. Not having a car after dropping out of college really forced me to get creative with my transportation needs! Much of what i experienced over the past two days has been a shock to me. My lungs hurt, my muscles are weak and completely un-toned, and I have little energy when I need it to actually make that bike go like i used to be able to make it. So anyways, last week i rode 6 miles and struggled. Today I rode 7 miles and struggled. My next ride will be even further and I hope less of a struggle.
-jonny
Anyways, we rode for about 7 miles down at burns park. It was an incredibly beautiful day, with plenty of sun and warmth to make it bearable. This was in contrast to my first ride with him last week where it was just above freezing, overcast, and slightly windy.
I'm completely in awe as well as being disgusted by just how out of shape I am. I have always been the "big guy", "squishy", "cuddly", or any other complimentary self esteem booster you can think of, but i don't think I have ever been this out of shape. Growing up I was always very active on the farm and at school and in church. I lifted weights heavily throughout high school, I played volleyball competitively on a church league, I wrestled and ran track (well really i threw shot and discus, but there was a good deal of running involved too) in junior high, and I rode and trained horses for almost 10 years during all of this. Not to mention all the farm work; shit shoveling (40 pounds a day per horse!!), wood chopping, grape tending, and other crap my dad would come up for me to do. I have also been an avid bike rider during most of my life. In high school, I would bike all over the countryside. It wasn't unusual for me to bike 40 miles on a ride during the weekend or at least 10-20 during the week when I would ride to school. I also rode a lot after college. Not having a car after dropping out of college really forced me to get creative with my transportation needs! Much of what i experienced over the past two days has been a shock to me. My lungs hurt, my muscles are weak and completely un-toned, and I have little energy when I need it to actually make that bike go like i used to be able to make it. So anyways, last week i rode 6 miles and struggled. Today I rode 7 miles and struggled. My next ride will be even further and I hope less of a struggle.
-jonny
What this is
I've decided I'm tired of being overweight and unhealthy. It all came about because I started dating this absolutely amazing woman named Kori. We were at dinner and the topic of health and fitness came up. Her response was that she was on to me and I think she meant that I am aware of issues that I have but I'm not doing anything about them. Now I know that she likes me and thinks I'm pretty dandy but I also know that she thinks that I could be a lot healthier and she is right. The fact is I'm unhealthy, and I want do something about it and make some major lifestyle changes. So on a whim I proposed a bet with her to help jumpstart this process for me. So I am going to attempt to lose 20 pounds between now (starting new years day) and February 1st. My starting point is around 280 but i need to weigh in to know if that is accurate. I'll be blogging daily with my food intake and exercise regime so that I can track what I'm doing and to feel accountable to myself and anyone else who is reading this. When the month is over, I will be rewarding myself with another month's goal and more realistic approaches to my lifestyle changes such as exercising regularly and having a healthy balanced diet. The bet go's like this, she said that she would like a framed piece of my artwork if I fail. A framed Photo of mine suitable for her tastes and printed large...over 17" x 26". It will likely be much larger because i have started a new photo technique that will give me much wider prints. Anyways, she will be getting a piece of art that i would normally price for $350-$1000 depending on the size. If I achieve my goal, and win the bet, then I proposed she take me out on a nice date. So here goes...
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