Push yourself!

I'll get back to posting about other meal times later. I wanted to get to some thoughts about exercise. Yes, it was a good decision. My routines involved biking, elipticals, and treadmills. I also do some weights. I actually should have done more with weights at the beginning. Having some muscle mass is a good thing. When I really thinned out I looked like I was sick, but I wasn't.



Anyway, my whole thing on exercise was to push myself, but not torture myself. So, I only engaged in exercise I liked or could reasonably stand to do. I absolute hate swimming as a form of exercise. Stair climbing was horrible, so I avoided these. At the time I hated running, so I did more biking than anything else. I walked and jogged very slowly for eight minutes.

Over time I eventually began building more stamina, especially with my heart and lungs. My legs and arms got stronger and my weight was going down. When I started at the Y, I burned maybe 200 + calories at the time. Eventually, I was burning over 400 calories. But I had to work at it. And I did it slowly. When I was ready, I would push myself even farther.

So, if you hate running, then walk instead. If you can't stand exercise bikes, try elipticals. At a gym it's possible to try out several options until you find something that works for you. Push yourself, but don't torture yourself. Otherwise, you might just hate it so much that you won't stick with it. At least, that's what I would have done.

American Idol

This is what American Idol has become!

More breakfast foods

Okay, I'm just going to list all I'll eat for breakfast throughout the week. In some cases I add a 1/4 of old-fashioned style oats to add some whole grains. You can eat oats raw. They're versaltile.

Fiber One Honey Clusters cereal with lowfat milk and 1/4 cup of oats:
1 Cup serving of cereal
3/4 cup of milk
1/4 cup of old-fashioned style oats
No need to add any sugar

Cheerios (just regular plain old) with lowfat milk:
21/2 cups of cereal (1 cup is a serving)
1/2 cup of milk per serving
1/2 teaspoon of sugar per serving

Grape Nuts with lowfat milk and 1/4 cup of oats:
1/2 cup of cereal
3/4 cup of milk
1/2 teaspoon of sugar

Sometimes I'll eat a hard-boiled egg or drink 1 cup of milk.
1 cup of orange juice
Coffee (I drink about 31/2 cups; I need my coffee)

I don't eat too many Kellogg brands, but I do sometimes substitute a Kaschi cereal. Sometimes I will make a cheese 2 egg omelet or have fried eggs when I've done a good job maintaining my weight.

Breakfast foods

These are the foods I eat every morning throughout the week. One thing about eating healthy food. I wanted to pick foods that I liked or could reasonably stand to eat. I like oatmeal, but my wife cannot stand it. It's no good to try and eat something that repulses you. Search for foods that you actually can stomach. Anyway here's my breakfast menu.

Oatmeal--my favorite breakfast
I only use old-fashioned style oats. I like the texture and it's more filling than quick oats. Quick oats are okay, they just aren't as filling. QUICK OATS ARE INSTANT OATS! Some people don't know this. I like Quaker oats the best, but I've been buying my oats from Aldi. They are lower quality, but still doable. And they are over half the price for a large container (42 oz).

I use the Quaker oats directions for the heart, healthy serving size. 3/4 cup of oats to 11/2 cups of water. Actually, I cook it with a 1/2 cup of lowfat milk and 1 cup of water. I add some salt for taste. Unlike the directions for making oatmeal according to Quaker I mix everything together and then boil it. Since I cook with milk, I constantly stir it. When it's the consistency that I like, I mix in 11/4 teaspoons of brown sugar. Sometimes I add walnuts.

The great thing about oatmeal is there is room to add all kinds of healthy additions. Just watch adding sugary things to it. Raisins will add sugar, but in moderation can be good.

This serving contains 225 calories 6 grams of fiber, 3 grams of soluble fiber
7.5 grams of protein

1/2 cup of lowfat milk adds 50 calories 4 grams of protein

11/4 teaspoons of brown sugar 18-19 calories

My Problem with the word "Blasted"

Sorry for the huge picture. I hate to interrupt my information on my weight loss plan, but there is something that is really bothering me about the media. This morning Yahoo news or some news source said that Pope Benedict blasted Irish clergy. The media keeps using this word blasted whenever someone gets a tongue-lashing from others. They have done this with Obama (Obama has blasted people many times) and Jon Stewart.

It sounds like the Pope is taking out a rocket launcher and actually blowing up the Irish clergy. Come on people in the media, stop sensationalizing in this way! When the U.S. military strikes some Taliban hide-out with some type of weaponry, that's truly blasting. When I read about Jon Stewart blasting Glenn Beck, it sounds like he lobbed a grenade at him or something. It's ridiculous!

Breakfast

My favorite meal of the day, but it was the meal I ended up piling on the pounds. I thought I was eating healthy breakfast foods. I did not pay attention to serving sizes for cereal, juice, and milk. I piled sugar in. I really had no idea how much sugar or cereal I would eat in one serving. Then, I would get a second helping.



For instance, I always have enjoyed Grape Nuts. I never realized that a 1/2 cup is considered one serving. One serving of Grape Nuts has 200 calories. Because they are very tiny, they don't look like 200 calories per serving. But they do. Just like most people I poured an indiscriminate amount of Grape Nuts in my bowl. I probably had 2 or 3 servings of Grape Nuts in my bowl. That's a breakfast with a whopping 400-600 calories! And that's not even counting the milk and sugar I added. Usually, I had a second helping of the same. So, if you added the orange I drank, my breakfast probably consisted of over a 1000 calories. You don't want 1/2 a days caloric intake in one meal every day.





My ultimate goal for breakfast was to have something to compliment my coffee. I still do this, but now do it in a healthy manner.



So, now I always measure the amount of cereal according to what is considered a serving for that particular cereal. It's not 100% accurate, but it does give me more control. When I add sugar, I always measure it, using a half a teaspoon measure. Remember, 1 teaspoon of sugar has 15 calories and contains 4 grams of sugar. I also measure the milk (lowfat 1/2%) I put in the cereal.

In my next post, I'll will list all the breakfast foods I eat. Hey, good news. I may be able to post a picture of myself soon. I don't know if I can do a before and after, but at least you can see the author of this blog.

Doing something is better than doing nothing

Becoming overweight didn't happen overnight. It took a few years to build the pounds.



Very Important!: Weight loss is not instantaneous!



Contestants on the Biggest Loser end up losing weight seemingly quick. Remember, they are in a boot camp type setting, virtually separated from the "real" world. Plus, there is a money prize. They also have medical personnel standing-by just in case. For most people weight loss happens in the "real" world with many distractions, such as employment and family obligations.



I didn't have a money prize to keep me motivated!



I didn't have a medical team on stand-by!

Being unemployed, I did have time, though. Throughout my weight loss experience, I lost maybe a lb to 2 lbs a week. There were times I stuck to my plan and my weight would seem to get stuck. I had the hardest time getting under 170. I just kind of hit a plateau. Same thing when I reached 160. This is a frustrating and discouraging experience. However, I just stuck with my plan, and I finally broke through these numbers.

Why these plateaus? I don't know. I guess it was my body going through some physiological change I can't explain.

I'm guessing it's like adolescence in a way. Change happens in uneven ways and is different for everyone. Just keep going! And don't forget to pray!

Spreadsheet sample

I will explain more later how this sample spreadsheet worked for me. I just wanted to get it up. Since my scanner is broken, I had to figure out how to turn it into a JPEG. The only thing I couldn't do was supply gridlines. Click on the above image to get a better look at the spreadsheet.

This is just one method of keeping track of calories. I wanted to make sure I was getting enough nutrition, so I tracked the amount of protein I consumed during the day. There are other important nutrients, but this was a big one for me. Women would want to also focus on getting enough iron. Generally, women need more iron than men.

How I lost 45 lbs.

Since last April I lost 45 lbs. Believe it or not I was considered overweight for my height, 5'4". I was well over 175 lbs. My normal range, according to what I read on WebMD is between 18-145 lbs. Once I get photo available, than I can really compare the before and after. I actually lost the weight through November of last year and have maintained my weight.

Last winter in 2009 I was watching the Biggest Loser, eating some unhealthy snack, and I said, "I can't continue doing this." So, I started really paying attention to what the two trainers were saying. Then, I bought my wife Eat This, Not That. I was actually trying to inspire her to think about eating more healthy. But, I started reading it. Eventually, that led me to read food labels, paying attention to calorie content, fat, sugar, and sodium contents. I did this on all the foods I currently ate at the time.

So then, I did a Google search for nutrition and weight loss and came across the WebMd Food and Fitness Planner. After getting a nice tax refund my wife and I decided to get a membership at the Battle Creek YMCA and I decided to begin my plan for healthy living, starting with weight loss.

Most important for me was to begin with prayer. Involving God in the process was helpful and certainly good for my spiritual health. Spiritual health is more important than physical health, after all. No matter how healthy my body gets, it will eventually perish. My spirit will not.

Not everyone advocates counting calories, but I thought it was quite helpful. This is where I began my fitness plan. Using information from the Food and Fitness Planner it said that based on moderate levels of physical activity I should consume around 1250 calories a day in order to lose 2 lbs a week or 1950 calories in order to lose 1 lb a week. So, I figured somewhere between these two numbers would be good. In my next post I will discuss more on my dietary changes and touch upon exercise. I will post a sample of a spreadsheet I developed that was extremely helpful for me. I don't know how accurate it really was, but it worked!

If starting a healthy living or weight loss plan, it's important to gather information first. Assume you know nothing about eating well or possess incorrect information. Make sure you check with your doctor to know exactly what you're current level of health is. Your situation may be different from mine!