Greetings to anyone that may be reading this! This is more a journal for me to keep me motivated, although if my past blog history has anything to prove, it's that I get bored with these quickly. Here's hoping I can keep this one going!
The Plan
So, I am a huge fan of Alton Brown. For those of you that don't know, you should check out his cooking show Good Eats which is sadly not made anymore, but you can catch reruns as well as a carefully selected batch of episodes. Among those, was his "Live and Let Diet" episode in which he briefly goes through what helped him lose 50 pounds in nine months.
Now, I don't consider myself fat. Sure I've gained some weight, mostly from being inactive and eating like shit. I've started to get to the point where I look in the mirror and it's a little too much for me to take. So, that being the case, it's time to fix it. That's the plan.
Food
The "diet" that Alton went on that was so successful for him is as follows, he describes it as learning and differentiating between energy-dense and nutrient dense food. Here's the "Must-Eats" and "Never-Eats"
Not bad little chart for MSPaint.
Now, I'm not going into this thinking it'll be easy. The first thing looking at this that is like "Oh shit" is the fast food. I love me some McDonalds. I probably eat fast food two-three times a week. I love it. Fighting off those cravings will be the hardest part for me.
The next challenge I see is in the daily and three times weekly categories; I hate tea and yogurt. Now, I may be able to make some Green Tea, let it cool, and then just do the ol' pinch-your-nose-and-down-the-hatch trick, so I'm not too worried about that one. But I'm going to have to find some sort of substitute for the yogurt. From what I've found so far is cottage cheese, which if it's not in a lasagna I'm not eating it. And sour cream... and I can't imagine eating a cup of sour cream is healthy in anyway. The rest of it I'm excited to take on.
One thing Alton makes unclear however is, is the rest of your menu open? Can you eat whatever else you want, just make sure you eat X every day, Y at least three times a week and avoid Z? I think how I'll approach it, at least at first, is to have all of this in my diet, and also be free to use chicken/seafood for dinners.
Exercise
So, I love working out. I used to go to the gym everyday after work, but then they closed that gym and the closest one to my house from the same company was twenty minutes out of the way home, where as this one was on the way. Due to finances I haven't been able to sign up at a new one yet. For Christmas I received a work out video from WWE Fit.
The smile is inviting, the eyes thrive on pain.
The great thing about this DVD is that it comes with a work out calendar and all workouts have a warm-up and cool down built into it. If all else fails I'll be at least sticking to the work out schedule. I started today and man that "Lower body" exercise almost killed me. I hate leg day. This is going to be fun.
I think I'm also going to wear a pedometer and set a goal of 2,000 steps a day. That may seem low, I'm not sure, I guess I'll see how a regular work day goes and pick a number from there. That should also help me get more active. Plus I have a Husky...there's no excuse.
Goal
Now, I don't know how all this works. I don't know how weight is going to come off, what is "achievable" and what is impossible to achieve. The last time I stepped on a scale which was over a year ago I was at 164 lbs. I'm sure I've probably fluctuated within ten pounds of that. My goal is to be in the 130-135 range. So, how long does it take to lose 34 pounds? Well, assuming it took Alton all of nine months to lose 50, that should be about 5.5 pounds a month, so that would be six months give or take a week to lose my 34 assuming everything goes to plan. So I guess that's my goal. Lose 30-34 pounds in six months. Perfect time for bikini season.
That just means I get to go shopping...
Starting
One of the shit things with my job is I get paid once a month. And it's at the end of the month. So, while I can start the exercising now, I can't go load up on food until the 20th, which is a bummer but I'll try and get in what I can where I can until then. Getting off the couch is a start right? So, the workouts have started, the food will soon be following and we'll see what happens. Feel free to comment, encourage each other, encourage me, or follow along with my diet/exercise on your own!
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