Determination Day 9

I won't make any excuses (even though I could say the Holiday's were very busy), but the simple fact is, I just didn't get around to posting anything.  I have to thank CJ at Capozzi's for reminding me to keep blogging.  Chris and I took Rin, Brekke, K and F out for dinner tonight to one of our favorite spots ever in Atlanta.  I was as good as you can be at the restaurant since everything on their menu ROCKS!!!.

While there, we got into a discussion about Dolls and Action Figures.  Rin told us a funny story about a discussion she had with a guy who was adamant that girl toys are Dolls and boy toys are Action Figures.  Rin quickly asked the guy, "So what is Ken?"  We all lost it.

I have been doing some research on Supplements and what is really needed when a person is looking to get back in shape and is focused on lowering their overall Fat Percentage (see previous blogs).  I'm still working on these as there are many, MANY, different views on what vitamins and minerals do in the body, side effects, benefits, and how certain combinations work together for the best benefit.  I'll probably have to create a separate chart out for this and then determine which I will try.  One word of warning, read the label, look it up, and consult with your Doctor before you take anything.  Certain vitamins and minerals can interfere with prescription drugs you may already be on.

I'll keep you posted.

Determination Day 5 - Christmas Day

Snow!!! are you kidding me, in Atlanta!!!  Oh well.  Blew the whole food thing out the door, of course.  But I did manage to only drink water and cranberry juice.  Still having pains in my Kidney areas, so looks like I'll be going to the doctor on Monday (if he is open).

Had some fantastic friends stop by for diner!!!!

Determination Day 4 - Christmas Eve

Good and Bad today.

Here is the good part, my Brother-In-Law got married to a wonderful lady at our house today.  Congratulations!!!!  We had Family over for the event and a friend of our from college (whom Gil has kept a close friendship with over the years) did the actual ceremony.  It was wonderful.  As an added  bonus, Chris and I didn't have to do much cleaning since we had already tackled that earlier in the week.

Now all the dishes are done, left over's are in the fridge, and the house is still in pretty good shape!!!!! (It usually takes a couple of days after a crowd comes in to get things straightened up again.)  For all of that, I'm proud of us.

Now for the bad......I woke up this morning feeling like someone hit my in my kidneys with a baseball bat, both of them.  I thought at first it was muscle problems, which I am prone to, but the muscles don't hurt.  It is much deeper.  I had one diet coke today and then either Cranberry juice or water for the rest of the day.  Gil did some energy work and that helped some, but now it is hurting again.  If this continues through the weekend, I'm going to our GP on Monday or Tuesday.

A friend of ours who is a "natural healer", for lack of a better term, is concerned, but not overly worried.  She says that if pushing the water doesn't bring relief, then I will probably need some blood work and a urine sample taken.  On top of that, I have to get the second round of my immunizations done (which for a small needle, hurt like hell).

Keep an eye out for Santa, I think he may be in my neighborhood right now.

I'll try to get back to more Fit oriented notes after Christmas, for now it just feels good keeping my promise to write.  Little successes.

Determination Day 3

Everything is getting hectic.  Did really well, had 4 small meals throughout the day about every two hours or so, but then had a largish diner with gravy (bad bad bad).  It's taking a while to adjust and modify to what needs to be done, so am slowly getting there.  Will try to write more after Christmas.

Determination Day 2

Very busy day and I'm tired, but I promised myself to write.  Bare with me here as I get into the swing of things. I did really good on my eating today despite traveling and eating out.  Went to the in-laws to pick up our son.  He and I kicked a little ball outside and he said, "Dad, can Santa bring us a soccer ball so we can play together?"  I happen to know Santa very well, so will see what can be done about this.  I'm excited about it, I've always liked soccer, and Goddess knows I need the exercise, but more important, it's something he and I can do together outside that is HEALTHY!!!

Heading off to bed, I promise to write more tomorrow with some additional details from my research.  I've been looking into supplements and why I might need them.  Working on creating my own mix.....we'll see what I dig up.

Good Night!!

Determination Day 1

Obviously, based on the timing of my last post, I went to bed very late; or was it very early this morning.....? At any rate, I woke up still feeling determined.  I was good, sort of.  I went to the store and bought fruits and vegetables, then came home and made a spinach omelet.  Had a banana for a snack, got some work done, took a nap, then made a really good salad with soup for diner.  I finished it up with some Greek yogurt, blueberries, raspberries, and banana for desert.

Those of you who know me, know that I'm prone to having strange dreams.  Sometimes they are just random, but other times, they have some meaning to them.  I should have written it down as soon as I got up, because I know there was some meaning in the one I had last night.  Oh well, if it is really important, I'll re-dream it.  Yep, I do that.  I tend to have the same dream over and over until I remember it fully and dissect it.

I promised my self that I would do some research, so here goes:  I looked into Metabolism.  Did you know that the Mayo Clinic says that there really isn't such a thing as a "slow metabolism".  The body's metabolism is automatically geared for your activity levels.  With that said, you CAN increase your metabolism.  Here are some interesting facts:

• Drinking water causes the body to increase its metabolism to absorb the water, drinking Ice cold water further increases the rate of metabolism
• A fit person and an obese person burn the SAME amount of calories while exercising.  A fit person burns MORE calories at rest than an obese person.
• Every pound of muscle burns 6 calories a day at rest to maintain its state compared to a pound of fat which burns 2 calories a day.
• Eat more often to burn more calories.  It's true, multiple smaller meals spaced over the day actually increase your metabolism.
• Making it spicy (your food smarty pants) can cause you to burn up to 23% more calories.  WebMD says to take a tablespoon full of peppers can increase your metabolism for up to half an hour and that the more often you eat spicy food, this could be extended.  Of course you need to balance this with what your stomach can handle (keeping a steady intake of Greek Yogurt can really help).
• Protein takes more energy to metabolize than Carbs.  Therefore, you burn more calories digesting protein than you do Carbs.
• Green Tea can help you to burn an extra 50 calories a day, nice!!
• Starving yourself CAN and WILL slow down your metabolism.  Going under 1000 calories a day for your intake throws you into starvation mode and your body stops burning and starts storing.

BTW, Body Mass Index does not tell you your body's fat percentage.  There are several ways to do this with some accuracy, but most of them require a visit to your doctor or a special lab.  The U.S. Navy came up with a fairly reliable way to calculate Fat Percentage based off of the BMI.

Child body fat % = (1.51 x BMI) - (0.70 x Age) - (3.6 x gender) + 1.4

Adult body fat % = (1.20 x BMI) + (0.23 x Age) - (10.8 x gender) - 5.4

where male gender= 1, female=0.

So for me, at 6'1" and 300lbs. my BMI is 39.6 so my body fat percentage is:

(1.2 * 39.6) +(0.23 * 39) - (10.8 * 1) - 5.4 = 40.29%

Now lets compare that to standards:

Description	Women	Men
Essential fat	10-13%	5-8%
Athletes	14–20%	6-13%
Fitness	21–24%	14–17%
Average	25–31%	18–24%
Obese	32%+	25%+

HOLY CRAP on a Bagel!!!!!! I'm FAT!!!!

So if 40.29% of my body is fat, then I'm carrying around 120lbs of blubber!!!  That means that if I did nothing but sleep all day, I would burn 2*120 calories (240) from my fat, and just for easy math (because it would be difficult to separate out the bones, organs, so forth) 6*180 calories (1080) from muscle.  Okay, add that together and it's 1320 calories.  So if I target an 1800 calorie meal plan daily, I only have to burn off 480 calories.......Nope that's not really how it works.

You have to burn about 3500 calories OVER your at rest burn rate to loose one pound of fat.  No way can you do that in one day.  If I walked for 1 hour quickly, I could burn 518 calories (here is a great tool for calculating what you are burning Click to follow).

Okay, I burn 1320 calories at rest a day and eat 1800 calories a day leaving 480 calories just sitting there.  If I burn an additional 518 calories, then that means that I am successfully burning 1838 calories which is 38 over what I'm eating.  At that rate, it will take me  92 days (3500/38) to loose one pound of fat.

Let's add some things here:

• Walk two hours quickly a day = 1037 calories
• 30 minutes of exercising at the gym a day = 375 calories
• Gives a total of 1412 calories a day burned

1320 at rest plus 1412 active equals 2732 calories which is 932 more than I'm eating.  That means that I will loose one pound of fat in roughly 4 days.  Of course none of these calculations takes into account that while I'm exercising, I'm adding muscle density, loosing over all body weight, changing my BMI on a weekly basis, all of which means that my Fat Percentage is decreasing causing me to burn more calories at rest due to more muscle.......you can see where this can get pretty complex just to figure out.  

To keep things simple, I'll figure my BMI and Fat Percentage on a monthly basis to see how I'm doing and not worry about how many minutes of torture I have to go through to loose a pound of blubber.

Okay, now I'm really done for the night because my head hurts.  Catch you later!!

Determination Begins

It’s almost 2am and I’m waiting on the Moon to disappear. You might think that it is the Lunar Eclipse that I’m talking about, but you would be wrong.  No, I’m referring to the moon that we all sit on, you know, what shows when we drop our pants and “moon” someone.

Why are you waiting for it to disappear?  Isn’t it covered? Aren’t you sitting on it?  All good questions my friendly reader.  It is covered and I am sitting on it, but it is just too damn big!! Just like the rest of me.  I’m afraid to step on the scales, the last time I did, I was just shy of 300 lbs.  That was three months ago, and I’ve gotten bigger since.

I’m getting close to 40, smoke way too much, eat for no other reason than it makes me feel good (sort of), and the only exercise I get is getting up to open the refrigerator.  On top of that, my triglycerides are elevated, my blood pressure is high, and I get winded going up stairs.  I have a 9 year old son who wants to go out and do stuff, and I just don’t have the energy.  I have sex maybe once a month because when I do it, all I think about is my belly getting in the way and if I’ll be able to breathe when I get done. 

So why don’t you do something about it?  I have….several times.  My first attempt was over 10 years ago when my Doctor scared the holy hell out of me.  He said loose the weight or die.  So I did.  I lost over 65 lbs. and felt great.  I successfully did the Adkins diet, took all the supplements, reduced the carbs, exercised, and dropped the weight.  Before the diet, I was at 275 lbs.  A year later, I was somewhere around 210.  Then it all came back.  Not all at once, but within the next few years I went to 230, to 240, then to 250.  I hung around 250 for about 8 years. 

A few years ago, I tried again.  This time I took Alli, I did great and lost about 30 lbs.  I looked good, had a lot of energy, sex life was great, and I even learned to watch what I ate so I wouldn't have the “Alli Accident”.  Then I put back on the weight.  Skip forward through time to now, and I’m pushing 300 if I haven’t already gone over that mark.

You said “Determination Begins”, how and why?  I’m prone to getting the holiday blues.  I laid down this afternoon to take a nap.  I laid there thinking about how much my son looks up to me.  He is so much like me in so many ways.  He’s about average height for his age, and slim, but I’ve noticed he’s starting to get a belly.  He comes home from school, and it seems that all he does is eat, watch TV, eat, play on the computer, eat, do his homework, eat, eat dinner, watch TV, eat, and go to bed.  I realized that he was doing pretty much the same thing I do.  How can I tell him, “No you can’t have another snack” when I’m stuffing potato chips down my throat.  I remembered all the times he wanted to go outside and do stuff with me, and I came up with some excuse to hide the fact that I just didn’t have the energy.  It won’t be long until he doesn’t want to play with his Dad, and I’m wasting the time I have with him now.

As I lay there, I also started thinking about my wife.  We used to be very active together.  I know she still loves me, still sees the person under the skin, but I just don’t feel like the person she sees.  I feel like I’m letting her down somehow.  In letting myself down, I’m letting everyone down.  There are many times when she’s in the mood and I’m just not.  I’ve noticed that as I gain more weight, my sex drives drops.  It is almost as if every extra pound is a noticeable decrease in libido.

I also started thinking about my parents.  My mother is a kidney transplant recipient and my father is diabetic and has prostate cancer.  He has also had heart problems and has stints in his arteries.  From a health perspective, I know that if I don’t do something, the odds are in favor of me following all too closely in their footsteps.

All of these things that I was thinking about were based on someone else, not me.  I continued to try and sleep, but my mind kept racing.  I started thinking about me.  I remembered a conversation I had with my wife a week ago where she asked me, “if the world’s view of beauty was to be well rounded, would you still want to be cut and in shape if it was looked down on and thought of as ugly?”  I thought about it and realized that yes, I would still want to be “in shape”.  I believe that self image is important.  It helps to define who we are.  It plays a major part in our mental well-being.  And for the longest time, I don’t fit the image I have for myself.  I’m a Libra and want balance.  As long as I don’t look the way I see myself in my mind’s eye, I’ll be out of balance. 

I started to dig deeper in my thought process.  I also feel failure.  Now I’m an intelligent person.  I’m very successful, and am great at solving problems.  I’m well read and actually take the time to research things of interest to me.  I KNOW that diets are not successful, and therefore, I should not feel a sense of failure because I put back on all the weight I lost and then some.  I KNOW that the only way to get into the shape that I want to be in is through hard work and actually changing my lifestyle.  I KNOW that fad diets are temporary and will only do harm in the long run.  And, I KNOW that I’m a failure because I took the easy way out.  What does that bit of knowledge reflect about me?  I’ve worked hard for everything else in my life, why wouldn’t I work hard for my health.

I gave up trying to sleep, went downstairs, fixed two huge sandwiches, a pile of chips, a soda, and watched a movie with my wife.  The whole time, I kept thinking, “this isn’t helping you”.  Five hours later, and I’m starting this blog.

Now back to your question about determination.  I am determined to become healthy Because I need to find balance in my life first, be a better role model for my son and be able to spend more time with him, and be there for my wife in all the ways that she deserves.

So why blog about it, who cares?  Okay reader, if that is your question then you don’t get it, so let me help you.  I’M NOT ALONE!!!!!  There are millions of people out there who find strength, courage, and support from reading about how another average person set a goal and went about achieving it.  It doesn’t matter what the goal is, just that someone had the determination to do it.  If my approach and story helps at least one other person, then I’ve done something good for humanity (I guess my wife is rubbing off on me, but that’s a topic for another day).

I’m not promising any of you readers that I will be consistent with my blogs, that I will post something every week and talk about my progress.  Instead, I’m promising myself.  They say (or at least someone did) that every journey begins with the first step.  This blog is mine.  If I can establish a consistent pattern of writing, then I can claim a success.  You can’t reach a goal without having a bunch of little successes.  Success is addictive.

So here’s the plan.  I write about what I’m doing, and one day, I’ll change the title of my blog to Determined Fit Guy.  First I start writing and documenting what I’m doing, my thoughts (honest thoughts so be warned).  As far as my determination to become fit, here are my goals (because every life coach out there will tell you that you cannot achieve a goal unless it has been established):

·         Learn how to eat for the RIGHT reasons

o   No eating because I’m depressed

o   No eating because I’m bored

o   No eating because I’m stressed

o   Eating because my body needs nutrients

·         Get off my ass and do something

o   Engage in Cardio programs

o   Engage in building lean muscle

o   Engage in family activities that don’t include the TV or computer

o   Get my camera out and walk

·         Learn how to eat

o   Cook more often, I love it and experts say it is a healthier way to watch what you eat

o   Find healthy alternative to the foods I love

o   Take time to enjoy the food I’m eating (all too often, I wolf it down without even noticing it.  They say eating too fast promotes over eating)

o   Eat more often and smaller quantities (it just makes sense.  Our bodies are designed to store food as fat when it thinks that we are going to starve.  If you have a steady stream of small meals, the body has no reason to store away for starvation)

·          Find ways to help control my attitude

o   Look for the positive

o   Take delight in the good things around me

o   Enjoy what I have

o   Enjoy who I’m becoming

As I work towards these goals, I’ll provide details, research, and stories about what is happening.  Sometimes it will be informative, sometimes funny, but always honest.  Not because I want to be honest with you the reader, but because I HAVE to be honest with myself.  Welcome to my journey, I’m Determined to make it a life-long one full of small and large successes.