No More Mr. Fat Guy!

That’s what they’re saying.  An inch or two, plus some sleet and freezing rain.  We’ll see.  We don’t get much of that kind of weather around here.  Of course, when a fat guy hears “snow”, he thinks of one thing-real snow cones!  I haven’t had one since I was a kid.

Bad news on the goat front.   Cookie the Psycho Goat gave birth to two kids on Sunday.  I was going to name them Peanut Butter and Chocolate Chip, but one died on Monday, and the other one died yesterday.  There’s few things cuter than baby goats, and I hate it when they die.  Several more goats are due to give birth any time, and I hope all the kids make it.

I hope I don’t get snowed or iced in. They say it’s supposed to start around 3 AM.  That gives me time to run into town to stock up on Big Macs and Krystals.  Just in case!

Actually, I’m being fairly good lately, although with my work I haven’t been walking.  Which is no excuse, I know.  This losing 100 pounds thing is going to be a lot harder than it looked in the brochure!

And I was just kidding about revamping the site! I should be up front with you guys-I tend to get bummed out, depressed, whatever you want to call it from time to time. Not just on my weight loss goal, but in general. When that happens, I often turn to food to deal with things. Or rather, to avoid dealing with things. That’s what happened last week. And then I felt guilty, so I didn’t blog.

But I hate being away, and burying my head in the sand (actually the fridge) doesn’t solve anything. So, I’m back now, and I’m going to pick up where I left off. Thanks for all the encouraging comments the past few days.

Also, Wordpress did an update or something, and my links got messed up.  Hopefully they’ll be fixed in a few days.

A Back Exercise should always be included in a workout routine. If you have severe back problems, you may need to roll up a towel and place it under your back for additional support. Depending on the condition of your back, you may want to start slow and only do one set of ten. However, eventually you will want to begin tightening your stomach in this manner and doing crunches, but not sit-ups. Many people find it helpful to place an ice pack under their back when they finish with this ab exercise for relaxation and to relieve potential inflammation.

Regardless of your reason for wanting to begin a back exercise routine, you should determine what kind of shape your back is in. If it is already in good shape and does not hurt often, you are probably ready for more intense workouts. However, if you have had past back problems or your back is currently giving you trouble, you may want to begin with back tightening exercises to develop a foundation for later back exercise.

More interesting fitness reading: Don’t miss Food That Lower Cholesterol, Dieting Pills and High Energy

Aerobic Exercise - If you want to lose weight, you know you have to exercise. No matter what someone tries to tell you, cutting calories alone will not get the job done. Your life needs an overhaul, and you have to rethink how you live each and every day. There are a lot of ways to get more motion into your day, but one of the best ways is by increasing your aerobic activity. Aerobics will raise your heart rate enough to get those pounds to start coming off.

You have to be careful with Aerobic Exercise if you have any serious medical conditions. If you have any doubts, see your doctor before you being any aerobic activity program for weight loss. They may tell you what you should and should not do, and they may say that you should limit all aerobic activity. Even if you are healthy for the most part, you may still want to see your doctor and get a check up before you begin any program containing aerobic activity you are not used to.

The Mayo Clinic Diet Define Seven Rules of Dieting:

1. Try to have more fruit in your diet than vegetables.
2. Avoid or decrease intake of cholesterol and saturated fats.
3. Watch your intake of salt and sweets.
4. If you drink, be moderate and don’t drink too much.
5. Think about food portion size and make sure meals aren’t too big.
6. Keep an eye on your calories.
7. Make sure to get some kind of physical exercise everyday.

Carbohydrates

These provide most of the energy for your body. Foods such as whole
grains, legumes and many types of beans are called “complex
carbohydrates.” Foods containing these complex carbohydrates are
common in the Mediterranean where the incidence of obesity, heart
disease and diabetes is rare.

You should get 45-65% of your calories everyday from carbohydrates. If you want to keep those carbs balanced, get lots of fruit, milk and complex carbohydrates, and watch your intake of sugar and white flour.

Cholesterol

Cholesterol actually has an important function in the body: to build and maintain cells. Cholesterol helps cells do their work. But, our bodies make pretty much all the cholesterol we need. This means that all the cholesterol from meat, eggs and dairy end up lining the sides of our arteries.

It’s best to take in no more than 300 milligrams of cholesterol every day.

Fat

Fat is also useful for the body. It contains energy concentrated,
providing more than protein or carbs. Fat is used in the body to
metabolize certain vitamins. It also contributes to healthy cells and neural pathways in the brain. But, some fats are more damaging than beneficial. Red meat, for example, contains trans and saturated fats, which have lots of cholesterol and can cause heart trouble.

Try to get only 20-35% of your calories from fat everyday, and try to get them from nuts, vegetable oil, fish oil and other non-animal
sources.

Fiber

The tough part of vegetables is fiber. There is both soluble and
insoluble fiber, and you need both. We get fiber from wheat, green
vegetables, fruits, bran and oats. Women should get 21-25 grams of fiber everyday. For men, it’s 30-38
grams.

The real Mayo Clinic recommends a balanced diet of complex carbohydrates, vegetables and moderate servings of meat. It recommends you watch what kind of fat you eat. It is stressful to lose weight suddenly and can cause health complications. The Mayo Clinic recommends losing weight over a longer period of time, so your body has time to adjust to the changes. Diet plans that sell quick weight loss plans should be avoided. Here are some guidelines according to the

Mayo Clinic’s Nutrition Center:

Protein

Protein is important for nearly every part of the body’s system. It’s in your muscles, bones, skin, organs, blood, enzymes and hormones. You get protein from a variety of sources like meat, poultry, legumes, seafood, nuts and seeds.

You should get 10-15% of your daily calories from sources rich in
protein.

Learn more: Prejudice And Obesity, Preventing Overweight, Health Obesity Problems

The second half of this past week didn’t go so well, as you can see.  Crashed and burned ’bout sums it up.  I gained two pounds. I’m actually surprised that it was only two.  I’m not going to go into all the gory details, but the story involves Mexican food, stuffing my face at a buffet twice this week, several bottles of Coke and Pepsi, not walking, and way too much chocolate.

That’s the bad news.  The good news is that I’m totally revamping the site.  I’m taking down all the posts, while leaving the pictures, and I’m changing the name from No More Mr. Fat Guy to How I Beat Anorexia.

I’m not having a great couple of days. Didn’t walk yesterday, and didn’t walk today. The assignment I’m writing now is not enjoyable at all. I’m not eating right. I can’t quit smoking. All I can think about lately is pizza, subs, steaks, desserts, and Pepsi. And tomorrow I’m going out of town to visit an old friend I haven’t seen in years, and I doubt if we’ll get much walking or healthy eating done there. I’m sure I’ll have put on a couple pounds come Sunday. It’s very discouraging. 200 pounds seems so far away.

I’m discouraged, but not terribly so. I knew I’d have days like this going in. But I’m not going to get too down about it. I’ll do better next week, and eventually this new way of life will become a habit.

I’m behind on a writing project, and as I was trying to catch up, Word ate a bunch of my work.  Very frustrating.  But I did get a package in the mail that I’ll be writing about soon.  I think you’ll find it interesting, especially if you’re a walker.

Well, I got up at 5:30 this morning, so I was off to a great start from the very beginning. I headed into town right away. I did eat breakfast at a restaurant, but it wasn’t fast food, and I ate pretty responsibly. Around 7:30 I got to the gym. I would’ve loved to walk outside, but it was like 28 degrees, and that’s a bit too cold. So I got an hour in, and then went outside to see if it had warmed up enough to walk outside. It had, and so I went down to the local park and did another hour. Time flies when you’re listening to Art Bell at just above freezing!

Guess what I found in my glove compartment today? A pedometer. I’d bought it several months ago for like 2 bucks at a dollar store after resolving for about the 200th time to get serious about losing weight. And then I promptly forgot about it, along with my weight loss goals. But there it was, and waddya know it works great. Not for miles walked or calories burned; for that it’s worthless, as you can’t program it, and it bases caloric expenditure on a 120 pound person. Fat lot of good that does me! I guess in China they must think the average American weighs 120 pounds. They really need to get out more!

And the miles walked function was based on an unrealistic stride estimation, too. But I don’t care; that’s not why I spent the two bucks on it. I wanted the step counter. And it works great-I tested it in the house. And I couldn’t believe how many steps I took in two hours. Almost 14,000! That’s about 100,000 extra steps a week if I walk faithfully. I’m pretty proud of myself, actually.

Then I stopped by a local store to meet one of my readers, Heath. He’d read about me in the paper and after checking out my blog he emailed me. He invited me to stop by the store he manages in Fayetteville and say hi. I told him I would if he’d buy me a sackful of Krystals, and he agreed. Nah, I’m just kidding about that part. We had a great time talking about food, weight, Mountain Dew, flavored water, and Ollie Joe Prater. We may get together and walk in the future. Thanks for the invite, Heath!

Heath also told me about a great neighborhood in town to go walking. So I headed into town to check it out, and it really is-little traffic, long streets, and lots of sidewalks. But on the way home I saw something that scared the living daylights out of me. It really shook me up. Several hours later, it’s still hard for me to talk about it…but here goes. As I drove by Shoney’s, I read their new sign out front. It said Come in and try our new Milky Way Cake! It’s out of this world!

Pray for me.

Many of us have made a New Year’s Resolution to lose weight, or we’ve got some other important goal that we’d like to accomplish.  But for too many of us, it’s difficult to stick with it.  There are too many distractions, we’re too busy, we can’t stay motivated, it seems too hard, and so we give up.  That’s been a problem for me in the past, and I’m sure it’s a problem for a lot of people reading this.  From what I’ve read, if you’re still sticking with your New Year’s Resolution, you’re way ahead of most people, who tend to give up in the first couple weeks.  If you have trouble achieving any goals, you should check out a free online tool that my friend Deb told me about.  I’ve been using it, and it really does help keep you focused and moving ahead.  It’s called Simpleology.  There’s no cost, and you can check it out here.

Yesterday was a mix-some good, some bad. I did learn a valuable lesson, though. Never take a 2 hour walk on a virtually empty stomach. Let’s go to the instant replay, and then we’ll discuss it.

As I posted yesterday, I’d only had a can of chili beans, two apples, and about four ounces of juice when I headed into town to go walking at 7:15 last night. It’s too dark to walk out here on my country roads, and I had other things to do earlier, which prevented me from getting my walk in. Last night, it was about 38 degrees when I left the house, and not raining. Perfect weather for an outside walk! Instead of a hot, loud, crowded gym where I’m walking around a room 18 times to make a mile, I can go down to the park with the half mile loop, be out in the fresh air, and have the place all to myself. It’s a no brainer. So I grabbed my parka, my mp3 player, and headed there.

The good news is that I got an hour and 45 minutes in. And man, did it feel good to be out in the brisk air, working up a vigorous sweat. (Of course, in my parka, I look like the Abominable Snowman and the Unabomber had a baby.) Art Bell was sitting in for George Noory, and I listened to the second half of an interview with some UFO weirdos. It was OK, but I don’t put a whole lot of stock in the UFO stuff. But on the next show, Art had a guest who says that sometime around 2011 or 2012, the cycle of solar flares is going to be at an all time high and cause all kinds of catastrophes, such as earthquakes, tsunamis, frying of electrical grids and satellites in space, famine, pestilence, etc. He mentioned a scientist named Hathaway here at a space center in Huntsville who’s predicting that it will be the worst solar flare activity in 400 years (although Hathaway isn’t predicting all that really bad stuff). I’m going to listen to the second half of the show next time I walk. But it’s pretty interesting.

Well, as I mentioned, I hadn’t eaten much all day, although I wasn’t hungry at all when I began my walk. But the longer I walked, the more aware I became of my hunger. I was shooting for two solid hours with the great weather and the interesting show, but after an hour had gone by I was pretty sure I wasn’t going to make it that long. After an hour and 45 minutes of brisk walking, I was famished. And I wanted something hot and filling. A salad wasn’t going to do it, nor was a baked potato. So I stopped at a pizza place and got a couple sandwiches. Yes, with meat and cheese. So I’ll have to watch my meat intake for the rest of the week. But I don’t feel too guilty about it. I should’ve eaten more before I left the house. When you’re almost three hundred pounds, a two hour walk at 3.5 mph is quite a workout, and I’m sure I burned off even more calories with the parka. In the future, I’ll make it a point next time I have to go to town to walk, to make sure I’ve eaten fairly recently.

Yesterday, as I was leaving Barnhill’s, I picked up my receipt and saw something that just about knocked me over.

The cashier had given me the 60+ Senior Citizen’s discount. Now, this could just be the result of pressing the wrong button on the register, but I doubt it. Besides, this is the second time in a year that this has happened to me.

I’m 45 (in a few weeks).  I can understand people thinking I’m 50, but 60?

Darn.  I’ve got my work cut out for me.  I don’t want to look 15 years older than I am; I want to look 15 years younger.

Do I really look close to 60?

Well, yesterday I made it til 4:30pm or so before eating. Around 2, I’d gone to the fitness center and taken a 90 minute walk while listening to George Noory. That felt good! And I still wasn’t hungry, so I headed home. But as I got closer to home, I started to realize just how hungry I actually was, since it had been about 40 hours since I’d eaten. I knew there was no way I was going to make it two full days, and that if I went home and tried to keep it up, that around 7 or 8 I’d probably get in my truck and do something crazy. So I kept driving, and wound up back in Huntsville at Barnhill’s. I chose Barnhill’s because at least there I can load up on vegetables. Which I did-I had lots of mashed potatoes, green beans, and carrots. I also had about 6 ounces of roast beef, and a chicken breast. I had planned on eating a lot more, as I was starving, but I didn’t pig out. I had two plates, mostly vegetables, two small glasses of sweet tea, and one small dessert.

And this morning the scale still says 285. So far today I’ve had two apples, about 4 ounces of orange juice, and a can of chili beans. I’m really trying to lay off the meat and dairy. Along with sweets, they’re the main reasons so many of us are fat. I’m not planning on becoming a full fledged vegetarian, but I have vastly reduced the amount of animal products I consume. And I plan to keep it up. I used to eat meat, and lots of it, at every meal. Cutting way back on that, and cutting out almost all pop, and walking are why I’ve dropped 11 pounds since January 1, even with the occasional binges. If I’d been walking faithfully every day, I would have lost even more.

In a few hours, I’ll be heading to town to walk for 90-120 minutes. I want to walk at least that long every day, rain or shine.

I can’t believe I’ve stuck with my goal this long. I’ve made this same resolution many times before, but never stuck with it. Three weeks may not seem like a long time, but it is for me, and 11 pounds off is one ninth of the way toward my goal. And I couldn’t have made it this far without the support and encouragement from you folks. Thanks; it means a lot to me.

It’s five minutes past nine on Sunday morning, and I haven’t eaten a thing since 11:30pm Friday night. I’ve had nothing but water for 34 hours. And you wanna know the really weird part?

It’s the end of the world as I’ve known it, and I feel fine!

Hadn’t planned on fasting. It wasn’t intentional at all. On Friday afternoon, I’d been up all night, and I went to bed around 4pm. Got up around 11pm, and I headed into town to get a pack of cigarettes (I know…). While I was there, I swung into Krystal’s drive thru and got two BA burgers and a large coke with no ice. I was up all night writing and reading, and I felt terrible all night-bloated, lethargic, upset stomach, etc. I was really wishing I hadn’t eaten that stuff, even though that’s not bad by my usual standards. Lately, I’m starting to notice how bad I feel after I eat poorly, and how good I feel after I eat a healthy meal.

Well, around 9am Saturday I headed into town for my usual bookstore and restaurant visits. Spent a few hours at Barnes and Noble reading books on health and diet. I decided to buy one of them-Eat To Live, by Dr. Joel Furhman. By around 1:00 I was getting really hungry as I hadn’t eaten in twelve hours, so I decided it was time for lunch. As I sat in my truck, trying to decide which restaurant to go to, it started to dawn on me how much better I was feeling, compared to how bad I was feeling after Krystal’s, and I decided I was in no rush to feel that bad again. I thought about skipping the restaurant, and heading home to make a salad and a baked potato. But I like to make a day of it in Huntsville, so I finally decided that I’d just skip lunch, and hit a restaurant later, before heading home.

So I went to Books A Million for a couple hours, and skimmed some more books on diet and health. I made a mental note to purchase one of them later-The China Study. Then I bought a copy of the Saturday paper to have something to read while I ate. Before heading off to eat, I stopped at Fresh Market, where I picked up my weekly gallon of unpasteurized orange juice. By this time I was really hungry, and I spent about 45 minutes in Fresh Market window shopping. Some of their sandwiches looked really good right about then. But I left with just the orange juice.

By this time it was about 4pm. Which I figured was a good time to eat. It could be my lunch and supper. And 4 is early enough that restaurants shouldn’t be very busy yet. So I made my pilgrimage to Barnhill’s. But the place was packed out, judging by the parking lot. Maybe Barnhill’s is always packed out? I don’t know, but I don’t like crowded restaurants. So I passed on that.

I thought about going somewhere else, but I realized that in about 4 hours I’d be in bed anyway, and I really wasn’t ravenous, so I thought what the heck? Why not give my digestive system a break for 24 hours? Lord knows it could use a vacation. So I headed home. I even stopped at Star Market and bought some bananas, lettuce, and tomatoes, for the coming week. And I wasn’t even tempted at the deli where they’re serving hot ribs, wings, and Terry’s pizza. Well, actually, I was a little tempted, but I didn’t buy anything. Just got my fruit and salad stuff and went home.

And it was all downhill from there. Got home, had some water to drink, surfed the net for a few hours, and then went to bed. And here I am, having fasted for 34 hours, without even planning to. Now I’m wondering if I should try to make it two days in a row. I’m not trying to prove anything, so I may eat, or I may not. We’ll just see how it goes. (By the way, the scale says 285 this morning, but I know that will come back up after I eat again.)

I just can’t believe I went without food for this long. I’ve read about the health benefits of fasting before. And I’ve tried it before, but never had any success going without food for extended periods. Until yesterday, I think the longest I’ve ever fasted was 15 minutes!

No pictures this time, but I weigh 290, and I’ve lost an inch around my waist.

Slow but sure.

From now on, I’m going to shoot for Saturday weigh ins (although next week might be Friday or Sunday). I’m feeling pretty good-I got an hour of walking in yesterday, and I’ve been eating fairly smart for the past couple days. It should be interesting to see the results.

I’ve been writing all day trying to finish a project. But I’ve got some good news to report. I went to Harvey’s gym yesterday and walked on the track for ninety minutes. Unfortunately, they play the radio so loud that it’s impossible to hear my mp3 player without turning it up to an unhealthy volume. And I’m not really a big fan of Winger, Warrant, Whitesnake, Billy Idol, Motley Crue, Poison, etc. I asked them if it would be possible to turn the radio down, and they said no, because most of their members like it that way. But they gave my money back and canceled my contract, and were real understanding about it. So later that day I went and checked out another fitness center in town. It’s affiliated with the local hospital, and many of their members are senior citizens. So they have a radio, but it’s at much lower volume, and it’s tolerable. Plus, they open at 430am, which is good enough for my odd hours.  So I joined it. So now not only am I fat, but it looks like I’m also officially too old to rock and roll.

Then today, it had warmed up enough that I could walk outside. So I took a two hour walk in the countryside. So two good days of walking, and two good days of pretty healthy eating. I’m feeling pretty good.

And it’s getting about time to weigh myself, so we’ll see how my little deblubberification project is coming along.

In some places, if you’re covered by Blue Cross and Blue Shield insurance, you have to pass an IQ test before they’ll pay for your gastric bypass. I’m not kidding!

One of my readers is looking for people in Alabama to help form a team for the Scale Back Alabama weight loss challenge.  It doesn’t matter where you live in Alabama as far as she’s concerned, but she’s in the Owens Cross Road/ Hampton Cove area, so if you’re there, or in the Huntsville/Madison area, or anywhere else in the state, and you’d like to be part of a Scale Back Alabama team, contact her at mcarr933 AT yahoo DOT com.

I can’t take part, as I live about 5 minutes north of the Alabama line in Tennessee.

The headline of the story is “Obesity Epidemic Strikes US Military”, and it says that a recent survey found that 60% of those serving in the military are overweight.

I’ve stalled out. It’s been well over a week since I walked, and then I ate horribly for two days, and haven’t really been eating much healthier since then. If I’m going to lose 100 pounds this year, I’d better get with the program. Or, rather, I’d better get a program and then get with it.

Well, a big part of the program, and a big part of why I haven’t been exercising, is my mp3 player. It quit working not long ago. Now, I’ve been walking for exercise on and off for years (it’s probably the only reason I’m still alive), and I did it for years without listening to anything. I’d walk for an hour, hour and a half, two hours, with nothing but my thoughts to accompany me. And it never bothered me. Then a few years ago, I took a temporary job delivering the newspaper to stores and racks overnight. I’d be in my truck all night and naturally turned on the radio to keep me company. But I got tired of listening to the same country songs over and over, and rock is pretty much dead, and classical put me to sleep, and rap is stupid, so I started listening to Coast to Coast AM, which most people called the Art Bell Show back then.

Well, I got hooked. It’s not everyone’s cup of tea (even I refuse to listen to Friday night open lines when every whack job in the country calls in with stories about ETs communicating with them through their dental fillings), but I love reading about Ancient Mysteries like the great pyramids, the Mayan calendar, Stonehenge, etc. But then I took a regular job during the day and couldn’t listen anymore. So I started subscribing to their podcast and listening at my convenience. A couple years ago I bought an mp3 player, and started listening while I walk.

But a week and a half ago I had a problem with my player, and couldn’t get it to download. And the thought of walking for an hour and a half without George Noory was too much. Plus, with my odd hours, and the weather, it’s been difficult to work daylight walks into my schedule. And walking at night is out of the question, since I live in a rural area.

Well, walking is at the heart of my plan to get healthy, and I need to get back to it ASAP. So when I got up today (around 1pm) I decided I was going to do two things-join Harvey’s gym in Fayetteville, which is open 24 hours, and either get my mp3 player fixed or buy a new one. I got Harvey’s taken care of ($33 a month), and then went to see my friend who’s helping me with my website. She knows a lot about computers, and she got my mp3 player fixed in a snap.

So I’m back in business. The rest of the evening/morning I’ll be writing for money for a few hours, and I’m going to try to get a Myspace up, and then around 4 or 5am I’m going to head to Harvey’s and get at least an hour in.

In a recent post, I mentioned that I’d purchased some homeopathic tablets to reduce nicotine withdrawal symptoms. Just to clarify-I only bought them because the clerk at Foods For Life recommended them. I’m not gay myself.

I just wanted to clear that up before any single ladies out there jumped to the wrong conclusion. Don’t worry ladies-I’m still playing in the National League!

(Although a couple years back, a shrink told me it wouldn’t hurt to explore another side of my sexuality. So I went out and bought one of those Craftmatic Adjustable Beds. What a fiasco-I darn near poked my eye out!)

From the LA Times:

More than 120,000 obese Americans had some kind of surgery to help them lose weight in 2004, with the biggest increase among middle-aged people, according to a study released Wednesday.

In 1998, 772 people age 55 to 64 had gastric bypass, stapling or some similar procedure known as bariatric surgery to help weight loss. But that number ballooned to 15,086 in 2004, the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality reported.

In 2004, the figure was 120,000. Two years later, it’s pushing 200,000 surgeries a year in America:

About 177,600 people in the United States had bariatric surgery to treat obesity in 2006, according to the American Society for Bariatric Surgery.

How long before it’s a million people a year getting their stomachs stapled? That same article reports that obesity in China, virtually unknown a few years ago, is also exploding as the Chinese abandon their traditional diet for a more American style of eating:

SHANGHAI: Zheng Chengzhu started researching surgeries to treat weight-related illnesses in China 12 years ago, when he saw his countrymen getting richer — and fatter.

Now Zheng, 47, chief of surgery at the Changhai Hospital in Shanghai, is profiting from a fast growing market. “When Chinese people get money, the first thing they do is invite all their friends out to dinner,” he said.

The girth of the affluent Chinese classes is expanding as fast-food chains like Kentucky Fried Chicken win converts. The number of obese people tripled to 90 million, about 7 percent of the population, as the economy grew sevenfold from 1992 to 2006, the World Health Organization said.

I saw this at the store the other day-these folks all lost half their body weight.  If they can do it, so can we.

For I have binged.

That’s the polite word for it. I think the technical term is “gorged”.

I promised people when I did the interview with Steve Doyle of the Huntsville Times that I’d be honest on my website, that I’d report the good, the bad, and the ugly. Warts and all, etc. I made the same promise here on my site. And I intend to keep that promise. It’s not going to be fun, and it’s not going be pleasant. But here goes. If you have a weak stomach, or are easily disillusioned, I strongly advise you to not finish this post. Stop reading right here. You’ll be glad you did. Read the rest of this entry »