This past Sunday we entertained once again for the big Easter meal, and there was plenty of Paleo goodness to go around. While the kitchen effort was doubled when combined with the week’s lunch & dinner meals, the result was a highly satisfying meal and a lot of great food to look forward to throughout the week.
Here are some of the highlights:
“Best of all worlds” Paleo Lasagna – Last week I made a double-recipe of the Bolognese sauce and had quite a bit leftover. My options were to either freeze it and have it available for future weekends when I don’t have cook time, or use it in something else. I chose Option B and combined that sauce with the Grain Free tortilla recipe from Against All Grain as a noodle replacement, and the cashew cheese from my bookmarked Paleo Lasagna recipe on Paleo Newbie. The reviews…
This has been another strange interaction. I was talking with a gentleman who had lost about 70 lbs, and I congratulated him on it. His weight loss journey was fraught with difficulty and struggle because his diet wasn’t conducive to losing weight. He asked me how much weight I’d lost, and I told him I’m at over 140 lbs lost. He asked me in what amount of time, and I told him 18 months. He asked me how many hours a day I had to exercise for that, and I told him none. I told him that since weight loss is a function of diet, I just made sure I ate well. He showed me his lunch: sandwich on whole wheat, an energy bar (with grains) and a fruit cup. He asked if I wanted any of the energy bars he had, and I told him that I would pass, he became upset. “I get it; you don’t eat grains. You could just say ‘No thanks.'” Umm, that’s exactly what I did.
What’s weird is that I never accused him of doing anything wrong nor did I say he needed to change anything. I only told him what I did, what worked for me, and I said, “No, thanks” to the energy bar. Perhaps that’s crossing a line for him, but I honestly don’t know of any nicer way to have handled it. Accepting it would have been disingenuous and wasteful.
I get it. People turn their internal disappointments and anger outward and flail out at those around them who have success in areas they themselves have failed in. It’s easier to point fingers outward than it is at one’s self. Our own disappointments are more difficult to face. But until people can face themselves and truly commit to making the permanent changes necessary to bring about the change they are looking for, they will continue to be unhappy and disappointed.
While people are generally nicer to me as a thin person, people who are struggling with weight tend to fall into three camps: those who don’t care either way about their health or mine (most everyone), those who are genuinely seeking knowledge to get healthier (and are pretty nice), and those who want to tear down anyone who has been successful where they have failed (and are generally passive-aggressive to outright hostile). I don’t judge anyone by their weight or size, but I do feel sorry for people who are overweight because our culture, our society, and our education system has failed them. I don’t believe in the government limiting our access to food and drinks a la NYC and their large soft drink container ban, but I do think the government’s standards and education are severely lacking and bordering on harmful. It takes a lot of work to learn about nutrition and diet and it takes a lot of discipline to stick with a good diet in today’s society of pizzas, hamburgers, and super-size meals.
My weight loss has been plateaued for quite a while now, and after increasing my portion sizes didn’t yield as much progress as I’d hoped for, I posted here some things I felt needed to be changed to restart my weight loss. Well, after just three days, I’ve dropped 4 lbs. I’ve been getting more sleep, I’ve cut out the sweet potatoes and almond butter, and I’ve been eating proper portion sizes.
The biggest challenge so far has been the almond butter. That little sweet after dinner became a little too comfortable and common, and for the past two days, I’ve missed it. I know that I will miss it less and less as time goes by, and that’s how I get through the cravings for it after dinner. It’s insidious how sugar can creep back in and get its claws back into you. Even if it’s a “Good” sugar, it’s still sugar.
The same can be said for sweet potatoes. I love them, and they are on both Whole30 and Paleo’s good lists, but for me, it’s a food that I have a hard time controlling myself with. If there is a whole sweet potato on my plate, I will eat the whole thing. Regardless of how big it is, or how hungry I am; it will all disappear into my stomach. For that reason, I’m keeping it off my plate for now.
I ran two days ago and will be running again later this afternoon. I typically weigh myself after my runs, so I am looking forward to seeing what my weight is then. I’m hoping for a new low this week and perhaps hitting my final goal within the month. If I can get there, then I’ll be happy and able to resume a little more flexibility in my diet. Until then, I’ll continue to be very strict. The progress is worth it.
It feels great when people tell me they have changed their eating habits because of my example, but every now and then, you come across something like this that really means a lot. When I started my blog, THIS is what I hoped for. THIS is what I wanted to accomplish.
Check out this blog if you’re interested in Whole30 and want to read about a day-to-day experience with adopting this diet. His journey is similar to mine in many ways. Visit it now; you’ll be glad you did. Whole30 Day 9 – Inspiration
I pre-wrote this post a week and a half ago. Since writing this, I’ve lost 6 lbs and I’m within 4 lbs of my final goal.
It’s killing me. That last 10 lbs is sticking solidly to me like a leech. I have been taking a long, hard look at my diet to find out where the extra calories may be coming from, and I think I may have isolated a few problem areas that I will begin working on this week.
Sweet potatoes. Yes, in Paleo and even in Whole30, these are allowed. However, they are still pretty high in carbs for their weight, and I do love them. I have been eating them quite a bit, and I am pretty sure I always eat too much of them. So, starting today, I’m laying off the sweet potatoes. For now.
Almond butter. So, you’re not supposed to eat desserts on Whole30 at all. Paleo allows it, but it’s supposed to be a treat. Well, I’ve kind of messed up here as I finish every meal with a small almond butter and chocolate square. I’m pretty certain that not only is this harming my weight loss, it’s a bad habit to be in. Also starting today, no more desserts.
Not enough carbs before exercise. This one seems counter-intuitive to me, but the truth is that our bodies use carbs during exercise, and depriving myself of carbs before a run actually does more harm to weight loss than help. Before my last run, I ate three pieces of dried apricot and I was amazed at how much better I felt and how much my performance increased.
Sleep. I need more of it. They say 8-10 hours a night is the best for weight loss, and when I was losing 10+ lbs per month, I was very careful to get at least 8 hours of sleep a night. I’ve allowed that to get down to 7 hours a night, and I’m certain that it’s affected my ability to lose weight. Tonight, I will go to bed at 9 pm and get the most sleep I can.
Not enough food. I come back to this one a lot because it’s my biggest sin regarding weight loss. Conventional wisdom is CICO: Calories In vs Calories Out. Well, this is true, but the deficit cannot be too big or the body goes into conservation mode. I think I keep kicking into conservation mode since my meals have tended to be rather small. That’s something I’ve begun changing in the past two weeks, but without the aforementioned four items, it hasn’t been enough.
Portion size. I’m not a real big offender in this area, but I’ve not been very consistent in keeping portion sizes appropriate. Whether I eat too much or too little, I need to settle on a better size and stick to it.
It’s not that my final goal is unrealistic. Heck, according to BMI, I’m still overweight. According to the military height and weight standards, I’m hovering at the maximum allowable weight. The only measures I’m in the good range in are body fat percentage and clothing sizes. Getting down to 165 lbs is a much healthier weight for me and will allow me a little more wiggle room than I have now.
So, it seems that this plan worked. I’m now within 4 lbs of my final goal, and I’m not struggling, suffering, or being otherwise in any discomfort. The food I’m eating is the same as I’ve been eating for the past 18 months with the exception of the sweet potato and the chocolate/almond butter desserts.
Every weekend, without fail, I gain about 2 lbs. Most of it is water weight, and some is honest weight. Honest weight is that weight that I put on from either eating more than I should have, or food with higher sugar or carb content than I normally do (which also adds to the water weight through water retention).
It’s always the same, and it’s always aggravating, yet it’s also comforting to know that by doing the right things again, I will be back to Friday’s weight by Wednesday morning, and typically a new low on Friday. I’m really hoping for this trend this week as I go into my first APFT and official Army Weigh In this coming Saturday. I’m already well below my max weight for my height, but I am going for a 10 lbs buffer. I’m almost there. It’s so close. Two steps forward, one step back.
Fitness watches are pretty popular these days. I’ve owned more than a few starting with a Jawbone UP followed by the Fitbit Surge and currently the Garmin Fenix 3 HR. I bought the Jawbone UP because I wanted to analyze my sleep more than anything, but I figured that having a device count my steps would help motivate me to move which in turn would help me lose weight.
Did it help motivate me to move? It did, for a while. However, as I began to notice that my walking had no real impact on my weight loss, I ignored the little “Get up and move” notifications from my UP and used it mostly for sleep analysis and counts of how much or how little I walked. Not much else.
My Fitbit Surge
The Surge was half smartwatch half fitness watch, but what really changed things for me was the heartrate display and the GPS built into the device that allowed me to track walks and runs with pinpoint accuracy. This could be used to truly analyze my progress, and I have to admit that this big change helped usher me into walking, jogging, and finally, into running. The Surge made it possible for me to go back and look at my run utilizing data that helped me find ways to improve my runs, areas to work on, and to find trends (I run faster in the mornings with my pace dropping only after two miles, for instance).
Moving to the Garmin Fenix 3 HR was an evolutionary step in many ways. The smartwatch features are greatly enhanced in the Fenix 3 as is the GPS and health tracking. The amount of data the Fenix 3 gathers and analyzes is staggering and impressive. However, what really got me were the larger display, ability to change watch bands, and the battery’s longevity. My Surge, a wonderful watch, was beginning to exhibit signs of battery life degradation. I was needing to charge it every 2-3 days depending on GPS use (more often if I used the GPS function for a run). My Garmin, on the other hand, can go around two weeks even with three GPS uses a week. That’s quite a difference!
Both the Fitbit and the Garmin worked with Bluetooth while the old Jawbone required a connection to my phone via a headphone jack (which takes it out of play with the iPhone 7 I now use). I understand that the original UP was a first-generation wearable fitness tracker, so I won’t hold that limitation against it.
So, back to the original question: will using a fitness tracker help me lose weight? I honestly don’t think so but that’s mostly because weight loss is a function of diet while fitness is the result of exercise. So, will a fitness tracker enable you to become more fit? Absolutely. It can definitely help as it has helped me. Will it help you lose weight? Maybe, but it really hasn’t for me. If you want to do something to lose weight, read about Whole30 or Paleo. If you want to have some cool tech help you get more fit and healthy, then sure, a fitness tracker is a great tool, but it doesn’t guarantee weight loss or even fitness. Ultimately, that’s all up to you.
Right before this afternoon’s run wearing my Morrissey concert t-shirt.
Just 4.1 lbs to my final goal of 165 lbs! It’s so close, I can taste it!!! Is there anything that can stop me? Well, there is. Tomorrow is Easter.
As with all holidays, I tend to over-eat. The food is special, Sherry does an amazing job with it, and it’s all so delicious. It’s rude of me to not eat a little bit of everything, and to not partake in the holiday with our friends and family. So, I will eat. Fortunately, the vast majority of the food she’s making is Paleo (except for a few portions of sides for her mom who isn’t too keen on anything that is even remotely healthy).
I will likely throw in a quick 2-mile run to burn up some calories later in the day. Or maybe just get in the pool for a few hours and act like a fool. Either way, I’m going to have to do something to burn calories, because I don’t want to give up this progress. I’m so close!!!
I was talking to a co-worker today about her exercise regimen she started a few weeks back, and she admitted to me that it lasted a whole day. “I just don’t have time to do it,” she told me. She really wants to, she says, but she just can’t find the time to get a workout in.
That’s a poor excuse.
I make exercise a priority. I place it higher than eating, drinking, or even work. As much as my boss wouldn’t like that, it’s true. My health is far more important for me to maintain for the long-term. For the short-term? I’m a better employee if I’m healthy, and staying healthy is accomplished through diet and exercise.
I read an article a year or two back that was about an entrepreneur who talked about how he put his exercise schedule in his calendar and didn’t cancel workout sessions for anything. He would rather miss a business opportunity than a workout. It seemed silly to me at the time, but I get it. I totally get it. Business opportunities rarely come and go with one meeting. If they can’t meet at 1 pm, they can likely meet at 2 pm. My workouts are about 30 minutes long with 30 minutes of recovery time (cool-down, shower, get dressed). That’s an hour. I exercise three times a week. That’s a tiny three hours a week.
Ask yourself this question: is it worth investing a little of your time in yourself and your health/fitness? If you’re sitting on the couch, could you be exercising? Too tired? Too bad! There’s time enough for relaxing and resting later. Get out there and move. Even if it’s just a walk or some push ups. Do something and get moving!
“I don’t have time” is BS. We all have time. We need to learn to use our time wisely or manage it better. We all have the same amount of time. Nobody gets 25 hours in a day. Carve out the time for exercise and manage your time better.
Before September of 2015, I thought I was happy. Heck, I was pretty happy overall, but there were aspects of my life that troubled me. I was overweight, and not by a little bit. I was morbidly obese. My body was in serious danger of failing on me. Because of this, I was unable to do any real strenuous activity including things like going up more than a flight of stairs at a time, doing any serious home projects, or even exercise.
At my heaviest in 2014: 312 lbs.
I couldn’t buy clothes off the rack at any normal store or section of a department store. I had to shop at the “Big and Tall” stores or sections. I was never quite able to fit comfortably in a seat of an airliner or fit into a booth at restaurants. There are activities I wanted to do that I was just too heavy for. I had literally become a safety issue.
My doctor told me to not engage in any cardio until I lost weight because he was worried I would have a stroke or heart attack. I never quite thought my health was that bad. Heck, I felt okay, for the most part. And then I was diagnosed with having diabetes. That changed a lot in terms of my perception of my overall health. Then the nerve tingling in my toes began.
Then, my world changed. I adopted a new mindset, a new diet, and a new lifestyle. I decided that I was going to make a permanent change in what I ate, and eventually in getting fit. I knew that it would take some time before I could do some exercise, but one day I would get there and I would make it happen.
Down 20 lbs already. I couldn’t see it; the beard was probably hiding it.
Within the first month, I already saw positive changes. My energy levels increased dramatically. My diabetes literally disappeared. My weight dropped 20 lbs. I was already fitting into pants I could no longer wear. I felt the difference in my weight; I could feel how much lighter I was. My knees already began feeling better, and I was able to tie my own shoes without holding my breath.
-70 lbs and -beard. It was much easier to see the loss by this photo.
By the sixth month, I was down 70 lbs. I was visibly thinner and I was able to start doing things that I couldn’t do just half a year earlier: zip lining, hang gliding, and hiking.
My wife and I at the 2016 Marine Corps Birthday Ball.
A year later, I began running. Two months later, I was able to attend the Marine Corps Birthday Ball for the first time since leaving active duty. I was able to do so in uniform, within the Marine Corps height and weight regulations, and with my wife and best friend. It was Sherry’s first ball, and we had an amazing time.
Then, five months later, I enlisted into the National Guard. This was a goal I had set a year earlier, and was the culmination of a lot of work to get within Army height/weight regulations as well as fitness standards. I was fortunate to get in, and I am looking forward to the new adventures being in the National Guard will bring.
In my personal life, I’m very happy. I have a wife who supports me at every turn, and who is my partner in every sense of the word. She is uplifting, loving, and is there to hold me up when I need it. She has positive words of encouragement and advice, and listens intently when I talk about my experiences with our diet and exercise. We are a true team, and without her, I’m certain I wouldn’t have achieved the amount of success I have so quickly.
Professionally, I’m very happy. I have a job I enjoy, and being able to serve in the National Guard realizes a dream of mine to continue my military service through to retirement. I will be learning a new occupation, and I am excited for everything that entails. I also honestly enjoy the environment. It’s challenging, and there are difficult moments punctuated with the threat of danger, but I thrive on that.
Sherry and I in Spain in 2017.
I feel younger than I have in the past 15, or maybe even 20 years. I am definitely more fit and lighter. There are things about myself I continue to work on to improve or correct, but they have more to do with habits. The only person I am trying to be better than is the person I was yesterday, and for the first time in a very long time, I feel like I have a real chance to do that.
I’m happy. I know you hear that happy is something you feel every now and then between the regular moments of existing, but I can honestly say I’m happy. I’m happy with how my life has turned out, where I am right now, and the relationships I have. I am happy with myself, how I feel, and where I am. That’s a good place to be, and I never would have gotten here had it not been for the change in my diet.
“Such a little thing, but the difference it made was great.” – Morrissey
Every weekend, without fail, I gain about 2 lbs. Most of it is water weight, and some is honest weight. Honest weight is that weight that I put on from either eating more than I should have, or food with higher sugar or carb content than I normally do (which also adds to the water weight through water retention).
Paleo Marine 