Tag: weight
10 in 20 – Day 3 – Going good
Welcome to Friday and the start of the weekend, where you will want to eat…EVERYTHING.
Did not wake up with a headache this morning so that is awesome. Felt pretty good. I think I’ve found my balance in eating just the right amount.
Hopped on the scale this morning and…..down another pound and a half! Whoo! That’s 2.5 lbs since the start. This is what happens when I start eating right, I’ll drop a few pounds right at the start then plateau a bit then drop steadily.
I will say Ii’m still getting some major cravings though. I started today with a salad from a place called Chop Stop. I’ll talk about the salad more below, but let me tell you what the Grant of a week ago would have done.
Chop Stop is in a little strip mall type area with some other food places a CVS and a Sprouts Supermarket. For the longest time I’d go get a Chop Stop salad then go to Sprouts and get some bananas to have at my office. On the way through Sprouts one day I notced big barrels of all different types of candy. I love me some covered pretzels. Chocolate, Vanilla, Yogurt, whatever…I like them. I saw the Chocolate Covered pretzels and tabulated up the Weight Watchers points for them. 14 chocolate covered pretzels is 5 points. Since the first day I saw those pretzels I’d buy some bananas, a bottle of water and a HUGE bag of chocolate covered pretzels. Not just 14. 28, 38, more. And then the moment I’d get in the car I’d just start eating and, most times, have it finished by the time I got to my office. A 10 minute drive away. Yeah. Not proud.
So today I went to Chop Stop, then Sprouts to get bananas and I didn’t even walk down the pretzel aisle. I did want to get something besides bananas though. Something different so it would sorta be a treat like pretzels. I decided on a couple pears. 0 WW points and I love me some pears. So I’d call that a win.
After my run I was craving that burrito but I resisted, going for a Subway sandwich instead. I’m on track.
So let’s get to today’s food.
Chop Stop BBQ Chicken Chopped Salad – 12 WW Points*
I love this salad and I love Chop Shop. I go back and forth between this one and their Greek Chop. I’ve been more into the BBQ Chicken one recently though. Big bowl of chopped lettuce, corn, black beans and black olives. The Olives don’t come standard, tortilla strips do, so I swap them out. The * above is the total figured out with the tortilla strips. I think it’s a little less, but I still use the full 12 points in my tracking.
Pear – 0 WW Points
I was so looking forward to this pair and it was just okay. I gotta learn how to pick out a good pear. If only there was some recourse at my fingertips that would have such information….. Kidding. I know I could just look it up on YouTube and have a 11 year boy in Kentucky show me how to do it.
Banana – 0 WW Points
Good old banana. Not much to say except I ate it. And it was better than the pear.
Subway 6″ Turkey on Wheat, Baked Lays Sour Cream & Onion Chips & Bottled Water. WW Points = 11 Points
Same old, same old. But it’s a good one.
Activity – 30 minute run
Took my vitamin this morning, again and I’m feeling good. Liking that things are headed in the right direction. Remember, I’m not looking to lose exactly 10 pounds by October 20th, close is good. Want to loose a little more than 2.5. though so work continues.
Thank you for all the support messages here and on Facebook. I really appreciate it.
Goodnight!
10 in 20 – Day 2 – Down a pound
Welcome to Day 2. You’re gonna hurt.
I ate too little yesterday, no doubt about it. Shortly after midnight, my head and stomach hurt pretty bad. I was screaming at myself, inside my head as I usually do, to eat SOMETHING. I refused and just went to bed. See, I’m letting you in on my sickness, my body was telling me to eat and I refused. Now, I refused because, if I ate at that time I would eat a TON. Two, three bowls of cereal. A huge sandwich. Something and a lot of something. So I just went to be hungry.
In the morning, my head hurt even worse than it had before. At about 7AM it was so bad I couldn’t sleep, so I got up and fixed me some instant oatmeal. Ate a bowl of it and went back a rested for another hour or so, feeling much better.
My usual routine is to get up, get ready and leave the house. I never eat breakfast and usually do not eat for an hour or two (or three) after getting up. Usually I’ll eat around 10:30am or 11am. That may have to change. I may need to eat SOMETHING before getting going in the mornings.
Today went well and I consciously ate a little more than yesterday, while still staying in my WW daily points allowance. I also started taking a daily vitamin this morning. Everything I read about losing weight and such says to do so, so I did. I actually take them off and on, but I’m going to be more conscious about taking one daily now.
Anyway, after getting up, the second time, and getting ready I weighed myself. 177 lbs! Down a pound already! My head works this way though, “Crap! I should have weighed myself BEFORE eating the oatmeal. I might have weighed less!” I didn’t eat a POUND of oatmeal, but my head still goes that way.
So, onto what I ate today.
2 Packets of Quaker Maple & Brown Sugar Lower Sugar Instant Oatmeal. WW Points = 6
Love Maple & Brown Sugar oatmeal. Always have. SECRET: Love eating this stuff right out of the packet. No water, no heating up. You heard me. Love it that way. I ate it in a bowl with water this morning.
Porto’s Southwest Steak Salad (No dressing, tortilla strips or cheese) & Bottle of water. WW Points = 12 (estimate)
I love this salad form Portos, a cuban restaurant right across the street from my office. Little tricky to figure out the exact points here as Portos doesn’t have their nutrition available but really only the avocado, steak and black beans count (and I think in my tally I actually over counted the beans. The salad comes standard (like a car) with tortilla strips, cheese and slathered in dressing. I ordered without the tortilla strips and cheese and asked for dressing on the side. When they brought it they forgot the dressing. For a brief second I was going to ask for it then decided I didn’t need it. Great salad
Apple Slices – WW Points = 1 (I say apples are 0, but according to the nutrition on the back of the bag they are 1.)
Mid afternoon snack of some apple slices. Same picture as yesterday, but it’ll save time to recycle pictures.
Subway 6″ Turkey on Wheat, Baked Lays Sour Cream & Onion Chips & Bottled Water. WW Points = 11 Points
Yeah, the chips add more to the point total but, as I said earlier, I wanted to eat a little more than yesterday and avoid that headache. So far so good.
ACTIVITY: 30 MINUTE RUN
My usual run through Toluca Lake. Love running through there. Quiet streets, not a lot of traffic. Shade. Great place to run. Also wanted to note that I usually run before my evening meal, I’m just listing activity last on these report pages.
So that’s day 2! Another day down. I’m realistic in that I know I won’t be losing a pound a day, but losing one off the bat sure feels like a good start. Got the ‘offer’ for the big creative thing I’ll be doing on October 21 (the reason I’m focusing on this slimming down), si it looks like it’s a go. Don’t want to announce too wildly until I get the contract in hand. And my passport. 🙂
With that tease I’ll bid you a goodnight!
Let the diet start tomorrow…
Okay. Enough is enough. If you want something done you have to make a change. The change starts now.
A little backstory. In 2004 I weighed 222 lbs. The day I saw that on the scale was the day I decided to make a change. Using Weight Watchers Online, over the course of a year and a half I was able to lose over 70 lbs. I actually got too skinny. To the point where I would get woozy every time I would stand up because I have low blood pressure. So I went from my lowest, 148 lbs, to about 152 lbs. And for several years after the day I reached 148 lbs, I was able to keep the weight off.
During the last year and a half, however, due to professional and personal stress and a lovely bout of depression, I have returned to my favorite friend…food. I now weigh over 170 lbs and I feel (and, to me , look) like crap. The clothes in my ‘new sizes’ I bought are tight and I cannot stand to look at myself in the mirror.
Last year during the advent calendar I tried to make myself a challenge to loose weight during the month of December, but it failed miserably. I feel part of the reason it did was because I ‘felt’ I was doing it publicly with the ‘Do you know the secret?’ thing but I really wasn’t doing it publicly because it was a secret (duh).
Recently, I’ve been feeling worse and worse about my ballooning weight and tonight I decided it all changes and it’s going to change publicly. Or at least, publicly through this blog. 🙂
Here’s my goal…by October 21, I want to lose as close to 10 pounds as possible. I think this is an attainable goal if I’m focused on eating right and exercising. It’s also a small goal. I’m not saying I want to lose 20 or 30 pounds. Just 10. And not even exactly 10, as close to it as I can get. 9 is got. So is 8. Lower than that…well, we’ll see. 1 or 2 pounds is NOT acceptable.
Why October 21? Because something is happening professionally then that I hope I’ll get to announce later this week. It’ll involve travel and I want to make sure I don’t have to go out and buy new clothes for this adventure.
How am I going to do it. First, exercise. I’m actually pretty good at this. I run daily. Just about everyday for 30 minutes. Sometimes more. I’m going to step that up and add back in the Wii Fit. Every. Single. Day. Just as I’ve committed myself to writing 500 words a day, I’ll commit to exercising right.
Exercise doesn’t do you any good though if you run and then eat a huge burrito with sour cream and guacamole. So the other component is eating right. A much harder thing to accomplish. I was thinking about it tonight and I think in order to accomplish part to I’ll have to become one of ‘those people.’ Those people who take pictures of their food.
So, starting tomorrow, I’m going to start taking a picture of everything I eat. I’m not going to clog my Twitter, Facebook or Instagram feeds with these though, they’ll all be posted right here. I’ll just do one post at the end of the day that shows everything I ate. It’ll be a picture of the food before I eat it, you jerk! 🙂 I’ll also post what exercise I did that day as well.
I promise to be honest. If I slip and get the , aforementioned, burrito, you’ll see a picture of it and you are welcome to publicly shame me. Also, every Wednesday, I’ll post my weight so we can see how I did.
Here’s to hoping that by making this public, it works. They say it takes 21 days to create a new habit. I’ve got 20. I’d better get going. But first, one last cookie. 😉
Thanks for reading!
2012 Year In Review
Goal Setting times 100,000,000 is what’s on tap for me as I start 2013.
As I mentioned before after reading the Art Of Non-Conformity and Amazing Things Will Happen I’ve decided to try some ‘radical goal setting’ for 2013. This is apart of that whole thing, an annual review. A look back at 2012. Below are some of the Highlights/Lowlights from what I’ve written in my journal about the year gone by.
2012 was a very, very rough year, so let’s start with the bright spots…
2012 – THE GOOD
– MY PROFESSIONAL CAREER 2012 –
- I performed in a string of Stuffed & Unstrung shows on the east coast as both puppeteer and host. This run of shows was highlighted by two very incredible events. The first being that Joel Hodgson came to see one of our shows. If you’re a reader of this blog you know that I’m a huge fan of Joel’s and to have him come to a show I was in was a treat. The other amazing thing was that Brian Henson told me after one show that his dad really would have liked one little bit I had done in the show that night. He said, “…my dad loved clean, simple, gags and that [bit] was just clean, simple and perfect.” Truly amazing.
- I puppeteered in a YouTube video for Nerdist and The Jim Henson Company annoucning the launch of the Nerdist YouTube Channel. The video featured special guest star! “Weird Al” Yankovic.
- Made a trip to New York City to help Leslie Carrara-Rudolph mount her show Wake Up Your Weird!.
- I was asked by The Jim Henson Company to host a special Q&A session with Jane Henson. It was a great evening and Jane was absolutely magic. The evening was recorded, but Henson seems to be dragging their feet on releasing it. Hopefully it’ll get out there someday.
- I shot a puppet ‘sizzle reel’ for Vin di Bona Productions (America’s Funniest Home Videos) called Whoops!. It was a lot of fun and I played one of the lead characters. Unfortunately, this one seems to be stuck in development hell so who knows what’s going to happen. I haven’t even seen the footage we shot.
- In August, I Touted for the first time with a puppet character named Uncle Interloper (pictured). By December 31, 2012, Uncle Interloper had over 4500 followers on Tout.com and he’s starred in three episodic Tout Series.
- I was asked to create an original audio drama piece to support the release of the book Empire State by Adam Christopher. The piece is called The Adventures of Johnny Ironclad. Special thanks to Mur Lafferty for making that possible.
- Produced & Released Throwing Toasters Favorites on CD and Digital Download.
- Produced & Released The Radio Adventures of Dr. Floyd – The Complete Season 7 on CD and Digital Download.
- I tought a few How To Podcast classes at Flappers Comedy Club in Burbank as part of their Flappers University.
- Continued to work as Associate Producer on Cinematic Titanic.
- Continued to work as an interviewer for Championship Wrestling from Hollywood and moved into a ringside interviewer position.
- Relaunched my old internet radio show Fill In The Blank on DementiaRadio.org.
- Recorded and edited the first couple episodes from a new audio drama project I’m working on. Keep an eye on SaturdayMorningMedia.com for info.
- Celebrated the 10th anniversary of opening Grant’s Advent Calendar online.
- Continued performing as Throwing Toasters, The Unusual Artistry of Walter Hanley & His Mother Radio Ventriloquists and with Improvatorium.
– TRAVEL 2012 –
- Great time traveling to the east coast with Stuffed & Unstrung, visiting Delaware, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, Washington D.C. & North Carolina.
- Spent a week at the O’Neil Theatre Center in Connecticut and then 10 days in New York helping rehearse for Leslie Carrara-Rudolph’s show. The O’Neil is an amazing place and I love the energy it has. As for New York, It was the longest time I’d ever spent in the Big Apple and it was truly a wonderful time. I enjoyed putting on the show, seeing the sights, going on walks and just chilling out on the couch in my room…er…I mean apartment that I subleased for my time there.
- Got to make it back to Klamath Falls, OR with my parent to visit with my mom’s side of the family.
- Made several trips to the San Francisco Bay Area to visit my parents.
– ENRICHMENT –
- Saw Cinematic Titanic Live
- Went to an amazing Spike Jones retrospective that was moderated by Dr. Demento.
- Saw How The West Was Won in full CINERAMA. It was amazing. I was crying after the first few minute of the Overture. It was just TOO MUCH GOOD STUFF.
- Got to see Joel Hodgson speak twice at Cinefamily. Both events were immensely inspirational and fired up the creative juices.
There’s a lot of really good things in the above list but the first thing on the list below really took all the wind out of my sails for most of the year.
2012 – THE BAD
– HEALTH –
- I have to start with the Health section because on June 18, 2012 I fell and fractured the humerus in my right arm (pictured). An injury that took me out of doing…anything. Puppets, guitar playing, even driving. On the good side, I didn’t need surgery and I was able to get my full range of motion back but it wiped me out.
- Coupled with the break I sort of delved deeper into (self-diagnosed) depression than I’ve ever been and this means I start eating! When you’re eating a lot and can’t exercise due to an injury, the pounds just magically appear out of nowhere.
- Even now, completely healed, I just can’t seem to avoid pigging out on the worst food imaginable. This has to change. It has to.
– MY PROFESSIONAL CAREER 2012 –
- The broken arm didn’t help things but 2012 had me feeling the worst about my professional career than ever. Every category: comedy, puppetry, writing just seemed to stink. Because of the broken arm, all my jobs dried up in the summer (usually when I get the most work) which left me scraping by at the end of 2012. Concerted job finding effort is underway, but it’s been very slow going.
- This year several times I had people ask me for ideas or I pitched ideas to people and they’d run with them and effectively cut me out of the loop so they got the glory and I got…nothing. Unfortunately, this has made me a little more reserved in giving my ideas to people.
As I look back I think that it’s sort of silly to have one event (broken arm) outweigh all that good, but that break hit me pretty hard. When you’re unable to do…anything.. it really packs a whallop. There is a lot of good and by the end of the year things were marginally looking up. I just didn’t end 2012 thinking, “Man that was a the best year ever!”
The good news is that 2013 can only be better by default.
Okay, that’s it for now. Stay tuned as soon we’ll have a look at my goals for 2013.
****
Thanks for reading this far.
****