Wednesday, November 17, 2010

wednesdays

i managed to get through a largely unplanned day without really blowing it diet wise

oatmeal 1 tbsp dark choc, 1/2 serving of appale sauce 1 tsp of honey

I think that 90% of nutritional science may be wrong in some form or another and 10% ab out and out lie

Monday, November 15, 2010

after radio silence we are back

I have been studying IN DEFENSE OF FOOD: AN EATER'S MANIFESTO by Michael Pollan, which calls much of what I am eating and have believed about diets and dieting into question.
I have kind of retreated into a holding pattern loosely based on the flat belly diet as I try to decipher what to do next.
Over the next 2 weeks I am going to come up with a plan for eating what I can afford, fix or prepare without performing some culinary miracles.

Also, I have adopted the "Chinese Medicine Model"  approach to eating that reverses when some food should be eaten. Grains like wheat should be consumed at dinner while "softer" grains like oats can be eaten earlier. What most people eat for lunch should be eaten at supper and vice-a-versa on supper

Thursday, November 11, 2010

day whatever- yep it's all sliding downhill from here

today is my day for dietary panic, the Lipid hypothesis has proven to be a fatal error in the history of this country, low-fat/low-cholesterol diets are abhorrently unhealthy and the FDA and the Nutritionists not only went awry but are not completely or openly admitting that they may have been too hasty




I know, I Know- you shouldn't believe EVERYTHING you read BUT the price of being a skeptic is bringing EVERYTHING into question. blind faith never worked for me.


I am reading IN DEFENSE OF FOOD by Michael Pollan.
The book asks questions that have been beginning that are really beginning to bother me. Questions like: Is Jerod really an authentic person who did the Subway diet on his own volition? Or is he a well placed and timed move on Subway's part to move them into being nutritional? 


I have been on a diet that broke my bank but I lost 8 pounds- then I froze at 341-342 and stuck for almost a month. 
My experience with diets is the same almost universally the same- initial weight loss and then nothing. I cannot rejump start it- i have tried. I am not giving up but it now makes me doubt that I can ever get it going down again.


Today I wonder if "diet" isn't what is killing me. All I know is that I am going to eat small portions of foods I can recognize as whole foods, avoid anything that looks or is imitation- like cheese, sugar, processed food or margarine. I am going to continue with excercise and not go on a binge of junk food that will mirror the despair I am feeling over dieting 

Monday, November 8, 2010

day nine- sunday was an off day

oatmeal & dark choc for breakfast  220,
ditto for snack   220
work out at rush calorie burn est 250

work out harder than expected, man it is so cold.

Friday, November 5, 2010

Day four

bear naked granola and almond milk with almonds 310 for breakfast.

It is soooooooo cold and my mother thinks I am going to go walk

Thursday, November 4, 2010

day three

Breakfast: Oatmeal 100, with slivered almonds 50 and toll house semi sweet 70, and 1/2 servings of dark european 95, total 305

Lunch: Open face sandwich,wheat bread 100, mayo 45, turkey 4ozz 120, cheese gouda 60, horse radish mustard o, olives 45.  1/2 serving nuts  40 total 395

weight  341.2

Wednesday, November 3, 2010

the rest of day two

snack was 1 serving trail mix 220, dark chocolate 190.

workout min burn 419

supper
pork tenderlloin120, yukon potato 70, soy based butter spray 0, salad greens, mushrooms, 1 tbsp mayo 45, olive oil 45
1 cup ice cream breyers 200


I lost 1.5 lbs  so far since last weight in making me 341.4 lbs

Tuesday, November 2, 2010

Day two

Breakfast,2 eggs 140 on English muffin 100 with soy based butter spray 0. Handful of nuts 150. total 390.
Today, I return to the Rush- had elective surgery to remove a fatty tumor from my forehead which I elected to wear with many "why is there a bump on your head?" questions and jokes over the last 12 years.

Lunch will be another scrumptious open face sandwich, slice of bread 100, mayo 1 tsp 45, cheese 70, 2.5 oz of deli meat 120, horseradish mustard 0. 340 and a mufa- possibly avocado

One of the most frustrating things about diets is finding a consensus on calorie intake a day- oddly for aman of my size many diets insist I should consume between 2500 to 3000 calories a day- which is a whole lot of food- diet based food that is. Some argue that a dieters input should not go lower than 1200 while others says 1500. opinions and "quoted" research speculation abound.
The general consensus is that if you wish to lose weight then you should eat is 1500 to begin a diet and 2000 to continue at a healthy rate.
I am averaging 1500 to 2000 a day since few meals fall into even numbers.

 if you eat to little your body goes into starvation mode- which according to the argument will store fat while feeding on other tissue especially muscles. I found this hard to believe- because most people I know are not starving- but then I looked at starving people in the African peninsula and took notice of distended bellies versus almost muscle-less bodies. So, for me, the argument stands..

Monday, November 1, 2010

the rest of the day

snack- tuna and pimento cheese mini sandwich and peppers with dip 200
Lunch was an open face sandwich with 1 tsp of olive oil mayo 22, 1 slice wheat bread 100, 1 1/2 slices of cheese 70, 3 oz of turkey, 5olives 120. horseradish mustard
snack was dark chocolate, macadamias, cashews, almonds and nature bar 300
supper was salad greens, mushrooms, cucumber, 2 tsp mayo 45, olive oil 45, and pork tenderloin 150,

Day One, not the first day of my diet but my first day that I blogged about it

I ate one serving of cashews & Macadamian nuts 210 calories- this is a dose of MUFAs (mono unsaturated fatty acids) which is according to most studies a good healthy fat that helps you lose weight.
I ate one bowl of old fashioned oat meal with 2 tsp of brown sugar- 150 calories for the oatmeal, 15 calories per spoon full for sugar      Total Calories: 390.   Limit per meal: 400.

Lunch has me stumped at this point, Now I have to go shoot a funeral. video not unload with heavy artillery.

Mike Mumbles' Adventures in Weightlosss

What will follow is a day by day post in my attempt to lose 50 lbs. If I cannot pull it off- the only option I feel I have left is to somehow get the gastric bypass surgery.
I feel like I have been dieting my whole life. I am one of those fools who thought he was fat even when he was thin. I was actually thin and out of shape- just sedentary by nature preferring books and movies to going out and doing things. I played AD&D for WAY TOO LONG- finally gave it up in my early 30's. About the same  time, I looked in the mirror and realized that I had become my nightmare- I was fat.
Over the next 6 years, I would engage in America's new favorite pastime, Dieting. No?  I am sure others will disagree, America's favorite pastime is Football. I would beg to differ. Dieting is the most published, studied, and participatory  thing almost all Americans have done, are doing or soon will be doing even if it is just thinking about doing. I can go on and on about this and I probably will but for now let's just say that I joined or rather rejoined the fray.
Now I won't claim to have been on every diet. I have been on some of the most famous diets though, Phen-Phen, LA Weightloss, South Beach, Herbalife, Atkins, Canadian Airmen's, and a slew of magazine, newspaper and even one ill fated web-based diet where I treid to give up wheat. The last one is making its rounds via web ads- it's the one where there is this sketch of this fat then thin woman announcing that you can lose weight via this one little trick. Of course if you really want to know the one little trick and how to pull it off you will need to either backtrack all the info she and her partner gathered and implemented- in which they lost weight or you can skip it and just fork over $40 for their book. Neither of these people fall into the obese, or extremely overweight category.
The one thing I have noticed is that the only people who were extremely overweight and lost it, seem to have sold their souls to a diet plan or a certain restaurant chain. Yes, HE was obese and then lost it- but you cannot convince me that all he ever ate was tuna subs with no cheese for all the meals or some such. It's possible that he came up with this by himself and pulled it off but it looks to convenient for Subway's business model..
Of course, the universal truth is that almost all diet plans work- they will get you to lose weight IF you follow them to exactness. Most rely on a calorie count per day- they may simplify it like Weight Watchers down to points or over complicate it like LA Weightloss with all kinds of terms, diet books where you track what you consume with bubbles you color in. Most cost too much money and many many of them are unhealthy. I believe that I have broken my body because of those that were so abnormal that I ate unmentionable things to lose weight.
In closing, let me differentiate between the 2 dieting extremes.
1. Dieting extreme to lose weight so that you fit into the ideal weight class of sexy, desirable, fit people who only exist in health clubs like the Rush or magazines, movies, TV and photoshop.
2. Dieiting extreme in order to avoid certain death. Many of the real American obese fall into this category.

I fall into neither, although I have been in both.
When I was in my teens I belonged to the first extreme. I thought that my "baby fat" minor flab made me fat. So I worried about it not knowing that the chips were stacked against me. I had several inherent conditions that were largely unknown at the time that would make it next to impossible stop the rapid decline of my fitness and diet. I will devote a blog or two to them next.But it is those conditions that put me in extreme number 2.

Most Americans do not fall into either extreme. Many Americans are however more overweight than the media venues portray- just look at the magazines at the checkout and then look around you and take note how fat people generally are. We are fat, us Americans. Especially in certain regions like Tennessee. We are not morbidly obese, but many me carry around to much bell fat while the women have it riding their hips and buttocks and thighs.

Should we all lose the weight- the extra weight?

Yes, but for our overall health and wellbeing, not so we can be more desirous to others or match that photoshopped actor or model.

This is my story however and it may be yours.

what follows is a daily account of my dieting and thoughts and feelings about it and the whole phenomena.
 A couple of things to note- I will be typing this on multiple computers including my netbook with its cramped and crappy keyboard so there probably be errors- live with it, I know that I am.