All posts in category Nutrition

Binging Part II


Through a lot of work with Eeks, I started to manage to get my binging under control. The funny thing is that I did it without ever really knowing I was doing it. That’s just the path Eeks pulled me down, nudging me, pushing me, cheering me on.

How I began to overcome the problem – for starters, habitual bingers binge whenever the opportunity is available. They can spot a Chinese buffet at a hundred yards – as could I. If the wind is in their favor, they can call it even further. Letters like AYCE jump out at them. They eat a lot and therefor have to spend a lot of money on food, so good discounts are what they live for.

I made my first step to remove binging from my life by deciding that I was done with buffets. Mind you, if that was a life commitment of mine to never eat at a buffet again, I’ve surely failed. Not just then, but now too. I took my girlfriend out to one recently – she loves sushi and there was a new sushi buffet in the area. The price was about what I consider decent for a sushi buffet – if you’re enjoying AYCE sushi for less than 20 bucks… enjoy your ptomein.

But I made the commitment to put off buffets for a while, and to attend no more than one a month – that way if someone I knew wanted to go out to one, I didn’t have to say “Oh no, I couldn’t possibly…” This is important because some friends of mine and I get together a few times a year at one of our favorites restaurants, an Indian buffet near Voorhees, NJ. I discovered it over half a decade ago and it quickly became one of my favorite places. As it was my first Indian resutarant, I have judged all other Indian establishments I have eaten at by them. Very few match up.

And the price at this place? Amazing, about ten bucks a person. I don’t know how they afford to do that, they put out very good food, well made, tasty and filling. I’m sure a lot of people don’t do what I used to do there and get their fill, still most people leave feeling full, and it is an unwise diner that leaves without chewing a handful of the fennel seeds, usually mixed with candy, at the door. It helps with digestion and keeps one from being waked with pain in the night. They taste like “Good ‘n Plentys”.

I knew I’d want to continue to frequent that place, and that there were a few other locations that were worth visiting, but I knew I had to limit it. Once a month. Sometimes I don’t follow that rule as much any more, I’ve even done two such locations in a week, but I’m very good in these moments. I can eat at a buffet without gorging myself now. The temptation to really go all out is rarely there anymore.

At the sushi buffet I’d mentioned, I felt that temptation for a moment. I had eaten only a little that day and decided to go ahead and have a bit more than I usually might, since there was still plenty of hours to go before I’d be getting to sleep. So we had a nice time and I tried a great number of rolls and dishes. We also had a plate put together for us at the grill – a couuple of clams, a couple of shrimp, a pike fish, etc… really nice stuff.

On the last plate, I was pretty much done and my girlfriend felt like she suddenly couldn’t eat anymore. I tend to leave a little on my plates when I’m finished – an old habit from my binging days – force yourself to eat a little less by sending some of it back. But here was almost a whole plate of food. Part of me was worried that they would make a stink about us leaving food on the plate and got a little worried.

It was a false flag. If they do get pissy, all I have to do is tell them to charge us extra. They aren’t going to charge much, especially if you’re nice about it, and everyone leaves happy. I asked them if they’d care to, they smiled and said of course not. I tipped the guy a little extra, I was just barely full and it was worth it not to feel the need to stuff myself.

By removing these activities from my life though, for a while, at least, and abstaining altogether from such locations for at least 6 months, perhaps more, I helped myself to remove some obstacles in my life. But now that this relief was not so freely available, I found myself turning to it in times of need.

As I managed to get over my use of binge eating to deal with the things that bothered me, I found myself succumbing to panic attacks. It took some time getting used to and learning how to deal with them. Instead of having some comforting action to help me deal with my problems, they instead sneak up on me, usually in the form of something I never saw coming. But time has taught me how to handle this, how to remove myself from the situation when it is required and cope with what is happening.

Still there were times when I needed to binge, but I was trying to avoid that! I was trying to do it right, dammit! Trying not to give in, trying not to fail AGAIN! And you go crazy. Forcing yourself not to binge makes you a little crazy. You feel the need to binge because eating is a comfort and binge eating is a great stress release. By resisting, you aren’t allowing yourself the release you need and you’re letting it build up more.

They say it gets worse before it gets better. They say a lot of things, don’t they? Calm before the storm, worse before it gets better. Those are essentially opposites. Yet we’ve seen examples of both in most of our lives. In my case, it really started to get worse, once it got better, and once I got past that, it just kept getting better.

I got to the point that when I would binge, it wouldn’t be nearly as bad as it had once been, and I’d not really worry about it, just start the next day, ready to overcome! But sometimes I would eat late and overdo it a bit, without really trying to. I’d feel stuffed to the gills and I’d recently spent an awful lot of time learning about bulimia, it became a real alternative to letting the food sit in my gut all night.

I suddenly found myself giving serious consideration to barfing it all up. But because I didn’t want to have yet another compounded problem to deal with, I resisted. That’s how I see a lot of this – compounded problems. That’s why they are so difficult to shake. That’s why there are people who are multiple hundreds of pounds overweight and have been for years, and seem to just be getting bigger and bigger! They aren’t lazy! They don’t want to die! They want out, they want a lifeline, they want help and at the right moments in their lives, they’ll do damn near anything to get it! They are dealing with compounded problems that haven’t even been publicly defined yet! And the chances that these problems will be soon aren’t likely because it’s RUDE. It’s rude to talk about fat people. They have feelings too! But the more we talk, the more we can learn, if we do so with the desire to learn.

We have these problems that once started out very simply, very easily. But they snowballed with time and have intertwined with other problems, giving us multiple issues to wade through, issues that are seemingly connected with so much in our lives, and a great deal of it, we don’t usually understand. And so we’re stuck, following the same lousy patterns, ending up with the same lousy results. Usually it’s fad diets.

And purging would be compounding my problem. What made it unacceptable was that it would be compounding a problem that I was finally starting to get some control over. I could see marked improvement! This is a humiliating thing to share (which is part of why fat people aren’t usually honest with the rest of the world, it’s humiliating work) but it needs to be shared, and I’m the one to do it (it IS my blog, after all) – I’ve occasionally compared the type of binge eating that I engaged in when I reached 560 pounds to the fattening of a duck for foie gras. They stick a tube down the duck’s throat and pump it full of gavage. That’s how I see the way I used to eat. Disgusting, isn’t it. I live with that.

By cutting down on the binging I was finally allowing my esophagus (I only assume that I caused it damage, it may be true, it might not) to heal and shrink back down (I hope) to a normal width. Now I’m going to redamage it by hurling everything back up, along with some nice, nasty bile and other digestive juices? What sense does that make?

I thank god I beat myself up over that. I consider it the kindest thing I ever did to myself. I count my blessings that avoided compounding my problem with that one and have the greatest sympathy for anyone that ever suffered bulimia, because I looked it in the eye myself. It was scary.

It wasn’t easy, especially during those times when I felt like if I didn’t make myself puke, my body would surely toss my cookies for me. I remember kneeling before the porcelain god, sweating and praying I wouldn’t throw up.

So the big question – HOW DID I STOP BINGING? I finally had to give in. Fail. Fart around. Give it up for now, I actually need it. As I described earlier, my binges usually went like this – I tried not to binge, and tried not to binge, and tried not to binge, but sooner or later, it would become too convenient to binge, and I’d say “Oh, screw it, I’m gonna eat whether I like it or not!”

So finally, I’d chow down; man, I just pigged out. When it was done, I’d bask in the afterglow, endorphins released, and I’d just enjoy the aftermath of my binge.

Then I’d feel disgusted. “Well, you did it again, nasty naughty-word (gotta keep it clean). I’d go through all kinds of beating myself up.

The first thing I gave up was this abusive practice of beating myself up (though, as admitted, that was the thing I needed the most, when it came to purging). Each and every time I would put myself through that self-upbraiding, deriding myself as if it would have been possible for me not to binge in the first place. So I had to forgive myself. Slowly, my after-binge beat-downs decreased. I made myself be nicer to myself when I came down from the binge high. I reminded myself that I had to binge. It’s part of the pattern I’ve entered into. I’d tell myself that with hard work, I’d find my eating problems reduced in just a month’s time!

I started working on reducing the size of the binges as well. I usually went to McDonald’s or some fast food joint with a drive-thru for my binge, so I paid attention to how much I purchased, which was generally about equal to what I ate. As I got an idea of how big my binges were, I began reducing the sizes, slowly. And each time I binged, I reminded myself, during the come-down, that yes, I’d binged, but I hadn’t done so as badly as before. I ate “this much” less!

In addition, I began throwing something out before I even began, I’d remove it first, then wipe it on the ground or something, to ensure I wouldn’t eat it. That made my binge even less, and when it was over, there was even less for me to beat myself up over.

I knew I was onto something when I binged one night, and instead of beating myself up, thought to myself “Well, that wasn’t so bad, and I can always start over again tomorrow!”

That’s how I stopped binging.

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by gendjlee on June 12, 2013  •  Permalink
Posted in Diet, Eating, Food, Nutrition, Weight Loss
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Posted by gendjlee on June 12, 2013

http://exercisedammit.com/2013/06/12/binging-part-2/

Diet


So, I’d posted just a little bit ago, basically saying that there probably wouldn’t be another post (the one I’d promised you at least) for a while, but here it is! See that, things are looking up already!

In my last article, “The Soft Re-Opening”, I mentioned a number of updates. The two I’ll focus on between this article and the next are diet and exercise. Of course, these are the very foundation upon which weight loss is built. Good health and fitness set upon the structure of diet and exercise.

This article will contain the first, diet. As indicated in the update, I want to go back a year and work our way to now, highlighting successes and failures, ideas tried, etc…

A year ago, Thanksgiving of 2011 had just passed and Christmas was on its way. I had started losing real weight (more than the typical water weight), which blew my mind. I didn’t think I had it in me. I’d really given up on ever losing weight without surgery. I hadn’t lost the first hundred yet, mind you, in fact, I’m not sure I was out of the “500 club” (how I refer to weighing 500 or more pounds; right now, I’m trying to get out of the 400 club) yet, but what I had lost was truly encouraging.

Still I overate at Thanksgiving, not quite as bad as years past, but I had a fill. I want to say the same thing happened Christmas. The truth is my eating habits weren’t much better. I was eating breakfast on most days, and given which week it was, I probably was struggling with recording what I was eating. I still have that struggle, but I’ve gotten better at it.

Even then, with the shoddy, inconsistent journaling that I was doing, it was having an effect – I was seeing on paper what I was eating. Even when I wrote it down from memory and forgot things, I still got a good idea, and having strings of days and occasionally weeks where almost all of it is there gives a VERY good idea of what one’s diet is like. It’s like giving yourself tools. You could walk into Harbor Freight and fill a cart with tools you need around your house and walk right out with them, just skip past the checkout lines – it’s a shopping spree! So why not give yourself the tools? I still have to ask myself that sometimes, when I’ve let myself get behind a day on the journaling.

I had a little splurge last night – a year ago a splurge might have involved a buffet or a discount at some restaurant, maybe Denny’s or Bennigan’s (yes, only the finest restaurants, thank you), or Breakfast with Becker at the TA truck stop/All You Can Eat diner. Maybe just a call to Carmelo’s in Bridgeton for a cheesesteak (garlic) stromboli (the thing’s a honkin’ monster!) with a couple of appetizers (variety!), something cola (mix garlic and cola and I can let out {oral} gastric emissions that will curl your nose hairs. And now you know that. Condolences.), etc…

Last night, I went to Bennigan’s with my friend Mark and his lovely girlfriend Kathleen. Kat had a burger, Mark ordered a Turkey O’Toole (sliced turkey, cheese, a little dijon on a pretzel roll. Quite nice), and I ordered a bricked rocket steak salad (with LOTS of nice green leafies and a light balsamic). Mark and I also ordered fajitas and shared them. I let myself eat more than I normally would, but still took home fajitas and salad. We also had some tortillas with salsa before dinner, and I had a slice of carrot cake after.

All told, not an unhealthy meal, except maybe the carrot cake at the end, and even then, only because it was as late at night as it was. But last year it would have been a lot worse, and before I’d started working with Eeks? *shiver*

I slowed down on the blog around the time my weight loss slowed down, which was late Winter, approaching Spring (I think). Around that time, I was still struggling with the journaling and really just starting to find some success with diet. One thing I’d learned from all this recording is that there really wasn’t enough consistency in my eating. There wasn’t a lot of balance either. I was eating breakfast consistently. That made a huge difference. But it wasn’t enough. I finally decided that I wanted to try three meals a day. I could eat at other times, if hungry, but I wanted three meals a day, morning, mid-day and evening.

And each of those meals would consist of a serving from each food group. You know, a balanced diet, almost! It’s funny, how simple this ended up being. I never really got that whole food pyramid business, which is now something completely different, thanks to government by Monty Python (who would probably do a better job – wouldn’t you all rather see Johnny Cleese up on the supreme court?).

The food schemes had always been complicated because it all boils down to a serving. What’s a serving? Depends on who you ask. Notice that the food companies change serving sizes to suit their needs – their needs being you feeling secure enough about the nutritional values to buy the product.

So what exactly IS a serving? I decided that I couldn’t be bothered with that drivel. May be the best thing I ever did. Look, I can figure out a basic idea of what a serving is – so can you! A slice of bread? 1 bread serving! An apple, 1 fruit serving! Yogurt – whatever seems reasonable to you! My yogurt servings are smaller than what’s recommended on the Fage containers. Simply because I don’t feel like I need a damn cup or two of yogurt, a few spoons will do (mind you, in a mini container, the serving is MUCH smaller, you see what I mean?).

So I call the shots on the servings, and each meal basically has one of each. I did that, and it was MUCH easier to track what I was eating. The only trouble I had was remembering the 5 food groups. Of course there’s fruit, vegetable and meat (which I just refer to as “protein”), but even now cereals and dairy tend to, at least momentarily, elude me.

But you can write them down. In fact, I highly recommend it – make a list  make 5 lists – one for each food group, with foods that you like from each one. There’s a solid starting point. All you have to do to each a nice balanced meal then is go through each food group at a time and pick what you want. Done-ski.

Once you’ve established that for a week or so, it’s time to start playing with it – maybe you have two slices of toast in the morning, and skip bread at lunch or dinner. Of course, if you decided to have two protein, you don’t have to skip anything! Same for fruit and vegetables!

Then you can get into splitting up the meals, so that you’re eating something more like 6 meals than three. I’d start with breakfast. This is how it went and somehow, following this practice, I came to the point where, granted, it’ll still help if I continue, but I really don’t NEED to record what I eat. I don’t enjoy crap foods the way I used to.

Somewhere along the way I learned something else – about my stomach. I splurged late one evening. Started eating and had a hard time stopping. I’m sure I set off some kind of trigger and there I was. Well, I noticed that I was starting to feel full. It had been a while since I’d felt full – that’s a good thing.

Now here I was feeling full, which probably meant I should stop eating soon, but I didn’t. Suddenly I was in pain. Up until then, my stomach had been shrinking down from it’s normal, engorged size. And I decided to fill it right back up. The pain I felt, I soon realized, was the stomach organ stretching.

Suddenly, I felt like throwing up, and on two different levels. I’ve come to understand bulimics over the past year or so. I actually really get it. As I sat there that night, in pain, I seriously thought about throwing my fingers down my throat and letting it all back up. I put it down there, now I want it back, is that so wrong? I didn’t want to deal with the consequences that all that food was going to put on me!

Not only did I want it out, but I actually felt like I might throw up whether I wanted to or not. That put my head over the toilet. I actually considered trying, at some point, to induce the vomiting. I was scared. I knew I’d like it. I’ve been sick enough that vomiting has given me relief before, and I knew it would give me overwhelming relief then.

I had to take responsibility for what I’d done. I didn’t really want to vomit, because if I did, whether I’d made it happen or not, I’d enjoy some part of it. I’d want to do it again. I’d start looking at things a certain way – where I can eat what I want and just vomit it out. I’ve got enough “f’ing” problems.

So I tried very hard not to vomit, though I kept my head over the toilet. Swallowed back, breathing exercises, everything I’ve ever taught myself to avoid vomiting. I succeeded. I showed myself something important – that I’d take the consequences of my binging and splurging, over using vomit as a “get out of jail free card”. I’d deal with any weight gain and just keep hacking at it until I’d lost that weight again.

I began to look at it as a road traveled. For most of my life, I enjoyed the feeling of my stomach stretching. I’d go to a buffet, look it over, say “Yes!” and waddle out of there feeling so… euphoric, relaxed, my stomach felt like it was in love with me. These are some awfully frightening words, when I think about it. I LOVED the feeling of my stomach stretching out, and managed to ignore that this is exactly what was happening.

Even worse, I LOATHED the feeling of my stomach shrinking. I had to come to terms with that too, that night. That awful, squirking, skulking, whining feelingin the pit of your stomach, that you get when you’re REALLY REALLY hungry, is your stomach shrinking (I think). And I’ve avoided that all my life. I hated it.

Now, mind, I still don’t really LIKE it. But I embrace it. If I feel it, I don’t immediately start looking for food, I determine if I need any. Can I wait, or am I being too active to risk running through my nutrients?

So the path – most of my life walking in one direction, suddenly I’m walking in a different direction. I’m going the other way, and occasionally, I’m going to get sidetracked here and there. It would be foolish to hope for the impossible. So I have to deal with that, and the most important thing is how I deal with it – do I keep going or do I turn around again and head in the proper direction? I can make up a small loss.

So, to help keep unnecessary backsliding to a minimum, I still keep a food journal, and I’m better about writing in it, a lot better. Still not perfect, but no one is. The funny thing is, now that I have that taken care of, there’s still plenty in the food world I need to work on. For one thing, I need to wrap my head around calories. I can keep track of my calories if I get a better handle on it. Again, I’m going to need to apply certain principles, like not getting too overworked about precision. But I’ll get it.

Next article I’ll be talking about exercise, which is what I’m off to do right now!

by gendjlee on December 8, 2012  •  Permalink
Posted in Diet, Eating, Food, Goals, Health, Nutrition
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Posted by gendjlee on December 8, 2012

http://exercisedammit.com/2012/12/08/diet/

The Soft Re-Opening


I can’t say exactly what I’ve been waiting for. There’s plenty to update… plenty of ideas to write about. I think that’s why I stopped keeping this blog up, I had lost some weight but factors kept getting in the way, a lot of which had to with physical limitations. Those still exist, and are still disabling, but there has been a lot of improvement.

This first new blog post will be in the form of updates. There’s a lot to tell, but I’d like to get it all out first, in a series, then maybe later I’ll expound. Also, see the bottom for a great recipe!

Update #1 – I believe I’d mentioned that I was fighting to receive disability. I won. Rather, the state appointed lawyer won. A few months ago I received the bulk of my back benefits. This has made things far simpler. There’s still a lot that I have to take care of, and I’m laughably far from financially solvent, but at least there’s a little more stability.

Update #2 – My diet has improved drastically. I’ll go in to the past at another time, but currently my problem seems to be not eating enough, as opposed to eating too much. Also, I’m eating the right kinds of foods. I’m sure I make mistakes here and there, but they’re far more minor than they used to be. From here on in, it might be smooth sailing as far as diet goes, a few tweaks here and there. I still have to understand calories better, because I’m still not counting them. That’s probably my biggest obstacle right now.

Update #3 – I have finally begun a real exercise program. I guess I finally determined that the problem in my exercise equation was me. A lot of times, the best option for simplifying your problems is to remove yourself from the equation. Here I saw that I had no idea what a good exercise program was, and that I’m not very good at holding myself accountable when it comes to exercise. Furthermore, it’s hard to be accountable to Eeks, particularly in this area, because we’ve never met.

I took a good chunk of the money I received from disability and purchased a two-year membership at Anytime Fitness. It’s actually a three-year membership, because they give you an extra year for free, when you pay in full. I also signed up to work with a personal trainer once a week, who helps me out more than that, when I’m working out while he’s there. So whether I work out during the week or not, I have to see this guy, once every week. Maybe I could skip a week, sure. But the next week, then what? I’ve already paid for the gym membership. I’m going to have to face the music.

Being accountable to someone else allows me to put more focus on what it is I’m supposed to be doing. Again, I’ll save the details for later, but I will say now that my abilities have improved already, including something I never thought possible – I kind of enjoy using a treadmill!

Update #4 (finally): My weight. When I stopped writing I was around 440 lbs, I think. It went up, I noticed (after not having used the scale for a week or so, I imagine), to a little over 470. I tightened up on what I was eating and looked for opportunities to exercise, even if just stretching my legs. If anyone invited me to a gym or to walk somewhere, and I was up to the task, I went.

My weight went back down to 440. From there I relaxed the eating slightly, but kept the activity up as best I could. Fall came and I got rather busy. It didn’t hurt matters that my disability money had come in and I could actually enjoy my yearly trip to Ocean City, among other things. I was still fairly active, but I really relaxed on my eating.

This time my weight didn’t balloon so high though. I got back up to around 460, and used a notebook I had picked up along with a lot of organizational materials I bought with the disability money. It’s a simple notebook, one of those black and white (marble design) numbers from mead. 100 double-sided sheets of blue lined paper with the red margin. It has my name on the front (no, my name’s not Mead), along with the date I started using it.

Inside I keep a record of what I eat on one side of the sheet, and a log of any exercise I did on the other sheet. I started working out at the gym, 3 days a week. Since then I’ve increased it to 4 days. My weight not only dropped back down to 440, it’s been dropping off and on ever since. It was one of the last days of October when I purchased my membership. A few days later I started working with Mike.

As of this morning the scale read 416 pounds. That’s not only 144 lbs in total, that’s also 24 pounds in 5 weeks! And we’re still going. Today marks the end of my two-day break from the gym. The muscles in my legs are nagging at me to get back on it. Shame for them, they won’t get worked until Tuesday, except for some cardio between now and then. I really want to let them mend some.

I’ve had a little trouble the past few weeks with overdoing things. We’ll cover that soon, too. Expect another post sometime around Wednesday (I hope) going into detail with at least one of these updates! I hope to post on all my may days off from the gym (Sat, Sun and Wed).

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                      

RECIPE!

So, here’s a new feature I want to introduce. We’ll bring back the other features shortly, but for now I’m going with this.

Crunchy Salmon Wraps

I don’t know how many this feeds, I don’t have measurements for you either.

We start with two tortillas. Any kind that’s flour based will do. Multi-grain are better. You want to avoid corn.

I used a spinach tortilla and a sun-dried tomato tortilla – tasty and colorful!

On the night previous we made roasted salmon for dinner. We took filets of salmon and present thickly cut chunks of garlic into the salmon. There were some curry seasonings, I think, and each filet was wrapped in foiled, then thrown in the oven.

It came out wonderful and I used one leftover filet for this recipe.

I first heated the tortillas – my favorite way to do this is to turn on the stove top range. This will work best with a gas or electric range. Either the coils or the fire warms and slightly cooks the tortilla (as long as you keep on top of it) it takes a little skill and I’m not sure I’ve heated a tortilla any other way in quite a few years.

After that, I took some humus with “Tuscan herbs”, which equates out to some reddish/greenish mess in the center of the humus. It’s a tasty mess, though. I slathered the humus onto the warm tortillas and followed that with was freshly washed raw kale and romaine lettuce.

I’m going to be writing about kale pretty soon here. I’ve decided to give it a try and like it. Everything I’ve read so far seems to sing its praises, so I’ll be writing about it soon enough.

I also threw in a few raw string beans, for extra crunch, before breaking up the salmon filet and divvying it up between the two wraps.

That’s really all it took. One average sized filet of salmon with plenty of garlic pressed into the side (or however you like it), however much raw kale and romaine lettuce you like, a reasonable amount of humus and two tortillas. Plenty of protein, nutrients and solid calories, and it’s relatively easy to make.

Have fun!

by gendjlee on December 2, 2012  •  Permalink
Posted in Diet, Eating, Exercise, Fitness, Food, Goals, Health, Nutrition, Weight Loss
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Posted by gendjlee on December 2, 2012

http://exercisedammit.com/2012/12/02/the-soft-opening/

Triggerburger, anyone?


Alternate title – GREASE IS THE WORD.

I’m glad to be reviving this blog; I’ve missed writing it. What’s more, I really felt in control while I was writing it. I think it actually helped me to lose weight, something I really haven’t done much of since I stopped writing.

When I take it in that sense, it seems that this blog is my support group. Hey, maybe that’s it! You guys are my support group! I know the ones I’ve been to before weren’t very helpful. But you know, I noticed one common denominator  – when folks aren’t doing so good, they don’t like to show up. And that’s usually when they need support the most! Weight Watcher’s – you know when those folks go off their diet, they go off the reservation too!

They always tell themselves that they’ll come back after they lose some more weight. Some of them go through with that promise, and they either lose some weight and come back, or they don’t, and they don’t. I don’t want to be the one that doesn’t.

So, what’s happened since the last writing (not counting the update to the main page)? Well, as mentioned I had to take about a month off of the “program”. Of course, there really isn’t a set program. It changes all the time, I think that’s a necessity. That’s why the average “diet” doesn’t work. The closer you are to rigidity in routine, the more intangible will be your success.

I believe I made an update shortly after I stopped posting regularly, explaining why. After both Mom and Marcie were able to make it upstairs, their reliance on me was lessened greatly. However, by that time, the damage had been done. I hadn’t been exercising, or even stretching every day! I kept a focus on eating well, and was going strong for a short while, but little by little weaknesses were triggered.

I don’t really regret that, because I learned a lot about my triggers, for example – that I have them, and what they are. If you’re wondering what I mean by triggers – I’m talking about a food, which – for starters, is hard to resist. Pizza is one. Just the smell of it! Now, pizza, itself, isn’t really so bad, especially thin crust! You’ve got a small amount of bread (sorry, Sicilian fans), some tasty (albeit salty, and sometimes sugary!) pizza sauce, and part-skim mozzarella cheese. If you stick with vegetable toppings (mushrooms and onions!) you’re doing even better.

But there’s grease involved. It gets in my mouth, my nose, and even my fingers! And I have a hard time stopping at just a slice or two. There’s not a lot to be proud of in saying that at one time I could take out an extra-large pie on my own. Hell, I could do that now if I let myself. At one point I could have taken out two with little trouble. So, I guess it makes sense that just being around it makes me want to EAT.

Even at my most disciplined attempt – eating two slices and no more – guess what’s for breakfast? 2 more slices. And lunch? Maybe three more! Until it’s gone, that’s what I eat. Since it’s awakening these cravings in me, I end up trading too much pizza for two slices, followed by hours of temptation to stuff my face. Don’t think I never give in and stuff away, either.

Cheesesteak – same deal. Lamb, even! I mean, who would think lamb? But lamb is pretty fatty, and that means grease! Of course, around the time I went off-program, Rita’s Water Ice Opened up. If you’re not from around here, you might not know Rita’s. Heck, you might not know Italian water ice. But you’ve probably heard of Hawaiian shaved ice, or something like it. Basically it’s very small bits of ice (granular) mixed with some flavored syrup. Rita’s is supposed to be a little closer to natural and it tastes delicious!

Well, Dad decided that he just can’t resist some Rita’s, and who does he send to get it? Me. So I was good. I went, picked up the water ice, brought it home. None for me. I’m just making the run. But he started wanting it every day, so every day I’m running out there and picking up orders for him and everyone else in the house. Well, you know, every day they had flavors I hadn’t tried yet, and they sounded so good! Like Red Velvet Cake! How does one turn that down?

Of course, they have free samples. Well, that’s a great way to try a flavor without sinning too much, right? So I did that for a few days, but then I got to thinking, how would that flavor taste in a Blendini (basically a treat that combines water ice, soft serve ice cream, and candy), or a Misto (water ice milkshake). And after I’d eaten something like that, I was far more likely to binge. Another trigger.

Not only did I learn to identify many triggers, I learned how to deal with them. For example, if I’m going to eat something greasy, I need to wash my hands and wash out my mouth. If it’s extra greasy, like pizza, the kind of greasy that doesn’t just get into my hands and mouth but my nose and my skin – I can feel it! And it makes me WANT TO EAT! Well, when that happens, I need to wash my face to, especially the outside of my nose. The grease fills my pores and I can feel the blockages. I don’t know why, but it makes me want to eat.

So, foods like that take some preparation. I need to plan on how much I’m going to eat, and make sure I won’t have any access to leftovers. I also need to make sure that I have what I need to clean myself up afterward. Not just any soap either. I don’t even care about anti-bacterial at this point – I want grease cutting. Palmolive is my friend!

Not only do I have to scrub the pores in my nose, and other parts of my face, even with slightly greasy foods, if my fingers did the touching, then my nails need the scrubbing. Any old nail scrubber just won’t do either. I need something that’ll get UNDER THOSE NAILS! This is no time to be shy! I went to the hardware store and picked up a tile grout scrubber. This looks like a big toothbrush with thick, clear bristles that are used to clean, and in some cases, rip the old grout out between tiles. You know, the hard, cement like kind. That gets almost anything out from under my nails, and they feel fresh and clean. My cravings are behind me.

As for cleaning out my mouth, one way to do it is to drink water with what I’m eating. Now, when I’m eating pizza, I prefer to drink soda. They just pair so well. In fact, the only thing that pairs better with pizza than soda, is beer! But these options just aren’t productive. For one thing, I’ve basically put regular soda behind me. I’ll still have a rare sip, but I can’t even stand the taste of some sodas anymore. Diet soda just tastes like crap, but it still pairs with pizza. Beer just isn’t an option. When I do have a few beers, I try to keep it simple – just beer. I don’t need extra crap. And frankly, I’m drinking less and less, because I don’t need all the calories and carbs. Though I’m not crazy about wine, I do have a glass here and there, since I understand that can actually help with weight loss, among other things.

Even if I drink water with my food, it’s not enough to properly clean out my mouth, but seltzer water can be. I love seltzer. It’s the perfect meeting between soda and water. I don’t need the sweetness or other flavor. Just the fizz will do, thank you. And it’s perfect for cleaning! Seltzer makes a great cleaning agent. So great that many food service businesses use them to clean the soda nozzles every night. It’s ridiculously cheaper than a normal cleaning agent and by morning, those nozzles and squeaky clean! And guess what – it does a hell of a job cleaning your mouth. That makes it easier to stop eating, and – with a good glass of the stuff at the end of the meal, keeps the cravings at bay, baby!

Well, that’s enough for today. I’ll be back, next chance I get, to fill you in not only on the past, but the present too!

by gendjlee on May 31, 2012  •  Permalink
Posted in Diet, Eating, Food, Nutrition, Weight Loss
Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Posted by gendjlee on May 31, 2012

http://exercisedammit.com/2012/05/31/triggerburger-anyone/

Ch-Ch-Ch-Ch-Changes!


I’ve noticed a trend over the past decade. Perhaps it’s been going on for a long time, it’s just that I’ve only noticed it in the past ten years or so – “diet” is a dirty word. You go to Weight Watchers and what do they tell you? “You are NOT on a diet! We don’t do that here!” Most of the “diet books” out there claim that they are not, in fact, diet books! No one wants to be associated with the word “diet”. And it has little to do with the word itself, but instead, what’s been done with that word.

If you’ve ever tried to lose weight and dealt with one of these… I don’t know what you’d call them… “non-dieters”? Well, if you’ve dealt with them, you’ve probably heard them say “Diets don’t work!”. So you call it something else? That makes it all better, does it?

Really, they’re just trying to stand out from those who put out ineffective diets and promise results that you really shouldn’t expect. And when you’re in the business of making honest money off of another person’s problems, I guess you need to distinguish yourself from the shady side of the business as much as you can.

Still, a diet’s a diet. Actually, a diet is the food you eat, whether you want to lose weight or not. A diet plan is really what they’re all talking about – a specific set of foods and manner of eating them, with the purpose of achieving a goal. I don’t know if that’s how Webster would put it, but that seems to be the best definition, to me. Using that definition, we could make the argument that a person that wants to gain weight, and does so by changing the foods he eats, is on a diet – that’s true. One might also suggest that all vegans are on diets… I suppose when they first make the choice to try veganism, then yes, they are on a diet. If they choose to accept it as their way of life, then it’s no longer a diet, it’s their diet – their Normal diet.

That’s where some of the diet people get their validity: if you want to lose a lot of weight, and not gain it back, “you have to make a lifestyle change!” Unfortunately, many people hear that and try to jump right into one. I think a very effective way to do it is to identify key points in the life of the average healthy person. How do they eat, how do they exercise, how do they live their life in general? Choose what elements one would like in their own life, eventually. Then sit down and figure out how we’re going to get there.

I can’t tell you the answers to most of those, but I can give you an idea of how to get there, and only because I’m finally starting to figure it out for myself – SMALL changes. How small? AS SMALL AS YOU NEED.

My folks have asked a few times why, suddenly, I’m losing weight now, and all these years before, I’ve been able to do nothing but gain weight, and at best, maintain the weight I had. I blame it on Dr. Eeks. That doesn’t satisfy their curiosity.

So, after thinking about it, I’ve come to the conclusion that her approach is what made the big difference. I don’t like to think like that. I’d rather take responsibility for my own failures. Up until I worked with Erin, I thought there was actually something wrong with me – I just couldn’t manage to lose weight. There were things wrong with me – my metabolism, which was just about non-existent, for example. The problem was that I couldn’t get past them.

I had worked with a number of people. Nutitionists, gym trainers, doctors, etc… I’d been to Weight Watchers, I’d tried Nutrisystem, tried Slim Fast… I’ve read a small library of diet books, all to no avail. Hell, one of the trainers I’d worked with was a Mr. USA, or Universe, or World, or whatever the hell he’d won. Basically, the guy was a walking muscle, who wanted to help people lose weight.

The thing is, each person I’d worked with was a lot like the books I read – from my perspective, they gave me their plan, told me to use it, and if I found something that wasn’t working for me, I felt like I might as well have tried talking to one of the diet books. The only difference is a book won’t give you that disappointed look-and-sigh. I got a lot of “I can’t make you do anything you don’t want to” and things along those lines.

Now, don’t get me wrong – Dr. Eeks always let me know that the ball is in my court, and that it’s up to me, but I didn’t hear that when I came to her with a change I wanted to make. In fact, I mostly heard it from her when I was doing good – it was said as encouragement! Instead, when I would call her to tell her I wanted to make a change, which I DREADED at first, because of my prior experiences, she would be totally open. She’d want to know about the problem I was having, and sometimes she’d make suggestions, sometimes she’d just want to know what kind of change I’d like to make. And she was usually good with that change. I left those phone conversations feeling wonderful and hopeful about the change I was going to make.

Now, when I’d worked with other people, they usually still “let” me make the change, but they also let me know how unhappy they were about it. Even at Weight Watcher’s – “Fine, we can’t make you do anything you don’t want to, but THIS is how the program works… THIS is how you get success. Good luck with the change you’re making.” What a bunch of cheerleaders.

So, what’s all this leading up to, besides potential transference? Specifically – my eating habits.

I’ve been beating myself up over the way I’ve eaten lately. Forget the fact that I can’t log the food I eat to save my life. When I started working with Erin, it was her intention to get me to eat regularly – 3 meals a day, with a few small snacks thrown in. If I was going to skip any meals, it HAD to be lunch or dinner – NEVER breakfast.

Well, I’ve been pretty successful at eating breakfast for some time, now. But I’ve really been riding myself because I’ve skipped lunch on a regular basis, and sometimes not really eating dinner, either. Instead, I eat here and there. I sat down last night to work out a plan to remedy this and realized that there may not be any good reason to do so.

After all, isn’t eating many times, in small amounts, considered to be healthy, and good for ones metabolism? Isn’t it something that is commonly lauded by amateurs and professionals alike as a major key to weight loss? I’ve finally hit the stage, I think, where I can do this; I’ve been doing it, without even realizing it!

So, this is the direction I’m heading toward now, and I’ll be letting you know how it goes, as time goes on.

JOKE OF THE DAY

I recently was contacted by the police, who wanted to know if I could help the with the whereabouts of my good friend Tim. I wasn’t of much help. The last time I heard from Tim he’d missed his wife’s birthday and was really in the doghouse. In fact, his wife had told him that he had 24 hours to put something in their driveway for her, that goes from 0 to 200 in 6 seconds, or he was done.

I was a little surprised at the look on the cop’s face. I asked him what was wrong – while the couldn’t find Tim anywhere, they did notice a brand new scale at his house…

TODAY’S WORKOUT

Basically a walking day. I actually tried jumping jacks. Um… no. Definitely not a healthy option right now. In any case, I walked around the house for over ten minutes, then decided to take my walk outside. Didn’t take the dogs with me. That simplified things. I could simplify things more if I ever get my music onto my phone, but I can’t find the right cable for that at this time, and I’m having difficulties pairing my phone with my PC. I have to get to work on that.

Anyway, I did some 5 laps up and down the driveway, and felt pretty good. I don’t feel so good now. My back is threatening to go on strike, but I’m just going to have to work through this, to keep losing weight, and get ready for that 5k this October.

TODAY’S SPECIAL

SheBANGS deals with disappointment from a slight plateau. Of course, the truth is that she IS doing wonderfully.

The Better Man Project shares his thoughts for old friends of time past.

Fooodimentary reports that we recently passed National Oatmeal Cookie Day.

SOME THINGS BEAUTIFUL

Two more from Photobotos. The first is… how I describe this… it’s not just beautiful, it looks magical!

Here’s a great picture of some monkeys just chillin’.

by gendjlee on March 23, 2012  •  Permalink
Posted in Diet, Eating, Food, Nutrition, Weight Loss
Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Posted by gendjlee on March 23, 2012

http://exercisedammit.com/2012/03/23/changes/

“Ups and Downs” by Otis and the Elevators


If you’re the first to name the reference (use the comments section, below) in the title you win… a Laurel… and Hardy handshake. And if you identify that reference too… well, I’ll just have to come up with something worthwhile.

I was just trying to put together today’s workout playlist. I had the first couple of songs written down, and this ridiculous “Rinse” tool is stuck at the top of miTunes player and driving me nuts. So I take a minute, try to get rid of it (I already deleted the rinse tool from my computer, WTF it’s still doing on the player, I have no damm idea! But it’s PISSING ME OFF.), and what happens? It shuts down miTunes! Oh lawsy, lawsy, lawsy. Is there any way to kill Steve Jobs a second time?

UPDATES

Dr. Eeks posted a nice article on her blog recently about this new project we’re all enjoying here. I’d like to thank her for everything she said, and especially for pointing some of her readers my way. I was wondering where that odd influx of visitors was coming from. Sorry I took so long to read it, but better late than never!

Adding a new site to the blogroll (on your right – as I’m writing this, only Dr. Eeks’s blog is listed):

http://www.choosemyplate.gov/ – This is what used to be the food pyramid, now turned into something MORE confusing. However, it basically boils down to constructing your meals using the 5 food groups. If I ever can’t think of an item of food I’d like to eat, I just look up its category (dairy, protein, fruit, vegetable, grain) and check out the list! I can always find something I’d like. Perhaps this will be useful to you, too.

This blog has photos! I finally got pics from my phone to the blog! Turns out there’s an option to share with WordPress! Who’da thunk it? So, be on the lookout for new pics, especially on our mascot, Buddha’s page! I’ll also reach out with any blog posts that get pics added.

From this point on (not including today) I intend to take a weight reading every Wednesday, because around here, Wednesday isn’t “Hump Day”, it’s WEIGH DAY! That’s when the official weekly weight reading will be taken, posted in the blog post. I thought of this yesterday, but when I weigh myself, I try to do so shortly after waking up, before eating, and it was mid-afternoon when I came up with the idea.

So, for now, pretend it’s Weigh Day and give me a drum-roll!

WEEKLY WEIGH-IN

456 pounds!

Hey, Lil Jon? “YEEEEEEEEAAAAAAH?” Thanks! That’s right, down another 4 pounds! This is great news because it somewhat alleviates my worry of coming to another plateau, after only 15 pounds of weight loss. I know the weight needs to be lost slowly, but you can’t blame me for being a little impatient, eh?

Reading what Dr. Eeks wrote about me and this blog got me to thinking about how far I’ve come. Right now, I weigh less than I’ve weighed in years. We’re talking a good half a decade, at the very least. Still, an old friend of mine from High School commented yesterday and told me his weight. I’m two of him! So, I’m doing good, but GEEZ, have I got a looong way to go!

Since July, my weight has dropped from a little over 550 lbs (that’s about 95 pounds!) and I am feeling SO much better. It doesn’t mean everything’s better; there is, as already identified, a ways to go. What’s worse is a number of problems have cropped up that are at least partly due to my weight loss success, some of which have been mentioned here. That said, the problems (downs) don’t seem quite as numerous as the rewards (ups).

I took a trip to my old hometown, Ocean City, this past fall, for the third year in a row. This year was a little better than the previous years. Actually, the first year, I was sick as a dog and barely got to enjoy myself or the reason I was there (Annual “all class” – means everyone that ever attended our HS is welcome – reunion). Last year, the place I stayed at had just gotten new mattresses, apparently, and they had gone with what must have been the firmest possible mattress they could find. I flopped down on the bed after checking in. I may never flop down on a bed again. I was so sore that weekend, I blew most of my money on a much-needed massage (I should write about THAT experience, sometime!) by Saturday and slept that night in my truck.

This year, I’d already been working with Eeks and had lost some of that weight, I believe I was a little over 500 pounds. I didn’t get sick and my back was fine (different lodgings). What’s more, I was able to move around a little more. I was able to walk an entire block of the boardwalk without needing to stop to rest/sit down. Of course, my back was killing me at the end of that block, and my breathing… well, it took a good five minutes to recover, in front of an old friend and a few new ones. But just the fact that I made it that far… it wasn’t even a short block! 13th St. to 12th St.

But if that trip was now? Oh my… I cannot WAIT for this coming September!

I’ve never lost this much weight before. And I’ve never kept off what weight I have lost. I owe a lot to Dr. Eeks, as well as to you readers, whether I know you or not. You help me to stay on track. I don’t know that I could have kept up with something like this a year ago. In fact, I’m sure I couldn’t have. It’s still tough, and sometimes, in addition to everything else going on in my world, it gets to be too much for me. Some days the posts will just have my workout music listed, along with the time of the workout (today’s was standard, meaning 10 min+warmup, 30 min workout, 10+min cooldown). I’m going to try to keep those bare-bones posts to a minimum. Certainly less than half the week. I’d prefer to keep it to two days a week.

COMING SOON

My Goals! – there will be a page specifically for them, accessible from the menu above, but there will also be an initial blog post to announce them and the reasons behind them. Whenever I hit a goal, it will be mentioned in a post, and if it’s significant enough, may end up being what the entire post is about. If I miss a deadline, don’t expect an entire post about it, but it will be mentioned.

Irish Cut Oats! – I pretty much know what I want to say, I just need some photos.

Wheatberries! – I have some work to do on this yet, but it should be a very interesting and tasty post.

TODAY’S SPECIAL

The good folks at MedHelp have put up an article (actually a side-show!) about how you can fight depression.                                                  Among them, I strongly recommend:

Illuminating your surroundings – Ever try to tidy up a poorly lit room, and just weren’t feeling it? But the second you flip that light switch… HELLO ENERGY! It works and it’s been working for me since I was a teenager.

Have a cup of coffee (This one’s not very Word of Wisdom friendly) – For those of you who avoid coffee for non-religious reasons, if you’re really worried about the caffeine, try decaf!

The next article requires a parental advisory – the title puts a twist on a crude, but tongue-in-cheek cliché, but instead of using a euphemism for the penis, she uses one for the vagina (instead of “Rock out with your…”, she uses “Jam out…”). The article itself is fine.

She BANGS’s thoughts on workout music – See, I’m not the only one!

Also, SB puts up a pretty entertaining piece of writing, so if you’d like to read something of her’s, but don’t want to read an article with a title that offends you, may I suggest this, more recent post of hers, which warns against a serious gym faux pas. You’ll laugh, you’ll cry, you’ll hurl!

SOMETHING BEAUTIFUL

– So far, I’ve only linked to one photoblog, with reason, but today I found a really pleasant picture from a different blogger, and I believe it’s worth checking out (of course I do! Why else would I put it here?).

by gendjlee on February 23, 2012  •  Permalink
Posted in Administrative Junk, Exercise, Food, Nutrition, Weight Loss
Tagged , , , , ,

Posted by gendjlee on February 23, 2012

http://exercisedammit.com/2012/02/23/ups-and-downs-by-otis-and-the-elevators/

Little Increments


It’s Valentine’s Day, so enjoy your VD. Mine started with a phone call that supposedly came from my insurance company. I’ll have to look into that later, but the person, who did know the name of my insurance company, my address and my birthdate, then started asking me questions like “Do you attend a Medical Day Care?” among other things. When I pressed about the reasons for these questions, she claimed that she’s setting me up for a case manager, which is apparently a benefit of my insurance. BTW, I’m on state Medicaid, but because I’m disabled, it’s better than what would normally be afforded to me.

When I asked why I have not been made aware of this by mail, she claimed they don’t notify clients about this by mail. I told her I wasn’t comfortable answering the questions, because, well, I don’t KNOW that she’s from my insurance company! To be honest, her accent was kind of heavy and I basically had to guess she was even SAYING “insurance company”. So, to prove that she’s REALLY from my insurance company, she offers me a callback number.

I just shook my head and told her to give me the number and promised to call right back. At some point today, I’ll call the number that I HAVE for Americhoice, TYVM. It may not be weight-loss related, but watch your back guys. Maybe she was who she said she was, but I don’t think so. Anyone can come up with your address and birthday, even your insurance company. They call pull all that out of your trash!

ANYWAY….

Some of you may know how I feel about nutrition labels. On one hand, if you’re going to eat it, you really should know what’s in it, especially the “important stuff” – your fats, calories, carbs, sugars, protein, sugars, sodium and fiber. On the other hand, an awful lot of dirty pool goes into that label. The rule is, the more you know, they less they can get away with.

For example – what IS natural flavor? There’s plenty of blogs and other resources out there that can tell you that, if you take the time to look, and perhaps in time I’ll address the matter in more detail myself (along with artificial flavor). Suffice it to say that if I told you what natural flavor actually means, you’d have to look it up anyway, because it sure doesn’t sound natural.

What’s more, they put unrealistic serving sizes up there. I actually went into some detail on this at Blooming Wellness a few months ago, you can read it here. It will open in a new tab, scroll down to the end to see my example involving Ramen noodles (holy crap are there some lies on that packaging!).

In any case, the reason I bring it up is because I read a great post on a neighboring blog, “Natural Knowledge 24/7″, this morning, that deals with this very topic. You can read all about it, including some of the food industry’s biggest offenders – SPOILER: canned soup! Gotta keep those sodium numbers down, so THEY LIE TO YOU.

Lastly, the scale read 463 this morning, may not sound like much, but slow weight loss is healthy weight loss, and little increments add up to a lot!

In closing, if you have something to celebrate on this, the 14th of February, then do it, and enjoy yourself! And if not, then like me, you can celebrate the end of valentine’s day, tomorrow.

by gendjlee on February 14, 2012  •  Permalink
Posted in Food, Nutrition, Weight Loss
Tagged , ,

Posted by gendjlee on February 14, 2012

http://exercisedammit.com/2012/02/14/little-increments/