Project Change

So I was going to wait before putting this post up, but I know even if I wait and post it up when I officially start it I will still get slack for it. So I am posting it up now.

So this year has been a learning year for me, about what I eat, about me, and just life in general. One thing that has come out of this learning year is what I put into my body, and how some foods my body can't handle it (Dairy=Gallstones), and that if I eat foods in a more healthier fuller form, I can loose weight or maintain it for long periods of time. I have more energy, I feel better, I am not as sick during the year. Because of all this new found learning I have also done a lot of studying, and research and finding what foods do what to your body. This is the first year in a lot of years where I have actually opened up a real book and have actually read it.

With all this new found information and mixed in from what I have learned over this year, I am planning on making 2011 a new level of me. I actually want to get healthy, and go to the gym now, and I want to continue with this into the new year and beyond. So this is my "new" project, some parts are from this past year (2010), some of it is new stuff for me to learn. But I am excited for what the future holds.

So a little on this "new project" still working on a title for this project but for now I will call it Project Change. I have been reading a lot about the foods I eat, how it effects my hormones and that infects my eating. I already have a good base on the foods I eat, but I have found lately that I still love my grains and carbs, so I am going to try to incorporate them into my eating plan.

Project Change Goals:
Eat more natural, organic or near organic foods as possible.
Protein; chicken, pork, and red meat in moderation
Eat lots of veggies but also keep them in moderation.
Limit my fruit per day, as it is high in natural sugars.
Eat at least 1 whole onion a week.
Eat at least a few whole large sized tomato's a week. (I think a good salsa for salad would work, homemade of course)
Get in at least 30 minutes of exercise a day, more would be better.
Figure out a schedule where I can make it into the gym in the mornings before work.
Bedtime during the work week is no later than 9:30pm (so far so good).
Video games or movies/tv shows are off at least 10 minutes before bedtime (its working so far, this allows me time to finish packing for the next day, and allows for my brain to unwind.)
Read at least 1 book a month that has to do with in some way project change.
Food Journal - Keep a daily food list.
More to come.....

6 months 60 pounds

I have till June 2nd before I leave for my WEEK LONG d-day adventure. The goal is to lose 10 pounds a month before I leave. I am hoping that its a goal I can meet.

120lbs of chicken never again.

So its been a while since Ive updated this blog, life had gotten rather busy, and I kept on forgetting to do it. So lets do a recap of my crazy life.

Sept 1st 2009 - I start my weight loss journey. Everything has been going great. I was eating excellent. I was losing weight.

Dec 3rd 2009 - I am still going strong, I was able to get back to my old job before being unemployed for over a year. Only working part time, but that was better then not working at all. I had lost a bit of weight.

Jan 11, 2010 - My birthday, 27 years young, best birthday present to myself I was back to full time work. I was still doing excellent and eating 100% correctly, and seeing amazing results.


Feb 25th 2010 - Life changes forever. Emergency Open Heart Surgery. http://stitch26.blogspot.com/2010_03_01_archive.html I was still able to be on plan. And i did lose weight while I was healing.

June 2010 - I am back to full time work again. By now I had cheated with my eating, and from here on out I have struggled with eating 100% healthy.

August 2010 - 6 months since having my chest cracked open and I went on a 3day backpacking trip, even carried my own pack. It was hard hiking in, but hiking out was much easier.

Sept 1st 2010 - 1 year since I started my weight loss journey, I was down over 75 pounds and have for the most part been able to keep it off. Eating has been about about a 80% on track.

November 8th 2010 - I am back on track about 95%-100% again. I have a goal of going skiing in less then 2 months, it will be 10 months since surgery and I have found my fire again, it seamed to die when I went in for surgery I had lost all hope in my dreams.

Now with what this has to do with the title, my sister and I bulk ordered fresh boneless skinless chicken breasts and we have just cleaned, and cooked some and froze the rest for individual meals, I am so done with chicken. Over 120 pounds of chicken is ready to be served.

Brownies Recipie

Servings: 18 2x3 inch brownies

Ingredients:
1 3/4 cup walnut meal (purchased or ground in a food processor)
3/4 cup dutch process cocoa powder
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda
1/2 teaspoon fine sea salt
2 large eggs (room temperature)
1 cup coconut milk (room temperature)
1/2 cup honey or maple syrup
2 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/3 cup extra virgin coconut oil (gently melted)
1/4 cup chopped walnuts for topping (optional)
butter for greasing pan

Instructions:
Adjust oven rack to middle position. Preheat oven to 350deg F. Butter a 13x9x2 inch baking pan.

In medium bowl, mix together dry ingredients until well blended. Set aside.

In a small bowl, whisk eggs for one minute, then add coconut milk, honey or maple srup and whisk again. Add melted coconut oil and whisk until wet ingredients are completely blended.

Add wet mixture to dry ingredients and whisk well; be sure to scrape sides and bowl bottom so no pockets of dry ingredient remain. Batter will be thinner consistency than conventional brownies. Pour batter into prepared pans.

If desired, sprinkle chopped walnuts on top of batter. Bake 35 to 40 minutes.

Cool completely before cutting.

Round 3

So the second round didn't really last too long, but I am hoping this time it will last a bit longer before I cheat again. I did mange to do really well this week and I lost 2 pounds of the 5 I gained when I cheated back in April. Only 3 more to go before I am back to where I started. Good news though even tho I have eaten a bit off course, I haven't gained any since tax day.

So a little update, I am back to full time work again. Received my 2nd full time paycheck. Its nice to have money again, even if I am not spending it right away (saving up for my Honda Element). And I am eating about 75% of my foods with-in my 100 mile radius of my house. Oh and hopefully this Tuesday my sister and I will be receiving our 1/4 grass fed/finished cow. It will be great to cook up some steaks and eat those all the time again.

Delay 100 mile challenge

So since the weather has been messing up farming produce, it looks like i am going to have to delay the official start of my challenge, as the local farmers markets don't have the nessary produce for this to work out due to the lots of rain we have been having. I will still try my best, but the supermarket will have to do till the weather clears up for the plants to grow.

100 Mile Challenge

Starting June 1st, 2010 thru August 31st, 2010 I am taking on the 100 Mile Food Challenge. What this means is that ALL food consumed needs to be grown/raised within a 100 mile distance from my house. Yes I can see this could be a little more expensive then going to Costco and buying in bulk. But with the summer season starting I think this could really be possible. Plus EVERYTHING will be fresh, and alot more healthlier, esp if I can buy organically.

Now I just have to find me a freezer to store my grass-fed meat.


DISCLAMIER - MY BACKPACKING TRIP THIS SUMMER, WILL NOT BE LOCAL FOOD, BUT WILL TRY.

Round 2 Day 2

So after taking the last 25 or so days off, and kinda cheating. I am officially back on course. I just finished my second day of eating on plan. And it was really hard to not stop on my way home and get a cheat. I can say tho I only gained 2.5 pounds in 25 days, wish I had lost that and a bit more, but I have learned that if I want to succeed I need to stick with the plan. If I can lose over 75+ pounds in 227 Days I think I can stick with it another 227 days.

On a good note: After 72 Days since Surgery, I ran my first 1/4 mile non stop. I can't remember the last time I did that, even prior to surgery, I think its been over 10 years.


The goal for the next 2 months is to stay on course, and lose another 20+ pounds before I go backpacking.

Tax Day !

All good things must come to an end. After 227 days of eating great and not cheating to the best f my knowledge, I have CHEATED. I have been craving subway for the past month, my dreams are becoming so alive, and I wake up so hungry for it. That I finally gave in, and I purchased a 6” cold cut on honey oat on tax day. And honestly it tasted great, and I don’t feel guilty at all about it. Tomorrow is a new day and I am ready to get back on course.

FINE: A more accurate update

So since I have been getting alot of requests for a more accurate update here it goes:

On February 25th of this year, I was watching my nephews for the day, and my brother-in-law had just gotten home from work. My chest started hurting, and it was a slow pain at first that became quickly worse. My brother-in-law called 911 as he thought I was having a heart atttack. The ambulance came and took me to the hospital. Once I arrived at the hospital I felt OK, but they did tests for 6 hours and found nothing wrong with me.  They decided on one last test, a CAT scan, to check my main aorta since the attack I had described the same symptoms as a torn aorta. Within an hour after my scan, I was on my way to emergency open heart surgery.

From the CAT scan it looked like my aorta had a tear above the heart and the blood was starting to pool.The surgeon assembled a team since this has to be fixed quickly. If it tears completely, an aneurysm, it is fatal. But once they got in there they found that my thymus gland had horseshoed itself around my aorta and it had started bleeding against the aorta wall.  My body was mimicked into thnking my aorta was tearing and that sent me into the painful attack. They removed most of the thymus gland, kept the rest and stopped the bleeding, and closed me back up.

When they were in surgery they did an ultrasound on my heart and aorta to make sure it all was okay, and everything was 100% normal. They don't know why my thymus gland horseshoed around the aorta and started bleeding. There are only 3-4 other cases known of this happening. So it's kind of a rare thing.

So I have 6-8 weeks for my sternum bone to heal back up before I can do much of anything. I can't drive, can't workout, can't play paintball, I can only walk.  After the 6-8 weeks for the bone to heal, I will slowly be allowed to do more things, but it's  6-9 months for me to fully recover before I can get back to playing paintball.


So its now March 28th over a month later,  I am doing excellent, each week I am getting stronger and faster (walking), and today for the first time since my surgery I went to the gym and did the recumbent bike for 3 miles at 28:45ish, a little slow compared to life before surgery, but still I rode non-stop for the entire time. I did up my carb intake while I am healing, to like 30-40 carbs per day. But good news is I am still losing weight lost another 2 pounds again this week (unofficially) So over 77 pounds lost (unofficially).

And I am still going strong.

Picture taken back in Dec 09.

Picture take march 2010

wow

UPDATE

lets see where to begin.

First, Life has been thrown a curve, my plans are totally out the window this year.

I had to get emergency open heart surgery, they thought it was a torn arota but after opening me up, it was just a bleeding thymus gland. So now i have alot of months of recovery to get back to where i was even at in excercising mode.

So, I am still losing weight, but can't excercise all that well, just walks.

weight loss over 65+ pounds.

Time Flies

Wow its been a month since my last post, work has kept me super busy that I just haven't had the time to update this or workout as much as I wish. I did finally get a huge project pretty much completed, so I hopefully won't be having to work overtime as much. Alittle update, I unofficially have lost 50 pounds. I will try and get the official word tomorrow when I weigh-in. Otherwise, I am great.

update

So its been over 2 weeks since I lasted posted, alot has happened since then. Weight wise I have stayed the same, still no loss, but again no gain. I just need to find a balance to start losing again and need to figure out my workout schedule.
So life has started to get busy for me, I was able to find full time employment, no more unemployment $$ for me. I now get a full paycheck (I have money again, woohoo). Bad side to working is that my workout life is totally up in the air. I just need to figure out when is ther perfect time to go workout, is it at 5:30am (I am NOT a morning person) or is it after work at 7:30pm. I tried the after work routine and I felt wide awake after working out not too good when bedtime is 9:45pm (I was wide awake till 1am, not good when I need to get up early for work.) I tried this saturday (a non work-workday, still had to get up kinda early to ref (paintball tourney) it turned out okay, got up at 6:30am went for my 2 mile walk/run and came back got changed into paintball clothes and was off to the tourney. when I got home from the tournament (7pm) I was completely tired, too tired infact to really eat dinner and enjoy it. I fell asleep around 8pm that night and slept in till a little after noon on sunday. And the friday night before I went to bed at 10pm. So it wasnt a late night for me. So I am going to try it again either wednesday or thrusday this week to see if the double energy output was too much with the tourney after really working on my timed 2miles. at least wednesday/ thrusday is a long work day (10 hours of sitting) (i got lucky and I get to work 4-10 hour days, and then have a 3 day weekend every week) I will keep you guys posted (for those who actually read my blog) on my progress and see what I come up with.
I do need some new workout music, if anyone has some idea's.

Happy New Year

So I know I have not posted any updated in a long time. There was just nothing to post about. So a little update since its the new year and all. Weightloss has basically stayed the same 43 or 45 pounds lost (i cant remember the offical number). I have done a few new things I haven't in a very long time:

• Full situps - I managed to do 10, its probably been like over 10+ years since I have been able to do any. 
• Ran on the treadmill 100 meters at 6.0 - I think thats a first for me. 
• Ran on the treadmill 300 meters at 4.0 - I don't think I have done that since jr. high. 
• Stuck this long with an eating plan - if it was any other plan I would have totally cheated by now. So far I have stuck with it. 

I didn't lose 50 pounds by jan 1st. Hopefully I will meet my new years goals, which are as follows:

• Finish a 1/2 Marathon
• lose another 50 pounds by July 1st
• lose 100 pounds by Dec. 31st
• Save up $10k by Nov 21st (I know its not weight-related) - I want my new car.