I am NOT a doctor, a nutritionist or physical trainer. I am a fat person who has decided to show his stomach to the world (figuratively, not literally--be thankful for that). Consult with medical experts before doing anything.
So, I love to eat. Now, I know what you're thinking, "Duh!" Okay, well then, it stands to reason that if I am only having one solid meal a day and two meal shakes, then when I eat it should be something really good. If I can avoid it, I don't want to waste my one meal on something that came out of a box.
I love to cook. It's a lot of fun, and believe it or not, the activity takes my mind off of shoving a bagel in my mouth. I'm not a big fan of instant anything, rice in particular. There's no major trick to cooking rice that doesn't have the word "Instant" in the description. For instance, the boil in bag rices take ten minutes. Other instant rices take only a minute after the water comes to a boil. Do you ever wonder how or why that happens? I mean, what did they do to the rice that lets it cook that fast? How fast does instant rice break down in your system? As a general rule, white rice breaks down faster than brown rice once it hits your stomach, which causes an influx of simple sugars. How fast does instant white rice break down? I don't know, for certain, but the thought makes me uncomfortable.
Twenty minutes. That's all it takes to make regular, long grain white rice. Brown rice takes about forty to forty-five.
Planning. THAT'S the key. Plan it out, know what you're going to do. Enjoy the creativity of making a meal instead of reading the directions on a box.
White rice is simple. Two cups of water to one cup of rice. Bring the water to a boil, stir in the rice. Reduce heat to low, cover and set your timer for twenty minutes. Walk away, or begin prepping another part of the meal. That's it. That's all it takes.
Heat one table spoon of extra virgin olive oil in a pan. Dice up a cup of fresh tomatoes (I prefer romas), dice a cup of onions (I prefer vidalias), dice a cup of bell peppers and mince a clove of garlic. Add all of the veggies to the hot oil in the pan and let them sweat and mingle for a few minutes. Add a diced protein (raw chicken breast, for example) and cook until the chicken is done (be careful not to over cook--the chicken should be white all the way through, but not dry or tough). Serve that over a cup of the rice you made.
Want some heat? Chop up a jalapeno and toss it in with the veggies. This whole process takes about a half hour to forty-five minutes. Plan it out. Not a lot of calories and it's damn good.
Until next time:
“It is better to practice a little than talk a lot.”--Muso Kokushi
I hope it's a full filling day.
--John
Wednesday, July 6, 2011
Wednesday, June 29, 2011
New Best Friends
Yesterday 301.8 lbs; today 300.8 lbs Total calories consumed yesterday: 1762
I am NOT a doctor, a nutritionist or physical trainer. I am a fat person who has decided to show his stomach to the world (figuratively, not literally--be thankful for that). Consult with medical experts before doing anything.
So, I have two new best friends. It's very important that I have them in my life. The first one is nutritional labels. I'm fat for a lot of reasons. One reason is that I never cared about nutritional labels. Well, okay, I need to make changes. Important changes. And one of those changes is that I will know how many calories are in whatever it is I put in my mouth. One very easy and useful way of doing that is--you guessed it--nutritional labels. Knowing how many calories is in a hard boiled egg (70, by the way) is important because I need to know how many calories I have to burn before my body begins to consume the large amounts of fat I have accumulated.
We've heard it all, right? I know I have. Want to lose weight? Consume less calories that you burn. Sounds simple, doesn't it? Well, you have to want to take that damn first step: reading the damn label. That's the first step of many--but a very important one.
Okay, best friend #2? A kitchen scale. Hey, one serving of skinless chicken breast has 109 calories, and according to the label (or sparkpeople.com) one serving is four ounces. Okay--how much is four ounces? I have to be honest, it doesn't sound like a whole hell of a lot. And, that's where the scale comes in. Know what you eat. That's the story here.
Tomorrow, I'll talk about how I enjoy eating food, and because of that, I don't want to thaw something out of a box for my solid meal.
In the mean time: “Sometimes the most important thing in a whole day is the rest we take between two deep breaths.” Etty Hillesum
I hope it's a full filling day.
--John
I am NOT a doctor, a nutritionist or physical trainer. I am a fat person who has decided to show his stomach to the world (figuratively, not literally--be thankful for that). Consult with medical experts before doing anything.
So, I have two new best friends. It's very important that I have them in my life. The first one is nutritional labels. I'm fat for a lot of reasons. One reason is that I never cared about nutritional labels. Well, okay, I need to make changes. Important changes. And one of those changes is that I will know how many calories are in whatever it is I put in my mouth. One very easy and useful way of doing that is--you guessed it--nutritional labels. Knowing how many calories is in a hard boiled egg (70, by the way) is important because I need to know how many calories I have to burn before my body begins to consume the large amounts of fat I have accumulated.
We've heard it all, right? I know I have. Want to lose weight? Consume less calories that you burn. Sounds simple, doesn't it? Well, you have to want to take that damn first step: reading the damn label. That's the first step of many--but a very important one.
Okay, best friend #2? A kitchen scale. Hey, one serving of skinless chicken breast has 109 calories, and according to the label (or sparkpeople.com) one serving is four ounces. Okay--how much is four ounces? I have to be honest, it doesn't sound like a whole hell of a lot. And, that's where the scale comes in. Know what you eat. That's the story here.
Tomorrow, I'll talk about how I enjoy eating food, and because of that, I don't want to thaw something out of a box for my solid meal.
In the mean time: “Sometimes the most important thing in a whole day is the rest we take between two deep breaths.” Etty Hillesum
I hope it's a full filling day.
--John
Tuesday, June 28, 2011
When it hurts to get out of bed...
I am NOT a doctor, a nutritionist or physical trainer. I am a fat person who has decided to show his stomach to the world (figuratively, not literally--be thankful for that). Consult with medical experts before doing anything.
So, I weigh a lot. My profile picture was strategically created so you couldn't see my stomach hang over my belt. My arms are folded because my forearms have slight definition, and you can't tell that I'm seriously fat.
Oh, sure, you can tell that I'm not a fit athlete, but you can't tell just how fat I am. And that's how it's done. I can kid myself all I want, but I know how I look. Hell, I'm 5' 7", and I weigh over three hundred pounds. Really? How is it that I don't completely look like the doughnuts I love to eat? Why isn't my primary form of locomotion rolling?
I love to eat. Period.
When I'm full, it doesn't matter. I still want to eat. When it hurts my back to get out of bed, all I want to do is grab a couple of bagels, cream cheese, butter, eggs, cheese and make a couple of sandwiches from them, and wash it down with a very large glass of milk.
5' 7"...over three hundred pounds...I don't wonder how it happened. I know how it happened.
So, I'm going to discuss my plan and action for getting down to something reasonable, discussing the food I eat; how I prepare it; and let's not forget that nasty four letter word: exercise (Yes, I know it has more than four letters). I'll also let you know about any websites that I come across that might help. I have a love of cooking, and I'll be trying out ways to make fresh (but easy) meals to help with my venture.
Planning it out, seems to be the key, for me.
This morning consisted of having a breakfast shake. The shake was a Visalus shake with strawberries and skim milk (see www.bodybyvi.com for nutritional information). It tastes great, and really helps me with my sweet tooth. It came to a total of 271 calories, and that was breakfast. I had a couple of hard boiled eggs for a snack (around 9:30ish), and lunch was a something I took my time to prepare.
I have a shake for breakfast, and one for dinner. I have a couple of low calorie snacks, then I prepare one meal to actually eat. I chose to "eat" my meal for lunch. It carries me though the rest of the day, and I don't feel so hungry by dinner time that I want to gnaw off my own ankle.
Lunch consisted of rice and chicken and total calories came to 894. Seem high? Maybe. But check out how this works: I already said that breakfast was 271. My snack in the morning came to 140 calories. Between breakfast, snack and lunch that's a total of 1304. I know what I'm having for dinner--another shake so that's another 271 calories. That will pull me up to 1575. An evening snack of--I don't know--a mini bag of popcorn (100 cal) will put me at 1675 for the day....my daily goal is to be under 2000 calories....that meets it.
The fact that I eat most of the calories in the middle of the day, means that by the time I go to bed, I am well on my way to burning it off.
I try to drink 5-8 glasses of water a day.
Okay, next time, I'll talk about how I make whatever it is I'm going to eat, and we'll see how this goes.
In the meantime: “When we are unable to find tranquility within ourselves, it is useless to seek it elsewhere.” Francois de La Rochefoucauld.
Hope it's a fulfilling day.
--John
So, I weigh a lot. My profile picture was strategically created so you couldn't see my stomach hang over my belt. My arms are folded because my forearms have slight definition, and you can't tell that I'm seriously fat.
Oh, sure, you can tell that I'm not a fit athlete, but you can't tell just how fat I am. And that's how it's done. I can kid myself all I want, but I know how I look. Hell, I'm 5' 7", and I weigh over three hundred pounds. Really? How is it that I don't completely look like the doughnuts I love to eat? Why isn't my primary form of locomotion rolling?
I love to eat. Period.
When I'm full, it doesn't matter. I still want to eat. When it hurts my back to get out of bed, all I want to do is grab a couple of bagels, cream cheese, butter, eggs, cheese and make a couple of sandwiches from them, and wash it down with a very large glass of milk.
5' 7"...over three hundred pounds...I don't wonder how it happened. I know how it happened.
So, I'm going to discuss my plan and action for getting down to something reasonable, discussing the food I eat; how I prepare it; and let's not forget that nasty four letter word: exercise (Yes, I know it has more than four letters). I'll also let you know about any websites that I come across that might help. I have a love of cooking, and I'll be trying out ways to make fresh (but easy) meals to help with my venture.
Planning it out, seems to be the key, for me.
This morning consisted of having a breakfast shake. The shake was a Visalus shake with strawberries and skim milk (see www.bodybyvi.com for nutritional information). It tastes great, and really helps me with my sweet tooth. It came to a total of 271 calories, and that was breakfast. I had a couple of hard boiled eggs for a snack (around 9:30ish), and lunch was a something I took my time to prepare.
I have a shake for breakfast, and one for dinner. I have a couple of low calorie snacks, then I prepare one meal to actually eat. I chose to "eat" my meal for lunch. It carries me though the rest of the day, and I don't feel so hungry by dinner time that I want to gnaw off my own ankle.
Lunch consisted of rice and chicken and total calories came to 894. Seem high? Maybe. But check out how this works: I already said that breakfast was 271. My snack in the morning came to 140 calories. Between breakfast, snack and lunch that's a total of 1304. I know what I'm having for dinner--another shake so that's another 271 calories. That will pull me up to 1575. An evening snack of--I don't know--a mini bag of popcorn (100 cal) will put me at 1675 for the day....my daily goal is to be under 2000 calories....that meets it.
The fact that I eat most of the calories in the middle of the day, means that by the time I go to bed, I am well on my way to burning it off.
I try to drink 5-8 glasses of water a day.
Okay, next time, I'll talk about how I make whatever it is I'm going to eat, and we'll see how this goes.
In the meantime: “When we are unable to find tranquility within ourselves, it is useless to seek it elsewhere.” Francois de La Rochefoucauld.
Hope it's a fulfilling day.
--John
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