Feeling a little better....

But this cold is still kicking my butt! Been water fasting for 36+ hours now and I really do think it is helping with my cold!

A couple of things I have noticed about this cold, compared to when I maintain normal eating habits, are (you do not have to read if you do not want to probably a little gross but here goes) The crap I am coughing up out of my lungs has been more consistent. What I mean is I would usually cough stuff up in the morning but then after I ate it would stop until the next morning. This time I have been getting that crap out of my lungs at least once an hour. My nasal drainage is as clear as water, unfortunately it is pretty constant, but in the past it has been yellow and thick and gross, this time it is clear and thin. Finally typically it takes several days like 4 or 5 to start to feel better, I am already feeling better today and the amount of crud coming out of my lungs is less, so hopefully I will be much better by the end of the weekend!

Nothing to report on the diet side, just about a gallon of water yesterday and probably will be the same today! Not sure just yet how long I will fast, all depends on how long this cold hangs on!

Have a Healthy Day,
Scott

Weigh in!!!!

Oh heck I almost forgot, yes it has been two weeks and I weighed in today at 316 pounds!!! that is 5.5 pounds down for the last two weeks, bringing my total loss to 19 pounds!

Have a Healthy Day!
Scott

Feeling Better

Sorry I did not blog last night, if anyone is even reading this blog. I was feeling really crappy last night and all day yesterday for the most part. I did eat all raw yesterday up until dinner and we had some organic refried black beans, with organic blue corn tortilla chips and I made some fresh guacamole. So I was totally animal free yesterday, I said I was going to do at least 3 days this week and that was the 1st day. I am thinking thursday will be day two and then one day this weekend. I am also looking to do one 100% raw day this week, but that will probably not be until after payday as I am running out of fresh food and money this week! LOL

Me and my beautiful wife went to the Y this morning, I still was not feeling the greatest when I woke up so I took it pretty easy, did 20 minutes on the elliptical at an average heart rate of 144 and then lifted and work on back and shoulders today. When I finished lifting I walked on the track until our total work out was one hour.

Fixed us a raw smoothie this morning for breakfast, 3 bananas, a large bunch of spinach, blueberries and strawberries. MMMMMM love it love it!

Must be something in the air cause I notice none of the blogs I follow have been posted to yesterday or this morning! Come on people give me some inspiration! LOL

Have a healthy day!

Monday Feb 22

Started of the morning at the Y with my beautiful wife and daughter, had a fantastic workout. Came home and fixed a really good smoothie (banana, spinach, peaches and strawberry) the fantastic thing about spinach is you can put it in your smoothies and it really leaves no taste in them so they are just green fruit smoothies! I also juiced two oranges one lemon and one grapefruit, and had that as my mid morning snack. Then had another smoothie for lunch (banana, spinach, avocado, blueberry) very good! But eating that much raw started a little detox going on and I got a little headache. All in due time! Had turkey Sloppy Joes for supper with steamed veggies.

Looking forward to a good night sleep and my workout in the morning! Night all

Have a healthy day!

Beautiful Sunday

Good Sunday evening to all. Had a animal free day!

Went to Starbuck's this morning with my baby, had hot tea. Went to church for a wonderful worship.
Came home and juiced some veggies and messed up and juiced a leek, too onioney <- yes I know that is not a word! LOL
Anyway the leek ruined our wonderful veggie juice, will not make that mistake again. Made a green smoothie and that was awesome. Had two fresco bean burritos for supper, so I was completely animal free today, no meat and no dairy!

My goal for this week is all raw for breakfast and lunch, I pray I can pull that off! I would also like to be animal free at least 3 days this week!

We did not work tut today but I think 6 days a week is plenty. I imagine a day of rest does the body good. Looking forward to a wonderful week, I will weigh in on Wednesday morning and let you know how I have done over the last two weeks.

Have a healthy day!

First Video

Good evening everyone, had a fantastic workout this morning! Ate raw until about 2pm today. I am hoping to go at least 80% raw for tomorrow, since we do not have any real plans after church. Here is a video to show you where I am at today and I will consider this my starting point for my Journey to raw!

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Have a Healthy Day!

Friday Feb 19th

I think I am getting a little spring fever, I am wanting to spend some time outside I am tired of being cooped up in the house!

Brandy and I went to the Y this morning for our regular 5 am workout. Did 20 min on te elliptical, the treadmills were all full so I walked on the track and did 2 miles in about 35 minutes. Fixed a green smoothie for breakfast. Had Pizza Hut salad bar for lunch, I did have two small slices of thin crust pizza, and one big salad loaded waith allmost all the veggies they have to offer on their bar. very little egg and cheese, I am getting real close to giving those up on my salads. I am trying to incorporate about 50% raw in my diet right now and I think I am doing pretty well at that! Time for bed it will be an early trip to the Y before work!

Have a healthy day!

Trigger foods...

There are some foods I know I must stay away from. Chips, cookies, popcorn, brownies and doughnuts! These are all trigger foods for me, by trigger food I mean I cannot eat just one, if i eat one I want to gorge myself on whatever is left. One of the things these foods have in common is they are all highly processed foods. My beautiful wife is trying to help me and I have requested that she does not fix me any processed foods like those mentioned above and also no bread. When she asked about having sausage, potatoes and green beans I said that should work. Well I found another trigger food! the smoked sausage is too salty and I want to stuff myself on it! I didn't do that but I did eat too much of it!

I know that as i move toward my all raw diet that sausage will not be part of it, but I think it needs to be quickly moved off of my list! I am eating all raw for breakfast right now and a large portion of my lunch is raw. My breakfast has been green smothies and they are wonderful, I may have to incorporate those into a couple of lunches also.

Have a healthy day!
Scott

Bigger changes coming!

I have been working on slowing down my eating and exercising regularly for the past month. I have done pretty decent with that and I am ready to move forward. I am going to start migrating towards a raw diet. First thing is a drastic and near complete elimination of processed foods. I will also eat a raw smoothie for breakfast every day, and include a large amount of raw for lunch. I am also going to try and eat only raw snacks.

I have tried to go raw a couple of times by doing it cold turkey and I have never made it past the 14 day mark. I always get to a point when I can not find anything that satisfies me, so this time I will try to do just two meals a day raw, if I am not satisfied by dinner I will eat some cooked whole foods nothing processed. to feel more "satisfied". Plus I hope this way it gives me time to find some raw recipes that I know can help make it easier when I do go completely raw.

Breakfast this morning was a spinach, banana, mango and mixed berry smoothie oh so good!

Did 35 on the treadmill this morning then 15 on the recumbent bike and 1/2 mile on the track, was a really good cardio workout.

Have a healthy day!
Scott

So tired, need sleep!

To tired to blog much tonight, going to bed right now. I did workout this morning and did keep my calories decent today, so I am doing what I need to, I will blog more tomorrow!

Have a healthy day!
Scott

WOW 10 Billion animals a year and that was 07

WOW
http://www.ted.com/talks/mark_bittman_on_what_s_wrong_with_what_we_eat.html

Did 45 minutes at the Y this morning, we were up really late and only got abot 5 hours sleep, made it a little hard to get up and get moving and the workout was a little weak, but we were there! NO EXCUSES, no matter what you have to do it!

Week in Summary

Another week in the books, I think for the most part I did really well this week, may have eaten a little to much over the weekend, not too much food but some higher calorie stuff. Had Southwest BBQ chicken at Logan's last night and it was covered in cheese, I should have scraped the cheese off in hindsight but hey you will have that. Best thing is to live and learn, really it wasn't all that graet so I will not order it again. Took today off from working out Will be back at it at 5 am Monday morning. Took my beautiful wife to see JoDee Macena tonight for Valentines day, really great concert what a down to earth and fun person she is!
Goal for next week.... incorporate more raw fruits and veggies!

Have a Healthy Monday!
Scott

It's FRIDAY....

Wow what a busy day, as you can tell I am writing this late for me! Not going to say much just that we had a great time this evening with some great friends, Love you Min and Bryan!

Have a Healthy Day!
Scott

What makes people fat?????

Good question huh, what makes the human race fat? Is it Carbohydrates? Is it Protein? Is it Fat? Well if you like me, are overweight and you think about how you got to be like this. Can you look back and say for sure that I am fat because I ate to much of one breakdown of food over the other, chances are you could not. As a matter of fact most humans eat a pretty balanced diet when it comes to carbs, fat and protein.

Ok so we can not chalk it up to one of the three calorie containing components of food so, look at food its self did you eat nothing but steak at every meal for the last 10 years, I highly doubt it. So in that case Steak did not make you fat, how about nothing but pizza, nope not that OK so why are we, especially americans so overweight? Well the first part of that word can sum it up we are OVERweight because we OVERindulge! We OVEReat, we are as a general rule OVER sedentary in other words we eat too much and we do not move our bodies enough.

If my body only burns 4000 calories a day to maintain its normal function, and I eat 4300 calories a day thats just 300 hundred extra a day I will gain 30 pounds in one year! do that for 3 years in a row and I am 90 pounds overweight and considered clinically obese, even at my 6'4" height. Now how important is exercise? Just one 30 minute walk a day can reduce the effective calorie intake down to 3900 because a brisk 30 minute walk can help your body to burn up to 400 extra calories a day, then instead of gaining 30 pound more this year I will lose 10! No diet, no dangerous pills, no overpriced underused workout equipment!

Just one example of why moving your body everyday is so important!


So here is my daily report, got up and was at the Y by 5:05 am did 30 minutes on the treadmill, average heart rate was 155
Did 20 minutes on the elliptical, average heart rate was 156, that is a good hard 30 minute cardio workout. Weight training today was legs and low back, took about 20 minutes. With warmups and cool downs about an hour and fifteen minute workout.

Went to Pizza Hut for lunch with the ASP (vendor) guy, had two salads off of the salad bar and two slices of thin crust pizza, one veggie and one taco. Not my favorites but that is the only thin crust they had when I went up and thin crust is my favorite!
Soup beans and cornbread tonight for supper I think, unless Brandy changed her mind LOL

Have a Healthy day, and move your body!!
Scott

Hello Hump Day!

We started out this morning, with a short workout only about 25 minutes on the treadmill. After that I had to go plow some driveways before work, then went and plowed a couple of more at lunch. All of this snow is cutting into my workout time! Hopefully I can get back to my lunch routine of 30 minutes of Basket Ball each day for lunch! But, even if it keeps snowing and I am not able to go for my lunch exercise, Nobody but nobody will keep me from getting at least 20-25 minutes a day in minimum! Cause there is nothing more important to my getting healthy and fit than my exercise!

Was contacted by a guy today that sells Herbal Life products, do not know much about the products but do know that he is staging a biggest loser contest, this will be the fourth one that he has done. 12 weeks, $35 entry fee and meet every Tuesday about $25 of each $35 is put into a kitty (the other $10 is for the "paper work" and the free samples he hands out... oh wait those would not be free then would they?) and the top three losers take a cash prize. I really have no intention of using the products but I think the 12 weeks of competition could be very good for Brandy and I. Also maybe we can learn somethings in their weekly meetings to bring back to our own support group weekly meetings!

We are still faithfully using our timers and they are such a great tool, if you are a speed eater like I was, it so helps to slow you down and enjoy your food, and I just do not eat any where near as much as I used to because of that!

Excuses are the nails used to build a house of failure.

Maybe you don't like your job, maybe you didn't get enough sleep, well nobody likes their job, nobody got enough sleep.
Maybe you just had the worst day of your life, but you know, there's no escape, there's no excuse, if you want to make a change in your body, you just have to suck it up and exercise.

Have a Healthy Day!
Scott

Help LOL

OK so my 19 year old son comes home yesterday from school, always goes past walgreens after school, and brings me a couple of full bar's. He is a good kid and he wants to help me on my journey to better health, so God love him for that! Have you seen these things (full bars) they are supposedly created by some doctor that specializes in gastric bypass.... he wants to help us not get fat so he has no work..... LOL Anyway these bars are supposed to help you fill up if you eat one with a full glass of water 30 minutes before your next meal. Well at 170 calories and 31 grams of carbs, you are going to have to stave off quite a bit of food to make up for it! oh and taste yeah there really is none basically unsweetened puffed rice chocolate! Any way I will thank him and try to explain that I do not need anymore of these over priced pieces of cardboard in a bag! LOL

One more thing not sure if I had posted this anywhere yet so:
Starting weight was 335 pounds that was Jan. 25th
Current weight is 325 pounds weighed in on Feb 8th

Look for an update in about two weeks unless I cant stand it and need to weigh myself before that!

Have a healthy day!

WOW what a busy weekend! Congrats to the Saints pretty upset with Peyton and Reggie thought they both played like crap!

Anyway here it is Monday morning of another new week. We got up at 4:45 this am and headed for the Y I did 30 minutes on the treadmill average heart rate of 150 and 20 on the elliptical average heart rate of 155. I also did about 15 minutes of weight lifting, worked pecs, triceps and abs. I had planned to go back at lunch and play some basketball but never made it out of the mill for lunch. So after my daughters BB game and when Brandy gets off of work we will head down there and walk a couple of miles on the track.

I walked into a lot of issues this morning at the mill and we have been real busy, I did not get my first bite of food until about 11:30 am, I know that can be bad for me but I really did not have much of a choice. So far today I have consumed about 780 calories. Getting in 3000 a day is kinda hard if you are eating healthy and taking your time when you eat. not so sure that going home and knocking down 2200 calories for dinner would be smart either so I will try and do around 1500 and see what happens!

Just want to say that being down just 10 pounds is a big improvement in my desire to get up and go work out in the mornings, and my headaches are getting much much better!

Have a healthy day!
Scott

What works for you....

I know it sounds kinda cliche buy it is the truth, you have to find what works for you and do it! Where did this wisdom come from? Well lets just say I have read many books and articles on how to loose weight and gain lean body mass etc. etc.. First off no one agrees with the other and they all have something new to sell you. So here I am trying to figure this all out, and my head is always spinning and I am trying this and trying that and my results are well mediocre at best. So anyway I have had talks in the past with succesful people and I have found that they just find something that works and they stick with it. But sometimes you get inundated with the information you are getting and you forget that!

Well last night I had a great conversation with a friend of mine that has lost 80 pounds in the last 8 months. Some of what he said and what he does I do not agree with from what I have read and tried to teach myself, but yet here he sits 80 pounds lighter after 8 months. So I guess all of my guru reading I have done just proves that what works for one person may or may not work for me! So I guess I will just keep pushing forward with what I am doing and not worry as much about what I "should" be doing!

OK well time to go shoot some hoops, Have a healthy day!

How am I eating?

Yesterday I talked about my exercise today I will discuss my eating, The biggest change I have made in my eating habits is I bought a 30 second sand timer, you know the old hourglass style sand timer only this one is just 30 seconds. I take a bite of food and try to chew it slowly and enjoy it, then I flip my timer and wait 30 seconds to take my next bite! Why do I do this, well because I have learned from a young age to eat really fast, I can eat a Double Whopper and Large Fries in less than 5 minutes, then I am buying something else cause I am no where near full! My brain has not recieved the signal from my stomach that I am full, so I eat another Double Cheeseburger and a Hershey pie to fill up. So I found this guy (Paul Mckenna) who says a lot that makes since. One of those things is you have to slow down and enjoy your food so you give your stomach a chance to send the signal that you are full, and your brain learns to listen to that signal again! What do you know it works! I can get buy on a single hamburger and small fries and walk away feeling satisfied!

However I also know that burgers and fries are not my best choices, so I am also cleaning up my diet at the same time, but just small steps. My 13 year old daughter was asking about vegetarians and why they do not eat meat, so I explained that some do it for health reasons but most probably do it for the principal of not eating flesh, and animal rights. So she wanted to know what it was like and I challenged her not to eat beef, figured that was a logical place to start, so we are now over two weeks in to a no beef eating plan. She has struggled on a few occasions, like when they had walking tacos at school and she got hers without taco meat. She said it was not as good, but that she was happy she stuck to our plan, I have also tried to stay away from pastries when they get brought into work. Not saying I will never have one but I need to make sure it is counted if I do.

So how many calories am I eating, yes I am counting and you can check up on my progress at: http://fitday.com/fitness/PublicJournals.html?Owner=sconner69 any way this first full week of counting I have been pretty low to get a good jump on the whole thing but knowing how that can back fire I need to bring it up a notch or two. So I have used several BMR calculators and my average BMR is 4700 calories a day burned. So based on that I should be eating between 3300 and 3500 calories a day to loose 2 pounds or so of fat a week. I have not been coming close to that! So I need to get more calories in, amazing how if you slow down your eating it makes it hard to get 3500 calories a day in your body but just one short month ago I could have eaten 3500 to 4000 in one sitting at BK!!!!!!

Peace out - Hope everyone has a healthy day!

Going forward...

Ok so yesterday in my first blog post I kinda told you who I was and the struggle I have with my weight, so today I will explain where I am and where I intend to go.
Like I said yesterday I am a 40 year old male, I am 6'4" tall and I weighed 335 pounds in mid January. I had been pretty healthy up until this last year, I had to have my gall bladder removed in December and had some kidney trouble in January. My weight over the past 10 years has fluctuated between 260 pounds and 350 pounds. I know they say that up and down is so unhealthy for us humans so it is time to get this under control once and for all! So how do I plan to do this? On January 25th my wife Brandy and I went to the local YMCA and walked about 2 miles, we have been back every day since, most days twice some days 3 times a day. We go at 5 in the morning and I walk on the treadmill 30 min keeping my heart rate between 140 and 160 then I will move to the eliptical there my HR stays above 155 to 170 for 20 min then I use the machines to do some lifting for about 15 to 20 minutes. I try to go back at lunch and walk 2 miles on the track or shoot some hoops if the courts are open again 30 min. At night we go in and do 30 to 40 min of walking on the track. So anyway that is what I am doing for exercise, tomorrow I will get into what I am doing for my eating. Have a wonderful day everyone and thanks for reading!

Starting My New Years Resolution Late

But hey at least I am starting! Hello I am Scott a 40 year old, that has been overweight most of my life. I am going to beat this demon, but this time I am enlisting help! I have tried unsuccessfully for about the past 15 years to lose weight and keep it off! What have I discovered in that time, plain and simple all diets only lead to one thing.... making you fatter! Most of you probably know this but a diet is a short term cure for where you want to be, when the diet stops and you go back to doing what you were doing you go back to being what you have been!

So this time I am changing my lifestyle and I am not dieting! I am making some small changes that I know I can continue for the rest of my life and some that are bigger (exercise) that I know I must continue for the rest of my life! I will continue to build on those small changes and improve my eating and exercise until they truly become habits! Any way this is where I am starting,