3 for 13

3 for 13. I sound like one of those late night hucksters "Order now and get 3 for 13. And if you call in the next ten minutes we'll throw in a years supply of pickled eggs". What the hell am I going to do with a years supply of pickled eggs? Besides, if I wanted a years supply of pickled eggs I would just run down to Costco. BTW, I do like me some pickled eggs. Reminds me of my grandfather. He used to make them fresh. Yummy!

Now we return you to your regularly scheduled program.

3 for 13. I have been on my new eating regime (not = diet) for 3 full weeks. Sorry that I missed posting last week about my week 3 experiences but life just took over. After 3 full weeks I am down 13 pounds. That's an average of just over 4 pounds per week. If I keep up this pace after my first 6 week experiment I should be down 26 pounds or just over 200 lbs total. I would be very happy with that. But I wonder if I am starting to plateau a bit in the weigh loss area. I lost 5 lbs in each of the first 2 weeks but this past week I only lost 2.6 lbs. Its natural that weight will come off quickly in the beginning, there will be a plateau and then start coming off again. Well, only time will tell. I just need to keep eating clean and let "nature" take it course.

I was a little bad over the weekend too which probably helped contribute to not as much weight loss. Saturday night was poker night and just like one of Pavlov's Dogs I equate beer with poker. So I had beer while I played poker. The unfortunate thing is that I had a few more beers than I had intended. Not to the point of being inebriated (can't play good poker when mentally incapacitated) but enough to hit my diet somewhat. And this weekend is going to be real challenging as I am out of town working a car race for 3 days and I will have to rely on mainly the food they serve us. I will pack as much fresh fruit as I can which should help.

After 3 weeks I can say that eating an almost completely raw foods vegan diet has been very easy, much easier than I expected. I helps that I like salad and I add a lot of different things to my salads so they are not boring. Its funny though that I never realized how much meat really plays into the American diet. There have been several times that we have been out, away from the house, so I have had to find food at restaurants. Let me tell you, there is little to no vegetarian meals on most restaurant menus. Let's see, I can have chicken, burger, shrimp, fish, turkey, burger, chicken, fish, shrimp, or a house salad.

Speaking of having to eat out, yesterday I left my lunch sitting on the counter top at home so I had to buy lunch. I work in downtown Washington, DC and we are lucky to have a salad place called Chop'T. I went there and got their Vegetarian Powerhouse. $8.57! $8.57 for some lettuce, sliced apples and crasians. My god, the mark up they are making on that must be incredible. Now I see why Americans eat fast food. Its cheap. I can go to McDonalds and get a burger, fries and a soda for $4.00. When we are encouraged economically to eat like this its now wonder we have obesity problems in the US.

Tale of the Tape
Gonna have to post two weeks worth of measurements but you already know how I've done.

End of Week 2
weight - 218 (down 5.2lbs from the previous week)
fat% - 31.6 (down to 68.8lbs of fat)
BMI dropped to 27 (goal is under 24)

End of Week 3
weight - 215.4 (down 2.6lbs from the previous week)
fat% - 29.9 (down to 64.4lbs of fat)
BMI remained at 27 (goal is under 24)

Just For Today I will look at life with fresh eyes and discover the wonder of it; I will know that as I give to the world so the world will give to me.

Week One in the Books

One week down...a life time to go. Just finished my first week of the new healthier me. Its been a good week and a successful one. It was also a very busy week which was a good challenge for my new program but I was able to stay on course (Yeah Me!).

Diet
I have stuck almost exclusively to the raw foods way of eating. The one exception was the soft pretzel I had at the NASCAR race Saturday night. I was hungry and they did not sell anything at the concession stand that would fit in my diet. I figured the pretzel was better than the mound of french fries. BTW, $4 for a soft pretzel? That's highway robbery.

Actually the eating part has been a lot easier than I expected. I am eating a ton of salad. I am literally pooping weeds (is it a sign of getting old when you start discussing your bowel movements?). Haven't found any four leaf clovers yet though.

Salads, nuts and fresh fruit, its been very easy to stick with the eating plan. Its also a lot less expensive way to eat. Take meat and alcohol out of your diet and watch your grocery (and dining) bill plummet. And I actually like the food. Today's lunch salad consists of romaine lettuce, collard greens, mushrooms, green pepper, onion, celery and chik peas (garbanzo beans). Top it off with a little lemon juice. Doesn't that sound yummy? I am actually looking forward to lunch.

What's strange is that I have not had any cravings for a particular food (thought I would be jonesing for pizza) but I have really craved salt. And that is weird for me. I never thought of myself as a salt person (do not use extra salt on any foods, haven't since i was in high school). And I never eat that much chips or other salty foods. I wonder if I was getting a lot of sodium with my beer?

Exercise
As I mentioned in a previous post my first 6 weeks are going to be devoid of exercise. I want to run a small experiment and see how my body adjusts to just a change in eating habits. During the second 6 weeks I will incorporate a Body-For-Life like exercise program. I think it will be interesting to see what my body does each of those periods. I know a lot of the early weight loss is the easiest but we'll see.

Beer and Smokes
NONE. YES! I knew if I cut out the beer the smokes would follow as I only smoked when I drank. I am happy to say that this week I made it through bowling night, a NASCAR race and pool night and never once touched a beer. That was a tough week for me. All three of those activities usually went hand-in-hand with beer so I had the whole Pavlov's dogs thing going on. But believe it or not I never really had the hard urge. Very glad about this.

Tale of the Tape
Its been a good week but I realize most of this was probably water weight and that I will not see this type of typical weight loss from week to week.
weight - 223.2 (down exactly 5lbs)
fat% - 31.8 (down to 70.9 lbs of fat)
BMI dropped to 28 (goal is under 24)

Just for today I will live one day only, forgetting yesterday and tomorrow, and not trying to solve the whole problem of life at once.

Celebrate small successes

When there is a mountain to climb you start by putting one foot in front of the other. Rarely do you leap to the peak. So today I celebrate the small success I had yesterday. Yes, it was only the first day of the journey to a healthier me but..I ate well and was not tempted by the evil god of BEER. And to top it all off, down 3 lbs. I know from doing similar weight reduction plans in the past many of the lbs lost in the first few weeks are purely water weight but..celebrate small successes.

Today is a new day and I will eat well, stay away from BEER and generally feel good about what I am accomplishing.

BTW, as an experiment, I have decided not to start an exercise program for the first 6 weeks of my journey. I want to see how just a change in diet (remember I am on mostly a raw, whole foods eating plan) affects my body. Until tomorrow..celebrate small successes.

"Just For Today I will have a plan. I may not follow it exactly, but I will have one. It will save me from worry, hurry and indecision."

Off and Running

"Today is the first day of the rest of my life." Not sure who originally said that but for today it seems true for me. This might be some sort of foreshadowing or some kind of Freudian thing but when I first typed in the title for this post it read "Off and Ruining". Huh. Wonder what that means?

Today is the first day that I try and make some serious lifestyle changes in order to get more healthy.

Diet
I am going to TRY to switch to a mostly raw foods, plant based diet. And I use the term diet as a way to eat, not a starve myself way of consuming food in order to lose weight. Yes, I do need to shed some pounds but that is just one of many overall goals. BTW, my wife and friends have set the over-under at 30 days for me to stick with this diet plan. Spent an hour or so yesterday in a completely crowded Wegman's buying tons of raw veggies and fruits. This will certainly be a less expensive way of eating as compared to my daily $10 lunches and $20 dinners. Yes, I tend to eat out a lot, somedays even eating out all three meals.

Breakfast was oatmeal, blueberries and a handful of walnuts. Lunch will be salad (lettuce, collard greens, onion and broccoli) and some fresh fruit. Not sure what dinner will hold yet as we have a 6:30 meeting that may play into dinner plans.

Exercise
No exercise planned for today as I used this weekend to play instead of planning. I hate exercising at night but I already get up a 5:00am in order to commute to work (almost 2 hours today with school starting and rain).

Other Changes
No more beer. No more smokes

Other Thoughts
Since I decided a few weeks back to do this I have been thinking about what I am going to miss most. I know for sure beer will be missed but I think I will miss pizza the most. Glad we had a pizza party yesterday.

Not sure I will post my measurements every day but will do it at least once a week. So here we go:

Today's tale of the tape
weight - 228.2
fat % - 33.6
belly circumference - 43.5 inches

Second Chances

Several events of the past week or so got me thinking about second changes.

First there was the passing of Ted Kennedy. Let's take a quick review of his early life. In 1951 he was caught cheating and subsequently expelled from Harvard (reapplied and re-entered in 1953). In 1969 he was involved in an auto accident that took the life of a young 28 year old girl, Mary Jo Kopechne. Kennedy did not report the incident to the police until the following day, AFTER the Mary Jo's body had been discovered. He freely admits to "destructive drinking" and was known to exhibit questionable behavior in public while apparently intoxicated. It is also rumored that he had several affairs while married to his first wife. YIKES! That's quite a list of accomplishments but with all the press over the last week about his contribution to the legislative landscape of this country it is very apparent that he was given a large dose of SECOND CHANCE (full disclosure: this blogger disagreed with many of his legislative positions).

Next was the discovery of kidnapping and rape victim Jaycee Lee Dugard after 18 years of captivity. Her "alleged" abductor was Phillip Garrido who had previously been convicted, sentenced and incarcerated for a previous kidnapping and rape. He was sentenced to 50 years to life but was released after only serving 11 years. This twisted SOB was given a SECOND CHANCE where in hindsight he should have had his nutz removed and shoved down his throat. Sorry but I can not stand anyone that would harm a defenseless child. Be sure that the person caught doing anything to my children will not be walking this earth.

And finally there was William Taylor who was "forced" to stand on a busy intersection here in Northern Virginia wearing a sign reading "I Cheated. This is my punishment" for alleged marital infidelity. If all I had to do was stand on a street corner with a sign I might consider... (not really hon). I know for sure my testicles would be removed with the dullest knife the wife could find, they would be placed in a jar and prominently displayed in my house where all our friends and my wife's future boyfriends could see. I am very sure that there would be no SECOND CHANCE for me. (BTW, the guy with the sign turned out to be a local radio station stunt).

So second chances. Some get them and get to be buried in Arlington National Cemetery. Some get them and completely f*#k it up. And then some aren't granted the second chance. So think before you act as you may not get the second chance, unless your name is Kennedy and you were born with a silver shovel in your mouth then you are practically guaranteed a second chance. It was a birth rite.

On a similar note, if you want to read a good book pick up No Second Chance by my fellow Lord Jeff, Harlan Coben. And no its not a story of me cheating on my wife.