60 lbs down

it was on the scale. i was at the house on saturday, i went upstairs to use the bathroom, and there was the scale i used until moving out. i was wearing sweats so it was a fast moment to drop all my clothes off to weigh in and

Voila!!!

I weighed 201 lbs. i am now 60 lbs down from my starting weight.

i do not expect this will be consistent 200 lbs, but at least i hit it after the 203 - 205 plateau i have been on for awhile

Cadbury's Healthy Breakfast

I eat this almost every morning:

Oatmeal cooked in orange juice (less fluid than normal so it's very sticky). Add lots of cinnamon and ground clove while orange juice is coming to a boil. Cubed apple.



Whole wheat low fat pitas:



Yes, I know it's blurry - I had the camera tucked under my chin on timer. Mrs_C and son still have my tripod from their holiday.



And on a plate. In the morning I will throw them in a bag and eat them in the car while driving son to school and me to work.



I put the rest in a sealed container in the fridge for the next several days.

[later edit extracted from an email to nowhere girl who is going to give it a try]

it sticks to my ribs until noon - remember: it will absorb all that coffee/fluid you drink so it literally expands a bit in your stomach - so you will feel more full a short while after you finish eating

some tips:

1) i use about 2-3 cups of quick oatmeal with about equal orange juice (normal ratio: 1:1.25 fluid) and between 5-7 granny smith apples - i bought one of those wedge sectioning/coring things (you can see it behind the clove in the picture) to make it all faster
2) other apples than granny smith go mushy quicker
3) give the oatmeal a little time to cool before mixing it with the apples or you will begin to cook the apples and the texture difference between the oatmeal and the ultra-crisp sour granny smith apples is key to the whole thing
4) use a big enough pot - the orange juice foams up, especially after you put the cinnamon into it
5) make sure you stir as you are adding the cinnamon - otherwise it will clump/lump like flour in gravy
6) use LOTS of cinnamon - LOTS - like 2-3 tablespoons or even a little more
7) i put about 5 or 6 shakes of ground clove in - too much makes it a little bitter for my taste
8) the pitas tear easily - careful how you load them - i usually pile it on at the top (like the pic), then lay it flat and use the edge of my left hand at the back of the pita to hold it while i use the spoon to push/pack the mixture in
9) if the mixture is kept in the fridge in a sealed container only opened in the morning it will start to go "off" in about 5-6 days (i'm usually done [at 4 pita halves per day] in 4 days so i'm good)

not diet recipes for Nowhere Girl

"By the way, would love the recipes! Anything to make cooking faster and easier?! ;)" - Nowhere Girl

i would be thrilled to share recipes with you. i was going to just email them, but i truly love food, so i decided to post and share instead of just private mail.

some are not truly recipes, but rather ways of preparing to make minor variations for interest's sake.

many are not sooper-dooper thrilling, and are a trifle obvious or mundane, but go over well with the kids, and are generally fast and easy to make when you are cruising a hundred miles an hour

the first is an appetiser - in honour of your post:

mini-bruschettas:

buy a decent tasting pre-made brushetta tomato mixture, a baguette, and some low fat mozzarella (there's enough in the brushetta mix), low fat parmesan (optional)

slice baguette into half inch slices (rounds). put a tablespoon of the bruschetta mix on it. put some grated cheese on top and parmesan if you choose

put them in the toaster oven or in a regular oven at about 350 until the cheese melts and the bread toasts a bit - then broil for as long as it takes for the cheese to brown slightly (or to taste) without burning the exposed edges of the bread

serve

ta daaa!

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if you want a lower fat brushetta mix make your own:

garlic cloves or powder, a very small amount of olive oil (a couple of teaspoons), balsamic vinegar (to taste), a little salt, pepper to taste, basil to taste, oregano to taste, tomato and onions (yellow, white, purple - all have their own flavour - always less purple than the others because of the stronger flavours)

chop and mix all of the above ingredients... put on bread - add cheese - bake - done

a variation of the above sees using a loaf of french bread cut lengthways in half

put in oven until bread is slightly crispy - then broil to brown cheese

slice the half loaves like you would garlic bread or cheese toast (2-3-4 inch slices)

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veggies with lemon-basil-oregano vinaigrette

you can buy frozen mixes of green and yellow beans with carrots (i get this one mix at costco) - beans/carrots full length - all 3-4 inches

microwave until hot/warm/not frozen put on counter to attain room temperature or thereabouts

previously you will have made the vinaigrette

1/3 cup fresh lemon juice (or equivalent concentrate [read back of concentrate for proportions])
1/4 cup olive oil (or less for lower fat)
2 tablespoons oregano
2 tablespoons basil
onion to taste (yellow, green, white - or all of the above - not too much to overpower - a tablespoon or so)
1/4 teaspoon salt

let it sit on the counter at room temperature for the first few hours and then in the fridge for a few days to infuse

pour vinaigrette onto veggies

serve

kids like it

use same marinade for pork souvlaki... or anything you want to grill

i buy this stuff when i don't have the time, but you folks probably can't get it where you are... maybe



a link to a vendor that has a bunch of this company's stuff

not that I am suggesting you buy anthing form these people, they just have an online description of the various sauces made by gordo's

The Diet

"Holy shit. 50 pounds?! Are you low-fatting or carbing??" - Nowhere Girl

This book is the core program for weight loss that I have used. I began on this diet (as a core set of principles) in late September 2005 and still follow it (mostly). The book is Eat To Live, by Dr. Joel Fuhrman, M.D

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I am not a proselytiser for books, but, this one makes sense. The core idea of this book and Fuhrman's ideas is nutitional density per calorie of intake.

I think the book spends way too much time trying to convince people to eat healthily, but that's just my perspective.

Fuhrman says that we have sophisticated nutritional sensors in our digestive system that tell us when we have enough nutrients. He says we have stretch sensors that tell us when our stomachs are full. We have to fulfil both these needs in order to feel full. So his diet outlines how to maximise nutrients and bulk.

My diet criteria were/are: Must make sense to me; Must make some kind of real scientific sense (not health food store pseudo-science), must not be harmful or potentially fatal (see Atkins diet...), and must allow me to eat as much as I want.

I will post a few of the recipes and and pictures of things that I eat on a day to day basis. The hardest part of this diet was learning to eat - but more importantly cook differently. I come from an eastern european background and that which isn't sausage is drenched in butter or cream...

I love Asian food and Indian food - but again - I'm a little heavy on the oil. I have had to learn to be either oil free or excrutiatingly minimal in my oil usage (I eat nuts and seeds for most of my oils nowadays).

Fuhrmans' other thesis is that we eat food that is so highly processed that most of the nutirents are removed and that some over-eating is just our bodies crying out for missing nutrients.

Lots of raw and lightly steamed stuff in his recipes.

Here's something I eat about 4 times a week: You take bean sprouts, english cucumber wedges (about 1.5 inches long), and some cubed/cut not very ripe roma tomato pieces - throw it in a bowl and put a small amount of low cal dressing (yes, there are some low cal dressings that taste good - it's true) and some lemon juice (i like tart flavours). I eat as much of this as I want.

55 lbs down - I am a machine

As above. Got on the scale at the gym yesterday. I weight 205 lbs. 55 lbs down from start.

I haven't weighed this since I was 18 years old. I was worried I had gained a little in the first couple of weeks after the separation, but I am OK.

I actually weigh a little less than 205 because the weigh was not "true empty". But I don't declare unless I see it. This was even after some road food (burgers and fries - ack!) for a few days last week.

Only 15 more lbs to go and I reach target. I have already beaten my initial target of 50 lbs.

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On the diet:

A lady at in my building that I helped with a diet plan after she saw my results has lost 73 lbs since January. She started at 285 lbs (she's over 6 ft tall).

My sister is back on diet too. She had initial problems staying with the diet last spring but has been back to it recently. Based on her more recent success, she projects to be 40 lbs down by Christmas.

Another lady at my building (the friend who sent that email I posted) is down 15 lbs.

I'm thinking maybe I should go into business or something.

If we took a holiday ... Holiday... Celebrate... Holiday

There were horses:



There were fun drinks:



There was indian food:



There were animals:



There was kidding around:



There were forts:



And towers with cannons:



And more kidding around:



[Thanks to Nowhere girl for inspiration on face obscuring... ;-)]

Spending A Couple Of Weeks With My Kids

Went to a movie. It was good. Well worth watching. Made me laugh like old Disney flicks like "The Computer Who Wore Tennis Shoes" did. Well made movie, funny, kept my attention from beginning to end. Son 14 and Daughter 10 loved it too. Well recommended!

Went to see some sites around here. Saw some planes. Saw a lot of planes. Saw them take off and saw them land. Over and over again.



Saw some wee beasties. Saw some bigger beasties. Saw a lot of old stuff. Some you could touch and some you couldn't.

Weekend Away - Some Pictures

Had a really nice weekend away (for more on the nitty gritty of why we went away, read here). I'd love to share some of the pics with Mrs_C and I in them, but you know the pseudo-anonymity thing and all...

We haven't been anywhere without kids together since we didn't have any. This weekend away was a first for us. It has all been about parenting, not us as a couple for 14 years. We each had a few trips away without the other, but nothing with just us.

It was a spontaneous getaway. I certainly remembered what we found in each other - and still found this weekend - even with the background of tension, it was lovely.

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Some of where we went. It was such a gorgeous weekend. The entire world around us had been scrubbed clean.	|	Some of what we did (not us in the picture, of course). Trees, water, the smell of life. Our dog would have had fun too, just like the one in this picture.

We did not get on the water this weekend, but we enjoyed walking around the marina and seeing all the boats on the water. We didn't swin in the lake though we did walk in the water on the shore. The lake is still a little cold, and there was a pool back at the condo unit we stayed in.

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I love boats. This is such a pretty little marina and inlet. It is magical when you see it.	|	This vessel is older than I am. A great boat. 3 staterooms. I went on it a couple of years ago when it was being refurbished.

The sky is so big. The weather was raining hard on Friday evening as we drove, but cleared up overnight. The locals told us that it had been raining and grey for weeks before our arrival. I think God was casting a helping hand.

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More of the marina from a different viewpoint.	|	Hard to believe it's all in the middle of bald assed prairie. You can literally sail right past grain bins and cows...

Someday I will sail for an extended period in my own vessel. I want to sail around the Aegean and Adriatic seas (preferably into the Black Sea as well). I want to sail the Carribean, and would like to spend some time in some of the island states of the south pacific.

Someday.