The Google+ Diet

It’s not designed to lose weight, it’s designed to lose distractions in my life, in my world, in my social media…

I have the following:

• Blog
• Twitter (2)
• Facebook
• Foursquare
• Email
• Google+
• Phone (txt, voice)
• Other….

Effective today, I am going to use the following:

• Google+ which… sort of ties into email, so it’s available too.
• Phone (txt, voice)

I’m taking the challenge – 29 days… it’s on like donkey kong!  You wont see me on FB, no comments, pictures, posts … I will still behave the same, just on Google+.  Feel free to join me!

Scott on Google+

I believe this will end up on FB via a posting app.  Keep in mind, I wont see the comments… I don’t know my FB password any more!

You can send me a message on my Google+ profile, or an email… but my email is PRETTY simple to figure out!  Scott@…. Check out a poker game if you have time!

Hasta la Pasta!

2011 – Success

As many of you know, I am a professional Weight Loser…. I could probably win the biggest loser, I can lose … it’s what I do.

In 2008 I went from 274 – 230 (44 pounds).
In 2009 I went from 260 – 228 (42 pounds).
In 2010 I went from 267 – 217 (50 pounds).

So … my average starting weight for the last 3 years is 270 pounds.
So … my average low weight for the last three years is  225 pounds.

I’m going to go right ahead and admit that for the last 10-14 days of my life, I didn’t worry about eating too much.  I tried here and there, but I was on VACATION…. a work phone, email, computer free vacation and I enjoyed myself.  I’m heavier than I want to be right now, but I can PROMISE you in 48 hours, I will weigh about 5 pounds less.  You don’t get obese on a single vacation…

So – how was 2011 a success?

In 2011 I went from 267 – 212 (55 pounds).

This is  CLEARLY sets my record at 55 pounds.  Unfortunately I have to report that I am not 212 right now … rather 232.  Some would be very sad about gaining 20.  I’m not thrilled about it, but again, I know it’s going to come off SUPER FAST and I’ve done a lot of things right.

Let’s put this all together….

In 2008 I went from 274 – 230 (44 pounds).
In 2009 I went from 260 – 228 (42 pounds) – simply disguised as a THIRTY POUND GAIN!
In 2010 I went from 267 – 217 (50 pounds) – simply disguised as a THIRTY NINE POUND GAIN!
In 2011 I went from 267 – 214 (53 pounds) – simply disguised as a FIFTY POUND GAIN!
In 2012 I am starting at 232 – so put on that tag… 18 pounds.

For the last three years, I have gained back FORTY POUND!  This past year, I not only lost more, I kept more off!  I kept off nearly what I lost the last four years and for that I am proud.  I am happy and focused.

This post is not a kick off to my new super fit annoy everybody with fitness routine.  It may be waking it back up a little, dusting it off – but the simple fact of the matter is that I learned a TON of super good stuff.  I go int 2012 with a good attitude and the desire to finish this!  Four years in a row I have lost an average of 47.75 pounds.  If I can type this line:

In 2012 I went from 232 to 184 pounds (48 pounds)

I will be very happy.  I think 185 is my goal weight.

Since I don’t make resolutions…. I’m going to write down a few goals here and work towards them.

• 185 (or a healthy weight that is not going to kill me getting there)
• 365 miles running
• 3650 miles riding
• 52 bicycle commutes to work (which will take care of 1664 miles of the last goal)
• Beat Nate Finch in the PTRR since he told me he was going to “kick my butt”
• Enjoy the above listed

How do I plan to complete these?

• Portion Control – Nothing – and I do mean NOTHING is more important than this.
• Blogging and discussing – The support of friend and encouragement I get really helps.  Please keep it up!
• Portion Control - Nothing – and I do mean NOTHING is more important than this.
• Only eating my food - even when it looks good, or I am still hungry, eat my portion and leave others alone.
• Portion Control - Nothing – and I do mean NOTHING is more important than this.
• Making good decisions – this doesn’t always mean eating broccoli instead of fries.  You can eat some fries now and then, but moderation and realization that you had them YESTERDAY… you need to think about your health.  Desert isn’t bad if you have been good all day… just thinking through everything and staying on track.
• Portion Control - Nothing – and I do mean NOTHING is more important than this.
• New Sunday Morning Run – Dragging my butt out of bed to meet with the runners
• Portion Control - Nothing – and I do mean NOTHING is more important than this.
• Meal Planning – I want to continue to find some healthy and easy recopies for  me and the family.
• Portion Control - Nothing – and I do mean NOTHING is more important than this.
• Support Circle – developing a circle of similar minded people who will help keep me accountable.

So… while I didn’t ‘finish strong’ – I finished well and I am happy!  On to bigger and better things!  Who wants into the circle?

Day 3 – Could use some help

So today I am still recovering from my ‘inspired workout’.  I really don’t feel well.  I mean, the pain has made me almost feel sick.  That may sound wuss like – but it’s terrible.  I’ll make it through this.  Maybe I can work out tomorrow – but I don’t see it happening today.

Eating has been good.  Saturday was AWESOME…. Sunday was good.  Monday is already taxing me a lot.  Not really found of being taxed while I am at home – then again – not really sure being near vending machines is a good idea.

Last night we ordered up some Chinese and I didn’t want it… all my favorite Chinese recipes are really bad for you (or expensive).  They did have Thai food… I got some curry w/Chicken that everything I have searched on is apparently not too bad for me.  I was more impressed with what I did when it arrived.  I immediately took out a tupperware bowl and put 1/2 of the dinner away.  I wanted more, but I did one for now, one for later, one for now, one for later… *BOOM*  Got lunch today.

I felt weakness around lunch.  The kids didn’t finish their doritos – but I asked Sarah to get rid of the left overs.  I haven’t eaten anybodies left overs in 3 days.  I’m kind of proud of that.

One day at a time, one decision at a time – I hope to conquer this addiction.

Morning after

Ouch.  That’s about all I can say.  I started back about where I left off… which isn’t wise.  I got on the treadmill and wanted to run for 2 miles, but that seemed wimpy, so I ran for 3.  Awesome… (or something).  Then – I did my Steve Hill approved weight lifting which included squats, deadlifts, bench press and pull ups.  Today I am sore, but not injured, which simply means I need to keep it up.  In order to meet a running goal, I have a lot of running to do in the next month.  I can’t really afford too many days off but I think I will “run and gun”.  That is … run short, run long, run short, run long… by that standard – today should be shorter, tomorrow should be longer.  We will see.

I’m putting my faith in God on this one.  I am powerless over this – and he is not.  I can’t do it.  I proved that AGAIN…. My lowest weight was 212.  I’m at 226.8 this morning.  Not a huge gain – so I am grateful for that, but not good.  Let me see if I can plow some of this off before Christmas.  I did very well on my food yesterday … here is a link to my food diary.  Comments are welcome:

11/26 Food Diary

Shady’s back… Let me take this step!

So, workout 2012 has begun. I know … I know… I have done this before. I have failed yet again. Weight gain is back… Probably not all of it, but it happened again. I have my reasons, but most of them are just excuses. The simple fact is that I am powerless over my eating and my life is unmanageable. (those familiar with 12 step programs will realize I just did a very public, very open 1st step. My last 1st step resulted in 24 years of sobriety…. One day at a time. Let’s see where this one gets me….)

The big slip

Yesterday was Max’s birthday party.  It was a blast!  We had a monster truck jump thing, Sarah made a killer bat pinatta, lots of fun was had by all!  I had a great time, but in the face of being honest here, I must confess what I ate.

What I ate (too much of?)

This is the substance that brings me to the truth-booth. It was like heaven in my mouth… or so I thought. I fought with NOT eating it all day, it has lots of things in there I like (Fiddle Faddle, Candy Corn, Chocolate, Reeces Pieces, Pretzels, Chocolate…. Okay, I like it all). I did really well all day, but when I took it to the club house, I started ‘grazing’.  Every time I walked by, I grabbed  handful.  Over and over.  I kept saying to myself – “no more” – but as the song says… Wild horses couldn’t keep me away… I have NO earthly idea how much I actually ate, but I ate more than I should have.  I think it was probably less than I would have a last weekend.  I couldn’t even quantify how to tweet this.  ”32 handfuls of Halloween Trail Mix”?  I don’t know.

Anyway, I did the “smart thing”, just had one “Mummy Dog” and got the heck out of the line.  I had a cupcake too, but that is party time – one is acceptable.  I’m just upset that I grazed so much.

When I got home, I put ALL the leftovers in bags and when I got home from the football game, 90% of it was gone.  I have no idea where this stuff went, but not in my belly, so that is good.

I’m far from healed, perfect or on the right path – but I am trying!

My accountability partner… The Internet!

I know my latest hair brained idea won’t push the iPhone 4s off the news, but today it is helping me! If you haven’t been annoyed by my facebook posts about everything I eat… You probably will be soon. I decided to tweet (and cross post to fb) everything I eat. So far it is challenging me and making me think through what I eat. I am going to be honest, I am often a secret eater. Little (200 calorie snack, bite here, taste there) bit at a time, I fuel my fatness. Nobody knows, I feel guilty when i do it but I do it over and over again. I am FORCING myself to TELL YOU! Well…. As I do that, for some stupid reason it is easier to just say no. Another side effect? Makes doing your diary easier in the evening!

So… If my food annoys you, I am sorry. You can un-follow or de-friend me. I won’t be mad. You might miss when I hit one-derland, which could be one heck of a day. They say I am gonna party like it’s 1999!

Inspirational quotes

My friend Sheri posted this one the other day:

Nothing tastes as good as being thin feels!

She went on to babble about chocolate – but it hit me in the gut and made me think.  I gotta thank her for that one.  I thought of this one while running tonight:

You will never feel better if you eat because you feel bad!

Now, as I sit here typing this, watching the Biggest Loser – season 12 – I hear another one:

You have to find your inner WHY!

I kind of think I lost my inner why.  I got off track about a month, or two, or three again.  Riding, living, eating, having fun and not focussing on getting down to my healthy weight.  On one side, that is good.  I have enjoyed myself.  I rode lots, ran some.  Ate some, maintained my weight reasonably well.  I went up 5, down 4, up 3, down 6, up 2… all what I would call normal and usual human fluctuations.  I decided I would go back… I still remember how I felt in March.  Disgusted.  I’m not there yet – but I’m getting there.  As strange as this may be – I feel almost like a role model and I don’t want to turn back.  Some of you may know, my cousin Nathan has joined the fitness/weight loss cult and is doing very well.  I read his blog, his twitter … I see his enthusiasm and I dont want, at any time, him to look to his cousin and at not least have him see me do something positive.  At most – I don’t want to show him negative.  Lately – I don’t feel like I’ve been inspirational or role model.

So here it is… time for change.  Time to restart doing what did me well in the beginning.  I see a lot of positive in my life.  I didn’t completely go backwards.  I haven’t gained back everything I lost.  I have a seeming good attitude/slogan.  Anybody else in?

BTW – Nathan is coming down from Rochester, NY in July to give he Peachtree a go!  Should be good…

So … this new iCloud thing – is it a trap?

So first AT&T comes out with this super-duper-double-looper-pooper-scooper phone.  You may have heard of it in the past … the iPhone?  It was REALLY COOL…. slower than a tank, but the fastest thing on the planet.  Then they said “People will want faster data!” so … they came out with the 3G.  The faster it got, the more data they transferred.  They started doing more.  Doing more required more data transfer!  New services came up that streamed music to our phones.  Music, video… that’s data!

AT&T started having new issues.  They started running out of bandwidth so they said WAIT…. “Your Unlimited Data Plan”… that’s not really unlimited, you get 5 GB.  After that, get out your checkbook.  Only a few were affected, but I believe at this point they have even turned back their 5 gig back to 2 gig (I’m sure somebody will clarify).

Now, everybody on Verizon got all worked up and bunched – I want and iPhone… Okay, you can have one too!  (Verizon I know is set to 2GB).  Great – we will make them the fastest 3G phones we can, awesome…. but only communicate 2GB a month!

Now – here comes the iPhone 4s  (Notice, their’s no G).  It’s not a 4G phone.  Why not?  (I could argue many people cant/don’t need 4G as they wont even get it at their homes, but that’s a different discussion).  Now … they introduce this new product… the iCloud – which I _FULLY SUPPORT_!  With proper security – amen my brotha … use that internet to my advantage.  From what I have seen and read though, they are giving you 8GB of space on the cloud.  You probably have to pay more – for more…. They still have 16, 32 and 64 gig iPhones but the door is open to get rid of that and save costs.  The door is open to start charging you for cloud space for anything more than 8gb of music.  A 32 gb microsd card can be found for under $100.  How much will 32 gb of cloud space cost with the iPhone 4/5/g/s/?  I guess we will have to wait and see…. the other thing is, how many people will bust their music library up to the cloud, listen away as happy as a clam and get their bill and weep for days?  Those of us who are old enough to remember when we thought 300 minutes was enough for our cell phone…. until we used it for the first month and got our first $500 phone bill will understand.

Sorry – I really rambled here.  I like the concept of the iCloud and where I think Apple is going, but I fear that not all of the players are working together … or maybe they are.  $50 1gb iPhone w/8 gb of cloud space and a $200 a month data bill wont be a good deal!

Thanks… I’m done!

I don’t understand

Yesterday, I had a great day.  Got up… nice breakfast, coached Max’s game, didn’t make any kids cry, ran home from game, wife made me a nice lunch, Derek’s team played great, relaxed for a while, fixed my Mother in law’s computer/phone, had Chipotle for dinner, went to a INCREDIBLE concert with Sarah and to “ice my cake”… I got my Chili’s Apple Skillet thingy that I have been craving.  The thing is … 30 minutes after I finished the skillet (a huge, high calorie dessert, suitable for sharing … but I enjoyed it solo) I am driving home and am 110% sure I am ‘hungry’.  Every road sign for food is making me consider stopping for more food.  I just wanted more more more more more…. McDonalds was calling me….”99 cent double cheeseburger”…. “99 cent double cheeseburger”….  Seriously – what is it with this addiction/issue/love affair that I have with food that makes me think like that?  I don’t understand.

The good news – I made it home without stopping, went to bed and passed out with a smile on my face from the concert, but I had to consciously fight my tendencies to be a fattie even when faced with goodness.  When I started in AA they told me alcoholism is a “cunning and baffling disease”.  I guess the same can be said of any addiction.  I’m not wired right and my disease is going to do everything it can to make me give in.  ”Admitted I am powerless over food… my life is unmanageable.”

BTW – if you ever have the opportunity to see Third Day in concert – DO IT!