Quick!

Ok I am in the kitchen and thought I would do a quick update for yesterday.

Breakfast-
5 sausage links
SB Coffee HC&Splenda

Lunch-
Chicken Sausage and Red Cream Sauce

Dinner-
14oz strip steak (cooked wrong at the restaurant!)
Asparagus
Green Beans
Garlic Butter Shrimp


Anyway back to the family. Just made some Creamy Scrambled Eggs with Basil and Parmesan!

F i n a l l y!

Ok, this morning I weighed 325 EVEN. That is 11 down total sine 7/1/08! I am just glad the plateau is over. I am definitely not going to weigh in again till Monday and then not again till Friday. Weighing in every day and watching the fluctuations is bad in the beginning for me. As far as food went yesterday:

Breakfast-
5 sausage links (2 carbs)
LC ketchup (1 Carb)
SB Venti Iced Coffee, HC&Splenda (3 carbs)

Lunch-
Cobb Salad w/ avocado and ranch dressing (7 carbs)

Dinner-
3 Chicken wings w/ BCheese (2 carbs)
Weird new chicken sausage and broccoli dish I made (4 carbs)

Ok the Chicken sausage thing I guess I should describe. I have leftovers I plan on eating at lunch maybe. I really liked it, but I will explain why I am partial to it and others may not be.

What is in it?

Ingredients:
5 Sweet Italian Chicken Sausage links (bought in a brat-like package at Meijers)
2 Packages frozen broccoli (the rectangular box kind)
Garlic Powder
Salt
Pepper
Dried Parsley, Oregano
2oz Cream Cheese
3oz Heavy Cream
Red Pepper Flakes
2-4oz Parmesan Cheese
3-4 Tbsp LC Ketchup
3 Tbsp Olive Oil
1 Tbsp Butter

Goals:
Make a creamy tomato italian sauce to go with the broccoli and italian style chicken sausage. I used the LC Ketchup since I LOVE ketchup (I eat it on sausages) and I knew it was sweet and would counter all the savoy/salty cheeses. You could substitute some splenda and tomato sauce it really didn't take much to give the pinkish color to the sauce and the tomato flavor.

How it was made:
- Set out cream cheese to soften
- Use running water to thaw/get ice off of frozen broccoli
- Brown the sliced chicken sausage 2 minutes per side in the heated olive oil. (medium high heat)
- Season with garlic, salt, pepper, pepper flakes, oregano, parsley
- Add Broccoli and re-season cook w/ broccoli and make sure to stir to prevent burning 4-5 minutes
- Add cream cheese, shredded parmesan, Heavy Cream, oregano, garlic powder, pepper, parsley, LC Ketchup to a microwave safe bowl (I used a measuring cup)
- Stir to combine, and heat in microwave 25-40 seconds just to warm/temper it (better not to shock the fat when you are going to be putting it into the sudden heat)
- Add in this mixture when the broccoli seems softened/done
- Take the pan off the heat and combine cream sauce, add butter at end to add extra creamy love
- Serve as is if you are me

I did this dish with broccoli because I am trying to get rid of our old frozen stuff. They actually held the sauce fairly well. The sauce tasted like a Napoli style sauce of a marinara mixed with alfredo (which is what it was really.) I really liked it, but it is hard to divorce my love of ketchup from it. I think adding in some color would help the dish. Maybe some yellow/red/green bell pepper and/or topping it with fresh parsley/green onion. Overall it was successful, but maybe asparagus would be worth trying as well. Sorry for the lack of measurements I cook so often I always season to taste. To me Italian has strong garlic backgrounds with italian herbs hitting you in the front of your palate. "Season" it till it tastes Italian to you. =) I always try to think, Does this taste too sweet or too salty? Once I have figured that out I used the seasonings to even it out. Too sweet? Salt/Garlic/Vinegar/Parmesan, too salty.. Splenda, tomato paste etc etc. Not Italian enough? More herbs/garlic!

Anyone that is how I do it, little to no training but I love to cook. If anyone has suggestion I am open to them. Try the recipe and change it and let me know how it goes. Next week it is crockpot city!

On working out

I am not stranger to dieting and working out. During my last weight loss I was in the gym 3-5 days a week for about 5-6 months. For about 2 months of that I had a personal trainer and was in during the mornings with him and at night with my friend. That is why I find it so odd I am not back there yet. I figured I would write about my experience so that I can re-motivate myself and maybe share some of my experience being very overweight in a gym with others and maybe do a little motivating.

Sure, at first the gym is intimidating but I have found that the more you go the less you worry about that. You start to see the same people and they start to notice you working hard. The only judgement ever passed in gyms I have seen are on people that are there to socialize and not work out. I have even had people offer advice which I humbly took.

In my opinion (and you will find others touting this or that) resistance training is the way to go. I have read all about (HIIT)High Intensity Interval Training, I have read the articles on LISS (Low Intensity Steady State) as well as many on the benefits to resistance training (lifting weights.)

At the end of the day, no matter what you choose everyone is going to react differently. I think the best is to try a little of each. A great forum I have used in the past for ideas and finding information is the John Stone Fitness Forums. This is not exactly a pro-low carb place but it is great for diet information/working out information.

Most of the diets stressed on the site are of the 6 meals a day, reduce you calories below you basal metabolic rate and slowly burn the weight off. I am not going to get into the calories vs insulin debate, this is my workout post. =) I just thought I would warn people that are low carbers reading this that read some of the diet information there and get upset.

Anyway, onto my experiences. I have found that lifting weights worked very well for me as far as losing inches and getting stronger. One thing about lifting I noticed is that initially you will gain muscle mass quickly if you have not been working out before. Why do I mention this? Well because imagine that you lose 2 pounds of fat and have gained 3 pounds of muscle. What is the result of that? Well for me it was dropping a belt loop and losing 0 pounds or even gaining 1. It felt great though to see myself improving on the weights I could use. Just remember that muscle is dense and fat is not. That is how you shrink when you gain muscle weight. The goal is to lose fat, minimize or gain lean muscle mass. The great benefit is that lean muscle needs more energy to be maintained than fat. Thus your body will use more fuel to maintain itself.

As far as the actual lifting what I did (and would recommend) is to do each exercise at a weight that allows you to do 8-12 repetitions before your muscle fails. If you can just keep going and going you should up the weight. Make sure you start out low the first time you go, don't want to hurt yourself. You should do at least 3 sets of these repetitions per exercise. For example my favorite exercise was the dumbell bench press. I got to where I was using 65 pound dumbells, but when I go back this week I will start back at 40 and work my way up. When you get to the point where you can do 11-12 reps for 3 sets, move up in weight. Just to the next weight up. Rinse and repeat.

As far as how often and when to work out which muscle groups. I am not an expert go to the forums and you will see 1000 different routines where people tell you do a full body workout, others will tell you do do chest/arms and then back/shoudlers, then legs... The way I did it was I just broke it down to Chest/Back, Shoulders/Arms and Legs. I highly recommend starting out with basic compound exercises. Hit your large muscle groups! Squats for your legs, rows for your back, bench presses for your chest, and about 2 other exercises per body part. Why do you break it up? Simply because your muscles will not heal efficiently if you keep stressing them. Give yourself 48 hours AT LEAST before you work the same body part out again. Muscles grow by micro tears/stress and then healing. I know people start off really motivated, but gradual workouts with healing times are needed. That is another reason people break up the exercises by body parts. If you do a full body, fine, just make sure you give your whole body 2-3 days to heal before going back.

I could make this long and perhaps as I go back documenting it would be a good way to continue the conversation. I just wanted to get started. Things I would strongly recommend for overweight people starting out...

Squats and Lunges! Your natural body weight is all you need when you are really heavy and this is where extra strength will help you in your daily life. Do a squat (proper form) the first few times 3 sets of 15 squats with proper form. The next day your will burn. The same with lunges. Be careful with doing a lunge because with either of these exercises you are putting stress on your knees that with your heavy weight they are not used to! Proper form is a must! After awhile add a medicine ball (5-8lbs) and do the squat while holding it, and at the top of your squat put the ball above your head for a shoulder press and come down. I love that exercise. My shoulders were weak when I started and that really burns.

Situps! Remember that your abs are muscles too and you should let them heal like all other muscles. Do your sit ups and wait a couple of days before doing them again.

Work your back out! Seated Rows are great! I noticed that my back got the strongest the quickest. It helps your posture and is great!

I will post the workouts I start here in a few days and show you the other ones I am going to add. Just starting is the key and don't burn yourself out!

One more thing to add.. You WILL BE SORE! The first 2 weeks you will be the most sore. This is just a sign that your muscles are building up, and in the beginning they are building more because of the abrupt change in routine. I promise it will pass over time.

Anyway, not sure if that is a help, but at least I got it out there.

Is lack of bad news good news, or is it neutral?

Well I didn't weigh in this morning so how bad of a day can it be? Yesterday I ended up going to see my wife at work (she works at a hospital) because she wanted me to get my blood pressure taken. It has been high for my spry 32 years and she has been worried. We had a nurse take it and it registered 120/65! That is the best it has been in a long time. She still set up an appointment for me to get cholesterol and whatnots measured. That is good I guess. Anyway onto the FOOD for yesterday!

Breakfast:
2 Sausage Patties
LC Ketchup
Venti SB Coffee w/ HC&Splenda

Lunch:
Green beans (4carbs)
Chicken Tenderloins w/ Cheese
4 Strips bacon!

Dinner:
3/4lb of chicken tenders w/ Broccoli Chinese style (more below)

So for dinner I decided I was going to flavor up some chicken tenders spicy chinese style. =)

I used:
3/4lb Chicken Tenders
1 Package frozen Broccoli
.5T Pepper flakes
1T Garlic Powder
Lots of Soy Sauce (3-4T)
2T Olive Oil
.5T Seasame Seed Oil
Salt and Pepper
1T butter

Prep work:
Ran water on broccoli
Chopped up chicken in 1 inch pieces
Heat pan with Olive Oil and Sesame Seed Oil

The steps:
- Throw the chicken in the hot oil, add pepper flakes, garlic, salt pepper let it cook for about 2-3 minutes at high heat and flip the chicken around so it semi-browns but does not burn

- Add some soy sauce to chicken, mix around and let it reduce with the chicken in it for about 1-2 minutes

- Add broccoli, add more garlic, pepper flakes, salt and pepper, let broccoli heat through with chicken for a couple of minutes

- Add more soy sauce, stir every so often, let soy reduce out (you can add some sirachi hot sauce or what not be careful it is carb loaded, but powerful in little bursts) Another 2-3 minutes

- With soy reduced, broccoli very warm and steaming add in 1T of butter and flip pan around till it melts and creates a nice buttery soy coating on your food. It should just be a coating and there should be little residual liquid. It is important that you have either broccoli you have soaked and semi-thawed and dryed, or fresh to decrease the amount of reducing time you need.

Anyway it worked for me, it was spicy, buttery and soy soy salty.

Hopefully when I weigh in tomorrow things will be better. I have my doubts. I really don't understand what is going on. Even Calories wise at 328 pounds I should lose weight on any diet that is less than 2500 calories and I am eating 1800-2000 I would imagine. I have done many diets where I count calories and have a pretty good feel for it.

Hope you all are having a great day. I have to do some work!

Wow

Well good news and bad news! I gained those two pounds back! @#*(^%()*@#&*%!!!! However, from comments here on the blog and from some of the forums I am on people have mentioned that fast food "meat" has fillers and non-meat carby things in them. I don't know why I didn't think of that! Last night I had 2 Baconators and as Sal mentioned that is 16 carbs right there! My last low carb efforts I RARELY ate at fast food, but being a dad now makes it so much easier to do. I am going to severely limit fast food from this point forward and see if that helps. Yesterday's foods were:
Breakfast-
4 patties
LC Ketchup
Venti Iced Coffee HC & Splenda

Lunch-
3 buffalo wings
2Tbsp Blue Cheese
Creamed Spinach leftovers

Dinner-
2 Baconators from Wendys (16g Carbs @%%$#)
Diet coke at the movies (batman again!)
LC Ketchup and Mayo
Iced Venti Decaf Americano w/ HC and Splenda

328 AGAIN! Well at least I have a good idea of what is keeping me from dropping now. I will try to eat things at home for the next week. Also, I am not weighing again till Friday. Until I figure out my stall completely it is hurting more than helping.

Oh and I bought some Canola Oil Mayo instead of the soybean oil based mayo I had been eating. Too many times I have been hearing that the soybean oil is not so good for you and I am eating lots of mayo. =)

Anyway, I will stay positive and move along.

Finally...

Well I am going to try to not get too excited but I finally dropped back down to where I was beginning of last week. I am at 326.8 as of this morning. As far as food went yesterday I had:

Breakfast-
2 Sausage Patties
1Tbsp LC Ketchup
Venti Iced Coffee w/ Splenda and HC

Lunch-
2 Baconators (double cheese w/ bacon YUM!)
LC Ketchup and mayo

Dinner-
Creamed Spinach
8 Homemade Buffalo Wings
2Tbsp Blue Cheese dressing

I did have some diet coke and some Sprite Zero.
I am unsure what has stalled my weightloss but hopefully I will drop a few more pounds before it happens again. I really don't think it can be the diet drinks. I have reduced the number and am keeping my carbs at <15 a day at least.

Anyway back to work!

No cheats, no results

So I didn't get to post at all this weekend. It was crazy! I found out that we are having a girl in December (95%.) I can't wait to be a father again. =) As far as the weightloss goes I am STILL 328.4 pounds this morning! I AM SO FRUSTRATED! My only cheats this weekend were diet cokes. I was 100% on my low carb diet! I guess this means a week without any diet drinks. I have never had this problem on low carb before though. Last time I was having diet drinks and eating more than I am now and was dropping continuously.

We got a nice little camera tripod this weekend so hopefully I can start documenting my progress or lack thereof!

Well all I can do is make a small change and see what happens. I am going to start going to the gym this week so maybe that will take me out of this stall. Hope everyone is having a great day.