Damien's Trying to Lose an Entire Person

Circumstances in my life the past 2 weeks have changed to the point where I have been unable to do the things I want to do and eat the foods I want to be eating.

Not giving up, just in a bad situation until Thursday.... welp... semi-bad. Bad in that it is costing me vasts amounts of money.

There are 3 more kids in my house right now that the wife and I have been watching and they eat FAR more than what is normally consumed in my house.

They are supposed to be gone on Thursday and then I can get my normal life back on track. It is my niece and nephews staying with us and the kids have been great, they really have. They are good kids... but I have been caring for them the last 2 weeks and I am now broke and will be unable to keep caring for them without a drastic alteration to budget.

Ok, on June 2nd I killed my diet.

The wife and I celebrated our 15 years of marriage and so I ate out (unhealthy), went to the movies (did not eat anything), went to Maggie Moos (Yum Yum Sooooo Unhealthy) and then Pizza for dinner... (Yes, unhealthy).

What movie did we see? Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian, Hank Azaria absolutely owned that movie. 'Nuff Said...

The next day, Ahhhh crap.. what did I eat? I know I had Curried Chicken the wife made for dinner. Oh yes, breakfast I had whole wheat biscuits, milk gravy with sausage.

I want to look up the GL on all of that... but I do not have the time this exact moment.

This morning I had the rice with the full grain on it along with sausage. I would prefer to have my Cheerios, but we are out and have to shop tonight.

So I was sitting around and my good friend Drew was out of work for the day. He is a good friend of mine and we hit lunch together often and my other friend Neil came in late and was not going to go to lunch at the same time I was.

I stepped outside and I realized that I really did not want to lose my epic parking space and yet I was hungry.

It then hit me, the Thai place I enjoy is only about a quarter of a mile away and I might as well walk it. So off I went... the temperature in Nashville later would read at 93 degrees and I was going at around 11. However, it was not oppressive with the humidity, it was just a rather dry heat and for me that makes all the difference in the world.

I had been reading how curry is pretty blasted healthy and I love curry and I really wanted some beef.... so durrr Curry Beef. I forgot to ask for steamed rice however and instead got fried rice. I will work on trying to remember next time.

I was the only person there and the entire place was empty and I was a bit annoyed that they seated an entire group of loud people directly behind me about ten minutes later. The entire place was empty and you are going to put them directly behind me like that?

The food was excellent however and I headed back to work.

I noticed my heart rate was up. So not only did I eat well and healthier I also got a good bit of exercise in.

Potty Mouth suggested I take a photo of my food and then look at it later. I can honestly say now that I have done that, I can see the benefits. I would definitely eat this again with no guilt.

Mood: I ate while actually being hungry.

My dinner was much more simply I had a blackened salmon fillet and some corn. 

Ok, so I remembered that I do not blog much on the weekends. How did I do overall?

Friday - I had bombed my diet by eating a piece of cake.
Saturday - I had bombed my diet by eating a piece of leftover cake.
Sunday - I forgot what I ate.

Ok, that does not paint a picture of how my weekend went.

Cheerios with either a banana or strawberries still stands at number 1 when it comes to my breakfast.
Lunches were ok
Dinners were ok as well.

I need to keep a small notebook with me to write everything down when I am not blogging.

So this morning? Cheerios and Banana cut up into it. So I am off on the right foot.

The big question is... did I run?
Yes I did, I ran on Sunday morning.

I really wanted to increase the amount of time I was running. The walk minute thirty and then run for thirty has been going well, however my ankles are still absolutely killing me halfway through. It is not that they just hurt, no... they want to stop holding me up. They are just sore.... massively sore. It was some hours later when I even felt remotely normal again. lol

I am keeping at it.

New Day...new tracking. Did our intrepid hero start off on the right foot? Did he scarf down massive amounts of chemically induced, pre-packaged and greasy foods?

I had a bowl of Cheerios and had Strawberries chopped into it.

Cheerios - (103 Calories, 21g Carbs, 3g Fiber, 12 GL)
Milk - (146 Calories, 13g Carbs, 0g Fiber, 9 GL)
Srawberries - (49 Calories, 12g Carbs, 3g Fiber, 3 GL)
Stash Spiced Chi Tea - (Pink Packet) - (0s across the board)

298 Calories/1600 Calories
24 GL/100 GL

Nice start... time to get some water, going to keep tanking down the H2O.

It is now time to back over my previous day and talk about what I had for lunch and dinner and see what the Glycemic Load was.

So for lunch I ended up going to this great sub place called Sub Depot. As there is only one of this place I am going to need to break this down into its core ingredients and attempt to figure this out.

I had a Turkey on Oat bread with tomatoes and red onions and had a light mayo on it.

Turkey - (66 Calories, 3g Carbs, 0g Fiber, 3 GL)
Oat Bread - (140 Calories, 24g Carbs, 2g Fiber, 12 GL)
Tomato - (4 Calories, 1g Carbs, 0g Fiber, 0 GL)
Red Onion - (11 Calories, 3g Carbs, 0g Fiber, 1 GL)
Romain Lettuce - (8 Calories, 2g Carbs, 1g Fiber, 1 GL)
Iceberg Lettuce - (10 Calories, 2g Carbs, 1g Fiber, 1 GL)
Light Mayo - (45 Calories, 1g Carbs, 0g Fiber, 0 GL)
Unsweetened Tea - (6 Calories, 0g Carbs, 0g Fiber, 0 GL)

In Total
Calories: 284
Carbs: 36g
Fiber: 4g
GL: 18

A load less than what I had at Starbucks and overall since this was my lunch this kept me full for many hours... this was worth it.

So at this point in the day I had a total GL of 71 and I had 712 Calories left over I could use.

So let's head for dinner time when my wife wanted to make me a nice salmon salad, which in hindsight is awesome. Instead we went the hamburger, potatoes and corn route cause I am a whiny bitch. I am almost afraid to figure this out.

Hamburger - 2 patties (NO bread) - (392 Calores, 0g Carbs, 0g Fiber, 0 GL)
Mashed Potatoes - 1 Serving - (174 Calories, 37g Carbs, 3g Fiber, 16 GL) *Whimper*
Corn - 2 Servings - (192 Calories, 44g Carbs, 4g Fiber, 18 GL)
Water - 16 Ounces (Not even worth putting here since it is all 0s and look at me I am still wasting time)

So I surpassed my daily intake by: 52 calories
My Glycemic Load by: 5

I succeeded in a different way however. Had I not been tracking, I would have surpassed this by an even greater amount and I see I should have gone with the nice salmon salad the wife offered to make for me. However, I do not feel guilty as I was careful during the day and was able to splurge on what I really loved at dinner time. With some fine tuning I can stay on target.

Also I succeeded in that on a sandwich I added something other than lettuce and mayo. I generally am NOT a fan of tomatoes or onions and I went ahead and added them...and then absolutely fell in love with the taste they brought to the sandwich.

  

  

I need to eat healthier today for lunch and I am in the Opry Mills area for lunch. I am surrounded probably by 100 places to eat.

I would like to eat out healthier and cheap.

Any suggestions?

As a new diabetic I was wondering what the snot is this Glycemic Load stuff is. Now I do not fully grasp everything about it yet, however I do understand that it is how foods affect your blood sugar.

I also read that the typical person should not exceed a rating of 100 in a day and that diabetics should shoot lower.

So let us analyze the glycemic load of what I had today:

Banana: 10 (Cool)
Cheerios: 12 (Still Good)
Milk: 9 (Very Cool)
Starbucks: 22.... (DEAR LORD)

I am over my halfway point simply because of Starbucks.

Oh Starbucks, how I love thee...let me count the ways....  Caramel Light Frappachino....
Ok, so that is my only reason.

From here on out... I am cutting myself off from Starbucks. I am sorry Starbucks, I would send you a "Dear John" letter, but I am too busy.

Might as well start putting up some stats.

Pants: Waist 48, Length 30
Shirt: XXL however I prefer XXXL
Height: 5'10"
Weight: 320lbs.

I can easily see myself getting down to 270 easily, I have done it before and I tend to plateau in that region.

I think part of my problem is that even though I am a big guy, I like myself. I totally love me and I don't mean in a vain way either. Every scar, blemish, wrinkle and bit of fat... I am... me and while I want to lose weight and feel healthier... I am absolutely comfortable with myself.

I believe I am a good person with a lot to offer. I feel that my actions and the way I treat people matter to them.

Perhaps this is also why losing weight has always been a problem with me. I am not vain enough. Oh sure, I enjoy looking nice and my wife thinks I am pretty smoking... and welp, I did have a man tell me yesterday I am cute. So... hey... I love being me.

I am almost grateful that I am on medicine that makes me miserable. It is giving me the moment to moment drive I need to make these kinds of changes.

I am not entirely sure why I wrote this post. I guess besides the stats, I wanted people to understand my mood about myself and how I have confidence and I am pretty positive about all this.

EDIT: Oink (who appreciates fine thighs) pointed out I was way off on bananas and I went back and checked and I screwed up the type and serving information. So I have readjusted the numbers... thank you!

So I might as well start recording what I ate. Might as well place it here and tag it foodjournal.

1 - Bowl of Cheerios (103 Calories, 3g Fiber, 21 Carbs, 3g protein)
1 - Pink Packet of Sweetener (No Idea)
1 - Medium Banana (200 Calories, 6g Fiber, 51g Carbs, 2g protein)
1 - Medium Banana (105 Calories, 3g Fiber, 27g Carbs, 1g protein)
1 - Cup of Milk (146 Calories, 0g Fiber, 13g Carbs, 8g protein)
1 - Venti Skinny Caramel Frappachino (250 Calories, 4g Fiber, 51g Carbs, 9g Protein)

I swear those Frappachinos are Kryptonite.

Ok, so looking over this...what did I learn? Dear God... a Banana is as bad as a Light Frappachino in terms of Carbs and as I am diabetic... I should be staying away from the Frappachinos and be wary of bananas.

Now the banana has awesome fiber in it... and so that takes away from the Carbs as well as other nutrients. As long as I do not go overboard, I can eat a banana. I have to make sure I eat it in the morning when my blood sugar is at it's lowest and I have a chance to burn it off. I am thinking that Starbucks needs to be culled totally from my diet and not bananas. Bananas offer potasium and other nutrients which I can justify as long as I only eat 1 in a day.

I could also offset those carbs by taking in some Benefiber or some other fiber additive.

I think I am going to restrict my calories to 1600 per day for now. That is what the Doctor told me to begin with, now I will listen.

So, how many do I have left and how many have I consumed?

Consumed: 699 604
Remaining: 901 996
Likelyhood I will surpass this: Pretty Good Chance.
Mood: I was in a neutral mood this morning, sick yes, but not sad about it. However when I went to Starbucks I did it cause I really thought I needed the caffeine. I need to buy a new coffee press and make my own sugar free coffees at home.

I am just being honest with myself, I had no idea how many calories I had consumed until now.

I always knew my metabolism is awesome in the mornings and craps out at night. Perhaps I need to eat most of my calories through the day up until 1pm'ish. Then around dinner time, I stick with a nice salad, some baked fish... that kind of stuff and not eat past 7 PM so that it gets burned up before I go to bed... or mostly burned up. I did it in the past and it really worked out for me then. I am reminded that that is probably the way I should go. 
 
I also need to replace the whole milk in my diet with perhaps soy milk, which I do enjoy or perhaps skim milk.
Must research.

I got the nutritional values from this cool site: http://www.nutritiondata.com/