SavantGo

Well, I have now been dieting for a week, I am ready to eat sawdust at this point. you know, chicken can get pretty tiring, and if you think adding in fish helps let me be the first to tell you, it doesnt, it is just too bland.

I really miss cow.

The good news though, after one week I have lost 6 pounds and am starting to get used to not eating the same things. honestly the chicken doesnt bother me so much, but the switch to non fat latte’s has about killed me. The trick i learned though is this, you can use a non fat milk and add about a tablespoon of half and half, this makes it drinkable at least. Notice I am not saying that makes it good, just drinkable. it also cuts the calories in under half and the fat to almost nothing, so thats worth it when you drink 10-12 of them a week like I do.

I am down as of yesterday to 232 lbs and also my blood pressure is down a small amount to 140/91 which is all heading in the right direction. No word yet on the cholesteral levels as I still havent seen a doctor yet, if I could do that every week though I would be very happy, everyone tells me the first 15 lbs will be easy though, obviously they have not tasted a non fat latte. There is nothing easy about that.

Its only been two days, one thing I can tell you is that if you are going to diet, and do it right, you are going to be hungry. Another thing I can say for sure is that a Non Fat Vanilla Latte tastes nothing like a whole milk Vanilla Latte, its night and day.

I have been researching diets, and pills and the like that are supposed to help you, that is downright scary in itself. The side effects of the various pills can be as dangerous as the weight itself, then there is the one that everyone I talk to points me to, Alli.  I think I will hold off on that for now as the side effects just dont sound any fun at all to me, I would rather be hungry.

So after all this research and two days of hunger, I am going to follow the following diet for now, we will see how well it works.

Breakfast: Slimfast Shake - 190 calories

Snack Mid Morning: Bagel with Cream cheese and NonFat Latte - 400 calories

Lunch: Slimfast Shake - 190 calories

Afternoon Snack: Apple or Orange - 75 calories on Average

Dinner: varies, but always includes high fiber and vegetables mostly with a smaller serving of chicken or fish, not fried. Salads at least 3 times a week.  500-700 calories.

If I am hungry between these times, I will drink a glass of water, as one of the most interesting things I am learning is that I tend to mistake thirst for hunger.

This will give me a total diet of approximately 13-1500 calories a day, assuming i do not skip some of the breakfast and lunch slimfasts, which I most likely will as I am not normally a breakfast eater, nor do I usually eat this many times in a day. my habit has been two large meals daily, so a lot of this is to break that habit. Basically this will cut my caloric intake by 2/3 compared to what an average day has been in the past.

I am also going to try to walk more than I have in the past, to the corner store (1/3 mile) for example when I have the time versus jumping in the car for every short trip. In looking at the calorie counter for activities (http://www.primusweb.com/fitnesspartner/jumpsite/calculat.htm), it really doesn’t take much to burn off the calories. you basically burn off 2000 calories a day just doing normal things, any small amount of strenuous exercise will get you up around 23-2500 calories a day burned. I want to go back to shooting some basketball hoops for an hour or so 3 days a week and if I will walk for 30 minutes the other 3 days to start with and do some light work on my elliptical machine or weights a few times a week that will be easy enough to do, its just actually making the time to do it.

One of the overriding problems with dieting for me has always been feeling like I am missing out, especially because I like to cook. I am going to remedy this somewhat by having 2 cheat dinners a week on Fridays and Sundays where I can cook whatever I like. That is probably going to amount to an additional 500 calories on each of those meals, however it is worth it to me to do that much extra in exercise or whatever to make up for that the rest of the week.

Thats it for today, more tomorrow or the next day as I try to stick to my plan.

OK, embarrassing as it may be here are my stats today as we start the 50lb quest;

42 Years old sedentary 2 Pack a day smoker
5′11″
238 lbs.
37% body fat
Blood pressure: 147/98
Cholesterol: I haven’t actually had this checked, but I think based on my habits that there are probably actually cheeseburgers flowing through my system right now. I will update as soon as I have this number available.

We will track these numbers over the time of the 50lb quest and hopefully sometime during this quest I will also be able to quit smoking. I have been advised by many to not try to quit smoking during the first month of this as it would be almost impossible to change that many things at once, the stress of the diet, combined with quitting smoking would be too much to begin with. So I hope toadd in the non smoking part of this sometime in late June or early July.

Unfortunately, one of the side effects of owning your own internet empire business is that you sit in front of a computer 16 hours a day. The side effect of that, about 40 extra pounds over the last 7 years.

Now, I have to do something about it, as the blood pressure is getting out of control, and with my Scotch-Irish background I have an irrational fear of looking eerily similar to Mike Myers in a fat suit.

So follow along with me over the next 6-8 months as I try to get down to my fighting weight of 185 by the new year, (I am currently at 238) That seems like a somewhat irrational goal to lose 53 pounds in that short amount of time, but what the hell, never hurts to try.

This is just something I have decided today, so I will be posting about my experiences, what I do, and what the results are. I dont even know yet how I am going to do it, but over the next week or so I will post all my expectations and what I am doing now and what I am going to change in order to effect such a drastic change in a fairly short time.

Remember that whatever I do, has to fit into my schedule and the fact that I am basically desk bound for around 12 hours every day at a minimum. This means I cant do some crazy three hours a day of exercise, no fad diets either as I am going to try to affect permanent lifestyle changes, not lose some weight then gain it back etc. I am off for this evening to do some research.

This might be the most biased piece of reporting i have ever seen, I will be voting for Obama myself most likely, however i am not so disillusioned as to think that the military is now according to the way this article is writter 100 percent democratic ticket voters. If we are lucky we will get 25 percent democratic, these are the types of articles and reports that make conservatives say the news is slanted to the left. You think?

Read it for yourself, but be ready to be surprised at the “news” that every soldier ABC News talked to in Iraq will be a democratic party vote. Meanwhile I have some land to sell you, its under a bridge, but really, it’s nice.

Read story: http://abcnews.go.com/WN/story?id=4244798&page=1

An interesting take from a white guy who seems to get it, and compares Obama’s speech to Kennedy, Lincoln, and king, as well as relates it back to some all to common real world experiences.

read more | digg story

Today the top story on Digg and in the coming weeks we will see it more and more is a reference to the nearing 4000 US military who have been killed in the Iraq war.

This count came off of the left leaning Huffington Post group of blogs. Now I am pretty much in the center on most things, so I tend to read things from every side so of course I keep up with the Huffington Post at times, as well as conservative blogs, down the middle blogs, and completely crazy blogs….more

A funny picture that tells us all why eye makeup is so important… or not

read more | digg story

This week we get to finally have the second game of the year. The first was the so called “Duel in Dallas ™ESPN” I suppose this one shall be called “The battle of the Unbeatens” or something along those lines.

read more | digg story

An inspiring story about Macharia Yuot. Considering the life-threatening circumstances of his youth, his incredible walk across Africa as one of the “Lost Boys of the Sudan,” and his settlement in the Philadelphia area, Macharia Yuot sincerely believes that anything is possible in life

read more | digg story