Weight Goal Met!

Boom Shakalaka

I started tracking my weight and what I was eating on April 3rd. Starting at ~250lbs: I set a primary goal to reach 200 pounds. Then I decided when I reach that goal, I'll re-asses and pick a new goal.

Well, today I weighed in at 199.8 so, I've reached it! After many months, I've reached it. I'm positively, super-duper, blooming elated.
I'd like to think that I lost weight in a healthy way. One that will have lasting effects and won't have a yo-yo effect.
How did I do it? Well I took the advice of the many doctors I've spoken to... I ate right and exercised. Amazing how what they've always said is the best method really is. ;)
As for specifics here ya go:

Exercise: I knew that if I added in cardio, it had to be easy on my body because I didn't want to get injured and need to halt my progress. So I took up swimming. When I was a kid I used to swim a great deal, but it was tough in many ways to get started as an adult. I started with what I knew, breaststroke and I swam basically until I couldn't swim anymore. it was about 10 laps (there and back in a 20 meter pool) and it took me about 30 minutes. yes, there was a LOT of resting. I set a schedule for myself. Early morning swimming on Monday, Wednesday and Friday. The most important part, much more important than what I did in those windows is doing it consistently. If, for whatever reason, I missed a day, I would go the next day and make up for it. I kept with it. and about 3 months in, I was swimming about half the distance in breaststroke and the other in freestyle, which was more draining for me.
I've worked up my pace and my technique. I now swim a mile in about 40 minutes. my best time being 37:54. I usually swim 1 mile which is 44 laps in my 20 meter pool at the local YMCA.
In addition to swimming, I added in walking during lunch with some colleagues at work. I also looked for chances to do activities on weekends that would help my body get into the shape it needed to be. I had to push myself hard and I learned to enjoy that. ;)

Diet: My first step was identifying the issue with my current diet. It wasn't hard to find, I ate too much. I had my sensors and expectations about food totally off. It was my sub-concious decision that I should eat until I'm full, that it doesn't matter what I eat, just that I was full and that the food was tasty.
The best way to  learn how to eat right is to track everything you eat. For this one, I needed some method to track. I began tracking with Sparkpeople.com which is an inspirational fitness and wellness site. It also has an app for the phone which I leveraged heavily. I set a very aggressive goal to lose 2 pounds a week. it gave me a daily calorie range of 1580-1860. I didn't really know what that equated to until I started logging everything that passed into my gullet. Then I learned that's not much. But I stuck to it, tracking everything as honestly as I could without being TOO strict. One thing I knew is that I enjoy food. I knew that after I dropped weight I still wanted to have some pizza or a nice cheeseburger. So I learned to have these things while losing weight. I had at least one cheeseburger and some pizza each week during my weight loss. You see, many folks go into extreme diets and learn an incorrect lesson. That there are 'Bad foods' and 'Good foods'. Well.... Don't learn that. All foods have their time and place. What is bad is eating too much or too frequently or just 'too anything'! I learned I can totally polish off some awesome pizza if I've eaten right during the rest of the day and I've factored it into my weekly diet.
During the process of tracking my intake, I learned about the composition of food, that if I didn't eat enough carbs for instance, I got much more tired the next day. That if I planned on having a long day of swimming or hiking on Saturday, I'd better eat some extra carbs for that energy I needed.
I also learned that I wasn't eating enough. :) at 1580-1860, you can't do much in the way of exercise. I learned I should really be eating more like 1800-2000 in order to have enough energy to power me through exercises. I learned that if I didn't eat enough and kept exercising at the rate I was, that my body would NOT lose weight like it should because it was under the impression it was starving and would start saving instead of burning.
I've got about 20 other tips I can offer to those that would like to know more.

What's next: I'm not taking any time off from living a healthy lifestyle. The best part about losing weight this way is that I don't miss anything. I haven't had a 6-month long craving for something. I've worked in my desires throughout so that I don't have the urge to suddenly consume an entire Chipotle Burrito followed by a quesadilla, chips, salsa and a drink. I no longer feel the urge to finish off an entire pizza, which I used to do.
So, that being said, I'm going to keep up with fitness. I'm going to stop tracking everything I eat and start tracking more my fitness goals. I'm going to pick out a 5K in about a month and train for it. Then I'll see if I can get in a 10K before the year is out. I plan to eat for fuel more than for weight loss. I'll still track my weight, but I'm not going to be so focused on it anymore. I know that as I improve my physical fitness the weight will continue to drop until I hit my ideal weight somewhere around 170-180lbs.

Regarding Spice.

The worm is the spice, the spice is the worm. - Paul Atreides

This last weekend, I had the chance to eat a delicious meal of Indian food. I have rarely eaten such type of food, but as I read the menu, the Chicken Tikka Masala looked interesting enough. I ordered that from the kind man in the orange turban and waited for my food. My wife also ordered a Masala varation that included lamb. When we got our food, my nose filled with the rich aroma of the spices used. Very different taste from food common to the US. But I found that I loved it.

It shows how walled off I was to not know of such a great food. I am a great lover of spices. I know my hot sauce (picante) well, and I love the different variations in hispanic heat. Those that are mixed with vinegar, those that are pure chili pepper, those that a heavy with tomato or cilantro. The spices used in indian food were still exotic to me, and it makes me want to eat more and more of the unknown foods of this world our God has created for us. Such great diversity is amoung us, food is only one type of diversity. I would exhort you all to try a wide variety of food, and as you do, seek to understand the culture, ideas and methods of others.

Regarding Macs

So, I may or may not have purchase a Mac Mini. Which I am really stoked about. For a grand total, (Including taxes) of just over 1000USD I was very pleased with the price. Here are the stats.

Intel Core Duo @ 2.0 GHz

4GB 1066Mhz RAM (Wow, that is the most I have ever had)

Nvidia 9400 Graphics 

MacOSX (giggle)

I have only had a few hours to play with it so far, but I really enjoy this machine.

I've made a few changes from the usual mac setup. We purchased a bluetooth keyboard/mouse combo, where the mouse in integrated with the keyboard. We also bought a display adapter to VGA. We then plugged the mac mini into our 32" TV. Muahaha! 

There are a grand total of three cables that are plugged into little hamburger-sized machine. Power, Video and speakers. Everything else is wireless. It pulls the internet from our wireless, our keyboard is bluetooth, so no connectors there. 

I ripped a few CD's onto the hard drive and sound is excellent. you can hear it from the whole house. During the process of listening to some big band and swing songs, I walked away from the Mini and tested the range on the keyboard. To my delight, I could not find a place in our house where the keyboard would not adjust the sound or change tracks. ::Giggle::

I do not know what other adventures await for this little machine, but the possibilities are great!

Tonight: Ripping DVD's to my little machine. (So that we have a backup copy of DVD's we own.)

Regarding Stair Escalating

I consider myself prideful, and this is just one evidence of such a statement.

I take the stairs two at a time. Not occasionally, or when someone else does, or when I am in a hurry. I always take the stairs two at a time, (Except when carrying very heavy objects or team carrying)

The stair, like the wheel, is one of the remaining artifacts used in the ancient days as a remarkable tool. Today people find them a nusance. Humans, who are obsessed about speed and comfort in living, have developed more modern day tools to combat this ancient friend and foe. The Elevator is a wonderful invention for escalating objects, people, and ideas up several floors in little time in comparison to walking, especially in extremely high buildings. However if that extremely high building only has one elevator, it is usually faster to simply walk up, or down the stairs. Why? because you sit there, sedentary, at the floor you are waiting on, for up to a minute. In that time you could be almost there! When the building has only one or two floors, it is usually 100% faster to simply walk up the stairs. 

Obviously there are times where the elevator is completely needed. For example, when the company I belong to had to move several racks of servers up to the second floor. Those things are around 500 pounds each...bringing them up the stairs would be the job of six men.

Another note I would like to attach to this thought is that "modern man", in its quest for simplicity and rapidity, have become lazy. And most are overweight from taking the elevator instead of the stairs. They are unhappy because they are overweight and they do not think themselves able "to take those blasted stairs." When, in most cases, if that person were to shun the elevator, they would find, at the very least, themselves aliviated of what ails them.

As always, my blog posts are opinion and not aimed at any person in particular. I love everyone and accept the way they are, with and without flaws and blessings. As I expect everyone to accept me.

Regarding the name

As I sat there, pondering what name of a blog would best fit me, I began to be introspective. My introspection yielded great results. In life I search for peace, it is my drive and my hearts target. Most everything I do resides around the fact that I want my mind and body to be at ease.

 

For example, in high school, I would do homework, not for the fun of it, not to complete the assignment, and not for learning either. I would complete the assignment simply to have it off my mind, to be at peace with myself. While doing the assignment I would place all of my effort into the task, so that I would not be agonizing over it later. A job done poorly is the same as not doing it in the first place in my head. 

Perhaps this was borne of my childhood growth, perhaps my parents' rebukes hit me hard, and that has driven me to always been doing things just to relax. It is possible I lived in fear of others disapproval at what I was doing. I might have been mischievous in my younger years, which caused me to tread lightly around my relations with others. Whatever the cause, it is who I have become.

Another aspect to this name I truly enjoy is the hyphen. What a delight-full way to separate a word into two, and change the meaning enough to emphasize the target of your explanation. My mind, like many minds, is full a great portion of the time. It is busy with the concerns of everyday living. And it is filled with thoughts, theories, assumptions, plans, reactions, worries and statements. 

It seems I have become a giant book. I use some of the pages often, those pages become torn, tattered and stained. Other pages are bright and barely used; and I place new ones in often. The pages that become tattered and soiled are the ones I eventually discard. Some of these easily spotted pages are the sayings I always seem to use. "Be right back" for example, is a classic statement people use in order to portray the longer thought. "I've got to go, but I will come back here at some time in the (near) future." that page is tattered. I replace the page with a different one, perhaps of an old nature like, "I shall return." I might go to a more modern approach, "See you on the flip side."  I am an advocate of the older returning so I often will go with "I shall return."

With my heart and mind topped off with peace, and with my mind growing like an ever-expanding book. I am content in life. Thus the title "Peace-full Mind."