Diet and Exercise, Who Knew?

I’m a fat guy. I haven’t been a fat guy my whole life, but after years of dedicated junk food consumption, I’ve managed to get into excellent shape…round.

I met my wife (AndreaLand in my blogroll) almost exactly three years ago, and she had problems with my eating habits almost right away. Over the years she’s added more and more pressure to get me to change my habits (she’s lucky she’s so cute, otherwise I never would have stuck around!). I finally started to cave in late last year, and over the last month or so we’ve been really dedicated to eating healthier. By that I mean veggies. I’ve been anti-veggie for most of my adult life, I don’t care much for the texture or flavor, but she convinced me (by blackmailing me with tears) to start eating them.

It’s been hard. I used to look forward to dinner with mouth-watering glee, knowing it was only a few hours before I could eat 3 normal-sized-people’s portions of grease-soaked cow flavored product. But when we first started eating “mostly plants“  I would sit down at the dinner table each night, glare at the plate of veggies, sigh, play with them for while until they were nice and cold, eat a couple, and shove the plate away. Eventually I got sick of feeling like I was starving to death, and started to eat them while they were still warm, just shoveling them into my mouth, chewing as few times as possible, and swallowing, figuring that at the very least I was taking in calories. Over time, and I know this will come as a shock to all of you, I started to find them less repulsive. I eat a little slower now, I try to taste the bell peppers and onions instead of just the rice they’re cooked with, and I no longer feel the hunger pangs after dinner.

The added benefit of eating more healthy is the lack of guilt. I used to hoover way more Taco Bell than a single human should, enjoying every bite…until I was done. I would then sit back, wipe my chin, look at the carnage of empty taco wrappers, and guiltily gather them into the bag so I wouldn’t have to look at them all, trying to ignore the voice in my head screaming “Seriously? You really need to eat 8 tacos and a huge plate of nachos for dinner? I mean…REALLY?!”. These days, though, I eat one, maybe one and a half portions of the dinner Andrea cooks, then push my plate away. I still feel hungry most of the time, but I know that’s just because my body is used to the huge portions I’ve been giving it for the last ten years. I know that I have all the calories and nutrients my body needs.

So we’re getting the diet part down, and we’re still trying to work on the exercise part. We haven’t started the Cave Man part yet, mostly it’s because it’s hard to motivate yourself to get up early and go for walk when it’s only 33 degrees outside, but we’re getting there. We walked a lot over the weekend, and cleaned the garage out, and I even figured out how I could trick the Wii Fit into thinking I weighed less than I did so I could actually use the damn thing (it doesn’t really like fat people, and if you weigh what I weigh, it won’t even let you play). With the weather warming up, I know we’ll be spending more time outside working off the already reduced calories we take in each day. And hey, so far it’s working. I’m down almost 15 pounds (only 11 more to go before the Wii lets me play without putting the thing on a thick blanket!).

Turns our those nutritionist people were on to something. Eat healthy, whole foods, eat veggies instead of grease, get off your ass. Who knew?

Happy Valentines Day

When I was child, I was dreaming of you.

When I started dating, I was looking for you

In my lowest of lows, I was wishing for you.

I didn’t know your name,

I didn’t know your face,

But I knew you all the same.

The way you push against me when we hug.

The way you smile at me when I look at you.

The way you love me for who I am.

The way you run your fingers through my hair.

The way you hold my hand, even when we’re on the couch.

The way you make me laugh.

The love in your kisses.

The love in your touch.

The love in your eyes.

All the tiny things you do that show you care.

I didn’t have to fall in love with you when we met

I’ve loved you my entire life.

Let’s (not) Talk About Food, Baby

Are you as sick of thinking and talking about food as I am? The women in my life (wife, mother, mother in law, friends, etc) end up talking about food no matter where the conversation starts. They talk about the food they ate, the food they want to eat, the food they used to make other food, the food they once heard their friends talk about, and the food that I eat. (oh man, I’m not making this up, my wife is on the phone with her mother this very second, talking about lunch tomorrow!)

Ok, the only one that really talks about the food that I eat is my wife, but she talks about so much I feel like it comes from everywhere. I am obsessed with eating, but she is obsessed with thinking about eating. I know it’s exhausting for her, she just can’t turn that part of her brain off. Every bite she takes causes guilt, and every bite I take causes, I dunno, reverse guilt? She feels the guilt I should be feeling. And then gets annoyed at me for causing her the distress. I love and adore her, and she only wants me to be happy and live with her forever (or so I tell myself) so I try to be good, I try to eat my veggies and keep my portions low, but as a junk food junkie, it’s hard to make the right choices. Sometimes I resent her for taking away my pleasure-eating, but usually that’s around dinner time when I’m hungry and cranky.

Back to the topic of the topic of food. Everywhere I go these days, people are talking about food. I have recipes in my Facebook news feed, I listen to my wife talk about food, I read emails from my mom telling my wife about recipes, there are documentaries, my wife’s new found Oprah craze in which she wants to me to watch every episode that deals with being fat, looking fat, feeling fat, sounding fat, talking about fat, then there are books that I want to read, and that my wife wants me to read…all of it centered around food. I’m sick of food!

Of course being sick of food hardly means it’s a topic we can just stop talking about. Tomorrow, or the next day, I’ll be posting again about my struggle to make healthy choices. I’ll also be talking about food with my wife tonight, and tomorrow morning, and so on, ad infinitum. We’re a county obsessed with eating, and for more than just survival or nourishment. We all love nice, juicy, succulent, heart attack on a plate with a side of diabetes. That’s right, I’m living the American Dream. A grocery store packed with food ingredients that were produced in a lab, fruits and veggies that were grown 20,000 miles away, and meats that were fed on our super-over-abundance of corn (whether they evolved to eat corn or not. Did you know we even feed corn to fish now?). I want to eat right, I want to be healthy, but man-oh-man, I’m sick of talking about food!

Oh but before I go I’ve got to tell you about this awesome chicken pot pie recipe my wife made last night…

Caveman Diet – Day 1(ish)

So we made a Last Trip last night, but not really. We didn’t gorge ourselves, and it wasn’t exactly on fast food. We went to Steak-n-Shake. Most of you aren’t going to know what that is, but they’re a burger joint. They make “steakburgers” instead of hamburgers. And they are awesome. Normally we spend about $20-$25 there, but last night we got away for only $16. Part of it is we didn’t get dessert. No Shake to go along with our Steak, as it were.

To offset this, we also stopped by the Wal-Mart and bought two baseball mitts, a bucket of balls, and a football. It was fun, we got home, watched some TV, and oiled our new gloves to start breaking them in. When it gets a bit warmer we should be all set to get outside and get some exercise, but have good time too.

We also decided that on days when we can’t walk before our meal, we could do yard work for a bit instead. Picking up sticks that fall from the trees, etc. We figure this is similar to our predecessors doing some local gathering for flavor It also gets us a clean yard, some outside time, and some exercise as well.

Which brings us to the first day of our Caveman Diet today. We were all set, had our walking route picked out, and then I woke up this morning with a head cold. I’m dizzy and I can barely breathe, hardly the condition I want to go exercise in. Now it could be argued that our paleolithic cousins had to hunt/gather when they were sick, but for that I give you an excuse I imagine you will hear a bunch from me over the next few weeks – Cavemen also only had a life expectancy of 30 years or so! So no, I’m not gonna go make myself sicker or more miserable by exercising while sick, but as soon as I feel better, I’ll be strapping on the cross-trainers to earn my dinner.

For now…where’s my DayQuil? *groan*

The Last Trip

How many “Last Trips” have you taken to a fast food joint before you start your diet? It’s like asking a cigarette smoker how many “last smokes” they’ve had. The answer is usually “lots”.

I’m a Last Trip fiend. It’s one of my biggest downfalls I think. I go in mourning when I start a diet, so I want to say my final goodbyes to a dear friend. I savor that meal, trying to slow down and really taste the greasy taco meat, the texture of the french fry, the crispyness of the fried coating on the chicken plank. Then the diet starts, and like a person in mourning, I mope around for days, wishing I had just had one more day, one more meal, one more bite, one more taste, of that juicy, succulent, burger. I look down at the vegetables on my plate as if they were a goldfish somebody had  given me to  replace a dog I had owned since I was 10, telling me “but the goldfish is better for you!” I don’t care if the goldfish is better for me, I want my dog back!

Tonight, I have no idea if I’ll be able to resist the Last Trip before our Caveman Diet begins. I’ve already broken a couple huge rules today by not eating breakfast or lunch (only a handful of almonds) and I also haven’t had any water (but before you start posting in comments, I almost always drink a minimum of 64oz a day, usually closer to a full gallon), so sitting here right now, I’m starving. Also, the kitchen is kind of a disaster today, so the though of doing dishes just to get to the point of cooking dinner, in order to do dishes again, just feels overly taxing, and Taco Bell gleams even brighter.

See, that’s what us fat food addicts do…we rationalize. We tell ourselves that tonight it’s ok because of these extenuating circumstances. Tomorrow night we tell ourselves the same thing, we just change the reasons. How do you break free of the cycle? How do you quell the lure of the Last Trip?

*sigh*

The Caveman Diet

I have a problem: I love food. Not all foods, just the ones that are going to kill me by heart attack, stroke, cancer, or diabetes. I know they’re bad, but I just want to have them here, now, while I type this blog, what’s going on? Ok wait, let’s run a quick quiz.

1. Do I lack self control when I eat? Does my mind tell me to stop eating but my body disagrees? I absolutely lack self control.
2. Am I ashamed about my eating habits? Do I hide food and eat it behind closed doors? I am ashamed of them. I don’t hide food, exactly, but I will often try to be quiet getting out a snack so my wife doesn’t hear.
3. Do I feel guilty after I eat? Sometimes, sure. Like when I ate a whole large pizza during the first quarter of the Superbowl.
4. Do I eat when I’m simply upset about something but not hungry? Sure do
5. Do I eat even though I know it will only lead to negative consequences later? Every single day
6. Do I eat differently in public than I do in private? If I’m with friends I’ll often order less than I normally would. Otherwise, the only reason I eat differently is because the restaurant doesn’t have the portions I would normally eat at home.
7. When I eat, do I feel pleasure and comfort that I can’t really seem to achieve through other means? Not only that, but I feel depressed and angry when I can’t eat what I want
8. Is my weight adversely affecting my quality of life? Absolutely.

I guess it’s true, according to Web MD I’m a food addict.

I don’t know exactly when I become obsessed with eating greasy, fatty, non-food, I just know that one day I weighed 220 pounds, and the next day I was creeping up to 300. Maybe it all started with the roach coach that came to my worksite, offering the”Meatloaf dinner” that didn’t really taste like any cow I’ve ever eaten, “Taco Sticks” that were swimming in the oil they were deep fried in, and a nice, overly sweet Hostess Chocolate Pie, all for the reasonable price of about $5. It might have started with the winter that I was so broke I couldn’t get the gas turned back on and had no stove, meaning every dinner was either a microwave meal or a trip to Long John Silvers for their deliciously fried 3-piece chicken plank meal, cut the coleslaw, add extra fries (“oh you don’t supersize? ok give me two of those meals then”).  I think I went almost a year when my entire vegetable intake came from ketchup.

Looking back, I can see why those particular scenarios would help me pack on the pounds, but I don’t live in that life anymore. I have a nice job, I make decent middle-of-the-road income, I have an incredible wife that absolutely loves to cook real food, and all I want is Little Caesar’s/Taco Bell/Wendy’s/Long John Silvers. But I don’t just want a Wendy’s cheeseburger, I want a Wendy’s TRIPLE Cheeseburger, cheese and ketchup ONLY, large, with a Coke, and two orders of Chicken Nuggets with BBQ, please. Taco Bell? Ok I’ll have 3 soft tacos, 3 crunchy tacos, 2 double decker tacos, and a Nacho Bell Grande. Hold the lettuce and tomatoes on everything please. No veggies for me! That’s right, I want mass amounts of fat-laden garbage, hold the only semi-redeeming products available.

Is this the American way (weigh?) of eating? I’ve watched a bunch of documentaries in the last few months that do a good job of planting the blame for my eating habits on the feet of the American food industry. And you know, the food industry has helped create the problem as far as the nutritional content of out food, but they certainly don’t make me order enough food to feed a whole family just for my own gluttonous consumption. But what can I do to stop the cravings and addiction?

It’s been said before, but I’ll say it again. A food addiction is much harder to curtail than a drug addiction. Now I  have never been addicted to drugs, so I can’t say that I have personal experience comparing the two, but I do that when you go into rehab for, say, cocaine addiction, you don’t have to do cocaine three times a day just to be healthy, but with food that’s exactly what it is. You can’t quit food. You can’t go cold turkey off of cold turkey. So the food addict has to control their addiction by sheer will power, making the choice three times a day (or five times if you listen to nutritionists) to eat healthy. So how do you do it? How do you make that choice?

I have no clue. That’s why I still weigh over 300 pounds. But here’s the plan we’re trying this week (and hopefully forever): my wife and I are going on the Caveman Diet. We’re going to start with a walk around the block before each meal as if we were hunter-gatherers having to find our sustenance to survive. We’re going to eat plants more than anything, because plants didn’t run away from our ancestors, making meat a rare treat for them.

That’s it. That’s the plan. Exercise and vegetables. How’s that for brilliant?

I’ll let you know how it goes.

I’m hungry, where are my shoes?

1. Do you feel you are a normal drinker? (“normal” – drink as much or less than most other people) YES or NO 2. Have you ever awakened the morning after some drinking the night before and found that you could not remember a part of the evening? YES or NO 3. Does any near relative or close friend ever worry or complain about your drinking? YES or NO 4. Can you stop drinking without difficulty after one or two drinks? YES or NO 5. Do you ever feel guilty about your drinking? YES or NO 6. Have you ever attended a meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous (AA)? YES or NO 7. Have you ever gotten into physical fights when drinking? YES or NO 8. Has drinking ever created problems between you and a near relative or close friend? YES or NO 9. Has any family member or close friend gone to anyone for help about your drinking? YES or NO 10. Have you ever lost friends because of your drinking? YES or NO 11. Have you ever gotten into trouble at work because of drinking? YES or NO 12. Have you ever lost a job because of drinking? YES or NO 13. Have you ever neglected your obligations, your family, or your work for two or more days in a row because you were drinking? YES or NO 14. Do you drink before noon fairly often? YES or NO 15. Have you ever been told you have liver trouble such as cirrhosis? YES or NO 16. After heavy drinking have you ever had delirium tremens (D.T.’s), severe shaking, visual or auditory (hearing) hallucinations? YES or NO 17. Have you ever gone to anyone for help about your drinking? YES or NO 18. Have you ever been hospitalized because of drinking? YES or NO 19. Has your drinking ever resulted in your being hospitalized in a psychiatric ward? YES or NO 20. Have you ever gone to any doctor, social worker, clergyman or mental health clinic for help with any emotional problem in which drinking was part of the problem? YES or NO 21. Have you been arrested more than once for driving under the influence of alcohol? YES or NO 22. Have you ever been arrested, even for a few hours because of other behavior while drinking? (If Yes, how many times ________ ) YES or NO

SCORING

Please score one point if you answered the following: 1. No 2. Yes 3. Yes 4. No 5. Yes 6. Yes 7 through 22: Yes

Add up the scores and compare to the following score card: 0 – 2 No apparent problem 3 – 5 Early or middle problem drinker 6 or more Problem drinker