Log My Loss

Be sure to check out my YouTube Channel!

Regarding the videos, I have two questions for you all today.

• First, are you still enjoying the videos?  I ask this because the comments on the videos has fallen off drastically.  I don’t know whether this is because interest is waning, or because of the blog redesign some time back which moved the videos off to the side.
• Second, would any of you be willing to write a testimonial for me to use on the website I am putting together for my speaking business?  If so, send me a comment via my Contact Page.  There are no guarantees I will use what you send, especially since I am only going to use 3-5 quotes, but if you are willing to be quoted, I would love to see what you have to say.

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This entry was posted on Monday, February 8th, 2010 at 4:00 am by South Beach Steve.
Filed under: Video Post
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Tonight’s blog spotlight is a newcomer to logmyloss, Jody over at Truth2BeingFit.com.  This is a great weekend for you to stop by and check Jody’s blog out, because it won’t be long until Jody – Fit at Almost 52 will be Jody – Fit at 52.  Yep, this Sunday Jody turns 52.  I’ll venture to say you haven’t seen many 52 year-olds in the shape that Jody is in though.  Let me tell you what, this gal has got it going on.  As soon as you are done reading this, you need to head on over and check Jody’s blog out, just be sure to leave her a comment and let her know South Beach Steve sent you.

A lot of you have been asking about my wife’s grandmother lately.  I want to first of all say how awed I am at the concern I have seen.  I sincerely appreciate this, and I truly appreciate all the thoughts and prayers that have been going on.  It seems they have finally figured out what was going on.  It seems that every time she drank something, it was going into her lungs, thus perpetuating the pnemonia.  Now that they have figured that out, they are getting her liquids in a little different fashion, which teaching her to drink differently, which will prevent this from continuing.  This has been especially tough on my wife, as she has had a cold just like me, so she hasn’t been able to go see her grandmother for a week or so.  It does her good to hear she is getting better though.

Speaking of having a cold, I am still not totally over mine, and I don’t think I will be tomorrow either.  I am considerably better though.  I think I will be totally over this Sunday.  That being said, I chose not to workout again today.  Tomorrow I may go ahead and walk, but if I do it will be at a slower pace.

Eating has been fair today, although I wouldn’t call it weight loss portions.  I am going to try to make tomorrow a great day for dieting though.  I am hoping for an outstanding Sunday.

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This entry was posted on Friday, November 13th, 2009 at 11:11 pm by South Beach Steve.
Filed under: Blog Spotlight, Daily Dining, Exercise, General
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Tonight’s blog spotlight is one of the pillar’s in the fat-to-fit blogging world – Lori at Finding Radiance!  This gal not only talks the talk, but she walks the walk.  Since 2003 she has lost 110 pounds (maybe more) through sensible eating and dedicated exercise.  In addition to reading about her great workouts day-to-day, on her website you will also find her workout videos.  Besides that, she likes coffee as much as or more than me, and like me, she roasts her own.  There aren’t many of us out there that do this.  As she will attest, it is indescribably better though.    Enough of that, click on over to Finding Radiance and leave Lori a comment.  Be sure you tell her South Beach Steve sent you!  Remember, for now the blog I spotlight is the reader who leaves the most comments during the past seven days who has not already been featured.

For some time I have said the key to losing weight is diet.  That doesn’t mean I don’t support exercise, I certainly do, but if you really want to lose weight, you almost certainly have to adjust what you eat.  Now I have a study that supports my theory.  I happened to run across the article via a link at Summer Tomato, where I usually find some good reading every Friday with Darya’s For the Love of Food posts.  The article makes the claim that exercise doesn’t necessarily lead to weight loss.  While there is some pretty interesting information supporting this in the article, the most interesting line to me was, “laboratory rats that had been overfed and then slimmed through calorie reduction were able to “defend” their lower weight more effectively if they ran on a treadmill and ate at will than if they had no access to a treadmill.”  So, while exercise may not lead to weight loss in and of itself, it is an important component to maintaining a healthy lifestyle.

I am disappointed to report that my wife’s grandmother’s health has taken a sharp turn for the worst.  While she seemed to be getting better, the thing that originally put her in the hospital, pneumonia, is not getting better.  Today it ocurred to my wife’s father that she had been cleaning an old barn a few days before she began to get sick, leading him to believe this might be a fungal pneumonia.  He informed the doctor who is going to be running some tests to find out.  Furthermore, she has now been diagnosed with acute respiratory distress syndrom.  I don’t know a lot about this, but according to my father-in-law, this is not good at all.

Exercise for me was reminiscent of some of my exercise this past summer.  I walked a full eight miles!  The only bad thing was that I had a slight pain in my back before starting the walk, and it has hurt quite a bit more since the walk.  I also did 30 push ups, but began to feel a little strained feeling in my elbow that has tendinitis, so I laid off a bit.

Eating has been fine today, not great, but not bad.  Breakfast was an apple with natural PB.  I also had a piece of bacon.  Lunch was a taco on a low carb taco shell and a taco salad.  Supper was three eggs, bacon, and a piece of sausage.  I also had a large bowl of Grape Nuts with strawberries.

Tomorrow should be interesting.  My boys and I are heading up to St. Louis, Missouri to go to the zoo.  My oldest son has a gal up there he has been wanting to go see, so we are going to pick her up and let the two of them hang out together at the zoo.  I’ll spend the day walking around with the other two.  My wife on the other hand is going to enjoy a day of doing nothing.  I think she has a few movies she has been wanting to watch lined up.  I am sure she will enjoy this.

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This entry was posted on Friday, November 6th, 2009 at 9:04 pm by South Beach Steve.
Filed under: Blog Spotlight, Daily Dining, Exercise, General
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It’s Friday!  Do you know what that means?  Friday Blog Spotlight!  As has been the practice for the last several weeks, the spotlighted blog is the one belonging to the person who commented the most here during the last week.  Beej took first place again, but since he has already been featured, I went down to the second place spot, which was a tie.  The first one to show up on the list was Josie over at 35 and Shrinking.  Josie is a recent addition to the blogging scene, but she has really put together an interesting blog so far.  That is pretty evident in the comments.  It took me months to ever get as many followers as Josie already has.  For some reason I really feel like Josie is putting together a story that is going to inspire some people.  Be sure you check her blog out, again it is 35 and Shrinking.  Be sure and leave her a comment, and let her know South Beach Steve sent you!

I really wasn’t in the mood to do my full exercise this morning, so I decided to take a longer than normal walk. I was actually expecting to have to do this in the rain, but fortunately, the rain had not moved in yet. It was terribly windy though. I put in five miles this morning at about a 16 minute pace. After I got back I did do 30 push ups, but no planks or Tabata. Speaking of Tabata, the backs of my thighs are still sore from the last Tabata session. That is a good thing.

Eating has been pretty good today, although I am fighting the desire to eat right now.  Breakfast and lunch were both weight loss portions, whereas supper was once again not so much that way.  Breakfast was the typical apple with natural PB.  Lunch was the rest of the leftover homemade sour kraut and sausages with a smoked habanero mixed in.  I also had several pickled serrano peppers.  Supper was whole grain noodles, cheese, tomato sauce, and meat.  In case you are wondering, this was dangerously close to a real trigger food for me — Lasagna.  I ate a little too much, but I did not stuff myself.  I really wanted to not eat it at all, but my wife made it for me knowing how much I like this kind of stuff.  There was no way I could disappoint her and not eat it.  I also had a salad with this.  I then ate a sf fruit popsicle.  I haven’t mentioned this the last few days, as it occured after I made my post for the night, but I have had a square of 85% chocolate with peanut butter before bed each night.  Tonight will probably be no different.

Don’t forget, I need your questions.  Next Thursday, November 5th is Q&A Thursday with South Beach Steve.  You send the questions, and I will answer them.  Submit any and all questions you have as a comment on a post between now and Thursday, or submit them to me privately via my Contact Page.

A few days ago I posted about doctors attitudes toward overweight patients, which happens to segway into the article I ran across tonight: Why Are Fat People Abused? As I was writing this, I initially thought to myself that I had not really been abused as a fat person, but that is not true.  I was ridiculed much of my life over it.  I learned to cope with that though, and usually joined in and poked fun of myself.  What about you, have you experienced abuse?  What about physical abuse like is discussed in the article?

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This entry was posted on Friday, October 30th, 2009 at 9:17 pm by South Beach Steve.
Filed under: Blog Spotlight, Daily Dining, Dieting in the News, Exercise, General
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It’s Friday, and you all know what that means – Friday Blog Spotlight!  Remember, the blog spotlighted is the person who commented most during the past week that has not already been featured.  If there is a tie, the winner is randomly chosen.  While Beej was the high commentor of the week, he has already been featured.  You should still pay his blog a visit though.

The featured blog tonight is Barry Hughes.  Barry has recently re-entered the weight loss fight with a renewed vigor.  It is obvious to me, Barry has made the decision.  He has just finished his fifteenth day since of his new life, and has already lost ten pounds!  While you are checking out Barry’s Blog, you should also check out his link shortening service, U2C ME – that name rocks!  Be sure you give Barry a little comment love – tell his South Beach Steve sent you!

There was actually a tie this week for the top commentor too.  The other two blogs were Patsy’s and Josie’s.  They are both great blogs you should visit.

Before I go any further tonight, I do have a plea.  For all you  blogspot bloggers out there, please consider enabling the ability to comment with name/url.  I might be the only soul out there that uses Name/URL, but I get very frustrated trying to comment through OpenID.  I also don’t want to use my Google account to comment (yeah, I know, go cry me a river  ).

Even though my foot is hurting worse today, I still did one legged push ups – two sets of 25.  That was it on the exercise.  I really want to take an eight mile walk tomorrow, but that is not going to happen.  I am very worried about how the lack of exercise is going to manifest itself on the scale this week.

Eating was really good today.  Breakfast was an apple with Super Walnut Butter/Yogurt.  Lunch was a few peppers, a pork chop, and black-eyed peas.  Supper was one slice of bacon, pork roast, a little onion, and green peas.  I had a sf chocolate pudding for a mid-evening snack.  I really want to eat right now, but I am fighting it.

I left work a few hours early today, and for the first time I have finally caught up on all my blog reading for the week.  I want to do some blog updates this weekend, but I am not sure I will get to it.

My goals update for the day is as follows:

• I will only eat one bowl of cereal on Sunday. – Success!
• I will walk 16 miles. – Not gonna happen.
  
• I will do planks 3 days. – Not gonna happen.
  
• I will do push ups 3 days this week.  If my arm doesn’t hurt, I will increase this to two sets. – Success!
  
• I will not binge this week. – Success!
• I will keep my meals at weight-loss portions.  I have my annual physical in about a month.  I want to go in for that physical solidly below 190. – I haven’t really done good on this.
  

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This entry was posted on Friday, October 23rd, 2009 at 7:53 pm by South Beach Steve.
Filed under: Blog Spotlight, Daily Dining, Exercise, General, Goals
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Tonight’s blog spotlight is <a href=”http://the-phoenix-rises-again.blogspot.com/”>K_The_Pheonix</a>.  Kimberely is one of <a href=”http://logmyloss.com/?p=1975″>The Hot 100</a> contestants, and I have been following her blog since she joined in.  She has already dropped about 25 pounds since she started this journey in June of this year, which is no small feat.  I encourage you to head over to Kimberley’s blog and let her know you support her in this journey.  Be sure and tell her that South Beach Steve sent you!

Remember, I pick the spotlight blog for the week by who leaves the most comments in the previous seven days.  Tonight there was actually a tie, Kim at <a href=”http://road2beautiful.wordpress.com/”>The Road to Beautiful</a> was the other blog.  I had my son randomly select the blog to feature, as I sure couldn’t pick one or the other.  Even though she wasn’t spotlighted tonight, you should still stop by and give a shout out to Kim.  She just finished her first 5K.

I have to admit, I did not want to go for a walk this morning.  It was a brisk 45 degrees and I did not get in bed on time last night.  Nevertheless, I knew if I didn’t walk today, I would most likely not hit my goal of 15 miles for the week, so I forced myself out of bed and did it.  I walked 4.1 miles, which puts me at 12.3 for the week, just 2.7 shy of my goal.  I also did Tabata Jacks this morning, with a score of 25.  I did 20 push ups, and I also did 1 180-second front plank and 1 75-second side plank on each side.

Work was really rough today.  Not only did I have the challenges I have been speaking of for about a month now (which thankfully end relatively soon), but my computer’s hard drive at work crashed last night.  Unfortunately, it is ruined, so I have a new drive on order.  That means, of course, that I lost some information.  Thankfully I had a relatively recent back up.  It didn’t make for a great day though.  On top of that, I had two computer jobs this evening and ended up not getting home until 8:30.  I am so worn out.

Breakfast today was supposed to be two apples with Light Peanut Butter, but one of the apples was about half ruined inside, so I only had an apple and a half – so disappointing.  Lunch was leftover soup and crowder peas.  Mid-afternoon snack was sugar snap peas and almonds.  As I was having a pretty rough day at work, one of my employees bought me a bag of peanuts and a diet Dr Pepper, telling me it was for Boss’s day.  I thought it was pretty thoughtful, so I decided to enjoy it.  Supper was whole grain spaghetti with meat sauce.  I also had a handful of peanuts.  Mid-evening snack was a sugar free fruit popsicle.

There is a constant debate about whether to use a scale or not in our weight-loss journeys.  I happen to be one who finds value in the scale.  If you are the same, and you happen to need a new scale, <a href=”http://amerrylife.com/2009/10/16/halfway-mark-check-in-and-giveaway/”>A Merry Life</a> is giving one away next Friday.

My goals update for the day is as follows:

• No cereal between Monday and Saturday.  This does not include steel cut oats. – I did well today.
  
• Keep my food portions at weight loss portions. – Hmm, today was a bit on the border for this.
  
• Walk 15 miles or more this week. – I need just under 3 miles tomorrow.
  
• Do Tabata squats at least two days this week. – Done.
• Do Tabata jumping jacks at least two days this week. – Done.
• Do push ups three days this week. – Done.
• Do planks at least three days this week. – Done.

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This entry was posted on Friday, October 16th, 2009 at 10:14 pm by South Beach Steve.
Filed under: Blog Spotlight, Contests, Daily Dining, Exercise, General
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