Motivation for Monday
Per Pippa’s very flattering comment, I decided to make my Toastmaster’s speech this week’s Motivation for Monday. Be sure to adjust your sound. Enjoy.
Log My Loss
This isn't a diet, it is your life!
Day Forty-Nine
After weighing and measuring this morning I started my new jump rope routine, or at least I tried to. Man, this has been really rough so far. I had intended on jumping for 30 seconds and resting for 60 seconds, then repeating this for ten minutes. After five rounds, or about 7.5 minutes, I was done for. My legs were like jelly. I guess a good side effect though was a comment made by my wife while watching me. She said, “Man, you can really see the muscle definition in your legs!” I tell you, there are not many better ways to make me feel better than that. Now to get that same kind of look all over.
Edit: In addition to my morning walk, my wife and I walked 3/4 of a mile this evening.
My South Beach Diet meal journal for the day is as follows:
- Breakfast – Three scrambled eggs, three turkey bacon, two small cut up peppers, twleve cherry tomatoes, 1/4 cup of Exekiel 4:9 cereal with 1 cup of ff milk, and one cup of ff, plain yogurt mixed with Cherry, sf Jello powder. Hmmm, this sure sounds like a lot as I am reading it.
- Mid-morning snack – Nothing
- Lunch – A bowl and a half of leftover chili. I didn’t mention this yesterday, but this really turned out great. My wife basically took all the leftover beans for the week, added deer meat, homemade tomato sauce, and chili powder. This was some really good tasting chili.
- Mid-afternoon snack – An apple and three tablespoons of natural peanut butter.
- Supper – Three chicken breast strips, a large helping of white beans, and a large helping of broiled green beans. I was inspired to do this from a post on the South Beach Diet Message Boards. I didn’t follow the recipe closely though. I ended up putting a teaspoon of olive oil in a plastic bag and then mixed a variety of my favorite spices in the bag. Then I dumped a large helping of cleaned, cut, fresh green beans in the bag and mixed this around until it was well coated. Next, I broiled this in the oven until the green beans started to turn color. This was really good.
- Mid-evening snack – a small handful of popcorn and a bowl of cucumbers and onions in vinegar.
One thing I have been doing since I started this diet is taking an aspirin a day. I ran across an interesting article a few days ago that doesn’t change that for me, but may for others. It seems that Aspirin is better for men as a heart attack prevention method. It appears that some of the anomolies in previous Aspirin heart attack prevention studies may have been because both men and women were included in the study, indicating that aspirin may not have any benefit for women with regards to heart attack prevention. Studies that only concentrate on men find success.
In another study, that is no surprise to us South Beach Dieters, it was found that white bread and sugary cereals may lead to an increase in heart disease and diabetes. Oh really? You don’t say? I hate to have such sarcasm on this, but it amazes me that some people in the scientific community are just now realizing this. Lead autor Alan Barclay also stated that high GI foods raise blood glucose and insulin, lower good cholesterol, and raise triglycerides. It almost sounds like an ad for the South Beach Diet.
Weight and Measurements – Week Seven
Today is, of course, my weigh in for week seven, and I have lost another 2.5 pounds, which brings me down to 240. I had hoped to get in the 230′s this week, but it didn’t happen. It was close though. My body fat percentage also went down 0.3%, my BMI went down 0.4, I lost half an inch on my stomach and my waist, I lost a quarter of an inch on my upper arm, and 5/8 of an inch on my lower arm. I also gained half an inch on my thigh. I have a feeling the lower arm and thigh measurement were mistakes, but I am not going to remeasure until next week. If they were mistakes it will show then.
I was hoping for a little more loss, but I am happy with this. My goal for next week is twofold. First, I want to get in the 230′s, which should happen. Second, I want to get down to 237, a three pound loss. My next medium range goal is to get my body fat percentage below 25%. That will take a bit though. I have one other shorter range goal. I have scheduled a full physical in November and would like to be below 220 when I go for that physical.
That is enough blabbering for now. Check back this evening for a recap of the day.
Day Forty-Eight
Another great day on the beach! I anxiously awoke this morning ready to do my exhaustion test for week two of the hundred push ups program. I am happy to report that I did 46 push ups, which means I will continue to progress at the top tier for week three. If that doesn’t make sense, then you should check out the program. I then went for a walk, but not before wrestling with the jump rope again. I jumped for just under a minute. My walk this morning was four miles, but was on a route with more hills than my normal route. The shoes are getting better every time. When I got back home, I used the jump rope again for just undr a minute. Tomorrow I am going to do something different that I found on the Jump Rope Institute website. Basically, it helps build endurance by breaking the jumping into sets, which is just what I need. As I wrote in a comment to Mark earlier today, that jump rope is kicking my tail!
I didn’t really mess up today on the diet, but I didn’t do as well as I wanted to, especially with tomorrow being weigh day. My South Beach Diet meal journal is as follows:
- Breakfast – One serving of Ezekiel 4:9 cereal. I later found out that this isn’t as South Beach Friendly as I had hoped. It isn’t bad, but isn’t great either. I will also need to cut the serving in half, which makes the portion pretty small. It seems there isn’t enough fiber per serving and the serving size is twice that which is allowed for grains on the diet. I don’t think it caused too much of a problem though. Of course, I had this with one cup of ff milk. In addition, I had three tomato slices, two pieces of turkey bacon, and a ff, plain yogurt with cherry Jello powder mixed in.
- Mid-morning snack – Nothing. Don’t worry though, I make up for this later. (said with sarcasm)
- Lunch – Two pork loin chops with a large helping of white beans and a small helping of black-eyed peas. I also had a very small purple bell pepper with this.
- Mid-afternoon snack #1 – An apple with two tablespoons of natural peanut butter. Well, in reality this was probably more like three tablespoons today.
- Mid-afternoon snack #2 – Two lf mozarella cheese sticks.
- Supper – Two bowls of homemade chili, which was made with deer meat, lots of leftover beans, and homemade tomato juice. It was great, but I ate too much.
- Mid-evening snack – A very small bowl of chili (4-5 bites) and a sf, fruit-flavored popsicle.
I know I ate too much today; I just hope it doesn’t affect the weigh in tomorrow. I have also run across several good articles lately and will probably post a few of those tomorrow night with my commentary (for what that’s worth).
Oh, one last bit of news: I took my blood pressure this afternoon after a short nap and it was extremely low for me – 117/67. I am sure that is because I had just awoke, but I cannot remember it ever being that low.
Day Forty-Seven
It’s been another great day on the beach. I woke up this morning at 4:45am and went for a two mile walk. Fortunately, my feet only bothered me a very small amount. I then did my push up routine; today I did a total of 80 (15,15,12,12, & 26). I am anxious and a little nervous because tomorrow is the day I do an exhaustion test. My goal is to do 40 consecutive push ups, but I am not sure I can pull it off. Tonight my wife and I also went for a slower paced three mile walk. Oh, one more thing, this morning I jumped rope for a minute. Yeah, yeah, I know, a whole minute! I am toying with adding this to my routine or substituting it for some of my walking. It is certainly harder than it looks, but I didn’t feel any pressure on my knees. It also burns a lot more calories than walking. I will probably play around with it a little more this weekend and decide how to add it to my routine.
My South Beach Diet meal journal for the day is as follows:
- Breakfast – Two small turkey sausage, one serving of steel cut oats (1/4 cup precooked) made with 3/4 cup of ff milk, cinnamon, and Splenda, one container of ff, plain yogurt mixed with cinnamon and Splenda, and two peppers, one green bell and one small red pepper that was hotter than fire. I experimented with making the oats in the microwave today and found that it took about eight minutes on 40% power, but they weren’t quite as done as I normally cook them. I may experiment more with this.
- Mid-morning snack – One apple with two tablespoons of natural peanut butter.
- Lunch – A large helping of black-eyed peas, 1/2 cup of green peas, and two chicken breasts.
- Mid-afternoon snack – nothing
- Supper – Two pork tenderloin chops, a very large helping of fabulous cauliflower salad (I had to eat the rest before it ruined
), and a small serving of black-eyed peas.
I drank plenty of water today, although I am not sure how much. I also checked my blood pressure this morning and it was 127/79 and again this evening when it was 125/78.
I went by a local Kroger store to get some more steel cut oats this evening and another box of Uncle Sam cereal. While I was there I ran across Ezekial 4:9 cereal. This looks really South Beach Diet friendly, so I bought a box to try. I’ll let you know what I think after tomorrow.
Day Forty-Six
Today really started off rough, but thankfully got better as the day went on. I woke up this morning at 4:45am to take a four-mile walk. That was not to be though. My right foot was killing me. I don’t know for sure whether this can be attributed to the new shoes or not, but I don’t think so. This is an issue I have had off and on for several years. Another reason I don’t think it was the shoes is because it is not the same spot that hurt yesterday in my walk. It is just below the little toe on the outside of the foot. I still feel it a little this evening, but it is significantly better. I think I will be able to walk in the morning.
As I said, my news got better as the day progressed. To make a long story short, I have had a position open in my department for quite some time and have been unable to find a qualified candidate. I interviewed a gentleman today that seems to fit most of the qualifications. He still has to interview with my boss and one other person in the company before I can hire him, but it is looking promising right now.
Another point of good news today was my suit. When I put my suit jacket on this morning I happily realized that it fit me much better than in the past. My wife even commented that it looked loose all over. Another thing I have been noticing is that my ties are longer on me. Since I have had the job I have now I have always had to wear extra long ties. Much to my suprise, the ties are now getting long enough that I think I may be able to wear a regular tie at some point in the future.
My South Beach Diet meal journal for the day is as follows:
- Breakfast – One serving of steel-cut oats (1/4 cup precooked), three pieces of turkey bacon, two eggs, one cup of ff, plain yogurt with lemon Jello powder mixed in, ten cherry tomatoes, and a very small pepper. I also had a cup of skim milk to drink. I know this is more than normal, but I knew I was going in to work early and rationalized it by telling myself I didn’t want to get hungry earlier.
- Mid-morning snack – One apple and two tablespoons of natural peanut butter.
- Lunch – One can of tuna, 1/2 cup of green peas, 1 1/2 cups of steamed cauliflower with one slice of low-fat american cheese on top.
- Mid-afternoon snack – Two low-fat mozarella cheese sticks. I also had a sugar free piece of Andes chocolate and a piece of lifesaver creamsaver sugar free candy.
- Supper – One very large chicken breast, two large slices of tomato, a large helping of fabulous cauliflower salad, 1/2 cup of crowder peas, and 1/2 cup of black-eyed peas.
I drank plenty of water today, somewhere around 100 ounces.
Advertisers
The following advertisers help support logmyloss.com. Their advertisements do not indicate my support of their product. As always, buyer beware.
