Food Thursday 06.07.12

Since I am on a quest to get you all to eat more meals at home, I have dedicated Thursdays to food.  There are recipes, nutritional information and stories about how we eat vs. how we should eat.  Today we turn our attention to the grill.  It's summer time and in America, the barbecue is synonymous with summer.


When one thinks of the grill in their backyard, what is the first thing that comes to mind?  Burgers?  Steaks?  Hot Dogs?  Of course, our thoughts turn to animal proteins.  That is how we were conditioned growing up.  I want to turn your programming and your grill on its ear...with vegetables.  Peter, you can stop reading here.  :)


Usually our meals cast a meat or fish in the starring role and the vegetables are relegated to supporting characters or even worse, extras.  Since I am trying to eat healthier and presumably you are too since you are reading this, why not make vegetables the protagonist of your dinner story.  Since I gorged myself on broiled seafood on Tuesday, I thought that I would give veggies a promotion at my Thursday meal.  It got me thinking how we could all serve ourselves better by doing this every once in a while, if not weekly.  Have a veggie-centric meal.  The grill seemed a perfect way to pull this off.


What you see above was my dinner tonight.  I made way more than I would eat with the thought that leftover grilled veggies would go great in a salad, omelet or sandwich.  Hence the massive spread you see.  Here we have grilled corn, eggplant, Bermuda onion, asparagus, red bell pepper and portobello mushrooms.  It couldn't be easier to make.


Heat your grill to high and clean it well with a wire brush or crumpled foil and tongs.  With a paper towel dipped in oil, use tongs to lubricate the grates.  Place whatever veggies you are going to grill on a cookie sheet (Except corn.  Corn doesn't need oil or seasoning at this time.).  With an olive oil spray, coat your veggies with the oil and then season liberally with garlic salt and pepper on each side.  If you don't have an olive oil spray, place a tablespoon in a Ziplock bag and do the shake and bake thing before you season.  Grill until your desired char is achieved.  I like mine more well done than most folks.  Be aware that the asparagus will cook quickly.  The peppers and eggplant can be as sweet as candy when in season and grilled properly and the mushrooms are very meaty.


These veggies are great on their own but would be elevated with the addition of a balsamic reduction.  Just place balsamic vinegar in a small sauce pan and simmer until syrupy.  Even a basil pesto would go well any grilled veg.


I hope you will try to recast vegetables into starring roles in your meals.  I often find that they outshine the much, much more expensive proteins they are otherwise paired with.


Cya Friday,
M


What I ate today and how I exercised:
Breakfast ~ Kashi 7 Grain Nuggets w/1/2 a banana, fresh blueberries, toasted pecans and unsweetened almond milk
Lunch ~ A cup of beef barley soup and grilled chicken Caesar salad w/o croutons
Dinner ~ From the above feast, I had 2 ears of corn w/Earth Balance spread, 1/4 of the pepper, some mushrooms, asparagus and eggplant.
Exercise ~ 25 minutes of walking in the hood, yo

WIMHW 06.06.12

Here we are at something like Wednesday number 18...maybe 19.  I have lost track.  Hump day is one of reflection on what is whirling in my brain.  I find it therapeutic to have to come up with these topics, because once I zero in on something, stuff starts to pour out of me.  And once it is down here in my virtual diary, I always have it to go back to.  Here are a few things I have been pondering the last few days and one that just came across my path moments before this entry.


Poor Dude.  I Know How You Feel
A year or so ago I clicked 'Like' on Facebook for The Today Show.  I think they were giving away iPads at the time.  I still don't have one, if someone wants to make me their boy toy and shower me with gifts.  Anyway, as a result of the click, I get snippets of stories on my Facebook wall.  This one breaks my heart, but I know where this guy is at.  Three years ago, David Smith gained national attention as the 650 lb. Virgin on TLC.  They documented his loss of over 400 lbs.  Handsome and fit, he was interviewed on The Today Show, triumphant and determined to stay healthy.  One problem though, he lost the weight, but didn't fix his thinking.  He was ill-equipped to deal with being a new person.  When there is such a drastic change in one's self, you feel like a you are in someone else's body and you look for ways to cope.  He ultimately turned back to food and regained 300 lbs, 250 of it in 2 short years.  Basically he has undone much of what he had accomplished.  Sound familiar?  This is the true meaning of empathy.  I know where you are coming from, David.  My thoughts are with you as you are fighting once again to regain your glory.  You are lucky to have your girlfriend stick with you and support you.  I am sure this has all been very painful for her to watch.  You did it once.  I hope you work both your body and mind to be ultimately successful this time around.  Here is a link to the story:  http://todayhealth.today.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/06/06/12085273-after-weight-gain-650-pound-virgin-back-to-the-gym?lite

Gym Dandy
I am seriously considering a gym membership.  I can set aside my embarrassment over my appearance and bite the bullet.  My coworker and reader here, P, told me of his current program and it sounds appealing.  While P is one of those Paleo people I wrote about in Tuesday's post and is very fit and lean, that doesn't scare me.  Crossfit apparently is for all levels of fitness and as he described it to me, it is like a group personal training.  You have others at your level in the class and the workout is always changing, building and challenging.  That appeals to me.  I know that after this week's strenuous exercise and significant loss, I am ready to do something more.  A group of people in the same boat as I and serving as administers of accountability seems like just the ticket.  Crossfit or no, I think I will be in a gym sometime soon.


Looking Back
I sent out a call to my Facebook friends yesterday asking for pictures of myself for comparison sake.  Thanks to my friend and reader, K, I got a real eye opener.  I have mentioned before that I HATE having my picture taken, so I am pretty sure I had a few beers in me when I was smiling for the one he sent me.  I look like I am smuggling a tractor tire in my jeans and my face is like the full moon.  I will post it at 299 with a better picture of my current self.  If I can't see a difference from that picture taken in October of 2011, then I will have to be either blind or my body image issues are worse than I thought.


Cya tomorrow for Food Thursday,
M


What I ate today and how I exercised: 
Breakfast ~ Mike McMuffin: 1 fried egg, 1 chicken apple sausage on a sprouted grain English muffin
Lunch ~ Left over eggplant, tomato and beans over whole grain pasta
Mid-afternoon ~ Fat free peach yogurt
Dinner ~ TBD
Exercise ~ I am going to try to get some walking in after dinner.  I'll post tomorrow what I did.

I Did It My Way

While communicating with a number of my readers or people that are just aware of my journey, quite a few of them have suggested programs, books, philosophies, etc., that they felt might be beneficial to my efforts.  I certainly appreciate their interest and their suggestions, but like Frank, Elvis and even Sid Vicious said, I'll do it my way.

It seems everywhere I turn someone mentions a weight loss methodology that they are into, their cousin had success with or some TV show did a piece on.  I know I just ended a sentence with a preposition, but gimme a break.  I'm doing this my way, right?  

One such craze is The Paleo Diet.  The Paleo Diet much resembles an Atkins or South Beach approach: high protein, low carb.  The idea is that one can lose weight and be healthy by eating what our prehistoric ancestors did, much protein and vegetables, but no grain or dairy.  In addition, the premise as I understand it is that copious amounts of exercise go with the diet, in the style of man's knuckle-dragging fore-bearers.  I guess it was hard work hunting and gathering and the extra protein fed the killing paleo machine.  It's just not for me.  My foraging is mostly at Whole Foods and navigating the crowded produce isle with screaming brats running amok takes less out of me than taking down a mastodon.

One of the biggest things I want everyone to take away from this project is that we don't really need someone else to tell us what is good for us and what is bad.  No, it isn't all that black and white.  There are exceptions, but for the most part each of us has something inside of our heads that is telling us to put down the donut and pick up an apple.  There are many traps set up behind millions of marketing dollars intent on selling us on garbage food in sheep's clothing, so that is where a little more education is needed.  Other than that, there is a guru lying in wait in all of us.  I am of the mind that the average Joe and Jane know when the devil on their shoulder is peddling bullshit.  We just, all too often, choose to give into it.

This doctrine is at the core of my no B.S. lifestyle.  Susan Powter had it right back in 1993. "Stop the insanity!" was her rallying cry.  I recall her pushing people to eat a lot of baked potatoes.  Her approach may have been a little misguided in my opinion, but the catchphrase was quite apt.  Just quit it.  Cut out the crap.

So when someone suggests that I adopt the teachings of another, I say thanks, but no thanks.  I choose to believe in myself, rather than a stranger with a public relations team and an image consultant.  I'll channel my inner nutritionist and make better choices.  The money I could have spent on their program can go toward organic veggies and meats.  I'll do it my way.

Cya next time,

M

What I ate Tuesday and how I exercised:

Breakfast ~ Rushing to a meeting, I ate at Chez Rest Stop.  I had a Met RX protein bar and a Vitamin Zero Water

Lunch ~ 1/2 of a southwest chicken wrap with black beans and a side salad

Dinner ~ I ate way too much.  Business dinner out with a broiled seafood extravaganza, some olives, portobello mushrooms, a slice of wheat bread and even a wine.  I enjoyed some lobster and crab, even without the swim in butter.  Lemon was enough.  I needed a nap afterward.  The most I've eaten in months.

Exercise ~ Nothing Tuesday.  I could've used a walk after the big meal, but what I wanted was a nap.

Weigh-in: Week 17

Hard work is certainly paying off.  I spent the weekend doing hard labor in the yard and the warden rewarded me with no back pain, very minimal fatigue and just a few blisters.  I should rephrase the 'hard work' part.  It really hasn't been all that hard.  Changing my mindset has definitely been a conscious effort and I have had to fight off my demons at times, but hard work?  No.  I've been enjoying my meals, missing little and having a ball watching some of my enthusiasm spread to other people's efforts.

When I got up this morning I had high expectations.  Despite the dreary, gray morning, I was eager to start the day and hop on the scale to see if my 50 had arrived...or left.  Well, 50 must have made a sneaky exit sometime last week, because it was decisively trounced.  As you can see by the tale of the scale, I am currently at 310.8 lbs., have a body fat reading of 59.2% ( a 0.7% drop!) and water rising to 27.1%.  Weekly loss: 4.2 lbs. Total loss to date: 52.8 lbs.

I did promise some interim before and after pictures, so I will include somewhat of a comparison here.  One might think that I was intelligent enough to take a before picture at the start of this process, wouldn't one?  One would be wrong.  I have very few pictures of my prior room-filling self.  Here is one from April of 2011, in which I was more or less the same size as 2/6/12.  This standing picture is from today, 6/4/12.  Not the greatest, but I do see a difference.  I'll post better ones at 299.

I couldn't be happier with the result to date.  I am now targeting 299.  WOW!  Just typing a figure under 300 gets my adrenalin pumping.  I can't wait!


Thanks for reading, as always.  


Cya tomorrow,
M


What I ate today and how I exercised:
Breakfast ~ 7 Grain Nuggets, banana, toasted pecans and skim milk
Lunch ~ Tuna salad on a multi-grain sandwich round
Afternoon snack ~ Gave in to a Starbucks Mocha Lite Frapaccino and some almonds
Dinner ~ Rotisserie chicken breast and a great eggplant, white bean and tomato side dish I threw together
Exercise ~ Walking for 20 minutes

A.L.O.E. 06.03.12

Where does the time go?  It's June already.  The first Sunday in June to be precise.  Sunday is A Little Of Everything day in these parts.  And today, that is just what you will get... a little.  It's been a long day here at the TDT195 ranch and I have been out tending to the fields.  Okay.  So it's a small lawn.  But I worked VERY hard today and I have blisters all over my hands, so typing is not comfortable.  I'll be brief today.


Kudos
A big round of applause for Brother Bill.  My much older and less handsome brother decided to join in on the fitness train and lose some weight of his own.  He told me today that he has dropped 25 lbs. thus far.  I am hugely proud of you, bro!  Not only are you making great choices, but also steering the family's eating habits in the right direction as well.  Thanks for reading everyday and listening to your little brother.  It means more than you know.


Hoe Hoe Hoe
As mentioned above, I was out in the yard, not only today, but for the better part of the last two days.  Mother nature pitched in and gave me rain the night before to loosen the soil and cool breezes to make the raking, thatching, hoeing, mowing and seeding go easier.  I have to say, I feel much better than I expected to.  I really thought I would feel like a wrung out wet dish rag after two days of acting like I was on a chain gang.  But other than the blistered hands, I feel pretty good.  Amazing what dropping a toddler's worth of weight will do.


What I ate today and how I exercised:
Breakfast ~ Out of my normal cereal choices this morning, I opted for the wife's All Bran, with fresh strawberries, toasted pecans, a pack of Splenda and skim milk.  I was wondering how she ate this stuff, let alone kept it down...and then I got sick, literally.  It wasn't the damp packing material I was eating.  Perhaps the strawberries went south on me.  Oh well.
Lunch ~ Tuna salad, with apple, pickle, celery and lite mayo on a sprouted grain roll
Dinner ~ Rotisserie chicken over salad greens with my chipotle lime dressing and toasted pepitas
Exercise ~ In addition to the 4 hours of hard labor yesterday, I put in 4.5 more today.

How Did I Get Here?: Part 14

It was around 2003 or 2004, when despite my increasing size, I decided that I was tired of being alone.  It was a tough decision because I was very self-conscious about my weight, but having come off the great decrease in my size, I thought I'd give the whole online dating thing a whirl.  Being just over 300 lbs. instead of almost 500 lbs. gives one a slight sense of bravery.  I forget what sites I signed on to.  I know there was Match.com and I think something called Kiss.com.  The whole thing is rather demoralizing for a fat guy.  I was never one to lie about much of anything, let alone my weight, so I was always honest when it came to answering the questionnaire regarding 'body type' and checked off the space for 'have my own zip code'.  


When you are a big person trying to find companionship, the response level is somewhat low, to say the least.  I don't know how big women deal with it other than calling themselves "BBWs".  It has to be even harder for them.  Guys are a much harder sell when it comes to their willingness to date the obese.  I do recall one date in particular.  We had communicated via the online interface from Cattlecall.com, or some such site for a while and finally decided to have dinner.  I was a bit taken aback by her appearance.  In her picture online, she reminded me of a young Kirstie Alley.  What sat across from me making all sorts of odd noises while inhaling her sushi was more like the Wendy, the Snapple Lady.  That was just one of the memorable encounters.  I decided then to just go about my life and try for something to come about organically, rather than post my mugshot online and hope someone would like me for me, based on my 250 words or less...too much to ask for.


By 2004 I was going to karaoke regularly and one of my spots was a rib place in Union, NJ.  I eventually became one of their hosts and was in there about 2-3 nights per week.  One night in February of 2006, I was sitting at the bar with a friend and a very attractive redhead got up and sang Linda Ronstadt's "When You Wish Upon a Star".  I was very impressed.  Good singers are in the minority at karaoke and this one was staggeringly talented.  I honestly don't recall if I approached her to introduce myself or the other way around, but she asked me to do a duet with her.  I eagerly accepted and we struggled our way through a tune together.  I say struggled because, while not bad, it wasn't up to snuff per either of our standards.


Several nights later at a different bar/restaurant, the same redhead comes in, by herself this time.  She heads straight to the bar, orders up a shot of Jameson and throws it back.  We chatted briefly over the course of the evening and went our separate ways.  A few nights later, at yet another bar, Red comes in, makes a beeline to the bar and repeats the Jameson ritual.  I mentioned something to my friend Mike, the host and he noticed the same thing.  "Pity she is an alcoholic.  She is cute and talented."  Her name was Tabitha and despite her penchant for the whiskey and potentially a stalker, I thought she was fun, smart and very funny.


As it turned out, Tabitha was not an boozehound.  She was just nervous about singing and this was somewhat new to her.  The shots were a means of calming her nerves.  I was kinda smitten with Tabitha and figured I'd take a stab at asking her out for dinner, which is what I did.  I won't go into the the particulars or how that evening went, but we had a number of 'false starts' to our relationship.  That was until Mel Gibson day, in 2006.  What the F is Mel Gibson Day, I hear you cry?  Tune in next time for the rest of the story of how I met the women that did love me for me, my wife Tabitha.


Cya Sunday,
M


What I ate Friday and how I exercised:


Breakfast ~ Egg Mikemuffin: One fried egg and a chicken sausage on a multi grain sandwich round.  It was lovely to sit on my patio and enjoy the meal and the weather and get some work done.
Lunch ~ Whole grain pasta with marinara and a touch of parmagiano cheese
Dinner ~ Wolfed down a chicken sausage on a spouted grain roll, pre-gig.  So not what I wanted.  Days with work and gigs are rough for dinner.
Exercise ~ Being a roadie and entertaining for over three hours is quite the workout.

Food Thursday 05.31.12

I am sure everyone has that person at their barbecue who doesn't like mayonnaise or is worried that all the salads will spoil in summer heat and a plague will sweep across the land as a result.  I, for one, like mayo and I have never been all that concerned with the monster from Alien popping out of me because I ate some tainted tater salad.  The new and more health-minded me does however seek out alternatives to the goopy, creamy, non-complex carb loading that most picnics induce.  Which is why I recently revisited a recipe I came up with years ago to make it more 'fit friendly'.  That's what we're are all about here at TDT195, isn't it?  Eat yourself thinner, as I like to say.  Of course, all things in moderation but here is a macaroni salad recipe that is full of fiber, low in fat and 100% delicious.


Four Bean and Macaroni Salad
How do you make macaroni sound better and charge more for it?  Call it pasta.  Let's face it, no one would pay $15 a plate for macaroni, but call it pasta and it's all gourmet 'n stuff.  Well, I will stick with macaroni salad.  Unpretentious and tasty macaroni salad.  I haven't run the numbers on this dish, but it sticks with my philosophy of not making myself crazy over calories, as long as I know what the ingredients are.  Feel free to play with the balance of ingredients to your taste.  Add what you like.  Quartered artichoke hearts or cannellini beans might be nice additions.  Like the TV painter Bob Ross said, "It's your world.  You make it as you like."


Ingredients:

• 1/2 lb. uncooked whole grain elbow macaroni, fusilli or any shape you like.  Use a good quality brand like Bionaturae.  It makes a difference.
• 3 Tbs extra virgin olive oil
• 1 1/2 Tbs balsamic vinegar
• 1/2 tsp dried oregano
• 1/2 tsp dried basil
• 1 tsp garlic powder
• 1/2 tsp onion powder
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1/2 tsp fresh ground pepper
• 1 tsp Dijon mustard
• 1 15oz. can of three bean salad, drained.  I prefer Hanover Four Bean salad, but I found the Green Giant to be a good replacement.
• 1/2 15oz. can of chick peas, rinsed (chick peas not needed if using the Hanover Four Bean Salad)
• 1/2 cup sliced roasted sweet red peppers (rinsed if from a jar)
• 1 3.8oz. can sliced black olives, drained
• 1/2 cup fresh basil thinly sliced

Method:

• Cook your macaroni to al dente, as per the brand's instructions.  
• Combine ingredients extra virgin olive oil through Dijon in a small jar or tightly sealed container.  Shake vigorously, until homogeneous or get a workout and whisk, whisk, whisk.
• Drain the pasta and combine all ingredients, while the macaroni is still hot, except the fresh basil
• Refrigerate (overnight is best), mix in fresh basil and serve

Cya tomorrow,
M


What I ate today and how I exercised:
Breakfast ~ Kashi 7 Grain Nuggets w/banana, fresh berries, toasted almonds and skim milk
Lunch ~ Chicken Caesar salad w/o croutons
Dinner ~ Broiled salmon over carrots, broccoli and spinach
Exercise ~ I played 9 holes of pitch and and putt golf with my godson and best friend.  Man, I suck at golf anymore.