Friday, August 20, 2010
Weight! What now?
It's been 8 weeks since I've employed the TLC diet, recommended to me by my lovely Veterans Administration Hospital Dietician. I am down 15 pounds. Yesterday morning it was down 18 pounds, but at the office picnic I indulged a little bit. I've only indulged once before in the first week with a Whopper Junior with Cheese. After I got home and looked up the Calories in a Jr. Whopper, my head exploded! They're not called Whoppers for nothing. I am pretty much bought into this diet. It's called the Total Lifestyle Change (TLC) diet. Basically it's counting calories and saturated fats. The dietitian lady has me on 2200 calories a day. At first I had no hook to hang that number on. I wondered if it was enough to survive. It turns out to be quite a bit of mass depending on the type of food I shovel into my mouth. It's 650 calories per 3 meals plus 250 for a bedtime snack.
I used to routinely have potatoes with beef gravy, scrambled eggs and bacon and two juices for breakfast. That took the edge off of my grumbling tummy. However, I enjoyed the taste, but the price I paid was over 2000 calories in that one shot! I was killin' myself in more ways than one. My cholesterol is in the 360's, triglycerides in the 1000's and my weight for my 188 cm frame at 104.3 kilograms was obese according to my expert’s charts. 74 inches and 230 pounds. It really was unacceptable. I had to keep getting larger pants, it was pathetic. The medical professional thinks 185 pounds will get me out of the Obese column. She may be right, but I am shooting for 195. I was half way there yesterday morning and I am still almost half way today. YeeHaw!
I am taking it seriously. I am making it fun for me. I have a spreadsheet with every ort and iota of mass I put into my mouth that smacks of calories. It really is easy to keep in the 2200 range for a day if I don't get the killer items. I mean, I have everything listed with its caloric and saturated fat content summed at the bottom for each meal and showing how much I have left till I go over. I keep at or under the 650 pretty easily and a lot of the nights I don't eat anything at bedtime. Of course, I am now into it 8 weeks and I'm just not as hungry because I suppose my stomach has reduced its stretching. I list a few of the Over the Top items on my chart, like Long John Silver's Fish. I’d get 3 pieces and a large Dr. Pepper for a 20 minute ride home. Those are 260 per, 40% of my now target limit, just for one! The little Whopper Jr. is 420 by itself. I really like the taste of these things, but I must moderate. At least till I am out of obese danger levels. I am not going hungry at all. Like I might have said above, I am eating more mass for breakfast than I was before. It's kind of like I count it up and I see I can get more before I reach 650. I am sort of stuffing myself a little bit, it's kind of silly, but I am still losing weight even so. I really don't crave that much food, but I do it probably just because I can.
The lunch meal in the work cafeteria is pretty easy for me, because I like the salad bar (and it's cheap) each time I get a large salad and use vinegar and oil (which I really like since I started using them 5 years ago. I can really taste the items, before; all I really tasted was the French dressing.) Skim milk and a yogurt and vegetable rounds out the Lunch. The yogurt puts me over the 650 a few calories because they are 180 calories at work; the ones I buy at the grocery store are only 80 calories. Most days I leave the yogurt alone and in essence I leave 160 calories on the table so to speak.
I told the dietician 4 years ago that I was going to get under 200 pounds by the next Christmas, but never did it. She kept a chart of my weights for every time I checked in to the VA for an appointment for the entire time. She printed out a line graph showed it to me in June. It opened my idiot mind to reality. 3 solid years of trending up with no end in sight, no downturns, no major corrections, just uptrend. Almost a 35 degree angle up to the right. 36 more months of doing what I was doing was going to put me way over 250, easy! That's not even taking into account the cholesterol and lipid levels! Anyway, she showed the graph to me. I looked at it and said "If that was a stock, I'd be buying it." That was it. I was done. I was finished being dumb, stupid and procrastinating. It was like when I quit smoking the day after my first wife, Lorraine, died of lung and brain cancer. I may have to be psychological beat abut the head and shoulders for months at a time, but eventually I can take a hint. "Dude!!! You're killing yourself!!! Stop!!!" Is that an epiphany?
I work with a guy that's over 500 lbs so it's easy to just say, "I'm not that large.”That's what I call the "Trying to irrationalize it and call it rational." model of cognitive dissonance. I hear there are a lot of former smokers, now sleeping in their own personal flip-top boxes, that used that one too. I'm sure I'll be joining them is sleep one of these days. I guess I've decided to try and put it off for a few more healthy years, if I can.
Well, Tuesday morning weigh in will be two solid months implementing the TLC. I only had 2 incidents that are outliers, the Whopper Jr with regular soda and yesterday's picnic. Not too bad I suppose. 3 days in order to incorporate the picnic's excess calories into my system. It wasn't really gigantically over the top, but it was way over 650, probably like 4000 calories altogether. Still that's over 1.5 days worth of calories excess at that one meal. We will see how it pans out. I'm probably not going to do that again. Especially if it turns out to be hard to recover. I shouldn't have done it in the first place because of the saturated fat and sugar content. Oh well, we'll see. I had the goal in mind and now I can see the when the goal will be met. At my current rate, I'm looking at October 24th to reach 195 pounds.
Later.
I used to routinely have potatoes with beef gravy, scrambled eggs and bacon and two juices for breakfast. That took the edge off of my grumbling tummy. However, I enjoyed the taste, but the price I paid was over 2000 calories in that one shot! I was killin' myself in more ways than one. My cholesterol is in the 360's, triglycerides in the 1000's and my weight for my 188 cm frame at 104.3 kilograms was obese according to my expert’s charts. 74 inches and 230 pounds. It really was unacceptable. I had to keep getting larger pants, it was pathetic. The medical professional thinks 185 pounds will get me out of the Obese column. She may be right, but I am shooting for 195. I was half way there yesterday morning and I am still almost half way today. YeeHaw!
I am taking it seriously. I am making it fun for me. I have a spreadsheet with every ort and iota of mass I put into my mouth that smacks of calories. It really is easy to keep in the 2200 range for a day if I don't get the killer items. I mean, I have everything listed with its caloric and saturated fat content summed at the bottom for each meal and showing how much I have left till I go over. I keep at or under the 650 pretty easily and a lot of the nights I don't eat anything at bedtime. Of course, I am now into it 8 weeks and I'm just not as hungry because I suppose my stomach has reduced its stretching. I list a few of the Over the Top items on my chart, like Long John Silver's Fish. I’d get 3 pieces and a large Dr. Pepper for a 20 minute ride home. Those are 260 per, 40% of my now target limit, just for one! The little Whopper Jr. is 420 by itself. I really like the taste of these things, but I must moderate. At least till I am out of obese danger levels. I am not going hungry at all. Like I might have said above, I am eating more mass for breakfast than I was before. It's kind of like I count it up and I see I can get more before I reach 650. I am sort of stuffing myself a little bit, it's kind of silly, but I am still losing weight even so. I really don't crave that much food, but I do it probably just because I can.
The lunch meal in the work cafeteria is pretty easy for me, because I like the salad bar (and it's cheap) each time I get a large salad and use vinegar and oil (which I really like since I started using them 5 years ago. I can really taste the items, before; all I really tasted was the French dressing.) Skim milk and a yogurt and vegetable rounds out the Lunch. The yogurt puts me over the 650 a few calories because they are 180 calories at work; the ones I buy at the grocery store are only 80 calories. Most days I leave the yogurt alone and in essence I leave 160 calories on the table so to speak.
I told the dietician 4 years ago that I was going to get under 200 pounds by the next Christmas, but never did it. She kept a chart of my weights for every time I checked in to the VA for an appointment for the entire time. She printed out a line graph showed it to me in June. It opened my idiot mind to reality. 3 solid years of trending up with no end in sight, no downturns, no major corrections, just uptrend. Almost a 35 degree angle up to the right. 36 more months of doing what I was doing was going to put me way over 250, easy! That's not even taking into account the cholesterol and lipid levels! Anyway, she showed the graph to me. I looked at it and said "If that was a stock, I'd be buying it." That was it. I was done. I was finished being dumb, stupid and procrastinating. It was like when I quit smoking the day after my first wife, Lorraine, died of lung and brain cancer. I may have to be psychological beat abut the head and shoulders for months at a time, but eventually I can take a hint. "Dude!!! You're killing yourself!!! Stop!!!" Is that an epiphany?
I work with a guy that's over 500 lbs so it's easy to just say, "I'm not that large.”That's what I call the "Trying to irrationalize it and call it rational." model of cognitive dissonance. I hear there are a lot of former smokers, now sleeping in their own personal flip-top boxes, that used that one too. I'm sure I'll be joining them is sleep one of these days. I guess I've decided to try and put it off for a few more healthy years, if I can.
Well, Tuesday morning weigh in will be two solid months implementing the TLC. I only had 2 incidents that are outliers, the Whopper Jr with regular soda and yesterday's picnic. Not too bad I suppose. 3 days in order to incorporate the picnic's excess calories into my system. It wasn't really gigantically over the top, but it was way over 650, probably like 4000 calories altogether. Still that's over 1.5 days worth of calories excess at that one meal. We will see how it pans out. I'm probably not going to do that again. Especially if it turns out to be hard to recover. I shouldn't have done it in the first place because of the saturated fat and sugar content. Oh well, we'll see. I had the goal in mind and now I can see the when the goal will be met. At my current rate, I'm looking at October 24th to reach 195 pounds.
Later.
Thursday, August 05, 2010
Greater Love Hath No Benevolent Deity
Sometimes I hear or read someone quoting the Bible and it seems so mean that I have to look it up to make sure it actually says what the quote says. I don't know why I am still skeptical about the quotes of evil deeds perpetrated and encouraged by Jehovah since the Great Flood Story tops them all for the killing of innocent children.
Ezekiel 9:6
Slay utterly old and young, both maids, and little children, and women: but come not near any man upon whom is the mark; and begin at my sanctuary. Then they began at the ancient men which were before the house.
I remember 26 years ago, as I waited to enter the sanctuary to be married, I sat at the pastor's desk, opened a Bible at random and quickly read through Ezekiel. I didn't get to finish it, but I am sure I made it through Chapter 9. I read the words of murdering little children and wasn't appalled with it. It just didn't register. God always gets a passing grade anyway. It must be OK somehow, because it's God doing it. It took a while to break out of that mindset, but breakout I did and I am not going back.
Of course, these are simply stories, made up by illiterate, desert nomadic sheep herders and not to be taken as real history. However, many humans, in this 21st century, actually worship at the altars of this wicked acting Deity. And they encourage their own children and unsuspecting strangers to give themselves over to this God and worship Him also. But once one is freed from these irrational chains of mental slavery, one sees it as a travesty which sadly remains in the world.
Ezekiel 9:6
Slay utterly old and young, both maids, and little children, and women: but come not near any man upon whom is the mark; and begin at my sanctuary. Then they began at the ancient men which were before the house.
I remember 26 years ago, as I waited to enter the sanctuary to be married, I sat at the pastor's desk, opened a Bible at random and quickly read through Ezekiel. I didn't get to finish it, but I am sure I made it through Chapter 9. I read the words of murdering little children and wasn't appalled with it. It just didn't register. God always gets a passing grade anyway. It must be OK somehow, because it's God doing it. It took a while to break out of that mindset, but breakout I did and I am not going back.
Of course, these are simply stories, made up by illiterate, desert nomadic sheep herders and not to be taken as real history. However, many humans, in this 21st century, actually worship at the altars of this wicked acting Deity. And they encourage their own children and unsuspecting strangers to give themselves over to this God and worship Him also. But once one is freed from these irrational chains of mental slavery, one sees it as a travesty which sadly remains in the world.
"Save yourselves while you still have a life to save!"
Labels: Ezekiel, killing children, loving God
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