Sardines for Lunch

You're code is suboptimal

2007-08-31T14:19:00.000-05:00

Yes, I'm upside down. See more here.

Soda slave

2007-08-21T21:49:00.000-05:00

Over the past nine months, I have managed to implement some positive lifestyle changes, all with relative ease.
I decided to quit drinking. Easy. I haven't had a sip in 9 months.
I decided to exercise regularly. Easy. I've worked out 2 - 4 times a week, every week, for 9 months.
I decided to eat a better diet. Pretty easy. Aside from the occasional scoop of ice cream, I eat no junk and 90% of my carbs come from fruit and veggies.
I decided to try Intermittent Fasting. Easy. I can go without food for 20 hours at any time without a problem.
I decided to stop drinking diet sodas. UH OH.

This is NOT easy. I simply have not been able to shake them. I have attempted to gradually decrease my intake, by replacing it with water, or even coffee. I have attempted to decrease consumption by not entering the convenience store, so as to have less opportunity to purchase soda. I have quit cold turkey, twice. Both times I suffered bad headaches and was very irritable and tired for several days. Then, soon after those physical withdrawl symptoms were gone, and I was in the clear, I'd start up again.

Let me give you an idea of how bad it is. I've usually had 4 liters of Diet Mountain Dew within 3 hours of waking up. Then between lunch and dinner I'll ingest anywhere from 90 - 135 ounces of diet coke or diet dew. Yes, I'm averaging about TWO GALLONS OF DIET SODA PER DAY.

I'm really concerned more about the dangers of aspartame than I am about caffiene. And having failed while attempting to use coffee as a substitute, I'm thinking that aspartame is my real addiction. Maybe it's my stomach that has to have it.

At any rate, I hereby resolve to quit, this time for good. In fact, I'm going to throw out the rest of this Diet Dr. Pepper right now.

Day 2

2007-06-08T12:23:00.000-05:00

Wednesday morning, before deciding to fast, I weighed 205 pounds.
Wednesday after eating my very large 3:00 meal, I weighed 213 pounds.
Thurday morning i weighed 204 pounds.

I had 2 meals Thursday
11:00am: sardine/egg/cheese/powder meal
4:00pm: 2 raw eggs, some protien powder, some roast turkey, and about 1/2 cup of roasted macadamia nuts and raw almonds.
I estimate calories for the day at 1300-1500. I'm planning to average 2200 a day. So I've got some catching up to do.

Friday morning I weighed 202 pounds.

On Friday, after an 18 hour fast, I ate...
10:30am: half a Mojo chicken, an ounce of Etorki, and 1/4 cup macadamia nuts.
3:15pm: half a Mojo chicken, 10 almonds
Supper coming around 6

Intermittent Fasting

2007-06-06T14:44:00.000-05:00

Yesterday, after reading this post, I decided to try Intermittent Fasting. I ate a most delicious chicken. I had to stuff in the last fourth of it, which left me feeling a bit uncomfortable. This was at 3:00pm.

I continued to drink large amounts of water all afternoon and into the evening.

Around 8:30, after getting the kids to bed, I was starting to feel some hunger. Normally this is the time where I will snack on some chocolate and chase it with some protein powder, or maybe even have some berries or grapefruit. And that's on a normal night, when I'm only 2 or 3 hours removed from supper. But alas, I'm fasting. So I went upstairs, read for an hour, and went to bed. The hunger was gone as soon as I decided not to eat and left the kitchen.

Today is Kim's birthday, and the kids wanted to fix her breakfast in bed. We cooked up some omelets with cheddar and bacon, and cut up a generous portion of watermelon. Normally while cooking I will feel free to sample the wares, some grated cheese here, a few cubes of melon there. And I almost popped some food into my mouth a few times out of habit. But for the most part I wasn't hungry. I had one episode of intense hunger that lasted about 5 seconds, and that was it.

Kim convinced me to have a bite of her omelet. This occured at 9:00am. At 9:45 I performed a Slow Burn upper body workout. The fast had no negative effect on my energy level during the workout. In fact, I seemed to experiecne less fatigue between exercises than normal.

At 11:00, I wasn't even hugry. I tried to think of something that sounded good to eat, but nothing really seemed appealing. So I had a can of sardines, a couple ounces of gouda, and some protein powder mixed with an egg.