General Jackassery

Since I’m the type of person who tries to hide what I eat so other people won’t know, I’ve decided to post everything that I eat here. Good or Bad, I’m going to post anything that’s gone into my mouth on this website for the next couple of weeks at the very least. I’ve gone out to the internet to research the calories that are in my food and I’ve posted the calorie count along with the my base metabolic rate and the exercise that I do in a day. So you’ll see my intake vs output. Good or bad.

Here was yesterday’s Intake and Output.

1/12/2009

Water Intake = 96 oz Diet Soda Intake = 88 oz
04:30 Peanut Butter and Jelly on Wheat and Diet Pepsi (535)
05:30-06:45 Ice Hockey (-793)
07:10 McDonald’s Sausage and Egg Biscuit, Hash Browns and Large Diet Coke (620)
09:00 Two Little Debbie Oatmeal Crème Pie (330 Cal each – 660 Cal)
11:15 Nachos Bell Grande and Supreme Taco with Large Diet Pepsi (1000)
14:15 Orange and a can of Diet Mt. Dew (45)
16:30 2 oz Pringles and a can of Diet Pepsi (320)
18:00 Taco Salad and diet Mt. Dew ( 3 oz Tostitos Natural Blue Corn Tortilla chips, 4 oz ground turkey with taco seasoning, ¼ cup Sargento Mexican cheese, 1 Tbsp Sour Cream) (676)
20:20 15 minute walk with dogs. (Negligible)
20:40 44 Minutes on the Trainer (-936)
Basal Metabolic Rate = 2416.6
Total Cal Consumed = 3856.0
Total Cal Burned = 4145.6
Calorie Delta = -289.6
Calorie counts are based on nutritional and exercise info found on the internet using google search.

A couple of years ago I started off down a road to wellness. I joined LA weight loss so I could learn to eat healthier and so I would have someone to hold me accountable for what I ate. I also started training for marathons and slightly less than two years ago I completed my first marathon. The end result was that by the summer of 2007 I had lost 56 lbs. In October 2007 I trained for and completed a second marathon while raising money for the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society.

After my second marathon, things started to go downhill. I trained so hard for the marathon and pushed my body so hard to finish the marathon that I sustained some injuries that just wouldn’t go away. See, I’m not a runner and my choice of words, “I finished a marathon,” is not an accident. I’ve never run a whole marathon and in my opinion I’ve never finished a marathon well. Both efforts pushed my body and mind to their limits and it took days just to be able to walk normally again after the effort.

Sometime between the two marathons I lost my edge with nutrition. I plateaud on my weight loss, I stopped going to LA Weight Loss centers and really relied on the training to keep the weight off. I had this mentality that I needed to eat more because I was running so much, and while that’s a true statement, what I was eating to boost my caloric intake was totally wrong. I justified eating double quarter pounders by saying that I could afford to eat those since I was going to do a long run on the weekend.

Overtime, those double quarter pounders were a habit that was all too easy to fall back into. That was after-all how I’d eaten for a long time before I joined the weight loss program. After I came back from the second marathon and was injured, I kept eating but wasn’t training. I gained about 10 lbs between October and Christmas. It was the holidays; I would get back to training in January after I healed up. I took a new job in December, Sarah and I found out in January that we were expecting Micah and life just continued along at a blistering pace.

Jackie and I signed up to run the half-marathon in Nashville in April. We thought doing a half would be a nice way to slowly get back into training. We had both gained weight back, we both had injuries to get over and the half marathon is a much more forgiving distance. This was a plan that would have worked but my eating habits weren’t good. There’s only one thing worse than eating habits, my training habits. I just couldn’t get back in the groove. April came and I considered not running the half. In the end I “finished” it, but it took so much longer than it should have. By the time July rolled around I had gained 30lbs back and I can’t run more than a mile or two without having knee problems.

I always told myself that if I had a something to train for, I would work hard enough to be able to complete it. The problem is that I’ve always looked at it from the standpoint of training and I’ve never put the training with the nutrition.

I’ve always looked at eating the right foods as a diet, something that is short term until you loose the weight and once the weight is off you can go back to eating how you want to. I know…..for someone who’s supposedly smart, that’s pretty stupid logic. But, it doesn’t change the fact that I think like that.

They say that first step towards recovery is recognizing that you have a problem.

I have a problem. I eat when I’m stressed. I eat when I’m bored. I eat when I’m tired. I know the types of food that I should eat. The types of food that I could eat that would help me with stress, boredom, tiredness, depression. The kinds of food that I would not feel guilty eating, but just today I went down to the cafeteria, bought two oatmeal cream pies and ate them both. I ate them fast so no one would see me eating them. I ate them fast because deep down I was embarrassed that I was eating them fast to hide the fact that I did eat them. I played hockey this morning though, I burned a lot of calories so it’s okay. I won’t gain weight because I’ve already burned those calories.

I’ve disappointed myself on a regular basis because I hide away somewhere and eat snacks that I should leave alone. I want to loose the weight that I’ve gained back and more, but I haven’t found a way to let the snacks and the junk food go.

“I believe that the Sun has risen, not only because I see it, but because by it I see everything else.”

Guess there hasn’t been that much to write about. I’ve been doing a lot of reading and surfing lately and just haven’t fealt the urge to write. I have however, come across some things that I’ve found interesting over the last couple of days that I would like to share with you.

I’ve heard a lot about this guy named Stephen Covey. He’s considered “The Man” when it comes to leadership. He’s got a book out now called “The 8th Habit.” Anyway, I was in the airport in Raleigh, NC yesterday and I didn’t have anything to read so I bought it. Before I knew it I was through part one and was actually in the process of re-reading the first chapter. When I finished the first chapter I laid the book down and starting to really think about it.

I think that many people spend a lot of time wondering what the meaning of life is and in doing that they miss the point. The point is for you to find your own meaning and for you to live a meaningful life. That is why God made us all different.

The book references a conversation between and man and his doctor. The doctor asks how many hours a day the man works and the man’s response is, “I don’t know, how many hours a day do you breath?” My immediate response to that was “ahh, a workaholic, that’s bad.” But that’s not the way this was inteded. The intent was to show that when work, play, relaxation and life in general all start to merge and become one then you’re doing what you’re meant to do. If you’re spending 40 hours a week in the office working just to get to the weekend then you’re not living a meaningful life.

So I started thinking about it and I’ve really had a flood of things in my head for the last two days, but I’ve been working on a “vision.” Something I think I would be happy with if I was “working” on Monday or Sunday. I would like a career that involves my chosen field of study (Civil Engineering), the Church and charities.

I’ve been watching this show called “Extreme Makeover, Home Edition” whenever I get the chance and I love it. The show is really about helping people, but for a Civil Engineer it’s neat to watch them demolish and rebuild a house in 7 days. I would like to be involved in something like that. I would like to be more involved in my community and I would like to do it in a way that promotes our environment.

So that’s what I’m working on now. I think step one is to find a Church that Sarah and I would like to get involved with.

Okay, I’ve had my lunch, I’ve got all the spam cleared out and everything has settled down so now I’ll speak my mind on the election. I stated in a previous post that I wasn’t satisfied with either candidate and while there has been a lot of change in my thought process the statement still holds, but not for the same reasons as before. I know that probably doesn’t make a lot of sense, but bare with me and hopefully I’ll be able to better explain myself. See in September when I made that statement I’ll admit that I had not done enough research to completely understand both candidates, or at least have a real good feel for where they’re going. Today, I’m happy to say that I’ve done a lot more studying on the subject and I feel like I have a better idea of what needs to be done and where this country needs to go. I also have a lot more knowledge of the candidates. When I went to the polls today I was still undecided, I was leaning towards one candidate but Geof planted a seed in my head and I wanted to make sure that when I went to the poles I actually was making the right decision by voting FOR the candidate that would do the best job as President instead of voting against the guy that I didn’t think could do the job.

(more…)

Anyone who has paid any attention to this website over the last couple of days has probably noticed that I’ve had about 300+ comments added by an on-line poker/blackjack/whatever comment spam attack. This has brought to my attention the need to do some regulating. For the time being I’ll be disabling comments on all existing posts and any adminitstative type posts like this one will be closed to comments as well. Also, I’ll be closing all posts older than 7 days for comment. If you have something you want to say in response to an older post, please feel free to email me and I will add the comment.

Really it’s pretty amazing, now entering the 10th month of the year I’ve traveled on average 1.5 times per month. I don’t think that would be so bad, but over have of those trips have lasted atleast a week.

(more…)

I love my dogs very much and because I love them so much I’m faced with a difficult decision. I travel so often lately that I feel like I’m not able to spend the proper amount of time with them. Sarah said something that struck me the other day about an article that she read, I don’t remember the exact title, but it was something like “rich, healthy and abused.” I often feel like I have two of the best dogs around, they’re sweet as can be and they really don’t cause any trouble. Nanook is such a trooper with all that he’s been through and he takes it all in stride. Niki has changed soo much since I first got her, it’s absolutely amazing. Both of them seem happy, but I feel like a lot of Nanook’s problems stem from the fact that he loves me so much and he wants my attention, attention that I’m not able to give him because when I’m home all I want to do is relax. Anyway, the lack of attention stresses him out, mostly when I’m gone for extended periods of time. That stress leads to the health issues that he’s been having.

Anyway, I’ve thought hard about finding a home for them and letting them go, but I just don’t know what the right decision is. I know that accepting resposibility for an animal is supposed to be a life long deal and that is also in the back of my mind.

So there are two viable options: find a home for them, or make a commitment to them to spend time with them everyday. The issue is that I really can’t make that commitment because of travel, so what consitutes enough time spent with them?

I don’t know.

hmmmmm……It’s interesting to take a step back and look at the things you’ve done in the past.

(more…)

Well, I have to say that I’ve been a bit on the stressed side the last two days. I’ve been working on a project for one of the PM’s downstairs and it requires that I take a proposal from a contractor and a estimate from the government and compare them to determine whether or not the contractor’s price is fair and reasonable. I believe that the contractor’s proposal is fair. The only problem is that the idiot who originally did the estimate for the government left some key things out. The two prices were only 2.5% apart, but that’s a lot on a project of this size. (more…)