Day 7: Beginning of Week 2 – and some DDR

January 15, 2012 by

Week 2 started for me today and I got right back on Body For Life after my day off. So far most of my posts have been related primarily to nutrition and I haven’t talked much about the exercise portion of it. I hit the gym Monday through Friday this week, running on Tue/Thu and lifting weights Mon/Wed/Fri. My designated running days are Sunday/Tue/Thu. I generally use the treadmill at the gym to do the interval running (more details to come soon about my exact routine).

On Sundays I have a hard time getting myself out the door and to the gym. I’ve decided for the Cardio piece on Sunday instead of running I will do at least 30 minutes of DDR at home. If you’re not familiar with DDR, it stands for Dance Dance Revolution. First released in 1998 by Konami in Japan, it made it’s way to the United States and swept across the nation in arcades everywhere. Eventually it made it’s way to gaming consoles where you could play it in the comfort of your own home. In DDR, you use a dance pad with four arrows – up, down, left and right. The dance music plays and arrows travel across the screen to the beat of the music. You stomp on the correct arrow when it reaches the white arrows:
DDR
They now have DDR games for most all platforms including PS2, XBox 360, Wii and PS3.

About 9 or 10 years ago Allison and I were sitting around one day and talking about Dance Dance Revolution. She thought that sounded like fun and wanted to get it. When I broke the news to her that it was on the PS2 platform and that we only had a Gamecube, she stated “well, let’s get a PS2 then.” My response was (imagine Eeyore’s voice) “I guess we’ll have to get a PS2 then.” 😉 I’ve treasured that moment for 10 years now – the moment my wife actually encouraged me to go buy a video game system. The first month we had the PS2 and DDRMax I lost 10 pounds! It was so much fun – and had you work up a sweat too. Since then I’ve built some custom DDR pads that make it much better than the original pads that slip and slide around on the floor. Maybe I’ll post a video at some point of my DDR. For now, I’ll be pulling out the ol’ DDR pads every Sunday to get my cardio in.

Filed Under: Body For Life, Technology Tagged With: ,

Day 6: Week 1 Weigh-In and My First Day Off

January 14, 2012 by

Saturdays will be my official weigh-in day each week. I’m only officially recording in 1 pound increments using the traditional rounding rules when weighing in (1-4 round down, but 5-9 rounds up) for the decimal points. My first week on Body for Life must have been a lot of water weight. I lost 3 pounds and am down to 167 now:
Weigh-in for week 1
Now, for the pics in progress. From the front:
Front View after week 1
From the back:
Back View after week 1
Even though you can’t see much change yet, I can already feel a difference. I just feel healthier. Energy is more sustained and I feel better all the way around. I’ll admit, though, it’s taking a little bit to get used to eating 6 times a day again. I’ve looked down on more than one occasion at the clock and been like, “oh crap, I need to eat!”

Today was my first day off on Body For Life. Conveniently it was my son’s birthday, which made it less of a hassle to try to deal with all of the Birthday stuff and stay on BFL. Oh, and as mentioned in this post I did indeed enjoy two and a half one cupcake cone that Allison made for Travis’ birthday party. We went to the Double Dave’s lunch buffet (another one of the reasons I put back on some weight the last year and a half). Peproni Roll and Cheesesteak Stromboli:
Peproni Roll and Cheesesteak Stromboli
Chocolate Chip Pizza:
Chocolate Chip Pizza
The food was really good as usual, but I paid for it later. In the afternoon, I felt low on energy, and just had that icky feeling that you get when you don’t eat healthy. I find that the two best reasons for the day off is to:

  1. Remind you of how good you feel when you are eating healthy. Now, I’m not saying that your day off has to be unhealthy – it’s not supposed to be a binge day. But, if you enjoy that piece of pizza or ice cream you’ve been craving all week, don’t worry about it. Eventually you’ll start to notice after eating healthy all week long that the things you used to crave aren’t quite as “awesome” as they used to be. They may even make you feel a little yucky afterwards like Double Dave’s did for me. The longer you continue to eat healthy, the more healthy choices you will begin to make – even on your day off.
  2. Remind your body that you are not starving. When you eat low calorie food and exercise a lot, your overall calories intake is less than the calories you burn. After a while your body will think it is going into “starvation mode” as I like to call it. Your body does not burn the fat because it thinks it needs it due to the fact that you are not eating enough calories. Taking a day off each week is important because it “shocks” your body and tells it you are not in starvation mode. This allows your workouts to continue to burn the fat.

The one thing I need to do better at is drinking more water. You are supposed to drink about a gallon of water per day when on Body For Life. I drink too many diet sodas and should cut back on them and replace them with water. That will be something I focus on in week 2.

Filed Under: Body For Life, Pictures Tagged With:

Day 5: When Hunger Hits – from cupcakes to tzatziki – an 85 calorie snack

January 13, 2012 by

I’ve been fine all week, but for some reason today I was really hungry. Tonight there was an internal battle going on inside of me. I was sitting around thinking, “tomorrow’s my day off, and midnight is only a few hours away. Does it really matter?” Then the other side of me would say, “Hey, you can eat whatever you want tomorrow. Don’t blow it – you’ve had 5 strong days of eating healthy and working out.”

It didn’t help that my wife, Allison was busy making cupcake ice cream cones for my son’s birthday party tomorrow. Man, they sure looked good and were ridiculously tempting.
Man, these sure look good.

I mustered up enough strenght to resist and instead fought my hunger off with an excellent snack that is low in calories and very satisfying: carrots and tzatziki dip. Carrots are an excellent snack. One 3 oz. serving is only 35 calories.
not slimy like some of the others
When buying pre-cut carrots, I prefer the Bolthouse Farms carrots. Sometimes when you buy pre-cut carrots, especially the baby-cut carrots, they come out of the bag they are slimy. yuck. Who wants to eat slimy carrots? Bolthouse Farms has always had high quality carrots that are not slimy and taste good.

Now, for the dip – tzatziki dip.
yummy
Yes, this is the same dip that goes on the famous greek “Gyro” sandwiches. Pronuciation still a confusing topic at our house (Year-oh? Gee-roh?) Technically it has a soft g at the beginning, but most American’s can’t say it right. I digress…so Gyro meat – generally not so healthy. The tzatziki (cucumber) sauce they put on it? Very healthy and extremely tasty. It makes an excellent dip for vegetables. I love the combination of cucumbers and dill in the dip. Instead of using ranch to dip veggies in, which completely counteracts the idea of being healthy and eating vegetables, use tatziki dip. Here is a shot of the label from the dip that I picked up at Costco:
and low calorie too...
2 Tablespoons was plenty to go along with my one serving of carrots. After finishing the snack, I was totally satisfied and only 85 calories had been consumed! A much healthier alternative to cupcake cones. I’ll have one of those tomorrow on my day off 😉

Food Calories
3 oz. carrots 35
2 Tbsp Tzatziki Dip 50
Total Calories: 85
Filed Under: Body For Life, Nutrition Tagged With: ,

Day 4: Food Substitutes

January 12, 2012 by

Replacing certain foods in your diet with healthier ones is a quick an easy way to make a difference in your health. Here is a list that I got off of the Body For Life website that contains a few recommendations on how to eat healthier, especially if you are looking to lose weight and/or build muscle:
BFL food replacement ideas
Here are a few more of my own that I’ve come up with:

Replace this… With this…
Ground Beef Lean Ground Turkey
Peanut Butter (i.e. Jif) All Natural Peanut Butter
Yogurt Greek Yogurt
Pasta Whole Wheat Pasta
Anything with enriched flour in it whole grains
McDonalds Subway

Heh heh…McDonalds really isn’t on my list of places that needs to be replaced. It’s not my fast food place of choice, but it may be for some people. I don’t ever crave McDonalds (except last summer when we were on vacation and they were running a limited time Rolo McFlurry). I have a sweet tooth for ice cream…probably one of the other reasons I put some of the weight back on.

Small changes in your eating habits can make a big difference in your health. Making the changes above to your diet alone without exercising will give you an immediate impact. Throw exercise on top of that and you’re quickly on your way to looking better!

Filed Under: Body For Life, Nutrition Tagged With: , , ,

Day 3: My Big FatSecret

January 11, 2012 by

One of the most important things that you can do when trying to lose weight is to track everything that you eat. It’s amazing how differently your decision making goes when you know you’re going to have to write down what you eat. At a minimum you should record the number of calories taken into your body in some sort of log or notebook.

With technology making our lives easier these days, you can record everything on the computer or using your phone. I recommend using a website that tracks what you eat. Not only will it show you how many calories you are eating each day, but how much fat, sugar, carbs, etc. There a many different websites out there that will allow you to do this. Many of them even come with mobile phone apps to make it even easier to record what you eat. Here are a few that you can try:

Livestrong.com’s MyPlate:
Livestrong.com's MyPlate
I haven’t used MyPlate myself, but have heard that it is pretty good.
About.com’s Calorie Count:
About.com's Calorie Count
I used Calorie Count for a while and liked it a lot…until I found:
FatSecret!
FatSecret - All Things Food and Diet

I work in the software industry and am a big fan of open source software. The idea of open source software in a nutshell is to share the awesomeness of software that you wrote with others to enjoy for free. The original source of the code is freely available for you to change if you want to make it better. Many open source projects are done in collaboration with multiple people across the globe working together to write great software. A few examples of open source software that many of you may have have already used or heard of are:

Firefox Web BrowserRobust Email ClientFree Office SoftwareAwesome Free Open Source Image Tool

When I came across FatSecret, I loved the idea that the entire database of foods is editable by all members. Calorie Count had an approval process and seemed kind of slow and clunky – especially once I switched to FatSecret. Food Makers will change their labels from time to time. If you see an entry for a food that has a problem – just edit it. Bought a store brand that is not listed in the database? Add it yourself right then and there to the FatSecret database. The idea of an open source community type of nutrition tracking website had me from first sight.

I will be documenting all of the food that I eat while I’m on Body For Life over at FatSecret.com. My Fatsecret ID is:

benrunslife

If you are already on FatSecret, send me a Buddy Request! If not, what are you waiting for? Go give it a try!

Filed Under: Body For Life, Nutrition, Technology Tagged With: ,
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