Long Time, No Post

I have not written a post in quite some time. It does not mean that I have stopped loosing weight, quite the opposite. On the evening of October 12, 2008, I had a cerebral aneurysm which resulted in a stroke. The stroke left me paralyzed on my left side which with considerable physical therapy, I have regained most of the use of my left side and am able to walk for short distances. I still can only type with my right hand. This is another reason that I have not been osting much on my blogs. If you want to loose weight, just check into a hospital for a while. When I left the hospital in mid November, I had lost 110 pounds. I was determined not to gain weight when I got out of the hospital, I watched what I ate, this combined with my change in dietary likes and dislikes as a result of the stroke, one year after beginning my diet, I have lost a total of 144.3 pounds. My goal is to be at my high school graduation weight by the anniversary of my stroke. Good luck with your dieting, just don't do it the way I did.

Welcome to all the the Fat Old Farts

If you are like me, you are in your forties or fifties and wondering what happened to that young skinny body that you used to have. You know the one, it was back in high school or college, and now, thirty or forty years later, somehow it is gone. I know, you only gained two or three pounds a year and now it is buried under an extra eighty or hundred pounds of lard. Oh yes it is, it's still in there, somewhere. Do you consider that putting on your socks and tying your shoe laces is sufficient daily exercise? Is your cardio routine limited to lugging a 18 pack in from the car? Have you thought about taking male enhancement drugs not so much for sexual proformance but just so you can see the damn thing sticking out below your protuding pannus (stomach) once more like it did all those years ago? If your answer to any of these questions is yes, then this blog is for you. I will caution you to not embark on any exercise or diet plan without seeing your doctor first, not just to give him a good laugh but also and most importantly to be sure that you are healthy enough to begin dieting and exercising.

This blog is an answer to all of you who are like me, aging and over weight. The fitness magazines in the bookstores and the foodstores are for all those people who are currently at 178 pounds and trying desparately to achieve their ripped goal of 172 pounds. I am not worried about the last 6 or 7 pounds, I am concerned with the first 60 or 80 or 100 or more. I will chronicle what is working for me and what is not. I will give suggestions that may help and are geared for the old and over weight. You will not see suggestions of starting out with five sets of pull ups with 5 reps per set. I will sugest that you try walking around your block once or twice without having to stop and take a break and we will build from there. I will suggest how to modify your eating habits to get away from the six donut breakfast, the hamburger and fries lunch and the pizza for dinner mentality that helped give you all those extra pounds. So here's to you and hoping for success. A journey of one thousand miles starts with one step.

Food for Thin

Now that you have finished your walk, I bet you are hungry and thirsty. Have yourself a nice cold glass of water while you make yourself a tasty salad. Tired of chopped iceberg lettuce, then have some spring greens, about a cup and a half. They are tastier and a whole lot more appetizing. Through in some diced or cherry tomatoes, some shredded carrot, a chopped up hard boiled egg and some tuna packed in spring water. Top this with two tablespoons of your favorite low calorie salad dressing and a few (I mean few, 4 or 5) croutons and you have a great lunch of dinner. You have now had a meal that totals around 275 to 300 calories depending on the salad dressing that you use. You most likely will be full when you are finished.

In the mornings, start out with a high fiber cereal such as Kellogg's All Bran with extra fiber with soy milk as opposed to cow's milk. This will give you nearly half of the fiber you for the day, the salad will also give you a good supply of roughage as well as protein from the egg and the Tuna. Your breakfast will be about 130 calories, add a cup of orange juice and that's another 113 or so. Striking a middle ground on you salad, you calorie count for the day is a whopping 528 calories for the day. If you really want to me healthy, but a juicer and juice your own fruit. It is much healthier and tastier. Try orange juice with a little pineapple juice added. It is delicious. Juice form a juicer is thicker, richer and immediately fresh. If you want to stay around 1000 calories a day, this leaves you almost 500 calories for your other meal and snack. Your other meal could be a small salad sans the Tuna and egg, steamed veggies and a 4 or 5 ounce portion of grilled chicken breast. That's a total of about 420 calories for dinner leaving you another 100 or so for a snack. Try an all natural trail mix of raisins, dried cranberries, raw cashews and almond. An 1/8 cup is around 120 calories. That brings your day to 1068 healthy, weight lowering calories. Trust me, with a little exercise, you will quickly see the scale heading south. Drink at least eight glasses of water throughout the day and take a good multivitamin supplement once a day and you are on your way to a thinner you. Don't cheat, you may forget the candy bar you had but your body won't. One thing your body does is count calories with amazing precision. Here's to better health and another walk around the block.

One Foot At A Time

Even before you start dieting, you can start this, and best of all, it's free, or nearly so. This amazing weight loss device is called walking. Now, if you must, you can send me $19.95 and there is no shipping or handling fees involved. Before you start, I recommend weighing yourself so that you have a point in time to measure from. A word of caution, do not become addicted to the scale, once a week is enough. Your weight will go up and done from day to day and hour to hour and that can be demoralizing. I recommend that you weigh yourself in the morning after your first trip to the restroom.

Start with once around the block, track, or mall if that's all you can manage but it's a start. Very quickly you will find yourself walking three, four, five or more times around your walking area without being overly winded. You might notice that your feet and ankles hurt. This is partly due to the fact that they haven't had this much continuous flexing in years and it may be your shoes. Go buy a good pair of walking shoes, they don't have to be state of the art but good. You should be able to find them for the price of two 18 packs of your favorite malted beverage. When you return from your walk, drink water, not beer or a sugary soda. Once you are walking on a regular basis, you might want to invest in a good pedometer, once again, not expensive. I use an Omron Model HJ-7201TC which I like because you can put it in your pocket and not on your belt or wrist. You can leave it in your pocket all day and see just how far you walk in a day. This model comes with a computer program and a download link so that you can keep track of your walking totals and progress. It even calculates how many calories and fat you have burned as you walk. The pedometer is a very good motivational crutch. Let's face it, we are fat and need all of the help that we can get. You can buy good pedometers at your local sporting goods store or through Amazon.com, that's were I got mine. It will quickly become your little buddy. Eventually, you will want to build up to 10,000 steps a day if possible and the pedometer will help you get there. Don't try to get there all at once, unless you walk a great deal in your daily activities or you may become too sore and want to quit. This is about winning and not quitting. We all walked a great deal as children, as we aged, we just simply became lazy and forgot how. When you go to work or the mall or the food store, don't necessarily look for the closest parking space. Find one a little farther out and enjoy the extra few steps while telling yourself that you are doing something good for yourself. Pretty soon you will be finding excuses to walk instead of drive. Walking gives you time to be at peace with yourself and contemplate your day, or navel, or what ever interests you. It is your personal time. Enjoy it.

How to get started

Getting started may be the hardest thing you have to do. It is just so easy to tell yourself that you will start dieting and working out tomorrow or the first of the week or the first of next month but there is no better day to start than today. Make an appointment with your doctor, get checked out and start. Staying on the diet is the second hardest thing that you will do. There is always a party to go to with good fattening food to tempt you but learn to be strong. Tell yourself that yes, I could eat that 500 calorie piece of cake but I am better than that, my health is more import than that piece of cake. Have a "Come to Jesus" meeting with yourself, get undressed, go stand in front of a mirror and ask yourself if that is how you really want to look. Are you ready to go skinny dipping and be proud of the way you look? If the answer is no, then start the diet today and start working toward that mythical physique. Give up sugar, white bread and fried foods for a start. Drink diet colas or iced tea, or better yet, water. Eat whole grain breads if you absolutely have to eat bread and eat grilled meats and fish as opposed to fried. This represents a good and simple start. Start walking around the block, or if the weather is bad, go for a walk around the shopping mall without stopping to shop. The goal is to burn calories and elevate your heart rate. Now you are starting to do cardio, don't you feel better already. Well, as soon as you catch your breath and stop gasping, you will feel better. Don't over do it, remember baby steps in the beginning but keep them up and they will grow into strides toward loosing weight. Keep a log of what you eat and what you do, I suggest FitDay.com, it's easy to use and very helpful and informative. Good luck and get started today!