DaytonWalker

Last weekend I really went off track. This weekend I stuck with the basic principles of my healthier lifestyle, had a great weekend, and did really well at being healthier.

I love watching football on Sunday afternoons, and it’s just not the same unless I can enjoy some football food while I watch the game. Thanks to Cooking Light magazine and a couple of my better healthy cookbooks, I’m still able to do that. I made Twice Baked Potatoes, Nachos, and Chili and held myself to a single serving of each (making the entire feast last for the whole three hour game). That came in at 770 calories, total, and only 11 grams of fat.

What really makes me happy, though, is that it was only about 150 calories, net. I walked to the store to get everything I needed for my little feast plus everyhing else I needed for the day (carrying about 35 lbs of groceries back). Since this is Real Food instead of the instant gratification food I would normally be eating, it took about an hour and a half of actual cooking (all the chopping/mixing/preparing, not the time I was waiting for things to get done). All together, I burned about 620 calories between everything.

My team lost, but you expect that when you’re a Bengals fan. I had a great meal (way better than when I’m not eating healthy), had a lot of fun with friends while we watched the game, and don’t have to feel the least bit of guilt about it.

ARGH! Today went horribly wrong. Actually, today’s bad day began last night.

A couple of my cousins and I visited my mom in the hospital, and I didn’t get home until really, really late. Too late to make anything healthy for dinner (or at least that’s the excuse I made for myself). I ended up ordering a pizza and, of course, when you order a pizza you have to order the 2 liter of Coke. I ate a couple slices, a few breadsticks, some chicken wings (you don’t get to 400 lbs by being a dainty eater) and had most of the pizza left over today.

This morning, I woke up late and, thanks to last night’s binge, didn’t feel like walking up to the store to get what I needed to make some real food. I had the leftover pizza for breakfast and lunch, and since the day was “already messed up” I had a huge unhealthy dinner. So I sat around all day and did nothing and ate enough for four people. I’m really upset with myself over that.

Fortunately, the day’s not done yet, so I’m going to head down to my rec room and run through a few kung fu forms. Do that for a bit, with some Hsing-I for a warmup and some Tai Chi for a cooldown and I’ll at least feel a bit less guilty.

From everything I’ve read, and everything I’ve seen, you can’t loose weight by dieting. The only way to loose weight and keep it off is through a radical lifestyle change. I know most people wouldn’t be able to do what I am, but I have a good feeling that it’s going to work for me. My lifestyle change is basically a new set of rules for myself:

1) Avoid highly processed foods. Highly processed foods are high in fat, high in calories, and low in nutrients. Even those that are “healthy” are a pretty dangerous proposition because they are the “gateway drug” of foods. Eat a couple Lean Cuisine dinners and I always end up back in Swanson’s Hungry Man hell.

2) Cook from scratch. I haven’t quite gotten up the nerve to tackle real home-made pasta, but my homemade tomato sauce (starts with real tomatoes, ends with fresh basil) is amazing, and way, way healthier than the bottle stuff.

3) Can’t do it by just what you eat so: Do my own work around the house, without power tools. I don’t mean no Hoover to take care of crumbs on the rug. What I mean is, well, right now I’m cleaning up two trees that were felled by the wind storm up here on Monday. I’m spending a couple hours a day sawing off branches, and cutting them to the length so the city will haul them away, using a hand saw. It’s a lot of work, but it burns a lot of calories, and I’m seeing a real difference in my arms already.

4) No car. Dayton has an amazing public transportation system, so having a car here doesn’t make a lot of sense. Pretty much everything I need is within 1.5 miles, and anything further than that is on the bus line. I save myself around $9,000 a year, i don’t have to pay high gas prices, and I get lots of exercise just running errands like going to the store.