Weigh-In Week 14

234! That's what it said on the scale this morning. A loss of 2.4 lbs.! And 14 straight weeks of loss.

I feel really good about this week. Over the last two weeks I have finally settled in to a way of life that feels sustainable. I'm obsessing less over what I eat. I still track my calories everyday, but I don't feel like I need to be so uptight about what I eat. I have come to a point where this is my regular diet vs. being on a diet. My body knows what it needs now. And exercise has started to become more routine. Less of a chore and more just part of my every day. Let's hope I didn't just jinx myself by talking about it.

I realized this morning that this is very close to the weight where I first started thinking I needed to lose weight. My first major push to drop a few pounds came during the year leading up to my wedding, which would have been 8 years ago. It's amazing that I have accomplished in 6 months what I have been trying to do for 8 years. And it's all because of the help and support I get from you! Thank you.

Another thing I realized this morning, those large white t-shirts are starting to fit pretty comfortably. Unfortunately, my only remaining pair of jeans are starting get a little big. May have to hit the outlet mall this weekend.

This weeks winner is Cousin Angie! She guessed 2.4 right on the money and with a whopping 13 votes this week we will for sure be giving Angie a prize. Angie for your keen ability to forecast the future of my shrinking mass I will be sending you a copy of this months Cooking Light magazine. I am sure Cousin Josh will be very excited!

Have a great weekend everybody!

Tony
9/14: 234 lbs.
Goal: 220 lbs.
14 lbs. to go

Guess How Much I Weigh Contest - Week 14

I have gotten complacent in my strength training and my body sculpting has not been as pronounced as I had hoped. So, I started a new strength training workout last night. It kicked my butt, but not nearly as hard as I thought it would.

Here is the new Workout:

Push ups /2 Sets/ 12-15 Reps
Dolphin Pose / 2 Sets / 12-15 Reps
Plank / :30 seconds
Crunches / 2 Sets / 12-15 Reps
Crunches with Twist / 2 Sets / 12-15 Reps
Reverse Crunch / 2 Sets / 12-15 Reps
Pendulum / 2 Sets / 12-15 Reps
Lying Straight Leg Raises / 2 Sets / 12-15 Reps
Balancing Seated Twist with Medicine Ball / 2 Sets / 12-15 Reps
Lunge & Twist with Medicine Ball / 2 Sets / 12-15 Reps
Squats with Medicine Ball / 2 Sets / 12-15 Reps
Dumbbell Flys / 2 Sets / 12-15 Reps
Dumbbell Chest Press / 2 Sets / 12-15 Reps
Alternating Dumbbell Biceps Curls / 2 Sets / 12-15 Reps
Dumbbell Hammer Curls / 2 Sets / 12-15 Reps
Upright Dumbbell Rows / 2 Sets / 12-15 Reps
Calf Rocking with Dumbbells / 2 Sets / 12-15 Reps

Here is what I managed to accomplish last night.

Push ups /2 Sets/ 15 Reps
Dolphin Pose / 2 Sets / 12 Reps
Plank / :30 seconds
Crunches / 2 Sets / 15 Reps
Crunches with Twist / 2 Sets / 15 Reps
Reverse Crunch / 1 Set / 12 Reps
Pendulum / 1 Set / 12 Reps
Lying Straight Leg Raises / 1 Set / 10 Reps
Balancing Seated Twist with Medicine Ball / 1 Set / 12 Reps
Lunge & Twist with Medicine Ball / 2 Sets / 12 Reps
Squats with Medicine Ball / 2 Sets / 12 Reps
Dumbbell Flys / 2 Sets / 12 Reps
Dumbbell Chest Press / 2 Sets / 12 Reps
Alternating Dumbbell Biceps Curls / 2 Sets / 12 Reps
Dumbbell Hammer Curls / 1 Sets / 12 Reps
Upright Dumbbell Rows / 2 Sets / 12 Reps
Calf Rocking with Dumbbells / 2 Sets / 12
Reps

I used two 25 pound weights for all the weight stuff except the Upright Rows. Those I did with 10 pound weights. I used a 5 pound medicine ball for all the medicine all stuff. I may do a little more tweaking based on something my dad sent me this morning. The goal is to get better at doing this routine a minimum of three times a week. Washboard abs here I come!

Step right up, step right up.
Guess how much I weigh and win a fabulous prize.

To Recap:
Every Thursday I give you my stats for the week and you guess what you think the scale will say on Friday morning. The winner is the first person who guesses my weight / weight loss for the week without going over or the person who is closest without going over. Go ahead and click on comments at the bottom of this post and leave your guess.

I will post the winner when I post my weight on Fri. morning. If we get ten or more guesses I will have a prize for the winner.

Stats for the week of September 10th.
Walked / Ran: 11.1 miles

Calories Consumed: From Thursday morning through Wed. night I have consumed aprox. 14392 calories.

Calories Burned: From Thursday morning through Wed. night I have burned aprox. 27636 calories.

34% of my calories have come from fat.
9% of those calories came from Saturated Fats.

45% of my calories came from carbs.

21% of my calories came from protein.

Let the guessing begin. Good Luck!


Tony
9/13: 236.4 lbs.
Goal: 220 lbs.
16.4 lbs. to go

p.s. Don't forget you can subscribe to the e-mail edition of Guess How Much I Weigh . Simply enter your e-mail address in the space to the right.

Recipe Wensday - Coconut Curry

We had lunch at Big Bowl on Sunday and ever since then I have been craving more Chicken Curry. I am one of the worlds pickiest eaters. I believe my current ranking is some where around 12th pickiest eater. So it surprises a lot of people, including me, that I like Indian and Thai food. It's a habit I picked up living in England and one I have had to curb this year as I've been losing weight. I used to hit the local Indian buffet for lunch about once a week. Man do I miss Naan Bread!

That's why I was so excited to find this really easy recipe for Coconut Chicken Curry. While not exactly a low cal recipe, it is low carb... until you add the rice. To make it a little healthier you could serve it over whole grain noodles instead.

My lovely wife has started planing out our meals for the week. We haven't been planing our meals very well so hopefully this will help with the last minute dinner scramble. I will ask her to put this recipe on the calender for some time next week.

Coconut Chicken Curry
INGREDIENTS:
1-lb skinless chicken breasts or thighs, cut in bite-sized pieces
1/2 medium onion (optional, but I like it), chopped
1 medium red Bell pepper, chopped
12 oz fresh or frozen green beans
1 can coconut milk (can use light or regular)
Thai spices as described above to taste (depends on heat)
Salt or seasoning salt to taste

DIRECTIONS:
1. Heat some oil (I included 1 T in the nutritional info below) in the pan - olive, coconut, peanut, or high-oleic safflower oil all work well. Amount depends upon size of pan - you want a thin coating on the bottom.
2. Chop onion, and add.
3. Chop pepper and add.
4.While that is cooking, chop the chicken.
5. Add the spices (including the salt). The amount will depend upon the spice. For example, with Penzey's Sate' Seasoning, I use about 4 t, but for a hot paste, more like 2 t. It just depends upon how spicy the blend is and how spicy you like your food. Stir until the you start to smell the spices.
6. Add the chicken. Stir until almost cooked through.
7. Add the coconut milk. (Note: this makes a fairly soupy curry. If you want it thicker, just add maybe 2/3 of the can.) Bring it to a boil, and simmer for 3-5 minutes.

Makes 4 servings

Nutritional Information per serving (with onion and regular coconut milk): 404 calories, 30 gm protein, 12 gm carbohydrate, 4 gm fiber, 8 gm ECC , 27 gm fat.

Recipe courtesy of Laura Dolson at About.com.

Tony
9/12: 236.4 lbs.
Goal: 220 lbs.
16.4 lbs. to go

Britney, America, Glamour Magazine and More Body Image Controversy

I swear I am not on a crusade. I was ready to leave the whole Britney thing alone after yesterdays post. I had said my piece and made my point. And then I opened up Yahoo News and was hit with this headline:
Harshest Words Saved For Britney's Body.

In general it is a poorly written article wrapping up the "she's fat" / "no she's not" reactions to Sunday nights performance. Again I was ready to leave it alone until I saw this quote from Glamour Magazine executive editor-at-large, Suze Yalof Scwhartz.

"Girls aren't looking as skinny this season as they did," said Suze Yalof Scwhartz, executive editor-at-large for Glamour Magazine. "There's food backstage. They're looking sexier." At Glamour, she noted, a model won't be featured "if she shows too much clavicle."

A lovely, yet all together hypocritical sentiment apparently. Recently a few keen observers spread around the blogesphere have noted that Glamour Magazine did an impressive Photoshop job on America Ferrera for their latest cover. Take a look at the pictures and you'll notice her face and arms have been considerably thinned out.


While it does sound like America has lost some weight since the first photo was taken, there is no way those arms are her real arms.

I know Photoshopping covers is a common practice. In fact the company I work for has been asked more than once to Photoshop 10 or 15 lbs. off of a celebrity. It is something we do with no small amount of ridicule for said celebrity.

My ridicule turns to anger however, when a magazine like Glamour feels the need to "tighten up" and digital tone a women like America Farrar, a woman whose career has been built on the idea that every body is beautiful just the way it is.

This is a serious problem. Especially when the editor at large turns around and claims her magazine is part of the solution. Sorry Miss Scwhartz, if you continue practices like this you are just as big a part of the problem... maybe even a bigger part of the problem...than the hundreds of snippy reporters blasting away at Brittney for her paunch.

I now officially retire my soap box. I promise the rest of this week will be all about me.

Tony
9/11: 236.4 lbs.
Goal: 220 lbs.
16.4 lbs. to go

The Paunch Heard Around The World

I couldn't care less about Britney Spears! I need you to understand just how much I don't care about Britney Spears because it is the only way I can bring myself to talk about her. So now that we all know that I am not some closeted teeny bop idol lover I can get on to talking about Britney Spears.

Once again this morning, Britney is all over the news due to her "disastrous" performance at last nights MTV Video Music Awards. I happened to see part of the performance on the Today Show this morning while waiting for the weather report. I will agree, it did look bad and was probably an ill advised comeback attempt for someone not ready to be back in the spotlight. There is however one thing that is bugging me about all the media coverage.


Here is a quote from an AP article on Yahoo news this morning:

"As in most train wrecks, it was hard to focus on just one thing as the Britney Spears disaster unfolded. There was just so much that went wrong.

Out-of-synch lip-synching. Lethargic movements that seemed choreographed by a dance instructor for a nursing home. The paunch in place of Spears' once-taut belly."

Can you guess which part of that quote I have a problem with? Nearly every news report I have seen on last nights VMA's mentioned Britney Spears' weight as one of the things she "did wrong" last night.

Ok, now take a good look at these pictures. Do you see the paunch? Sure it's not a set of six-pack abs, but I think Britney has a lot more to worry about then being ten pounds overweight and a little soft in middle. To me, she looks incredibly healthy. The only hint of a "paunch" is in this final photo and that may just be because of her pose and the angle of the photo.


But, here is the message I hear going out to young girls. "Be skinny or else people will make fun of you." Sure I am super sensitive to this issue due to my current obsession with my own body. But as a father of two little girls it worries me to see how nonchalantly we can call a 130 lb. woman paunchy merely because she is a celebrity who once had a rock hard body. She has had two kids for cripes sake.

So here is my point, if you have young daughters who read the newspaper or watch the news or listen to the radio or watch MTV, do me a favor. Let them know that while Britney Spears may be a little off her rocker, she is a healthy looking young woman who doesn't need to lose any weight.

Encourage your kids to live healthy lifestyles but at the same time be sure they understand what it means to have a healthy body image. And for the betterment of us all buy them some Ani Difranco or Tori Amos or Cat Power CDs. Please!!!!

Tony
9/10: 236.4 lbs.
Goal: 220 lbs.
16.4 lbs. to go

p.s. Check out Tori Amos' take on todays young female roll models.