AHHhhhh.... GO EAT YER DONUTS YOU,... DONUT EATERS!

Ah well. I have resisted the temptation of gourmet sweets, and gourmet pastas and even donuts this past week. Work had me at a conference at a swanky hotel with giant boatloads of good-eating. I stuck to big piles of green beans and some chicken. And big piles of green beans and some barbeque. And other low carb goodness. Passed on many things that would have made my pancreas simply self destruct and explode, for sure.

For all of this I hit 331.4 lbs yesterday, staying on-track and on-course. Almost 80 lbs down, and near hitting the 320's. Probably will be another week or so and I will dip into the 320-land ranges. THAT WILL BE SWEETNESS THERE!!! Can't wait!

Tonight my lovin wife ate ice cream in my face in slow motion, making orgasmic sounds in the process, trying to punish me for saying something she didn't like so much. Man, I got Super Lowcarbman armor on, and that kinda stuff just bounces off of me. Like I want to go nose-down into some ice cream after all this. Don't think so. Not happenin.

I am livin a life here and a way of eating that is keeping me healthy, helping me lose weight, reduces my blood pressure and blood sugar problems. I feel better. I am fitting into smaller clothes. I hope to be here for my children - to raise them, Lord Willing, if I should be able to live long enough and the Lord doesn't return before then. That is worth more than ice cream.

I am not working out at all yet, but I have started occasionally walking up the stairs more at work, instead of the elevators - and parking a little further away than in the past, so I am walking more. Just doing a little bit more here and there.

Anyhow - just a quick update. Staying the course. Laughing in the face of danger and donuts.

BuWah-Ha-Ha-Ha!

Extra! Extra! Read all About It!! Diets in the News...

You can't help but notice a number of recent diet related news articles recently popping up in your newspaper, or on Google News, or in your local TV or Radio News spots.

"Stanford Study Declares Atkins the Winner!" declares one...

In a recent coupla-million dollar study comparing the Atkins diet and several others (the Ornish Diet, the Zone Diet, and the LEARN Diet) the Atkins was found to be the one with the longest lasting and best results. As I understand it, participants of the study were selected to try one of the diets, and were trained in how to do (eat/live) the diet program. Then they were not rigorously managed through the diet process, but left to their own devices for a period of time. In the end, only the Atkins diet had the longest lasting results, and only the Atkins and LEARN diet participants continued weight loss after the six month period from starting the program. Some excellent articles have been written in low carb blogs about the results, about the comments made by various leading nutritional experts, etc. It is well worth looking into if you had not seen this previously.

An additional spate of recent articles proclaim that "Diets don't work". A new study conducted by Dr. Tracy Mann (a professor at UCLA) and her students was recently published in an edition of the journal "American Psychologist" finds that for most people, dieting just doesn't work. They examined the results of approximately 31 diet related studies that had at least one year of follow up data. They found that 41% of people who go on diets end up gaining the weight back and put on **additional weight** from the place they started.

This is something I often noticed and told my wife about every time she told this fatbody about someone elses recent diet. "Just sit back and wait", I would tell her. They will gain it all back, AND THEN SOME shortly. I was never never ever wrong about this, to my recollection. This is one of the reasons I waited so long to pick a plan of weight loss. I wanted something that could last a lifetime, or at least for a very long time - before I started. I met a doctor who kept the weight off for ten years on this way of eating before I started this, and have since met other low carb heros who have lost a hundred or more pounds and have kept it off long term with a low carb way of eating.

The last couple of days there have been a spate of articles stating that the predilection for some to gain weight may be genetic and not the fault of the fat person. That may be. I wonder if this is somehow in response to the articles and studies proclaiming diets don't work...

Anyhow, I am not on a diet. I am on a way of eating and a way of life. So I have nothing to worry about! What say you?

Yummy Desert

Being on a low carb diet can have it's disavantages. I mean I have passed up alot of really great sweets, treats, and deserts. But I have recently stumbled into a few things that are really excellent low carb treats, taste great to me, and are a neat reward when you feel like something with explosively excellent flavor, that leaves you satisfied. I wanted to share a couple...

Alot of folks recommended the Jell-O Gelatin Sugar Free Low calorie cups. I have been eating those for a few months now and am sure I have exceeded the recommended allowance of Jell-O products in our fridge the past few months. They are wonderful for a quick flavor hit, and a two or three cups are filling enough for me.









But one new product (new to me anyhow) is the new Dannon yogurt. Dannon has introduced a new "Light and Fit" low carb yogurt (only 3 grams of carbs) in a variety of flavors. The local Walmart only stocks the strawberries and cream flavor, but it is truely wonderful. If you are low carbing it, go get some!

Dannon offers other great low carb flavors in the Light and Fit product selection, and I can't wait to try them at my local Walmart. As it is I eat two of the Carb Control Strawberries and Cream and feel like I did when I've just eaten some excellent high quality ice cream or tasty dessert in the past.

I am not a compensated advertiser for either of these products, just a satisfied customer. But I want to share with others the good things I have found that I enjoy and help me on my own low carb diet. YMMV.

Catching up...

Well, this weekend I am catching up on some **much needed** rest, sleep, and some relaxing and downtime. It feels SOOOOoooo GOOOOoooD!

I have been under major stress the past couple of months and I have gotten almost completely catatonic with lack of sleep, stress, long hours, and low carb. Maybe it's just me, but I've always been someone who has eaten something when stressed. Everybody makes that sound like an emotional response to stress, but after the past couple months I am wondering if it isn't even a physical response (as in the bod needs the energy or whatever in the nutritional intake during high stress periods). I also tend to get very sleepy after and sometimes during high periods of intense stress. Dunno why that happens, but it does to some degree.

Anyhow, I have stayed on plan thoughout, but it has been hard. One of the the things I have noticed during this prolonged period of long hours, hard work, lack of sleep, and major stress is that I was really having a more difficult time thinking, made verbal miscues more often (said one word meaning another), and got a little catatonic (low levels of emotion and positive emotional response - like joy, happiness, exhuberance, even being expressive in general, etc).

I have suspected that this low carb way of eating does something to increase your testosterone levels, as it seems to have personally effected me in this way, and I have read about this as well reported from others. But I also believe it probably affects your seratonin levels or whatever your happy spots are in the brain. I think I dealt with stress better when eating carbs personally, and I probably thought clearer overall. However I also think that my blood pressure and stomach acid and other problems where much more severe then as well, and I was heading for major physical problems and breakdown on the road I have been on (eating high carb diet in the past and gaining progressively more weight).

Anyhow, I suspect that low carb, coupled together with high stress and with severe lack of sleep are an evil combination that will rob you of joy and pleasure in life, and make life much more difficult. Probably doesn't take a real brainiac to think of that, but if the idea has occurred to you I can confirm by my own personal experience that has been the case for me anyhow.

Also, in the midst of all this I got an infection on one of my fingers and needed to get a doctor to lance it from the fingernail bed area up to about the first knuckle across the entire top of the finger and also the one side also infected. Looked like an ingrown toenail only deeper down inside and down the length of the finger from the nailbed. Doc gave me a couple prescriptions for really strong broad spectrum antibiotics (one said the occasional side effect was that it killed those taking it). I feel that my immune system being down is another indication of the results of extremely high levels of stress, low sleep, and low carb.

I have stayed on-plan throughout and this morning got as low on the scale as 334.2 lbs! Feeling terrific about that, and know that overall I am doing the right thing for me with this way of eating. That makes it over 75 lbs down now as of today (measuring by my lowest weights in a cycle that bounces around a bit). It will probably be a week or more till I am solidly into this weight at my midpoint/average. But it is fun and nice and rewarding to see even little new points of progress along my journey to better health!

I am not trying to dog low carb eating. It has been wonderful for me and has helped me achieve better health overall. I have hung in there cause it is all I know how to do. There is no way I am going to quit and go back up to the weight I was at (or heavier). I want to be here for my wife and to help raise and enjoy my kids, and to serve the Lord.

Thanks to all my friends and online supporters who are a terrific encouragement to me! I am finally getting to the point where more folks are noticing the weight loss, and that is very rewarding in itself. I have started slowly increasing my physical activity (parking further away and taking stairs more often). I want to gradually ease into it, but get to a point where more physical activity is also a part of my life.

Life, the Universe, and ALOT of stuff

Well, I haven't been keeping up with posting lately, not for lack of having something to say. I've been so busy with work, family, church and other things that I have been getting too little sleep for too long. I was at the point I could hardly keep a train of thought the other day for sheer exhaustion. Not every day has been like that. Last night was the first I got a normal amount of sleep in at least a week, and probably a bit longer than that.

Work has been hectic and it has kept me jumpin', getting up at 3AM, 4AM, 4:30AM and 5AM most mornings, and I've been getting home late as well. Sleep deprivation has left me a little draggin', a little less up & enthusiastic & happy, and a little more cranky lately - though not all the time. Especially as I was winding down.

Through it all I have kept on-track with low carb, and I have finally (barely) broken into 330-land. I weighted this morning at 339.2 lbs, so that is good. Also My bouncing (which is still happening) has flattened out a bit this past week. Dunno if that is due to sheer exhaustion or hitting Starbucks much more regularly for coffee and related (mostly low carb) caffine boosts. Anyhow it is nice not to have 10 lb variances in the weight for a change, but something less. There is no getting around my recent need for caffine in the quantities I was drinking it - it was a medical emergency (smile)!

My wonderful wife bought me the George Foreman Grill I asked for recently and she got the large family sized unit I wanted so we could load it with fish, chicken, burgers or whatever. I tried first thing cooking a ribeye steak in it, and it was a pretty disapointing experience. The ribeye was one of these thin cuts to start with, and it got flattened out and drained of juices and the experience was something like eating something between shoe leather and maybe beef jerky. I believe that these steaks need to be grilled or baked in a pan with a little water and seasoning. Probably won't do that again with a thin cut steak like that.

Next we tried burgers, and that turned out OK. I wasn't so disapointed in those. It did drain alot of fat out of the burgers, but cooked six large Angus burgers pretty fast. It cleaned up pretty easy that time as well - though I understand that the steak was a bigger mess to clean up after (my lovely wife did it). Anyhow, I think this is probably best used for chicken, and burgers and maybe fish or peppers or stuff like that. Will have to play around with it to see.

I know they were designed to appeal to folks on a low fat diet - and I understand that in low carb diets like Atkins animal fats are actually not bad for you, they actually satisfy your hunger and your body uses it. So that isn't my line of thinking here. This is mainly another way to cook fast and easy for our family, and make low carb cooking something that is more manageable and comfortable for our family and my wife (one of the big complaints here, right after how exepensive it is).

So anyhow, I am glad to be in 330-land! I am now comfortably wearing 56 waist size pants with no strains. Started out at size 60's. I am almost in a size 19 neck shirt (it's a little tight but I *COULD* button them) and I started out in size 22 neck shirts. The wardrobe is going to need improvements. I have been sinching up larger pants to the point that they are starting to sag under the belt loops (as there are inches of extra material), and really need to move into smaller sizes. I am fitting in slacks and suits and other clothes that have been put up for several years now. That is a great feeling!!

Thanks for stopping by, and I really appreciate all the positive comments from my low-carb friends out there!!! I love this virtual internet connected community of friends!

New Lows! 70 lbs down as of this morning!

Just a quick update to share that I am 70 lbs down this morning as I reached a new all time low of 340.0 lbs!!

Pretty happy about that. If I am true to form I will bounce back up above this weight but I will be back in a few days time once again - hopefully to new even lower lows.

The Road to Success

The road to success is paved with lots of little successes. Maybe a few failures (or more than a few failures) I suppose too.

I have been interested lately in reading sites about people who have been thinking about improving their lives, building better tools and techniques to manage their lives, and building better ideas and habits in the way that they live them.

I guess I have alot of room for improvement. Sigh.

Actually, we all probably do. I don't even know what my goals are necessarily, and I suppose that is a problem. I know some of them, sure. I know that I am shooting for someplace called "better". Someplace called "enough". Someplace more organized. Someplace more complete.

The phrase "So many people don't know where they are going, I don't know how they are ever going to get there" popped into my mind the other day.

The picture or idea of all these little boats sailing aimlessly on the high seas, never really going anywhere. Some of them tooling around in little circles. Some spending so much time looking at other boats and complaining about them, that they never get anywhere. Some looking down into the water at their own boats in rapt narcissistic attention to themselves. Some of them accidently ending up somewhere they didn't want to go. Some accidently getting somewhere they'd like to be. Most drifting aimlessly never getting anywhere. Anyhow - I know I need a compass, a map, a sextant, some GPS, some planning, a route, a course, some course corrections.... for my own self. Little ones. Maybe lots of little ones. Nothing radical. Just a series of small but important improvements over time. No big rush. Just slow and steady improvement. The Japanese call it Kaizen. Continuous Improvement.

I would like to share some blogs/web sites with you - these sites are sites I have stumbled into for one reason or another, meandering myself about my web surfing and finding something compelling and interesting. Happy accidents. And I have felt compelled to read and learn the positive ways the folks at these sites are changing their lives. I am interested in getting more organized and bringing things into focus. I enjoy thinking about new ways that I can build new positive habits. Thinking about ways that I can set some goals. Make a list. Improve things in small and yet meaningful ways. Making some big changes.

Anyhow, here are a couple of "Happy Accidents". Hope you find them interesting too. They fall into the positive-thinking, self-help catagory. But they are chock-full of interesting ideas. Real world, real life people coming up with ways to help themselves and others...

A Software Engineer's Journey to Entreprenuership

http://www.davecheong.com/

I especially enjoyed reading this post about the "Broken Window Theory", about how little bad things left undone can add up to create bigger bad things... I can really relate to this in my own life. Don't ask me about my little kitchen home improvement project gone awry. I have mad carpentry skilz. [Smile].

http://www.davecheong.com/2006/06/30/broken-windows-theory-in-software-and-your-personal-life/

David Seah's Website/Blog David Seah's Website/Blog & Printable CEO

David Seah's Website/Blog - David is the creator of the Printable CEO (the Concrete Goals Tracker that asks the question - "When is something worth doing?") and other personal productivity, organizational, and motivational tools (The Task Progress Tracker, The Emergent Task Timer, The Task Order Up!, etc) that are available for download for free from his site online. He professionally creates interesting and useful web sites, and has some interesting thoughts too on his blog. Got me thinking about interesting ways to manage my tasks, information, life, etc.

http://davidseah.com/

http://davidseah.com/archives/2004/09/02/about-the-site/

http://davidseah.com/archives/2005/11/12/the-printable-ceo-series/

Anyhow - I hope that you find these as interesting as I have.

I am interested myself on finding new ways to build good habits. Break some bad ones. Organize in little ways. Set a few minor and major goals. Etc.

They say that if you do some new behavior every day for a few weeks (I can't remember how many days) it will become a habit for you. The past weekend - maybe the last week or more even I have been so busy that some of my habits (posting, weighing daily) have been interrupted, and it has really bothered me more than I thought it would. I realize these are good habits that help me, keep me on-track, and re-enforce my personal progress.

On the other hand, I was working late unexpectedly some last week (pizza was provided - but no, I didn't indulge, ...I stuck to Diet Coke and a bag of peanuts), had to travel out of town, was running around a bunch and eating out - but kept most all the big things in my life I've been working on, on-track. Ate on-plan. Avoided the bad foods. Kept on keeping on.

So I am happy for the little successes. Continued successes. Positive direction. Positive Thinking. New Good Ideas. Hope you find something good and useful and practical to help you as well...