The Whole Keg

Traveling and Maintaining Weight Loss

2012-02-04T21:26:00.001-06:00

This week my blog was silent since I was traveling for work. This was my first trip since kicking off my healthier lifestyle.

The week was busy and the schedule was hectic but I was able to net a weight loss of nearly two pounds by taking taking on the challenge on with a plan.

On my first day of travel I went to the grocery store to get some healthy snack and survival foods (as one of my co-workers refers to quick lunches). By stocking up my hotel room with fruits and veggies I was able to pack a lunch for half the days I was there.
The evenings I didn't have dinner plans I mad a point of hitting the fitness room. This was easy to schedule since I didn't have family or work commitments and the alternative was to work in my hotel room.
In the mornings I ate a healthy meal of eggs (either hard boiled egg whites or scrambled), fresh fruit, and yogurt from the hotels breakfast area. This kept me from hitting a fast food restaurant in the morning as well as give me enough energy to get me though the day.
When ordering meals at a restaurant I was able to use calorie counts (which are required in New York) as a guide while remembering that often they are inaccurate for restaurant meals. Knowing the lean meats and veggies are generally a safe bet and calories are hidden in sauces and starchy food makes it easier to avoid the calorie traps.

Among the places I ate this week were Chipotle, which I found a site for the Chipotle's Diet to help make healthier choices, and Ruby Tuesdays which as a great Fresco Chicken. By getting my Burrito Bol without the rice and choosing green sides (broccoli and green beans) it was easy to cut calories and fat from the menu options. The important thing is to remember you are the customer and you can almost always get your meal your way.

I'm back home and on track and by having a good travel week I was able to ensure that I didn't sabotage my efforts.

If you travel our eat out what strategies do you take to make your meal healthy?

Tracking Calories at Restaurants

2012-01-27T13:09:00.000-06:00

Restaurant Nutrition

Dieting is no fun if you aren't living and one of the most common social activities is going to dinner with family and friends. This can be one of the biggest calorie killers if you can't plan and don't know what you are consuming.

Restaurant Nutrition is a great tool for dieters that is available on both iPhone and Android devices that contains menu and calorie counts for over 100 restaurants and 15,000 food items. It also offers an option to journal what you ate to track your calories or build a meal.

It is helpful to know the basic of calorie counting to make the right decision, like focusing on lean meats and low calorie items and recognizing that calories are often hidden in sauces, but this tool helps you confirm your healthier choices.

I like to use this tool before entering a restaurant to decide what I may want to eat and then make the selection--this help keep me from second guessing my choices.

What tools are you using for menu selection when eating out?

Tracking Outdoor Fitness The Easy Way

2012-01-25T11:37:00.000-06:00

Sports Tracker Dashboard

As we all know exercise, is just as important as diet when trying to lose weight. My wife and I have chosen a family friendly, kid approved, routine of taking evening walks with the kids. This gets the whole family moving.

Of course, you can track your time and distance the old fashion way with a stopwatch and measured route but I have found that it is much easier to track my exercises using a cell phone application that integrates with the GPS to track the route and distance.

While I know there are numerous options on in your phones app store I have choose Sports Tracker, which includes the most common features.

A good tracking software will allow you to select your exercise type, enter your weight to estimate calories burned, and be able to tack duration and distance. In addition to these features, Sports Tracker will integrate with an optional blue tooth heart monitor, track altitude, and keep an on-phone and on-line diary tracking your sessions.

Additionally, Sports Tracker maps your route and there are features to see others published routes to find new and interesting work out sports. Best of all, the software is free!

While I have just started using the software, it makes it much easier to track progress against fitness goals.

What software are you using? What are your favorite features?

Ham and Cheese Egg White Scramble

2012-01-23T11:03:00.000-06:00

This is a quick and easy, high protein and low fat breakfast what can also serve as a base to your dinner or lunch.

Minutes to Prepare: 5

Minutes to Cook: 5

Number of Servings: 1

Ingredients

6 Egg Whites

3 slices Oscar Meyer Deli Fresh Ham

1 slice Kraft Fat Free American Cheese

3 T Pico de Gallo or Salsa

1/4 C Baby Spinach

Pepper to taste

Directions

Wilt the baby spinach in a pan with a butter flavor now stick spray and set aside.
Add paper to egg whites and whisk quickly.
Scramble egg whites in the same plan used to wilt baby spinach.
As the eggs reach the end of the cooking time tear the ham and cheese into small pieces and add them to the pan.
Cook until the ham is warm and cheese is melted.

Servings: 1

Approximate Calories: 160

Free eBook: Low-Fat Vegan Entrées For a Healthy Lifestyle

2012-01-22T14:08:00.000-06:00

For a limited time Amazon is offering a FREE copy of the Low Fat Vegan Entrees for a Healthy Lifestyle eBook. This has a number of food healthy eating option and even if you aren't vegan I recommend looking at these recipes to inspire you to healthier eating.

Even if you don't have a Kindle you can get the Kindle Apps to read this book on your computer or smart phone at Amazon. Prices change frequently so this will likely go back to a higher prices soon.

Let's Try This Again

2012-01-21T21:11:00.001-06:00

I started this blog a couple years ago and if you look at the stutter steps from 2009 to 2010, I think you will see a typical approach to dieting—it starts full force and loses steam quickly. Over the past couple weeks I have been working on yet another fresh start.

My approach is not that different from what I was doing in March 2010 when I posted “My Diet Plan”, the big difference is that I am working on getting more support. On January 7^th, my wife and I signed up for the Brownsville Biggest Loose Challenge with the hope that being part of the challenge would give us the necessary encouragement to make our lifestyle changes. With two weeks in things are off to a good start and we are learning new habits.

We are eating health portions of fruits, veggies, lean meats, and eggs. We are moving 40 minutes per day by walking a neighborhood trail and my wife is walking to pick our oldest son up from school most days. With the perfect weather in South Texas, it makes it easy to go out and move!

I have decided to rejuvenate this blog to start tracking progress, share tips, and hold myself accountable to reestablishing a healthier life style.

I encourage the readers to comments, post suggestions, and call me out if you see me slip. Welcome to my journey…

Microwave Popcorn--The Healthy Way

2010-08-07T21:05:00.000-05:00

One of the snacks I enjoy is popcorn! While I have had an air popper for years I recently found an article on how to pop microwave popcorn with a brown bag and regular kernels.

This makes a perfect, fast, inexpensive snack.

My 160 Calorie Breakfast (Egg Sandwhich on an English Muffin)

2010-07-12T18:12:00.029-05:00

One of the hardest things for me to do is eat in the mornings. At least for me it feels unnatural, I simply don't tend to wake up feeling hungry.

I know what your thinking, "It's also unnatural for a fat guy to not be hungry."

This morning my wife was nice enough to help me out but one of the easiest low cal meals you can make is an egg on an English muffin (now I won't McMention the commercial equivalent but I'm sure my readers know what it is).

Slimming this recipe down is pretty easy when you consider the calorie sources. All you need is:

2 - Egg Whites (approx. 34 cal)
1 - Slice of low fact cheese (approx. 25 calories)
1 - Low Calorie English Muffin (approx. 100 calories)

Fry the egg in a pan lightly coated with cooking spray and toast the muffin and you have a quick grab and go breakfast!

I personally used the Thomas Better Start muffin this morning but there are other brands available at most grocery stores. Just make sure you read the package because you could easily eat double the calories if you buy a higher calorie option.

Since I hadn't been eating breakfast this will easily hold me over until my mid-morning snack.

Another Renewed Commitment...Again.

2010-07-10T12:11:00.000-05:00

I’ve had a lapse in the blogging as well as the diet…I suspect they are related to a lack of commitment to the process. Since March I have held a stable weight but not made much progress.

I’m back again with a new lease on the process because of a change in the plan…peer pressure!

A couple weeks ago I was on a business trip with a couple of co-workers and after the third night of steak, appetizers, and beer we started joking about the weight gain we would have after that week. Some of use decided to use that as inspiration for a “Biggest Looser” competition.

We enlisted a total of six co-workers with a casting call consisting of “Hey fat boy are you in?” and each ponying up $20 to create a $100 pot for the winner.

Given the variations in starting weight we decided the winner of the competition, which will run until September 3^rd, will be the person with the biggest percentage of weight loss.

So here I am, a little under a week into the competition, and researching strategies to win this competition.

I’m already back to my diet plan and been successful in the couple days I have been following it. I am planning for a road trip/family vacation which could lead to side tracking. I am already considering my next steps and goals after I am $100 richer (nothing like calling the competition a week into it).

Hopefully this renewed commitment and the peer pressure will result in more frequent updates….don’t forget to come back to see if I am successful.

I’ve been gone but have not forgotten….

2010-03-21T12:09:00.001-05:00

Over the past two weeks I have gone on a business trip and gotten the flu, in that order, so I have not able to post any updates but I have not forgotten the diet. I have lost an average of 3 pounds per week in the past two to maintain a very healthy weight loss.

Since I was on the road I had the opportunity to make healthier choices from the menu but found one of the more difficult things to do is forage for healthy foods in an airport. The food court really isn’t very friendly for somebody trying to eat right.

Among the best choices I found was fresh fruit served at a Starbucks to accompany my tall skinny iced vanilla latte (it feels so girly ordering a drink with skinny in the name) and a turkey wrap at a magazine stand for lunch. Both beat out the McDonalds, Uno Pizza, or Shipley’s Doughnuts.

Upon my return my family spent the weekend at two carnivals dodging fried Twinkies and sugar laden Lemonade. Frankly it wasn’t that hard to avoid since I don’t really have a “sweet tooth”, but we did spit a big bag of kettle korn among us.

After the past two weeks I am back on the horse and hoping to continue at least the 3 pound average I have seen even on the difficult weeks I just had.

My Diet Plan

2010-03-07T00:30:00.000-06:00

In my past weight loss success I followed a plan identical to the one I am following this time around.

Log Weight Daily

While I have often seen the recommendation that you shouldn't weight yourself every day I disagree. By using a scale sensitive to .2 pounds I can monitor my progress daily to keep me on track. While I don't stress over one day I am looking for trends so I can try to make adjustments early if I see a problem. I am also motivated regardless of the direction the scale is moving by seeing the number every morning.

Log Calories Daily

Just like being motivated by the scale watching calorie intake closely ensures that I am eating within the acceptable range every day. To simplify the task of data logging I use a great, free service called Spark People. They offer the opportunity log weight, calories, and fitness online and via a mobile interface so I am rarely away from the tracking too to capture data.

Logging calories has been an invaluable learning tool for me because I am learning about portions and caloric intake for healthy eating so I can make healthier choices.

Choose Vegetables First

Veggies are the lowest calorie option by volume so by filling half of the plate with vegetables before choose other items it is easy to limit calories.

Make Your Own Meals

This happens in two ways:

First, cooking at home gives me the ultimate control of over what I am eating and I can make simple substitutions to recipes to make the healthier; like choosing skim milk rather than 2% or even reducing the amount a recipe calls for by adding it slowly until I have the desired result.

Second, when eating out choose healthier items from the menu but make whatever substitutions you would like to reduce the calorie count. For example, if a steak is served with french fries ask to substitute steamed vegetables or if you are ordering an item in heavy sauce request the dish be served with the sauce on the side.

Move

Exercise is necessary to get the metabolism moving and to burn additional calories though activity. I try to get 30 minutes three times per week as a minimum. In todays world with door to door transporation I personally try to increase the tempo of any walking and count it into my total. So if I am running an errand at the mall I will increase my pace walking from my car and store to store, which lets be get my exercise in and gets the shopping (I hate so much) out of the way faster.

In the past I found that having a plan I can work makes it much easier to turn my vision into reality.

The Tax Man Cometh and the Weight Goeth

2010-03-02T21:10:00.001-06:00

One of the great things about undertaking a wight loss program around tax time is the opportunity to use the return for something health. This year, at the urging of my wife, we bought a NordicTrack E7 SV elliptical.

While the cost may be a bit of a commitment we both know from past gym memberships this was the one piece of equipment that was used commonly between us. We were also fortunate to find a good sale so the total cost of the equipment will be less than one year of a gym membership, that wasn't frequently used anyway.

In the past couple days the elliptical has started to get some use. A brief test the night I completed the setup (the unpacking was exercise enough) and a couple more uses between us. It is obvious this will be more convenient that a gym membership in the long term.

To ensure this doesn't become a cloths hanger or collect dust we did make the bold decision to place the machine in the living room where it will either become a monument to our success and motivation or our failure. It is my resolution until we have a daily habit and routine around exercising, and the motivation to step into another room, it will remain in our living room as a reminder to get up and move.

While I'm working up to an extended workout I know every minute on this machine pays off.

Yet Another New Beginning

2010-02-27T23:23:00.004-06:00

As I sit here writing I am grinning about my first post to this blog.

I explained my past weight loss and hope for the future...as I sit here today, about four months later and 8 pounds heavier, I am reminded by one very simple fact. Weight loss is hard and requires support and motivation.

Let's be honest, conceptually losing weight is very easy. All you really need to do is burn more calories than you eat. Theres not magic, miracle cure, special elixer, or colon clenser that changes this simple fact.

Of coures with may own twisted sense of houmer I will share with you another simple fact. Sometimes I just lack motivation and am lazy without a supportive kick in the ass.

To exemplify that fact I am sharing my weight loss chart as I have tracked it since 2008--don't get too excited because you will see the lack of motivation as you following the bouncing ball that is my weight.

The real question is, what drew me back to this blog this evening? I think the response really is to support of my wife with an expectionat that she will offer me support.

As I told my readers in my first blog post, just over 5 months ago we welcomed our third child into the world. Now, my wife has requested my support to loose the baby weight and then some. Of coures as a loving husband and partner I couldn't say no--especially knowing that it is in my best interst on a number of levles to not only support her but join her.

You will notice in the history I have kept, I am heavier now than I was when I started tracking my weight. I am hopeful for a simlar success to the one I had in 2008 and even more importantly a sustaining of the habits I will need to take on since I know from experience and you can witness in the trend has been difficult.

The intention of this blog has not changes but hopefully after the false starts, with renewed support, I will take the first steps on the journy I will share with the world.

Another New Beginning

2009-10-13T20:55:00.001-05:00

A little over a year ago I successfully lost about 40 pounds and kept it off for a couple month. Then during the course of the past nearly 10 months I regained much of it back!

I'm sure my story isn't dissimilar from many who had weight loss and yo-yo'ed back. My wife and I successfully conceived our third child and I paced her weight gain pond for pond...and then I surpassed it.

So hear I am, with a 5 year old, a 2 year old, and a 19 day old thinking its time to get back in shape and share my journey.

So far I have lost about 15 pounds from my peak and am at a current weight of 220 pounds; a nice round number to start the journey with my readers.

Welcome to my blog and welcome to my journey. I look forward to sharing with my readers who will hopefully become my friends.