Happy Birthday Hila.

There are some days that are more special than others.  Anniversaries, birthdays, holidays, well today is one of those days.  Today is Hila's birthday.

I thank God everyday for allowing me to live my life in such a way that it brought me to Hila.  I have made many mistakes in life, many missed opportunities, many bad decisions, sometimes I think about these and wish things would have been different.  But then I think what if one of these different decisions would have taken me in a different path, a path away from Hila, and it's then that I know any decision I have made, whether right or wrong at the time, was for a reason, for a purpose.  That purpose is to guide me towards the woman of my dreams.  Not everyone finds that one person who is truly meant for them, their soul mate, their true love.  Somehow I did, I found her, although I didn't know it at the time, when I was just twenty one years old and I almost let her get away.  It wouldn't be until years later that our paths would cross again, but by the grace of God there were years and years of right and wrong decisions that somehow put us in the right place at the right time with the right state of mind.  I am truly grateful to be presented the opportunity to prove that I can love her, provide for her, father her children, and be a part of her loving family.  It is because of her I am who I am today.  I would have continued down a path taking me farther and farther away from what I know to be right.  It is because of her guidance, love, and compassion that I have learned to be the man I am today.  These words do not properly express how I feel or truly show my love for this woman, they are just words and anyone can write words.  The reality comes in the actions.  I have and will continue to love her, cherish her, and appreciate her every waking moment.  She is my life, my love, my friend and my wife.  She is beautiful on both the inside and the outside, and I am lucky to have her by my side.  Happy Birthday Hila.

People who say they sleep like a baby usually don't have one...

Okay, I have much to discuss.  First things first.

My trainer Tom Kalka with Custom Fitness Concepts (my boot camp program) is up for The Next Top Trainer with Men's Health Magazine.  Many of you may not know who he is but you can take my word for it that he deserves this nomination.  Other than the minor effort it takes to show up to class on time, I contribute all of my success to Tom and the program he has created.  Please, please, please visit the link below and vote for Tom!  Plus you can vote once a day, we need to work together to get as many votes as possible.

Vote Here!

Secondly, it's only been four days of eating well but I can honestly say I feel fantastic.  Just getting back on track for a few days has changed my general attitude recently.  That and one night of eight hours of sleep!  Monday was a rough day for me.  No sleep the night before, Eli was just fussy and awake for just about the entire night.  Even with two hours sleep I still decided to try and go for a run with Brent.  Big mistake.  I was beyond exhausted and the run was hard, real hard.  I had to walk three times, I could not get up any momentum, it was just a bad run.  That night the girls had book club at the house, to escape the chaos that is twelve women I went the room to read.  This was about 9 PM.  Exactly three sentences in I was passed out cold, dead to the world asleep.  Hila, bless her heart, let me keep sleeping.  She handled all the night feedings, changes, etc. and let me sleep the entire night.  I seemed to have forgotten what a full night sleep was like after five weeks.  It was glorious.  I woke up Tuesday morning feeling more refreshed than I have felt in many moons.  I was more productive at work, I was more patient with people, and I sat down and wrote my best assignment for writing class yet!  I felt like me again.  The past couple of weeks have been hard on me and I am beginning to think that so much of that has to do with lack of sleep.  Life with a newborn is tough and I am grateful for a wife who noticed that I was falling apart at the seams and allowed me the much needed sleep I was lacking.  Thank you very much Hila, one night I will bottle feed Eli and let you sleep the night, you deserve so much more but it's a start!

I am going to keep with the proper eating and hopefully make a weigh in on Monday night.  Goal for the weekend is to get in a run.  The weather should be frickin fantastic this weekend.  There will definitely be a Burke Lake run in my futu...wait a dang minute here...it may just be nice enough to bust out the old mountain bike.  New goal for the weekend, a trip to Laurel Hill.  Boom.

Thankful.

The past 96 hours have been rough.  Woke up Saturday morning sick as a dog.  Felt it in my body first and then in my head.  Slept, read, ate soup, fell back asleep, missed work, ate soup, slept, woke up and now it's Wednesday morning.  I am now back to work and feeling a bit better.  We also still have construction workers in our house so its hard to rest when it sounds like an old school Batman movie.  <POW> *BOOM*, but I made it work regardless.  One more week and they are gone anyway, and we will have another new bathroom.  I cannot express how happy I will be to have all this construction complete and behind us.  It has been a lot to deal with on top of all the other issues at hand.

This weekend Hila hooked me up with some "Jewish penicillin", homemade chicken soup.  Literally does wonders for the mind and body.  I have had soup for just about every meal for 4 days and it has been glorious.  Nothing like some hot chicken soup when you don't feel well.

On the bright side while being home sick I was able put down about two and half books, that is never a bad thing.  One of them, Phoenix Island, crazy good, check it out.

I still cannot workout and no updates yet on getting into the doc any sooner.  The worst part about all this is that fact that I have no clue what I am supposed to do.  I am a planner and I like to know what is going on with things.  Being in the dark on something, especially when it pertains to my body is quite troubling.  All I can do it deal with it and try to keep the stress at bay.  If I am being completely honest, that is not easy to do.  Luckily I have a wife who happens to love me, and is there when I need a shoulder.  She is, has been and will be my sanity.  I would be lost without her.  Whether it's work, life, love, stress, illness or injury, she is my rock, and for that I am Thankful.

This is how I eat all the time.

First full work week in what seems like forever.  First time weighing in in weeks.  First full week of counting points for a full seven days.  First full week of the new year and still no working out.  A lot of firsts after the first of the year.  I plan on re-reading the Abs Diet book again, which I wanted to do already but have not had a chance just yet.  I did speak with the wife and we have already started to incorporate some of the super foods (I will get more into that in another post later this week) into our meals.  This week, same as always, Hila has been steady hooking me up with crazy healthy meals.  I am so lucky.

Chicken sausage with roasted broccoli, rice and a side salad.  (12 points)

Over medium eggs with Canadian bacon on an English muffin with a hash brown, black berries and tomato.  (11 points)

Chicken meatloaf with Brussels sprouts, rice and a side salad.  (13 points)

This is how I eat all the time.  All day everyday.  She makes it easy for me to eat well.

The hard part comes with a co-worker bring in a ginormous plate of cookies, brownies and cookie/brownie combo thingys.  (3-4 points a piece, about 160 points on that plate)

Yes I want to eat one but I want to loose weight and stick to the plan even more.  Since I know I can't workout and am burning something like 400 some calories less a day I need to be even more aware of what it is that I am or am not eating.  #WYCWYC.

I am not sure if/when I will be able to go back to class but in a few days maybe I will be well enough to go and only push it to about 50%.  Light jogging, stretching, NO BURPEES!!!  Fingers crossed for a speedy recovery.  Two weeks of not working out is killing me.  Cannot wait to get back to it!

Four for Four.

Christmas Eve and our last day in beautiful sunny Florida.  We fly home tomorrow to celebrate the holidays with my mom and brother.  I love coming down here for the holidays each year but am truly excited to spend tomorrow with my mom.  Because we come to Florida every Christmas I honestly cannot remember the last time I spent Christmas day with her.  I am thinking it has been at least six or seven years, that is too long.  But all of that will change tomorrow.  See you soon mom.

So I made a goal to workout every day while I was in Florida.  As of 30 minutes ago, I have one more gold star on my workout chart for the week.  Four days, four workouts.  It was not easy and we fit in the workouts whenever we could, like tonight.  We ate dinner, waited two hours and worked out in the driveway at 7 PM.  Gotta give props to the wife tonight because I was not feeling it.  We hung out with the family this morning, went to another family members house for a BBQ and by the time we got here I was just not wanting to workout.  Luckily the beautiful woman who sleeps next to me loves me dearly and helped push me to achieve my goal.  You know what they say, behind every man is a strong woman.  She was my strength tonight when I wanted to be weak and I am grateful, thank you Hila.

Tonight we made up our own workout from previous workouts we have done while away from home.  I will call this one The 1,000.  Five exercises with 200 of each, squats, bicep curls, jumping jacks, crunches and burpees.  I started with burpees and just did 20 of each until I hit ten sets.  We have done previous exercises like this, see The 1400 and 5-4-3-2-1, but with Hila being pregnant we modified some of them accordingly.  I think it worked out quite well.

Yesterday I woke up with a sore back (getting old sucks doesn't it?) so I had to modify the fitness trail workout we had planned.  Hila crushed out a leg day boot camp class while I did speed training on the trail.  The trail itself was two connected 1/4 mile laps, what I did was start with a warm up mile, then for the speed work I ran two 1/4 mile laps as fast as I could, then a 1/4 mile slow jog/walking lap, and repeated this for 4 rounds.  This was much more difficult than I thought it would be.  Hila did this while training for the marathon and I always just kind of assumed it would be easy since after every two laps you had a break for a bit.  Ha, I could not have been more wrong.  My plan was to sprint two then jog one but I was so exhausted after the two fast laps I was forced to walk.  Needless to say after this workout I was spent, and completely soaked.  It was pushing 88 degrees as well, so that is what I am going to use as my excuse as to why this was so hard, yeah that sounds good!

To recap here are my workouts for the week:
Day 1 - 4 mile run
Day 2 - Homemade workout class on the trail
Day 3 - Speed training on 1/4 mile track
Day 4 - The 1,000

I promised some pictures of the trail and here they are.  One of Hila and me working out and the other of just the trail itself.  Hila hooked me up with these Diptic pics, so once again thank you very much my love.

Some success and some failures this weekend.

Some success and some failures this weekend.  I did not make it three for three this weekend and what I skipped was my long run...again.  Not good.  I will be back at it tonight, I am thinking Burke Lake or somewhere where I can get close to 5 or 6 miles in.  I cannot blame anything other than laziness for my missing the run.  We were out and about all weekend but I could have fit it in, I chose not to.  I chose to stay home and hang with the missus.  I should have run, oh well all that means now is that I need to get back out there and do it.  Tomorrow is a family holiday dinner so not sure I will be able to make to bootcamp then either.  We are also supposed to find out about our new trainer at some point today.  No clue who he/she is going to be but looks like I am going to miss the first and second workout with him/her regardless.  I will have to get the inside scoop from one of the girls in class.

We did make it to the Labor Day boot camp class yesterday though.  Something like 40 plus people and CFC raised over $500 for the Life with Cancer house, an absolutely great charity.  So proud to be a part of that.

This should be an interesting two weeks.  Hila is going to be out of town for most of the next 10 days and I will be on my own.  I will need to make all my own meals, if I am being honest that NEVER happens.  I am spoiled rotten, everything about my meals is taken care of for me.  We went shopping yesterday so I have everything I would need to be successful while she was away.  It will be difficult but I will work through it...somehow.  I just need to plan in advance and make sure I actually spend the time prepping and preparing good healthy food.  It's just so damn easy to order out.  Usually the portions are huge and always less healthy than if they are prepared in the house.  At least when you prepare the meal yourself you know exactly what is going into the food.  I struggle with eating healthily when we order out.  I feel like if I am paying for it then I am going to get what I want.  That mentality has not worked for me in the past.  So while I may order something one night while she is away, I will be preparing all food myself most every other night.  Wish me luck.

Just saw this picture and thought it was fitting since its exactly how I felt after missing the run this weekend.

Eating healthy means more than just counting calories.

For years I have tried all types of diets, all of which simply constrict some sort or type of food.  South beach is a bit complex but in a nut shell you cut out most carbs.  Atkins is similar, no carbs at all.  One issue I have with any diet, is that there is less emphasis on eating healthy than there is on not eating badly.  Of course sugar and candy and fatty foods are bad for you but so are processed cereals and granola bars and Lean Cuisines.  All processed with salt and sugar for flavor.  So yes while you can lose weight by eating a Lean Cuisine for dinner every night are you really putting the best food into your body?  In years past Weight Watchers used to assign a point value to fruits, for example a banana was two points.  Who would want to waste two points on a banana when they could have some chips or something else for the same point value, something they are really craving.  Well now they have changed things up a bit and all fruit is zero points.  Finally a push to eat better as opposed to just not eating badly.  I have never been a fruit eater, it was not in my house when I was growing up, we ate chips and nutty butty bars and other extremely delicious crap.  It has not been until recently, since I met my wife, that I have started eating more fruits.  Now I eat four to five servings of fruit a day.  I have tried to replace all daily snacks with fruits instead of processed foods.  Weekly we eat strawberries, bananas, cantaloupe, peaches, cherries and tomatoes (yes tomato is a fruit), just to name a few.  I have to say that the tomato has changed my life.  I liked tomatoes even when all we could get were the mealy ones from the grocery store.  Now, again thanks to my lovely wife and for her introducing me to the amazing farmers market, my love for tomatoes has grown exponentially.  There is not much better in the world than a perfectly ripe heirloom tomato.  When in season I eat a tomato just as a snack with salt and pepper, or on the side of my soup and sandwich for lunch.  The past two years, in addition to the farmers market we have started to grow our own tomatoes in our own garden.  What a treat this has been for the summer months.  Here is our most recent harvest, we pull about 10 tomatoes off the plants every few days.  I like to pull them a bit early and let them ripen in the house so the animals don't eat them.  I have also included a few pics of the plants themselves.  In addition to the tomatoes we also have a hot pepper plant and three dwarf basil plants.

Not only do we eat the tomatoes as a snack we also make salads with the different colors and some basil.  Just add a little balsamic vinegar and you have a delicious zero point addition to your dinner.

We also buy as many fresh fruits and vegetables from the farmers market as we can eat in a week.  You may pay a bit more than buying from the grocery store but the quality and flavor do not even remotely compare.  Plus you are supporting local farmers and their families.  Below are some plums, nectarines, and peaches.  A minor assortment of what we keep stocked in the house.

Recently Hila found a recipe for Baked Eggplant Parmesan Boats with Sausage (white eggplant also purchased from the farmers market), the stuffing is sausage, crushed tomatoes, seasoning and cheese.  We have enjoyed this for dinner the past two nights.  Beyond amazing and only 6 points!

All this rambling is to make one simple point.  Eating healthy means more than just counting calories.  Add fruits and vegetables to your diet, make them a staple in your life and try eating less processed foods.  It is a difficult transition to make (believe me I know it has taken me years) but in the end you will be healthier and feel better about your decisions when it comes to eating food and living a healthy lifestyle.  Good luck!

These weekend runs are starting to get the better of me.

Another weekend come and gone and another two workouts complete.  I have never worked out so much during the weekends in my life.  As hard as it is to get up at 7 AM on a Saturday to go to boot camp, by 9 AM its all worth it.  Yes its hard, very hard but already I am reaping the benefits.  I feel great, I have more energy throughout the rest of the day, and my clothes fit better than they have in a long time.  Now, unfortunately my weekend runs are not feeling like they should.  They have been extremely difficult, every time.  I am not sure if its dehydration or the fact that I am running at different times of the day than I am used to but I am struggling with these weekend runs.  Yesterday day I did 5 miles in 52 minutes, that is a 10:25 pace, my slowest run yet.  I need to be running faster than this.  Maybe I need to switch my long distance run to the weekdays.  For some reason I have much better runs during the week.  I can only assume it's because I am up and moving all day getting the blood flowing and being in general just less sedentary.  Of course I am out and about on the weekends but there is also quite a bit more relax time, reading or watching some TV at the house just not moving as much as I do while at work.  Who knows maybe its all in my head but there is definitely something that makes my weekend runs harder.  Maybe I should try a pace run every week, where I head to a track and try running a lap or two really fast followed by a lap at a light jog for a few miles.  I have never done this before but I have heard good things from others about how it helped increase their running pace.  I definitely need to do something because these weekend runs are starting to get the better of me.  Anyone else struggle with something this?

On Friday we were out late visiting with some friends in town and wanted to pick something up for dinner on the way home.  Of course we wanted to something good but also healthy.  We opted for Pho.  What a fantastic choice for a good, filling and healthy dinner.  And it's less than $10 a person!!  Without any of the sauces we count this as 13 points for the small including the summer roll.  Before I tried Pho for the first time I used this think how can a bowl of noodle soup fill me up?  I thought there was no way that broth and noodles would satisfy not only my craving for good food but also my hunger level.  I could not have been more wrong.  I don't even think I was able to finish the bowl the first time we tried it.  Now Pho has become a staple for us when we are looking to get dinner out.  We love it.  In the early stages of dating Hila we had Pho Tuesday's where we would try Pho in all the local restaurants in search of the best bowl.  I think it may be time to reinstate Pho Tuesday's, really I am just fishing for an excuse for a date night with a beautiful woman and wonderful food!

Chocolate Smoothie.

Yesterday after my run I was beyond hungry but we were having family over for dinner so I needed to satisfy my hunger but not spoil my dinner.  Under the guidance of Hila the Brain Genius I decided on a chocolate smoothie.

Ingredients:
1 frozen ripe banana (I like using bananas that have started to brown a little, they are sweeter and usually the ones you don't want to eat anyway)
10 frozen strawberries
1 cup almond milk (1 point)
20 grams of chocolate protein powder (2 points)
10 grams of peanut flour (1 point)
Handful of baby spinach
3/4 cup of ice
Put in blender and hit frappe.

This is so good and quite filling.  I use a quart sized container for the smoothie itself, from Chinese delivery.  It works perfectly.  This entire smoothie is only 4 points and there are a lot of variables to make this more or less points.  For less points you can use water instead of almond milk or less protein powder or no peanut flour.  Or to add some points you can use actual peanut butter and/or more protein powder.  Sometimes I even and couple of tablespoons of Greek yogurt which adds a great tang to it.  I will tell you now that the actual peanut butter makes this smoothie amazing.  So filling and extremely flavorful.  I tend to us as much spinach as will fit in the blender because you cannot taste is at all and adds tons of nutrients.  This hit the spot yesterday.  It also helped with me not overeating at dinner itself.  I found that because I was not starving for dinner I just naturally ate a smaller amount of food, and was still completely satisfied.  This really hit the spot.

Faulty Weightwatchers Scale.

It's the only logical explanation.  How the heck did I lose 1.2 lbs. while on vacation??  I am overjoyed with this number.  I really thought I was going to gain.  Yes I did workout everyday of vacation but like I said before, the food intake was not good.  Really not good at all, atrocious was the word I used.  I can only assume that the previous week of eating well and working out contributed to the success but I think that main reason is definitely the working out while on vacation.  I pushed myself harder than I wanted to and I made a commitment to stick to the plan and now I am reaping the benefits of that hard work.  It was not easy but now that it's over I have forgotten about the pain and I am only thinking about how great I feel.

Now comes the interesting part where I need to also incorporate a running schedule into my boot camp workouts.  I am into week two of a 12 week plan and will soon be getting to the point where I will need to skip a boot camp class in order to get in my runs.  I don't like it one bit but its a necessary evil.  Today I am scheduled for a three mile run, while it's not very long running this before or after class is extremely difficult.  If I run before it will take away from how hard I can push myself during class, if I run after I am more inclined to skip it due to the difficulty of class or not put forth the effort required to get a good run in.  In a normal situation I would probably just run after class but with this past week and how hectic this weekend was with traveling and the Dave show I missed my scheduled long run of 4 miles.  In any running plan the long distance runs are the most important and should never be skipped.  I need to be more careful not to miss these runs so tonight I think I need to skip class and get in my long run from last week.  So tonight I am doing a lap at Burke Lake, yes this is a 4.5 mile run but that last half mile won't kill me.

One reason I am even remotely successful in my weight loss is my wife, Hila.  I literally do not have to worry about food at all.  I mean not one little bit.  Every meal is healthy and completely prepared for me.  Honestly I am spoiled.  I would not be able to do this without her.  Today for example, my breakfast was (two eggs, cheese and vegetable wrap, 8 points) made and ready to be microwaved this morning.  She sent me with a bag of cherries, bag of strawberries, banana, half a grapefruit and one cup of Greek yogurt.  All of these snacks today are only 3 points and that's just for the yogurt, fruit is 0.  That is a substantial amount of food and all of it is extremely good for me.  Today for lunch I have a sandwich (10 points) and a bowl of soup (3 points).  After coffee, breakfast, lunch, and all these snacks I still am coming home with 18 points.  Not too shabby.  So, I say thank you as often as I can but it never hurts to get one more in, thank you very much Hila for all you do to aid in my health and weight loss, I cannot say it enough.  Thank you.