Just Great, (A Rant)

I was watching the Discovery Channel this weekend, you know because I am geek like that sometimes and there was no porn on. So they have an interesting program on the human body. It really was amazing and I was very intrigued. It appears that a man was able to lift 1200 pounds of rock in a crisis situation, A police officer was able to out run a flash fire and the best way to swim the English Channel is to pack on about 16 pounds of fat. All very interesting and worthy of the Mr. Spock eye raise from the old Star Trek.

Yet, I am disturbed. Disturbed how you ask? Well it seems that over the course of human history food has been scarce, much like in most of the developing world. Over that time period of thousands of years, humans have become hard wired in particular ways. The one that is troubling to me is that due to this scarcity of food through human history our ancestors gorged themselves when they did have a chance to eat and then when they didn't their bodies would just cannibalize the fat created by the gorging. Sweet. So not only do I have to fight against increasing portion sizes where the average coke was only 10 oz or 12 oz when I was a kid to now where 20 oz seems to be the minimum but now I have to deal with thousands of years of pre-programing. So because some Cro-Magnon couldn't figure out how to salt and dry his woolly mammoth he decided to eat as much as he could right then, much like a cheetah on a gazelle. So today because Fred Flintstone couldn't stop after the 12th serving I have something else to worry about at the dinner table. Great another obsession. Hmmm, am I eating this because I am hungry or is it just a hard wire response to a lack of food in 4000 b.c.e.

It was interesting to learn; however, it was not something that someone who is food obsessed needs to hear. Just great! That's my rant.

Monthly Weight Check/ Miles

I am a day early; however, tomorrow will be my weekly running report so I thought this might be a good day to do this. It was a good month to say the least. The new diet I started near the beginning of the year is still yielding results. I dropped 7 pounds the first two weeks of the month and 4 for the remaining two weeks. There is a slow down but I think that this is a good rate. So in all I dropped 11 pounds during the shortened month. That is not too bad.

The trends on this are good. Weight loss is seldom a straight drop, it is usually (for me anyway) a couple of days down a day up, a couple of days down, a couple of days the same, a day down, two days up and so on. But I look for trends to see if I am keeping on track. The results can't be argued with.

So the end result is that on February 1, I weighed 242 and today I weigh 231. I doubt that I will keep dropping 10 pounds or more a month but if I can do 6 to 8 I would be happy.

Secondly, this was a monthly high in terms of miles. I logged 96.69 miles for the month of February. I am so stoked over this I can't begin to put it into words. Every week I push out another 20+ mile week. It is an amazing feeling to succeed at this goal. It is all good feelings today.

Weight Loss Update

I was going to wait to see how I ended up during the month. But I figured a half month might be interesting.

February 1, 2008 - 242 pounds
February 14, 2008 - 235 pounds

That would be 7 pounds in two weeks. When I said I have the diet figured out I guess I really did know what I was talking about. Since I have started this more disciplined approach to diet I have dropped 17 pounds. Which is really only about 6 weeks worth of time. Not bad, but it does give you an idea of how bad my diet is. Here is an example of what I eat during a day.

Breakfast: yogurt (nonfat), banana, granola bar
Snack: carrots
Lunch: half sandwich, one small microwave supplement (about 150 to 200 calories) (like a pasta cup), cucumber
Snack: apple, celery
Dinner: Kind of an airplane meal sort of thing - 1x fruit, 1x small microwave dinner sort of thing about 250 to 300 calories, cucumber or celery, slice of bread (rye or pumpernickel)

Through the day I drink 8 to 10 cups of water. I have eliminated all caffenine from my diet save that in my gel packs for running and I take my daily supplements of vitamins. That is it. I am never hungry as the water suppresses my appetite and now I am used to smaller portions. That in combination with the exercise = 17 pounds less in 6 weeks.

Not bad.