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Friday, August 29, 2014

W30 - Critical Gear

Today the UPS man delivered some goodies!

First - frozen W30 compliant Paleo to Go meals! These will live in my freezer, as a contingency against arriving home "Hangry" & ready to make a bad decision.

(Hangry = Hungry + Angry)

Secondly, I got the Spiralizer my sister recommended, and some highly recommended Paleo & W30 cookbooks.

Lastly, a couple of neat inventions that make mason jars a bit more useful - a few Cuppow 'sippy' lids (yay for Mason jar drinks!), and a number of 'Bento' inserts that allow two items to travel together, yet separate. Think celery sticks & ranch dressing ... or two siblings on a roadtrip in the backseat ...

Whole 30, T-Minus Holiday Weekend

Yesterday was a good day. I 'stayed the course' the whole day, proving to myself I can do this - without feeling deprived!

In other news, rather than start on Sept 1st (Labor Day), while I'm on Summer's last holiday weekend, I'm going to kick-off on Tuesday the 2nd. That way I don't have to haul W30 stuff on vacation, nor will my stressful first day be on the road.

That just feels smart, you know?

Have a great weekend!

Thursday, August 28, 2014

Such as it is...

I'll rarely admit this, but I stole one of my favorite lines from George Clooney.

 

It was the 1997 movie, "The Peacemaker", where he & Nicole Kidman have to escape the bad guys in a Mercedes.  They are in a really tough spot, and when he tells her what he's going to try, she asks incredulously, "THAT's your plan???", to which he replies with aplomb, "That's…  MY PLAN!".

 

In other words, it may not be a GOOD plan, but it's HIS plan, the best he could come up with on short notice.

 

So, what's MY latest plan, such as it is?

 

Well, I'm somewhat famous (infamous?) for always being able to distill my intentions down to a simple three point plan.

 

(Boom + Boom + Boom = Success)

 

I'm attempting the Whole 30, and that's no small undertaking.  Regular readers of my material know I've been trying for a long time to eat better & become more fit.  As tough & frystrating as that can be, I've been at it actively for almost 10 years, and I have yet to give up.  I've been making better decisions regarding food & drink for awhile now, but I'm needing to kick into overdrive.  I've not stepped foot into a gym since 2009, so I'm gonna fix that, too.

 

First Point – FOOD

 

Duh.  'It Starts With Food' isn't just the title of the book which is inspiring me.  Food can either be the best medicine you ingest, or the greatest poison.  I'm a recovering/ongoing Food Addict, and that is the crux of my being 'Fat Sick & Nearly Dead' (A great documentary which inspired me a year ago).  If I'm going to be 'on-plan' for a full month, I need to do these three things:

 

-          Try two new recipes every week.  Boredom will eventually lead me down the path to bad decisions, and new recipes will add to my fund of easily made 'on-plan' meals.  Two a week isn't an overload, and the program is only 4 weeks.  This will give me a GREAT repository for easy 'on-plan' cooking AFTER my Whole 30.  This isn't a 'one & done', this is slaying the Sugar Dragon & setting new habits for a lifetime of success.

-          Two crock pot meals each week.  These should be VERY easy for both prep & cooking, which will be a key factor of my success.  Too much required effort will eventually lead to failure.  Doubling the serving size will get me leftovers for easy on-plan snacking, too.  Win/Win!

-          The Daily Salad.  My office has a lunchroom with a salad bar.  This is an easy way to get my daily salad intake w/out buying a ton of individual ingredients.   

 

Second Point –Activity

 

Again, Duh!  Let's burn some calories!  As my body slowly weans itself off the east sugar fuel, it'll have to re-learn how to burn fat.  I want to turn that flame up, nice and bright!

 

-          Gym x 3 per week.  I have joined the LA Fitness near my house.  Twice a week I want to do the Aqua Fit class (water aerobics), and once a week I want to lift weights to energize my fat-burning muscle.

-          Activity x 3 per day.  I have an excellent indoor perimeter hallway at work that is just about a half mile.  A walk around my block with Clyde is just about a half a mile.  One of these will get repeated, for a minimum of three per day.

-          Sport Watch x daily.  Let's track this, and document it.

 

Third Point – Posting

 

Another name for this would be 'Accountability'.  By posting what I do – I'm accountable.  I will document my success, failures, challenges, and triumphs.

 

-          Daily Food Collage.  I will take a picture of everything I eat, and post a picture-collage of it, every day.

-          Daily re-cap.  Every day I will post about how the previous day went.  Good, Bad, Ugly.

-          Weekly activity re-cap.  Each week I'll post about that week's activity, with what went well, and what didn't.

 

You'll note that each of the three points has three sub-points.  Symmetry!  Will this work?  As it stands, I doubt it.  No plan ever survives implementation, but all great plans allow for being tweaked.  I'm sure I'll do a TON of tweaking, but as I start, this is my best guess at what will bring success.

 

Check in on me, cheer for me as I overcome challenges, and call me out when I deserve it.





-Lee
-----------------
R. Lee Putman, Jr.

Email: 
leeputmanjr@mac.com

Phone / Text: 847.687.7291

Whole 30, T minus 2 days

Today was MUCH better! I'm discovering that pre-planning & prep goes a LONG way. I have bought Paleo Pacs for snacks & frozen Paleo To Go meals for emergencies.

I'm committing to a daily food pic & re-cap on my Blog.

I joined a gym, and I'm committing to three visits a week, in addition to two daily work-laps & one daily Clyde walk, to be tracked via RunKeeper. I'll re-cap that activity weekly on the Blog.

Wednesday, August 27, 2014

Whole 30, T minus 3 days

I am on the cusp of doing a Whole 30 to kickstart my re-entry into Paleo & "clean" eating.
>
> I am reading 'It Starts With Food', and I'm collecting recipe websites & purchasing foodstuffs I'll need.
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> I'm trying to go W30 for the week leading up to my official kick-off, figuring out what will work & what I'll need to re-think.
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> Yesterday, the wheels came off the bus.
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> I had my Whole Foods Sausage with Chollula for breakfast, and I wasn't even hungry when I got to the office.
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> But, donuts!
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> A vendor brought in some lovely, high-end pastries. There was one, a swirl pastry with a honey glaze & chocolate goo covering ... that spoke to my primal Lizard Brain that's a total sugar junkie.
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> I'd like to say I couldn't help myself, but it went deeper than that.
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> I had a great salad for lunch, but by 3pm I 'had to' have the last crappy stale donut, and a bag of cheddar sun chips.
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> By the time I got home I was exhausted, headachy, and VERY grumpy.
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> Dinner was too late, although I had an on-plan snack of leftover steak & grilled chicken with parm.
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> Dinner included fries with BBQ sauce, and a mini oreo milk shake.
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> I went to bed angry & ashamed.

Whole 30, T minus 3 days