Count me a convert

Here's something I've added to the old weight management routine...the Magic Bullet.

My wife actually wanted one to make baby food with, but I've been secretly eyeing up this product for a little while now. I was always intrigued by those silly TV commercials, but always cynical to the claims (I have a similar issue with those Total Body Gyms being hawked by Chuck Norris).

Well, the stars aligned with my parents visiting with coupons /gift cards, Macy's was having a sale, and voila...my wife and mom come home recently with a brand new Magic Bullet system for free (which sounds about right to me).

We've had this now for 2-3 months and I have to say it is worth the purchase. My wife uses it daily to make baby food and I use it every other day to make protein smoothies. Before I was paying $5-6 to buy one of these shakes at the gym. Now I can make these to my tastes for a fraction of the price.

The basic formula: Fill up one of the cups with 2/3 of the way with frozen fruit (or a frozen / fresh mixture of fruit), pour in milk (I use 1%) to basically fill in the gaps of the fruit, top with some non-fat yogurt, a squeeze of honey, and a scoop of protein powder. Screw on the blender attachment and let it blend for 1 minute...

I'll usually make one of these for my desert. Tastes delicious and the protein keeps my metabolism going strong as I head to bed.

No paid endorsement here...just thought I would pass along another tip along the journey...

Update: You can see the protein powders I have tried here and here. I prefer the taste of the EAS product better. The Designer Whey product appears to have more "other stuff" added to aid in weight loss, etc...

Like cheap t-shirts?

I'm a big t-shirt guy. You know...the hip ones the kids are wearing these days that is heavy on graphic design, cultural satire, etc...

Here's a sampling of sites to give you an idea of what I mean:

http://www.threadless.com/

http://www.palmercash.com/

http://www.unetee.com/

Well...the fine folks over at woot.com have decided to get into the biz as well. The picture above is today's shirt that is already sold out. The site follows the same woot model of one shirt per day until it sells out and a majority of them do sell out rather quickly.

I especially like the fact that each shirt to this point has been only $10 w/ free s&h! With the other places, I find a shirt that I like, but can bear myself to spend $17 + 5 s&h for a t-shirt. At $10 total cost, I see myself becoming a woot t-shirt guy very soon.

What works for me? - Food Edition

About 2 weeks ago, I posted a bunch of tips having mainly to do about working out, but never got around to posting what works for me on the food end of things. Today's post is to cover that aspect of my weight loss routine.

I may end up rehashing some thoughts from previous posts, but all are good ways that keep me on the right track:

1.) Always, always eat breakfast. I don't care if I'm running late in the morning. I don't care if there is nothing in the house (Stop by the local convenience store). If there is one thing I've read on every weight loss article, it's EAT A HEALTHY BREAKFAST! There are simple reasons why. Breakfast starts up your metabolism for the day. You will almost certainly burn through your breakfast (unlike that late night snack). You will not have a craving for a chocolate bar from the vending machine mid-morning.

2.) Speaking of breakfast, try to make the meal high in fiber and protein. Fiber makes you feel full and protein makes your metabolism burn better. My favorite breakfasts are Quaker "Weight Control" Oatmeal and Kashi brand cereals. Both are high in both categories and both taste good as well. For a short while, I started to eat Fiber One bars on the way to work as well.

3.) Moving on to morning / afternoon snacks. I was a Coke junkie at work. I would have 1-2 Cokes per day from the vending machine. Not only bad for me, but I was dropping roughly $8 / week into the machine (I should have been smarter and just bought a case). How did I change? I now stop at the local grocery store in the beginning of the week for lunch and to pick up snacks for the week. I generally buy nuts (good fiber, protein, unsaturated fats), fruit (bananas and oranges because not as perishable), and a gallon of Diet Green Tea. Sometimes I'll mix in dried fruit and low fat string cheese. The point is to always have "good snacks" at the ready. I even have idiot co-workers who try to tempt me by leaving chocolate on my desk, but I really have no desire to eat it as long as I have something else ready to enjoy in a healthy way.

3a.) Point #3 also applies to my home life as well. The only difference is that I can eat even better "healthy" foods like blueberries and raspberries.

4.) Lunch. A have a few tricks here. One is to workout near your work. Use your lunch hour to workout. Instead of dropping 500 calories down your gullet, why not drop 500 calories and burn 400 calories. Much better option to me. Don't forgo lunch to workout though...bad idea...you don't want to starve yourself because you will only end up gaining the lbs back at some point.

4a.) Lunch. Option 2. Salads. In this day and age, I have no excuse to not eat salad. So many restaurants, supermarkets, etc. are not only selling salads, but selling TASTY salads. Go to Boston Market and try the chopped salad topped with chicken. That things tastes good and fills you up. Same thing for the Mango Chicken Salad at Baja Fresh. These aren't the tomato, onion, cucumber, lettuce salads that Mom served. For women, this should be a no brainer. For men, I understand the stigma of going out with co-worker buddies and being the only salad eater in a table of burger eaters. My manly answer to you is to suck it up and order the salad. After the first few times of doing this, the comments will die down and you can eat your salad in peace. Last note on salads: I don't put dressing on my salads (like my meals mostly dry) and I usually don't eat the croutons either (or at least eat less of them).

5.) Dinner. Since I follow the points above pretty religiously, I don't kill myself over dinner. This is also due to the fact that my wife is now the preparer of said meal and I don't want to discourage her culinary adventures. When I buy frozen bag meals, I usually try to find low fat, low cal options and Trader Joes is usually a good option for that. I also have become a big fan of iced green tea and will have that zero calorie, metabolism enhancing drink with my meal.

6.) After dinner. I usually follow my points on snacks here as well. I'll usually have fruit at this point. For the summer that usually means blueberries, grapes, oranges, peaches. My guilty pleasure (if you want to call it that) is chocolate milk. I used to drink 20+ oz. of chocolate milk a night, but have cut it down to 8 oz. every other night. And I've been a 1% Milk drinker since childhood, so I figure it's not THAT bad...

So that's my food story. As I've said in the past, I really don't believe in the whole "point" concept. I just try to stick to a loose plan that I can live with. I'm definitely not starving myself and the weight continues to come off, so I'll stick with it.

What works for me?

You know what? It's been 13 weeks doing this thing and I've lost 35 lbs already...Some of you out there must think that I'm cheating by taking pills or starving myself. There's no way a person that much weight...Well, I did...

I thought it would be informative to post some of the things I am doing that I believe are keeping me down this path of weight loss. Perhaps it will set off a light bulb in your head...

1.) One of the biggest things I inadvertently did was to set myself up for a weekly weigh in on Monday at the gym. There are actually a couple of things going on here:

1a.) One, by weighing in weekly, I allow myself to not succumb to daily weight fluctuations. I also set myself up for posting a large number. Stepping on the scale and losing a 1/2 lb or 1 lb is certainly nice. Stepping on the scale and losing 3 lbs or 5 lbs really gives you a sense of accomplishment and pumps me up for the upcoming week.

1b.) Two, by weighing in at the gym, I force myself to the gym at least once a week. If I used a scale at home, I would have one less reason to hit the gym. Instead, I look forward to getting to the gym on Monday to see what the "official" scale shows.

1c.) Three, by weighing in on a Monday, I set myself up for getting my exercise in each week. If I am excited to get to the gym on Monday and put in a solid hour, I am setup to get in 2 more appearances for the rest of the week. If I miss Monday, it's a lot easier to miss Tuesday and then Wednesday, etc...Getting that first workout of the week completed first thing makes the rest of the week that much easier.

2.) Speaking of exercise, I try to put in a balanced workout each time I go. If you look back at my earlier posts, I try to blend 20 - 35 minutes of cardio, with a little ab work, and some kind of strength training (legs on time, chest / arms another). I know there are people who say that strength conditioning is the real way to lose weight, but the balanced approach has really worked for me.

3.) Staying on exercise, although I get to the gym 3x a week, I've also got a set of weights in my bedroom to knock out some arm exercises. I also have been trying to add some pushups into my routine. While I do not expressly look to do these as part of my routine, doing a quick set of arm curls, keeps my muscles on thier toes (and muscle mass = increased metabolism = weight loss).

I was going to do food, but I'll save that for another post...

Holy cow...did I just post more than once a week? What's the world coming to!

Tips and tricks - Snacks and drinks edition

I've been meaning to put together a post with the things I have been doing to help keep me on track. I know a lot of these things are common sense, but perhaps someone out there will gain something from them:

• Have "good" snacks around at all times - I believe on a previous post, I mentioned some of the snacks I keep with me at work. I'm a big believer in almonds these days and Blue Diamond has some great varieties out there. I personally like things spicy and go for the "Jalapeno Smokehouse" variety. I also buy bananas (and other fruit that doesn't need refrigeration) and beef jerky (not Slim Jims...the good stuff). Keeping this around keeps me from using the two vending machines that are right outside my office. I used to drink 1 - 2 cokes a day...since I've done this, I haven't had 1 since...
• Bonus "good" snack tip: If you work in an office environment, there is a good chance there are lots of catered business lunches with leftovers put in some general area. For some reason, people will always snag the "bad" leftovers first (i.e. big, soft cookies) and leave the "good" leftovers (i.e. fruit) behind for the suckers. Be that sucker and snag that fruit! If you don't eat it now, hold on to it to eat a day or two later!
  
• Learn to love iced tea - I will never acquire a taste for diet soda. I grew up drinking full strength Pepsi and Coke. The artificial sweetners in cola leave a bad taste in my mouth. As you all know, having one cola is like eating 10 teaspoons of sugar (and if you didn't know, now you do!). By drinking unsweetened iced tea, you can either reduce sugar altogether or at least add less sugar than you are consuming through cola. I was never an unsweetened tea drinker growing up, so my taste buds never had a preconceived notion of taste. I generally will add a packet of Splenda in a restaurant or nothing at all! And if you're a cheapo like me, you always get free refills on tea. Some restaurants will charge for another soda.
  
• Bonus Iced Tea Tip: Buy this machine (I get no royalty or commission for suggesting). I get bored very easily with your standard unsweetened iced tea. These days, there are so many different varieties out there that have additional health benefits and taste great without sweeteners. I take 8 bags of this tea (any mint green tea will do though) and follow the instructions on my iced tea maker. I put the taste of this up against any sweetened drink I was having before. I love it and it is healthy and promotes weight loss! *And* the machine makes it quickly (<10 minutes). *And* it's cheaper or equal in price to soda. Why are you not already getting this?!?
  

That's it for now...I was going to post more tips, but this took a lot out of me. I'll come back later with some other areas that have helped.