Making Changes
2012/11/01 at 8:30 pm | Posted in Food, General, Health, lifestyle change, weight loss, weight loss blog | 2 CommentsTags: diet pepsi, lifestyle change, sodas, weight, weight loss, weight loss blog
Folks, just as I did when I got serious about weight loss, I have decided to once again give up sodas again — diet or otherwise.
Why?
I discovered a nifty app the other day called Fooducate and let me tell you, it opened my eyes to a lot of stuff.
Without getting into too much detail about Fooducate, what it basically does is give you ratings of A through D on foods in its database. Curiously, I entered “diet pepsi” – my one vice – and read the results and score.
It came back with a score of C- and the reasons why it was given such a grade. What it basically came down to was that it, along with just about all other sodas, are packed with chemicals that have been known to cause cancer and that, along with reading a few articles on Active about sodas, was enough for me to decide that our next trip to the grocery store would not include any sodas.
As of this post, I’ve been soda-free for nearly two weeks and have had absolutely no craving to drink one. On the one occasion when I did have a small sip of regular Coke (to prevent Ann’s cup from overflowing with bubbles at a restaurant), not only was I underwhelmed but also disgusted. It was in no way pleasing to me anymore and I was happy to have made the decision to quit. Sodas of any kind are pretty much useless in that they have no benefit. Heck, even a Big Mac is a source of protein albeit not a healthy source.
In fact, Fooducate sort of opened my eyes to how badly processed a lot of foods are and why it’s important to know about what you’re putting into your body. Since I no longer drink sodas, I’ve switched to filtered water and while at work, green tea. The difference is that now I add only honey to my green tea and to be on the safe side, no longer throw in a packet of artificial sweetener which contains saccharin.
Sadly, Fooducate also gave my beloved Sun Dried Tomato & Basil Wheat Thins the not-too-impressive score of B- citing that it contains BHT, a chemical that is considered a carcinogen. That was enough for me to make my last box indeed my last box. On the other hand, my Silk Soymilk Light was rated at A- so that’s definitely still worth buying.
Will the next step be vegetarianism? Veganism? I can guarantee you that it won’t but in giving up sodas and continuing to read up and study some of my favorite foods, I know for sure that plenty more changes are on the way.
And that’s a good thing in my book.
My Tuna Salad Recipe
2010/04/20 at 9:10 pm | Posted in Food | 4 CommentsTags: trader joe's recipe, tuna salad, tuna salad recipe
Before you think that you’ve accidentally stumbled upon some strange site or that it’s not me writing this, I can assure you that it really is me, Dave, and not an incredible simulation.
I decided to go ahead and post this since I haven’t written anything in a long time and to share my culinary expertise with the world. After all, a great meal always makes everybody happy, right?
Okay, so a little background on this. We always used to have tuna sandwiches when we were kids and they were, for the lack of a better term, pretty bland: tuna, mayo, relish. Not much imagination going on there.
Then one day, Mom decided to go a little crazy—by adding tomatoes. Again, not much happening there.
As the years went on I took the basic ingredients and expanded them in order to give the concoction better potency and flavor. And the family will agree that after years of experimenting, I think I have finally gotten it right.
So if you’re ready, let’s begin! Note that this is for the entire sandwich, hence the bagel at the end of the recipe.
Updates and Stuff
2009/08/12 at 8:34 pm | Posted in Blog Stuffs, Discipline, Exercise, Food, lifestyle change, weight loss, weight loss blog, weight watchers | Comments Off on Updates and StuffTags: diets don't work, lifestyle change, weight, weight loss, weight watchers
Hey hi, how are ya? Yes, I know it’s been a long time since my last post so I thought I’d take a moment to go over a few things of significant interest.
Naturally, first comes some bad news, namely me gaining back almost 18 pounds since reaching my goal nearly a year ago.
Okay, no. That’s a joke, guys, and I just wanted to see if you were paying attention. To prove it, here are a few shots of me playing softball at my company’s picnic a few weeks ago:
So as you can see, the weight gain did not happen and will not happen. (I seem to have grown a goatee in the process, however.) But alas, I really do have some bad news.
Remember all that talk of running the Disneyland 5k in September? Well, unfortunately, that’s not going to happen—at least this year. There are a few reasons for this:
Running on a treadmill is not the same as running in the real world. Duh, I know. A 5k is a breeze on something that is designed to give a little but terra firma is much less forgiving. Believe me, I tried to get used to running on solid ground but despite losing over 100 lbs., my knees simply could not take it. It’s unfortunate but I think it’s the right choice for me at this point.
I lost my job. On March 31st, I was laid off from my job and as a result, had to find something and pronto in order to keep food on the table once my severance checks ran out. I did find a job but it pays exactly half of what I used to make, so expenses had to be cut somewhere. Believe me, people, having no money is not a lot of fun, and that meant all of the 5k walks and runs I had planned to walk/run had to be put on the back burner indefinitely.
Now on to the good news. My new job, as horrible as it may be in terms of pay, does afford me one privilege: I can ride my bike there. It’s about 3.5 miles from home so I’m logging a good 7-8 miles a day which makes me very, very happy. Because of this, I haven’t been on the treadmill since getting the job as my commute is now my daily exercise. It definitely works out.
More good news. As of this post, I’m steady at 195 lbs. which means that after almost a year, I’ve managed to keep it off and even lose a few extra. No, it’s not the 190 I had hoped to be at by now but hey, keeping it off is harder than losing it in the first place. A change in lifestyle definitely worked for me and I’m happy that I chose to do it. Sure, there have been parties and other events in which my eating habits slipped but you know what? I got back on the horse just as I had always done. A day of heavy eating will not kill you, trust me. In fact, I encourage it now and then so you can get it out of your system and get right back into concentrating on being healthy.
Okay, so that’s about all I have for now. Once again, thanks to all for stopping by, commenting, e-mailing, etc. I hope this little blog continues to inspire people to never lose sight of their weight loss goal, no matter how impossible it may seem.
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Reminder: Fat2Fit Meetup Today
2009/07/14 at 10:59 pm | Posted in Food, Health, Life, lifestyle change, weight loss, weight watchers | 2 CommentsTags: california, diets don't work, fat2fit, fat2fit radio, lifestyle change, long beach, podcast, weight, weight loss
Just a quick reminder to all that the guys from the Fat2Fit podcast will be hosting a meet-and-greet for their listeners today, July 15 at Islands in the Long Beach (CA) Towne Center. I will be attending along with my family so that we can meet the hosts and chat weight loss with them a little bit.
If you’re in the area, stop on by and say hi! There will be appetizers!
More info can be seen at the Fat2Fit Web site. Hope to see you there!
UPDATE: I went down to the Long Beach Town Center, found a parking spot a mile away (as is usually the case there), went into Islands, asked the girl about the group and she had no idea what I was talking about. I then walked around the place a few times to see if I could find Jeff or Russ or a group of people. All I saw was a few baseball teams–and neither host. So at this point I gave up and went home.
This is really, really disappointing! I’ve been looking forward to this event since the day it was announced and now that it’s here, I couldn’t seem to take advantage of it. I even braved the parking lot of that awful shopping center and came home empty-handed.
Too bad…
Thank You, Everybody
2009/02/14 at 8:00 am | Posted in Discipline, Exercise, Food, Health, Inspiration, Life, lifestyle change, Milestone, Motivation, Photos, Progress Photos, Victory, weight loss, weight loss blog, weight watchers | 2 CommentsTags: diets don't work, Discipline, Exercise, weight, weight loss, weight loss blog
Click to enlarge
<< BTW, this is NOT the best picture of me. My face looks…well, deformed or something.
This is a goodbye of sorts.
As you may well know, I started 200by40.com with the intent of tracking my weight loss progress as I tried to reach my goal of weighing 200 lbs. by my 40th birthday.
Today is February 14th, which is also happens to be my 40th birthday and, as you may also know, I reached my goal of 200 lbs. on September 27, 2008—way ahead of schedule.
I have decided that, while I have derived great pleasure in blogging about everything having to do with [my] weight loss, it’s time to put things into perspective and temporarily walk away from the blog.
While this may not be the final post here, it may well be the last one for a long time as I will now concentrate on training for the Disneyland 5k—my first one ever—taking place this September. In between now and then I will do a few 5k walks and, should I have a camera with me, I will post pictures of the events. And don’t worry—all posts will remain intact as will the domain, meaning anything you may have bookmarked will still be in the same place.
Once again, I would like to thank everyone who left comments, e-mailed me, or simply came by to visit (except for you spammers who try and get past Askimet’s death grip–you’re fools for trying!). I do find it a bit humbling and amazing that a normal guy like me would inspire many, many people to get motivated into losing weight. What started out as a simple goal turned out to be something life changing to those who recognized that it’s entirely possible to lose weight if they put their minds to it.
Before I sign off here, I would like to wish all of you good luck with your weight loss program. Regular visitors know that it wasn’t uncommon for me to say things like “You can do it!” or “Never give up!” in my posts. What many don’t realize is that those weren’t just words; I meant them from the bottom of my heart. If I can do this, I have no doubt that anybody can.
Why? Unlike those trying to push diet pills, I’ve been there. I can relate to and understand the struggles of weight loss and being overweight. I know what it’s like to wear size 48 pants, run out of breath when playing with my son, have clothes get smaller and smaller, be ridiculed about my size, be stared at when going to fast food joints, barely fit into the seats on the train, look in the mirror and not like what I see, be intimidated when entering a gym.
But I chose to change all that. I challenged myself to get busy and change my lifestyle and here it is, my 40th birthday and I weigh 197 lbs. I went from a sloth to someone who is going to run in a 5k. Think you can’t lose weight? I beg to differ. (By the way, at today’s weight I have finally reached the golden 100 lbs. lost level.)
While I could go on forever, I want to share with everybody some things I learned about weight loss since starting this blog. In no particular order, here is that list.
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