Category: Fatblogging

Babies Don’t Sleep All the Time

Babies do not sleep all the time. And even when they do, you’re not going to be able to get much done. That is one of the lessons I’ve learned so far as a new dad.

Before Kim and I decided to have a baby, we did an exercise where at various times throughout the day we would ask ourselves “What would we be doing right now if we had a baby?” To a lot of these questions, we’d answer “The same thing. The baby would just be sleeping in the corner/on the couch/in his crib while we worked/ate/watched tv.” Not really.

I’ve read that newborns can sleep as much as 16-18 hours a day. Isaac is almost 3 months old. I’d say he sleeps 12-14 hours a day.

If we are lucky, Isaac will sleep 4-6 hours straight at night… and he’ll have a 3-4 hour nap in the middle of the day. The other x hours of sleep comes in 30min or 1-2 hour chunks. Worst of all, you can never tell how long one of these naps is going to be. So you’ll find you can do some dishes or a little bit of house work, but don’t think about getting into that long, involved work project while you’re “on shift”.

I don’t mean to paint a bleak picture of things or focus on the negative. After a couple months, Kim and I have figured out how to take care of Isaac and still get work done and take care of the house and have a bit of time alone or together. Family helps. However, I did underestimate how much attention a sleeping baby takes.

[edit: I’ll have to make sure to post some more upbeat stories.]

I’m told “it gets better” as he gets older. I think that instead of Isaac becoming better at “entertaining himself”, we’ll become better at getting things done in less time. I’ve already trimmed a bunch of wasted activity out of my daily routine.(Kim will tell you there is more to trim and she might be right.)

Babies require your attention even when they are sleeping. Get “things” done when you can.
So that’s lesson #1 I suppose. Before I learn any more lessons, I’ll be posting how I think things are going to go over the next 10-12 months. And then we’ll see how I fare.

On the fatblogging side of things: 237 pounds. 2775 calories. I tried to go out for a run to burn the extra 275 calories, but couldn’t make it. I’ll have to make it up tomorrow. I’ve been doing okay, but do get hungry between dinner and bedtime. When I’m hungry, I’m losing weight.

I’m back? Fat blogging. Parenting.

I’m going to try blogging a bit more regularly here, which is a crazy plan with the schedule I’m keeping these days. Typical bla bla bla.

Couple things I will focus on:

(1) Fatblogging. I’m counting calories again. This morning I weighed 239. I ate 2500 calories. I’m going to keep track of those two values every day… maybe chart them on the site.

(2) I also want to write posts about my preconceived notions of what parenting is going to be like, my plans for certain aspects of raising a child. It will be interesting to look back on this and see how I was right and wrong. I’m expecting an even mix of both.

Peace

The Very Best Mac and Cheese Recipe

We Coleman’s make excellent mac-and-cheese. It’s one of my favorite foods and the food I always bring to pot-lucks and the like if I want to impress people.

We usually wing it and have never before written down the “recipe”. But Kim’s sister asked for it. Here’s what Kim wrote back:

(The Very Best) Mac and Cheese (Ever)

Boil and salt water; cook 1 lb. elbow macaroni to al dente.

Put the following ingredients in a microwave safe bowl and cover with plastic wrap:
– 1 lb. white american cheese (we like clearfield) sliced then torn into smaller pieces
– 1/4 lb. yellow cheddar cheese (shredded or just chopped up)
– 3 tbsp. butter
– 1/4 c. of milk (can always add more later)

Microwave the cheesy stuff in 5 min. segments stirring every 5 mins. until melted and not chunky. Thin the cheesy stuff as needed with milk to a little bit more runny than you would think it should be (the pasta soaks it up and it gets thicker). I sometimes throw in a little paprika, pepper, chives, parsley, etc. to spruce it up.

While the cheese is cooking away, heat up 1 can of stewed tomatoes (not Italian style) in a small saucepan. Mash up the stewed tomatoes with a potato masher and thicken with a little corn starch and water. Watch that you don’t turn up the heat too high because they can burn and/or boil and spit lava-hot tomato goo at you. Ouch!

Combined the cooked noodles and the cheesy sauce and put it in an over-safe casserole dish.

Cover with the stewed tomatoes and sprinkle top with italian bread crumbs.

Bake for 20 mins. or so. at 350 degrees.

To serve, open a bottle of white wine and give a toast to Jason and Kim!

This is absolutely not the best stuff to eat if you are trying to lose weight. But it is mighty tasty. So try it out sometime as a treat. Then come back and thank me.

220 Pounds. Challenge Update.

After one week of this challenge, I am at 10 of a possible 14 points. If I do a perfect job of things from here on out, I could get a maximum of 56 points.

It may be a little pesimistic, but it’s easier for me to think of this in terms of “misses” or “points lost”. So I’ve lost 4 points in one week. Not so good. At that rate, I’m going to end up with just 44 points and “alright” status. Then again that’s not so bad.

I’m finding it’s pretty tough to get to the gym EVERY SINGLE DAY. Last Friday, I cheated a little and counted 5 hours of walking at the gym (suit shopping) and 1 hour of dancing as my workout. I think it works.

I missed on my diet last Thursday and took a big hit Sunday when I ate too much and didn’t get to the gym either for -2 points. I can pretend that Easter is a special exception, but there are always exceptions. For instance tomorrow is Kim and my dating anniversary. I’m planning on eating 2000+ tomorrow. With any luck I can avoid being docked a point for going over 3000.

Macaroni and Cheese, Taco Bell
Hungry yet? Yeah, me too. Today I had 2 bowels of cereal for 700Cal, a chocolate chip cookie for 100Cal, and 4 slices of pizza for 1200Cal. We went grocery shopping at 8:00pm and Kim hinted at making some Kraft Macaroni and Cheese when we got home. I was ready to blow it all. Luckily she got less hungry herself (or maybe just for my benefit), but we passed.

Then I was listening to last week’s Diggnation podcast and they started talking about Taco Bell. Ayyeyyeyeyeee!!! I’m such a fat ass that I went to the Taco Bell website to drool. In high school I was a 4-item Taco Beller. Since then I’ve moved down to a 3-item Taco Beller, and am now just a 2-item Beller… meaning I only order 2 items off the menu when I eat there.

I decided to use their nutritional information calculator to figure out how many calories are in my favorite combinations. For instance a Chicken Ranchero Taco, a Crunchwrap Supreme, and a Spicy Chicken Burrito is just 1260 calories. That’s a lot of food. A more typical meal for me is Chicken Burrito Supreme, Beef Chalupa Supreme, and Soft-shell Beef Taco, which comes in at just 950Cal. I could definitely eat that twice a day.

I think these websites understate things a bit though. I checked out all kinds of fast food nutritional calculators to figure out what my typical meals are. Most are around 1000Cal. I was most amazed that a Wendy’s Junior Bacon Cheeseburger is just 370Cal. That could be the most yum for your Cal buck right there.

Maybe I can become famous by losing weight on the Taco Bell diet. That would be awesome. I might call them up.

220 Pounds. Nasty Nutrisystem Food Saved Me Today.

After 3 days, I am at 5 points in my little challenge, with a potential final score of 59/60. How’d I lose that point?

Self-Uniting Marriage License
Yesterday Kim and I were out getting our marriage license. We went to the Montgomery County court house to obtain a “self-uniting” marriage license, but in this county only Quakers and Amish can get that kind of license. I tried to fight it a bit, but thought (and read previously online) that is was easier to do things through another county. I wonder what would have happened if I would have just said I was a Quaker. (I went to a Quaker college after all, and the 4 testimonies is something I can definitely ascribe to.) Would I have needed proof? What would that proof have looked like?

Kim even noticed a bible on the desk there. I wonder if they made you swear on it before getting the license??

Anyway, we then hurried on over to the Chester County court house, which we heard was more friendly with their self-uniting licenses. There was no problem there. No bible either; just a promise to tell the truth as we asserted that we weren’t related, weren’t intoxicated, weren’t currently married to any other bodies. We also had to answer if we thought we were “weak minded”… not sure about that one, but I answered no. I think if it takes you longer than 5 seconds to answer that question, they consider you weak minded no matter how you respond.

Lunch at Iron Hill Yesterday. No Point For Me.
I was pretty hungry then by 5pm. The court house was near the “Iron Hill Brewery”, which Kim and I like, so we went there to celebrate a bit. By this point I had had a donut, some chips and salsa, and a small salad… coming in around 800Cal total. With 1200Cal left, I could have made it by just getting a salad or something. Instead I had half an order of the “cheesesteak eggrolls” (SO GOOD!) and a meatloaf sandwich with french fries. I estimated my daily calories at 2500-3000Cal or so.

I think I didn’t mention it yesterday, but in addition to giving myself 1 point every day I eat less than 2000Cal, I’m also going to dock myself a point if I eat over 3000Cal. So while I missed out on a point yesterday, my 3k rule helped me so I didn’t do too much damage. Even so, I felt kind of bad about the situation and spent a whole 2 hours at the gym that night to make up for the slip. I don’t get double points for spending more time at the gym. So just 1 point yesterday.

Yummy Nino’s, But I’m Still Good Today.
Today was a better day. A full 2-point day. Kim and I were in Reading for some wedding errands, and we went to eat at Nino’s on 5th Street with Kim’s mother. This could have been a disaster, as Nino’s makes the very best cheesesteaks known to man. Way better than anything you’ll find in Philly proper. I passed on the cheesesteak though, going for a cheeseburger (which is served on their home-made bread… that’s not healthy, it’s just delicious) which is slightly less calorie-intensive. I also had some french fries, bringing my lunch to around 1200. 400Cal for donut and milk in the morning, and 400Cal of cereal at night put me at 2000Cal.

I had a cheeseburger and french fries for lunch and am still on my diet. I’m also hungry as hell right now. That’s how this works for me.

Nutrisystem is Not Food.
But I still haven’t gotten to the story about how some nasty Nutrisystem food saved me from blowing my diet (and 1 point) today.

A couple months ago, I was visiting my Mom’s place and noticed a ton of cardboard boxes in her coat closet. The boxes were actually about 1 months supply of Nutrisysem food. The way Nutrisystem works is that they send you enough food to eat each day based on your calorie limits, and through portion control you can make sure you’re not overeating.

The problem is that it’s like not real food. The first hint should be that NONE of the food needs to be refrigerated. It’s all freeze-dried and who knows what.

My Mom said that she was going to try the diet, but just couldn’t eat the food. She said after a week of it, when you’re limiting how much you’re eating anyway, you start to crave it a bit. But it doesn’t taste good at all. Which is a shame I think, because I’ve had Lean Cuisines and similar microwave meals that aren’t half bad and have just as few calories as some of this stuff. Mom said the diet really works because you can’t even eat the Nutrisystem stuff cause it’s so disgusting.

Anyway, she gave us a little cup of pasta stuff and a brownie in a bag just to try for the heck of it. To suffer along with her I guess. The “food” has sat on top of our fridge for two months.

Tonight, I was so hungry that I was turning over the kitchen for a little snack. I figured if I ate something less than 200 calories I could fudge the numbers so it didn’t seem like I went over 2000 (terrible, I know) or at least not feel so bad. In my search, I saw that little cup of pasta. I started thinking about Ramen noodles and cup-of-noodles, and similar things and how good they taste. At just 190Cal, I thought this cup of pasta might do the trick. Parmasean and broccoli. Yum.

I boiled some water in the microwave and poured it into the cup. Stirred it and let it sit for 8 minutes as per the instructions. By this point I had already caught a whiff of the pasta and wasn’t too impressed. But I thought it would probably taste better than it smelled.

I never tasted it. After 8 minutes I went back and peeled back the lid. It still smelled funny and had a odd texture. It was no Ramen. It was no cup-of-noodles. It smelled like cut up cardboard, soaked in warm broccoli juice. I threw it out without even trying it. If that cup of noodles had been even half as tempting as… pretty much anything edible… I would have eaten it and been out another point. But it was nasty, and I’m in for a two-bagger today. Go me!

Pull Ups for Wimps.
I also had another good day at the gym. Lots of basketball and running, followed up by some lifting focused on my arms. I’m doing some assisted pull ups now. I set the little bar thing to get 60lbs of assistance and do about 4-6 pull ups at a time. For a little bit, I get to pretend that I weight 160lbs. I can actually do 1 pull up with just 40 pounds of help, which tells me that if I lose 20lbs and gain 20lbs of strength, I can do at least 1 unassisted pull up. That’s a decent goal to have. There was an older dude in the gym (60+) who was doing 10 pull ups at a time. The guy was totally ripped. I admit I was a little jealous, but mostly just impressed at how fit he was at his age.

Today on the scale, the little red thingy was a little left of 220. I think I’ll be breaking through this 220 resistance very soon. I’m pretty pumped and more motivated than I’ve been in a while… despite the challenges of the past few days. It’s like a war out there, but I’ve got some heavy artilliary. Tomorrow is another day out of the house, with one or two potential meals eaten out. So I’ll need the big guns.

220. Back on Track?

I’ve been in the 220lbs-224lbs range for the past 3 weeks or so with no improvement. I’m not surprised. While I’ve been going to the gym fairly regularly, I was going well over my 2000Cal goal nearly every day. I don’t think I was hungry once the past couple weeks. And as we recall, you need to be hungry to lose weight.

So what happened? Life got busy. Half of the reason I haven’t blogging here (the other half is guilt). And while I wasn’t too busy to keep me from the gym much, what happened is that after a long stressful day of work I wanted to reward myself. Kim and I ate at Fellini’s (Italian) like twice a week and ate out about half of the other days. That’s what fat guys like me do: reward ourselves with food.

I was also getting content with my body. I’m no stud yet, but I’m building up some muscle and not nearly as disgusted by myself as I was when I was 15 pounds heavier. So I haven’t been as motivated to “stay good”.

Even so, it sure would be nice to be at 210 down in Mexico (on our honeymoon next month). That would take a monumental effort to lose 10 pounds in one month. To weigh in at 215 would be a great feat, as that’s about as light as I’ve been since I hit 6’2″.

In an effort to get back on track, I am starting a challenge for myself. I’ve tried these before with very little success, but I think I know why. Old challenges were of the form “this much weight lost = this reward”. This time around, I’m going to reward myself for smaller goals, which are both more immediate and easier to measure.

This challenge is going to focus the 2 pillars of weight loss: exercise and eating less. Each day that I go to the gym for 1hr or more, I will award myself 1 “point”. For each day that I eat 2000Cal or less, I will award myself 1 “point”. At a potential 2 points per day, I could get as many as 60 points in 30 days. I’ll run the challenge from April 3rd to May 3rd. If you think of a point as 500Cal burned or saved, that’s about 8 pounds in one month. Aggressive, but doable?
So what are “points”, other than pounds lost? I thought I could turn points into a bankroll for a poker run in AC. One point would be like $10 or so. Maybe less, since 30 points (and kind of poor showing) would still give me $300, which I could play with at a $3-$6 hold’em table all day.

But I’m not sure I need some other motivation besides looking good. So I think I’ll just let points be points. And try to get a high score just to fuel my own ego and self esteem.

50-60pts = I’m a stud.
40-50pts = Nice effort.
20-30pts = I suck.
00-20pts = I suck real bad.

I got 2 points yesterday and weighed in at 220 pounds this morning. Am I back on track?

What I’m Up To

Been very busy lately. Looks like it’s going to be like this until after the wedding.

When you work for yourself, you can do things like take the whole month of May off. However, you have to work like a dog February through April to make it happen. It’s probably worth it though.

InvestorGeeks
InvestorGeeks, which is now donating all profits to charity, has made it’s first donation to a blogger who will be riding for the Arthritis Foundation this fall. If your feeling generous, take this direct link to donate to Steve’s cause.

In other InvestorGeeks news, I was interviewed by Kristin Friedersdorf, of WallSt.net (look for the “recent episodes” list in the right sidebar). I talked about my investing philosophies and shared some of my lessons learned trying to start a blog network with InvestorGeeks.com.

WineLog
On the WineLog front, our potential features list is growing faster than we can knock stuff out. There is a lot of work to be done there. Still, there is time to drink a bit of box wine. I had some Hardy’s 2006 Cabernet Sauvignon, and it wasn’t bad.

One exciting bit is that we’re nearly finished helping Ryan Opaz become the most prolific Wine Logger ever. We are importing his 600 or so wines and tasting notes from out of CellarTracker. We’re about halfway through his wines. It’s a crazy process that we’re trying to streamline and automate as much as possible. In the future, it should be fairly easy for anyone to leave their current wine tracking software and join the dark side over at WineLog.net.

I’ll throw this out there right now. If any competitors are working on similar importing schemes and trying to get data out of WineLog, just let me know. I’ll seriously help you as much as possible. If people want to take their data to another service, I want to help them. Perhaps more, I don’t want any developers wasting their time doing stuff that would be much easier for us to do. I know our system probably looks as confusing to others as you-all’s stuff looks to me.

Fatness
I didn’t weight myself today. I’d guess somewhere between 220 and 222. Kim and I took our car for inspection and ended spending the whole day over at the car dealer waiting for new tires to get shipped in. We took a nice 1.5 mile stroll to a nearby Cracker Barrel for breakfast. Then a nice 1.5 mile stroll back later for lunch at Pizzeria Uno.

So a decent workout there with all the walking, but I doubt it made up for the extra calories I had today. (ham and cheese omelet, hashbrown casserole, sourdough toast – “ranch chicken” salad, two sausages on rolls for dinner with chips = about 3500Calories at least.) I’m getting a bit too content, and even fat blogging isn’t motivating me. I’m going to have a day of reckoning at the gym tomorrow… really going to beat myself up. ‘should be fun.
Peace.

220 Pounds Still.

Hey, guys. How about this east coast weather? On Wednesday, I was out running in shorts and a t-shirt. This morning (Saturday), I was digging my car out of the ice. Crazy.

I’ve been VERY level in my weigh-ins over the past week. I haven’t been doing as well with my workouts (gym closed) or diet (I’m fat). So I’m just happy that I’m not gaining any weight. I’m excited about next week, when our gym opens back up.

I was doing better with my diet when I was recanting everything I was eating on the blog here. But I thought that was boring to read, so I cut it out. Maybe I should get started again.

Great Mexican/Peruvian Food in Lancaster, PA
Today I ate fairly well, but was ruined by a dinner out suffered a setback at dinner. We took Kim’s mother to El Sereno in Lancaster, PA for her birthday. El Sereno is one of our favorite restaurants, making great Mexican and Peruvian food. My favorite dish there is “pollo fundido” — grilled chicken with cheese, wrapped in tortilla dough and covered in cheese sauce. It’s awesome stuff. They used to serve it deep fried, chimichanga style, but recently started simply grilling the stuffed tortilla. I guess that’s healthy, and I had it that way once (they got me by surprise). Since then, I actually ask them to deep fry it like they used to. Because it tastes better that way. Mmmm.

(I wonder if anyone trying to diet will mistakenly come to my site, read that last paragraph, get hungry, and then run out to Taco Bell for a fix. Poor guys.)

Weigh Yourself Everyday
I promised to address some of the things that came up during the Calacanis Cast that I didn’t get a chance to talk about. One of them was when our buddy Tim Elliott mentioned that he only weighs himself every other day. Some people weigh themselves less often. One reason given for these less frequent weigh-ins is that one wants to ignore the day-to-day fluctuations in weight due to things like water retention, how long it’s been since your last #2, or how long your hair is, etc.

They make a fair point. People shouldn’t get caught up on one or two pounds here or there day-to-day. If you’ve gained one pound from yesterday, you don’t want to get discouraged and … who knows what. If you’ve lost one pound since yesterday, you don’t want to get too cocky and reward yourself with a cheesesteak. By weighing yourself just once a week, instead of every day, you give yourself more time to REALLY lose weight so you can trust your weigh-ins more. Not really.

I mean first of all, I’m only on track to lose about 1lb a week. My weight fluctuates 2-4 lbs each day (besides the past few days of very consistent weight ins). I can make progress in a week and still weigh in higher.

But the real reason I like to weigh myself everyday is that I need to be able to make immediate adjustments. I can’t wait one week to find out that I’ve been gaining weight. I need to know right away to fix my leaks and get back on track.

So how can I tell if I’m getting off track without being deceived by my daily fluctuations? I use a Google gagdet called the Google 15, which tracks my weight day-to-day and also graphs for me the 15-day moving average of my weight. The moving average shows how my weight is trending (just like with moving averages on stock charts). If my current weight is above my 15-day moving average, I am risking reversing trend. If my current weight is below my 15-day moving average, I’m in good shape (hehe).
I don’t mean to nag on Tim. Every other day might be often enough to check your weight. You can’t do too much damage in one day. And Tim seems to be doing very well with his system, losing 8 pounds so far since he started fat blogging. So I’d say stick with what’s working. I’m a big proponent of doing what works for YOU.

Still, using a program like Google 15 to track your weight and moving average can help you stay on track by giving you an early detection warning. Check it out. It’s fun and challenging keeping those little dots below my moving average. Anything to turn my weight loss into a video game is going to help me get fitter!

221 Pounds Past Two Days

I haven’t weighed myself yet today. My routine is to weight myself before I shower, while I’m in the buff. So yeah, I haven’t showered yet today either. 😛

It’s Spring Break for the young ones at Haverford College, and so I don’t get to use their gym this week. Still, it’s very nice out so I’ll be running some outside. Kim and I ran on Sunday.

I’ll miss lifting weights though. I was really getting into it. Kim was impressed by the veins in my forearms the other day. That’s progress, baby.

My past posts have all been very long. And good bloggers that build an audience mix up the length of their posts (something to be considered in Blog Tycoon). So I’ll cut this one short right here.

221 Pounds. Some weight training myths.

I weight 221 pounds and I’m having ice cream for breakfast. My diet is sweet. I’m pretty much going against a lot of the common wisdom out there, trying to find the diet/exercise plan that works best for me. I really hope I can do well with this, because it would be great to prove that one can lose weight without giving up the food they love.

BTW, the ice cream I’m eating is Edy’s Slow Churned, Rich and Creamy, Vanilla Bean. It has 100Cal per 1/2 cup serving, which is much less than most other ice creams. It’s also more tasty I think and goes really well with a spoonful of Kim’s dad’s jam.

So How Much Weight Can You Gain Lifting Weights?
Not much. Probably none. Technically, I’ve read that one could gain about 9lbs (4kg) of muscle weight from “intense” weight training. Who knows what “intense” means, but it doesn’t even matter unless you are already in crazy shape. Because the amount of calories you would burn in that “intense” workout will offset any muscle weight gains for all but the fittest people.

This page also tries to debunk this myth and also talks about how many calories that added muscle actually burns (emphasis mine):

Another common misconception is that if you lift weights and add muscle mass you will lose weight when sitting due to a higher metabolism.

Scientific studies of muscle metabolism have conclusively shown that skeletal muscle burns about 13 calories per kilogram of body weight over a 24 hour period. If a man weighs 70 Kg (154 Lbs), has about 28 Kg of skeletal muscle will burn about 22% of the calories his body uses through the day. Adding 4 pounds of muscle bulk thru weightlifting, during a high intensity 6 month lifting program, would result in burning 24 more calories per day. One bite of an Oreo® cookie contains about 24 calories.

A corollary to this is that you may gain weight due to lifting weights, even while loosing fat weight. This is one of the greatest exercise myths. The myth is based in fact: muscle is more dense and weighs more than fat. The same weight of muscle take up nearly half the volume as the same weight of fat.

The problem with this is that not very many people will be able to add the volume of muscle mass relative to fat lost to gain weight. Remember, the average man will add only 4 Kg of muscle mass in a rigorous training program.

This does not mean that weight training should be avoided. Weight training will result in higher lean body mass. This translates into more efficient fat metabolism for energy. Cellular membranes are more permeable to glucose, reducing the need for excess insulin in the blood. This results in a reduced susceptibility to diabetes.

So let me introduce this rule of thumb:

You won’t gain any net weight through your workouts unless you don’t have any fat weight to lose.

Us fatbloggers for the most part have a lot of fat to lose. So don’t even worry about this one.

My Real Question
I’m still interested in finding some specific numbers, since part of my goal now is to be able to bench 210lbs as well as weight 210lbs. (I’ve already lifted 200lbs once. It was a lot easier than I thought for me to build up my bench press… so far.) For giggles, I posted something at Yahoo! Answers. (link)

How much weight will I gain lifting weights?

I’ve heard one can gain about 9lbs (4kg) of weight through “intense” weight training. Does anyone have more specific numbers like this.

Ideally, I’m looking for something like:
“Increasing your max bench press weight from 150 to 200 will add _______ pounds to your weight.”

Thanks everyone.