The last 10 pounds.

For those whom know me, you know that I like to stop, pause and reflect on my journey every week or so and my friends, I have finally arrived at that last 10 pounds mark, actually I am already down below that with 9.6 left to go. I managed to settle into that mark of slightly over 30 pounds gone 100 days in. So what now? Do I got out and celebrate by having a pig out? Well no, in truth I decided to treat myself a bit today and eat a little more than normal but with realtively healthy food. Supper consited of 2 homemade burgers (yummy) and some edamame with a little butter. It was delicious of course and I enjoyed it. Now this was not to torment you with my food lol, but it was to point out that now that I am so close to the end goal for my fat loss I am staying on track.
A few weeks ago I had set a new goal of building muscle after I have hit my fat loss goal. I decided that I had to set a cut off point as I am already at the same weight as my high school grad all those years ago and I am in much better shape than that time as well. Funny how at 35 I am in better shape than when I was 17. It has been a long journey thus far with frustration, emotions, and stubbourness which got me to this point. It just goes to show you that making that final be all end all decision to get the fat gone and get in better shape works if you stick it out. I have helped others out along the way, made some good friends on mfp and in person, and feel fantastic about my success thus far. There have been lots of sore muscle days, lots of hungry days, and lots of days when I wanted to say 'to hell with it". What made me stick it out was not giving up on me, because every time I wanted to quit I took a good hard look at how far I have come and to give up on me was not doable. My health has become a "must have", not a "nice to have". So long as you have made that choice then you will succeed, it is possible and you can do it.
For those whom know me best I have been on the straight and narrow path for a while now, and I intend to keep on trucking along this path as it has led me to some pretty happy places. My mini goals have been from a size 36 jeans to a size 32 once again (which are getting looser every day) and gaining back that confidence and the warrior spirit inside me.  I have managed to get some pretty bad health conditions well under control and in some cases get rid of them altogether. Now if I could only get rid of my grey hair lol. So now I have set in place new goals for myself which I review every few weeks and tweak as required. I had started out wanting to get to 175, hit that and said well why stop here, lets go further. I reset my goal to 10% bodyfat (yes a lofty goal) and I am going to hit it (theoretically that would be 158 pounds) so I am now set to 158 pounds. I have made my permanent cut off for the fat loss phase at that weight as I do not want to get any lighter than that. Once I hit that I am starting a muscle building phase with the goal of maintaing that bodyfat percentage or maybe even drop it slightly. (that is going to require a very strict monitoring of food and intake) with the goal of getting myself back to the 175 ish pound range or until I feel comfy with how I look. So that is my update/motivation to help push those who are on the path like myself, thanks for reading.

Tom venuto's 10 foods that burn fat & 10 that turn to fat

here is tom venutos top 10 foods that burn fat:

1) oatmeal the less processed the better
2) yams or sweet potato
3) potatoes (not the loaded ones with bacon bits and sour cream lol)
4) brown rice
5) 100% whole wheat/whole grain products (make sure you read the labels there are imposters out there)
6) green fibrous veggies (my fav)
7) fresh fruit
8) skim milk or non dairy products (not the processed junk)
9) Chicken/turkey breast
10) egg whites

10 foods that turn to fat:

1) ice cream
2) fried foods (if its frying you are dying)
3) donuts & pastries
4) white sugar, candy, and sweets
5) soda (yes even the diet stuff)
6) fruit drinks (same as soda no better)
7) bacon & sausage
8) white bread
9) potato chips, nachos, and corn chips.
10) hot dogs & fast food burgers.

from inner warrior to being a warrior

So those whom know me have heard me speak of the "inner warrior" that drive that forces you to push yourself beyond your limits, or conceived limits. For many of us we do not see our true selves until long into the weight loss journey. I had started this with the plan to get to 175 pounds back a little over 3 months ago. I had reached that goal and upon hitting that I had awakened that part of me, that inner voice that pushed me beyond what I had previously thought possible. It had awakened during a run, where I had beat a personal best of 4 miles ran on the treadmill and it can best be described as a rush of pure adrenalin, where my body had opened up and a deep long since buried portion of my soul had been buried and had now risen screaming from deep inside me like a pheonix from the ashes. I have since been able to tap into that drive on command, pushing my body harder, faster and stronger than ever before. It is quite empowering when you hit that point. It is a rush of power you feel that there is no end to. With today's workout I am starting to realize that this inner warrior is no longer an inner warrior, I have become the warrior. I am more determined and driven than ever before, I will conquer all obstacles that are put in front of me and I shall overcome all adversity to come out on top. I am no longer content to just be normal, I am driven to make myself superhuman to perfect myself, to continually push myself to the limits and smash them. I had posted a thought of the day on mfp a while back where I had said that we are all responsible for how we live life and the results that we produce. It is now my purpose to make my life successful in every aspect of my life. To seize opportunity and milk it for everything I can get out of it not just sit on my ass and wait for opportunity to present itself to me. I shall rise above, I shall succeed where I had failed in my life, I shall not fail myself ever again, I shall make those whom love me proud and I shall love myself all the more for it. I hope that this piece uplifts you and elevates your self expectations and join me among the ranks of the warrior, the fighers, the pheonixs of society. Rise from the ashes that was your life and fly higher than ever before.

zig zagging cals properly

So I have had some requests to post this and I hope that it will benefit you all. To get started out right you need to be set at a 1lb/week fat loss for this to work right. Why 1lb/wk loss? Simple wiggle room, you are going to shed more so do not stress about it, its not the end of the world as you know it. (for those whom have lots to shed 60+ pounds of more we can push it a little furhter same practice but slightly different application) So here are the basics using me as an example: I am set at a 1lb/week loss and for me that is 1940 cals/day, this gives me a 500 cal deficit to start with before workouts. So remember that mfp set me up with that deficit to start with for the beginners whom do not quite have a handle on that.
Here is the cal breakdown for maintenance/loss/max:
2440 maintenance/1940 loss/max deficit of 800 is 1640 cals.
So on days 1 and 2 I go max deficit of 1640 cals I do this through food and exercise as I like to eat I usually do it by not eating back 300 of my workout cals (for those with a lot to shed you can do that for 500 cals)
On day 3 I go to maintenance level of 2440 cals. I do this to prevent starvation mode from taking effect and it keeps my metabolic rate at its peak and the exercise helps me to do that as well as crank it up a few notches.
And repeat, of course the closer I get the lower the amount I can push it so once I am say 5 pounds away I will more than likely have to go to  0.5 lb/week loss for my wiggle room. You will have to play with the deficit to get it set right for you, we all respond somewhat differently but as a general rule a long lasting deficit will drop metabolic rate on you which is why I used to encourage a cheat day or cheat meal every few weeks. I am doing this method to speed up my fat loss somewhat. By zig zagging my cals my body can not lower my metabolic rate on me. Now also keep in mind that as you shed fat the numbers will change so reset it every 2nd week or when results start to slow down. I dropped 27 pounds so far and I train/eat with purpose so should you, train for fat loss using the most time effective workouts like High intensity interval training and metabolic resistance training, we do not need to spend 6 days a week in the gym to shed fat quickly and easily.

keeping it simple

I had posted a short time ago about my awakening the "inner warrior" the athelete that is in us all. That side of us that drives us towards our goals be them professional or personal. Far to many of us have allowed that side of us to get buried with stress, things not going our way and negativity as well as "life" in general. I to allowed this to happen but as the pounds came off very successfully I must admit I got back in touch with this "inner warrior" of mine. It happened quite abruptly for me and it was the oddest sensation as I had not felt that rush of passion and aggression in a long long time. There are many things in life I am passioante about, hard work (which I firmly believe in day in and day out), my family, my wife, and my son. I would die for my beleifs and I have always had an extraordinary drive towards acheiving the goals I have set for myself. I guess this is why I have almost always landed in a supervisory role for others and I led by example for them all. Now I am seeking to lead by example again for the mens group I started and by helping anyone whom asks it of me.
Here is one thing that my grandfather passed onto me when I was a teenager and wrapped up in the drama of being a teenager (my father tried to teach me this but it fell on deaf ears until I heard the words from my grandfather) I was complaining about "woman" problems and he simply smiled and in he simply said "keep it simple stupid, live life by that and you will be happy". At the moment in time I laughed at him and though it is not that simple and yet it was. It took me some time to really allow that to sink into my head. A week, a month, not to sure how long it was but it did sink in.
Now I worked out extensively in high school and into my university years trying to attain that adonis body, like a body builder to mirror the inner strength that I felt. I had limited success because I missed out on the key element which as diet. I was taking protein powders, creatine, and a whole host of other crap to get to that goal which in the end failed. Why did I fail? Well simple as it was, it was diet. So here I sit at my desk 27 pounds lighter in a 3 month period and thinking that I allowed life to get complicated and when I made that decision to start getting back to basics and "keeping it simple" that I awakened that "inner warrior".
Sorry if it seems I am rambling but the next post is the awakening of that inner warrior.

meeting the inner warrior

Once every week I like to take the time to reflect on my journey thus far and then readjust my goals for the future as I see fit, you see when I started out I was an unhealthy and unhappy 198 pound guy at 5ft8. I was not "huge" by some standards but I felt the lack of energy and it felt like I was headed towards an unhealthy future. My wife at the time had started her journey and was losing weight and continues to do so at an impressive rate. I love her dearly and to see her get healthier brought a happiness to me and it got me to thinking as well that maybe its time I face the mirror and take stock of where I am and where I want to be.
So what I did (which was different from anytime prior) was to make small changes, eating better, making better choices (wife was a good help for this as she was doing the same already) and generally just doing my damndest to not indulge in self destructive eating. I admit that I did not always succeed but I did get right back on the horse if I did make a bad decision. I had dropped about  13 pounds in 1.5 mths. Not to bad I thought, then the wife wanted to get a gym membership, I gave it a little thought and said yes why not lets do it. I used to be a gym rat once, lets do it again. By this time she was doing really well with the weight loss and was looking happier and sexier (even though she won't admit it to herself yet). I supported her on it and will continue to do so. Anyhow back to my point.
 I decided to find and conquer my weaknesses in order, the first was the cardio or as I used to say back in the day "mr. treadmill how I hate thee, the bane of my existence running" I came at it full force, running my short little legs off and barely getting a mile without wanting to die. I decided that I was the master of my body not the other way around. I kept at it, each time running further and a little faster. At the 1 month mark I was running about 3 miles consistently.
Once I had hit a mini personal goal I had another moment of mental clarity when running on a saturday morning in the gym the sound of weights clanking, the motor of the treadmills humming, I had retreated to my mental thoughts where I focus on my breathing and drown out all things around me, time almost seems to stand still here and I can really hone in on my thoughts. I felt a warriors scream inside me, an inner strength that I had lost and was finally breaking through to the surface, an animalistic aggression that I once used to tap into to push myself further, harder, and faster than my peers. It was not enough to simply get to my goals anymore but to surpass them and push it beyond what even I would expect. I had met the 'real me" so to speak and it was time to get reaquainted with this feeling. That day I pushed to to 5 miles run and over half my run on an incline.
When i got home that day I was pumped, I decided to find ways to push myself that would challenge me to surpass those old goals, and discovered HIIT or high intensity interval training, this helped me to surpass the old goals a new tool to help me be better. I also delved into the diet side as I knew I would need it to recover from workouts. I also got reaquainted with my old friend the weights, now I am onto metabolic resistance training, which is even more intense. I still enjoy my runs butI readily tap into that warrior side of me now and it gives me the strength needed to keep pushing.
I hope that you read this and find your "real you" as well all have that inner warrior waiting to break through and you can find it and tap into it, once you make the mental breakthrough that if the mind can conceive it the body can acheive it. You want to be slimmer? Why not make that slimmer + stronger, or hell surpass even that and slimmer, stronger and more confident you. Keep pushing you will hit that breakthrough and when you do,  I want to hear you scream out *this next bit is a taken from my profile pic, insert whatever you like! ** I AM THE ALMIGHTY, FEAR THE FUZZY, FEAR IT!"

Dietary tips pt2

Here are my diet tips to make it work and make it last. I am not  dietary angel but more importantly I do not need to be, I learned the base concepts and work off them.
 1) Eat breakfast try to gun for 30% protein, the reasoning is that it will raise the metabolic rate and get you started off right. Look at my diary to get an idea of what I do to make that happen. If you are pressed for time do a protein shake with some fruit and fiber mainly flax seed. Add a slice of rye or really nice grainy bread with some good peanut butter and you are off to a great start with a 5 minute breakfast. Make sure you eat this within 30 mins fo waking.
 2) Carbs and fats are not your enemy, refined carbs and saturated fats are, these 2 create a vicious cylce that peak insulin response which you do not want to do. You want a steady slow release of sugars to keep your energy up and cravings down. Carbs coming from lentils, legumes, veggies are your friends. There are great links that list all the slow releasing carbs I do not have room here to list them all.Get good fats into you, nuts are great for that as well as olive oil, macadamia nut oil and fish. I highly recommend getting omega 3s into you as well as salmon and tuna, all great foods.
3) Every meal should be a carb and protein, it will satiate your apetite longer and keep the body happy. However with that said I gun for at least 3 servings of veggies a day, spinach, broccoli, green peppers, mushrooms (this is a fantastic one especially for women but make sure they are cooked for the max vitamin D)
4) Snacks, get almonds into here as well as peanuts and pumpkin seeds, the pumpkin seeds have many benefits including a positive libido hit. Flax seed is also fantastic I recommend getting that into your shake in its ground form or into an omelet.
5) teas or coffees, get cinammon or honey into them if you need sweeteners both are far better choices than creamers (these can contain some deadly crap in them that I would not dare let pass my lips) honey has huge health benefits and cinammon is a natural blood sugar stabilizer just do not exceed 1.5 tsps/day.
6) go for quality not quantity in the diet, remember feeding muscles requires that you keep an excess of protein, good fats, and vitamins in the body, building muscle needs even more of the basic building blocks. Eating to few cals makes it turn on itself for these needs which you want to avoid at all costs and is the sole downfall of 90% of the diets out there, they deprive the body I want you to feed it and do it right.
Clean eating, I made no secret of the fact that I advocate it, it has all the building blocks needed for a healthy body even without exercise, consider exercise to be the icing on the cake. It will help you improve upon the basic building blocks you have and if you built a strong foundation the rest of it will be strong. So get that into your head that to succeed you must feed the body.
Helpful links that I use regularly;
http://www.beachbody.com/category/michis_ladder.do
eating off the top 2 tiers makes you a saint so long as 80% of the diet is in there then the last 20% will not hurt you, do not treat that as a licence to go nuts though but I highly recommend splurging once every 3 weeks unless you have hit a wall in that case do it once every 2 weeks.
http://fourhourbodysupplements.com/2010/02/slow-carb-diet/list-of-slow-carb-foods/
list of slow carbs for you to resort to.
http://www.dietandfitnesstoday.com/body-fat-percentage-calculator.php
bodyfat calculator, get it into your head that the scale is not the way to track fat loss measurements are. The scale is the greasy car salesman of the weight loss world, it only tells you half the story. If I had to recommend one thing to do when you start its take measurements and a before pic. I recently replied to a post about eating your exercise cals I think it may be beneficial to those who are unsure about eating back the workout cals.
think of it like driving a car, you have a limited amount of gas before the car starts to break down. The calories or fuel that mfp gives you will get you to your destination driving at 80 mph. Now think of exercise as getting you there at 120 mph but not stopping for fuel means that the tires get worn down faster, the car will break down easier and in the end will explode. The body is the car, the calories are the fuel, the tires are your muscle without proper fuel they break down and in the end the body feeds off itself. The point of the exercise is to increase the metabolic rate (the speed at which you can safely drive) not to burn off the fuel (calories)

Dietary tips

Spinach (I tried adding more of this into my diet this week and it made a difference, baby spinach in my omelette, it has made a difference to my energy levels and i tend to not tire as easily on longer workouts now. The b vitamins and added iron are great as well.

Tomatoes (licopein) for the men this one is for prostate health and circulation a great fruit for the diet (yes a tomato is a fruit.

Mushrooms, these little guys are loaded with vitamin D, a fantastic 1, 2 punch for the diet and great for digestion.

Broccoli, this little green tree is a powerhouse for the diet, offering a whole host of benefits. This happens to be one of my fav veggies, I eat lots of it and it is great for anti aging.

Almonds, peanuts and pumpkin seeds, I blend these in a 2-2-1 mix and these little powerhouses have benefited me greatly. Energy, appetite suppresion, increased sex drive, and more.

Blueberries. I do not eat enough of these just yet but I will be adding more of them. just a 1/2 cup packs more antioxidants than a pot of green tea of coffee. 

Omega 3s. Fish oil is the kicker here, its great for heart health joints and memory. I have found my mental faculties sharper with this one and my joints not hurting as much.

The body has a great need for nutrition and to ignore it is to deny yourself the benefits, I have learned this one the hard way, going from an overweight eat what I want kind of guy whose energy was lacking sorely to a man who runs 5 miles in a workout and still has energy to come home and play with my son who I am almost as energetic as now. I love how I feel and how I look, my confidence has gotten all the more powerful and I feel my body responding to my positivity, it has rewarded me by healing itself from the point where I required surgery for some serious health issues to being completely healed and feeling better than I have ever felt.

Retro posts from start to current.

So I decided to blog about my little journey from being not so pleasently plump to just past my half way point. I started at 198 and not feeling very healthy at all. I was lacking energy and unless I was working I did very little exercise outside of work. My wife was the one who kind of got me interested but I did not have that all important "aha or ok enough is enough moment" I was pleased that my wife was making the attempt to lose weight and I was  on facebook and came across a pic from the summer that showed me plus muffin top holding my son. I though to myself holy crap I look like crap lol. But there it was staring me in the face and it got me thinking if I continue along this current path I am going to be getting obese at the rate I was going. Ok so this was the start of the turning point, no excuses, no lies, no more being "fuzzy or plump anymore. There is no magic pill or magic formula its simple just start eating right and exercising, which I did and had fantastic results, my wife had joined mfp and mentioned it to me so I decided to join and have not looked back since. Its a great site with lots of support and helpful hints.  Which brings me to current day at 176.8 and feeling much better about my health and my appearance. I am not a "dilf" as of yet but getting there lol. Mt sson loves that I have more energy to play with him and he is quite the workout all on his own lol. I recently picked up the 4 hr body by tim ferris and starting next week will be giving it a shot.
Now for those who may be curious as to how I am making this a permanent change in my life and not yoyoing, here is what I follow to in my beleifs.
1) It has to be fun, do not regard working out as "work" make it fun or it won't last
2) Diet is key, feeding the body good nutritous foods is whats on the menu literally, if its not going to benefit the body do not eat it simple as that.
3) Keep your life simple, smile every morning, positivity is the key to enjoying life, negativity is the key to not living at all. So dump the negative and keep the positive. You have the power to change anything in your life its just a matter of not putting obstacles in your way. Focus on your goals you will get there stop worrying about the details, the goal is what is important, making steps to get there is inevitable if you keep your eyes on the prize.

So thats post 1 guys n gals I will be updating weekly or more as I keep going.