March 11th, 2010 by Chad
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I just nearly shot a white chocolate orange bliss latte out of my nose, and I blame the Subourbon Wife. (You can rib me about my girly choice of drink in the comments, but her post on an unexpected chat she had to have with her daughter this morning about modesty really cracked me up). The Subourbon Wife is one of my new friends from a couple of Shocking Real Life writing workshops I’ve been taking from author Hollis Gillespie here in Atlanta over the past couple of months, and I’ve loved every minute of them. I’ve always thought it would be great to be talented creatively. I tried my hand at playing an instrument. I sucked. I tried my hand at painting. I sucked. I tried my hand at drawing. I sucked (though I do have a rather nice sketch of the key to the Jeep I drove in college that I drew when I was going through a phase of wishing I had artistic talent and practicing sketching between classes).
I never considered my writing to be creative, because 1) it’s something I’ve always done, and as such is just something I’ve always thought of as a part of me, and 2) I’ve always been a non-fiction writer, so I wasn’t creating some fantastical alternate reality. Thus, writing never struck me as creative, but just as something I had to do. Idiot. I know. » Read more: Creative Process
March 9th, 2010 by Chad
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Okay, well not all of my fat, but strategically placed bits here and there. As I wrote about in my post on the Top 10 Weight Loss Surprises, it’s kind of nice to be able to feel things like hip bones and quadriceps again, and to see your biceps pop when you bend your elbow. In fact, in what came perilously close to the mirror flexing commonly engaged in by the native gym rats that have been much lampooned here at Reconstructing 30, I caught myself flexing my arms in the mirror as I brushed my teeth a couple of days ago. The dog, who was sitting at my feet, sighed deeply, rolled her eyes, and threw up a little in her mouth. I’m not proud of it. I was just truly fascinated by the reconstruction of my body that is taking place. Hey, at least it wasn’t in public, like the real gym rats!
Anyhow, losing fat and exposing the fit body underneath that’s ready to get out is liberating, exhilarating, and just all around freakin’ awesome. But… (there’s that pesky “but” again) I do miss one little pad of fat that my body decided to dissolve, and I can’t for the life of me figure out why. It’s that little smaller than a pincushion portion of adipose tissue that had previously protected my tailbone. I’m no anatomist, but I’m guessing this is analogous to the little flap of chicken fat that you snip off the @$$ of a roaster before you grease it up and pop it in the oven. Anyhow, I didn’t realize » Read more: Sometimes I Miss My Fat…
March 8th, 2010 by Chad
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As I first mentioned last week, March is National Nutrition Month®, and I’ll be devoting a post each Monday to good nutrition. This week, I’ve decided that I’m going to leave my young urban professional ways behind (at least one night a week), and cook at home instead of eating out. Here’s the thing: I love to cook, I really do. Food to me is not just something delicious to eat and fuel my body, but it’s also a rich cultural artifact that says a lot about a family, a people, a region, a way of life, etc. This is why I’ve always love reading cookbooks. I rarely cook using a recipe, but I have a huge collection of cookbooks, and I can read a good cookbook like a novel. They’re not just recipe manuals (at least good ones aren’t), but they’re both histories and current snapshots of how people live and what they value.
I love cookbooks almost as much as I love going out to eat. Every night. With few exceptions. You see, I work. A lot. And then I go to the gym most nights (or at least I try to now). And I try to hang out with friends. And I write in my spare time – this blog and other things. So that means I have a life which I really love, but that leaves me good and exhausted at the end of a day. And I’d be happy to cook to unwind, but cooking brings with it something else that I just can’t stomach at the end of a long day – cleaning the kitchen.
One day, I have a fantasy that I’ll find » Read more: Announcing Chad’s Cookbook Reviews
March 7th, 2010 by Chad
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The big headline from the last week should really be that I’m back on the wagon with exercise. As I wrote a few days ago, I’ve had to change up my cardio routine to keep from losing my mind on the treadmill day in and day out, and it’s going well! I did fall one day short of my four days of cardio goal, but I got in my strength training as I should, and I’m enjoying the new routine my trainer worked out for me a couple of weeks ago. The only semi-problem with all this: I gained a pound as of my official weigh-in on Saturday. I was up from 253 pounds last week to 254 pounds this Saturday. I’m sure it was because of the exercise after taking a week off. In fact, I had weighed 253 on Friday, and then did strength training on Friday night, which usually bumps my weight up a little the next day. This morning (Sunday), I was 252, so I’m confident that my body’s gotten used to the exercise again and is back on track with weight loss.
Which leads me to my progress on the Weekend Warriors Challenge from Brandon over at So Long, Fat Ass! My goals were to stick to my regular eating schedule (breakfast, lunch, afternoon snack, dinner, and after dinner treat) and do cardio both days this weekend. I did fairly well with nutrition yesterday, though I did miss my afternoon snack. My friends and I spent yesterday afternoon at Atlantic Station here in Atlanta and had lunch at Rosa Mexicano followed by a trip through Dialog in the Dark, an exhibit where you’re immersed in total darkness with a cane and a blind guide to take your group through venues set up like a park, a grocery store, a city street, a boat (including walking a gangplank to get aboard), and a cafe. You have to use your other senses to experience the world around you, and it really is enlightening. Oh…and you get cozy with strangers. Real cozy. You all think you’re reaching for a tangerine in the grocery store portion of the exhibit, and SURPRISE!!! » Read more: Weekend: Weigh-In, Warriors, and Getting Cozy with Strangers
March 5th, 2010 by Chad
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TGIF!!! It’s been a heckuva long week, and I’m so glad to see my old friend, the weekend, again. Brandon, over at So Long, Fat Ass!, has posed a Weekend Warrior Challenge this weekend, recognizing that lots of us have some trouble sticking to our health and fitness goals over the weekend as well as we do during the week. I think the biggest thing I struggle with on weekends is sticking to my food schedule. Without work, it’s tempting sometimes to sneak an extra snack. So here’s what I’m planning to do to stay on track this weekend:
1) FOOD – Stick to my typical weekday meal schedule – Breakfast, Lunch, Afternoon Snack, Dinner, After-Dinner Treat – no more, no less.
2) EXERCISE – Do some sort of cardio on both Saturday and Sunday, burning at least 325 calories each session.
So that’s what I’ll be up to this weekend, in addition to having some fun with friends! Have a great weekend!
March 4th, 2010 by Chad
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The past couple of weeks, sticking to my plans for healthy living has felt kind of like having your underwear on backwards – slightly uncomfortable, a little restrictive, and just not quite right. I’ve been doing fairly well (not counting my entire week without exercise), but something just has been a little off. Even though I haven’t really been unhealthy in my eating, I was just was starting to feel a little behind – a little like I wasn’t at the top of my game.
And then I realized early this week, I’ve been bored. Bored…as…hell… Bored with the treadmill, bored with my packed lunches, bored with my typical breakfast of cereal, bored with the whole…damn…thing… When I got started with healthy eating, I really needed to be very simplistic so that I didn’t have to put too much thought into my meals. I knew if I counted calories or food groups, I’d feel overwhelmed, so I just found options that worked for breakfast and lunch, and I ate them. Everyday.
Breakfast was a bowl of cereal with half of a banana and skim milk. Lunch was » Read more: Variety: Spice of Life, and Key to Healthy Living
March 2nd, 2010 by Chad
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I’m about half-way through my week, and I’m back on track with my exercise routine, but my great six pound weight loss from last week is quickly being erased! Last week, I went from 259.0 to 253.0 pounds, but as of this morning, I was at 257.0 again! Ugh!!! This is yet another reason to stick with an exercise routine, and not (intentionally or unintentionally) give yourself too much time off. I did the first session on my own of the new strength training routine that my trainer set me up with, and I was satisfyingly sore the next day. (Funny how exercise can turn a normal person into a fitness masochist). I’ve kicked the strength training up to another level, and while it feels great, I think my weight is showing it (or my scales are jerking me around big time!).
When I jumped back on the treadmill, my endurance had suffered dramatically from having taken a week off. I was down from 48 minutes to 30 minutes on Sunday, and when I got on tonight, I just couldn’t bring myself to do it for more than 5 minutes. I think I need some variety in my cardio routine. So I jumped on the Wii Fit, and I burned over 300 calories that way, which was a nice change. If it will ever stop snowing in Atlanta » Read more: Mid-Week Madness
March 1st, 2010 by Chad
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Today marks the beginning of the American Dietetic Association’s National Nutrition Month®, and the theme this year is “Nutrition From the Ground Up.” In honor of their efforts to raise awareness about the importance of nutrition and simply eating right, I’m going to devote my posts on these Mondays in March to the topic of good nutrition. Yep – I’ve always been a little bit of an advocate, so I’m all for jumping on the bandwagon to raise awareness here.
I’ve been very focused on exercise in this blog lately, as it’s the new thing in my life. We guys are like that, I guess. Think about college, guys – the new foreign exchange student (exercise) would walk into class, and all the sudden that’s where your attention focused, right? The other girls in the class (nutrition) just didn’t hold your attention after that, because you were figuring this new girl out. But the bottom line is that food is the fuel for the body, and I need » Read more: Nutrition From the Ground Up
February 27th, 2010 by Chad
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When I began this journey, I was serious about losing weight. I’d never lost more than about 30 pounds in my past efforts though. Now, through making healthy lifestyle changes, I’m knocking on the door of fifty pounds lost, though I still have even more to go. Losing that much weight has provided me with some surprises. Here are the top ten surprises in my weight loss journey so far: » Read more: Top 10 Weight Loss Surprises
February 27th, 2010 by Chad
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This week was kind of weird. On the upside, to start off, my weekly weigh-in this morning came in at 253.0 pounds!!!!! That’s six pounds down from last week and 47.5 pounds lost all total, now! I haven’t weighed this since sometime in 2002, and getting back to it is kind of unbelievable; my brain is still adjusting. Last week my mom asked what I was down to, and I kept responding 285. She questioned it, but I was insistent. I had to really think about it for a minute, and I realized, oh yeah, I’m in the 250’s now. I knew what I weighed, but my subconscious was so used to me being a much bigger guy that it couldn’t get the numbers right without me giving it some conscious thought. (Either that or turning thirty really is a bitch when it comes to memory). Anyhow, that little incident was eye-opening.
So I’m ecstatic (written in my best Mike Tyson impersonation) about my loss this week. But I’ve gotten to the point where this reconstruction isn’t all about the numbers on the scale. I also have goals with my nutrition and exercise, and I like to meet them, too. While I lost this week, and I lost a lot, I didn’t do my best with » Read more: Mixed Bag: Lost Weight, Still Room for Progress
