dieting – Atomic Slingshot Press

My Journey with Keto

My weight has been an issue for the last eight years. It jumped and skyrocketed. I have been trying to get my wait under control since then. Intermittent fasting worked, then it didn’t. It got me from 295 lbs to 245 lbs. This took me half a year to do. I have enjoyed the results. There are clothes I gave up on and shoved in my closet as they stopped fitting. I am now wearing a shirt and a pair of jeans that haven’t fit me for the last five years.

Over the years, I have signed up with gyms. I have worked out for months at a time, and my results were lackluster. Whether it was choosing the wrong workouts or doing something wrong.

The issue with me is that I have bad knees. When I went to my doctor about it, he said I need to lose weight. He was blunt, but I needed it. I needed to hear it. This was nine months ago. At this moment, I need to lose weight not to gain muscle mass. That will come later.

I had tried to use cardio to help loose weight. Except I found that I would gorge myself. Once I tried the intermittent fasting, the weight came off and came off fast. I never expected it.

Keto is different. I am on my eleventh day in. My body is learning it can use fat as energy instead of carbs. This diet has forced me to count calories and carbs. My energy is up and I am less reliant on energy drinks to get my words done.

Finding decent meals to eat every day is hard as I can’t just make pasta. I love to eat pasta. I make a killer spaghetti. I make it thick and chunky with large chunks of vegetables and meat. I enjoy taking sausages and cutting it up as a meatball. This is all gone as I can’t eat it.

Any suggestions on some tasty meals will be helpful.

This journey is not something I can do alone. It takes support from many people for it to become a reality. The easiest way is to visit my Amazon Author Page and purchase one of my books. They are available in all countries and for free in Kindle Unlimited. I have a tip jar set up at Ko-Fe, where you can buy me a coffee. Or you can also visit me on Facebook. Your help and support are much appreciated.

My Weight. Update.

As you might have read in my monthly update blog post for July, my weight loss has stopped. My attempt to lose weight by intermittent fasting has stopped. This was inevitable and expected. It is sad for me to have to make another change, but if I want to lose my fat, I will have to do something.

My wife has been on the Keto died for the last three weeks. In that time she has lost 15 lbs and her energy has increased tenfold. For me, this is the big reason I want a change.

In order for me to get all my tasks for the day, I consume too many energy drinks. This is a problem. It has hurt my sleep habits. I end up staying awake until 3 to 4 am and then getting up at 10am. If I can get my wife’s energy, then I can correct my sleep habits.

I am on day three of my Keto diet. I am tired all the time as I am not used to not eating carbs. Carbs are my friend and not my friend.

I don’t understand most things about the Keto diet — my wife has done more research than I have. From my limited understanding, the Keto diet is when the body switches from burning carbs for energy to burning fat. This involves eating an insanely small amount of carbs. A slice of bread soars by the limit and there are carbs in everything. At least it seems like it.

So far, I have yet to lose any weight, and my energy has yet to raise, but I am hopeful. I will update next week with an update.

Here I am hoping for good news.

My Weight. An Update.

As I have mentioned a few times before, my weight is an issue for me. The bonus goal I made at the start of the year was to lose 20 pounds. I recorded my weight as 277lbs. My weight today is 255lbs. That means I have lost 20 lbs. I succeeded in my goal—hurrah for me.

The goal was reached by controlling my diet and using intermediate fasting. It allowed me to lose weight with little effort.

I will be correcting and adding to my goal. No sense waiting around for me to get fatter. I have also flatlined. Plateaued. I am not losing any more weight. This means I will have to change my habits. Taking up some more exercise will be beneficial. With the COVID lockdown and shortages throughout, I have ordered a pair of sneakers online. They are stuck in Montreal for some reason. Once I get that, some jogging is in my future.

I am not a fan of gyms. I have had a few gym memberships in the past and have always ended with spending more money than it was worth. The deals tie you into a set membership. Or if there is no contract, then the price is expensive. Plus, they are always far away from where I live, and I hate having to fight through traffic to get to the gym.

Running seems like it is a decent solution. I used to run in high school. It is something I want to start again. Maybe do a marathon once I get to that level, and they allow marathons. If they enable marathons.

I recognize that I need to change my lifestyle. It consists of me sitting at my desk, working for twelve to fourteen hours a day. I need to move more and be more active. It is a habit I need to pick up, I need to figure out how to do this while still getting my work done.

This journey is not something I can do alone. It takes support from many people for it to become a reality. The easiest way is to visit my Amazon Author Page and purchase one of my books. They are available in all countries and for free in Kindle Unlimited. I do have a tip jar set up at Ko-Fe, where you can buy me a coffee. Or you can also visit me on Facebook. Your help and support are much appreciated.

Trying to find the Dieting Problem.

The hardest part is figuring out that you have a problem. The next is figuring out what the true nature of the problem is, to begin with.

A significant aspect of my life is that I’m fat. I have not hidden that fact. I may not look it, but I’m overweight. Some would call obese.

In trying to solve any problem, the first thing to do is to figure out what the problem is. Without a clear picture of what is wrong, then it is impossible to fix anything.

This is true no matter what it is that is broken. Whether it is a problem with a relationship, a car, the house or whatever. If the vehicle makes a noise that it shouldn’t, then it needs to be fixed. But. Is it the alternator? The pistons? The Clutch? Where is the noise coming from? What is the real problem?

That is like working on my novels or in this case, my weight.

What is the problem? Is it that I’m “big-boned?” Or is it genetic and I have no control over it? No. I call bullshit to those excuses.

I have to be real and call it as it is.

I’m fat cause I eat too much, too often. Period.

It isn’t the fact that I sit on a chair all day hacking at the keyboard with my ten digits. It isn’t the fact that I like pop too much and can’t enough of it.

I’m fat because I overeat food; I’m a glutton. I have a sedentary lifestyle.

Am I ashamed that I overeat? Perhaps.

It is one of the risks of my profession. The danger is that I’m going to get fat and that my weight will be what gives me future health issues.

So this brings me anxiety.

But how do I fix this problem?

Now that I know what the problem is, what do I do now?

My simple solution is to stop eating. My wife tells me that my statement is incomplete. She tells me that I have to “stop eating so much.”

I don’t know if this is going to work or not. It is hard as it is against my bad habits. I’m a glutton after all. I didn’t become a glutton cause I hate eating.

If you like what you are reading and wish to support me in my endeavours, please sign up to my newsletter, visit my Amazon Author Page and purchase one of my books. Or buy me a coffee. Your help and support are much appreciated.

Dealing with Failure

So my bid to lose weight has failed.

And failed hard. I’m back to 278lbs.

It’s not as bad as before at 286lbs, but it is getting there. It’s only a matter of time.

So whenever I fail at something, I do an autopsy on the situation. A court of inquiry on what happened.

Cause failure is a big part of life. We are humans, we are going to fail more times than we succeed. It’s inevitable.

So the question remains, how did I gain back over 10lbs from my low at 264lbs?

It’s simple, really. I stopped counting calories. Counting calories added time to make my food. The apps used are more suited to people who make individual meals instead of a meal for a family of four. It’s hard to keep things accurate when dishing out a bowl. I ended up guessing more times than I was correct.

After I stopped, it has become easier to eat second and fourth helpings of food. In short, I have slipped back into my old habits.

So I need a better plan than counting calories. I just don’t know what to do yet.

Any suggestions?

My Diet: Some Downsides

As you may know, I have been doing a diet for nearly a month now. I have lost 17 lbs so far. At the moment, it feels great. I have lost waist sizes, and I have more energy. My appetite is down, and I no longer feel hungry all the time.

It hasn’t always been this way.

When I first started the diet, I was eating nearly 3000 calories a day. I would eat five helpings of spaghetti at dinner, and I never ate salad. I was approaching 290 lbs.

What I did to start was to control my food intake, cause no amount of exercise is going to help me lose any weight if I don’t control my eating.

The first thing that I did was to get an app for my cell phone called “My Fitness Pal.” It is a calorie counter program. I entered my information; my height, weight, and how many pounds I wanted to lose. It then told me how many calories I was allowed to eat if I wanted to make my goal weight.

Now, I am nearly 34, so I know myself. I know that if I don’t hit this hard, I will lose motivation. I’m still working on the discipline thing. So I put down that I wanted to lose 2 lbs per week.

It gave me 1800 calories per day. That’s it. Before I decided to change my habits, I could eat that at lunch.

The following two weeks were some of the hardest days of my life. I discovered that a plate of pasta, just the noodles, was 500 calories. And I would eat three to five helpings of it.

My Discoveries

I discovered that grains are not my friend, they cost too much in calories. I also found that I can fill myself up with salad, pickles, cucumbers, cheese, and such, which would only cost me 500 calories.

My appetite has shrunk; which is a good thing. I no longer feel hungry if I don’t gorge myself. I no longer pine after the tasty delicious…

I do have my bad moments. The times that I make a mistake and eat waffles, which I discovered are 250 calories each, which I ate 5. Then I spent the latter half of the day hungry cause I really wanted to make my calories.

Hangry and not knowing what to Eat

I always thought that ‘Being Hangry’ was just a joke. That it was not a real thing. I discovered that it is a real thing. I also found that I get hangry bad. Those Snickers commercials have a grain of truth wrapped in them.

Another issue is I never know what to eat anymore. My go-to meal was always spaghetti, and I make a mean spaghetti. However, I overeat it. I can’t help it, I’m still a glutton after all. So the big issue is eating food that I love as much as spaghetti, that I can enjoy as much and not worry about consuming too many calories.

Hope

There is hope, though. Find someone to do the diet with. To help fill out the daily food journal when you know it’s not going to be good and don’t want to deal with it. Find someone to encourage yourself to keep going, past the first few weeks. Past the Hangry stage.

Cause once past that stage, it gets easier. The appetite decreases, the energy goes up. Results start coming in.

I weighed in nearly a month ago at 286.5 lbs. Today I weight 269.5 lbs. I will take those results.

Future

Now, only changing my diet is not going to work in the long run. At some point, I will plateau and stop making gains. I have been making plans for more exercise. It is getting nice out, so more time walking around is in order. I have also pulled out my old rollerblades and plan on making a fool of myself on them. I am also going to be getting a bike at some point. Something that can fit in the limited storage space I have.

But that is all cardio, don’t you plan on gaining muscle? I have heard that a couple of times. And yes. I do. But, I plan to get down to a better weight first before I gain it back in the form of muscle. It is in the cards, however, not yet.

I will be in better shape by the end of the summer.

Cause, “Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts.” Someone out there that inspired me but eludes my memory…

Perhaps I will do another blog post about my different mantras. It seems appropriate.

My Diet: Reasons and Update

As you all may be aware, a little under three weeks ago I started my diet and the start of my lifestyle change journey. However, despite the flowery text, my journey has not gone very far. The results, however, have been good so far.

My ultimate plan is to lower my weight from 286 lbs down to 195 lbs. When I was a teenager, I tore ligaments in my knees. Luckily, I didn’t need surgery for it. However, my knees have been giving me issues lately. My doctor says that my weight is one of the causes of it. This isn’t surprising to me. My knees have been a constant source of problems for me since I was sixteen.

Reasons

This is one of the main reasons why I want to get into shape. Another is heart disease and other health issues. According to many health authorities in Canada, like the website Obesity Canada:

“Obesity is a progressive chronic disease, similar to diabetes or high blood pressure, which is characterized by abnormal or excessive fat accumulation that may impair health.”

This is a significant problem facing people today. We eat too many sugary foods. According to an article published in the New York Times on Sept. 12, 2016, the sugar industry shifted the blame of heart disease from sugar to fat. It claims that the sugar industry has influenced and is influencing the nutritional information that we consume. This can be seen by merely looking at the nutritional information on packaging. Most processed products are full of sugar. You can’t buy anything without having sugar in it.

According to an article in the British Journal of Sports Medicine, there is a substantial similarity between drug abuse and sugar consumption from the standpoint of what excess sugar does to the brain’s chemistry.

Update

As such, I have cut out all sugary drinks, and foods out of my diet. I’ve not gone as far as tearing the organic section of grocery stores apart for meals with no sugar added.

I have also cut serving amounts and started to count calories. The principle is calories in, calories out. I make sure that I eat just underneath the calories that I need. That means no more five plates of delicious, gorgeous spaghetti. No more late night cheese pizza. I’m eating more salad, more quinoa, and fewer carbs.

I have not purchased an expensive gym membership or a treadmill for my home. Unless the diet is looked at first, no amount of exercise will cause me to lose any weight. I have tried that way before.

So far in the last three weeks, using the simple changes in cutting calories, I have lost 15 lbs. I understand that my current method won’t get me to my end goal. I will have to switch things up and exercise more. To get down to 195 lbs, I will have to continue on the lifestyle change journey.

I will discuss those other changes as they happen. As well as what works for me and what doesn’t.

There are also downsides to this diet, which I will talk about in other blog posts.

Dealing with Hours of Inactivity

Like most creatives, I spend hours sitting at the keyboard. The muscle that works the most for me is my brain and my fingers; the rest of me has gotten a tad flabby.

In my twenties, this wasn’t much of a problem. My weight sat around 220 lbs. I wasn’t (for the lack of a better term) fat per se. However, I wasn’t muscular either. I considered myself fit. Today, I am approaching 34 years old, and my body has changed.

It is a natural thing that happens to most men. When they hit thirty, their metabolism slows down, and it becomes harder to keep the weight off. In their twenties, a man can eat like a horse and not have too many problems. In their thirties, that gluttony turns against them.

I now weigh 286 lbs, and the health effects are becoming apparent. I won’t go into details, but least to say access weight is not a healthy thing. I know from experience.

As a Creative, How is this a Bad Thing?

It is simple really. Being overweight in general is a bad thing. No matter what some people say to the contrary. I trust my doctor in that regard. When he tells me that I have gotten “a tad flabby around the middle,” (he is British) and that fact is responsible for some of my ill health, I believe him.

I intend to write my novels until I am 90 and too old. I understand this. If I am to make it there, I need to look after my health. Which means that I have to listen to my Doctor and put the extra three helpings down. And stop eating fast food, candy, and cola.

To do this, I have forced myself on a diet. It’s a simple diet, which I call the Stop-Bloody-Eating-all-of-the-Sugar-Filled-Food Diet. It is excellent to go with the Stop-Eating-Seconds-and-Thirds-as-you-are-not-a-Hobbit Diet.

All jest aside, I’m a glutton. I enjoy eating food, and I enjoy cooking it. I have been joking with my wife that I should stop cooking good tasting food. Maybe then I will stop eating so much.

In the spirit of transparency, in my monthly reports, I will put in a paragraph about the status of my weight. It will give me someone to be accountable to.

Java java java. (Off-Topic)

So I have been receiving some rather harsh criticism from people. Mostly in real life and not those that I meet over the interwebs, but whatever.

The criticism is that I am a coffee snob.

That I turn down my nose at some of the vile sludge that people call coffee these days.

Mostly, they say that I am too good for anything but Starbucks coffee. That I like my multi-named, confusing-to-say-with-out-practice drinks.

Well. I am here is set the story straight.

I. Am. Not. A. Coffee. Snob.

I just will not drink that vile sludge of coffee that is presented in some places.

But first. Lets run down some information on what coffee is. Coffee is grown in a plantation and consists of the roasted seeds of a berry. There is a varying amounts of differences between bean to bean. It depends of the roasting of the bean, and to where the bean was grown.

If the coffee plantation was near an orange plantation, then the beans will have a citrus tone. A cocoa plantation will give it a chocolaty flavor. Coffee beans have the tendency to act similar to tofu in that way.

Coffee beans will also take some of the flavor of the coffee tin that it has been stored in. It gives it a bitter metallic taste that overpowers its intended flavor. It usually takes time to develop, like the length of time the coffee takes to cross an ocean by ship to get to me.

The flavor of the coffee can stay for a very long time if the bean is in an airtight container and is unground,

What does that mean when it comes to me?

It means that I will not drink coffee if the beans are stored in a metal tin. Or if it has been pre-ground. Buying the beans bulk and grinding it at the grocery store is fine. Then it is up to me to drink the coffee. That does not make me a Starbucks only coffee slob who likes his Vente Americano’s.

That’s it. Two simple rules.

Buy the coffee in the form of whole beans.
Coffee must not be stored for an extended length in tins.

Well… There is a third. Don’t buy coffee from Tim Horton’s.

This is the real reason that I was criticized in the first place. I consider Tim Horton’s coffee bad coffee.

For those who don’t live in Canada. There is a coffee chain that goes from coast to coast. It has tried very hard in becoming as Canadian as the maple leaf or the Goose. It sells, donuts, pastries and sandwiches as well as coffee.

It, however, doesn’t know what it wants to be. Is it a coffee shop to rival Starbucks and Blendz Coffee? Is it a sandwich place to rival McDonalds and Wendy’s? Or is it a donuts shop to rival Krispy Kreams and Dunkin Donuts?

Because it is trying to be all of these things, it can’t do anything well. It’s donuts selection is lackluster. It’s sandwiches are bland and uninviting. And it’s coffee is weak.

Like food colored water weak. It looks like my kids was painting and the coffee cup was his paint brush rinse cup. It tastes very similar.

A while back they had introduced a dark roast coffee giving you two choices in coffee. Regular and Dark. The dark wasn’t very dark. It still no flavor of it’s own and as soon as you put any amount of cream into it, it tasted like cream. If you were to translate it to Starbucks coffees, it would be a very blonde blonde roast.

And the ‘Dark’ roast is not much better. It barely makes it into the realm of a Starbucks Blonde roast.

People complained and now they rolled out a new and improved dark roast. Dark. This one is as dark as a nerdy kid playing Pokemon is considered cool by high school jocks. It is a light medium roast. Maybe. On a good day.

I bought a cup of it to say that I have had a cup and the flavor is still bland, no body to it at all. And it still has the Tim Horton’s tang that is a standard thing of Tim Horton’s coffee.

So that is the reason that I am considered a coffee snob. I won’t drink the vile watery piss that is called coffee by some Canadian guy named Tim.

Bah. I like coffee dark. Like my soul.

(By the way. I drink my coffee black. I don’t add sweetener.)

Diets

So tonight I am going to talk about something completely different than normal. I am going to talk to you guys about keeping healthy while doing a sedentary job like writing a novel.

I spend my days sitting at a computer hacking away at work. Essentially I fly a desk. No field work for me. Which was how I kept in shape before I got out of field work.

I am 6 ft tall. According to the infamous Body Mass Index, I need to weigh in at 183 lbs. I normally weighed in on average 225lbs when I was in the field. It fluctuated wildly depending on what I was doing that week.

When I started flying desk at work I quickly went from the average 225lbs and then in two years I topped out at 275lbs. Ouch. Stretch marks and a big gut.

I started exercising and played around with my diet. But not much. I dropped to 269lbs in 4 months time. I eventually gave up and stopped going to the gym. My diet went back to what it was before.

So Feb. 1st of this year, my wife and I started what is called a Paleo Diet. Which, in a nut shell is cutting gluten, dairy, and additional sugar. We did it as a 28 day challenge.

That essentially means that we became vegetable loving carnivores for the month of February.

No sugar moved a lot of our staple foods out of our diet. Gluten did the same. Dairy was the easiest as I didn’t drink much milk before hand. I went a month without going to a fast food joint.

The results was amazing. I am now under 250lbs. Today I weighed in at 248 lbs. That is a change of 21lbs in a month. I look trimmer, have more energy than I did before. And I now drink my coffee black. That’s right. I have joined the crazy insane club of black coffee drinkers. A month of no sugar has essentially turned off my sweet tooth. I don’t crave pop or candy anymore. I may indulge one day, but it is one candy. I don’t pig out and drink an entire 2L of pop in a single sitting.

I added no exercise to my daily routine. The only thing that changed was my diet. That is it.

Am I a health professional? No. Far from it. This is just my experience. I got results. You may not. If you experience changes to your body as you write, you may have to make a lifestyle change. I did. I am happy for it.