Posts by calvinator

Wow... you guys are really supportive. Thanks for all the advice. I'm loving the "freedom" that come from being Vegan and don't want to give it up on any circumstances. Thank you all!

Don't cry. I've done this before many a time and felt bad afterwards, just like you, so don't cry. Trust me when I say, you are not alone in this. And believe me when I say, it's not as bad as it feels it is right now.  It wasn't "stupid", just "human".

Instead of crying, what you need to do is realize that you "slipped off the wagon", so to speak, accept the responsibility for it, then move on and say "I'll try not to do that again". Use this moment as a learning experience, and make it empowering for yourself. Write, talk about it. Why did you do this? What was going on around you? Were you stressed? Just really hungry? After you get to sequence of events that made you do this, you'll be in a better position next time to avoid doing this. You didn't fail, you just made a mistake. That's all.  I really hope this helps.  You're talking to someone who was a master of binge eating. I mean I would get pizzas that had the stuffed filled cheesy crust, and all the extra meat you could imagine. It took me a WHILE to learn not to do that anymore. It's a day by day thing. Today wasn't your day. Ok. So tomorrow will be.  Use this as a chance to learn more about yourself. There's nothing wrong with you, you just have to learn yourself and what your "triggers" are. After that, you'll have this in the bag.  

Thank you all... after a lot of research, talks with a couple friends and some serious soul searching, I'm officially Vegan as of yesterday. This is a nice fun experiment that I hope to turn into a major lifestyle. Thanks for all your insights as I start this journey!

Okay... FINALLY discovered and learned what bycatch is tonight. It's midnight here, but I couldn't sleep thinking about it. Disgusting...

Alright, I think I'm all done with fish.  

I went to visit my wife's family, specifically my brother in law. My wife has a little sister, who is around 4 (she was very later than the others!) My wife was playing with her and asked her to draw all the members of the family. Well when the four year old drew a picture of me, she drew me with a tail.  I had a skinny body, and a large, round, rotund thing where my butt was supposed to be in the picture. That is funny, but was enough to let me know that I had let myself go. That was 16 pounds ago. Only 22 more to go to get rid of that tail!

Fat burners do work, but the problem is that they don't work long term and they have a lot of side effects. You are not an a*s, we've all thought about taking shortcuts. I know I have. They help to get the weight down, but your metabolism is sped way up. As soon as you stop taking them, it slows way down, and you wind up putting on more weight than you lost. Also, there's not a lot of research on them. The guy at GNC is just trying to sell you a product. The "research" that you see posted in weight loss magazines? They hire a company or university to perform the study, but they never actually attempt to replicate the study OR show trends on the body post the initial period of use. They will say "shows that 90% of people lost the weight on x product" but they won't tell you, "5 years later 10% of the people kept the weight off after using x product". Don't be fooled. I understand that fat burners are a great shortcut. And that's it.

Speaking from experience, I accidentally overdosed on Ephedrine way back when that stuff was legal. It was working so well I thought I should take more pills b/c I'll lose more weight. I thought I was going to die. I felt like I had a small heart attack or something. So choice is choice. If you do decide to use one of those, BE CAREFUL. Hydroxycut has a lot of marketing power behind it. That doesn't make it safe.

My wife likes those green tea pills. They work for her, but not for me. I think it just depends on your system.  

Yes, I have thought about the mercury thing. I can't say I've memorized the list of which fish I can and can't eat. I've had quite a bit of tuna, salmon, tilapia and sea bass, that's for sure.  Thanks, I have a vegan friend and she's full of knowledge like that, but I haven't really listened to her. Although fully aware of the inhumane practices with Beef, Pork, Poultry and Foul, admittedly I've ignored all the stuff going on with fish b/c... well, I like to eat fish. Looks like I have a lot of thinking to do...  thanks for the info! 

It's really all about Boundaries. There are none. You need to make some boundaries that she can't cross and that she won't cross herself. That's the best way to do this. For example, say "No more stopping by my apt. unannounced".  You need firm boundaries.

I don't know how bad this is, but I can say this... Coffee (especially caffienated coffee) will probably go against your weight gaining goals. The reason is that caffiene is a thermogenic, which is a basic way of saying it burns fat. I used to drink about a pot of coffee daily myself, but I've cut way back down, to maybe 1 cup per 3-4 days. When I hit a wall with my weightloss, I'll be sure to add more coffee as it will help with the fat burning. Be sure that you don't skip breakfast or a healthy snack. Those are just necessary in order to have good body.

I wind up frying most Pork / Chicken that I get and that's not really the healthiest way to eat it. I don't really enjoy the taste any other way. So that's why I'm sticking to mostly seafood for the time being. I tend to bake most of those that I get and I love the taste! I'm trying to stop frying foods and if I get chicken / pork, that's just what I'll wind up doing so it's just easier if I opt not to do that.

Currently I live in Syracuse. I'm just now getting into the know so I haven't heard of a lot of races here. There were 2 in June that I know of, but since then, I've not heard of anything. There's a whole community of cross country runners that I have to get in contact with.

I can usually get the weight off quick. It's trying to keep it off that is always the problem. I'll be able to get down to 150 (down from my rotund 190) in a few months. What happens is that I look and think "Ok, I'm fine now, that's it", then I go back into bad eating habits and viola, I'm back up to 200. And I never catch myself doing that until I'm that high. So this time, I'm taking it slow, keeping a food journal, and I have a set cut off time where I can't have anymore food (7:00 p.m.) Also, I'm trying to cut alcohol, too. I like Beer a lot, and fool myself into thinking that a Light Beer is okay, when it really isn't. Yeah maybe we can get together for some races in NYC a little later in the year. I've had a lifelong goal to run the Boston Marathon at least once, so my goal is to do that w/in 5 yrs. How cool would it be to run that and know I began running in NY!

Wow Kate this sounds exactly like me! Exactly! I'm getting back into running now. I'm at 198 and need to get down to 153 in order to be healthy. On Sat. I was telling my wife how 40 pounds seems so incredibly daunting. I don't think I've ever lost that much weight at one time. So now I force myself out of bed to go cross country running in the morning with the dogs at like 5:30 a.m. Due to the day, it's the only real chance I'll get to exercise. Plus I've had to seriously reroute my entire diet. No more pork, chicken, etc. unless it's Fish. And then it must be baked. So no, you're not in this alone by a long shot. I'll actually be moving to NYC early next year. Maybe we can trade info on running races. I don't think there's a lot of those here in Upstate NY. Or if so, I'm not aware!

So  no, you're not alone. Not by a longshot.