Losing Weight

By now you are probably hoping for a miracle to lose that extra weight. Short of a miraculous change in the metabolism you are going to have to lose it the old fashioned way like me.
David Dane

April 7, 2007
Losing Weight
It’s 5:55 AM folks. I am sitting here at the computer drinking a cup of coffee. I woke up at 5:30 AM and my thoughts were spinning in my head. I am not writing a political blog here so I won’t tell you what I was thinking about. But, I got up out of bed and decided that I should weigh myself. I came in at 209.6 pounds.

Believe it or not, that’s fantastic because last night I had a late meal. And I drank a two-liter bottle of Diet Coke. By the way, don’t drink a two-liter bottle of diet coke before going to bed. Two things happen: It’s hard to fall asleep and I ended up waking up a few times to use the potty. Not only that, but if you weigh yourself like I do before you go to bed, there is four pounds of fluid sitting in your tummy.

Which is pretty amazing if you think about it. That’s how big my tummy is that I can consume a 15 ounce dinner and with it 69 ounces of fluid. This comes in at 5 pounds of food plus fluid. This explains why we as humans can stuff ourselves to the neck with food. It’s not a good idea to stuff yourself.

Anyway as I mentioned I weighed 209.6 pounds. This means that I didn’t gain even after eating a late evening meal the night before. I use these little test strips that test for ketones (Acetoacitic Acid) which I pass through the urine stream. Sometimes the strips don’t turn, sometimes they turn pink, and then sometimes they turn purple. Well, this morning the strip turned purple. This means that I am pumping out ketones into the urine. This means that I am burning fat.

I am burning fat even after having eaten a delicious TV dinner that I purchased at Dominck’s Foods. It was on sale for $2.79 with my Dominck’s card. The meal was “Marie Callender’s Country Fried Beef Steak.” This was a 15-ounce meal comprised of a hefty sized breaded beefsteak, a generous portion of mashed potatoes, and a portion of glazed carrots, with a side packet of delicious gravy. YUMMY... I take my hat off to Con-Agra foods for this one. It was a delicious meal. The best part is it came in at a total calorie count of 540 calories. http://www.conagrafoods.com/brands/marie_callenders/index.jsp

Hey, you preponderate people go get yourself a TV dinner and bring it to work. That’s right you scale tippers save yourself some money by carrying a frozen dinner to work. Then when lunchtime comes around pop that little puppy into the microwave.

I went out shopping last night because I was hungry. I was actually looking to purchase a small package of meat to mix with some vegetables. I was surprised to find the above mentioned TV dinners on sale. If I had a bigger freezer I would buy more of the above mentioned meals. Not only is this so but I found Banquet TV dinners on sale at 10 for $10 dollars. I couldn’t pass this up either. I would have purchased more of those too, however my freezer is a little stuffed with some other things as well.

Here is what my food intake looked like yesterday.
Morning: Two scrambled eggs covered with salsa and melted cheese on top plus a four-ounce glass of pink grapefruit juice (total 355 calories). Later I had a fistful of trail mix (100 calories). At night I had the above-mentioned dinner. The total calorie intake for yesterday was 995 calories. No vodka today, I’m out.

Was I hungry yesterday? Yes I was hungry! I am learning to live with it. I am not starving to death. I have lots more body fat to trim off. My body isn’t starving. It’s readjusting to a new reality. I also take in different supplements like vitamins and fish oil.

Hey, don’t endanger your life trying to lose weight. I mean it. You can lose weight sensibly. It’s going to take persistence and time. You have to figure out why you want to lose weight. I told you why I am. I am tired of huffing and puffing. I am tired of looking bloated. I am tired of poor fitting clothes. I remember what I looked like in the army when I had a 32-inch waist. Besides, I’ll be much cuter than I already am.

MY FOOD SCALE
I am going to tell you about a slick little food scale that I picked up at Bed Bath and Beyond for $70. It’s a SALTER Nutritional Scale. It’s a digital scale with a stainless steal tray on which food can be weighed very accurately. Not only can it weigh the food, but also it has a wealth of nutritional information that it can tell anyone about the food that’s being weighed. It can tell you the weight of food in grams, kilograms, ounces and pounds.

Put some food on the tray and the scale instantly tallies the weight and displays it with a digital readout. Next you can look in the book that comes with the scale, punch in a code for that food then find on the scale the calorie count, sodium content, protein content, fat content, carbohydrate content, cholesterol content, fiber content.

This is a handy dandy little thing to have around when there isn’t a package to look at with a panel on it with the nutritional information for the food that you are about to consume.

Let’s say one night I just have to have some peanut butter on the spoon. I weigh the spoon, then zero the scale with the spoon on it. Next I dip that spoon in the peanut butter to scoop up a big blob. I put that blob on the scale with the spoon and weigh it. Since I zeroed the spoon out, I know what the weight of the peanut butter is. Then I put in the code and get my calorie count. Usually it’s around 250 calories. I next write down the amount of calories. It adds to the total calories for the day. Finally I’ll put that blob of peanut butter in my mouth. Umm, so good!

I highly recommend getting this little time saving device. It will save anyone from guessing. There are more features on the SALTER Nutritional Scale than what I am mentioning here. You can look it up yourself. http://www.salterhousewares.com/

Then when you have weighed what you are going to eat, write it in your food journal. It doesn’t have to be fancy. Write it down. This way you can say to yourself, “I ate something.”