Portland Oregon or the great Pacific Northwest. Not many places in the world nicer in the summer than around these parts. I just took a walk with a jacket. LOL!
I wonder how many other Aug 4th folks we have on here?
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The BIGGER I get the smaller you look
Do you ever get light headed from controlling your intake vs. volume of exercise you are doing?
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Originally Posted by kfisherx
Hiya Greg! Funny you should mention that. I am lately getting dizzy when I stand up sometimes. But my friend says that is due to my RHR being so low. He says it is pretty common as people get really fit that they cannot stand up very quickly 'cause the heart doesn't pump fast enough. Good for the race but not so good for resting and standing. LOL!!
Actually this has been happening to me lately as well. Mostly when doing the 4x12 workouts with little rest. My HR I am sure is through the roof. Only on occasion do I get that way when I stand up, but it does happen more on a deficit.
Was it Anne that predicted I would end up riding to work more than 1 time a week.
See, I knew that.
Quote:
Originally Posted by kfisherx
Portland Oregon or the great Pacific Northwest. Not many places in the world nicer in the summer than around these parts. I just took a walk with a jacket. LOL!
I wonder how many other Aug 4th folks we have on here?
I go between loving our summers and hating them. We don't really have spring. It usually goes from winter to summer, then gets hot. Although it was cooler today (mid-80s) but oppressively humid. There's a chance it will just rain tonight and get better. Usually we don't get the hot oppressive days until August. They are great evenings though.
Portland Oregon or the great Pacific Northwest. Not many places in the world nicer in the summer than around these parts. I just took a walk with a jacket. LOL!
I wonder how many other Aug 4th folks we have on here?
Oh my Dad lived in McMinnville for several years (half way between Portland and Salem) and it was absolutely gorgeous out there. I loved going to the water through the mountains. Just gorgeous!
I think if I had a safe route and my weather was like that, I'd have a hard time not biking every day
Just thought a bit more about the vacation eating thread and wanted to share it more with me. You are someone who has done a paradigm shift towards eating a certain way that is very typical for bodybuilders. And .. discovered that it fits you like a glove, to such an extent that you feel yucky when you eat differently.
That's an experience most others don't go through. Also, most people will prefer fattier foods over the diet fare that often tends to be low-fat and when they are partying/vacationing they will eat differently without getting ill. Or when they do, e.g drink too much it will be a temporary thing.
But what someone tends to eat is so incredibly loaded with emotions, that it gets a touchy subject. From 2002 thru 2005 I've been very low carbing consistently and still am in the low carb camp at 35% carbs overall . Over time it fitted me less & less since my bf% dropped and needs became different, also because I'm training hard. What I failed to see was that most people on the low-carb forums don't train and have way higher fat%s. So, often my recommendations wouldn't fit them as well as they fitted me. People with auto-immune diseases respond extremely well to a very low carb diet since it suppresses immune response which for them, is a very good thing as they have an over-active immune system. When they raise their carb intake, all of the symptoms come rushing back in.
Compare that to an athlete who starts low-carbing.. over time their performance will tank or even worse, they may get ill since that same immune system suppression will happen which for them is really bad news. That's what happened to me a few times. While my immune system is slightly overactive so that it can be good to lower carbs somewhat it is not good for me to do this continuously as I'll get ill.
Back in 2004 I got really scarily ill (spondylodiscitis) as I suppressed appetite with ephedrine and very low carbing for nearly a year and only last November I got shingles from overdoing it with training and once again lowering carb intake a bit more than was good for me.
Since then I've vowed to just listen to what kind of feedback my own body gives to me and not care a damn about what others think about my weird eating habits. Eat what makes me feel good and what keeps me healthy & strong, but also what makes me happy. End of story. Still not end of the journey as I'm sure that there will be more changes ahead in the future.
The only truly sorry thing that can happen is when people discover that 1 way of eating is what makes them lose weight and then get stuck in that mindset for the wrong reasons. Like how after a long time of low carbing your enzymes down regulate and even a small amt of carbs will make you swell up and gain weight.. people go nuts and flee back to induction levels. I'd not be surprised actually when the same happened to your fat digesting enzymes.. you're not used to fat anymore and feel icky upon eating it. That *can* be reversed.. amazingly I had the same experience last night when eating way more fatty foods in a Chinese restaurant than I had been exposed to for quite a while. Fortunately I was prepared and took digestive enzymes. My sweetheart even ran home (it's very close) and got me my enzymes that I'd left at home.
These things aren't well known by many. And those that are stuck into using 1 single way of losing weight are very hard to change (I was one of them esp when it comes to overdoing it in the gym) and I even got banned in one forum when I suggested that people might lose better weight when they applied the principle of refeeds & free meals (see Lyle McDonald's site Bodyrecomposition - Lyle McDonald ) . Diet = religion to tons of people!
I'm August 19th, AND I totally agree with you about our weather. I travel to a lot of places, and I'm never so content as when I'm home. I absolutely LOVE this weather, year round.
I'm walking 60 miles for a breast cancer cure, September 11-13, 2009! Please support my walk and help me raise funds for cancer research by donating to the Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer 3-Day: http://www.the3day.org/site/TR/Walk/...nal&fr_id=1300
Glad to see your progress is still steady and not too painful.
I've been working in more cardio too. I NEED at least some ss in my life, lol.
I loved Espi's comments about getting stuck in one type of eating. You are such an inspiration in that regard because you have adapted your eating to your goals almost seamlessly throughout this process. It sure has been a pleasure following you along the way!
Thanks again Espi for all your postings. 2 days ago I got on the scale and was down to 120 lbs. That might sound amazingly good to some but that is 3 lbs down from just .5 weeks ago AND the bf was the same. So I decided that my long bike rides were probably responsible and also perhaps the fact that I have been dieting down for nearly 12 weeks straight now. Your re-feed concept brought the idea to my mind to do a re-feed this weekend to try to stay ahead of the LBM loss game. I managed yesterday and today to get 2K cals in. I ate out so not quite sure of those but did my best guess.
This was supposed to be rest days but all weekend I spent on my feet painting again as well and today my nephew came into town so we did a bike ride. I think the ride was about an hour but it was nice and easy and we chatted quite a bit. Very fun. The weather was ideal for a bike ride or walk or to be outside today. Cool in the shade and warm in the sun. Blue skies abound. So I'll chalk the weekend up to some active rest and re-feed.
It will be very interesting to see what the scale has to say about all of this come Tuesday. I am not sure how long to hold out on the re-feed or even if it counts as a re-feed if I am still not eating at maintainance. (it takes me a few days to adjust to eating so can't do 2300 just yet) For now I will maintain. Tomorrow I am going to do a workout and see where my strength is and then decide what to do from there.
Since there are a lot of comments about how easy this has been for me I thought I might take a bit of time and speak a tiny bit about what I did today to prepare for this upcoming week. I just spent 3.5 hours in the kitchen after shopping for fresh vegetables, fruits and meats. I made 3 dishes and split them into portions and packed them in containers so that I have meals ready for me whenever I need them. It is easy to stay on a diet when great and healthy food is always there for you. Making the food always there for you takes a HUGE amount of effort.
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Seems that you'll do well to eat at maintenance for a week, just like Bytsi did the other week. While you're dropping wt fast (happened to me a few weeks ago upon starting a new routine and trying to be compliant) , it's not such great news when most of that weight is water wt. Who knows... it might be muscle?
Been talking a bit about this in my own log too. For the next cycle I'll even experiment with the concept of only 2 sessions/week for my cutting phase. There's 2 conflicting views going on: should our deficit come from just diet , diet + training or just training harder (w/o change in current diet). It would just depend on how much stress is already going on in everyday life or how much training (including cardio) stresses your system. Recovery? How much of a deficit? How high is your bf% in the first place.. How much do you love to train (or love to eat ) . And so on.
Whatever we do, deficit has to come from somewhere. And how are we going to retain our LBM if we only want fat leaving? This is where the natural has to be really careful to not trespass the line of overdoing things the way a non-natural can do it as they are in a much easier position and won't lose LBM as easily.
One of the countermeasures is to make sure to eat enough when training. If I want to train hard, I'll need to eat even harder if recovery is important. Yet, that means the deficit will have to come from the rest days. There's where the trouble starts. The more you eat on a training day, the less you can eat on rest days.. unless you cut out 1 training days. This is where that new experiment of mine comes in.
How to apply it for yourself? It's great that you are now cycling more. But you GOT to eat more to cover those calories spent on cycling. All that painting of yours also requires extra food. Eat up girl! It's not about how fast can I lose weight.. it's about how to lose as much as fat as possible while retaining LBM. This can ONLY be done when you're not losing strength. Refeeds.. maintenance weeks are very important to make sure that doesn't happen.
As usual, good things in here Karla. I have my 41st coming up on July 31. I'm looking forward to it.
__________________ It all starts with the mind, but the thoughts, the intention aren't enough. Action needs to come next. Dream it, believe it, plan it, execute it, celebrate it. - Wendy
Since there are a lot of comments about how easy this has been for me I thought I might take a bit of time and speak a tiny bit about what I did today to prepare for this upcoming week. I just spent 3.5 hours in the kitchen after shopping for fresh vegetables, fruits and meats. I made 3 dishes and split them into portions and packed them in containers so that I have meals ready for me whenever I need them. It is easy to stay on a diet when great and healthy food is always there for you. Making the food always there for you takes a HUGE amount of effort.
You know something, I disagree a little with the amount of effort it takes. I can be more specific later (when I start stocking up for the fall) but it's not unusual on a weekend to make (and freeze) enough meals for over a month. What I'll do in August (since I'll have less time once school starts) is make bit pots of meat sauce, chili, gumbo, beef stew, perhaps soups, and a few other things yet to be determined. Soups especially can be big winners. I can easily get 20-30 servings out in a day. I'm actually going to look at my recipes and consider making them more protein heavy so they can be used for dinner dishes. Nothing more appealing on a cold winter night than a big bowl of hearty soup.
It takes some effort, just not sure it's a HUGE effort.
On a cooking forum I belong to (sheesh my life is teh interwebz forums) - they have a subforum for OAMC (Once A Month Cooking) - talk about well planned out and executed... The amount of food they can make in a day is pretty astounding.
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Tom
No "happy hours" makes for a lot of miserable days. - Mahler
On a cooking forum I belong to (sheesh my life is teh interwebz forums) - they have a subforum for OAMC (Once A Month Cooking) - talk about well planned out and executed... The amount of food they can make in a day is pretty astounding.
The only thing that slows me down is freezing the stuff up. I use old freezer meal dishes and I've only got 11 of them. So 11 at a time is a limit, usually twice a day. I'll heap them up for stews/thick sauces which will get double portions in most. I'll pop them into sandwich bags later and stack them in the freezer. I'll buy chicken breasts, chicken thighs, pork tenderloin, and sirloin steaks repackaging them into either single or double portions. I've decided in the end that there are some things I'd rather make the sauces separate (ie. I used to freeze chicken curry already made but now I freeze the chicken thighs and the curry sauce separate). The meals make up with a fresher taste to them that way.
This week, likely on one day (or two if I'm busy) I'll make beef/turkey burgers, beef/turkey meatloaf (frozen in double portions uncooked), curry sauce, and a tomato wine sauce. It will probably end up making 21 meals for two people. I haven't make the beef/turkey burgers before so I'll likely only make a small number of them.
I agree with Karla that making the food can be a lot of effort compared to what most people do with their Sunday. I usually make meals for the week in the winter time, and it can be rather exhausting. I do try to do similar based meals, so that it's not as hard. I find making things like chili and spaghetti sauce are easy to do together since they have similar ingredients. I'll also do a gumbo and a bean soup together for the same reason. Our problem is we don't have a deep freezer, so I can only make about a weeks worth of meals. Got to get that taken care of!
Tom I did not lay blame RE the comments. Apparently I make things sound too easy in my postings so I am making an effort to outline some of the actual work that goes on and complain a little bit more so everyone isn't thinking that this is a "walk in the park" for me while it is impossible for them. The success I am seeing is possible by everyone but the work part has to be done. Perhaps it would be more helpful if everyone could see some of the work part.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Espi
Today or July 19
So, this means you have to listen to me as I'm your senior
J/k. No, it's funny.. always dreaded getting older and 50 does scare me a bit, but I just know I'll look better this year than I did before.
You know this totally spaced me this weekend. (I was sniffing paint fumes) Happy belated B-day you old goat you!!!
Quote:
Originally Posted by realcdn
You know something, I disagree a little with the amount of effort it takes. I can be more specific later (when I start stocking up for the fall) but it's not unusual on a weekend to make (and freeze) enough meals for over a month. What I'll do in August (since I'll have less time once school starts) is make bit pots of meat sauce, chili, gumbo, beef stew, perhaps soups, and a few other things yet to be determined. Soups especially can be big winners. I can easily get 20-30 servings out in a day. I'm actually going to look at my recipes and consider making them more protein heavy so they can be used for dinner dishes. Nothing more appealing on a cold winter night than a big bowl of hearty soup.
It takes some effort, just not sure it's a HUGE effort.
Compared to the effort that most people spend on planning and preparing their food what I do is HUGE. This food planning and preparing paradigm switch required a whole lot of rethinking of my life over the course of the past year. I honestly spend 3-4 hours every Sunday on preparing and packing up meals and then sitting down to document and calculate the cals, macros, etc. Worrying about making sure I have good foods available all the time takes an inordinate amount of time compared to the days when I just did not care or eat as often.
I could do a 6-8 hour day and pack the majority of meals for the month but I find that I don't like the foods as much after about a week or if they have been previously frozen. No matter how I package them, they just don't taste as fresh. Seal a Meal is very expensive too so I don't like to spend so much money. So net is that I haven't come up yet with the way to keep the food tasting as good that way. What I currently do is make up big pots of whatever (8 servings or so per) and package the servings in the little glad containers.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Mahler
Hell, I'm everybody's senior and nobody listens to me.
Good going, Karla.
Hey old guy! Long time no see over here. Nice of you to drop by.
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I agree with Karla that making the food can be a lot of effort compared to what most people do with their Sunday. I usually make meals for the week in the winter time, and it can be rather exhausting. I do try to do similar based meals, so that it's not as hard. I find making things like chili and spaghetti sauce are easy to do together since they have similar ingredients. I'll also do a gumbo and a bean soup together for the same reason. Our problem is we don't have a deep freezer, so I can only make about a weeks worth of meals. Got to get that taken care of!
Yes! That is exactly what I am saying. I think that if you read the logs carefully you will find that people who take the time to do this sort of work are having more success with their diets than people who do not. BUT it is a lot of work.
That said I don't mind the work so much. Like I said in another post. I get the work versus reward thing at this stage in my life and make the best of it. In fact with cooking you can actually get pretty creative.
I make a kick ass waldorf salad with chicken as a meal, chili, spaghetti with speghetti squash, gumbo, gulash, vegetable meat stews, lemon herb chicken and broccoli, turkey or chicken with yams and aspargus meal packets, etc. In addition, meals can also be sandwiches, apples and peanut butter, etc. Remember I eat 5-7 times a day. Just last month I had guests from CA and MA converge on my home and I cooked these very meals for them and they ate 5-7 times with me. They made me write up all my recipes for them including my chocolate dessert. They found the meals to be delicious and never felt better. This weekend I made meals for my renter (he is helping to paint his house) and he was blown away with the quality and quantity of the foods that comprised the 2000k diet for the day. This is what I mean when I say my diet is easy to stick to. If great food is at your fingertips in 200-300cal per portion 6-7 times a day, it is hard to be too hungry at any given time.
But that "easy" still comes with a great deal of work.
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The BIGGER I get the smaller you look
Anne, can you give me your curry sauce recipe? I have been using non-fat yogurt to make mine or blended cottage cheese but cannot get a sauce that is really yummy.
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The BIGGER I get the smaller you look
LOL.. so start complaining a bit more and we'll have more empathy. That's how it works. You really DO work hard for it. And for this, you deserve merit!
I'm apparently not being very time-efficient myself as I pre-plan only 1 night before and often adjust the same day. The perks of working from a home-office (we have an internet webstore). It even freaks me out to think about preparing meals again for several days in advance as this was how I got that nasty infection. But.. just now I'm done with parceling 2 kg of minced meet (beef) and 1 kg of shoarma (pork) . The latter in smaller 100g portions as this has to be supplemented with leaner protein like chicken or whitefish (tuna can work pretty decently here too) to get to the required higher amounts.
But I really wonder whether meals taste that good when prepared longer in advance. Only holds true for some meals.
Anne, can you give me your curry sauce recipe? I have been using non-fat yogurt to make mine or blended cottage cheese but cannot get a sauce that is really yummy.
I'll look it out for you, but it's not a cream-based sauce, but a tomato-based one. I've never been one much for dairy products, so I adjust accordingly. Funny, but when out for dinner a couple of weeks ago I ordered a curry (without thinking). Although it was good, and well prepared, it did not sit well because of whatever milk/cream product was used.
Sauces frozen usually require a light touch of seasoning to freshen them up. I still prefer freezing sauces/meats separately, however, I'll likely make a large amount of gumbo and stew for the fall. I'm willing to live with it for some things. Although I might eat the same meal three or four times during the week my mother would revolt.
I find it hard to do the cooking ahead in the summer time. We like to grill a lot, so that's something you can't really cook before hand. Also, there's so much fresh goodness happening with the fruits and vegetables, that I hate to cook them to mush (like in a chili or something). I guess I like to fly by the seat of my pants in the summer since with the heat I tend to eat less, anyhow. Plus with the warm weather, I really don't want to be inside or be cooking. I guess it evens out, tho, since I eat so many more things raw in the summer, but I have to prep all the fruits (like cut up watermelon and such), so it's not like I'm cooking, but the time in the kitchen is still there.
I do need to get a hold of some more healthy soups/stew type meals for the winter. I love making big meals like that, but I'm out of tricks. Where do you dig up your recipes?
Jes - I agree with you. In the summer it's more likely going to be something grilled or something simple. The fall though calls for warm, more complicated fare. I'm a train wreck when it comes to recipes. I'll start with one (or sometimes three) recipes that I like the basic ideas of and play with them as I go. I'll keep a list of what I put in and if I feel that it works I keep the recipe as is (typing it up, sometimes making notes on what I would change next time).
Karla - I looked back at the original recipe (called Captain's Curry) and it's based on curries made in the American south (Charleston is mentioned). I only mention that because it doesn't have cumin in it, something I tend to associate with curries. The original recipe had 1 cup of coconut milk added in at the end. It's something I wouldn't add, and I see it's quite high in calories as well, but thought I'd mention it. I really just added the tomatoes and changed a bit of the spicing. Oh, and it was a crockpot recipe as well.
Captain's Curry
1 Tb oil
2 onions, finely chopped (8oz used)
2 cloves garlic, minced
2 Tb curry powder (I use a med heat one we have) adding a touch of hot when reheating
1 tsp chili powder
1/2 tsp ground allspice
1/2 tsp grated nutmeg
1 cinnamon stick piece (3" long)
1 bay leaf
20oz chicken stock
28oz can diced tomatoes
2 apples, peeled and diced (10oz granny smith used)
Heat oil in nonstick skillet over medium high heat. Add onions and cook, stirring until softened and lightly browned. Add spices and continue to cook for 1 minute. Sprinkle with flour and cook, stirring for 1 min. Add chicken stock, tomatoes, bring to a boil and cook, stirring until consistency desired. Discard cinnamon stick and bay leaf. Stir in apples, remove from heat.
Okay - lots of notes.
I'm not sure I used the flour the last time. It's a crockpot recipe and you tend to thicken them as the liquid from the meat will thin it down. Since I was making it for the freezer I likely just boiled it down (although I did add the flour into the FitDay calculations so I'm not sure now).
Unless you cook it a long time over a slow heat you'll get tomato chunks in the sauce. I used an immersion blender and smoothed it out a bit, but not completely smooth. I cooked it on a high heat, adding water when it got dry, and cooked it a bit more so I still had a slightly chunky sauce.
I used granny smith apples since I was going to freeze it (they don't disappear like other apples, yet are tart, which I like). If serving it fresh you might be better off with something that breaks down a little, and you might need to cook it for a minute or two.
When I'm making the dish I put chicken thighs into a dish, drop the sauce on top and bake it in the oven until ready. Then I'll pour the whole thing over the vegetable of the day (ie. whatever is handy).
The original recipe called for the 1 cup coconut milk, no tomatoes, celery (not sure why I didn't use it, likely didn't have it). Serving suggestions were toasted sliced almonds, white rice, and mango chutney.
It makes enough for 5 x double servings. It might not go 10 single servings, not sure. The calories for the sauce is: 718 cals, 21g fat, 131g carbs, 25g fiber, 17g protein
The tomatoes I use are 159 of that total. The other ingredients are generic enough that it shouldn't matter.
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I have a quite good vegetarian cookbook where she has lots of curry recipes. I haven't used it in a few years but if I use some of them in the fall I'll let you know. They will be more authentic.
Jess: I just make the stuff up actually. This came from the idea that I did not want to give up my favorite foods so I designed ways to make them possible for me to eat. Pizza is my favorite all time food and my trainer told me I was not to have it when I started out with him. I was sad. Then it came to me that I could use a whole wheat crust of some sort, lean turkey burger, chicken sausage and vegetables and 28 g of cheese and I could have pizza. I started out making my own crust but turned later to whole wheat pita bread for ease of use and portion control. I now have pizza nearly every day. I love fijitas as well. So I pondered how to make this and over time have created a fantastic recipe using fage yogurt for sour cream and either baked and salted pita bread as chips or a low carb tortilla shell. Spaghetti? All the time. My waldorf salad recipe calls for maynaise. I use non fat plain yogurt instead. I feed this to everyone and nobody notices the difference or complains.
I have an idea... Let's have some fun. Go ahead and tell me what food you really, really love and let's make up a healthy recipe for it. Anne and I will have a competition to see who can make the best tasting recipe with the very best macros. (meaning the most nutrients per calorie)
Thanks for that Anne. That gives me some ideas RE my attempts. I am going to make it my goal the next month to come up with a really good dairy based curry sauce that is not too high in cals. I'll share it when I find it.
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