REVISITING THE HOMER SIMPSON CALORIE CONUNDRUM

Saturday was the 41st consecutive day that I have kept my calorie consumption within the neighborhood of 1000. This 'program' has been successful. I have lost more than 30 pounds in those 41 days.... Today I look back at my own blog post from February 7, 2015 when I had first started to lose weight from a starting point of 309 lbs.

Wednesday, January 7, 2015

HOMER SIMPSON CALORIE CONUNDRUM 

There are some people who might feel that I am eating too little.   I am in Day 15 of my new program.   My program does not have a sexy name like Paleo, Slim Fast, Biggest Loser, Atkins, South-Beach, Mediterranean, Weight-Watchers, Jenny Craig or scores of other plans.  Each one has its own book (or books) and each has its legions of followers.  My diet plan is EAT LESS.  For fourteen consecutive days I have consumed less than 1000 calories per day.   Some days I have been under 800 calories.   The small amount of literature that I have seen indicates that this might be too low.  Would it have been really helpful if I had a hot dog roll with my hot dog (+100 Calories)? Would it have been helpful if I had had ranch dressing on any of my salads (+300 Calories)? Would it have been helpful if I had had my baguette with my Turkey Chili (+100 Calories)? Would it have been helpful if I had had only one piece of cake as some kind of misguided reward (+400 Calories)? 

I am convinced that my body is sending signals to me thanking me for finally giving it the fuel to operate properly.   In the past, I might have consumed 3000, 4000 or even 5000 calories per day. What nutritional benefit did the Ho Ho's, Oreos, Dunkin' Doughnuts, Klondike Bars, or M&M's provide?  Homer Simpson eats a lot of calories, but how much of what he eats is actual food?

I never ate as badly as Homer.  In my defense, it is hard to compete with a cartoon character.

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Saturday in Chicago....
The day started with a great weight 252.1 lbs (down 6.3 lbs for the seven day week!)
The day included a two hour study session with my daughter in her first days of Pre-Calculus
The day also included an 11 mile urban hike...
and for the 41st consecutive day, my calorie consumption was in the neighborhood of 1000.

LONG BEACH

In the spirit of Homer Simpson, it has been my 'lifelong dream' for the past two years to walk to Long Beach from my Mom's house in Lynbrook where I grew up. My Mom still lives in the house that I grew up in and I got it into my head that it would be a interesting to walk to the beach sometime during a visit. During my last visit to Lynbrook, a family crisis interfered with my plans.  When my Mom shattered her ankle in three places during my last visit, my enthusiasm for taking such a walk and the opportunity to do so disappeared. Fast forward, fourteen months, and my Mom is back on her feet and while the ankle is not 100%, it still qualifies as a wonderful miracle that she can walk again, and while my Mom humorously says the ankle is not painful, but gives her discomfort. Me? I consider pain and discomfort to be synonyms - but I digress.

I woke up early on Wednesday morning in the same bed that I used to wake up in when I was going to high school nearly, but not quite 50 years ago.  I made myself two bowls of instant oatmeal and set out for my suburban hike. I bundled up quite well, and checked the temperature. The temperature when I set out was 20°F. I was able to easily convince myself that it was not so cold, because back at my home in Chicago at the very same moment, it was -1°F.

The trek to the beach, the the Atlantic Ocean was just 6.5 miles and it took just over an hour and a half. Had I just turned around and returned the way I came, I would have taken a 13 mile trek. I did not do that. I continued west along the boardwalk which was recently re-built after 'Super Storm Sandy' five years ago to the very end, and then I continued on the main road to the Atlantic Beach Bridge. I don't think that I crossed this bridge even a dozen times in my entire life growing up. In fact, I wasn't sure that I could cross it as a pedestrian until I googled it during my hike and confirmed that it did have a pedestrian sidewalk. Using my MapMyWalk App, I saw that the way back to Lynbrook was very uncomplicated. I made a right turn shortly after crossing this bridge and walked a few miles on Broadway right back to my neighborhood. I made a short detour to walk past the elementary school that I started attending as a kindergartner likely in 1962.

My hike was 17 miles. I came home, had some lunch with my Mom and then I had to go back outside to do my chores. My Mom had asked me to clear some leaves in her front yard and yesterday seemed like a good day to do that.

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Your Food Diary For:

Wednesday, December 27, 2017

BREAKFAST	Calories kcal	Carbs g	Fat g	Protein g	Sodium mg	Sugar g
Trader Joe's - Maple and Brown Instant Oatmeal	320	64	4	8	480	26
	320	64	4	8	480	26
L U N C H
Oven Broiled Chicken	200	0	13	20	146	0
	200	0	13	20	146	0
D I N N E R
Garden Salad	100	6	0	4	400	4
Chicken Parmesan and Spaghetti	600	99	21	79	858	0
French Baguette	300	60	2	10	740	2
Rataouille	200	44	3	8	216	44
	1,200	209	26	101	2,214	50
S N A C K S
Cookies, Brownie	300	47	12	4	231	27
	300	47	12	4	231	27
Totals	2,020	320	55	133	3,071	103
Your Daily Goal	4,560	570	152	229	2,300	171
Remaining	2,540	250	97	96	-771	68
	Calories kcal	Carbs g	Fat g	Protein g	Sodium mg	Sugar g
	*You've earned 2,630 extra calories from exercise today

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This was just the beginning of my hike, when I arrived at the boardwalk for my view of the Atlantic Ocean.

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I am facing east, but the camera is facing west while standing on the Atlantic Beach Bridge.

I am facing west, but the camera is facing east while standing on the Atlantic Beach Bridge.

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YOU CAN'T LOSE WEIGHT BY EXERCISING (OR CAN YOU?)

Before anyone embarks on a weight loss journey - they are often faced with two facts:

They eat too much 

They exercise too little

When I made the decision on December 24, 2014 to end my 'career' as 309 lb blob - I was under the impression that exercise was not going to be an important contributor to my weight loss.

Initially, I had planned on not getting involved with treadmills, ellipticals or stair masters.  I figured I didn't have time.  I definitely didn't have the desire. Nothing about it seemed enjoyable.  And why would anyone do anything for which they believed that they have no time and if they were to do it, they would hate it?

Things change.

Along the way, I learned to enjoy exercise.  I learned to crave it.  I learned to enjoy watching my endurance skyrocket.  (It is easy to skyrocket up when one starts at zero)  I learned to experience 'runners high.'    I do truly love starting my day with a workout.  A good workout can can set a tone for the day.  All the little things that life throws our way, all the obstacles feel a little less intimidating when one has already hit the gym.

HOMER SIMPSON: 

'When exercising, start at your own, comfortable pace.'

So, what's the deal?  Why is it considered a myth that you can't really lose weight from working out? One reason, is that it takes a lot of 'workout' to equal the equivalent calories found in a slice of cake, or a bowl of ice cream.   Everyone works out at their own pace.   One person can spend 30 minutes on a treadmill and 'burn' 150 calories - another can spend the same 30 minutes on the same treadmill and burn 1000 calories.  This difference is explained by the intensity of the workout.  I have seen for myself that my workouts on the elliptical machine have doubled in 'caloric burning efficiency' in a few short months.

Most people that are starting a weight loss program gingerly step onto a treadmill and spend half an hour and the calories burned might register 150 or 200.  If this is repeated 4 times per week... Or for that matter, every day... It barely registers.  It is possible that an entire weeks worth of exercise can be wiped out with a bagel.

Another reason that it is said that it is difficult to lose weight from exercise is that those who exercise have an increased appetite and/or they eat more as a reward for exercising so much.  Bingo.  That's me.  I have recently been exercising like mad, spending two hours on the elliptical machine many days.  I have found that I am eating a bit more.  I do have an elevated appetite.  And you know what...?  It's OK, I exercise not only to lose weight but to increase my endurance and for my general heart health.  I exercise to build my leg muscles.  I exercise to tone my entire body.  And this IS happening.  You cannot imagine how happy I am with my workout program.

My goal was to workout for 30 minutes per day, 7 days per week.  Recently I have been clocking two hours per day, seven days per week.  I am not sure that this is a a great idea... At some point I will ratchet it down a bit... In the winter, it is difficult to pop out of bed into a cold bedroom or seriously freezing outdoors to get to a car to drive to a gym.  In the summertime this is not an issue.  Nothing prevents me from popping out of bed and getting to the gym.  I know that I am eating more in response to a fairly aggressive workout schedule - so be it.  I am liking all the positive results from the workouts.

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 Sunday MENU

breakfast  apples, cacao goji, wild ginger harvest mix, oatmeal     962 calories
lunch        cod, salad bar, Kahuna Trail Mix,                                  1000 calories
dinner       oven roasted brussel sprouts, apples, vanilla granola     708 calories
SNACK   GRANOLA, ginger chews                                               635 calories

total calories consumed 3305 calories

calories burned

125 minutes YMCA PRECOR EFX ELLIPTICAL 4:3 INTERVAL TRAINING 1639 CALORIES

I keep on improving...Yesterday I logged 10.27 miles which is a new personal record for this particular workout.

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Sunday net calories 1666 calories

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MYSTERIOUS WEIGHS

Mysterious Ways is a song released in 1991 by the rock band, U2 in 1991.  Mysterious Ways was released as a single in November 1991 and was originally released on their album, Achtung Baby.

Mysterious Ways - U2

I have had a few MYSTERIOUS WEIGH(INS) over the past few months.  Some weeks when I expected to drop a lot of weight, I dropped very little.  Other weeks, I had no expectation of showing great progress, and nevertheless, weight had melted off me in that week.  This week I really upped my calorie count.   I have been unsuccessfully fighting the urge to eat a lot as I was experiencing cravings all week.  I know that I have been eating too many apples.  I think I have been eating too many almonds.  I think I might have loaded my salad bar salads a bit too much.  Todays weigh-in will guide me - it will show me if I have over eaten too much or if I am still going according to a schedule.  I would like to continue losing weight.  I am absolutely ready to lose weight much more slowly and much more steadily than I did in the initial four months.  That said, it's time to hop onto the scale and see where I am.

216.1 lbs

I weigh 216.1 lbs.
I lost 6.1 lbs this week.
I lost 92.9 lbs in 136 days. Today begins Day 137.
I averaged .68 lbs lost/day since Dec 24, 2014.
I have lost 14 inches from my waist. 
This week I wore 36" waist Ralph Lauren Jeans for 1st time.
I also can now wear a pair of 36"Banana Republic dress pants.
I will always be at the beginning of a journey that never ends.
I weigh 216.1 lbs. (137 days ago I weighed 309 lbs)
I have lost 30.1% of my weight since Dec 24.
I have lost 2.7% of my weight since last Saturday.
(Last week was the week that my weight mysteriously popped up.)
I have had an amazingly wildly successful week losing 6.1 lbs.
I have a BMI, body mass index of 28.91 (far away from obesity!)
I had a 42.0 BMI on 12.24.14 just 115 days ago (Class III obesity)
I wonder about achieving a 'normal weight' - the charts say 186.8 lbs - I'm not too sure about that...
I know this, regardless of what the BMI charts show - Marc Jacobs is no longer a fat man!
I have two words to describe how I feel right now - very good
...I know how to begin this week... 
32 minutes ELLIPTICAL

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FRIDAY MENU

breakfast  two poached eggs, 2 cups oat meal w/prune, two slices turkey 'bacon'               505 calories
lunch        MARIANO'S HUGE SPINACH SALAD                                                           500 calories
dinner      7 ounces Salon Fillet, asparagus, two cups MISO SOUP
                Spinach Salad w/hearts of palm, tomato, mushrooms, artichoke hearts
                28 almonds                                                                                                            699 calories  

TOTAL CALORIC CONSUMPTION 1704  CALORIES

calories burned
2:30PM elliptical 32 minutes 460 calories

FRIDAY NET CALORIES 1244 CALORIES

It is a challenge to NOT to find a subject spoofed by The Simpsonns

HUGE SPINACH SALAD from MARIANO'S
loaded up with lots of healthy, albeit low calorie foods:
cucumbers, tomato, ham, chicken, imitation crab, celery, artichokes,
 hard boiled egg, mushrooms, onions,  sunflower seeds and one stuffed grape leaf
(somewhere buried below is quite a lot of spinach as well)
I randomly assign 500 calories to such a salad - It surely can't be much more if more at all.
I used only squeezed lemon as my dressing.

 

PENN PAL

I don't know if people still have traditional pen pals these days like some of us had in the 'old days.'  A pen pal was someone who you wrote to, usually from far away, often a far away country and described a little about yourself.  In return your pen pal would periodically write back to you and tell you about his life where he lived.  In the days of instantaneous communication - I would think that pen pals might have become passe' to the younger generation.   Nevertheless, this past week I discovered that I have a pen pal of sorts.

Perhaps not everyone recognizes the name, Penn Jillette.   Many more would recognize the names, Penn & Teller.  From Wikipedia: "Penn Fraser Jillette (born March 5, 1955) is an American magician, juggler, comedian, musician, inventor, actor and best-selling author know for his work with fellow magician Teller in the team, Penn & Teller.  His is also known for his advocacy of atheism, scientific skepticism, libertarianism and free-market capitalism."  Penn Jillette is the tall one in the Penn & Teller team.

Penn & Teller

Apparently right before December 2014 started, Penn Jillette was 6' 7" (I am guessing that he still is) and he weighed 330 lbs.  Even though, Jillette weighed 21 lbs more than I did when I started to turn my life around, I was surely the fatter of the two of us, as I am not quite 6' 1".  Sometime in December, Jillette visited his doctor and was told that if he lost weight, just 30 or 40 lbs, he would be much better able to control his high blood pressure and reduce the dosages of the blood pressure medications he was taking.  Further, his doctor advised him if he lost even more weight, he might not need any blood pressure medications at all.  This apparently inspired Penn Jillette to start dieting by consuming just 1000 calories per day (sound familiar?) and he dropped from 330 lbs to 225 lbs from December to March until he reached his goal weight of 225 lbs.   Penn Jillette's weight loss was nearly 1 lb/day in just over three months time.   In the first 108 days of my journey I have lost .8 lbs per day!   I guess great minds think alike. (although, God knows,  I certainly don't share Penn Jillette's atheisim.)

There is some kind of weird coincidence that sometime after Penn Jillette started his diet, I started my diet on December 24th, after visiting my doctor and embarked on a 1000 calorie per day diet. I started after him, and I have 'only' lost 89 lbs so far and have not reached my goal weight yet. But the similarities in our results and and plan explain why I consider him my Penn Pal.

This account of Penn's weight loss was made public all over the news just last week.  It is somewhat weird to me that our stories are so very similar.   Apparently Penn Jillete has already reached his goal weight, my journey is still chugging along and I am not exactly sure where I will end up... My thinking at this time has me getting down to a weight below 195 lbs - and then I may decide to continue further or not.   Nevertheless, our stories are eerily similar.  (as have been our results)

One thing we have in common, is that neither of us used MAGIC to to quicken our results.  We both had our successes the olde fashioned way - LESS CALORIES CONSUMED=MORE WEIGHT LOST. The formula is simple, just not necessarily easy to implement without a boatload of willpower and desire.

SUNDAY MENU

breakfast  Oat Meal w/prune, two poached eggs, 2 slices turkey 'bacon'               365 calories
lunch        Jimmy John's #14 Bootlegger UNWICH w/extra veggies                     280 calories  
dinner      spinach w/tomato, salmon burger, zucchini pancake, Cabbage Soup    303 calories

TOTAL CALORIES CONSUMED 948 CALORIES

calories burned
7AM elliptical machine 32 minutes 495 Calories

NET CALORIES SUNDAY   453 CALORIES

This is a 2014 photograph was used to promote the Penn & Teller show in Las Vegas

Penn & Teller as they appeared on The Simpsons

Is there anyone or anything that The Simpsons has not spoofed?
I don't think so....

MY STARBUCKS REWARDS

I have decided that Starbucks is going to be a good reliable place to get a quick low calorie, healthy, nutritious breakfast.  This past week, I have stopped at a Starbucks for breakfast on Sunday, Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday. There is some irony that I now go to Starbucks so often and I have no desire whatsoever to order coffee.

I joined the Starbucks Reward Loyalty Program.  It allows me to earn 'stars' for some 'freebies.' I downloaded the Starbucks App on my iphone.   This app allows you to enter your credit card number directly into the app and you can pay for your purchase with your phone.  The first time I tried this was on Monday morning.  I am not sure why I find this so convenient, but I do. The app will download an additional $25.00 each time my balance dips below $10.00. I guess instead of seeing countless $4 charges on my credit card statement, I will see one charge for $25 after a bunch of visits. My credit card statement will be slightly less cluttered.

One of the convenient things about using Starbucks as a reliable source of breakfast 'on the road' is that there are Starbucks stores seemingly everywhere.   The Simpsons made this point when Bart Simpsons visited Springfield Mall in an episode a few years back, as you can see in the photos below.   Bart is walking through the mall and passing Starbucks, Starbucks, Starbucks and Starbucks.... Finally, he comes to a store that is announcing their new tenant coming soon - Starbucks!   This is pretty much how it can seem when one is traversing the country visiting cities all over the midwest.   One usually does not have to travel too far to find a Starbucks.

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LUNCH: SUBWAY DOUBLE CHICKEN SPINACH SALAD
w/TOMATO & ONION  and KEN'S FAT FREE ITALIAN DRESSING   255 CALORIES

After ordering the salad at Subway, I was asked if I wanted some croutons.   I said yes and I was handed

a package weighing 14 grams that included these 16 croutons which added up to 60 CALORIES!

I DECLINED THE OPPORTUNITY TO ADD THEM TO MY LUNCH , INSTEAD THE CROUTONS

POSED FOR A PICTURE.

Here is the 'nutrition' information on the croutons that I did not  add to my salad.

MENU

breakfast   STARBUCKS reduced fat Turkey Bacon Breakfast Sandwich                        230 calories

lunch         SUBWAY  double chicken spinach salad w/tomato & onion Ken's dressing   220 calories  

dinner        APPLEBEE'S 7 oz Sirloin Steak, cup of Tortilla Soup                                    500 calories 

total calories consumed      965 CALORIES

CALORIES BURNED

7:00AM YMCA elliptical machine 24 minutes     332 calories

five minute break

7:30AM YMCA ellpitcal machine 21 minutes      300 calories

total calories burned    632 CALORIES

TOTAL NET CALORIES     333 CALORIES