SHARP DRESSED MAN

I typically don't wear a long-sleeved shirt and tie during an urban hike. Yesterday I walked to synagogue for Rosh Hashanah services. The walk to the synagogue was 6 miles. I also walked back home along the lakeront and extended the return trip so that that trip became 10 miles. Jewish law forbids a person from driving (or doing any work on this Holiday) but I must confess that I am not that type of Jew. I know that God will not be impressed with my abstention from driving to synagogue as he knows very well that I walked because it fits in with my current lifestyle. Nevertheless, there were not too many people in Chicago yesterday that were walking with long-sleeved shirts and neckties while the mercury was soaring into the 90's. For a guy who managed to walk 16 miles yesterday, I was very definitely a sharp dressed man.

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Your Food Diary For:

Thursday, September 21, 2017

BREAKFAST	Calories kcal	Carbs g	Fat g	Protein g	Sodium mg	Sugar g
Eggs - Poached, 4	300	2	20	26	600	2
Bacon, 4 slices	160	0	12	12	700	0
Goya - Agua De Coco	90	23	1	0	102	17
	550	25	33	38	1,402	19
L U N C H
Lean muscle - Protein Bar, 1 bar	370	33	12	32	460	3
	370	33	12	32	460	3
D I N N E R
Panera Bagel With Cream Cheese, 2 bagel	800	116	24	26	1,560	8
Lox - Smoked Salmon	350	0	13	65	3,950	0
Challah	240	45	6	0	0	0
	1,390	161	43	91	5,510	8
Totals	2,310	219	88	161	7,372	30
Your Daily Goal	4,121	515	137	207	2,300	154
Remaining	1,811	296	49	46	-5,072	124
	Calories kcal	Carbs g	Fat g	Protein g	Sodium mg	Sugar g
	*You've earned 2,191 extra calories from exercise today

If every day were like today...   You'd weigh 222.4 lbs in 5 weeks

WHAT CHANGED?

Many times over the past two years (in fact, tomorrow will be the two year anniversary of this blog) I have reminded what few readers this blog has, that that real reason that I do this every day is because I personally enjoy going back and reading some of these daily entries as time passes. I admit that I try to make this blog somewhat interesting for the few people who have the spare two minutes each day to see what I am pontificating about. For many months, the average number of visitors each day has been somewhere near fifty. Beginning on December 7th, for a reason that completely eludes me, the daily visitors to this blog has 'skyrocketed' to nearly 300. I have no idea why. I always thought that I might be 'discovered' if not for my successful weight loss, then at least for my 'razor sharp' and/or  my twisted political viewpoints. However, before I get too jazzed about my increased readership, here are the stats from 'drudgereport.com' which is a website that I visit numerous times each day. For comparison, my blog has accumulated just over 50,000 hits in two years. 

VISITS DRUDGEREPORT.COM 12/25/2016

020,179,375 PAST 24 HOURS
853,034,180 PAST 31 DAYS
10,675,624,505 PAST YEAR.

It's time for me to do my 'Rain Man' thing.  If the Drudge Report had 20,179,375 visits in the past 24 hours, then it was visited approximately 840,807 times per hour, which translates to 14,013 visits per minute.  In the last four minutes, the Drudge Report has had more visitors to its website than my blog has had in the past 2 years. But we should compare apples to apples, right?  How many minutes has my blog been active?  Two years, is 730 days, which is 17, 520 hours, which further is translated to 1,051,200 minutes.

Now I have a good comparison... My blog needed to be active for over ONE MILLION MINUTES for it to be visited as many times as the DRUDGE REPORT is visited in just 4 minutes.  OK, on second thought, perhaps I should have not reported that my visits to the blog 'skyrocketed' beginning on December 7th. But they did increase. What changed? I do not know. 

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Your Food Diary For:

Saturday, December 24, 2016

BREAKFAST	Calories kcal	Carbs g	Fat g	Protein g	Sodium mg	Sugar g
Quaker - Instant Oatmeal- Maple	800	160	10	20	1,300	60
Kirkland - Pre-Cooked Bacon	240	0	18	18	1,050	0
	1,040	160	28	38	2,350	60
L U N C H
Peanut Butter and Jelly Sandwich, 2	760	60	34	18	310	34
	760	60	34	18	310	34
D I N N E R
Home Made - Potato Latkes	852	186	28	34	4,524	15
Black Angus Sirloin Steak	360	0	24	33	0	0
	1,212	186	52	67	4,524	15
S N A C K S
Klondike Vanilla Ice Cream Bar	500	70	34	6	170	56
	500	70	34	6	170	56
Totals	3,512	476	148	129	7,354	165
Your Daily Goal	3,495	437	116	175	2,300	131
Remaining	-17	-39	-32	46	-5,054	-34
	Calories kcal	Carbs g	Fat g	Protein g	Sodium mg	Sugar g
	*You've earned 1,565 extra calories from exercise today

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       Your Exercise Diary for:

Saturday, December 24, 2016

Cardiovascular	Minutes	Calories Burned
ELEVEN MILE URBAN HIKE	166	1,879
Daily Total / Goal	166 / 30	1,879 / 590
Weekly Total / Goal	929 / 210	9,885 / 4,130

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During my eleven mile urban hike yesterday, I tried my new headlamp. I know that it looks a bit goofy. I also know that there have been a few times in recent weeks when this would have come in very handy when my hiking extended into darkness, especially where there was very little light to mark the way forward. These days, I always carry a flashlight with me. I also think that this headlamp will be permanently stowed in my backpack for the times that it is necessary. 

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from wikipedia...

Rain Man is a 1988 American road comedy-drama film directed by Barry Levinson and written by Barry Morrow and Ronald Bass. It tells the story of an abrasive and selfish young wheeler-dealer, Charlie Babbitt (Tom Cruise), who discovers that his estranged father has died and bequeathed all of his multimillion-dollar estate to his other son, Raymond (Dustin Hoffman), an autistic savant, of whose existence Charlie was unaware. 

Charlie learns more about Raymond, including that he is a mental calculator with the ability to instantly count hundreds of objects at once, far beyond the normal range of human subitizing abilities. 

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subitize

[soo-bi-tahyz]

• Word Origin

verb (used without object), subitized,subitizing. Psychology.

1.

to perceive at a glance the number of items presented, the limit for humans being about seven.

I personally, do not have any subitizing abilities, nor do I have a mental calculator. The reason that I identify with the character of Rain Man is that sometimes I just need to carry out mathematical problems to somewhat absurd exactitude.

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MARC, MARATHON MAN

First, I will never run a marathon. I do not aspire to run a marathon. I will not jog a marathon. I do not aspire to do that either. But walk....that is a different story. Two months ago, I joined the Chicago Marathon (from the sidewalks) and mirrored their route and completed the 26.2 miles. For the past few weeks I have many times taken a 'power walk' of ten miles or more.  Yesterday, I had a doctors appointment in Skokie. Skokie is not exactly next door. The doctors office is 13 miles from home. I had energy, I had time and I had the wild idea to walk there. And then walk back. And that is precisely what I did. This was the map of the path(s) offered by google.

It is obvious that google has determined that a human being should be able to walk 3mph which is how it is determined that a 13 mile walk should take 4 hours and 20 minutes.  'Athlete' that I am, I was able to make this trek (turned out to be 13.5 miles) in 3:21:25.
4.1mph

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The route that I took home was a bit longer. I was a bit tired(er) and yet my speed was remarkably almost the same as the speed to my destination. On the way home, the trip was 14.75 miles. The  return trip took 3:40:18.

4.02mph

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One would think that after walking 13.5 miles to Skokie + 14.75 miles back from Skokie (28.25 miles total) that one would be through for the day.  One would be wrong.  I decided that I 'needed' to 'break' 30 miles for the day.  A short walk to downtown Chicago and through downtown and back home at a more leisurely pace with my family added an additional 4.5 miles. When the day ended I had logged 32.75 miles.  I don't know about you...but I was impressed with myself. 32.75 miles? An actual marathon is 'only' 26.2 miles.,

One thing that never happens when one walks on a treadmill or works out on an elliptical machine is that new cool things are never 'discovered'.  This is a picture of a subway entrance in Chicago which has been reworked to tout a new Greek exhibit at the Field Museum.  My daughter is in the photo just to give some sense of scale.

TROJAN HORSE SUBWAY ENTRANCE to promote Greek Exhibit at the Field Museum

Your Food Diary For:

Tuesday, December 22, 2015

BREAKFAST	Calories	Carbs	Fat	Protein	Sodium	Sugar
Quaker - Instant Oatmeal - Original, 4 packet (28 g)	400	76	8	16	300	0
Red Delicious - Apple, Small, 1 apple (2 1/2 " diameter)	56	15	0	0	1	11
	456	91	8	16	301	11
L U N C H
Starbucks - Reduced Fat Turkey Bacon, 2 Sandwich	460	56	12	26	1,120	6
That's It - Apple & Blueberry Fruit Bar, 1 serving	100	26	0	1	25	19
	560	82	12	27	1,145	25
D I N N E R
Whole Foods - Tuna Avocado Roll, 1 container	420	70	1	18	680	0
WHOLE FOODS - NATURAL WASABI GREEN PEAS, 3/5 cup (30 grams)	216	34	5	7	432	4
WHOLE FOODS 8497 - CHERRY VANILLA GRANOLA, 68.75 g (3/4 cup)	300	50	9	6	75	19
Chick Fil A From Website - Diet Lemonade, 30.6 oz medium	40	12	0	0	20	4
Calbee - Baked Shrimp Chips, 1 oz (28g/About 22 pieces)	130	19	6	2	230	1
	1,106	185	21	33	1,437	27
S N A C K S
WHOLE FOODS - YOGURT PRETZELS, 80 g (approx 8 pcs)	380	56	0	4	360	38
whole foods milk chocolate - milk chocolate marshmallows, 9 pieces	330	63	8	0	30	57
	710	119	8	4	390	95
Totals	2,832	477	48	81	3,273	158
Your Daily Goal	8,341	1,042	278	418	2,300	312
Remaining	5,509	565	229	337	-972	153
	Calories	Carbs	Fat	Protein	Sodium	Sugar
	*You've earned 6,411 extra calories from exercise today

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       Your Exercise Diary for:

Tuesday, December 22, 2015

Cardiovascular	Minutes	Calories Burned
Walking, 4.0 mph, very brisk pace	202	2,324
Walking, 4.0 mph, very brisk pace	221	2,537
Walking, 4.5 mph, very, very brisk pace	26	328
Walking, 3.0 mph, mod. pace, walking dog	25	193
Walking, 2.5 mph, leisurely pace	33	227
MFP iOS calorie adjustment	N/A	802
Daily Total / Goal	508 / 30	6,411 / 590
Weekly Total / Goal	673 / 210	8,861 / 4,130

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total calories consumed 2832 calories

total calories burned (32.75 miles) 5609 calories

total net calories 2777 calorie defecit

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fitbit day 111

60006 steps

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Red Alert!  Tomorrow I post my before and after pictures... I know that I am looking forward to this.

CAMERA SHY NO MORE

At 233 lbs I am getting close to entering the fourth quarter of my journey from 309 lb fat man to 195 lb thin man.  When I look in the mirror now, I see a reflection that I actually like.  Eight years ago, when I dropped from 300 lbs to 220 lbs (before I stupidly gained every pound back and tacked on nine more for 'good luck.') I appeared really thin at my lowest weight of 220 lbs.   For the past many years I couldn't stand looking at photos of myself from that period as I looked so good.  I also couldn't stand looking at more recent photos of myself as I looked so bad. It is no wonder that I was camera-shy.

At 309 lbs, I was not too interested in getting in front of  any cameras.
Anytime my photo was taken, the results were very painful to look at.

I am camera-shy no more.  I am proud of my accomplishment.  The day that I get down to 219 will be the first time that I have been there since the mid 1980's. That was 30 years ago!  Around that time, approximately 1985, I was actually down to 199 lbs (for about five minutes)   This time, my goal is to get to 195 lbs and stay there.  Even after losing 75 lbs since December 24, 2014 - I still have nearly 40 lbs to go. I am on my way - nothing will stop me.

On Saturday when I weighed myself, I admit I was disappointed that my weight loss was only 2 lbs for the week. It makes me nervous when I have eaten so little and only two pounds were shed.  I know that there are other factors at work. I think that each week my body is desperately trying to hold onto its fat cells as much as possible as the caloric intake is still so low.  However, when I review the chart of my progress over the last three months - I must also admit that my results have been in practically a straight line downward.  I have only weighed myself once per week over these past three months.  So, I never had the unfortunate situation where I have seen my weight bounce up a pound or two from one day to the other.  I know that this can happen - but I have negated it from happening by weighing myself only once every seven days.  I take much joy in reviewing this ski slope chart of my success.
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MONDAY MENU
breakfast  two poached eggs, two slices turkey 'bacon'  cup oatmeal w/prune           355 calories
lunch        spinach salad with can albacore tuna & roma tomato                                 150 calories
dinner      Yellowfin Tuna burger, bowl CABBAGE SOUP, spinach tomato zucchini 318 calories

total calories consumed 823 CALORIES

CALORIES BURNED
5AM elliptical 32 minutes   475 calories

MONDAY NET CALORIES    348 CALORIES