Day 2 - An early blog due to circumstances

A lot has happened today so I thought I better post up my day 2 a bit early. I hope no one minds. Sadly I found out my 5 year old daughter needs more surgery and my Gramma passed away. I have to leave for Toronto to pick up my Mom. Its just a sad sad day.

Today went great as far as my nutrition goes. I decided to try out cream of wheat...problem was, I did not know how to cook it. I gave it a good shot and outside of the earthy taste of it, it turned out not too bad. Here is the recipe I used:

1/4 cup cream of wheat
1/4 cup water
3/4 cup skim milk
1 scoop Vanilla flavored whey protein

Put all ingredients into a saucepan. Heat until it just starts to boil. You really really have to stir constantly. This stuff is like glue. I am confident that I sealed many small holes throughout my body just by eating it.

I have been trying to respect a pseudo meal plan, but getting into the habit of structured meals is proving to be a minor challenge. With all that's going on around me, I will need to work on preparing my meals ahead of time so that I will always be ready to chow down.

I am going to skip talking about the gym because it just cant happen for the next few days. What I would like to focus on right now is the food and how I feel about how I am eating now.

As of right now, I am starting to dig the food. I am not quite used to skipping the urge to put butter and mayo on everything I put into my mouth, but that's OK. So far i have not felt the desire to break with what I am eating. I do however realize I have the ability to be more creative with what I eat. So the big task for day 3 to about day 7 should be finding recipes that I am happy with and that I can look forward to. I need to put my mind into a good place. I need to make this alot less of a diet and a lot more about changing what i like to eat.

OK. I don't have time to reread this posting. I will try to spend a bit of time figuring out a solid structure for the blog. I would love to have a few sections, maybe Nutrition, Fitness, a recipe to try, Personal feelings, and possibly a link of the day...I dunno. If anyone has a mind for such things, just leave me a comment.

This may not be religious, but its how I am feeling right now. I love you Gramma!

Day 1 - I'm ready to go. So lets go!

Before I start documenting all of my trials and tribulations, I want to make a very big call out to my friend from work, Lance. I want to say that part of my inspiration to do this came from Lance and his willingness to go to the gym with me. We see each other pretty much every day, so we can be a sort of coaching buddies. Thanks Lance.

Today is the big day! I have reviewed many sites over the last week, struggling to find the vital information that will allow me to make this journey without hurting myself. I would like to share one of my favorites with you. This chaps name is Scooby and he is all about getting the information out to everyone. His site is free and very informative. If you have a moment, cruise over to his site and check it out.

Last night I sat up until all hours of the night trying to generate a list of what I could eat based on what i had in my cupboards. I needed to generate some sort of a meal plan, but I have zero experience doing this sort of thing. I went back to some familiar places to gather the resources I felt I needed to get this done. If you are wanting to try this yourself, I will list several sites that may assist you in finding how to manage you meals, exercise, dietary requirements and such.

Here are the main sites that i used:

1. Scoobys Home Body building Workouts - To learn how to do it at home and on a budget.
2. Canada Food Guide Website or the (PDF Guide) - To be 100% sure I was making balanced meals.
3. CookingNook.com - This site has an amazing weight loss calculator.
4. CalorieKing.com - To find out what characteristics different raw foods had.
5. SparkRecipes - To find some great meal ideas. This link is actually a search on their site for Low Calorie, High protein meal ideas.

Before you go off and blindly build up a plan of your own, it is important to note that I am not a doctor or dietitian. You need to read anything and everything that you can before you dive into what may or may not be a safe program. These sites are simply a handful that i used myself.

On with Day One

Today I quit!
I will not be sedentary.
I will not smoke.
I will not drink alcohol.
I will not eat things that my body does not need.
(I may play a bit of warcraft. :P)

As mentioned earlier, I generated a list of what I had that I could eat. I was shocked to find that even with an extensive list of items, if I were to eat everything on my list, I would still come up short on calories. Here is the list, to give you an idea of what i mean.

Brown Rice	0.5	216	108	cup
Can Tuna (water packed)	0.5	131	65.5	can
Sweet Potato	0.5	206	103	medium
Cream of Wheat or Oatmeal	1	140	140	cup
Milk (0 fat skimmed)	2	91	182	cup
Pita or 2 Slices Bread (whole grain)	1	170	170
Yogurt (fat free / sugar free)	1	63	63	container
Orange	1	62	62	medium
Apple	1	72	72	medium
Pork , Steak or Chicken (average calories)	1	200	200	piece
Corn	1	132	132	cup
Mixed Veggies	1	150	150	cup
Carrot	1	25	25	medium
Balsamic Vinegar (Thanks to Scooby)	1	19	19	oz
Salsa	1	70	70	cup
Whey Protein	3	104	312
Banana	1	105	105	medium
Orange/apple juice	1	40	40	cup

As you can see, this is a pretty huge list for one day. At least its big compared to what I normally eat. I wanted to hit near 2200 calories per day for now. I will need to pick the numbers up when I start exercising. (I just got my gym membership). On this list I had to add Whey Protein powder in order to bring up my calories as well I would need the proteins for when I started to exercise.
The meal change was much different than I had expected. What surprised me the most is that starting the day off with oatmeal, milk and a fruit, my tummy was rumbling well before lunch. After lunch was the worst, I felt like I had swallowed a brick. I am sure this was due to the fact that I never eat breakfast and it was my first day using protein supplements. Needless to say, at the end of the day I very much enjoyed a vanilla bananna smoothie. (Yummy...real flavor after a day of blah)

I was able to take my Day 1 photo which I will post below. I am not proud of this picture, but I am proud that I was able to take it and that I was able to find the courage to post it. I am starting to take things one day at a time.

Important Note about the Author

Name: Kirk Wilson
D.O.B: July 16, 1971
Gender: Male

I decided to document my progress towards losing weight and getting fit. I know there are 10000 other such sites and blogs (As I have read many myself). For me this blog will represent my willingness to accept who I am and what type of a shell i want to live in. I would hope that over time, I might even gain some support from the blogging community in order to keep my confidence rolling.

Over the last year or so, I have let myself slide into a horrible state. So here I will sum it all up:

1. Drinking about 26oz of liquor a day.
2. Smoking a pack of cigarettes a day.
3. Eating about 1000 calories of actual food
4. Play Warcraft through my non working hours.
5. Driving to the store that's right across the street.
6. Sex life in the toilet due to all of the above.

Having said all of the above, I must also admit that I can't write worth beans, so if you are grammatically inclined, you may not enjoy my writings.

On With The Show!