“Look closely at the present you are constructing; it should look like the future you are dreaming.” — Alice Walker, Kenya
About the author
Hail and well met! This is where my thoughts and consciousness take electronic form. Here you will find my rantings and opinions on all things from politics to religion, from food to art and video games.
Thai Chile Chicken Salad
Made an awesome dish tonight! Pretty proud of it if I do say so. If you know me well, you know that I LOVE to stir-fry. Problem being, I’ve been making changes in my diet lately, one of which is cutting down and/or eliminating starchy carbs as much as possible — which means rice.
So, I’ve been trying to think of ways that I can include stir-fry type of dishes, without the rice. Here’s what I came up with; the recipe follows.
Check the recipe out after the break and let me know what you think. Bon appétit!
Dissecting my diet
My trainer mentioned that he’d like to see some daily caloric intake numbers for me, so I began jotting stuff down this morning. Here is what I’ve gathered thus far.
Target weight of 250 lbs.
3x week workout (at least)
250 x 12 = 3000 calorie/day (Alan Aragon, M.S. formula - base multiplier of 10 for 1 day/week and add 1 for each additional day)
250g protein (1000 calories) / 125 g fat (1125 calories) / 218.75g carbohydrates (875 calories)
Between 2300 mg and 1500 mg per day in sodium intake (lower is better)
Modified Upper Body / Core workout
In retrospect, I feel like perhaps I didn’t work hard enough tonight. Even with the knee hurting. I’ll be so glad when I can put that behind me and get after this more. It’s frustrating to hurt myself at the very beginning and have it hampered like this. I’m not exactly known for my patience, after all.
Spaghetti squash gutted and seeds reserved. Never realized how much a squash gives you. (Taken with instagram)
Road Rage
To the idiot honking at me in the QT parking lot this morning:
- I hope you have a nice day.
- My full-size truck does not turn as tightly or as nimbly as your small sedan, so I can’t pull out in front of traffic with the same disregard for everyone that you clearly do.
- Consider yourself fortunate that I have grown benevolent in my mid-age. In past years, your of show of bravado and aggression via honking and middle-finger wagging would have either spurned me to…
- follow you to your destination and perhaps witnessing something horrible happening to your vehicle, or
- pulling you out of your window outright and slamming you back through the hood of your piece of shit car.
I get so tired and frustrated by people like this.
Harder and harder
Fresh, crisp Oregon air again at last! Becoming more and more difficult to want to return to Arizona with each visit.
Investing in self
Once upon a time, I was pretty into fitness. From a very young age, I have very fond memories of getting to visit my older brothers (which my sister and I hardly ever saw for various reasons, but adored every chance we got to) and going through their old issues of the predecessors of “Muscle & Fitness” magazine. I marveled at these gods of strength and fitness. Arnold, Ferrigno, Robbie Robinson, Tom Platz, Sergio Oliva and others. This was in between checking out their Boston albums, my brother Don’s Jeep and my brother Bill’s always awesome audio equipment, of course.
During the last two years of high school, I got involved in a weight lifting class and during my senior year, we saw the introduction of a magnet program for sports medicine. This really sparked an interest in me. I started reading all I could, even had a few classmates on exercise programs that I wrote for them.
The best shape I was probably ever in was after high school, I had started going to this hole-in-the-wall gym near our house. Doc’s Gym. Old-school type of place, I don’t even think they had any cardio equipment other than one of those original stationary bikes with the big fly-wheel on the front of it that you had to manually tighten for tension. I was on a regular routine, knew all my movements, tracked my progress and even had my diet in a pretty good place.
Ultimately, life got a little crazy for me in my late teens / early 20’s. Aside from a few periods in my life where I rejoined a gym for a brief time, played a lot of racquetball or did martial arts, my ability to put any amount of focus into my fitness gave way.
For the last several years, I have been feeling OLD! Creaky joints, fading strength, noticeably atrophied muscles (to me) from my younger days, back pain, inability to even walk a reasonable distance without the muscles in my lower back feeling like they are locking up.
There have also been events in the lives of some loved ones that are very dear to me. Everything from losing digits (and possibly limbs), the emergence of type-2 diabetes for some family members, to nearly losing one of the best friends that I’ve ever had.
Enough.
Over the last three weeks, I have been making an investment in myself. After doing some research and considering some advice from friends, I joined Lifetime Fitness in Tempe. I cannot speak highly enough about this place and the experience that I’ve had there thus far. And there is an amazing assortment of people that are members there. All ages, shapes and sizes.
In addition, I’ve agreed to twice a week personal training, for a period of three months. I had my first session last night; I feel like I did pretty well for my first go. My trainer says that he was impressed and that I’m clearly not afraid of hard work, but then again, he could just be working his motivational mojo on me. Either way, I’ll take it. I am rather exhausted today, but feel invigorated (for lack of a better term) and am looking forward to continuing forward and the progress that I know I can achieve.
For my friends and family that read this, I implore you to not let your health slip away from you. It’s never too late to start turning things around. Educate yourself + fix your diet + exercise = making a life change, for you and your family.
