First of all, I am really sorry for not posting for so long. 

I have been absolutely swamped with the work and logistics of getting my fitness journey back on track.

Rest assured I am set up, ready to go, and will soon be making many many more updates and posts.

I need to get everything linked together, get the sites set up and then I can get everything going. 

In the meantime. 

Check this out. THREEDOM!

Yup, for the first time in a long time I am under 400 pounds!

Expect a lot of changes to this blog in the coming weeks as I revamp and get things going again. 

Thank you all. 

I have an addiction.

 9 years.

It has been almost 9 years since I updated this blog.

But why?

Well to put it simply, I am addicted to food. I tried, god I tried so hard for so long to fight it, to restrict myself, to eat healthier, from one fad to another, from calorie restriction to keto to paleo, you name it, I probably tried it.

Today, the 24th of March 2021, I am 416 pounds. 

That is 60 pounds fatter than I was at my last post on this site. 

I love food. I crave it, food makes me feel good. Dad was gone with his new family, mom was at work, big brother and big sister had their own places and it was just mom and me, but mom had to work, so I had to fend for myself. But what does a 9-year-old kid cook? Well in my case butterfly pork chops and mashed potatoes. 

But for me, it was those mashed potatoes, I would struggle the next 32 years with my love of those starchy white creamy delicious carriers of milk and butter and salt and pepper and sometimes a little bit of garlic. 

Carbs, from mashed potatoes to chips, to fries, to fried chicken to pizza, everything I loved, everything that brought me comfort when I had no one to comfort me was fried or made of some sort of cab. 

But let's back up a step, obviously, I am writing today which means I have plans to get back on board and lose some more weight, but what brought me here?

When I started this site it was my wife, our boyfriend, and me. We are poly and were a throuple as they are called these days. Well, John left in 2013, it was a scene, drama, I wish him well in his endeavors and truly hope he finds the home and the things that he craves. 

Since then we have moved across the country, settled back in the great state of Kentucky, I can see the Cincinnati skyline from my front porch, it is beautiful.

We have gone through hell as a family, come out the other side stronger, gained many friends, and lost my best friend to Covid, the bastard. RIP Paul, you will never be forgotten brother. 

I dealt with Covid myself and still suffer from some of the symptoms and issues from it, I cannot breathe deeply for one, constantly tired, non-stop brain fog that makes even mundane tasks such as putting on pants feel like a monumental task. 

And, I have been stuck at 420 pounds with a margin of error of about 5 pounds in either direction.

I have starved myself, lost 5 pounds, and got so sick I was forced to eat,  I have meal prepped, I have eaten 6 small meals a day, and nothing, absolutely nothing worked. 

Finally, I gave up, I said I was done, I just refused to eat, so my wife started making me eat, once a night, we would go to my office after putting the kids to bed, sit down a d watch a show and she would make me eat enough to keep me going. Eventually, we got into that routine and I noticed I was starting to lose a slight bit, I was also feeling a little better. 

After a bit of digging, I learned about something I already knew about and assumed I could not do, intermittent fasting. Since then I have been eating just one meal a day, mostly meat and veggies, sometimes I go nuts and have 1500 calories worth of chicken strips and french fries, but it does not matter, because at 1500 calories and only eating once a day I have fallen into a routine that is actually working. 

I have been steadily losing about 2 pounds a week and it is noticeable even to those in the same house as me, apparently, my mood has lifted and my hugs are now better due to being able to get their arms all the way around me. 

So that is where we sit, as of today I have a daily routine of waking up and getting my kids ready for school, job search and computer work, make sure the kids are fed, sometimes have a family dinner, but mostly make sure the kids are fed, put them to bed, take the dog out, lock up the house, make me a simple dinner and go to my office and eat a simple meal while watching a funny show then bed. 

It is not rocket science, it is not some new fad, it is simply eating enough food once a day to keep me healthy. Now instead of just shoveling food I take my time to make something that looks nice, that tastes great, that is enjoyable, because each day I only get one meal so I make the most of it and enjoy it the best I can. This has made me very mindful of the way the food looks, the freshness, the presentation, and the flavors. 

So there you have it, one good flavorful healthy meal per day, food prep is dead simple for that, it is filling, itis enjoyable, it is working. But most of all, it is repeatable! I can eat dinner with my family and not feel bad about it, I can go out to eat and not feel bad about it, I can have a snack at mid-day, and not feel bad about it as I will still be well within a calorie restriction. 

The next step is to start daily walks. I plan to just set off with a 30-minute timer, when it goes off, I turn around and come back, one hour a day of walking through my hilly hometown and back should have these pounds simply melting off. 

Click that reminder button to be reminded when I post I plan to do a lot more in the coming weeks, I need to keep myself accountable. 

That is it for today, time to clean this mess up and start taking care of things. 

Friday Update.

Whats that you say? It isn't Friday, How clever are you!

Well today is Wednesday, and I just got off the phone with a good long time friend of mine and realized, I really have lost a lot of weight.

This time last year I was over 400 pounds, at my weigh in at my wife's doctors office I was showing over 420 pounds, the scale stopped there but it SHOT to that number.

I was in pain, legs hurt, hell everything hurt.

Now today I am in the 360 to 370 pound range.
I have lost over 50 pounds, and in those simple 50 pounds I have found so much.
I can now get up and down easier from the floor.
I no longer huff and puff when walking up the stairs, I even have a tendency to jog up the stairs.
There is more room on the bed and couch. I HAVE A LAP!
My pants that I purchased 2 months ago are now too big.
I went from a size 60 to a 54, now the 54's are too small.

I realized that I have lost the equivalent of my 8 year old son in weight.

My diet has improved a lot.

I now eat pretty much what I used to eat back in high school, however instead of Protein, veg and starch, it is now Protein, veg, and bean.

To give you an idea of the type of protein.

This is a typical meal. Roughly 8 to 10 ounce pork chop 1 inch thick, roughly a cup of pinto beans, a cup of cut green beans and a bit of broccoli.
To get our meats cheaper I buy them in slabs and cut them myself.
I buy that pork chop as a pork loin log at Cash & Carry. It costs about 15 dollars for 10 pounds, I cut it into 1 inch slices. So now I have usually around 16 pork chops for 15 dollars. And they are THICK and juicy.

Below is a 16 pound slab of rib-eye.

I bought this at Cash & Carry. 106 dollars for 16 pounds of meat. 

Cut into 1 inch slices this give you 16, 16 ounce steaks. If this is not enough to fill you up then I do not know what is. 

And that marbling ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

And here it is cut up, This was the 12 on the platter, plus 4 more getting seasoned to go on the grill. The diet coke can is there for size. FYI, keep it to one diet soda per day. No more.

So, this is how I have been eating for the past 3 weeks.

Finally, once a week (in our case Saturdays), we can eat anything we want. We go wild, we all end up a bit sick after killing a bag of chips and chocolate bar on top of everything else we are eating.
We call these weekends, Fatties Gone Wild

Funny enough this is actually needed in the slow carb diet. The insulin spike keeps you form going into a low insulin state. I do not know 100% of the science behind, only about 80%, but it is sound science, it has proven to be effective, and most importantly, it is effective for us.

Tomorrow, look for breakfast.

Friday Update

As I mentioned I created my own idea on a diet and then found out about the 4 hour body diet which is hilarious since I have been reading the 4 hour workweek.

Well this being the case I am going to start this, watch the blog for a grocery list and meal plan.

I will be doing the full 4 hour body run which includes the same food day in and day out with a cheat day each Saturday.

I invented something which has already been invented.

Holy wow I have been busy.

Rapid fire update.

New house is fully moved into.

Old house is fully cleaned and a walkthrough (if you want to call it that) as been performed.

Work is non stop 6am to 8pm it seems. 6am for the west coasters, 8pm for the east coasters, this is why working form home rules/sucks.

I lost a ton of weight.

OK you got me, I have not actually lost a ton, I mean I weighed less than a quarter ton to begin with, though really not much less.

For months I was stuck riding the 380 line.

I get up this morning and hit the scale without really thinking about it.

370 pounds, on the nose!

Proof!

Look at that, can you believe it! This marks my 50 pound mark. I am now down 52 pounds, it took me nearly 9 months of off and on keto, but I finally broke the plateu, I did it by eating at Red robin, those fries are delicious.

I did not know it but I was actually working with a known plan called the "Slow Carb Diet", figured it out for myself, told my wife I wanted to try this after doing some medical research, saw a link for the Four Hour Workweek this morning and lo and behold, this article, written 2 days prior.

http://www.fourhourworkweek.com/blog/2012/06/24/how-to-lose-100-pounds/

Who knew, I have something in common with a rather smart dude.

Decided to get his book as well, I need some new, non fantasy, reading material.

Bunch of updates coming soon.

Keep tuning in you 2 or 3 people, it will be worth it.

Friday update.

OK, so another Friday update.
Well this one is a couple of days late.
But we have good reason this time.

We are about 40% moved over, we have finished painting the largest amount of rooms, we have decided where things are going, moved the 70's chair, moved the book cases and cleaned out most of the downstairs, today is the kitchen of all non-essentials including the alcohol.
We are also moving the snakes today, should be no issues to do that.

We also have all day tomorrow as well.

The new place is beginning to feel like home.

The only bad thing here is that this is killing my diet, eating out, fries, burgers etc, I even had a glass of Mt. Dew yesterday after eating a pastrami sandwich and fries.

Thankfully I am moving enough that I am working it off but I will never be able to work it all off, I have to really buckle down.

Well, time to do some more moving since it is now 10 after 1 and we are just now showering and getting ready.

Friday Update

And another Friday update.

This one is less about my big ass and more about moving my big ass, no really, we are moving to a new house.

About a month ago we found out that the owners of this house would be selling it eventually, rather than get the dreaded "we are selling get your butts out" email, we decided to start looking for a new place.

Thanks to Mark up in Alaska we now have a beautiful new home, 2k sqft + with garage.
I will get pictures of it this evening so that we can update, but for now suffice it to say we are thrilled and cannot wait to leave the asshole neighbors behind.

Oh, and about my fat ass, gained a bit of weight, 5 pounds, fluctuation, no biggie.
We have a bunch of clean up here at this home and it is nice out so I should burn off plenty of calories working on it.

Update with images coming.