Calorie Warrior

Fighting Weight One Calorie At a Time

Food Planning & Storage

Tutorials, What I Eat
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I wanted to share with you guys how we do some of the food planning and storage in our house. Monday – Wednesday are the easiest diet days because I know I’ll be cooking dinner at home.

Amy and I are kind of thrifty when it comes to grocery shopping and we buy all of our meats in bulk. I even buy the chicken breasts that need to be cleaned up of fat and what not and do all the work myself. When everything is ready to be put away I use my Foodsaver Vacuum Sealer and pack everything up in portions. This makes it really easy to grab stuff from the freezer. I taught myself to not over pack the bags and it help me cut down my portions and add more vegetables to the meals.

Food Storage & Meal Prep

This is what our counter looks like on a Monday afternoon. We talk about what we want to eat for the week and take the portions out of the freezer.

Most of the time its a chicken breast, boneless pork chops and something else random. Amy wont eat seafood so I don’t usually have any because then I’m cooking two separate dinners.

This weeks dinner plan is;

  1. Monday – Salmon for me and Steak for Amy
  2. Tuesday – Something with a chicken Breast
  3. Wednesday – Pork Burrito Bowls like Chipotle.

Everything we aren’t using that night gets put into the fridge so it can defrost. Usually the day of the meal we will talk about what sides we are having or just decide when we start cooking. Most of our dinners consist of a meat and two vegetables or some brown rice.

I’m very comfortable in the kitchen and I have no problem creating meals with the stuff we have on hand. We usually eat the same things and if we want something different we pick it up from the grocery store on Sunday and work it into our week.

Monday Weigh-In Week #4

Progress, Weigh-Ins
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Its Monday and I hope to post a weigh-in every single week to announce my progress. Hopefully I have progress to share or this will get embarrassing fast.

Luckily today when I got on the scale I was surprised with some good news!

Start of Week #4 Official Weight – 249.1

Hell YES!!!!! I broke out of the 250s!!!!

 

I couldn’t wait for this to happen. The lowest I’ve been in the past 8 years was about 245 which only lasted a few days right before my wedding in September.

I’m feeling incredible and my clothes are starting to get looser on me. I even stopped jiggling so much when I job on the treadmill. I was going through some old photos, looking for some real before & after pictures to post up on the site, and I was blown away. I really have changed my lifestyle over the last few years just enough to drop some weight and jump back in gear when I see my weight climbing again.

After seeing the great news on the scale I hit the gym early to get my cardio out of the way. I felt great after eating pretty clean all day Sunday and only having some coffee in my stomach from breakfast.
I rocked the treadmill and almost nailed my goal of jogging non-stop for two miles. I would count it but I had to stop three times to tie my shoelaces. I was so frustrated with them I ended up putting double knots in.

I shaved almost a full minute off the post I made the other day comparing my treadmill times to when I started.

Of course after doing so well here my 3 mile time improved as well. I was able to keep jogging without getting really winded or cramping up. Only annoying thing was I had really bad cotton mouth.

2 Mile Time 2-17-14

3 Mile Time 2-17-14

Today I only did 45 minutes with an 8 minute cool down. I’m getting better because the longer I jog the more calories I can burn off in a shorter amount of time. Id love to hit the gym and run 3 miles in 30 minutes and get on with my day.

Here’s my overall stats for today without counting my 8 minute cool down.

PhotoGrid_1392670841933

I came home and drank a ton of water. Then I broke out my DSLR camera and attempted to make some lunch and put up some high quality photos for my Tuna & Guacamole on Wasabi Cracker Recipe. I really hate using the DSLR and just cant get the hang of it. The pictures came out disappointing and after taking so long to do it the crackers got kinda soggy. Oh well, got to get in the food is fuel mindset!

 

 

 

Tuna & Guacamole on Wasabi Crackers

Recipes, What I Eat
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Tuna & Guacamole on Wasabi Crackers
 
Author: 
Nutrition Information
  • Serves: 1
  • Calories: 187
Recipe type: Lunch
Prep time: 
Total time: 
Print
Very quick and tasty low-cal lunch or snack.
Ingredients
  • 2.5 Ounce Package of Solid White Tuna in Water
  • 7 Wasabi Rice Crackers
  • 1 Greek Yogurt Guacamole
Instructions
  1. Put 7 rice crackers on a plate
  2. Put an equal amount of Guac on each cracker
  3. Open and drain your Tuna pouch
  4. Top each cracker equally with Tuna
Notes
This is a great meal or snack if your in a hurry and its actually satisfying. The wasabi crackers give it a little bite. You can substitute my Greek Yogurt Guacamole for any other, just account for the calories. It goes great with a spoonful of cottage cheese.

Tuna & Guacamole on Wasabi Crackers

 

Week# 4 – Celebrity Weight Problems

Motivation, Random
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Some Random Thoughts

I’ll be writing this post during the commercials of Walking Dead so I’m not sure which direction I’ll end up taking it. Lets just hope I can stay on track.

So far I was thinking to myself that there aren’t so many morbidly obese walkers. They aren’t as skinny as they should be considering the caloric deficit they’ve been facing. This tells me two things.

  1. Turning into a walker must somehow change their metabolism.
  2. Humans must be very high in calories.

From what I’ve seen so far most walkers have pretty average builds.

2013-10-27 01.54.48Actually I have a fun photo to share. Kinda proves my theory because one time when I was a Walker, I was at my all time thinnest. No, I wasn’t really a Walker, this is actually me in my last Halloween costume. It was lots of fun pretending to be one and the costume came out great!

That’s another downfall of being an extra-large person. Its always hard to get a cool costume in your size so you have to think outside the box. They make just so few of the XXL ones and I barely every fit in any of them.

Real Celebrity Weight Problems

Turtle Before & AfterAnother thing that was motivating this past week was something I saw on TV while I was at the gym. They were talking to that Turtle guy from Entourage and congratulating him on his weight loss. This was pretty inspiring to watch as I was busting my ass on the treadmill. I think I heard something like he lost over 50lbs. That’s about where my goal is so I thought it would be cool to show his facial progression.

This dudes lost a good amount of weight and so far he’s been able to keep it off. He said he pretty much just cut out the junk food and ate less. I didn’t really think there was any secret celebrity diet.

Rob Kardashian Before & AfterIf there is some secret celebrity diet someone should fill in Rob Kardashian. NO, I don’t watch the Kardashians, but sometimes Amy has it on while I’m in the room. I noticed this guy put on a hell of a lot of weight since the last time I just happened to be in the room while it was on. This was one of those motivations in the way of being like, “look at that skinny dude that got fat!”

Writing this blog has my wheels spinning thinking about new things to write about. I had my ears and eyes open when I was listening to him cry about having to drop 60lbs. I can relate because again, that’s right around what I’m looking to lose. I think to myself this is great because now I can compete with Rob Kardashain and see who does better at dropping some pounds.

Back To My Weigh Loss Plan

Overall week #4 was probably my worst so far. It wasn’t terrible but I had a holiday mixed in and I tried to let all my snow shoveling here in NY compensate for my exercise. I’m really not planning to see much movement south in the scale tomorrow morning for my weekly weigh-in.

Tomorrow I’m going to try and post my stats for week #4 and show some analytics from MFP and Fitbit. I was going to try to make a post to show where I actually started this year and how far I’ve come since then so everyone doesn’t just hop on at the end of my fourth week. Here are my goals for this week and hopefully I wont hit any speed bumps. Here are my goals for the upcoming week.

  • Get in at least three 45 minute treadmill sessions
  • Stay around the 1,650 calorie mark all week
  • Come up with a Low Calorie Pesto Recipe
  • Think of some more good posts for this site
  • Add some reviews of stuff that I use

Most of these goals will be pretty typical. If your wondering about the Pesto, I bought a huge bunch of Basil I was using on flat bread paninis and I don’t want it to go to waste. For some reason I’ve been wanting pesto but didn’t think it would be possible because its made with lots of olive oil. I thought about the ingredients and figured I’d see if I could make some substitutes to get a similar taste and bring down the calories. We’ll see what happens with that and if its decent I’ll post my recipe.

All in all I don’t see this week being to complicated and i think I can jump right back on track. We have to do some grocery shopping because we ran out of Almond milk and cereal has been my staple breakfast for the last few weeks. That gives me an idea for a post about grocery shopping and another for food substitutes. Lets see how it goes……

 

Treadmill Progress Week #3

Fitness
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Last night was valentine’s day and as you can see from my previous post I got a little carried away with food. I promised I’d try to make up for it on the treadmill.

I figured it would be helpful to include some screen shots showing my treadmill times before and after. These are only for this year and over the last four weeks. I jogged a bit back 6 months ago that probably helped improve these times today from when I was a complete couch potato.

Treadmill Progress 2.0 Miles Week#4I personally track all of my progress on the treadmill by snapping pictures. My first goal on the treadmill is to do 2 miles as fast as I can. I’d like to get the 2 miles down without stopping to walk but I haven’t been able to do it yet. I would have done a little better today but my shoelace came untied and I had to slow down to tie it.

I cut almost 5 minutes off my time and burned more calories because I was able to jog at a faster pace. I pretty much do a warm up at 3.7 for 30 seconds and then increase it to around 5.3 for as long as I can hold it. Id really like to be able to job straight through in under 20 minutes.

I usually do about 45 minutes and a 5 – 10 minute cool down when I go to the gym. I try to get in at least 3 miles which used to seem impossible. I snapped another photo of my 3 mile time today and included and older one. I’m not sure when I took this one because I wasn’t even able to make it to 3 miles in the beginning.

Treadmill Progress 3.0 Miles Week#4

Here you can see that I cut down about 5 minutes off the 3 mile total. I also burned more calories in a shorter amount of time which is nice. I probably could of done a bit better today but the food from Valentines day was sitting in my stomach like a brick.

I’m trying to get my 3 mile time under 30 minutes. This would be a huge achievement for me! I also think to myself how great it would be to turn all this running into doing some 5K’s in the spring.Before I even consider something like that I’d have to be able to jog at least the 3 miles non-stop. I think this will be a great way to mix exercise with something I can do socially. I have a few friends that run these and I think it would be fun for Amy to come out and cheer me on.

Treadmill Progress Week#4I did a full 60 minutes today because I had the time and my poor eating the night before gave me some motivation. I’m not going to lie, it was pretty brutal and I slowed down a lot after I hit my 3 mile marker. This is my third day on the treadmill to close out the week and my average calories burned every day should fall right at the 3100 daily I described in My Diet Plan.

Just over 4.5 miles and just under 800 calories. Not to bad!

Now I just need willpower so I don’t go home and eat Amy’s mini cupcakes!

 

 

 

Surviving Valentines Day

What I Eat
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After telling you about my Valentines day your going to think this weight loss journeys a scam!

My thoughtful and supportive wife sent me fruit from edible Arrangements figuring its the best choice for an after dinner dessert. Lots of fruit and a little bit of chocolate is a win for my calorie counting.

If your wondering why there’s two its because Amy sent me a smaller arrangement from our expecting baby. =)

Now…. being the thoughtful and supportive husband I am. I sent Amy 50 mini cupcakes to work from her favorite cupcake place, Baked by Melissa. I wont even get into the flavors of the little cupcakes because its makes my stomach growl thinking about it.

My plan for the night is to have 5-6 of these little cupcakes, a bunch of fruit and….

We’ll, lol.. what a bad night to ad a new post and the reason I talked about the desert first. I’m going off the calorie counting for this meal and were ordering takeout from our favorite Italian restaurant. I’m really not so worried about this because

1. I was under my calorie goal most days this week and I can afford a few extra calories.

2. I’ll punish myself in the gym tomorrow.

I might not reach the goal on my spreadsheet Monday but these are one of the failures I’m expecting along the way. Its also proof that you don’t have to suffer all the time to lose weight.

Check out our awesome V-Day treats!

Valentines Day 2014

How will I add tonight into MFP?

For a night like tonight I’ll probably think about all the things I ate and see how bad I did. Then I will go into MFP and just use the add calories option to include what I think I realistically ate. I will break apart all the ingredients and guesstimate the calories in my head. Hopefully under 3,000, lol. My goal for dinner is to eat half and save the rest for lunch or dinner tomorrow. Then its right back the healthy lifestyle for this guy.

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