Not Really "Back," but Maybe a Little Teaser :-)

Well hello everyone!  I have been thinking about ya a lot lately.  I have not been a good boy, but lately, I have been considering trying to be good again.  I pretty much undid all the good that I did last summer.  Pretty disappointed in myself in that regard, but it's not over.  I can still give it another shot and see what happens. 

I am not "starting the blog" again, so don't get too excited.  BUT I am planning on throwing something up here and there in hopes that maybe it will help me and entertain you (and if things go well, maybe give some of you a little motivation too.)

How did we get back here you ask?   Well, let's start with my "Excuse."  I'm going to do it in the form of a hashtag:

#Mariskamademefat

For those who don't know who Mariska is, it's Mariska Hargitay, lead actress and eventually producer of Law & Order, SVU.  Over the past 2 1/2+ years, Kristyn and I have worked our way through 20 seasons of Law & Order SVU on Hulu.  Basically, when the night was over, we'd settle in for some SVU.  OR if we had a snow day, we'd watch 6 episodes!  Summer was really bad because we may watch one in the morning, 1 in the afternoon and a couple at night.  Why is this a problem?  Well, 1st of all, I'd NEVER call that a problem.  It was awesome.  What a great show.  And on top of that, we all need some relaxing time and the world knows that Kristyn and I keep ourselves very busy, so to give ourselves some down time is never a bad thing.  The issue is only coming to light now. 

We finished the 20 seasons on Hulu Monday night.  Then something crazy happened Tuesday night.  I had no TV to look forward to so I said "I'm gonna go for a run on the treadmill downstairs!"  34 minutes, 2 miles and something like 375 calories later, I called it quits and grabbed a shower.  Now I know those stats are not really great - 34 minutes and only 2 miles, but when you have literally done NOTHING physical in forever and have gained a lot of weight combined with getting older, it was plenty to do.

I used to start off by doing a 10 minute run and building up so I can run longer.  But a friend of mine at Cresskill HS who runs a ton told me something about needing to do about 20 minutes before your doing real work to your body with the cardio stuff.  So instead of going as hard as possible for 10 minutes and building, I decided to waver between 3.0 MPH and 6.0MPH as necessary.  The goal was to try to blow by the 20 minute mark and see what I can do.  Of course, I kept going back and forth between time, calories and distance.  I got to 20 minutes and was like, ooh, I can get to 1.5 miles.  Then I got to 1.5 miles and thought "ooh, I can get to 300 calories."  I got there and was like "ooh, I can get 30 minutes!"  I got there and was like "ooh, I can get 2 miles!"  So that kept pushing me.  I was exhausted after my 2 miles, even though I was doing a lame 3MPH walk for a significant chunk of it, but my heart rate was up and I was working as hard as I thought was smart for the first day back. 

Then something else interesting happened.  I did not have a late night snack!  So I replaced my goldfish, peanut butter filled pretzels and chocolate ice cream out of the carton with a 34 minute walk/run and 2 bottles of water.  Interesting how that works, isn't it? 

As far as the rest of the day, I can't say that I did anything special, foodwise.  I mean, I was not intending anything out of the ordinary when I woke up in the morning, but the lack of SVU led me to this run.  All I can do is hope that it continues from there.

So here we are at today - Day 2 Post-SVU (Wednesday.)  I worked most of the today.  Got to school around 12:30pm, did some MAJOR cleaning in the office with Steph, section leader meeting and marching band sectionals to follow.  Got home around 10:15pm.  WENT TO THE TREADMILL!!!!  Was not sure how i was going to handle this.  Would my body give in sooner because it was a little tired from yesterday?   OR would I be stronger on day 2?  I decided to start at 3.0 MPH and add .4 each minute until I got up as high as I thought was wise.  Once I was totally shot, jumped back down to 3.0 until and cramps, heavy breathing or leg fatigue went away.  I basically went at it like this:

0-1 = 3.0mph
1-2 = 3.4
2-3 = 3.8
3-4 = 4.2
4-5 = 4.6
5-6 = 5.0
6-7 = 5.4
7-8 = 5.8
8-10 = 3.0
and back up a few more times. 

In the end, I kept it at 34 minutes but added .24 miles to my total and killed an extra 75 calories!  I think I liked this system.  Kept me from getting bored and felt good.  Also helps to watch the Yankees during this.  Having something to watch is very helpful. Keeps my mind off the fact that I hate running.  :-)

Guess what - I didn't have a snack tonight either after my run.  This would be prime time for ice cream. 

 Notice that I'm not telling you what I ate today.  Why?  Because I didn't necessarily eat "good" choices, so there's no need to talk about that yet.  At this point, I obviously want to get some healthier eating habits going, but this particular situation is brought on by my obvious out-of-shapeness.  Where did this come from?

Well, on Saturday night, I was at the Yankee game.  As many of you know, I like to collect autographed items from people I meet in person.  I have been chasing after Aaron Judge for literally 3 years.  He's a great signer.  Pretty much everyone I know that has tried has eventually gotten him, but I don't get a chance to go out and do it too often, so I have just not had any luck.  Anyway, I literally chased his car a couple blocks in the rain hoping that he would feel bad since it was raining pretty hard and roll down to sign for me.  Turns out that it worked!  I got really lucky.  Judge is NOT a guy who rolls his window down to sign.  He signs at the game in right field fairly often and does autograph show events.  Signs a lot on the road from what I hear, but rolling the window down is not a typical Judge move.  I got really lucky!!!!

So afterwards, I jogged back to my friends who were waiting back where i started.  By the time I got there, I was breathing so heavy and had pains in parts of my leg that I didn't realize existed!  For someone who a couple of years ago was able to do 3 miles fairly easily and even did a couple longer runs w/Kristyn - 5-6 miles through Nutley,) I was very disappointed that I could not run a few blocks without feeling like i was going to fall over!  Additionally, our day at Sesame Place was great, but I spent a lot of time in the water and on the floor and I was not happy about how much work it was just to get up off the ground!  I'm 38 years old, for God's sake.  That got me thinking that I needed to get back into shape a little better and here we are. 

So at this point, who knows where I'm heading with this, but there are a number of people who have "requested" the blog back.  Can't guarantee it will be often and can't guarantee it will be good. BUT I'll be around, here and there and I hope you enjoy reading it. 

Until next time . . . . . . . . .

Day 23 - Back To Work, but still kinda eating light . . . .

Starting Weight - 223.3 (Down exactly 20 since New Year's Day)

Breakfast - So after a day home and eating really really light, I then proceeded to forget to grab breakfast and run late to work!  Got through the first period lesson and then I was just starved.  Needed something on the heavy side so I grabbed a bagel from the caf with some butter and a diet coke.  It was absolutely GLORIOUS!  From what I'm reading, Bagel is around 270 for this size and the butter is likely around 150 so let's go with 425.  Lucky for me - no calories for the soda.  JUst a waste of $1.65!

Lunch - I had a can of Chicken Soup from Progresso today.  Learned something interesting.  The soup  usually eat is 320 calories - the macaroni & bean.  THis soup - only 140 calories!   Good to know!  And it was decent.  Not nearly as filling as the other one, but definitely a good soup. It was quite a trick getting to actually eat this darn can of soup.  I kept getting caught up with other stuff and downright forgetting about it!  And it was already 7th period.  That's crazy!  I'm so different than I was in December that I actually forget to eat!!!!! 

    

Snacks - oh boy - so it's 1pm the next day and I really can't remember much about what I ate for snacks yesterday.  throughout the day and night, what do I remember - I definitely had goldfish (140) and I think 2 sour patch kid ice pops (40+40)  and a piece of cheese (80)  I would be surprised if I did not have a Rice Krispie Treat, so I'll just add that in too (90)  Total snacking estimate - 390.  This includes between lunch and dinner as well as after dinner. 

Dinner - Kristyn cried uncle tonight!  She was like "I really don't want to cook tonight!"  I said then I'll cook.  It won't be the fancy recipe you intended, but I'll make some chicken.  So I cut up a couple pounds of chicken, eggs + breadcrumbs and threw them in the air fryer.  She had some gluten free pasta with it but I didn't want to waste calories on pasta when there was pretty awesome chicken sitting in front of me!  I did my best calculation and came up with about 600 calories for the chicken I ate.  By the way - highly recommend the air fryer.  Makes solid fried-like foods without the oil!   Very good stuff for sure!

Calories For Today - 1,555 - Actually impressed.  That was higher than I thought it would be, but I guess the bagel was a little much for breakfast.  :-)

Stories for today . . . . . . . hmmmmmmmm . . . . . . . I don't feel like anything extra special happened today that's worth sharing.  I will tell you that I decided to do live playing tests with my HS band on their holiday concert music.  I realized that I had not done a LIVE music test in over 2 years!  I've been doing recording tests, but I have been slow to grade them so I decided to do it live this time.  Also, I think it's really important to get a good idea of exactly how they play.  Recording tests are great when you are trying to get students to practice more, but this is POST concert.  I want to know how they prepared, not how well they prepare to make the recording.  The problem is that I thought it would be more efficient to do them all 3 songs at once. It's taking FOREVER!!!!!  And HS lunch period has been filled with MS lessons the past 2 weeks, so I could not even do it then.  After school is pit orchestra, so I can't do it then.  So now, it's just taking up lots of class time, which SUCKS!!!  We do some playing, they get some personal practice time - we are making good use of our time and all, but I just want these tests to be over already!  

One more thing - only 4 more days of lunch duty and then my school years gets a TON better!!!!!!!!!!

Day 22 - Very Little Food Today

Weigh-In - 224.8 (Down 18.5 from New Year's Day)

Breakfast - TOtally slept through breakfast.  Decided to stay home sick today.  Woke up with a fever close to 100, which and it ended up climbing to 101 during the day.  Thought I was ok when I went to bed last night, but I was wrong.  So I called in sick and went back to bed.  Woke up at noon!!!

Lunch - Didn't really eat lunch either.  I really was just not interested in food.  Didn't have a stomach ache, but was not hungry and didn't want to eat.  I eventually had a pack of cheese crackers and a frozen lemonade (270)

Snack - Fiber One Cinnamon Swirl Cake (90)

Dinner - For dinner, I had a slice of cheese, a meatball and a can of progresso macaroni & bean soup.  Also down a large gatorade.  All this for a total of 575 calories.

That was it for the day.  Like I said, just wasn't really hungry.  I had ups and downs.  Around 5pm, I got the chills so bad that my teeth were chattering so I took another nap, which helped a ton.  Pretty run down all day.  Was not up to drinking the gallon, although I did put a dent in it, but not too much. 

I did step out for a few minutes to deal with the fraud stuff.  Opened a new bank account elsewhere and made more moves toward being able to shut down my other account completely.  Still a few steps to go, but this weekend they were successful in stealing another $200 from a different account connected to the one that they stole $5,000 from last week.  unreal.  Lady at TD in Clifton was very helpful and didn't even try to convince me to stay with TD.  In fact, one of the ladies made fun of me for being here AGAIN for fraud.  She was blown away by my luck.

On another note, my big band solidified a guest artist for the February 10 gig - Adam Niewood.  This is a cool one.  I went to grad school with him and Tim actually brought him up as someone we should have.  He's been doing some great stuff out there in the music/jazz world and it will be a treat to be able to feature one of the people from back in the MSM days.  Looking forward to working with him.  We also have 6 students signed up to sit in already!!  This is shaping up to be a great night.  Looking forward to it.  Hope you can all come - 2/10/19 @6:30pm - Trumpets Jazz Club.  See you there!

Total Calories Today - 935

Day 21 - Forced To Eat Out . . . . .

Weigh-In - 225.3 (down 18 from New Year's Day)

Breakfast - Started off the day with 2 cups of cheerios and about 7/8 a cup of 2% milk.  (315 calories)

Today is Martin Luther King Day and that means that we have an in-service day.   That being said, i'm the secretary of the state Jazz Education board, and one of our 3 annual meetings is this day so I headed down there for that instead.  Due to the impending freeze-over, school had a delayed opening and so did the meeting.  I woke up sick.  left over from last night, I was not feeling well.  Fever up to 101.5  I emailed the meeting and told them I was not coming.  Was gonna call into school to let them know that i was not out on "school business" but instead out "sick."  But then around 10:00, I felt pretty good.  The meeting had been pushed back to 11am down in east Brunswick, so I took the drive and I'm glad I did.  I thought i had beaten this sickness quickly and I was able to attend the meeting with success.

Lunch - so the meeting is at a diner.  This particular one has sort of a meeting room in the back where we have our meetings.  Since it was through lunch, it meant that I had to eat.  I got myself a grilled chicken sandwich on a bagel, yes a real bagel.  Really should have done wheat bread, but I really wanted the bagel, so i splurged.  Asked for rice, but they gave me fries, which was annoying.  I also had a cup of chicken rice soup.  Asked for chicken noodle, but got chicken rice.  Good thing, since I didn't get the regular rice I had ordered!  Much to my surprise, I really didn't enjoy the fries and I barely ate any of them!  below is a photo of the initial plate and then one of the fries I left behind!   Also drank the entire pitcher of water myself.  Calorie Count - not really sure.  Let's say 350 for the bagel, 300 for the chicken, 225 for the fries I ate and 100 for the soup.  total - 975.

Snack on the way home - Not sure what came over me but I just had to stop off for a snack on the way home.  I had 2 Reese's ( the regular ones, not big cups) and a Red Bull.  (200 + 110)  Not one of my better moments, but not so bad, considering it was my first Reese's of the new year!  At one point in the fall, i was eating 2 big cups every day on my way home from work with my Slurpee.

I also had an orange, half an orange actually. It was quite refreshing! (25)

Dinner - On the menu for tonight is edamame spaghetti and home made instant pot turkey meatballs.  The Edamame spaghetti is ok.  Not my favorite thing in the world but so much more healthy than regular spaghetti, so I'm happy to have it.  Also cooks really fast!  The meatballs - first time in the instant pot.  They were good!  I think i put too much milk and would probably put more breadcrumbs next time. they came out a little soft, but very tasty, that's for sure!  This meal came out to 600 calories.

Total Calories - 2,225.  This is much more than I have been eating on a daily basis BUT still in the weight loss category.  Remember, 2650 maintain, 2150 lose, 1650 lose fast.  I think it's time to recalculate since I am down 18 pounds since I did this initial check of how much I should take in.