Cool stuff from Ben Does Life

This cute young man is young enough to be my own son.  I'm old enough to be his mother.  I'm only pointing that out because he is REALLY cute.  And inspirational, because he's lost over 120lb and just kind of jumped in and started changing his way of life. 

Couple of tidbits so far from his blog, bendoeslife.com:

• Thought about whether or not I should do a weekly free-day. Decided I should, but a little different than usual. I will not be over indulging. I will stay below 3,000 calories. Every Friday=Free-day.
• Took “before” pictures of myself. I will be taking pictures on the 5th of every month to compare. Front, Back, and Side views.
• Dinner. Baked tilapia with salsa and green beans. 290 calories. (I should get some green beans, have them in the freezer)

The tempting thing to do is just load up on Weight-Loss shakes and yogurt and do this the old fashioned way, but from personal experience, that is not the way to go. Here is the rundown on what I grabbed at the grocery store with the help of Jed. -Tilapia. I hear that fish is a healthy thing to eat and it’s relatively simple to cook.
-Green Beans. Very simple and very tasty.
-High Fiber Cereal. Mini Wheats, I eat 24 individual biscuits with a cup of milk for breakfast.
-Oranges. A staple.
-Peanut butter pretzel health bars. 200 calories and very filling. Perfect for a midday snack.
-Eggs. I go three eggs, one yolk with salsa.
-Turkey. Usually combined with two slices of whole weat bread.
-Health soup cups. New England clam chowder. Low calorie, pretty good.
-Lots of water. Obv.
-Whole Wheat Eggo Waffles. Great snack. Filling and delicious. Only 80 calories per.
The idea is to consume 1800-2000 calories per day. Six meals a day. 350-400 for the main meals, 200-300 for the three snacks.

Goals

This is a list of fitness related things that I would like to happen within my lifetime.

• 220 pounds. I think this would be my ideal weight. According to the BMI it’s still overweight for my height, but I disagree.
• Size 36 (34?) waist pants. (currently 48)
• Size Large T-shirt. (currently XXXL… depressing.)
• 7 minute mile. (currently 11:44)
• Go a full year and stay within 10 pounds of 220.
• Run Jog a marathon. I’m 1/13th of the way there.
• Complete a pull-up. Haven’t ever done one. Couldn’t do one in 7th grade football, can’t do one today.
• Maintain a healthy lifestyle / dietary style.
• Convert myself to water-only for the most part.
• Touch the rim of a 10-foot basketball goal.
• Walk through a shopping mall and notice girls checking me out.
• Be competitive in some sort of triathlon or adventure race of some sort.
• Do 100 pushups without stopping. (currently 13)
• Swim fast. (I don’t know how to measure this, but today I did 50 meters in 49 seconds)
• Don’t die early. (currently on pace to die early)

So there is it is. And the ultimate goal is to maintain all of these and not just get there and quit. This is a change of life, not a temporary thing.

Yeah, this just happened. Free days are bittersweet. It’s like anything else; the idea of it is much better than the actual thing.  Pizza is good until after you eat it, then it’s bad.  I could only manage to eat four slices, which is a big milestone because I used to eat the whole thing.

In an hour I’m going to Mayflower to work out at the high school with Jed. We’re going to be doing intense cardio work (sprints, line drills, etc…) I’m looking forward to it. Exercise is addictive.

SMOOTHIE RECIPE:
-Four frozen strawberries
-1/4 Cup pineapple tidbits
-1/4 Cup plain low fat yogurt
-1.5 Cups ice
-1 Cup water
-10 Packs Splenda
Blend and enjoy.

I think it was my dad that told me this a long time ago, and I repeated it to Heather a couple days ago, but if you think about it, you never really see fat old people. It’s scary, but true. It’s inspiring in a weird way.

Jed, Sarah Catherine, and I went to Chili’s tonight for a free day meal. Also to celebrate the two month mark of successfully doing life. This is me about to eat some french fries.
However, I think this is going to be the last free day. I’ve had about eight of them so far and I never feel good during them. I spend all day feeling sick; it’s pretty miserable. The food is good, but it’s not worth it.
I’m changing these to free meal days. Once a week I’m going to do a free meal. It will be on the 1st, 8th, 15th, and 22nd of each month. I’ll feel better and it won’t be as torturous to my body.

Foods.

Reader SK commented asking about my daily food consumptions. I typically don’t post about my food because I feel like it’s boring, but it’s probably good to record every now and again, so here you go.
Breakfasts
-2x whole wheat blueberry Eggo waffles (160 calories)
-serving of strawberry frosted mini wheats without milk (180 calories)
Lunches
-Turkey sandwich on whole wheat and Gatorade G2 (300 calories)
-Healthy chicken noodle soup with mozzarella cheese (280 calories)
-Strawberry pineapple smoothie (300 calories)
Dinner
-Lean Cuisine (lasagna, pizza, spaghetti, ravioli) 350 calories.
Snacks
I get about 3 or 4 snacks a day and each snack averages about 250 calories. It’s usually one of the above things. I also do oranges and stringed cheese.
I get anywhere from 1600-1900 calories per day. Probably a little on the lower end, I’ll be adding more calories in a month or two.