There is Now Less of Me

Sorry I've been off the radar for a while, beast mode and job searching have been taking up a huge amount of time.  The good news is, I've lost 12 pounds in the past couple of weeks and I'm going full steam ahead with the workouts and eating right.

Instead of chowing down on delicious fast food and hooch all the time, I've been watching the booze intake and most of my meals look something like this:

That's right people, the kid is getting it done!

Gnome Beer

Beast Mode was slightly modified last night when I went out with some friends and had more than a few of these little babies.  The good news was, I ate lite and kept it together.  The crazy part is, when I had my cab driver drop me off a couple blocks from home so I could walk through the hood and enjoy the night air, a whole bunch of cats came out of nowhere and started following me.  I'm not sure if this Belgian ale with the farting gnome on the bottle makes you smell like catnip or something but it was freaking odd.

I did decide to get up and weigh in this morning.  To my pleasant surprise, I'm down seven pounds so far this week.  Beast Mode rules!

Help From Mrs. Beast Mode

This morning I did my ride to the gym, herculean upper body workout, and ride home routine.  It was a normal morning and I was feeling good about myself for going strong in Beast Mode.  As if the morning wasn't already good enough, I walked into the kitchen to make my protein smoothie and found the following:

That's right, before my wife took the kids to the beach for the day, she left a note on the refrigerator door of approved Beast Mode Snacks.  If that wasn't enough, I opened the refrigerator to get my spirulina and saw this inside:

Yes, the little woman even made me a Beast Mode style lunch so I would be sure to stay on track.  That's the kind of support a guy needs when he's trying to drop 40 pounds and get in shape.  Yes, some might take these notes as a clever way for the wife to tell me I'm a big fatass but not me, I'll take it at face value and roll with it.  The salad was awesome for the record.

Beast Mode Still in Effect

So far so good on Beast Mode activities.  I got up bright and early this am and did a four mile run so I could get it out of the way.  This is a photo of me, in pan, sweaty, and hot....but satisfied.

This afternoon, I'm meeting a friend for a 'quick beer' (10) at a Mexican restaurant.  I'm already psyching myself up for this.  Beast Mode is also about balance so I'm not worried about the beers too much but I am struggling with those free tortilla chips they give you.  Normally I can down about four or five bowls of those babies myself but I want to keep it under control.  I just checked with my friends at Nutritiondata.com and apparently a one ounce serving of tortilla chips is 137 caloires.  That isn't so good considering I probably eat 30 or 40 ounces in one sitting.  Hold me.

A Mighty Snack!

Ok, the title was a bit misleading.  A few years back when I saw a nutritionist who helped me lose 50 pounds (which I have subsequently gained back like a toolbox), I had a great conversation with her about snacking.  She told me on so many words that if I wanted a healthy middle o'the day snack, I should just let myself go wild and chow down on some almonds.  When I asked her what a suitable amount of almonds to snack on was, she told me ten..as in ten single almonds (pictured above).  Well I thought that was a complete joke and started calling her Princess Ten Almonds but, truth be told, she was right and I was healthy and looking mighty fine when I stuck with her program.  To that end, part of beast mode will involve eating her recipes and food suggestions.

Flash forward (or back maybe) to yesterday afternoon, when I was feeling powerful hungry for a snack.  I marched into the kitchen and busted out these ten almonds and tried to savor every bite.  I wasn't totally satisfied but that's expected when you're used to eating 6,000 calories per meal so I just sucked it up and went to go check on the kids.  That's when I saw this:

Sometimes my family is no help....and no, I didn't eat any chips

What? Are We In China or Something?

I rode to the gym this morning with my buddy Mark and as we rolled up to the normally empty bike rack, this is the shit we saw waiting for us.  I had to wedge Serena in there like she was just some common bike that a normal person would ride.  What the hell is up with that crap?  It's cool and all that half of Orange County has decided they want to be like me and bike to the gym, but give the man his space!  I plan on filing a grievance.

Activate Beast Mode

That's right, you heard it, I've activated Beast Mode.  The weight must come off, I must get serious, and that means healthy eating, next to no booze during the week, continue to exercise, and above all, no snacking at night...the killer of us all.

Part of Beast Mode is nutrition and I've been bad about eating breakfast when I should.  Since I'm riding to the gym around 9:00am today, I got up early and made a mega healthy beast smoothie.  The photo above is of my beast smoothie in front of my awesome X-Files poster.  Yes, I realize the photo looks like something you'd find in an envelope with a ransom note, but the lighting was bad and well, screw it.

I'm Gonna Cleana Serena

I got up this morning and did major cleaning and maintenance on my BBQ.  When I was done with that project I decided it was a good time to clean Serena and give her a little TLC.  She's been pretty dirty and her chain's been chirping at me so I figured while I was already sweating like a pig, I might as well make it happen.

There she is baby, all clean and lubed up, just ready for me to get on and work up a sweat!

Breakfast Stuff

Here's what I made the family for breakfast this morning, an awesome breakfast sandwich.  But is it healthy you ask?

Two slices of sourdough thins:  120 calories
Two eggs:  160 calories
Slice of cheese:  90 calories
Total:  370 calories

I'm guessing on calorie content, that's a pretty decent breakfast.  But what about the nutrition value of the ingredients?

According to Poindexter here at the Mayo clinic (http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/cholesterol/HQ00608/), eggs are high in cholesterol but fine if you don't eat too many of them.  Since they have awesome protein, I'm going with HEALTHY.

Sourdough bread?  According to this guy:  http://www.danreid.org/health-alerts-sour-dough-health.asp, not only is sourdough bread healthy, it is, after spirulina (yeahoo), the 'staff of life'.  I'm not too sure about that but I'm gonig to say sourdough bread, in moderate quantities, is slightly healthy...or NEUTRAL

Cheese?  There are billions of conflicting articles but according to this neutral site:  http://nutritiondata.self.com/facts/dairy-and-egg-products/154/2 , the cheese is not so healthy, not horrible for you but not great either.  So we'll say slightly unhealthy.

I came up with a point to all of this while I was eating but then my youngest daughter spontaneously started singing a song she just made up called "Daddy's Armpits Are Hairy".  The lyrics are as follows:  DADDY'S ARMPITS ARE HAIRY!!!  DADDY'S ARMPITS ARE HAIIIIIRRRRYYYYY!!!....and so on and so on.

Long story short, my breakfast wasn't great for me but it wasn't bad for me.  I figure as long as I don't mow down one of my breakfast sandwiches all the time, I'll be doing just fine.

And one final thought, my armpits are indeed hairy

Running Sucks

Even though I love to get on my bike and ride, I decided this weekend I need to start mixing in some runs so I got up this morning and went for a run.  Some passerby got this photo of me and emailed it to me.  Haha.  I know I fooled everyone, but that's not really me in the picture!  FOOLED YOU!

Anywho, even though running is hard, especially when you haven't done it in a while, everyone knows running burns more calories faster than bike riding (if you run five miles, you burn about three times more calories than say biking three miles).  Why did I decide to start running you ask?

1. I need to lose 800 pounds
2. Its good for you
3. It gets the blood flowin and the energy a pumpin!
4. I like pain

If you don't believe me, then read this thing I found on the internet.  If its online, it must be true!:

http://www.active.com/running/Articles/6-Benefits-of-Running.htm

Scared'em All Away

This morning the weight room at the gym was completely packed until I walked in and everyone got the hell out because they were embarrassed by my iron pumping awesomeness.  That's how I remember it, lets just move on.

As you can see, I was the only person at the gym interested in working on the pipes this morning so I had  a nice workout, used all of the equipment, farted out loud, whooped and hollered whenever I wanted, and behaved like an unruly child.  It was awesome!

I felt that I was required to go to the gym this morning because my dinner last night was one of my Grandmother's old recipes and  I'm guessing it was five or six thousand calories (Below)

SPIRULINA SNEAK ATTACK!

Its been hotter than a well digger's asshole this past week so this morning I wanted to have something light and refreshing for breakfast.  I decided to make berry smoothies in the Vitamix 5200 for the family....the only thing is, I snuck some spirulina and protein powder in and didn't tell the kids.  Like a freaking 1978 Folgers instant coffee commercial around here!  POW!  Here's the video of my youngest giving it a shot.  The video ends abruptly because the wife called and it sent my phone into some kind of weird ass haywire mode that made the video stop.

Master of the Dawn

Here's me this morning in the middle of my 6:45am ride trying to look all cool but ultimately looking like a massive dork.  Was I listening to sinful rock and roll music you ask?  No, I was listening to 'The Startup of You' because its about time I get my ass back to work and make some money.  Just remember, if it don't make dollars, it don't make sense.

The wife made me healthy poached eggs this morning and as I was eating them, she politely suggested to me that drinking wine every day and eating like a pig could possibly be hindering my weight loss and fitness goals.  She's no expert on human biology, but man, I'm telling you, that lady cold be on to something!

According to Shapefit.com:

Pure alcohol contains about 7 calories per gram, which makes it nearly twice as fattening as carbohydrates or protein (both contain about 4 calories per gram) and only just under the caloric value for fat (9 calories per gram). This means that if you want to lose weight and reduce excess body fat, alcohol is not a good choice.

I wish those health folks would be more clear about things.  What are they really trying to say?

Lunch Is Served

I've spent the last week having lunches that consisted of foods such as:  cheeseburgers, fries, noodles, pizza, and all other manner of high calorie greatness.  Now that I'm back home, its time to buckle down and stop the pigging out madness.  The wife prepared this fantastic healthy lunch for me.  It is a salad of artisan lettuce, chopped turkey breast, onion, and quinoa salad on top.  The strange thing is, after all the gorging I've done over the past week, I think the body is all off kilter.  My tum-tum feels full and satisfied but my brain is saying "Where are the fries dawg?" and "When does the ice cream start?".  I may have overdone it a bit over the past seven days.

Oh Serena, Don't Be Like That

I'm finally back from a week long trip to NoCal and I was excited to get on Serena and ride and lo and behold, the old gal just wasn't working right.  At first I thought she was just being temperamental because I hadn't ridden her in over a week but then I realized there was a big problem shifting.  After riding around for half an hour, I decided to come home and turn to my trusty friend "YouTube" to figure out just what the hell is wrong.

As luck would have it, I found this fancy video from our friends at Intown Bicycles in Atlanta and I was able to fix her so she was good as new.  Turns out her derailluer was out of whack.  Thanks for the help Intown Bikes!

Still Eating

Just had a huge breakfast at this place in Benicia, California.  Sailor Jacks, good food and a great setting right on the water.  Point is, I haven't exercised in a week and nearly every meal I've had has been at a restaurant that serves huge portions of fatty food.  I'm just going to let it all go....complete and total abandon.