Tag: exercise

The joys of running on the Silver Comet Trail not

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

The above image encapsulates exactly what it’s like to run on the Silver Comet trail, which is a super awesome run/bike trail here in the Metro Atlanta area that basically stretches from the outskirts of the city and supposedly connects all the way west, to almost the Alabama state line.  It’s a great trail for people of all skill and experience levels, because it has so many points of access, people can use it for leisurely walks, lengthy excursions or just to train or casually exercise on.

I’ve always used it as a place to train up for long runs, as well as my preferred location to do any of the longer, numerous virtual runs that I always sign up for in order to add to my running medal collection, and it really is a wonderful trail because it’s fairly flat, completely shaded by trees which helps in even the hottest of summers, and there are multiple break points for people to rest, get water and take bathroom breaks if needed.

However, my only real criticism of the Silver Comet trail, isn’t something that can really be controlled, and is actually something that I’ve gripe-brogged about in the past, which is all the fucking bicyclists on the trail who think they own the entire thing, and go around flying down the path at 30+ mph, screaming ON YOUR LEFT all the time as if they were getting paid a quarter every time they had to wail it out.

Seriously, thanks to the Silver Comet, I fucking hate bicyclists, more than the times when I used to have to traverse around the city and had to share the roads with all the hipsters on their fixed gears clogging up lanes.  And to be more specific it’s not all bicyclists, and it’s not even the mega-tryhards that act like they’re participating in the Tour de France with their matching uniforms and barely existent thin-ass aluminum bicycles.

It’s the weekender bicyclists who think they’re on Lance Armstrong’s level when he was roided up to the gills, who are usually by themselves or with 1-2 other douchebag weekenders, who get on the trail and act like the whole thing belongs to them.  They’re the ones who are incessantly screaming ON YOUR LEFT to everyone as if they’re taxicabs in F-Zero, strategically placed just to ruin their day when they’re the ones in fact ruining everyone else’s day by being entitled assholes, hogging the entire trail for themselves and screaming at everyone.

Like, real pro-tryhard bicyclists for one, travel in large packs, but also have been doing what they do long enough to understand that all other travelers on the trail are not stupid, blind or deaf, all at the same time, and don’t hardly ever spam ON YOUR LEFT, unless they have a reason, like some dumbass who’s swerving along the trail.  The weekenders scream at everyone as if it’s their problem that they haven’t noticed that the people in front of them 100 yards away have maintained their lines and paces, and need to be reminded to watch out for them, while they travel at speeds, which in a car would definitely kill a pedestrian, but on a bicycle could be pretty lethal too.

For real though, weekender bicyclists are the god damn worst.  Nothing pockmarks a good run session than any time some bicycle douche screams ON YOUR LEFT and whizzes past me way too close to comfort when I’m already running on the edge of the trail, because it’s slightly flatter than the slight slope which is meant to control water on the surface from pooling aboard.  It’s like these cocksuckers all think I actually can pull over to the right any more than I already am at to convenience them, and they’re really lucky I just don’t stick my arm out and start clotheslining from hell every shithead who thinks they’re going to win the Tour de Douchebag.

I’d say as much as I loved being able to get back out onto the Silver Comet for the first time in nearly three years over the Labor Day weekend, that the weekend bicycle douchefucks were the worst thing about my run, it actually turns out that my 10K time crept over the 60-minute mark that I so fervently try to stay underneath.  At 61:14, I’m glad I was able to complete a 10K without any difficult laboring, but I’m pretty dissatisfied that it took me over an hour to accomplish.  I can’t use a lack of training as an excuse this time, considering I’ve been fairly consistent with my maintenance running over the last year, so I guess this is just a sign of age starting to catch up with me, and that I have to make some actual changes if I want to get my speed back up.

My 600 Lb. Diet – fin

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

After seven days, I decided to throw in the towel on the Dr. Nowzaradan 1,200 calorie diet.

It’s not so much that I couldn’t handle the diet, as much as it was that I had actually started doing some research on what was and what wasn’t healthy numbers of calories to ingest, and what it really boiled down to was that 1,200 calories a day for someone as active and capable as I am on a daily basis, just was not a good thing.

I actually began to have doubts as soon as day 2, but I compromised with myself and gave myself the rest of the week to make sure that I wasn’t just going through knee-jerk doubt, and to stick it out just one week, to see if it might get easier or if it really was something that was capable of defeating my willpower.

As I said, it’s definitely something that I know I’d be capable of doing for an month, but not without its own series of inconveniences, outside of just hunger and radical energy spikes.  What helped justify the decision to call it after a week was that I was also running out of the healthy food that I had bought to embark on this test, and the thought of having to go to Costco again, just for a whole bunch more meat was about as appealing as the idea of sprinting through a forest naked.  Apathy and laziness trumped Dr. Now in this regard.

Speaking of apathy and laziness, 1,200 calories, in spite of being way below normal for just about anyone, much less an active and capable person, works for rapidly reducing weight for people who inherently live sedentary lifestyles and are already morbidly obese, but for all others, it’s just simply not enough calories to operate without there being some parts of the day in which your body feels sluggish from having no energy to burn, and occasional hangriness, even though we know it’s a thing.

The real kicker though for me was when I looked up general calorie calculators, on how many calories someone like me should be consuming in a day (photo above), and seeing how if I wanted to lose weight at a normal pace, two times of 1,200 is what I’d be allotted to have each day, a little bit less than that, but still significantly more than 1,200, if I wanted to “lose quickly.”

And anyone who’s ever taken any sort of interest in nutrition knows that when your body goes into a deficit, the first place that it goes into is typically muscle, and seeing as how I’ve already shriveled and likely lost a bunch of mass from the last year of pandemic and no-gym, losing even more was the last thing in the world I wanted to happen.

I could have adjusted the diet, and stayed low-carb/high-protein and just consumed 1,800 calories a day, but then it wouldn’t have been the Dr. Nowzaradan 1,200 diet; and that was the point I was trying to make, being able to do.  So after the seventh day, I went to bed knowing that the following morning would be back to normal for me, where I could have cereal, I could have creamer in my coffee, and the world of food options was once again my oyster to where I could eat whatever I wanted. 

Final Number after 7 Days:

Initial weight: 189.4 lbs
Final weight: 185.8 lbs (3.6 lbs lost)
8,310 calories consumed
951.5 grams of protein
$67.56 worth of food for 21 meals and 18 snacks

My 600 Lb. Diet – Day 7

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Today marks one full week of eating as if I were a featured patient on My 600 Lb. Life, wanting to get weight-loss surgery from Dr. Nowzaradan [Bariatric Surgeon].

Honestly, it hasn’t been so much difficult adhering to a 1,200 calorie diet, so much as it just sucks having these weird energy spikes from being hungry to eating and feeling normal for a little bit before your stamina bar depletes down and then it’s kind of a slog until the times when more food enters your system.  And in spite of my claims to be able to eat the same things over and over again on end, I guess it should be modified to be more along the lines of being able to eat the same trash over and over again on end, because there’s a difference between eating Willy’s for 240 days out of a year versus if I had to eat the same canned chicken and spinach salad every day for lunch for the same amount of time.

However, in some ironic sense, today’s menu was kind of altered, on account of the fact that I’m running out of the first week’s supply of food.  The package of Kirkland turkey and the Kirkland-branded canned chicken have been depleted after six days, and basically my only source of protein left are the one flank of salmon I have left, and a whole shitload of chicken breakfast sausages – so I’ve been eating a shitload of chicken breakfast sausages today.  Which is actually fine, because those are among the things I liked the most during this week.

Also, I picked up a bottle of hot sauce, because the stuff has zero calories and adds a ton of flavor to just about anything.  Much like the tagline for Frank’s goes, you really can put that shit on anything.

Regardless, today has been somewhat of a challenge, mostly unrelated to food however.  The guinea pig we had to take to the emergency vet last night, somehow required being there for 5.5 hrs in the end, which doesn’t change my perception that they prioritized every dog and cat that was brought in over my little pig, regardless of how much sooner I came in, and I didn’t get to bed until around 3 am, knowing that I only had three hours to sleep before it was time to start my child’s day.

But as is the norm in my life, I endure, I solder and I keep on moving along, regardless of the myriad of stress, frustration and general disdain I might feel.  Always forward.

Breakfast – Same as Day 3

Snack

  • 1 link Amylu chicken sausage (43 cal, 4g pro)
  • 1/2 slice Martin’s whole grain bread (55 cal, 2.5g pro)
  • 1/4 cup Daisy low-fat cottage cheese (45 cal, 6.5g pro)

143 calories, 13 grams of protein. Total cost: 70¢

Lunch (pictured above)

  • 5 links of Amylu chicken sausage (215 cal, 20g pro)
  • 2 cups of spinach (20 cal, 1g pro)
  • 1 slice cheddar cheese (80 cal, 5g pro)

415 calories, 26 grams of protein. Total cost: $1.99

Snack (same as earlier)

  • 1 link Amylu chicken sausage (43 cal, 4g pro)
  • 1/2 slice Martin’s whole grain bread (55 cal, 2.5g pro)
  • 1/4 cup Daisy low-fat cottage cheese (45 cal, 6.5g pro)

143 calories, 13 grams of protein. Total cost: 70¢

Dinner – Same as Day 1

Exercise

  • 50 sit-ups (50)
  • 120 push-ups (25, 25, 40, 30)

Total
1,186 calories, 105.5 grams of protein.
Total cost: $7.96

My 600 Lb. Diet – Day 6

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

I’m finding that the biggest opponent of staving off hunger is staying awake longer than is necessary.  Actually, I knew that, because back in like 2006 when I was actively dieting pretty well, I had some pretty regimented hours because my life wasn’t in a particularly good place, and I slept a lot to deal with a lot of the depression I was dealing with, so I went to bed at pretty predictable hours and had a pretty routine schedule as far as eating went.  It was probably close to intermittent fasting before intermittent fasting was coined.

Dealing with a possible emergency situation with one of the house’s pets and went to an emergency clinic for the first time ever.  Now I’ve heard lots of things, mostly negative about emergency vets, but almost all of them involve lots of waiting.  Which is kind of fair, because you’re going with no appointments, the on-call doctors there have to react and diagnose quickly, and things can go tits up with one bad decision.

Regardless, I sat in the parking lot for two hours after being told 30 minutes to an hour, watched several cars that came after me leave before I did, so I called to find out what was up, only to find out that my pet hadn’t been seen yet, and “was next” in about 30-45 minutes.  I told them I didn’t live far, and they finished the statement for me by telling me to go home.  So instead of doing the critical schoolwork I had planned on doing this evening, in the indeterminable window of time it will take for my pet to be seen, I’m catching up on writing this diatribe as well as summarizing my Dr. Nowzaradan diet’s day, as I have been doing over the last week.

But yeah, I’m typically in bed by now, and the hunger I’m feeling isn’t registering while I’m asleep.  But because I’m not asleep, the hunger is real, and I know I’m not eating again until like 7:30 am.  Combined with anxiousness over the wellbeing of my pet, this is not a particularly good way to start a very well-needed weekend.

Breakfast – Same as Day 3
Snack – Same as Day 1
Lunch – Same as Day 1
Snack – Same as Day 1 + 0.7oz extra turkey (end of package, 30 cal, 5g pro)
Dinner – Same as Day 1

Exercise
• 50 sit-ups (50)
• 125 push-ups (25, 70, 30)

Total
1,225 calories, 129.5 grams of protein.
Total cost: $9.35

My 600 Lb. Diet – Day 5

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

When I first started doing this, between days 2 and 3, I was often feeling hot, or just plain uncomfortable.  I couldn’t help but wonder if I was literally feeling the burn of calories that my body was doing, as there was no gargantuan excess of calories being consumed like my general living was like before Dr. Nowzaradan.  Granted, the season is in the midst of changing over right now, and temperatures have been swinging pretty hard, but still, I was wondering if the hot sensation I was feeling was like the start of ketosis or something.

I’ve had several friends do keto over the years, and I can’t say that it’s something that I’m particularly interested in trying myself.  However, given the fact that I’ve been minimal on carbs, and having cut sugar outright, I do feel kind of close to a keto diet, minus the fact that I’ve been pounding a large amount of spinach and broccoli throughout the week, since they’re so negligible in calories but high in nutrition.

Either way, five days in, and I have to say that the hardest parts of the day are in the morning, when I’m up at 6:30, and typically have to hold out until around 7:30 so that my daughter and I can eat our respective breakfasts together, and I’ve noticed a slog at around the 4:30-6:30 area, where I feel my energy level getting low regardless of how long I hold my afternoon snack off until.  It’s during these times in which I feel a little sluggish, and my heart tends to beat faster than I think it should when doing things like going up the stairs, or it could be the fact that my toddler is getting heavier or that I’m unfortunately getting weaker, because my already-diminishing muscles are probably eating themselves.

But it’s not that difficult.  The worst meal of the day is lunch, where I eat an entire can of chicken, where I simply get bored of eating just how much of it is packed into a can.  I’ve been leaning heavily on spices and mustard to help get me through them, and I’d never thought mustard could taste so good in my life until it was breaking up the monotony of plain chicken on spinach.

Breakfast – same as day 3
Snack – same as day 1
Lunch – same as day 1
Snack – same as day 1
Dinner – same as day 3

Exercise

  • 100 sit-ups (50, 50)
  • 110 push-ups (20, 30, 30, 30)
  • 2.98 miles (30:16, 399 calories burned)

Supplemental food on account of having run today

  • 1 slice Martin’s whole grain bread + 1/4 cup cottage cheese (155 cal, 12g pro, 48¢)
  • 1 slice Publix honey wheat bread + 1/4 cup cottage cheese (115 cal, 9.5g pro, 27¢)

Total
Meals/Snacks: 1,313 calories, 139.5 grams of protein. Cost: $9.92
Supplemental food: 270 calories, 21.5 grams of protein. Cost: 75¢
Running calories owed: -399 calories
Total sum of day: 1,184 calories, 161 grams of protein.
Cost: $10.67

My 600 Lb. Diet – Day 2

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment
A visual reminder isolated and put up at eye level where I cannot miss it.

Waking up this morning, I felt like I was hit by a ton of bricks.  I’m not sure if this exhaustion was the result of having gotten just five hours of sleep the night prior, or if this was a sign that my body was feeling weak from dropping down to just 1,198 calories the day prior.  Maybe a combination of both.  But I physically felt slower off the blocks this morning than on the first day, and I have to imagine that I was probably still being powered by the death row last meal the night prior to that, as opposed to this morning.

After one day, I do admittedly feel a little sluggish, but I’m hoping this is something that my body can adapt to, and not something that’s going to make me have to tap out way sooner than I had hoped, because as sure as I am that I could power through this, it might not be the best idea in the world to force, because on a daily basis, I am not responsible for taking care of just me, but a toddler as well as a pregnant wife.  And as much as wouldn’t like having to throw in the towel, the obligations to my family are far more important than an experiment for brog content that nobody will ever read.

But otherwise, it’s not so terrible.  There’s some comfort in knowing that I don’t have to think about what the next meal is going to be, because everything is basically planned out, so all I have to do is throw it into a bowl or onto a plate, and then eat, and then be on my merry way onto the next tasks that my day constantly demands. 

The only real restraints I’ve really felt are when I still feel hungry, and my first inclination is to go to the pantry and grab some Oreos or dive into a bag of chips.  I’ll make a first step but then verbally state that I can’t do that, and then instead usually go fill up my water bottle and slam another bottle of water, and end up peeing 50 more times throughout the day.

Also, I have to exhibit a little bit of restraint when prepping food for my kid, like licking a butter knife, after spreading almond butter onto a waffle, or not eating any remnant piece of whatever it is I’m chopping up for her.  It’s not so much staving off temptation as much as it is breaking habits.

Oh yeah, and getting used to my coffee, black.  It’s not that I can’t drink black coffee, but I typically like creamer in it.  The irony is that coffee is kind of an appetite stimulant, so it’s not really a great idea to be drinking it, but at the same time, I’m useless if I don’t drink it, so it’s like a double-edged sword that I need.

Breakfast: Same as Day 1
Snack: Same as Day 1
Lunch: Same as Day 1
Snack: Same as Day 1
Dinner: Same as Day 1

Total

1,198 calories, 122.5 grams of protein.
Total cost: $9.49

Exercise

  • 100 push-ups (70, 30)
  • 70 sit-ups (30, 40)

My 600 Lb. Diet – Day 1

~ dannyhong ~ Leave a comment

Despite the fact that the motivation behind this whole experiment is somewhat kind of a joke, I actually was a little excited to get started with it.  No time like the present to start putting my money where my mouth is, and not give myself any time to back out of it.  Especially when the only real result to actually sticking with this is weight loss, and who couldn’t use some weight loss these days?

It’s funny, while I was preparing for the start of this whole thing, the day before I started, I basically ate as if I were on death row.  Cereal that had some chocolate in it, Zaxby’s for lunch along with fried mozzarella bites and then Costco pizza later on for dinner.  A Tim Horton’s copycat iced capp recipe I’d been sitting on for like a year, I urgently went ahead and made it because the leftover heavy cream I had in the fridge would undoubtedly be spoiled if I were to make it 28 days.

But now that the experiment has begun, I am taking this shit seriously.  I hate failing to do the things that I say I will do, and I’m determined to go as long as I can with this, although there are a lot of loose parameters and tightening up of the rules that I need to do along the way.

I want to chronicle the things I’m eating, as well as try and put a price to them, because when watching My 600 Lb. Life, a lot of people try and make excuses of financial reasons why they can’t eat better, but they’re somehow ordering $45 worth of KFC to eat by themselves in a single sitting.  Naturally, I’ll try my best to attach relevant nutritional information, as well as notate if I’m doing any sort of exercise throughout the days.

So without further ado, here is the summary of day 1…

Continue reading “My 600 Lb. Diet – Day 1” →