Category Archives: Food

Started Losing Weight Long Term

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A week or so ago I started to eat better and exercise more. Way to go me.

It all started with my team over at the client site deciding that they were going to lose weight along with a co-worker before their wedding in the fall. Figured I’d join in even though I’m only over at that office two days a week.The more the merrier is what I figured.

The group decided that they are going to keep track  of their weight lost, the number of days of cardio, strength training, etc. completed each week. This is to help see what might have helped each of us lose weight over time more. The official weight tracking is scheduled to go until the end of November.

After the first week I lost 6.8 lbs. which I considered a lot by eating healthier and eating smaller portions, along with for now just getting out and walking a few days a week. Last week I managed to walk four different times for a total of about 13 miles, which I averaged between 3 and 3.5 miles per walk.

This week I ended up not losing any weight, but didn’t gain any either. It probably had to do with not making as healthy of food choices. Ended getting Chinese takeout twice during the week and a few other things I wanted to cut out. Did manage to get three walks in for a total 13+ miles. This time it was one walk of over three miles and then two walks of just over five miles each.

When trying to track the distance of my walks I started out trying to use RunKeeper, which always had issues either finding a GPS signal to start with or somewhere along the walk it would shoot me out into the Potomac River. So I ended up switching over to the FREE version of Map My Run’s iPhone application and it worked great. For those wondering I have not tried either one with Voice Over to see if they are accessible or not.

In retrospect doing the two five mile walks on back to back days was a bit much so early in my getting healthier and more fit. The one thing that it did make me realize is that I need new sneakers to improve my walks. My current shoes/sneakers are a bit used and beat up.

Wish me luck in getting healthier and more fit while losing weight at the same time for the long term.It’s been a long time that I have had to do this. Even made me buy a new scale, since the one i have at home has about a 15 or 20 pound difference from the nice new digital scale we have in the office.

Will keep you all posted once in a while on the progress.

Jamie Oliver’s TED Prize Wish

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I follow the great chef Jamie Oliver on twitter (@Jamie_Oliver) and knew he had been award the 2010 TED Prize. He mentioned on his twitter account about it and then linked to his speech after wards. I opened the link in my browser and figured I would back to them.

Last night I could not sleep because I had a few things on my mind. So I noticed that my good friend Justin Thorp(@thorpus) had written on his food blog (Justin Loves Food) an article about Jamie’s prize. It was entitled “Seriously, Watch Jamie Oliver’s TED Talk About Food Education!”.  I read this post and watched Jamie’s TED prize video and the following is the comment I left on his blog.

My Response to Jamie’s TED Prize Talk

The following is my response to reading Justin’s blog post and then watching Jamie Oliver’s TED Prize wish. I felt so passionately about it I created my own blog post so more people will be able to see it an hopefully help with the problem.

I have been following Jamie Oliver for a few years on his different cooking show and have been a big fan of his style of cooking. I even watched Jamie’s series on how to improve the British school lunch system.

It took a bit of time to get the parents, students, and even the lunch ladies to start realizing that real food was better for the students. Once the students started eating better they paid more attention in classes and improved their grades and all they did was improving their eating habits at school and at home.

While at TEDxMidAtlantic this last fall (2009) there was a great talk by Tony Geraci, who is a “Fresh Food Advocate” for the city of Baltimore. You really need to watch Tony talk passionately about getting kids foods that are good for them. I strongly recommend that you watch his video from TEDxMidAtlantic – http://tedxmidatlantic.com/live/#TonyGeraci

So impressed with Jamie’s idea that I’m up at 3:25 AM after watching his TED wish that I’m writing this comment to make sure I get this out to you and your followers.

I know I have a way to go myself to improving my food habits and health. By starting to do more home cooking myself and bringing my lunch to work that will help me out in the long run. Doing so will improve my health without a lot of extra effort and if I add some exercise it will make it even easier.

P.S. I even listed to Tony’s whole talk while writing this comment. Please take the time to watch both of these powerful videos.

Start with Yourself

Please watch both Jamie’s TED talk and Tony’s TEDxMidAtlantic talk, along with read all the linked articles.

Finally, please start with yourself and spend more time cooking real food as Tony says. This will make you fell better and set a good example for others and even your children if you have any.

I plan on improving my eating habits and if you see me straying please remind me of that fact.

What do you think you can do to help improve this countries obesity problem?