Exercise and accuracy...tips and tricks

As I mentioned in my last post, I bought a new pedometer. It looked like
a good one although I didn't really research any particular one online
before taking the plunge.

After now doing the research, I am finding that some can be more accuarate
than others. But, for the way I am using mine, they are all about equally accuarate.
I am using mine JUST on my daily 3 mile (or however long) walks. If they are used
only in this fashion, walking at least 2.5 mph or more for a set duration, the accuracy
is pretty close to the same for almost any model.

Mine allows me to keep track of distance walked, steps, time and calories burned.
Hmmmm, how do they figure how far I have walked? You have to program your stride
into the pedometer. The way I figured this out was the distance toe-to-toe inbetween
normal walking steps. I recently walked four miles inside of a mall and they have all different colored equally sized and spaced tiles on the floor. Over the 45 minute period, I was able to determine that my stride covered 2.75 tiles. I grabbed a measuring tape and figured it
was about 36 inches. So, that is whatI programmed into my pedometer. It seems to be
pretty accurate. Later that day I drove exactly 1 mile, then got out and walked the same distance and wouldn't you know it, the pedometer said I walked exactly 1 mile. So, I was impressed with that. And my pedometer is not all that great ratings wise.

The calories are a different story. When I joined the local gym, I saw that the treadmill
and stationary bikeI was using had a digital readout for the calories burned by asking me
my weight. After doing research, I found out that the calories reported by such devices
can be overestimated by as much as 30%. Although most articles concede that it is
probably closer to a 10-15% overestimation. With this information I always subtract
15% from whatever the readout says and that is what I put into Calorie King. Likewise, the pedometer also overestimates. Using websites that calculate calories burned by weight and walking distance, I am finding my pedometer shows between15-20% more calories burned
than it should. Not to mention that the pedometer assumes you are walking on a smooth,
level surface. If you have hills or stairs on your walk, you are going to burn a few extra calories. But, I am now deducting 20% off whatever the pedometer reports for my calories and that is what I am putting into Calorie King.

One of the best parts of the pedometer is being able to finally figure out how fast
I am walking. Using distance and time I have been able to determine I walk between
3.5 and 4mph. This morning my average speed for my 70 minute walk was 3.77mph. This better helps in more accurately figuring out my total calories burned.

That is my rant for today :)

Several new things...

Walking for Breast Cancer Research

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I spent the morning doing a four mile walk in support of Breast Cancer
Awareness and Breast Cancer Research. The walk was held at a local
mall and was sponsored by Starbucks. They provided free coffee (mmm)
and donated money to the cause on behalf of all that participated. It was
a lot of fun and we had a great turn out!

New Pedometer

---

I just bought my first pedometer. I love it!
It not only keeps track of my steps, but the amount of time I have
walked, the total distance and the total calories burned. I tested it
this morning and it's pretty darn accurate! I am thrilled with it :)

My Sister is on YOAD

---

My sister, who has been watching my wife and I grow smaller and smaller over
the last year, has decided to start YOAD along with her family. She just
finished reading the book and she called me yesterday to say she was
starting to clean the house of the bad stuff. I wish her all the luck
and the best and I know she will be successful at it!

All About Trans-Fats

Most trans fats are in baked goods!

Many people think of trans fat as a margarine issue, but margarine accounts for less than 20 percent of the trans fats the average American eats. The major sources in the American diet are actually commercially baked goods, like cakes, cookies, doughnuts, crackers and pies. The trans fats in these goods come from the partially hydrogenated vegetable oils, which increase shelf life. French fries, chips and microwave popcorn are other important sources of these partially hydrogenated oils. Small amounts of trans fat also occur naturally in butter, milk, cheese, beef and lamb.

If a standard serving of any food for sale has more than 0.5 gram of total fat, trans fat content will be listed on the Nutrition Facts panel on a separate line under saturated fat content. Since scientists have yet to establish what a reasonable amount of trans fat in a healthy diet is, labels will only list the actual amount of trans fat in grams per serving without any percentage of Daily Value or "% DV" beside it. The National Academy of Sciences has issued one guideline: That scientific bodies recommend keeping trans fat as low as possible in a nutritionally adequate diet.

I reached my goal!

GOAL!

When I started YOAD last year (11/07/06) my
goal was 180lbs.

As of this morning, I am now 179.4lbs.

I started YOAD at 289.5lbs. That means since
starting YOAD I have lost 110lbs!!

And I thought the goal of 180lbs was unrealistic
back in the beginning. LOL.

Here were my stats when I started

Weight - 289.5lbs
Waist - 52"
Pants size - 44
Shirt Size - 3XL

I had uncontrolled high blood pressure, staying
about 130/110. I was diagnosed 6 months before
starting YOAD with sleep apnea and was recommended
I go on a CPAP machine. My resting pulse rate was
about 110. I had acid reflux and would get belly
cramps all the time. I was also starting to show signs
around my ankles of having peripheral vascular
disease (PVD).

Now, not quite 1 year later, and here are my
stats today

Weight - 179.4lbs
Waist - 35.25" (RealAge says I should be 37")
Pants size - 33/34
Shirt size - L

And ALL of those medical problems listed above
are gone. I'm off the blood pressure meds and
my pressure is running 111/71. My pulse at rest
is now about 60.

And boy, do I feel MUCH better now :)

I still wouldn't mind losing another 5
or 10lbs. I think I can do it

Have a great week everyone!

No more daily menus

I've decided to remove the daily menus from the blog.

It is just too much work to keep up with.

If I make a spcial dinner I want to share, I'll post it in the
same spot on the side bar.

I'll leave up the history. There is almost 2 months worth
of meals and that should help anyone that might want to
see the kind of meals you can enjoy and still be on the
diet.

Have a great week everyone!

Whole Foods

I can't say enough good things about our favorite
health food store "Whole Foods".

There is just one close to us but we go there about
once every 2 or 3 months. They have so much
great, awseome stuff for the diet!

Our idea for today was to stop in and pick up
a bag or two or Newman's Own spelt pretzels which I
have been trying to find. They had them! Yeahh :)
(Thanx Chari!) But, when it was said and done we
walked out with $80 worth of groceries. LOL.

It's so hard to go in and buy just one item. Here is a list
of what we got today.

Red pepper and walnut crusted fresh talipia (fish) filets
Two 1/2 lb bison burgers (mmmmmm!)
Organic thousand island dressing (meets YOAD)
Reduced fat oragnic soft cream cheese
Soy ice cream bars (my little weekly treat)
Two bags Newman's Own spelt pretzels
Whole Foods brand tater tots (no hydrogenated oil)
Natural pear butter
Red beans and brown rice (canned)
Some red wine (for my wife... I don't like wine)
Dried organic papaya bits (for our pet bird)

We're gonna made a great, romanitc dinner tonite
with the red pepper & walnut crusted talipia with some
fresh cut veggies (brocolli, summer squash, zuccinni,
white bell pepper, red bell pepper, sliced portobello mushrooms
and onions) all sauteed in some chili infused macadamia nut oil!
It's gonna be spectacular! :)

Oh, and this again is for Chari, we found some vietnamese cinnamon
there at Whole Foods. Its where the other bottled spices are. When
we run out of ours now we know where we can get more.

Okay, back to spending time with my beautiful wife!

Have a great day everyone!

As I Rant On...LOL

I've spoke about this a little before but I guess it continues to bother me so
I continue to post about it. It still bugs me how the YOU docs have said that
all saturated fat is bad in their book. The YOAD book is filled with such
awesome information and for them to have something wrong really just eats
away at me.

I contiue to read about this daily. From what I can tell, MOST of the scientific
community agrees that saturated fat from animals are bad while saturated
fats from plants are good.

One thing that got my attention recently is dark chocolate. After 2 weeks of reading, I uncovered some amazing facts. Dark chocolate is composed of between 35-45% FAT!
And of that fat, 2/3 is SATURATED! But, all these studies show that dark chocolate
lowers blood pressure and lowers LDL.

Hmmm, there is controversey over one of the saturated fats in dark chocolate,
Palmitic acid, shown to lower LDL levels. And the other primary saturated fat
in dark chocolate, Stearic acid, gets converted by the body to heart healthy Oleic acid.
With so much saturated fat in dark chocolate, you would think these people in
these studies would be dropping like flies if saturated fat was as bad as we are told it is.

I'm so glad I never listen to just one source. Even many of the ideas introduced in
the YOAD book I have reseached to be sure they got it right.

Anyway, I'll try not to rant about this anymore. LOL.

Sleep Number Bed

We just bought a sleep number bed (Select Comfort) and
it came in by UPS earlier today and we are piecing it together
right now. Ugghh..it's a pain but it's not that bad.

Can't wait to have my good night sleep to help my
aching back after putting the thing together. LOL.

I wanted to welcome Flash back to the main
YOAD message boards. She definately has been missed.

I did very well on the diet today if I do say so myself.

Looking forward to a great day tomorrow, as well.

Thursday my wife and I will be celebrating out 4 year
wedding anniversary. We had made plans to go out of
town but her car needed work we couldn't put off
any longer and so that's where the extra money went, instead.
Better to have her safe is my opinion.

My wife has posted in the Chatter Board under "Shalon".

I hope everyone has a great hump day tomorrow.

Good night..

Under the weather...and new Pics!

I am taking the day off. I had an upset
stomach last night and I woke up with
the same. I had some waffles and then
proceeded to no longer have waffles. Ugggh!

I called off of work and went back to
sleep for a couple of hours. Woke up,
took another trip to the bathroom,
cleaned myself up, and the my wife
fixed me some scrambled eggs and toast.
So far I am keeping it down.

We went to a b-day party last night for
my niece. While I was there I had some
new pics taken of my wife and I. They
are at the link towards the top of
the page under "More pics of us".

Hope everyone has a better day than I have
had so far.

Corn dogs....

I posted on the YOAD message board
recently on how I made some home
made onions rings. I took some
whole wheat pancake batter, mixed
in some seasonings, added only
water, made it thick, and dipped
in some fresh cut onion rings and
then dropped the rings in a hot
pan of peanut oil.

MMmmm. Were they tasty!

Tonite, I took it one more step and
tried the same recipe with a hot dog.
I bought some skewers and killed
my dog, dipped it in the same
batter mixure, dropped it in the
peanut oil for about 1 minute, took
it out and I had an AWESOME healthy,
home made corn dog!

Since this is a snack, I only had 1.
Maybe 300 calories total. Kinda high
for a snack but well worth it.

My wife and I will have to add this to
the list of our dinner options. :)

Hope everyone is having a great weekend

Dazed and confused..yet again

My mom recently told me she did not want to eat
dark chocolate anymore because of a recent article
in the local newspaper that said that it was
actually unhealthy due to the saturated fat content.

Well, I decided to research on my own and I discovered
that about half of the total fat in dark chocolate
is indeed saturated fat.

Most of the saturated fat is a certain type called
stearic acid. When researching this I got
conflicting information.

What else is new. LOL.

Here are two reports but there are others
that support both views.



View #1

Unfortunately for chocolate lovers,
chocolate's high content of stearic acid
puts it in the same category of risk of
coronary disease as meat and butter -- i.e.,



View #2

Stearic acid is a saturated fat that's
mainly in animal products. It's also
in some plant foods like chocolate.
A relatively large percentage of stearic
acid consumed is converted to oleic
acid (a monounsaturated fat). Stearic acid
is used to form margarines, shortenings,
spreads, and as a cream base for baked
products. Even though stearic acid is a
saturated fat, studies have suggested that
it has little effect on blood cholesterol levels,
because such a high proportion is converted
to oleic acid.



So, what do I tell my mom?? How can I make an educated
decison when the more educated people can't agree??

I told her it was okay and was healthy and don't
worry about the saturated fat. But ultimately, it would
be her decision.

New Yummy Place To Eat!

Good day everyone!

We have cut out so many of our favorite
restaurants when we started YOAD. We were
eating out like 50% of our meals each
week and that was very unhealthy. We now
stick to maybe 1 or 2 meals, if that,
per week out. And the calibre of restaurant
has also changed to those that serve YOAD friendly
selections like with American Pie Pizza.
They serve an awesome 100% whole wheat flatbread.
Mmmmm.

Last night we tried a place for the first
time called Pollo Tropical.

They serve chargrilled chicken, marinated in
fruit juices and served with healthy sides like
mashed potatoes, corn, tomatoes in balsamic
vinegar and baked sweet plantains (my
wife's favorite). I had the mashed potatoes
plain with a little salt, no gravy :)

Good stuff!

There ARE ways to eat out and to eat healthy.
You just got to fine them!

Good health to everyone!