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January 31, 2006

Day 27

I feel pretty darn good right now

What I ate today

Breakfast (8:30 a.m.)
4 slices of whole grain bread
2 ounces of turkey
2 ounces of roast beef
2 servings of fat free mayo
Calories: 410
Fat: 5 grams

Lunch (1 p.m.)
1 Healthy Choice smoked Sausage
2 ounces of roast beef
1 slice of whole grain bread
Mustard
Calories: 425
Fat: 11.25 grams

Snack: (3:30 p.m.)
5 Grape tomatoes
1 cup lowfat cottage cheese
Calories: 190
Fat: 3 grams

Dinner (7 p.m.)
Salad
3 chicken filets
3 servings lettuce
5 grape tomoates
1/8 of a cucumber
2 mushrooms
2 servings of fat free Italian dressing
1 serving of Just 2 Good Bleu Cheese dressing
Calories: 290
Fat: 3.5 grams

Snack (9:30 p.m.)
2 servings of baby carrots
Calories: 70
Fat: 0 grams

Total Calories: 1,385
Total fat: 22.75 grams

Exercise: 40 minutes on elliptical machine (15 warm up, 10 in the middle of lifting, 15 minute warm down) various upper body weight lifting. I burned 621 calories just on the elliptical. That is quite an improvement from Friday when the same exercise burned only about 450.

Alright, today was a weigh-in day. And, well, I weighed in at 345. What? Yeah, 345. Yes, I was 347 last Monday. But what I didn’t tell you is that I went down to 346 Wednesday then back up to 347 Friday after my little “what does it all mean” rant and subsequent two “normal eating” days.

So I can look at 345 in three ways:

1) What the hell? Only two pounds last week? That all went to waste. That is seven days that you can’t get back. You suck hard.

2) Hey, two pounds is two pounds. When was the last time you were 345? You don’t know because you were so fat you couldn’t weight yourself. So way to go buddy, a lot of people wish they had lost two pounds last week. And you basically did it in a weekend.

3) Why are you even bothering to weigh yourself after breakfast? You know you had two sandwiches before you weighed in. And at this point, weighing yourself is dumb because no matter what you won’t really like the result. Even if you were 340 this week you would still weigh 340 pounds.

I am using No. 2 with a little bit of No. 3 bringing up the rear. I am not really too concerned with 345. I am actually kind of happy that I basically took two days off and still lost two pounds. I don’t think those two cream cheese bagels were conducive to seven pounds in seven days. Also, I didn’t exercise much over the weekend. So, that probably didn’t help either.

The biggest thing today is that I had another solid workout at the gym. The elliptical machine is a godsend, the perfect balance between walking (which I don’t mind) and running (which I fucking hate. Fuck you running. Go to hell and stop looking so damn smug.) I don’t think I’ll have too much trouble working my way up to an hour on the elliptical by the middle of February.

As far as my eating went today, I am pretty happy. I know, two sandwiches at a meal is probably not the best way to go. I am trying to cut down on the bread. But I would say that it is a lot better to have to cut down on bread than to have to cut down on every fatty food thee is.

Not surprisingly, my energy is at an all time high. Before I started this, I was falling asleep on the couch at 6 p.m. every night. I could barely make it to games. Since the initial sleeping problems the first weekend, I haven’t had to take so much as a nap.

And I haven’t had one problem getting to sleep at night. Sunday, for example, I got up at 11:30 a.m. Now, when that happened before, I would usually have to stay up until at least 4 a.m. and would have no chance of getting up the next day. But Sunday night I fell asleep at 2 a.m. (normal time for me right now) and woke up at 8:30 a.m. on the dot.

Oh, and I am officially down two notches on my belt.

So things are going pretty good, even if I did only lose two pounds last week.

Posted by west at 12:55 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

January 30, 2006

Days 24, 25 and 26

I'm not the healthiest man in the world...yet

What I ate today

Breakfast (11:30 a.m. Hey! Don’t call me lazy. It’s Sunday.)
2 ounces turkey breast
1 can Tuna
4 slices of multi grain bread
2 servings of fat free mayo
Calories: 460
Fat: 4.5 grams

Snack (1:30 p.m.)
2 large dill pickles
Calories: 0
Fat: 0 grams

Snack (2:30 p.m.)
1 ounce roast beef
Calories: 50
Fat: 1 gram

Snack: (4:30 p.m.)
1 ounce roast beef (it was so damn good, I had to have more)
Calories: 50
Fat: 1 gram

Dinner: (5 p.m.)
1 half of a Healthy Choice smoked sausage package (Not really sure how to say that. I guess it was one smoked sausage since two comes in the package?)
2 Mushrooms
1 can of spinach
Calories: 405
Fat: 8.75 gramsv

Snack (8:30 p.m.)
1 ounce of roast beef (I liked it. Lay off.)
Calories: 50
Fat: 1 gram

Snack (10:30 p.m.)
18 baby carrots
Calories: 70
Fat: 0 grams

Total Calories: 1,085
Total Fat: 16.25 grams

Exercise: Went to the park and walked for about 30 minutes before my snot froze from the wind. Sounds fun doesn’t it? It’s not.

Holy crap I am sick of writing. Here is the shitty thing about my job (In case you didn’t know, I am a sportswriter. If I want credibility with someone I don’t know, though, I say I am a journalist) and doing this blog. Sometimes I have to write for four hours straight. I just wrote 3,500 words for work tonight, and now I have to give you people your fill.

That is actually the reason there wasn’t a Saturday post. When I came home Friday night I was just sick of writing. Though, honestly this blog isn’t hard to do. It takes about 25 minutes to crap out 1,000 words. If it wasn’t for the food journal, It would take me 15. But still, after doing four structured and factually correct stories, the thought of having to type out more words isn’t exciting.

No, I am not bitching about these entries. I should be smart enough to get some work done earlier so writing won’t seem like such a pain in the ass.

Anyway, since I haven’t written anything in three days there are a few things to cover. First, Friday’s workout was fantastic. I went on the elliptical machine for 40 minutes total (15 warm up, 10 in the middle of working out and 15 warm down). Although, I regret to say that the chart I gave you Friday, which showed me burning 170 calories per 10 minutes on the elliptical, has since been scientifically proven incorrect. On the 10-minute elliptical session I burned roughly the same amount of calories I did on the first 15-minute session. That was a little odd. But I finished strong and burned a total of 467 calories just on the elliptical machine. So yeah, I am sweet. I am going to do the same thing Monday.

I would tell you what I had to eat Friday and Saturday, but I honestly don’t remember. I do remember, though, being proud of myself Friday. I walked into work at 6 p.m. and saw that my boss had ordered pizza for us. Now, I had eaten dinner about two hours before and was kind of hungry. I noticed that it was a thin crust pizza from Dominoes (one of two places you can get pizza here – the other being Pizza Hut – Is there any bigger crime against humanity than having only those two pizza places within driving distance? Isn’t that like having to choose which turd to lick?). Anyway, it was a thin crust from Dominoes, so it was broken up into like 100 tiny ass slices. I knew I wasn’t going to get to eat again until at least five hours later, so I picked the three smallest pieces I could find, picking the vegetable-filled side over the sausage and pepperoni side, and had those. It couldn’t have been more than 200 calories total. I got the pizza taste and was satisfied.

So that was Friday.

Saturday nothing really special happened. I think I had a chicken-topped salad for lunch. That’s about it.

As for today, I am happy. While my calorie count was a little bit low, I did manage to eat six times. That, of course, goes along with every bit of reader advice I’ve gotten. You people have broken me. Smaller portions, more meals. Ok? You happy? Hopefully in the future it will result in about 1,400 calories.

Even though I went shopping Thursday, I checked the fridge today and realized I have no protein in the house other than chicken and tuna. That made me kind of sad. So I went to evil Wal-Mart and bought the healthy choice smoked sausage (which could become a staple on this diet) and some turkey and roast beef from the deli counter.

Now, when I asked the near-toothless deli counter lady to slice the meet into one ounce portions, she looked at me like I had just asked her the name of James K. Polk’s bastard love child. So she cut one slice and showed it to me. It was about as thick as my wrist.

“Is that about right?” She asked.

“Uh, about half that.” I said.

Certainly I wasn’t surprised that she couldn’t tell the difference between a one-ounce slice of turkey and a two-ounce slice of turkey, even though she was using, you know, a fucking SCALE. I have become desensitized to that kind of back-woods stupidity in this town. But what she said next blew me away.

She mumbled something about not being able to weigh a slice or something. I can’t quote it, but I know she definitely referenced the fact that she didn’t have the equipment to measure out an ounce.

Well, I thought, then how are you taking orders by the pound?! I mean, even if the scale only reads in pounds and fractions of pounds, shouldn’t there be some sort of conversion chart around? All I know is that the last time I went in there the guy behind the counter started talking about how people order cheese sliced “exactly one ounce thick”. That is a quote. That is what he said. Now, mind you, that guy gave me seven slices of turkey in the pound I ordered, so I don’t think he quite had the measures down pat, either. But still, there is precedent for that order.

Anyway, the moral here is that people are stupid. Of course, we are all stupid in some way so it may be unfair to judge. But still, I judge, because dammit, I hate when people’s stupidity affects my day.

By the way, Monday is a weigh in day. Keep your fingers crossed for 280. More likely, I will be hoping for anything under 346.

There, 998 words in a little over a half hour.

Now 1,000.

Posted by Dan Nied at 10:30 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

January 27, 2006

Day 23

This is a work in progress.

What I ate today

Breakfast (10 a.m.)
1 can of tuna
2 slices of whole grain bread
2 servings of fat free mayonnaise
Calories: 270
Fat: 2.5 grams

Lunch (1 p.m.)
1 Subway grilled chicken breast sub with a lot of things except for mayonnaise, cheese and jalapenos
Calories: 660
Fat: 10 grams

Snack (3:15 p.m)
1 serving of baby carrots
Calories: 35
Fat 0 grams

Snack (5:15 p.m.)
1 plain bagel
Way too much cream cheese
Calories: 300-500?
Fat: ???

Dinner: 8 p.m.
1 package of Healthy Choice smoked Sausage
Calories: 560
Fat: 17.5 grams

Drinks
44 ounces Diet Coke
40 ounces of black coffee (20 decaf)
1 liter of water

Approximate total calories: 1,925
Total fat: More than 30 grams

Exercise: None.

Don’t worry. I am not off the diet. After yesterday’s rant of pure frustration, I decided it would be best to loosen the strings a little bit today. Oddly enough, I actually ate like a semi-normal person. But more importantly, I got a chance to take a step back and examine this whole thing.

I think there were a few questions I needed to address. I started with one big one: Do I really want to continue this? The answer was an emphatic yes.

So that led to the next question: Can I really do this right if I don’t take it 100 percent seriously? The answer was no.

So, as these things tend to do, that led to another question: 3) Where can I improve?

That one took up most of my thoughts for today. Obviously, my belief is that I am half-assing the exercise. That has to change. I hate giving out plans because I am not reliable enough to guarantee their success, but my hope is that Friday, I will do at least 30-40 minutes on the elliptical machine. I want to break that up with a 15-minute warm up and warm down and then a 10-minute pseudo elliptical run in between lifting. My ultimate goal is to work up to 60 minutes three times per week. Since I have burned almost exactly 170 calories per 10 minutes on the elliptical machine so far, I have figured out a chart of how many calories I can burn over elongated periods of time:

10 min. = 170 calories
20 min. = 340 calories
30 min. = 510 calories
40 min. = 680 calories
50 min. = 850 calories
60 min. = 1,020 calories

My chart proves that spending 30 minutes on the elliptical trainer will be more beneficial to me than 10 minutes. I know that the calorie counts probably won’t stay constant over time, but I still have a hunch that if I go longer, I will burn more calories. Let’s hope my math isn’t off.

So I think that is the biggest change I will be going for over the next few days. I think at this point it is a better idea to worry about burning calories than toning. Don’t get me wrong, I will still be lifting at least three times a week, but for right now, my focus will be on building stamina and burning off excess fat.

I also looked into what I’ve been eating. I think it is safe to say that the bagel with the crapload of cream cheese is off the diet, at least for now. But I also have decided to stick to the basics of my program, which is lots of protein and lots of vegetables. I will, however, try to cut back on the sandwiches. A friend of mine pointed out that the bread I am using is probably processed as all hell. Now I don’t really know what that means, but I think it is bad and will probably slow down the mystery that is my metabolism. I also don’t really know what metabolism is, but I know mine is slow. I also know that I don’t need Sara Lee coming in here and making it even slower with her delicious breads. I won’t cut sandwiches out completely, but I will try not to make it the basic food group of this diet.

Now, apparently everyone knows this but me, but I guess I haven’t been eating enough on this diet. Well, I actually am alright with the average calorie intake, but I do have a problem with the long gaps in between meals. I want to set a schedule in which I eat breakfast as soon as I get up (usually 9 a.m.), have lunch as soon as I get home from work (usually 12 p.m.) then eat three hours after that, (usually, well, 3 p.m.). I will have dinner at 6 p.m. and then have another snack at 9 p.m. I am usually in bed by 1 a.m., so that seems pretty reasonable.

And that is really the whole idea, isn’t it? This diet isn’t hard. Actually, the eating has been the easiest part. I always knew this would be a work in progress, and I always knew there would be days like yesterday, when I hated the whole idea. But tonight I was walking to my car and I found myself subconsciously repeating the same line over and over again: I will not fail. I will not fail. I will not fail.

And that is when it hit me. Everything is really simple.

I will not fail. That is the only promise I can make.

Posted by Dan Nied at 12:42 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

January 26, 2006

Day 22

What am I doing here? I don't really know

What I ate today

Breakfast (9:30 a.m.)
1 can of tuna fish
2 slices of multi-grain bread
2 servings of fat free mayonnaise
Calories: 270
Fat: 2.5 grams

Lunch (1 p.m.)
1 Subway club, no cheese, all vegetables ….yada yada yada
Calories: 640
Fat: 12 grams

Snack (5 p.m.)
1 plain bagel
Several servings of garden vegetable cream cheese
Calories: 300-500?
Fat: ??

Dinner
3 servings of Catfish filets
2 slices of multi grain bread
2 servings of fat free mayonnaise
Calories: Approximately 459
Fat: 14.5 grams

Drinks
Lots of diet pop
Two liters of water
20 ounces of coffee

Approximate Total Calories: 1,769
Fat: More than 29 grams

Starting weight: Approximately 368 pounds
Monday's weight: 347 pounds
Wednesday's weight: 346 pounds
Total weight lost: Approx. 22 pounds

Exercise: A half-assed workout at the gym that included some really shitty weight training that I didn’t even need to push myself to do. Ten minutes on the elliptical machine that wasn’t so hard I couldn’t do 15. Five minutes on a worthless exercise bike that burned what, 30 calories? Whatever.

What the fuck am I doing? Do I want to stay exactly the same as I am right now? Do I want to waste this motivation, this tiny window of opportunity in which my mind is in the right frame to get healthy? This kind of motivation comes, for me, about once every five years. So why do I feel like I am wasting it?

Why? Because, in so many ways, I am. I write these entries and pretend to provide motivation for people. I try to convince every reader that I am 100 percent committed to losing weight, that the main goal in my life is to prevent later health problems by trimming 100 pounds in three months. But how can I sit here and tell you that I am doing well when I am so obviously mailing it in half the time? Sure, maybe you guys don’t know that, but I do. I fucking know that my workouts have been a joke and that, while my eating habits have changed, I can still convince myself to go get to the coffee shop and order a fucking plain bagel with a ton of cream cheese.

I rationalized it today by telling myself I need to learn to eat regular portions when this whole thing is done. Yeah, Dan, I told myself, it’s ok to go get a bagel today because you used to go there twice a week and get three parmesan bagels with jalapeno cheddar cream cheese. So it’s ok, when I am trying to dramatically change my health, to shove that shit down my gullet in a reasonable portion? We all know bagels are a gateway drug. Next time I’ll convince myself that a Whopper is ok, so long as it isn’t a Double Whopper. Then the vegetable lovers pizza is fine because it is infinitely more healthy than the meat lovers pizza, right?

Well fuck that. Fuck me. Why would I try and share this project with the world if I can’t convince myself to go 100 percent on this? I’d say that at best I am giving an 80 percent effort. And yeah, I know that eating 2,000 calories per day would result in a pretty decent weight loss over time, but that’s not my goal here. My goal is to start this quest fast and then move up to reasonable portions. Maybe that sounds crazy, but realize this: I am sick of being fat! I am sick of having to wear elastic pants and pick bellybutton lint two knuckles deep. I am sick of seeing an attractive girl at a party and overcompensating (poorly) with humor because I know it would take a freaking miracle to get her to touch me in the right spots.

Look, this isn’t me at 230 wanting to get down to 200. This isn’t the kind of fat you can cover up with a loose fitting shirt. This is the kind of fat that fucking kills people eventually. This is the kind of fat that will have me, in 10 years, hyperventilating while walking to my car from the grocery store after buying 18 boxes of macaroni and cheese for a fun-filled loner Saturday night. Why 18? Because in 10 years I’m sure my one-night record will be at least 16. I’ll want to beat that.

This isn’t a beer gut. This is serious.

I don’t want to be a sideshow anymore and that is why I want to do this fast. I want to get through the worst of it as quickly as possible and then drop the rest of the weight at a comfortable pace over a long period of time. But I can’t really do that if I don’t stop cheating myself, right? In turn, I’ve cheated the readers, so many of whom have left encouraging notes, many times with the message that I’ve actually inspired them. Look, I’m happy this story is inspiring, but lets be honest here: three weeks in there is nothing inspiring about this. Right now, I am just a man who lost 20 pounds or whatever because that is what took the least amount of effort. But never, ever, ever, in these last three weeks have I made the decision to keep an eating schedule that included five meals per day. Not once have I planned out real exercise or a day’s eating plan the night before.

How can I inspire anyone if I can’t even inspire myself?

And you know what? I can’t sit here today and tell you emphatically that things are going to change. This isn’t a stump speech and I’m not running for office. I am just a guy sitting at his computer, surrounded by empty pop bottles and Subway wrappers, wondering why he can’t make the choices that are so obvious to him.

I just know that things have to change in order for me to be truly successful in this. I have to attack exercise with renewed vigor, I have to be much more disciplined in what I eat and I have to weigh my options in every situation. Will I do that? I don’t really know.

We’ll see.

Posted by west at 01:56 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

January 25, 2006

Dan Nied's 100 Days: Day 21

The first in a long line of moments of truth

What I ate today

Breakfast (9:30 a.m.)
1 can of Tuna
2 slices of wheat bread
1 serving of fat free mayonnaise
Calories: 270
Fat: 2.5 grams

Lunch (12:30 p.m.)
4 Vegan Burgers
4 slices of multi grain bread
2 servings of fat free mayonnaise
1 pouch of Beef jerky
Calories 570
Fat 6 grams

Dinner (6 p.m.)
3 servings iceberg lettuce with carrots and other stuff cut up in there
5 grape tomatoes
¼ cucumber
1 serving of mushrooms
3 Chicken filets
2 servings of fat free Italian dressing
1 serving of Just 2 Good Bleu Cheese dressing
Calories: 265
Fat: 3 grams

Snack (9 p.m.)
Pea Pods, raw
Calories: 40
Fat: 0 grams

Drinks
3 liters of water
20 ounces of Diet Pepsi

Total calories ingested: 1,145
Total fat: 11.5 grams

Exercise: Went to the park and walked for 45 minutes. Had to cut it short because I had a meeting at work. In retrospect, maybe I shouldn’t have wasted an hour playing NCAA 06 before walking. I should get a treadmill so I can do both at the same time.

Wednesday is a day of truth. I know that I was down to 347 Monday. But Wednesday I will be heading back to the gym for the first time since I got that prophetic reading. Since the gym is where the scale is, Wednesday is the first time I will be able to weigh myself again. Now, the question is: what will I weigh? Obviously anything below 347 will be good. However, to support my theory of 100 pounds in 100 days, 345 is what I am hoping for.

But what if I’ve gained weight? I don’t think that’s possible considering that Monday and Tuesday I ate a combined 2,273 calories and 28.5 grams of fat. But I have been on scales before with an expectation of weight loss. It doesn’t always come. It ruins your day every time. Although in certain situations you can get around that. When I tried to lose weight while living with my parents (sad to say, until my 25th birthday), I would get on the bathroom scale first thing every morning. I knew that was the time when you weighed the least. Sometimes I would go so far as to drink water right before bed, get on the scale, go to sleep, get up, take a piss and get on the scale again. It was always at least five pounds lighter. That made me feel good every day.

But unfortunately, I don’t have a scale. I bought one once, but I broke it the first night (true story, but I had my much slimmer stepfather take it back the next day citing shoddy merchandise). Wednesday I will have to get up, eat breakfast, go to work and then get on the scale. That is mentally tough to do. But, it will be at the exact same time as Monday. So 345, I am keeping my fingers crossed for you, buddy.

Today went pretty well but there seems to be a weird sort of underlying, undeniable fact with this diet. While I am yet to get a strong craving to cheat, I do have a very small, nagging urge to cheat every second of every day. It doesn’t take much willpower to deny the urge, but it is still there nonetheless. I am toying around with what is definitely a bad idea. I am thinking about setting a weight goal, say 320 pounds, and once I get there I can either have a day or a meal to cheat with whatever I want. I don’t know what the chances of me doing that actually are. It seems like the dumbest thing I could possibly do. But I am sure I could rationalize it by telling myself that I want to see if I can stumble and then get back up. Or that I need to see the physical effects of eating poorly for a day. It would be sort of like the guy at the end of Platoon stabbing himself in the thigh to get out of Vietnam (probably not really, though). But still, there is no way in the world that is a good idea.

I really think about this diet at all times. It has consumed me. I think about what I will look like when I succeed. I worry about how much excess skin there will be (especially when the chin fat is gone). I fantasize about what kind of girls I can get to make out with me when I am not so fat. I dread the possibility of being one of those guys that actually looks better fat. What if I get to the end of this, hit my ultimate target weight (240 pounds) and realize I‘m ugly? In that case, what the hell am I doing this for? If it turns out I am not a good looking guy underneath this fat, I’ll overdose on provolone within a year.

The old myth is that men think about sex every six seconds. Well, I am definitely thinking about this diet at least every six seconds. So thinking about sex and this diet (and sometimes both at once) is taking up at least a third of my day. My only question is: what I am thinking about the other two-thirds of the time?

I can’t remember.

Posted by Dan Nied at 01:32 AM | Comments (0)

January 24, 2006

Day 20

Finally, a breakthrough

What I ate today

Breakfast (9 a.m.)
4 ounces of turkey breast
2 slices of wheat bread
1 shitload of yellow mustard
1 serving V-8 juice
Calories: 240
Fat: 3 grams

Lunch (2 p.m.)
2 ounces of turkey breast
2 slices of wheat bread
1 serving of fat free mayonnaise
1 shitload of mustard
1 ½ cup of red grapes
Calories: 248
Fat: 2 grams

Dinner ( 8 p.m.)
1 Subway club on white bread, no cheese, no mayonnaise, extra mustard, all vegetables except jalapenos, extra pickles and olives
Calories: 640
Fat: 12 grams

Drinks
1 liter of water
several liters of diet coke/pepsi

Total calories ingested: 1,128
Total fat ingested: 17 grams

Exercise: Upper body workout with nautilus weights. Worked chest, biceps, triceps, shoulders and back. 10 minute warmup on elliptical machine.

Now, let me start out by saying something important: 347! 347! 347! 347! 347! 347! 347! 347!

Let’s look at this in context. Am I truly happy to weight 347 pounds today? No. But if you think about the fact that 20 days ago I HAD to estimate my weight at 370 because I was too heavy for a doctor’s office scale, then I am as happy as all hell.

I got an official reading today, and that was the biggest breakthrough I’ve had so far. I put the thingy (clinical term) at 350 and it said, “hey, Dan, that’s too far. Bring it down another couple of pounds, buddy.” So I did. 347! This diet is officially working. Now, I just hope I didn’t estimate my weight too high. It would kind of suck if I started this at 353 and had only lost six pounds. But there was no way I was under 365. I was 350 in August and I came home and finished off the year with a bona fide bender. So let’s say that I was 368, since that is a happy medium between 365 and 370. That means I have lost 21 pounds in 20 days. We’ll see how the pace keeps up and then after a few weeks I will determine if 100 pounds in 100 days is possible. But so far I am led to believe that it might just be.

Do you know what this means? It’s working! I have actual proof that this diet is working. I can now give people a concrete number for my weight. There is no more: oh, I am around 320 (what you non-fatties may not know is that anytime a fat guy tells you he is 320, he is a lying sack of shit. That is just the weight he’ll tell you because it is enough to acknowledge the fact that he’s let himself go, but still doesn’t divulge the truth that he is heavy enough to be worried about adult onset diabetes or thinking about getting his stomach stapled.)

Let’s keep our fingers crossed for at least 346 Wednesday. If it is 345 or below, I might just poop my pants in the locker room.

As for the rest of the day, I didn’t eat enough. I fell under the 1,200 calorie minimum and only ate three times. I needed to jam a snack in there. There are no excuses, I know, so get off my back.

I’d like to thank the fucking assholes at the area Pizza Hut for keeping this diet intact. See, every Monday I co-host an hour-long sports radio show from that place. The radio station cuts them a generous deal for the on-location remote broadcast. I don’t get paid for the show, I just do it for the experience. You would think that with the deal they get for having us come there and plug their shitty pizza for an hour that they would gladly hand over a free pie every week. No, they offer us only a small order of breadsticks (not cheese sticks). Of course, if any of our guests are from the junior college, then those guests can get a free pizza. But we can’t. I have been pretty pissed about that for about a year, but it is really helping this diet because it would be very hard to resist a free pizza (even a shitty one) each week. But the breadsticks, well I will gladly refrain from eating those mutant pipe cleaners. But seriously, fuck you area Pizza Hut.

I went to Subway again today, I might make that a regular Monday thing. I usually have nothing to do Monday nights and I like to center my night around watching 24. I find that Subway and Jack Bauer go together surprisingly well.

That’s it for today. Just remember, 347!

Posted by Dan Nied at 01:18 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

January 23, 2006

Day 18 and 19

Getting some love from the Subway girl

What I ate today

Breakfast
2 servings of Cottage Cheese
1 serving V-8
Calories: 210
Fat: 1.5 grams

Lunch
1 Subway Club, double meet, no cheese, no mayonnaise, mustard, all vegetables but jalapenos.
Calories: 900
Fat: 19 grams

Snack
2 cups of Grapes
Calories: 120
Fat: 0 grams

Dinner
Salad
3 servings of iceberg lettuce
5 grape tomatoes
1/6 cucumber
1 thin onion slice
2 servings of fat free Italian dressing
1 serving Just 2 Good Bleu Cheese dressing
2 skinless chicken filets
Calories: 210
Fat: 2.25 grams

Total Calories ingested: 1,440
Total fat ingested: 22.25 grams

Damn, that is a lot of fat today. Though, really, should I be complaining with a double meat club? It might be fair to bump the calories up to 1,500 for today because I actually found a good thing about the new girl at Subway , you know, the one I might have to get fired: She has no clue how much meat goes on a sandwich! For my double meat club, I watched her put on 10 slices of turkey. Usually the double meat gets eight slices of turkey, eight slices of roast beef and four slices of ham. I don’t know what she did with the roast beef, though, because I turned away, not wanting to watch her screw up and all.

Yes, the double meat club strays from the usual diet and it won’t happen very often. I just wanted something meaty today, so I went with it. It is good to see I was able to have that and stay generally within my range of 1,200-1,500 calories per day.

Before I get to the main point of today’s post, I want to answer a few comments from the Friday post.

From: Steve
RE: This is dumb
This is one of the dumbest Blogcritics.org posts ever. It is a perfect example of what should be kept to your personal blog and not published here. To be honest, nobody here cares how many calories you eat a day. If we were, we would read your personal blog.

I have a good idea, how about we get tons of 14-year old girls to talk about their cliques and love lives on here too!

Later on, Steve gets in one more shot

From: Steve
RE: CNN wouldn’t do this
I am not criticizing his admirable goal or the interesting idea to keep track of it, but I wouldn't expect CNN anchors to talk about their personal lives, and this is supposed to be a forum for great bloggers to post their BEST articles about politics, culture. Not everything they would throw up on a personal site.

Steve, thanks for taking time to write in. First of all, when I mentioned this idea to one of the Blogcritics.org editors, he asked me to submit it for the site. I figured it would be a good way to get more than 10 people a day to read about it and, therefore, would put more pressure on me to succeed. Since then several Blogcritics.org editors have commented that they are engrossed in the project. If you want them to stop posting it, ask them to.

Now, you are right, I can’t see CNN anchors talking about their personal lives, but I could definitely see CNN doing a serial story on a fat person’s effort to lose weight. That is basically what this is, except it is in the first person. Basically I change “Him to “me” and there you go. Also, I will take the Howard Stern defense: If you don’t want to read it, then don’t. It is pretty simple.

From: RJ
RE: Communicate!
I've commented on about a half-dozen of these posts now, and have seen no feedback from the author. Perhaps the elite squad of fat-busters at BlogCritics.org could be of more help if you, ya know, communicated with them a bit?

If you want to reach me personally, email me. I will respond to everything, I promise. I have, though, been reading the comments left on Blogcritics, and have taken every single one to heart. A lot of the modifications I’ve made to this diet have been as a result of those comments. Sorry if you are feeling neglected, RJ. I got nothin’ but love for ya. And yes, I laughed at the “elite squad of fat-busters” line.

From: Dave
RE: Why all the roast beef?
I'm just wondering what possessed Dan to have roast beef for lunch AND breakfast. Surely some other form of protein like a nice egg would have gone better with breakfast.

The simple answer here is: I like roast beef and I don’t have any eggs in the house. One thing readers need to know about me is that I am lazy as hell (probably a trait found in most fatties). A lot of the things I do on this diet take are the things that the least amount of effort. That’s why I can go through eight cans of tuna in a week while a bag of chicken goes unmolested. If I can get away without cooking, I will. That certainly is one reason sandwiches have become so prominent. Yes, an egg would have been a good choice, but it wasn’t going to happen unless I ate it Rocky-style. Also, the roast beef was kind of a special thing and I tend to take advantage of that as quickly as possible.

Alright, on to the main point. Today I wanted to talk about exercise. I’ll admit, I have been lagging lately. I went to the gym only once last week and walked either three or four times. The fact that I can’t remember is bad. The times I did walk, it was only for 45 minutes instead of the hour I need.

That must change. So here is the goal this week: Monday, Wednesday and Friday I will go to the gym to work with weights and do at least 15 minutes on the elliptical machine. Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday I will go to the park and walk for at least an hour. Those goals are all within reach and they must be converted from goals into habits. I will begin each post with a very brief summary of the exercise each day and let you know how it all went.

I think exercise is one of the most difficult things for people trying to lose weight. At first there is a lot of self doubt and embarrassment. Even now I get frustrated that I have to walk instead of run. But I also know that walking will eventually lead to running. I am not so worried about what others think, but when you let yourself go for as long as I did, you have to deal with your own shame more than anything else.

So that is the goal. I think I can do it. Actually, I need to stop thinking. I am going to do it.

And Steve, if you have gotten to this point, you just need to admit that you do care what I ate today.

Posted by Dan Nied at 02:35 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

January 21, 2006

Day 17

I want a freaking cheeseburger!

What I ate today

Breakfast (8:15 a.m.)
3 ounces of roast beef
2 slices wheat bread
1 tablespoon fat free mayonnaise
½ cup of lowfat cottage cheese
8 ounces V-8
Approximate calories: 335
Fat: 5.5 grams

Lunch (12 p.m.)
3 ounces of roast beef
4 ounces of turkey breast
4 slices of wheat bread
2 tablespoons of fat free mayonnaise
Several tablespoons of fat free mustard
Approximate calories: 410
Fat: 6 grams

Snack (3 p.m.)
Handful of red grapes
4 grape tomatoes
Approximate calories: 50?
Fat: 0 grams

Dinner (5:30 p.m.)
Salad
3 servings iceberg lettuce
4 grape tomatoes
1/6 of a cucumber
1 thin onion slice
3 ounces mushrooms
1 can tuna
3 ounces roast beef
2 servings fat free Italian dressing
1 serving Just 2 Good bleu cheese
Approximate calories: 448
Fat: 6.5 grams

Snack (11:45 p.m.)
1 serving lowfat cottage cheese
Approximate Calories: 80
Fat: 1.5 grams

Drinks
3.5 liters of water

Approximate calories ingested: 1,323
Fat ingested: 19.5 grams

I want a goddam cheeseburger right now! The cravings are worst on Friday nights after work. I used to look forward to this time all week. It wasn’t much, but after midnight I always had few hours where I could kick back and enjoy at least $12 worth of fast food, usually from Wendy’s.

I would veg out, as the kids say, and get high on beef, cheese and mayonnaise. It was the perfect reward for 10 hours of work on a Friday night and a full week of writing about the same shit happening in the same places in the same fucking town. I looked forward to the food most of all. But now, well, I can’t do that. I came home tonight and had what honestly amounted to more than the one serving of cottage cheese I listed above. I am not satisfied. But I won’t give in. I have come too far since the gravy incident. I’m not going to jeopardize this diet just because of one craving.

One thing I am learning is the difference between cheating and blowing the whole fucking thing up. Obviously, if I went to Wendy’s tonight and poured out $15 for delicious delicious cheeseburgers, that would be blowing the whole fucking thing up. However, if I let this craving subside and then wait until Saturday or Sunday and go to Subway and get a double-meat club with no cheese or mayo, then that is simply cheating. Sure that double-meat club isn’t on the diet, officially, but it is only 900 calories and almost as good as the cheeseburgers. I can get away with that. In fact, there should be very little doubt that I will be purchasing a double-meat club sometime this weekend. I’ll let you know how that goes.

As for today, it was kind of weird. I ate more than I usually do, mainly because I have a lot of perishables – and some very good roast beef - in the fridge. I also wanted to try to keep my metabolism going all day and apparently you have to eat to do that. As far as exercise, I planned on heading to the weight room today but that got all screwed up when my boss called in sick for work. I had to lay out two extra pages for today’s paper, which took me an extra two hours.

When I was done with that I had to do an interview. It was 3 p.m. by the time I was free. Instead of working out, I decided to go to the park and walk for an hour. I like walking more than working out because it is a time for me to be alone with my thoughts. A lot of the things you read in this entry come from that time. Fortunately, it has been unseasonably warm the last month. I suspect that will change sooner rather than later. Either way, I have to start making more of an effort to hit the weights. Sure I might get down to 270 by the end of this, but I don’t want it to be a soft 270.

That’s it for today. I’ll be back tomorrow.

Posted by west at 02:08 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

January 20, 2006

Day 16

I spend too much on groceries and don't take in enough calories

January 20, 2006

Day 16

What I ate today

Breakfast (8:30 a.m.)
1 can of Tuna
2 slices of wheat bread
2 tablespoons of fat free mayonnaise
Approximate Calories: 270
Fat: 2.5 grams

Lunch (12:30 p.m.)
3 servings iceberg lettuce mix (with cabbage and carrot bits cut up in there)
½ Tomato
¼ Cucumber
1 can of Tuna
2 tablespoons of fat free Italian dressing
1 tablespoon of Just 2 good Bleu Cheese Dressing
Approximate Calories: 310
Fat: 3.5 grams

Snack: (4:30 p.m.)
3 ounces Cajun Roast Beef
Approximate Calories: 100

Dinner (6 p.m.)
6 ounces of Cajun Roast Beef
4 slices of wheat bread
2 tablespoons of fat free mayonnaise
1 thin slice of onion
Approximate Calories: 418
Fat: 8 grams

Snack (9 p.m.)
1 serving of pea pods
Calories: 40
Fat: 0 grams

Approximate calories ingested: 1,138
Fat ingested: 14 grams

I need to get a scale. That 1,138 calories there is probably pretty close to right, but still, I had to estimate the roast beef. I tried to take conservative portions, but that stuff is really good. I did, however, smarten up and ask the deli counter guy to slice the turkey I bought today into two-ounce slices. So one slice equals two servings, 100 calories and two grams of fat.

Assuming your reading comprehension is at least at a fourth-grade level, you should be able to tell two things from the above paragraph: 1) I went shopping today and 2) I am making an effort to more closely count calories.

While shopping, I decided to add a few new things to the diet. The much anticipated V-8 and cottage cheese were both purchased as were pea pods, grape tomatoes, actual grapes, and catfish nuggets. The recurring theme there is that I want easily available and healthy foods that I can grab as a quick snack. I ate five times today. But I usually eat four times and I don’t really think that is enough. I’d like to add at least one more snack in there, preferably between lunch and dinner. I also got the aforementioned roast beef (100 calories, three grams of fat per three ounces.) I asked for a half pound, but the apparently-deaf deli guy gave me a full pound. To me, that was like found money. I shut my mouth and went on my merry way.

The other purchases today were old reliables: a pound of turkey, wheat bread, salad mix, celery, baby carrots, mushrooms, one onion, cucumbers, chicken and tuna.

I thought I would end up paying about $40 for all this stuff, but when I checked out, including some (non-genital) wart remover, I ended up paying $56. $56! Now I realize the other reason I never wanted to lose weight: I can’t afford it. However, I have a feeling some of this stuff will still be around the next time I go shopping. Let’s just hope it doesn’t rot in the meantime.

The calorie counting is becoming a big deal to some readers. They seem to want much more information than I was originally planning to give. It seems like a lot of work to count calories, but I don’t think I could do this as effectively without knowing, at least in close proximity, how many calories I am taking in per day. I see 1,138 (and the 1,200 I’ve been averaging each day) and I think that is a little low. Because of that I decided to up it a little bit with more snacks and stuff. I think a logical range each day would be 1,200-1,500 calories per day. And what, exactly, does it say about me that I am setting the limits of this project 16 days in? Probably not a whole lot.

But, you see, the whole point of this was just to see if an overhaul of my diet and a newfound love of exercise would enable me to lose weight in a quick but healthy manner. I never planned on counting calories. However, now that is the first thing I think about before a meal. So I think the diet led to the desire for information. But I went into this thinking that I knew what was healthy and I knew what I would eat and what I wouldn’t eat. In my mind, more salads and low-fat sandwiches were good while fast food and pizza were bad. It didn’t take a genius to figure that out and it doesn’t take a genius to do this diet.

Still, I find myself wanting to know how much I take in and making adjustments based on that total. So I dunno, this thing just keeps getting more and more complicated as we go along. But that’s not a bad thing. I suppose that if I am successful now and for some reason get back up to 350 in the future, I can look back on this to remind myself of exactly how I lost weight. But even then I think I will still know: eat green and white things. Don’t eat brown or dripping things.

It doesn’t take a health expert to tell you that.

Posted by Dan Nied at 01:46 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

January 19, 2006

Day 15

My apartment stinks and I feel fat

What I ate today

Breakfast (8:45 a.m.)
1 Can of Tuna
4 slices of Wheat Bread
2 servings of fat free mayonnaise

Lunch (1 p.m.)
Salad
½ Tomato
¼ Cucumber
Iceberg lettuce
2 small chicken filets
2 servings of fat free Italian dressing
2 Servings of Just 2 Good bleu cheese dressing

Dinner (5 p.m.)
12-inch Subway Club on white bread
Every vegetable except Jalapenos
Extra pickles and Olives
Extra mustard

Snack (9:30 p.m.)
½ Tomato
¼ Cucumber

Drinks
3 liters of water
44 ounces of Diet Coke (I asked the Subway lady how big the extra large pop was)

Estimated intake
1,230 calories

A few things on my mind today, not the least of which is the smell running rampant in my house right now. Remember those vegetarian hot dogs I retardedly bought last week? Well, I am a messy bastard and somehow I left them out on the counter without realizing it. I saw them today and they had rotted like a head of lettuce. Since they are made of vegetables, they have actually turned into soggy green pieces of shit. How is this company staying in business? Are there people who actually buy that kind of shit on a regular basis? If so, are they actually eating them? Maybe they can be used as a futuristic type of fuel or something, but those things are just not edible.

So I threw those hot dogs right out the window, package and all. Eww.

I felt the burn today, meaning I worked out and felt a slight twinge in my muscles as I was getting huge. The scary thing is that I had to force myself to go. I don’t know what my problem is. That’s not true, I know exactly what my problem is: I am a lazy fuck. But what I don’t understand is why it is so hard to want to exercise. Working out really makes me feel much better physically and mentally, so why wouldn't I look forward to that? I hope that attitude dissipates on its own, or else I am going to have to find more creative things to bribe myself with than Subway. Eventually I will have to promise myself new video games or meat-lovers full house pizzas from Pizza Hut if I work out. I don’t think I can really afford either.

Predictably, after I worked out, I felt like a million bucks. The biggest development was when I weighed myself today. I can’t say whether this means anything or not, but I will take it as a sign. The doctors-office style scale in the locker room only goes up to 350. I estimated my weight to be 370 at the start of this thing. That is why there have been no official weigh-ins yet. The two times I have weighed myself in the past, the scale has done nothing when I put it at 350. Today, it hesitated just a little bit. So I pushed the little thingy a little further past 350, it can move about an inch past the 50-pound mark. Well I’ll be goddamned if that scale didn’t almost balance out. So I guess with that, I could figure my weight right now to be around 352. However, I’m not getting too encouraged because I don’t really know how those scales react when they have a behemoth heaped upon them. It may have just gone haywire. But for the record, at 350 nothing happened. At the mythical 351-352 mark, it almost balanced. We’ll see what it reads on Friday.

So after I worked out, I felt pretty good, I felt skinny, I felt attractive. But after an impromptu trip to Subway for dinner (I am finding it hard to stay away from that place because it feels like I am cheating while taking in only 640 calories for a foot-long sub), I started feeling fat again, like I had never started this project. My theory on this is that there are a lot of sodium in the pickles and olives I get. Since sodium retains water, and I had drank a lot of fluid today, I felt a little bloated. Still, it gave me some things to think about as far as this diet is concerned.

First, I might agree with some of the comments suggesting my eating plan isn’t as diversified as it could be. While I don’t want to break away from the core – high protein, vegetables and sandwiches – I think it might be time to start thinking about some other options. I have already decided to trade turkey for roast beef and pick up some cottage cheese and V-8 next time I go shopping. But what are some other things I can do? I need something easy, cheap and decent tasting. I think I should work in more fruits. Any suggestions?

Second, I think it would be more beneficial for me to start counting calories a little more scientifically. The problem with that has been that I don’t really know the nutritional values of produce. I think I will look into that.

That’s about it for today. Tomorrow is a walking day, so hopefully I’ll be looking forward to that when I wake up. But I probably won't be.

Posted by Dan Nied at 01:44 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

January 18, 2006

Day 14

Pondering caloric intake and other stuff

What I ate today

Breakfast (8:30 a.m.)
Can of tuna, fat free mayo, two slices of wheat bread (yes it was a sandwich)

Lunch (1 p.m.)
12-inch Subway Club on wheat, no cheese with mustard, all vegetables but jalapenos, extra pickles and olives

Dinner (4:30 p.m.)
Big salad featuring cucumbers and tomatoes with chicken on top, fat free Italian dressing, Just 2 Good Bleu Cheese (approx. two tablespoons.)

Snack (8 p.m.)
Approximately two servings of baby carrots

Drinks
2.5 liters of water, one extra large tub of Diet Pepsi, one Diet Snapple peach ice tea.

Approximate intake
1,200 calories

I’ll be honest, that is a pretty wide guess with the caloric intake for today. I didn’t really measure out the amount of dressing I put on the salad. The bag on the chicken says there are 100 calories for four pieces, but all the pieces are a different size. So what the hell is that? I used two pieces, but they were kind of big. I have to imagine those were at least 100 calories.

Oh well. I was kind of generous with other things and really, calorie counting is fine in approximates. I know I didn’t take in too much more than 1,200 today. I have to admit, I am kind of hungry now. But it is 11:30 p.m. and I am heading to bed in less than two hours. So I don’t want to eat. These are the decisions that make up life, I guess.

You’ll notice that I am back on the diet pop. In truth, I was never really off it. I said I was going to get off the sauce, but its too good and has no calories in it. If I get colon cancer from it, then so be it. At least I’ll be awake when I die.

Looking at today as a very typical day, and having used the calorie calculator link that friend Guy gave me (it tells you how many calories you need to maintain your weight.), I can see that I could add a few more calories and not be in any danger of failing. The calculator told me that a man of my age and size needs over 4,000 calories per day to maintain his weight. That sounds like a lot to me and I have come nowhere near that since this began. But, I think I will just keep this diet like it is right now since I am not having too much trouble staying on. Still, I worry that 1,200 calories might not be enough. But then, what could really happen if I eat 1,200 calories per day for an extended period of time? Am I going to grow a tumor in my stomach? Could I pass out from hunger? I mean, people, I am 370 pounds right now! (At least I was when this began.) I think it might be good to show as much restraint as possible, especially when I have the motivation. Still, I will be adding a few items to the shopping list next time, thanks to some ideas given to me by readers.

First, I will pick up some cottage cheese, as friend Bryce suggested. It’s good for breakfast and snacks, and will make me feel full, unlike celery and baby carrots, which seem to increase hunger. Second, I will grab some V-8 because I do think it is important to have a quick, easy way to get vegetables. Also, if I want to drink ever, I can just make a bloody marry (it is the finest of the A.M. cocktails.) Also, I have been in the mood for roast beef lately, I think that if the calories and fat are ok, I will get a pound of that in place of turkey next time.

As for today, I forced myself to exercise, though I really didn’t want to. I bribed myself with an unplanned trip to Subway when it was over. I went to the park and walked for about 45 minutes. That was around noon. Later in the day, I could really see that the walk increased my energy. Around 4 p.m. I was hopping around and in good spirits. I’d say that walk actually made the day much better than it would have been otherwise.

Since I posted 2,500 words yesterday, I am going keep this average length. I will be back tomorrow with more of my adventures.

Posted by Dan Nied at 01:38 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

January 17, 2006

Day 13

Answering some questions

What I ate today:

Breakfast (9 a.m.)
Tuna on wheat bread with fat free mayo

Lunch (12 p.m.)
Two lean pork sandwiches on wheat bread with fat free mayo and mustard.

Snack (4:30 p.m.)
Several handfuls of baby carrots

Dinner (9 p.m.)
Can of Tuna, no bread.

Drinks
Three liters of water
one bottle diet Cherry Vanilla Dr. Pepper

Approximate intake
1,300 calories.

Above you will see the newest feature to the 100 days quest. It is the food journal, noting everything I eat on the day in question.

We’ll get to the idea of this a little later, but first I want to take a look at the data. Two cans of tuna today, one in sandwich form. There are 150 calories in one can (60 per serving, 2.5 servings in a can). I also switched up the bread I am using, going from Sara Lee’s Country Potato (The best sandwich bread on the market in my opinion, but about 100 calories per slice) to Sara Lee’s wheat bread (still good, but only 90 calories for two slices). I had two lean pork chops left in the freezer, so I thawed them and slapped them on the Foreman for lunch. I forgot the nutritional information on the long discarded package, so a little internet research led me to estimate about 200 calories per chop. I figure that is right because I bought them on the initial shopping trip the day before I began this. I know I didn’t buy anything that was fattening. Although, I probably could have eaten only one today, but oh well.

I think overall 1,300 calories isn’t too bad. I also got a lot of protein in. I did some other calculations though and figured out that if I had replaced the two pork sandwiches with one tuna sandwich, I would have been down to 920 calories for the day. I know that there have been days like that so far, and that is almost astonishing. Honestly, there haven’t been any times during the first 13 days when I was arm-chewing hungry. That is a huge surprise considering I had to be eating at least 4,000 calories per day before this began. I still have urges to gorge myself on all things fried and melted, but the actual hunger I feel during those times is nothing more than normal. If anything, the overwhelming feeling I’ve had during this process is one of not wanting to eat. For my “dinner”, I ate a can of tuna at 9 p.m. because I had forgotten to eat earlier. Weird stuff.

Anyway, I promised yesterday that I would answer some of the questions and comments that have come from the first few days of this quest. So here it goes. The first comment comes from Bryce, my old roommate who has been one of my best friends since our freshman year of college at good ol’ Bowling Green State University (Ay Ziggy Zoomba).

From: Bryce
RE: Your diet won’t work!
You should call this the sandwich diet, because it seems like all you are eating is sandwiches. I realize you have a deep affection for the "big sandwich", but you might want to explore other types of food as well. What are you eating for breakfast? You MUST eat breakfast when you wake up. And please don't tell me a green pepper. You're not on the Iron Chef. Eat a normal breakfast. How about some cottage cheese or some fruit. How about some eggs?

Honestly, I can't see this diet being successful as is. You're eating the exact same stuff every day and already talking yourself out of excercising. It's only been a week! You need to eat a more balanced diet, and maybe try getting on a regular sleep schedule. It will help your eating habits become, well, habits.

Also, you need to eat at least five times a day. Small snacks in between meals. I'm sure you already knew this, but I can't quite see where you have been doing this. Why don't you give us a list of when you ate what?

Bryce is a guy who is three parts voice-of-reason, one part rain-on-your-parade. This is a very typical response from him, seeing as he knows how impetuous and quixotic I can be at times. Certainly he is looking out for my best interests and that is why he is my friend.

Bryce makes some good points here. The best point he made is his last, about giving a list of what I ate. I hope he is happy with the list at the top. It will be a daily feature.

But he also makes some snap judgements. I ate half a green pepper for breakfast only once. Also, the way my day is set up, I often leave the house around 9 or 10 a.m. and then get back at noon. So breakfast and lunch often come very close together. Lately I have begun to eat larger breakfasts, but for most of last week I had an orange for breakfast. I think that is in line with his cottage cheese/yogurt idea. However, cottage cheese intrigues me. I think I will pick some up this week.

He also talks about the sleep habits. I guess I haven’t really updated that. After the first weekend, I got my sleep habits back to normal. Since then, I have been in bed by 1 a.m. and up by 9 a.m. every day. I hope to continue that, but often my job (sports writer) will screw with my sleeping on a seasonal basis. Usually it takes a week or so to get on schedule. The spring season, however, doesn’t begin until March, so I think I am good until then.

As for his point about varying the diet, I have done so several times so far. However, the basic elements will remain until I simply can’t stand them anymore. I eat sandwiches because I like them and they fit in with the restrictions I’ve placed on myself. Honestly, I think I could eat nothing but sandwiches for the next 20 years and not get sick of them. I am not on Atkins, so I am not worrying about carbs (though I do want to keep them within reason). But when the time comes to find other means of sustenance, I will do so. But you know what, Bryce? Maybe I will call this the Sandwich Diet, and maybe I will make it work so I can write a book and become some sort of diet guru. “Eat all the sandwiches you want and lose weight! Just ask me how!”

And, finally, the exercise. I will admit he’s got me there. I do have a knack for finding ways not to work out. But in the last week, I have either walked or gone to the gym five times, for at least an hour each time. Still, I need to get exercise every day. I understand this, but you didn’t need to point it out, dick.

From: Michael J. West
Re: Subway
I recommend using concrete numbers, but inordinately large ones, when talking to the new vegetable girl about pickles. E.g., "Can you put about eighty more pickles on there?"

She won't actually physically count out 80 pickles, but it will get the point across.

This is the most useful tip I’ve gotten so far. It makes perfect sense. I will be using this the next time I get slighted on pickles.

From: Zingzing
RE: Sushi
Sushi is very good for you. It's full of protein, minerals, and vitamins, lowers cholesteral, and is fairly low calorie (only a few hundred calories for a pretty large portion.) plus it's good and weird.

I’ll agree, sushi is fantastic. In fact, when I went home to Detroit for Christmas, my favorite night was chillin’ at the sushi bar with friends Kristen, Jill and Kevin. However, I should reiterate the fact that the town I live in has no Italian restaurant, let alone a sushi place. I wish burritos were as healthy as sushi, because there are about 20 Mexican restaurants here. There is a store that sells nothing but bread. There are four places to get an oil change and about two dozen fast food places. But, I repeat, NO Italian restaurants. How can that possibly happen in a civilized society? Wait, I forgot, this place barely has paved roads.

Zingzing chimed in again with this next comment:

RE: I am a fatass too
I just started (yesterday, Jan. 12) working out at a gym for the first time since high school (I am as old as you are, Dan). I'm not really there to lose that much weight. I broke up with a girl about three weeks ago, and after the week of "No, I'm not hungry, I can't eat yada yada," the metabolism dropping off, the "God I'm hungry, feed me some goddamn tacos," the pudge coming on in my stomach, feeling unattractive to the opposite sex which I want so much right now. I felt I should. Needless to say, the first day was embarassing. I was curling 60 pounds, and my left arm was failing me. I dunno. I smoke, so running exhausted me after only five minutes. Runner's high? Ha! Runner's wooziness. But I brought my workout clothes with me today to work, I'm going right after I get off, and I'm gonna make that woman so damn jealous. I saw her last night, and it was the first time I've felt any confidence around her in a while. Keep up the good fight, Dan, and may we all get some action soon. Of course, stay healthy, keep working out, and don't fall apart. God, my shoulder hurts.

Zingzing is my new favorite guy who I’ve never met, seen or talked to. I hear ya buddy. Good to know I have your support. And don’t worry about that girl you broke up with. We all thought she was a bitch anyway (not that we ever met her).

From: Swingingpuss
RE: Your body hates you.
Dan, what kind of a diet are you on? Maybe you should join some sort of online support group for motivation and don’t overdo your exercises. If you are sore it means you are over exerting. Exercising should be an enjoyable activity that helps you feel energized not drained. Your body is telling you to slow down.

I am pretty sure I am in an online support group. You are reading it right now. In fact, you, Swingingpuss are a part of my online support group. I never would have made it even this far without this website. Anyway, the first day of working out didn’t drain me, it made me sore. I had the energy to do things that day, I just didn’t have the range of motion. Maybe I am wrong here, but I saw the soreness as my body telling me “Hey, what the fuck? You didn’t do this for three years, why the hell are you doing it now?” Well, it’s my body and he will do what I say. I expected the soreness after the first day of working out. After the second day, soreness was minimal.

From: Bennett
RE: Bennett loves The Biggest Loser.
After watching a few episodes of The Biggest Looser, especially the end shots where they show what these folks look like after shedding the excess baggage, I decided that it really has to be the BEST show on TV.

Looking forward to more of your posts.

P.S. Don't feel too bad, biscuits and gravy are divine.

He’s right, Biscuits and Gravy were sent here by God. And the biscuits and gravy I had Saturday must have been kissed by Moses himself because they were amazing.

Anyway, Bennett commented on the biggest loser twice. He gives the show two thumbs up. I have only watched it sporadically, but I can say that it is much more fascinating than I thought it would be. My favorite part is when there is a 20-something girl who starts the show at about 270 pounds. I like to predict how hot she will be by the end of the show. That is a fantastic subplot that I don’t think NBC is pushing enough.

Also, one question, Why the hell didn’t I go on that show? I mean, instead of sharing my fat stories with a bunch of strangers for free, I could be sharing my fat stories with millions of strangers for a chance to win $50,000. In fact, don’t be surprised if I shut this whole thing down soon and send in my entry tape. I think I would be perfect for that show. And since my time has passed to get on Real World, The Biggest Loser is the next logical step, right?

From: RJ Elliott
RE: You are insane.
100 pounds in 100 days is just too much, too fast. I wish you the best of luck, but I really think 50 pounds in six months is a more realistic (and healthier) goal.

Again, I just want to stress that the goal is not to lose 100 pounds in 100 days. It is to be as healthy as possible for 100 days. I just have a theory that if I do that, the result will be a 100 pound weight loss. I may end up dropping only 50 pounds in the next six months, that’s fine. If the goal was to lose 100 pounds in 100 days I certainly would have come up with more of a fat burning diet. I would probably be on Atkins writing about how I had a pound of bacon for breakfast and 18 sausage links for lunch. The biscuits and gravy incident would have been fine if not for the biscuits. Atkins really is a beautiful diet, but just a little too risky for my tastes.

From: Aaman
RE: So what are your favorite foods?
So what are your favorite foods?

Interesting question, Aaman. Well, sandwiches obviously. But more specifically, big sandwiches (as Bryce referenced above). I like my sandwiches with about two pounds of meet and at least a pound of cheese. That isn’t a daily sandwich, that is only for special occasions. But I have quite a fondness for salami and American cheese, reubens, roast beef and pastrami. Outside of sandwiches, I like the basic shit food: Pizza, cheeseburgers, sausage, hot dogs, spaghetti, anything milk based, anything that started with a face, all cheeses. I am much more of a meat guy than a sweets guy. In fact, I am probably close to addicted to diet pop. I’ve never been a fan of regular pop though, because it is too sweet. I like chocolate, but only to an extent.

The best meal I can remember ever having came at a place called Lafayette Coney Island in downtown Detroit last summer. After a night of heavy drinking in The D with friends Guy and Kevin, we went to what can only be described as the Mecca of shitty greek restaurants. Lafayette is a pillar of the downtown Detroit bar scene because the only reason to not go there at 2 a.m. is if you are about to hook up. Anyway, I had five coney dogs and a side of chili cheese fries. When I was finished, I had chili all over my shirt and face and was damn happy. I paid for it for the next two days, but I would not have changed a thing. And yes, maybe I am romanticizing food here, but it is a big part of my life and has been since I was born. But like dealing with an ex girlfriend, I suppose I will have to cherish the good times while using the bad for motivation.

Does that make sense?

Posted by Dan Nied at 01:35 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

January 16, 2006

Days 9, 10 and 11

I work out, I screw up and I don't weigh 1,072 pounds

Don’t worry, I haven’t given up on this. I just decided to take a weekend break. Can’t a guy get a few days off from writing about losing weight? Is that so much to ask?

This weekend there were some major (sort of) developments in the 100-day health quest.

First, the good: Friday I worked out and it didn’t make my arms fall off. Much love to my boy Jeff Squier who, while spotting me Friday morning, asked me to give him a shout out in this space. He is a bit of an attention whore, but Squier is good people so we will let it slide.

Also, Sunday I had my first restaurant experience of the 100 days. I knew it had to happen eventually, and I was prepared. I was planning on eating a salad for dinner Sunday night until my old roommate Kevin called and said he was passing through town and wondering if I wanted to have dinner. Since Kevin has lived about 1,500 miles away in Chicago since I moved out here, I kind of had to go. It turns out he was in the process of moving to Colorado Springs for his new job at USA Hockey and this town is on the way.

We went out and I performed fucking fantastically. I reminded myself that short-term gratification does not lead to long-term happiness. I decided I would order diet pop and check the menu carefully for something nutritious. What I found was a cold turkey sandwich that I could get with mustard instead of mayo. It came with a side salad. I ordered ranch on the side and only used about a quarter of it. I ate slow and was actually full when I was done. I am the healthiest man on earth! Well no, but I am the healthiest man living in this apartment.

Now, the bad: Saturday I had the first real fuck up of this project. Looking back on it, I never had a chance. I covered a high school wrestling tournament in the afternoon. Going in, I had the knowledge that there would be a hospitality room set up for media, coaches and refs. They usually have some damn good chili in the hospitality room, and I kind of wanted some of that.

I thought it was a good opportunity to test myself. I wanted to see if I could eat sensibly, having about half a bowl of chili before walking out. The plan was diverted as soon as I walked in and saw biscuits and gravy. The school’s assistant principal mentioned that his mother had made both the biscuits and the gravy with her bare hands. Still, I had a fighting shot at that point. That is, until I looked at the gravy and saw massive chunks of pork sausage floating in there. That made me want to tie my hands behind my back and bob for sausage. I wouldn’t have even cared if I burned my face.

Ok, I thought, I can do this. I can have one biscuit with a little bit of gravy and just walk away. I’ll be satisfied and relatively healthy at the same time. Well, once I started eating I was like kitten fighting a pit bull in a studio apartment. I had no chance to win. So I tapped out as quickly as possible and headed for a second helping, then a third. Then, I think, a fourth. I was pretty drunk on sausage gravy by then.

It was DELICIOUS. It was the greatest thing I’ve had in years. The gravy was absolutely out of this world.

Despite the heavenly qualities of the gravy, I learned that I can’t trust myself yet. I can’t put myself in a situation where large quantities of food are available to me at a reduced price (in this case, free). I was encouraged by the fact that I was back on the wagon Sunday, but now I know that I can’t fully control myself. I think that eventually things like biscuits and gravy will repulse me and I will walk away. But until then, I have to learn that you don’t look at the gravy.

Sunday, during commercials in the Colts-Steelers game, I watched two shows of pure disgusting fatness on Discovery Health. The first was about morbidly obese people living in a weight-loss clinic. The second was about a guy from Nebraska who peaked at 1,072 pounds before heading to the hospital only weeks before he would have certainly died of congestive heart failure which, I think, means he would have drowned in the fluids gathering around his heart. But of course, I don’t know shit about shit so I can’t say that for sure.

I had heard of the 1,072 pound guy before because Rick Reilly wrote a Sports Illustrated column about him wanting to go to a Nebraska football game if he could cut some weight. (I already didn’t like him. Nebraska is the most evil football program west of Columbus, Ohio). So I knew the story. He was bedridden and cut out of his home so paramedics could get him out. He lost 600 pounds and was still barely walking. I took solace in the fact that if I lost 600 pounds I would weight -240.

Watching these shows made me feel like a beauty queen. But three moments stood out to me. First, in the weight-loss clinic show, the doctors described how they teach patients the basic theory of weight loss: you must burn more calories than you ingest. I have been saying that since this began. It doesn’t matter what you eat. What matters is how many calories you take in. I choose to use vegetables and white meat because a) you can have bigger portions of those and b) I can’t be trusted to stop eating pizza after one slice.

Second, the old photos of Mr. 1,072 when he was, like, seven really looked a lot like mine. It dawned on me that I can end up like him if I’m not careful. Before this project my appetite kept getting larger and larger and I was eating pure crap every day. I was taking almost an addiction-like pleasure in eating as much as I could. That is when I realized how important this 100 days actually is. I can either continue playing craps with my life and risk ending up bedridden by the time I am 40, or I can man up and stop eating shit and live life like a normal person. I have made my choice.

The third thing that stood out to me was after Mr. 1,072 came home to try and maintain his diet on his own. The host was interviewing his wife while she made him a breakfast of what looked like three over-easy eggs. The host asked if he was on any special diet. Mrs. 1,072 said no, he wasn’t, it was more about counting calories than anything else.

So, the host asked, how many calories are in that breakfast. “I have no idea”, said Mrs. 1,072. It may have been a hilarious moment, but it also illustrates the fact that a concept as simple as common sense is so hard for people to grasp. I hope that if I ever weigh 1,072 pounds, the people close to me will at least try to monitor what I am eating. I mean, is that so fucking much to ask?

Anyway, sorry I ran long. Quick teaser: Sometime this week, maybe tomorrow, I am going to answer some of the comments I have gotten regarding this project.

Posted by Dan Nied at 02:04 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

January 13, 2006

Day 8

Why Subway sucks sometimes

This is going to be tougher than I thought.

I really wanted to cheat today. That was all that was on my mind. The eating is quickly becoming tougher to do. Last week, the eating was the easiest part. But now, I feel like I am getting sick of salads and cucumbers and chicken and tuna. There are 92 days left in this project. Hopefully, I can settle into a routine that will make this a little less difficult.

In order to stop my cravings for double cheeseburgers, I went to Subway today. In doing so, I ran into one of the things that drives me crazy. There was a new girl on the vegetable station. That will kill your sub every time. Predictably, she was downright stodgy with the vegetables. The new people at subway never seem to understand that what makes that place great is the mountain of vegetables you can get on your sandwich.

I have a basic order when it comes to vegetables: Everything but jalapenos, extra pickles and olives (I know there is lots of sodium in that, but screw you, I’m hungry.) When I saw this girl putting the pickles on one-by-one, my heart sank. I knew I would have to make her go back and put more on and, in turn, I would look like a greedy asshole. But let me tell you something, when I order extra pickles, I expect to get more than five. When I order extra pickles, I expect two big handfuls liberally tossed onto my sandwich without a care. I expect the same with the olives. This girl put five of each on there like they were running out.

I had to ask her for more, but I knew all she would do was throw three more pickles and three more olives on there. So I had to verbalize what I wanted. I said “could you put two more handfuls of pickles and olives on there?”

That suggests I want a lot more, right? I think that is a clear and concise statement. The only thing clearer would have been: “Could you just pick up that container and pour all the pickles and olives onto my sub, please?”

The guy working the meat backed me up. “Like a ridiculous amount of pickles” he said. What did she do? Five more of each. I got screwed. Oh well, she’ll learn, or I will have to get her fired.

That was the big happening for me today in small town Colorado. I know it is pretty exciting, but someone’s gotta live this fast paced life.

I struggled through the day with two turkey sandwiches, the Subway footlong club (on wheat, which was surprisingly good), half a cucumber and some baby carrots. I worry some about the carbs in the bread I ate today, but I think the calories and fat were fine. I talked myself out of exercising this morning, but I got bored at 2 p.m. and decided to get out of the house and take my fat ass on a walk.

That’s all I got for today. I will try to find something a little more interesting for tomorrow. The soreness in my arms is gone, so I think I can get back to working out. That should be fun.

Posted by Dan Nied at 12:28 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

January 12, 2006

Day 7

How I see myself

As the first week draws to a close, I am wondering about one thing: where the hell has all my energy gone?

I don’t know if it has to do with the diet or with the fact that I might not be getting enough sleep, but at 6 p.m. the last two nights, I have slept heavily for at least an hour. I haven’t had much motivation to do anything at night besides sleep. I don’t know why this is. I think I might need a nap in the afternoon to pep myself up.

The good news is that I can see that I am losing weight. The belt was a little bit looser today and went down one notch. That was the kind of encouragement I needed from my body. I think that will carry over into the next week or so, because once I start seeing real results I think the rest will be easy.

I watched The Biggest Loser today and one guy on there lost 30 pounds in two weeks. Although, I think they he was working out for three hours per day. The guys on there reminded me a lot of me. They even looked like me. They had the same face surrounded by fat that shouldn’t be there. It made them look almost unhuman, like they were wearing fat suits. Looking at pictures of myself, I feel the same way. I think I have decent features, but they have disappeared in a pool of fat.

I was always able to ignore it because I know how to look presentable in a mirror. It’s always straight on with my head tilted upwards to hide the generous double chin I’ve amassed. I always look at my eyes because I believe they are the best part of my face. But when I go out into the world, I have no idea what I look like.

Because I knew how to look in the mirror, I could hide the problem from myself. Maybe I knew my pants size had increased, and some of my favorite shirts didn’t fit anymore, but as long as no one commented about how fat I was getting I never thought anyone noticed.

I have come to hate being in photos because I know that I will see my true self in them. I can’t hide from a lens and, once I see a photo of me, I know I will have to deal with the reality of being fat.

But I never did deal with it. I saw it as a manly thing to be able to eat an entire extra large pizza in one sitting. I just figured I was really hungry when I ordered six burgers from McDonalds. Throughout the entire two years that I was constantly putting on weight, I was rationalizing my eating with pride. When I knew I had eaten too much, I would just lay on the couch with a smile on my face knowing I got it all down and wondering how much more I could handle.

I knew no concept of moderation because I saw the first two cheeseburgers as warmups for the next four. I went to fast food restaurants and sought out the biggest burger I could find. I peaked with three Wendy’s Classic Triples, the Cadillac of fast food burgers. I finished those off in 15 minutes one Friday night and wished immediately I had ordered four.

I loved it. And the truth is that I love it today. I want those cheeseburgers right now. I want to order an extra large meat lovers pizza with the goal of getting it all down tonight. I guess this is sort of an addiction, though I don’t know if I feel comfortable calling it that. But it makes sense that it would be an addiction because it has wreaked havoc on much of my life. I am uncomfortable amongst friends because of my weight and I have no confidence with women. I still try, though. But I end up trying too hard to be funny to overcompensate for my weight. But let’s face it, not many girls want to hook up with a jolly fat guy.

I must confront this problem head on, which is why I am doing this blog. So far, so good.

Dan Nied's 100 Days is the chroncle of a quest for one man to improve his health in 100 days. Feel free to email him at nieddan@yahoo.com with any questions you might have.

Posted by Dan Nied at 02:29 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

January 11, 2006

Day 6

A day full of nothing

Today was a weird day. That’s all there is to it.

Nothing particularly crazy happened, it was just that nothing happened at all. I shirked everything, even eating to an extent. I went to work in the morning and finished there around noon. Basically, my schedule works so that I have afternoons off. I work from about 9 to noon each day and then cover games and write stories at night. So from noon to 4 p.m. I have nothing to do.

The last two days I used that time to exercise. That was the plan today, until I got done with work. I was sore, very very very sore, from working out Monday, and I convinced myself that it would be alright to skip exercising today. What is amazing is the impulse decisions I make sometimes just to do what I want to do instead of what I should do. It always angers me later.

Instead of walking after work, I went to Wal-Mart. I hate Wal-Mart, but it runs small-town America and there is no escape. I bought $30 worth of food which included bagged lettuce (no more heads. They are messy.), cucumbers, eight cans of Tuna, two pounds of turkey and one pack of meatless hot dogs (Which has since been thrown away because they were the most vile things God has ever put on the earth. I didn’t even bite into one, I just licked it and that was enough to make me heave. I can’t believe I spent $4 on that stuff. What a waste.)

I came back from Wal-Mart and did nothing for the rest of the day. I took a nap at 6 in preparation for the game I had to cover at 7. However, my alarm went off for about an hour. I turned it off and went back to sleep, waking up at 8, just in time to watch an hour of Scrubs, the most underappreciated show on television.

I didn’t make it to the game. I had to do everything by phone, which sucks.

Anyway, the weirdest part of the day was my total lethargy. I didn’t want to eat healthy, I didn’t want to exercise and I didn’t want to work. I have days like this sometimes, but I thought maybe a different eating plan and this whole project would give me new motivation. It had given me that motivation, but that didn’t translate well today.

For lunch I had two turkey sandwiches with onions. I didn’t eat again until eight hours later when I had half a cucumber. At 9, I had three small pieces of Chicken (a serving size is four pieces) and that was it. I drank three liters of water and that is it for today.

I got most of my work done tonight which means I should be able to get done early tomorrow and head to the gym for Day 2 of the Dan Nied Workout Plan.

Hopefully I can regain some of the motivation I lost today. I suppose what is encouraging is that I really wanted to cheat today, but I didn’t have too much trouble eating decently. I should have eaten more vegetables and less sandwiches, but I resisted a lot of urges.

That’s all for now. I will be back tomorrow.

Posted by Dan Nied at 02:01 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

January 10, 2006

Day 5

Feel the Burn!

So for the first time in at least three years I lifted today. Good Lord I was not ready for that. It started off just fine with a light cardio warm up. Of course, those 10 minutes on the elliptical machine had me seeing stars afterwards. But, I did burn 186 calories, which is equal to one and a half cans of Coke. So that was nice.

I wasn’t too worried about my panting and huffing, though. I know I will have to build my stamina. I moved on from there, ready and willing to conquer the weights, but so not able.

Bench press was first. I did a humorously low weight of 95 pounds, just to make sure my muscles hadn’t died. The first set had me feeling like a champ. The plan was to do three sets of 10, but I felt so good, I did 14 in the first set just to get the feel of the bar back. Second set, I could only do 10. Third set, nine. I pussed out, I know, but I didn’t have a spotter and I think it would have been slightly embarrassing to call someone over to pull the equivalent of an Olsen twin off my chest.

But the bench press was a complete success, otherwise. Then it was on to the incline press. That is where the trouble began. I hate the incline, I always have. The problem is, I didn’t remember how much I hated it until I was under the bar this morning. I had the same 95 pounds on there, since the bench was so easy. First set, I got 10. Then there was a steady decline on the incline. A set of eight followed. That’s when I started breathing heavy. After my third set, which lasted six reps, my arms burned with the sweet crackle of a summer campfire.

I rested for a second, but I was determined to finish. I went on to curls. I wouldn’t say that was a mistake as much as just a bad idea. I got three sets in (10, 10, 9) but seriously, I wasn’t sure my arms could move above my shoulders afterwards. Good news, though, I still had full range. So I went on to shoulders - a vertical press in a seated position where you lift the weight directly above your head. I think I have a mental deficiency or something because I thought I could actually do this at that point. I struggled through three sets. I had to go down in weight on the third because, well, a torn labrum (I don’t really know where that muscle is, but it sounds like it should be in the shoulder) wasn’t going to help my workout plan.

Even with the reduced weight, my thoughts during the third set went something like this: “holy motherfucker, cocksucking douchefuck, good fucking fuck what am I doing?”

After that, I decided it was best to regroup. I went on the track for a short walk, all the while touching my arms to make sure they were still there. Good news - they were, though I couldn’t feel them. At that point, I thought it might be best to skip triceps today and come back with a little piss and vinegar on Wednesday. My most brilliant idea for the day was when I planned to shoot around a basketball after my lift. I think you can figure out that, for me, taking jumpshots and seeing a one-legged Chinese man jumping rope on a trampoline were done in the same quantities today.

But, I started. That’s all that matters. Just as I thought, the scales at the gym couldn’t provide any info on my weight, other than to harshly tell me I am over 350 pounds. However, because I am starting to notice less fat in my stomach, I do think this is all working. It remains to be seen if 100 pounds in 100 days is a realistic expectation. I think I will have a better understanding of that as the first month moves on.

Oh, one more thing. Over the weekend, I put some photos on the site. If you want to see the hottest 365 pound piece of ass alive, check it out.

Posted by Dan Nied at 12:49 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

January 09, 2006

Day 4

Staying awake all freaking weekend

It is Monday morning, 4:43 a.m. Mountain Time right now, and I just woke up.

This is what happens when my sleep schedule gets out of whack. I didn’t get to sleep until 8 a.m. Friday and did not wake until 4 p.m. Saturday. That meant I couldn’t sleep at all Saturday night and decided, instead, to stay up until 6 p.m. Sunday when I would collapse in my bed, rise early Monday and try to correct my schedule then. It’s a nifty little plan, I think, but it kind of sucks when you are trying to eat healthy and you don’t know when you will pass out from lack of sleep.

For the most part I did well with my prolonged Saturday-Sunday. There were no major breakdowns, but I did need a lot of caffeine to not fall asleep at noon, meaning I would have gotten up at 10 p.m. and had to struggle through Monday.

I even used Sunday morning for my first exercise. I went to the park and walked what I can only estimate to be about two miles. Since it was a balmy 65 degrees, it was as pleasant as a January walk can be. Two years ago, when I went from 345 pounds to 300 pounds over about four or five months, walking was the first step. That led to running eventually and then a pretty successful weight loss.

Of course, those pounds are back now (the vicious cycle of losing and gaining which I am hoping to avoid this time). And I don’t think walking, in itself, will get me the best results. So today, officially, begins the Dan Nied Workout Plan of 2006.

This morning I will be heading over to the gym for at least an hour of cardio, lifting weights and playing basketball. I’ll be honest here, I am a little nervous about the lifting. Whenever I start lifting after a long hiatus (It has had to be at least three years from me) I get disgusted at myself for how little I can handle. I also imagine all the healthy people in the gym silently judging me. I think this goes back to childhood where the worst thing you could have ever been was fat. Of course, these are the types of obstacles I will be facing in this challenge. After a week or so, I suspect my apprehension will subside.

I apologize to my readers for not offering any hard stats. I know it would be beneficial to know exactly how much I weigh right now. However, and this kind of makes me feel bad, I can’t find any scales to tell me accurately. Every doctor’s-office style scale I can find only goes up to 350 pounds. I can tell you that, In the summer, I was around 345. I have eaten like total shit since then, however. Judging by previous weight-gain patterns I have experienced, I estimate that I have gained 20-30 pounds since then. The only thing I can say definitively is that I put my current weight at somewhere between gigantic fatass and morbidly obese.

Officially, I am going with 365 as a starting point. As soon as I get below 350 I promise to keep a running tally of my weight.

As for the diet, the hardest part has been finding motivation to work out. I admit that I totally talked myself out of exercising last week, and that probably wasn’t the best idea. I need to make the conscious choice to do everything possible to succeed in this task.

My body seems to be responding to the eating now, though not as much as I would like. Some fat seems to have disappeared around my stomach, but nothing too noticeable. While that is good news, my goal for this week is to have a break out day, one which I can tell that I am definitely losing weight and heading in the right direction. It gets kind of hard without a scale to measure, but I’ll have to live with the caveman observations for a few more days.

Posted by west at 07:08 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

January 08, 2006

Day 3

Calling an early audible

The Blogcritics.org postings are working great. So far I have had more than a handful of comments about this quest. I thank everyone for chiming in. Although, I will say I am now realizing that I never thought about how many people would be reading this.

I am happy this has struck a chord with people and I am happy that these readers create a unique amount of pressure that I need to stay on this diet. A few times already this blog has stopped me from cheating and forced me to look at the adjustments I will need to make as we go along.

Speaking of adjustments, three days in I am already calling an audible. I don’t feel any lighter right now than I did when I started. I know, two full days of this shouldn’t make a huge difference, but my body usually responds within a day or two of eating healthy. So far it really hasn’t.

So the changes I am making, while slight, will hopefully right this ship a little bit. First, there will be no more diet pop. That is more for my sleeping habits than anything else. Plus, since I have been drinking diet pop for the last two days, my water intake has gone down considerably. Also, I am changing the salads up. In the first two days I was mixing fat free Italian dressing with a little bit of Just 2 Good bleu cheese, which has two grams of fat per serving and slightly more calories than the fat free stuff. The bleu cheese is out now. I find it to be just empty calories.

Lastly, instead of two turkey sandwiches per day, I am going to try to cut down to one, but with a little more meat. I don’t want to lose the protein in the turkey, but I don’t think I can justify four pieces of bread per day.

I have a feeling there will be some other adjustments along the way. Some of the early days will be used for trial and error.

I just want to clarify one thing before I talk about day three. A few readers have indicated that they think 100 pounds in 100 days is both dangerous and unrealistic. You know what? It may be. But the goal here is not to lose 100 pounds in 100 days. That is just my expected result. My goal is to put in 100 straight days of healthy eating and living and see what happens. If I lose 70 pounds in the first 85 days, I am not going to go on an all V-8 diet to lose 30 in the last 15. I understand the difference between healthy and unhealthy. I just figure that if I treat my body pristinely over the course of 100 days, a transformation from 370 pounds to 270 pounds is not out of the question. It is sort of like my own scientific theory.

That said, there is no medical advice attached to this. But if a nurse or doctor wants to offer advice up pro bono, then I am all ears.

Now, on to day three, which was Saturday. I couldn’t get to sleep Friday night and that’s how I found out Nyquil is the most effective product of any kind on the market. I took a dose at 7 a.m. Saturday morning and next thing I know it was 4 p.m. and I was slowly waking up from what can only be described as hibernation.

Already things weren’t looking good. I fixed up two turkey sandwiches for breakfast and watched some football. I covered a game at 6:30 and then headed to Subway for dinner.

I got the club on white bread with no cheese, every vegetable and mustard. It was pretty good. I am thinking of instituting the Subway Addendum stating that I will allow myself to eat at Subway once a week. I figure that if I succeed with that I might be eligible for the Subway weight loss commercials. I don’t want to be the next Jared. I wouldn’t mind being the next Clay Henry, though. That guy is a stud.

Since this is running long, I will save some things for the Day 4 post. Just a teaser: workouts begin Monday morning. How do I feel about that? You’ll have to wait for Day 4.

Posted by Dan Nied at 03:13 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

January 07, 2006

Day 2

THE FIRST SCREW UP

It took two days for me to fuck up. Can you believe that? Two days!

It’s ok, though. I didn’t get a pizza or anything and I didn’t do a keg stand at a soft serve pump.

I suppose that I screwed up in the best possible way. I ate all the right things today, but I only ate three times and the last one was at midnight. Although, I don’t plan on going to bed until 4 a.m. so I am not too worried about it.

I had nothing for breakfast because I woke up at 10:30 and my paper’s deadline is noon on weekdays. I had to scramble. I had two turkey sandwiches for lunch, but I made the mistake of going to the bumpkin-owned grocery store to get more turkey. I asked them to slice it thin and they basically gave me turkey particles. There were no slices, just chunks of turkey. I had to grab a handful and try to figure out if it was enough. Since I have some gargantuan hands and no real sense of the weight of food, I am certain I put wayyyy too much turkey on. At 1.5 grams of fat per serving, I think that could have been costly.

So that was around noon. I played some NCAA 06 and took a nap until 6:30 p.m. when I had to get up to cover a game. Of course the game started at seven so I didn’t have time to prepare the salad I had been planning. So what did I do? Another turkey particle sandwich. I am trying to keep this thing to two sandwiches per day, just to try to limit carbs and such, but I had no other real food in the house that could sustain me until midnight, when I would get off work.

So I went to work and it was about as thrilling as watching a girls high school basketball game in small town Colorado can be. Which means the game was close, but still kind of boring. I headed back to the office and did the regular Friday night stuff and got done at midnight. Then I came home and made my big salad with tuna on top. I haven’t exactly mastered the art of keeping perishable food from perishing. I think I will have to eat a lot of salads this weekend to get value out of the $34 of produce I bought. Soggy green peppers aren’t that good.

I guess if I am gonna mess up, though, I might as well do it with turkey sandwiches and salads.

Oh also, I drank a lot of diet pop tonight. Apparently some people believe that stuff can kill you like a knife to the throat. I find it delicious. Shows what I know, I guess.

I posted the preamble to Blogcritics.org, which is where I am assuming most readers will come from. Hopefully they will take the time to check out the actual site once we get it looking pretty. I know right now it is kind of drab and template-like, but me and my web man (I am internet illiterate for all things non porn) are working slowly to get it up to code so we don’t get kicked off the internet. We’ll change some colors, maybe a font or two and pictures should be coming by the end of the weekend.

Anyway, the Blog Critics thing is working pretty well considering I posted this afternoon and had five or six comments by midnight. I appreciate all feedback and it is nice to know someone is reading this other than the four people I sent the link to.

Posted by Dan Nied at 04:00 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

January 06, 2006

Day 1

So far so good. 24 hours down, 2,376 to go.

JANUARY 6, 2006

Ahhhhh yes. I have officially begun my quest of three months of pure health. There were no setbacks today, I am proud to say. No trips to McDonalds, no candy bars at lunch and no popcorn, which is actually a big deal.

I realized that in the preamble post I didn’t really say anything about myself. So let me run down some vitals.

Name: Dan Nied (That’s up there)

Age: 26

Height: 6-3

Weight: Not really sure, to tell you the truth. I estimate it between 360 and 370, so we will work from the median weight of 365. Yes, this is the heaviest I have ever been and I am somewhat ashamed and pissed off at myself that I let it get this bad.

Location: A small ass town in Colorado. I don’t want to give the name, though, because I might have some choice words for this town as this thing drags on, so it would be better to leave the name out altogether than to be burned in front of city hall. Let’s just say that some of the women here have more babies than teeth.

Why I am in a small town in Colorado: Job. I am a sportswriter, which isn’t really as glamorous as it sounds. Basically, I write about eight high schools and a junior college. The job is good though, but being here for the last year has really made me appreciate my hometown of Detroit and big city living in general.

How I got so fat: I ate a lot of shit and I was lazy.

Why I haven’t lost the weight so far: See the lazy part above.

My ultimate goal: Well I just want to get down between 270-240. I think I can happily live the rest of my young-adult life (until 35) that way. I have always been a big guy. I hit 200 pounds in fifth grade and kept on going. As a high school freshman I was 240. Then I hit 310 as a sophomore (growth spurt, but not the good kind.) I stayed at that weight, though and finished up at 286 for my senior year of football.

While I was always big I never totally considered myself fat. My body seems to be equipped to carry a lot of weight. My frame demands it and I truly believe that if I weighed under 240 pounds, I would look close to sickly.

Why I am thinking 100 pounds in 100 days sounds right: Well, the last time I flirted with dramatic weight loss, I was 21 and right at 300 pounds. I put in one good February of eating right and dropped down to 267 (I looked fucking good, too). So that was 33 pounds in 28 days. So 100 pounds in 100 days it makes sense if you don’t figure in the gradual slowing of weight loss as time goes on (and I haven’t, because that would blow up my hypothesis).

If there are any other questions, feel free to email me at nieddan@yahoo.com.

So that’s me. The popcorn thing is big because, in my job, I have become accustomed to having a bag or two while covering games. It’s cheap, it’s delicious and it makes my stomach feel funny. So I figured two good things overshadow one bad thing, so I indulged. No more, though. Popcorn is out.

Now, what I did eat today wasn’t too hard to get down. Let’s run it down right quick. Breakfast: Half a green pepper. Lunch: a tuna sandwich with fat free mayo and some wee little baby carrots. Snack: an orange. Dinner: Salad with tomato, cucumber, mushrooms and tuna with fat free dressing.

And most of it was pretty damn good.

That’s about it for today, I will be back Saturday with a Day 2 update.

Posted by Dan Nied at 02:49 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack

The preamble

It's true, Dan Nied is a fatass. He doesn't want to be one anymore. Here is what he is doing about it.

I have a theory.

It might be foolish and it has absolutely no scientific backing that I am aware of. Of course, there wasn’t much research put into this theory.

But I still believe it to be true. So much that I have decided to test it. My theory is this: I believe that a man of my size, 6-foot-3, 360-370 pounds, can lose 100 pounds in 100 days with the right combination of diet and exercise.

The genesis of this theory was simple. A few years ago I turned to my friend Chris and said “How lo