I’ve got to share. I told you guys I started a new diet. Well, check out this graph:

Click on it for a full sized version.

I love not having to use supplements like hoodia or akavar. Truly I do. Some people need to. And I was worried I might need to after my months long plateau. But no more. I’ve lost about 11 pounds in just the last few weeks. And it’s starting to come off faster.

I’ll let you know even more of my secrets next time I write about my diet.

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Yep. Going to talk about dieting again. I was recently tagged for a meme by John, but you guys know I never follow the rules of memes. I will go ahead and tell you my fitness vice though: lack of exercise. I can blame it on lack of time, but that’s just an excuse. Until I decide to do it, I guess it won’t happen. But I did manage to have some breakthroughs in my dieting. And I’m going to tell you about them because I think they’re much cooler than surfing those top rated diet pills sites. Of course, fi diet pills are your thing, feel free if it works for you. It doesn’t work for me.

I told you guys about Diet Power recently. It’s a program that monitors my caloric intake and weight loss and tells me how many calories I can have per day to get one day closer to my goal. Well, check out this graph from the program:

Notice the line is going down. That jump at the beginning was when I started the new calorie based diet¹. But after that, I’ve managed to make the line go slowly down. Now, the straight line at the top is my current progress. It follows the red line. The straight line below that one heads to my goal of 200 pounds by April of 2009. They don’t match, but I’m working on that. I’ve tended to eat a few more calories than the program allows per day because I’ve been trying to find foods that “trick” me into being full. So the fact the weight line is going down is one breakthrough. As for the “tricky” foods. Well…

I bought a Magic Bullet a couple of days ago. That’s not an affiliate link. It’s to the best source of information on the machine. But for purchasing it, I recommend looking one up on eBay. I got it for much lower than the price on that site. But basically, it’s an awesome blender. I’ve been using it to mix my Slim-Fast shakes and I recently added smoothies to my diet because frozen strawberries, bananas, water, and Splenda make a 150 calorie 16 ounce smoothie. Gotta love it!

Also, it’s great for just about any chopping and food processing. It really DOES clean up as quick as they say on the infomercial. It really is as easy to use. I love it. And here’s a neat trick if you’re dieting and feel hungry. It’s also good for adding water to your diet². Fill the mug up with ice, add an extract of your choice³, add a little Splenda to it⁴, blend, and you’ve got flavored ice with no calories whatsoever that you can eat with a spoon. It makes you feel like you’re eating even though you’re only drinking flavored water with no calories.

So there’s my tips for doing some dieting. I’m hoping that my smaller meals that I’ve started eating⁵ will lower my weight even more. We shall see. Between those two products, I hope to see some great results soon. I’ll scream it right here if I do.

Feel free to share your own Magic Bullet recipes in our forum: Magic Bullet Recipes

1. as I’m no longer diabetic so the low carb diet was actually hurting me in other ways such as cholesterol [«]
2. Diet Power tells you how much water you need in your diet too [«]
3. I like raspberry, vanilla, or cherry [«]
4. Or some other no calorie artificial sweetener, but I prefer the taste of Splenda [«]
5. To stay in line with what Diet Power allows me [«]

Posted by Saphrym | 6 Comments »

Ok. So I have to admit something to you guys. I gained 5 pounds about a week ago. Don’t know exactly how but I think I had too many calories. That’s the reason I decided to start using Diet Power as I mentioned in an earlier post. I decided I needed something that would tell me what I’ve done wrong and I truly didn’t know who I could trust to tell me this. I’m a fan of math formulas and Diet Power has that handled.

Now, as for my experience with Diet Power so far, it’s amazing to have a diet coach that can fit in your pocket (Well, that is if you copy the software to a memory stick, but you get the point). The Nutrient Quotient (basically an IQ for food) truly helps me determine what kind of foods I should be eating. It also tells me if I’m eating bad foods. And all of this is done with a quick glance at some color coding on the entries.

So how has it done for me so far? I’ve lost those 5 pounds I gained. And I’m on track to be at my ideal weight within another year. I figure I’ll take it slow this time compared to the 70-80 pounds I lost within just a few months. The slower it’s lost, the easier to keep it off. Diet Power is doing a great job. It’s data won’t be perfect until I’ve used it for 30 days, but so far, I have to say I’m much more impressed with it than I was when it was version 1.0.

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Ok. Not a real one. But I’m now using Diet Power. I’ve used it in the past and did not like it much, but that was back when it was version 1.0. Now it’s 4.4. And wow, it’s good at what it does. It does all the math needed to let me know how many calories I should eat each day. It also tells me how much water I need. It lets me know if my nutrients are balanced well enough. And all of this for only 40 bucks.

So far I’m pleased. It’s doing an excellent job. But I won’t know how good it does until about 30 days after I start using it. So I’ll update you guys about it then.

Oh, and notice there are no links to Diet Power in this post. I don’t want people to think I’m using an affiliate link for it. I actually do like the software. If you’d like to purchase it or read more about it, feel free to Google “Diet Power” and it will be the first result in the list.

I’m doing my best not to have to look over diet pill reviews. I want to do this naturally. Come my next weekly update, I’ll elt you know if there’s any weight change since using it.

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DIET DIARY

STARTING NUMBERS (Before I started the diet)
Blood Sugar: 287
Weight: 355.0
NUMBERS FROM TODAY
Blood Sugar: 100

I left the weight number off because I didn’t get to weigh before I ate. The numbers would have been wrong. Oops. I’ll fix it next week.

Now, as for the experiment, in my last Update I hid a few random links in the bottom italicized portion of the post along with a few instructions to comment on that post if you’d like to win $5.00. I was conducting an experiment to see if anybody ever read that portion of the posts. Guess what? No one does. I got one comment and it didn’t mention the italicized portion at all. So now I know. The information below is never read. Well, I’m guessing it will be this time, but not much in the future. I’ll have to hide more stuff there.

Oh, and I was going to change my mind and give a lucky person a Corum watch instead of the five bucks. Oh well. Guess I’ll sell it instead. (The previous statement was a joke. I do not own such a watch. I only wish I owned such a watch. Not to wear of course, but to sell and pay off student loans.)

(For more information about my dieting and weight loss, click here. For more information about the specific foods I eat, click here. For the diet I follow, click here.)

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My preorder of the Wii Fit device and game was a little late, so I ended up having to wait for the second shipment. It came to our local GameStop today. We went and picked it up while doing groceries for the week. I brought it home, set it up, and tried it out.

First of all, I must say I agree with most of the critics out there right now. I’d love for it to have a feature where you can set up routines to do instead of having to pick each activity one at a time. Also, it’d be nice if it not only showed you how to do the exercises, but would give you a questionnaire and then create a routine based on your answers. That’d make it perfect for me. But now that the bad stuff is out of the way, here’s the good:

Short version: The games are fun and the board works.

I was worried that the board would not be able to hold me even at my current weight. I was happy to see that the weight limit (which is not printed on the box) is 330 pounds. I’m under that by 45 pounds. So I think I’m good. The balance aspect of the balance board is perfect. It’s very good at telling if you’re doing the exercises right. This is, of course, as long as you’re actually doing the exercises and not trying to cheat your way out of it.

As for the games themselves, no, they wouldn’t win Game of the Year awards, but they are enjoyable. Some of my favorite games are the tightrope walking and the skiing. However, I haven’t opened every game, so that may change. The exercises are done with a virtual trainer, and they can be boring (as I’m easily bored), but they are scored just like the games are. Since my daughter, wife, and I are all very competitive, this should keep us interested even during the boring exercises as we try to beat each other’s scores. Oh, and there’s always the added beauty of being able to job through the woods in your living room. Nobody there, except family of course, to laugh at you.

I’ll write more about it next weekend during the Saturday Update, but I got it after the Update was already posted today so wanted to let you know what I thought. I won’t be fit enough to look good in men’s swimwear any time soon, but I think the Wii Fit is just the solution I needed to becoming easily bored with exercise.

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DIET DIARY

STARTING NUMBERS (Before I started the diet)
Blood Sugar: 287
Weight: 355.0
NUMBERS FROM TODAY
Blood Sugar: 104
Weight: 285.4

I was about to type 205 for my weight. That would have made me REALLY happy. Oh, and you may notice I took off the fat, water, and muscle percentages. I don’t trust my scale that measures them, so I don’t think they are accurate. So I’m not going to include them anymore.

Also, I got my wedding ring resized, as I mentioned last time. I have it back. It went down a full size and is still a little loose. This makes me happy. Ok. I’m done now. I’ve really gotta write more posts between these. I can’t stand that the last Saturday Update is only two posts below this one. Note to self: Write more blog posts!

(For more information about my dieting and weight loss, click here. For more information about the specific foods I eat, click here. For the diet I follow, click here. For designer jewelry, click there. For Disney, click here. For something cool, click here. If you actually pay attention to this part of the update post and have noticed the extra links I just threw in there for the heck of it, mention it in the comments and you might win a quick five bucks.)

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DIET DIARY

STARTING NUMBERS (Before I started the diet)
Blood Sugar: 287
Weight: 355.0
NUMBERS FROM TODAY
Blood Sugar: 109
Weight: 285.4
Fat Percentage: 48.6
Water Percentage: 29.9
Muscle Percentage: 34.6

With High Def being the new standard pretty soon, I bought myself a HDMI switch to use with my different equipment (Blu-Ray Player, Wii with the HDMI cables, etc.). What does this have to do with dieting? Well, this one came with a remote. My other regular video switch doesn’t have a remote. Could be good or bad. If I had that exercise bike I’ve been looking for, it’d be good. I could keep exercising without stopping to flip the switch. Or if I had my Wii Fit, same thing. But since I don’t have either right now, just means I’m going to be that much more lazy. Oh well. I’ll have to do some extra walking then.

Can’t wait for my Wii Fit to get here though. Will be at the end of the month. Expect more weight loss when that happens. And I’ll keep you guys updated as to whether it actually helps or not during the Saturday Updates.

Oh, I almost forgot, I’m not wearing my wedding ring.

“What?! Did something happen Mike?!”

Calm down. Nothing major. I had to have it resized. It kept falling off my finger.

(For more information about my dieting and weight loss, click here. For more information about the specific foods I eat, click here. For the diet I follow, click here.)

Posted by Saphrym | 1 Comment »

DIET DIARY

STARTING NUMBERS (Before I started the diet)
Blood Sugar: 287
Weight: 355.0
NUMBERS FROM TODAY
Blood Sugar: 116
Weight: 281.8
Fat Percentage: 48.1
Water Percentage: 30.3
Muscle Percentage: 34.8

Looks like I’m still dropping. Not the pound a day I used to do, but this is better than no dropping at all. My wedding ring is getting smaller though. It flew off my finger in the van when I was quickly trying to parallel park. Thank goodness it flew in the van and not out of the van. Also, I bought some shorts. Size 44-46. And they fit rather well with a little extra room. Yay!

Side note, I found a fedora while looking for the shorts. Finally found a fedora that looks right on me. Again, I say yay! Maybe I’ll show it to you after my beard grows back out some and I do another before/after pic.

Also, we’re thinking about a vacation this summer. I’ve never been on a vacation. Found a cool little condo hotel (condominium that’s rented out as a hotel room) in Vegas. I’ve also never been to Vegas. I really want to go. I have a secret passion for magic and would love to see some of the magic acts out there. Also, my favorite magic store, Penguin Magic is based out there. Would love to visit them and meet the faces behind the names. Any of you guys out in that area? Maybe we could meet up.

Oh. Just got over the sickness two days ago, so still no website update like I wanted. Will have it next weekend. Hopefully.

But there is one order of business I must take care of. Connie is my winner of Random Reward Vol. 4. I’ll be sending her $5 through PayPal and a free t-shirt if/when they get designed and made. Congratulations Connie!

That’s it for the update. Katrina Part 3 coming soon.

(Sorry Evan. At least it’s a different Saturday update, right?)

(For more information about my dieting and weight loss, click here. For more information about the specific foods I eat, click here. For the diet I follow, click here.)

Posted by Saphrym | 7 Comments »

DIET DIARY

NUMBERS FROM TODAY
Blood Sugar: 130
Weight: 282.4
Fat Percentage: 48.4
Water Percentage: 30.2
Muscle Percentage: 34.7

I know. I know. Blood sugar was kind of high today. However, having the flu means an increase in infection in your body which therefore also means a higher blood sugar. So it’s normal, I promise. But did you see? Although it’s probably sickness related also, my weight finally dropped again. 282.4. Yay! (And when compared to last time, the fat percentages have gone down and the muscle percentages have gone up. So it does make sense.)

Last weekend I hoped to unveil a new graphical theme and layout for the blog. Didn’t happen. Just now getting over being sick, so it didn’t happen this weekend either. ‘Bout the only thing I had time to work on this week other than laying in bed fighting the flu was doing homework and a little web surfing. Even managed to stare at a few very unreachable caribbean cruises. They may be cheap, but still out of my budget.

So there you go. Not much news because not much has happened. And don’t worry, I haven’t forgotten about the last Random Reward. I’ll pick a winner next Saturday and hopefully unveil the new theme and the t-shirt design. Until then, keep reading. More Katrina this coming week along with a few rants I’ve been meaning to voice.

And before you go, a quick poll to see if you’re interested in me videoing some of my graphics design work so you can “follow along” :

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(For more information about my dieting and weight loss, click here. For more information about the specific foods I eat, click here. For the diet I follow, click here.)

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