Food For Fuel

Eating for pleasure is something all of us are guilty of. If you're anything like me, you love how certain foods taste. During the day, I'll think about what we will be cooking for dinner. I love to think about food. I love to cook food. I love eating food. Sometimes my friends and I will talk about cooking certain foods. Discuss the different ways that we prepare and cook a certain cut of meat or potatoes or vegetable or dessert or anything. I look forward to putting a pork shoulder in the smoker and checking on it throughout the day. There aren't very many things that's as satisfying as eating something delicious. We also know, stopping at one helping of eating something delicious is quite difficult.
That is where the saying "Food for fuel" is extremely difficult. Only eating to fuel yourself is easier said than done. Even if you behave yourself, only eat lean meat, vegetables and fruit, it is still tough to lay off the chocolate cake that is sitting on the counter calling your name...even if you're already full.
Going back to yesterday's post, "Baby Steps", we need to bring ourselves around to this kind of discipline. So my next baby step would entail thinking before everything I consume. If I make a conscious effort to always think, "Is this food that I'm about to eat Fuel or Fun?", it will force me to make a healthy or not so healthy decision. Just the process of thinking before I take a bite will help to keep my mindless grazing in check. Sure I will eat for fun sometimes, but will definitely slow my fun eating down.

Baby Steps

One thing is for sure...I've got to take it slow. I'm one that has a tendency to jump in with both feet and completely overkill a project or goal. The normal result is a continual fading of enthusiasm and zest I had at the beginning.
That being said, I need to ease into a healthier lifestyle. I'm not talking diet here. I have to change so many of my habits, thoughts, and routines for a healthy lifestyle change to occur. If I start a diet and lose some weight, I'll gain it back not long after I finish. If I take small baby steps to actually change my unhealthy lifestyle with eating better and exercise, it will become the new habits, thoughts, and routines that will in turn lead to me losing my big fat gut.
One my first changes is not limit my beer intake during the week. Trying to abstain Monday through Thursday will eliminate several calories per day. So there you have...my first little baby step.

Weak Times

If I could somehow stay busy for sixteen of the 24 hours that I'm awake, I'd be skinny as a rail. Unfortunately, that's usually not the case. While it is true that during a normal week, Monday through Friday while at work, I'm mostly very busy. Never any issues with eating too much, drinking too many beers, or not getting enough physical activity during that time period. But when I get home!! Yep, when I get home, I am usually hungry and have a tendency to graze on anything that's easily available in either the pantry, refrigerator, or freezer. Of course, I will continue to graze until I'm full.
In my house, I have a shop where I do several woodworking projects. I do burn calories in the shop but not many. I don't hit too hard there. So after all the grazing that went on after getting home from work, I will go and start working in the shop. Let me remind you that I am full now. My lovely tells me that she is now hungry and ready for me to throw something on the grill. Now, we'll have something already planned and thawed out. So being the good husband that I am, I'll fire up the grill. Even though I'm already full, I still need to eat a full dinner. Something else you know, I don't think my grill works without beer. I mean come on...if you're grilling you have to be drinking beer. Right?
So it is pretty easy to see that one of my many problems with my diet is my gorging food at a very inappropriate time.
I need to figure out how not to let this happen. I need to somehow preoccupy myself with something to do other than grazing when I get home from work. This is something I am going to work on in the upcoming days. I will most definitely let you know what I've come up with.

My Big Fat Gut

Well, it's come to this. Trying to find motivation to reduce my waist size, I've been reduced to blogging. Not sure if this is the cure, but I'm going to give it a try.
A little about me...I'm a male approaching the big 50, about 5'8" and checking in at roughly 195lbs. According to my scale, it says I have about 28% body fat. Now I know this isn't what many would consider obese, but it is overweight.
 My occupation is that of a facilities maintenance mechanic. I make a living building, repairing, and modifying equipment and building related items. That folks is what bothers me. I've noticed a drastic decline in motivation and stamina over the last few years. But most importantly, I just feel like a slug. Having a job that requires physical exertion and being able to work off of a ladder as well as work on the floor, having a big fat gut makes it much more difficult. I definitely don't need any added obstacles.
Anyway, I'm going to try and lose my big fat gut and the purpose of this blog is to keep me accountable. If anyone out there has any suggestions or pointers for me, feel free to comment.