Stellar Path

Archive for October, 2009

It’s NaNoWriMo time again!

 Or, for those who aren’t super writing geeks, National Novel Writing Month. (Sorta ironic, as NaNoWriMo is not an international event. But whatever.)

For those of you who don’t know, NaNoWriMo is where any writers who is up for the challenge attempts to write a 50,000 word novel during the month of November. I have participated exactly once, and I failed. But I’ve got part of a draft out there that may someday be revived into a novel.

I have my idea for this year, almost completely outlined, and I am almost ready to start writing at exactly 12:00 am November 1, 2009.

The aim of NaNoWriMo is to get procrastinating writers to simply start writing, to not worry about writing crap and just to write.

You can look me up on NaNoWriMo under the user name JeremyRay, and I can be found in the Bowling Green, KY Region.  I’m planning to be involved in some write-ins, and I’ll be sure to post how these go!

I’m more excited for this year’s NaNoWriMo than I was last year’s for sure.  I am actually looking forward to staying up until 12:01 am on Sunday to start my novel!  Maybe this year, I’ll actually finish!  Wish me luck!

I am not good at daily blogging.  It instantly made my blog not fun for me.

Not so sure I’ll ever be a world renowned blogger who can make his living doing this.  Oh well.  I want to have fun with it above all else.

I’m strictly on Weight Watchers right now.  I have realized that if I don’t have SOME level of accountability for how much I am eating, I will eat too much.  I guess if I had a handle on it, I wouldn’t have gotten fat in the first place.  That’s why Core WW didn’t work for me.

I’m currently doing eTools.  I weighed in this morning at 330.25.  I do like the idea of weighing in every day.  Not sure how often I’ll actually post my weight, but I’ll shoot for once a week, minimum.

I’ll post tomorrow (hopefully) about our awesome engagement/Halloween party we had last Saturday night.  I was Super Mario, Tina was Princess Peach.

Us and Our Wedding Party

From left to right, Whitney (80’s girl), Tina (Wilma Flintstone), my Tina (Princess Peach – and she totally made her dress herself – every single stitch), me (Super Mario), Patti (Gypsy Girl), and Annie (Lady Jaye).  This is our wedding party; my best men are actually my best women.  My best friends have always been female, and who else could I pick to have standing beside me when I get married?  Fortunately, Patti and Annie are more than willing to step up to the plate and do the honors.  (Their husbands, also close friends of mine, will be ushers in our wedding.) [And I still get a little chuckle out of the fact that one of Tina's best friends is also named Tina.]

On a related note, Whitney, Annie, Kevin (her husband, Flint), Tina, and I went to see Paranormal Activity at the midnight showing.  (And we went in our costumes.  Tina was the hit of the theater.)  My thoughts – I do not understand why people think this movie is so scary!  If you have seen the trailer, you have seen the majority of the scenes of the movie that are even remotely scary.  Not scary and not worth the $9 each to get in.  It was kind of fun seeing it in a theater where people were screaming (literally shrieking at points), although none of us got it.  Maybe we’re too jaded from seeing so many horror movies.

I was pleasantly surprised to weigh in 0.2 pounds less at Weight Watchers this morning.  My weight was 331.2.  After some of the food I had eaten the last few days, I really didn’t think I would have lost any weight at all.  But I am definitely going to try and eat lighter so my loss will be even more next week.

However, today was not the best example of that.  It seems I have been starved all day, yet when I go to eat, I find myself getting full really quickly.  I guess that’s a good sign, as it means my stomach has shrank, but I don’t like being hungry so often!

1. 2 Blueberry Pop Tarts
2. 1 Zaxby’s Nibbler without Zax sauce
3. 1/2 an order of Wings and Things (Sweet and Spicy sauce) – this basically consisted of french fries, texas toast, chicken wings, and chicken fingers – but it’s really not that much food.
4. 120 calories bag of Caramel Pecan Popcorn Clusters
5. Low-Fat Ravioli
6. Apple Sauce
7. Small Take 5 Candy Bar
8. Green Smoothie (consisting of kale, beets, carrots, banana, and strawberries)
9. 1/2 fried apple pie with vanilla ice cream (See below)
10. 2 slices of chicken parmesan pizza (leftover from Mariah’s)
11. one roll with cinnamon butter
12. 1/4 cup of smashed potatoes
13. 1/4 of prime sirloin sandwich
14. 2 Nathan’s hot dogs on buns (cooked over a fire in the backyard – very nice)
15. Raspberry Hot Chocolate made with milk with two vanilla oreos
16. Fiber One Peanut Butter Bar
17. White Cheese on Arnold’s Thins

We went to Jackson’s Orchard today (a local apple orchard) to buy some apples and pumpkins.  I love this time of year for that reason alone.  The place was absolutely packed.  It’s funny, because we go there year round.  It’s weird going any other time of the year, because I associate Jackson’s Orchard with being busy in the fall, but in the spring and summer, it’s not uncommon to go and be the only person there.

Fried Apple Pie with Vanilla Soft Serve

Anyway, since we were there, buying pumpkins and apples and doing the whole Fall thing, we had to get a fried apple pie from the concession stand.  Tina and I were good and we at least shared it.  (Well, as good as one can be eating stewed apples in fried dough.)

In the spirit of Fall things, we also went to a local haunted house called The Massacre.  It’s billed as “different” than other haunted houses and much, much scarier.

Liars.

It was fun, don’t get me wrong, but we went into it expecting it to be truly scary.  But frankly, how scary can a haunted house be when you know that they may wave that chainsaw in your face but they aren’t really going to hit you.  We were in a group of eight, and Tina and I were at the back of the group, and frankly, we saw just about everything before it actually came.  So yeah, it was fun, and I’m not sorry we went, but it definitely wasn’t that scary.

I will say this, though.  The actors were surprisingly good.  There was one room that unnerved me a little bit.  There were two little girls, probably no more than eight, wearing white dresses and covered in weird black and white makeup, and the walls of the room were covered with little kid drawings that were definitely quite macabre.  You had to crawl through a tunnel to get out of the room, and as Tina and I were at the back of the group, we were with the little kids longer than anyone.  This little girl, seriously no older than eight, said in this flat, deadpan, evil “Village of the Damned” voice, “You shouldn’t stay here.  You need to get out of here.  Now.”  And she then reached over and started strangling a doll that was hanging from a noose.  That was a bit creepy, and I was totally in awe of how in character this little girl was, in a room with absolutely no adults in it for supervision other than people going through the house.

First off, the food for today.  Better than yesterday?  Sure.  Heck yeah.  Hoo baby yes.  Good day?  Not even close.  I have got to do better.

1. Turkey and provolone cheese on Arnold’s Thins with mayo
2. Soft Taco & 2 Chalupas from Taco Bell
3. A few cinnamon pretzel bites
4. 2.5 lobster fritters (kind of like a ball of stuffed crab meat) with red pepper dip
5. 1/2 of a prime sirloin burger with mayo and monterey jack cheese
6. 1/4 of a grilled chicken sandwich with monterey jack cheese
7. A few bites of smashed potatoes
8. 1.5 cake bites (it is cake with icing, rolled and frozen and dipped in chocolate.  The flavors we got and shared were peanut butter banana, carrot cake, and triple chocolate.  It is ridiculous how good these were.)

The last bit of food that I ate was at a restaurant in Nashville called September’s.  It’s one of our favorite go-to places when we are in Nashville, for two reasons.  One, the food is great and the atmosphere is awesome.  And two, they accept restaurant.com gift certificates, so if we spend $35 bucks, we get $25 knocked off of our bill.  Basically, we had a great meal, (and we have leftovers for tomorrow night, along with the leftovers from last night’s meal at Mariah’s), and we left a $10 tip for under $25.  You can’t beat that.  (We also had an awesome server both of the last two nights.  That’s always a plus.)

Anyway, my diet is not going so hot.  I have weigh-in tomorrow at Weight Watchers, and I’ll be floored if I haven’t gained.  First thing I am going to do to remedy this – I am going tomorrow to buy a new blender.  I miss my green smoothies (boy, there’s a statement I never thought I’d say the first time I tried to choke one down) and I am definitely not getting in as many fruits and veggies without it.

We did go suit shopping today, and I bought an awesome suit, including shirt and tie, for $230.  I am very pleased.  Would you believe this is the first suit I have ever owned?  I wear a shirt and tie everyday to work, but I’ve never bought a suit.  When you are as big a guy as I am, it can be a BIG purchase.  I was a little hesitant to buy one now, as I am losing weight, but I have a need for one at the moment, so I decided to go ahead and do it.

I’ll be sure to post how weigh-in goes in the morning.  Wish me luck!

First things first, Happy Negative One Year Anniversary to me and Tina.    We are getting married next October 8th!  We went to visit our wedding site today to see what it will look like (it’s sort of outside, and we wanted to see what the trees will look like at this time of year – granted, next year may look totally different, but this at least gave us an idea).  And I surprised her this morning with a bouquet of gerber daisies (called Crazy Daisies where I purchased them).  Not the most romantic flowers, but she comments on them every time she sees them, so it just seemed like the perfect bouquet to surprise her with.  I managed to sneak them in the house last night when she was in the shower, so she was surprised by them first thing this morning. 

Negative One Year Anniversary Flowers!

On to diet news, I am pleasantly surprised.  When I weighed in this morning, the scale surprised me with a balance of 328.  That’s 3.25 pounds lower than it was yesterday, when I had so many calories.  I’ve had people tell me that I’ve frequently not been eating enough, for as active and large as I am.  Granted, I don’t think tons of fast food is what they had in mind for me, but maybe I really do need to up the calories a bit.  For a bit, just to make sure the weight doesn’t jump up, that’s what I’m going to do.

1. Havarti Grilled Cheese
2. 2 Biscuits with a little lite margarine and light corn syrup
3. 120 calories bag of Caramel Pecan Popcorn Clusters
4. Lunch buffet at Cici’s (sigh… not a smart move… buffets are never good.  However, I didn’t do AWFUL.  I had a few slices of pizza, but I didn’t even really finish any of them and all were thin crust.  I did have a salad with some ranch dressing and a small bowl of pasta with marinara sauce.  I also had two cinnamon rolls.  That was my worst decision, but they were SO good!)
5. One bite of cake (See below)
6. Shared order of loaded cheese fries from Mariah’s (big mistake – my stomach is not happy with all of that grease and is currently protesting quite loudly)
7. One roll with cinnamon butter
8. A few bites of Chicken Parmesan Pizza
9. Two bites of prime rib sandwich
10. One bit of mashed potatoes

We went to Mariah’s tonight for our Negative One Year Anniversary dinner.  We decided to go all out, and we ordered a plate of loaded cheese fries.  Aside from the fact that it absolutely stuffed us and there was no way we were hungry enough to eat the meal we ordered, it just didn’t sit well with my stomach.  On the plus side, we do now have leftovers for dinner tomorrow night, so we’ll be able to save money that way.

As far as the cake goes, Tina runs a little side business of making cakes, and she usually has some scraps leftover for me to try.  (Okay, the scraps aren’t really for me to try, but I always do.  I should stop that.)  Anyway, this cake was a maternity party cake, and it had a cute little pregnant woman on top.  She’s pretty talented, if I am a bit biased. 

Tina's Pregnant Lady Cake

To sum up, today was not a good diet day, and if I am tempted again, I just need to remember how unhappy my stomach is with all of that grease sitting on it.  Tomorrow WILL be a better diet day, one way or another.  Today was a great day otherwise, though, as I got to spend lots of it with my wonderful girl. 

I’m a horror movie nerd.  Can’t deny it.

It’s October.  This is the season of horror movies.

Back in the day when I ran a real webpage and not a blog, I used to update all of my graphics for Halloween.  While I’m not quite that into it now (mostly because Wordpress is a bit more complex than just changing html), I definitely wanted to change my header graphic.  Hence the arrival of Mr. Krueger.

I’ll change it again as soon as Halloween is over, probably with a new astronomy graphic.  And I’ll definitely do a Christmas one, too.

Just an FYI – so when you see a different graphic up top, you’ll know why. 

I have come across several bloggers who use their blogs as a food journal.  I’ve always really admired people who can do that, but I’ve been nervous about doing it myself.  Do I really want to publish for everyone that I messed up and ordered a sausage biscuit from McDonald’s for breakfast?

Mmm... McDonald's Sausage Biscuits for a $1...

But I’ve decided, dieting is not a flawless journey to perfection.  I am not going to eat perfectly every day.  There are clearly people out there who do.  I admire and respect those who do.  I am not one of those people.  So if you want to read a blog about someone who eats perfectly, well…  I’m afraid you are at the wrong place.    But if you are willing to follow along with me as I make some horrible mistakes and bad decisions from time to time, well this is the right place.

Another reason for my hesitation in sharing this on the blog…  I’m a Mystery Shopper.  I have a part-time (sort of – more like contract labor) job of testing fast food restaurants.  I make a small amount of extra income from it, which helps with a tight budget, but I also get free meals, which also helps with a tight budget.  I’ve managed to work mystery shopping into my diet.  If I get a hamburger at a restaurant, then I just count the points.  I seldom eat the entire order of fries, because I know fried food is bad for me.  I usually eat just one or two to test them and chuck the rest.  So you’ll probably see fast food pop up on this blog a lot more than I’d like, but I’m going to be honest.  I’m laying myself bare here, and sharing ALL of my food eating habits, the good, the bad, the fried, and the hideously ugly.

My hope in doing this is that it will inspire me and motivate me to make better choices if I know I am holding myself responsible for sharing every bite of food that goes in my body with the entire web.

So that’s part of my experiment.  The other is to weigh everyday.  I know that a lot of people don’t recommend doing that.  However, I feel that it keeps me on track.  If my weight creeps up one day, I know that I need to do better the next.  And if my weight is falling, then that lets me know that I made good choices the day before.

My weight this morning – 331.25.  Hopefully, it will be less tomorrow.  With some of the food choices I made today, I’m doubtful, but I did exercise pretty hard, and well, I’ve noticed that there are days when I eat more that I’ll lose more weight than I expected, so we’ll just have to wait and see.

And I made several mistakes today.  Two biggies right off the bat.  But this is what I ate today.  (And frankly, my numerous eating mistakes is what made me decide to record my food, because I REALLY need to eat better.)  I’m going to grade myself every day, too.  My grade for today is a D.  I’m not giving myself an F because I am prone to bingeing, and believe it or not, this wasn’t a binge day.  I’m saving Fs (which hopefully, I won’t get) for binges.

1. A donut for breakfast
2. A Sausage Biscuit mid-m0rning (obviously, the donut didn’t stick with me.)
3. Blueberry Pomegranate Apple Sauce
4. Turkey and Provolone Cheese on Arnold’s Sandwich Thins with mayo
5. Little Debbie Pumpkin Delight Cookie
6. Little Debbie Banana Marshmallow Pie (kinda like a Moon Pie)
7. Sonic Cheeseburger with mayonnaise
8. A few fries (literally, like 3)
9. Donut (I’m so weak when it comes to donuts!  It’s best just to not have them in the house.)
10. Small square of turkey lasagna
11. 1/2 Sonic Burger with mayo
12. 1/2 order of Sonic fries
13. About 8 dark chocolate covered cranberries
14. Omelet with ham, cheese, and veggies
15. Two slices of white toast with a little lite margarine
16. Banana
17. Pop Tart

Holy crap, that looks like a lot of food when you look at it all at once.  I think blogging my daily food intake will be good for me.  I’m clearly eating more than I realize.

For exercise, Tina and I went to see our personal trainer.  It was a hard workout, too.

Clearly, today was not a good eating day.  Exercise was great, though.  However, there have been times in the past when I’ve eaten poorly and still managed to lose weight.  (Sometimes a surprising amount.)  Let’s see if tomorrow is such a day.

One thing is absolutely certain – I cannot eat like this everyday.  I need to focus on eating healthier and far less junky.  Tomorrow is a new day.  And tomorrow is our Negative One Year Anniversary (as we’re getting married October 10, 2010.  So it’s not a negative thing, it’s just a negative NUMBER thing.).

I usually don’t go for things like this, but this one really hit me for some reason.  Perhaps it’s the part deep inside me that wants to open a bookstore (with my fiancee Tina running a bakery in conjunction, so people can come in, buy a used book, and eat one of her awesome cupcakes.  )  But this one makes sense.

http://www.the350project.net/home.html

That is obviously the link.  I recommend you go visit the page, but the gist of it is this.  Pick three businesses that are locally owned that you like.  If you can, spend $50 among them every month.  That’s the only way to keep locally owned businesses around.  I know that I can’t do all of my shopping locally.  Frankly, my budget couldn’t do it.

But there are definitely some luxuries that I can buy locally, and I’m going to start.  Even if it’s just going out to eat once a month or so (which I do pretty much anyway as a treat for Tina and myself) at a local restaurant rather than a chain.  I’d be much happier going to Mariah’s (an awesome local restaurant) than O’Charley’s or TGIFridays.

And I’m going to start this Thursday, October 8th.  It’s kind of our Negative
One Year Anniversary, because next October 8th, 2010, Tina and I are getting married, and we’ve already decided to do a little celebration, and I think a nice meal at Mariah’s or 440 Main (another local restaurant) will be just the way to do it.

I really wish we had a local bookstore here in Bowling Green.  I’d definitely have no trouble spending $50 a month if we had a used bookstore. 

I want nothing more than to start running, for SO many reasons.

Jogging on the Beach

I want to run because I have heard it is phenomenal for weight loss.  I have heard so many runners say that running burns fat off of them better than almost any form of exercise.

I want to strap my ipod on my arm and just go running, do nothing but listen to the beat of the music and move my body to it as fast as it will go.

I want to sign up for 5K races.  Not only would I be giving to many good causes (because every 5K around here is usually for some type of charity), but I would also amass a cool t-shirt collection.  (Because most of the 5Ks I’m familiar with give you a t-shirt for signing up.)

It just seems like it would be fun to go out and run.  To actually talk about running miles, rather than minutes.  “Yeah, I ran 5 miles” sounds a lot cooler to me than “I did 60 minutes on the treadmill.”

But, of course, for me, there is a catch.

I’m obese.

I’m not allowed to run.

My personal trainer won’t let me.

Yet.

She promises me that as soon as it won’t be disastrous for my knees, I’ll be allowed to run.  And that’s something I really have to follow, because my right knee is already messed up pretty badly and occasionally hurts me VERY badly.

But that day is coming.  I know it is, and I can barely wait.  Yesterday at Weight Watchers, I lost 1.6 pounds.  That’s only 6 pounds in the past month.  That isn’t nearly as fast as my weight loss used to be, but I know that if I can lose six pounds a month, that’s 72 pounds in a year, and I’ll look MUCH better at 260ish for my wedding than I do right now at 330.  And who’s to say that my weight loss won’t speed up at some point over the year?

I can’t wait to get my first 5K t-shirt.  Whenever that day comes, I will definitely post ALL about it.  Heck, I’ll probably go on and on about the Couch to 5K Plan for months before my first race. 

Now at least, whenever I get tired when I’m walking on the treadmill, I just remind myself that even if I’m not running now, I am at least building endurance so that when I do start running, I’ll have a tiny bit of a head start.

Welcome to Stellar Path.  This is my blog.  I had a blog previously on blogspot, but I had this domain, stellarpath.net, sitting here mostly unused.  After finding out that my hosting service offered Wordpress free of charge, I decided to revamp my blog and move it here.  I chose today, October 1^st, as my grand opening.

In the coming weeks, I’ll tell you more and more about me.  I hope to have both old readers and new readers.  I plan to do giveaways at some point.  I’ll tell you all about my weight loss struggles.  I’ll share recipes and healthy eating and diet tips.  And it won’t all be about weight loss.  I have a current obsession with Harry Potter, and I’ve decided that, once per week, I am going to post about Harry Potter.  I’m going to read through the ENTIRE series, and once per week, I’m going to post my thoughts on each chapter of the series.  It’ll take me forever, but I am okay with that, because I love Harry Potter, and this will be a fun way for me to relive it.  I’ve read the series about three times now, and this time, I want to read it and critically think about it, look for things I didn’t see the first time, and just have fun playing with it.  And hey, I may even meet a few fellow Harry Potter fans in the process.  I’ll post the occasionally watercolor picture.  I am a VERY amateur artist, and I’ve created a few things that I’m quite fond of.  I also have a love for horror movies, and there will definitely be reviews.  (I’ve already got some thoughts about the Nightmare on Elm Street remake due in 2010, and you’ll definitely be hearing all about that.)

This is my first post, and I don’t really know what else to do except to briefly, briefly introduce myself.

So, here goes.

My name is Jeremy Logsdon.  I am 31 years old, and I have been fat my entire life.  I’ve been EXTREMELY fat for the majority of it.  At the age of 26, I began Weight Watchers at a high weight of 403 pounds.

Me at 403

And no, I was not the Numa-Numa guy.

I lost quite a bit of weight, got down to about 250, met a girl, had a horrible breakup, and gained some weight back.

That puts me at today.  I currently weigh around 330, and while my love life is doing great (I am engaged to be married to the love of my life, Tina, date set for October 8, 2010), but my weight loss isn’t always so hot.  I’m back on Weight Watchers, losing slowly and steadily, and I hope to be at a decent weight by my wedding.

Me and Tina

So please join me on my journey.  I have so much more to tell, but I want to get started.  Welcome to Stellar Path.