Stellar Path

Archive for December, 2009

Is a millennium still new after ten years?  I know that if it was a car, ten years would be fairly old.  If it was a puppy, it might be dead by now.  But I guess when you have 990 years to go, ten years isn’t so bad.

Of course, if you had asked ten-year-old-me in 1988 what 2010 would look like, I would have predicted cities on the moon and rocket cars.  Not iPods and widescreen TVs, for sure.

City on the Moon

But the decade is drawing to a close, and some awesome things have happened for me in this decade.

1. I’ve graduated from college.  Three times.  (Yet none of my degrees are spectacularly useful.  Why didn’t I go into nursing?!)
2. I met the love of my life, Tina, and got engaged to be married.
3. I’ve taken control of my health, and while I’m still overweight, I’m surprisingly fit and no longer over 400 pounds.
4. I’ve bought two houses (and sold one).
5. I’ve been through five vehicles.
6. I’ve traveled out of the country twice, once to Canada and most recently to Cancun.
7. I visited the entire Eastern seaboard, except for South Carolina.
8. I finally figured out what I want to be when I grow up.  I’ll let you know when I actually start doing it.  I plan to be underway in three years.
9. I earned a black belt in taekwondo.  (And I can’t wait to start my training back in January.)
10. I’ve got to meet a lot of awesome people, both online and off.

On weight-loss news, I was quite surprised to find a four pound loss on the scale this morning.  Yesterday was 343.3 and this morning was 339.3.  Most surprising is that we didn’t even work out yesterday.  Maybe I should take rest days more often.

So to everyone, please have a happy and safe New Year, and I’ll see you next decade.

Happy New Year!

I love to cook, but I have yet to post a single recipe on this blog.  That is changing, starting right now.  It is my goal at the moment to post a new recipe once a week, along with photos and our review.  I have to be honest.  I only want to post a recipe if it turns out incredible.  I made a vegan apple and banana pie the other night, which I’ll post about here in a few days, and while it was okay, I doubt I’ll make it again.  It just wasn’t amazing.

However, what I am going to post about today WAS amazing.

I’m calling them Turkey Shell Frittatas.

To make twelve of these frittatas, you will need:

12 thin slices of deli-style turkey meat

4 eggs

2 T. skim milk

Salsa

½ cup of shredded cheese

Any optional veggies, etc., you wish to add to them (I used baby spinach.)

To start with, take a cupcake pan and spray each cup with cooking spray.  Coat it good; these aren’t fun when they stick.  And while you are doing this, go ahead and turn the oven on to 350 and get it preheated.

Take a slice of turkey lunch meat, the thinner the better, and place it in each cup, kind of like a cupcake liner.

In a separate bowl, scramble your four eggs and season to taste.  I threw some milk in with mine so they wouldn’t be as tough after baking, but the milk is entirely at your discretion.  For spices, I went pretty simple – coarse ground salt and black pepper and some chives.

Place a teaspoon or so of salsa in the bottom of each turkey “shell.”  On top of the salsa, pour in about one and a half or so tablespoons of your egg mix.  Just try to distribute it evenly across all twelve turkey shells.  Add your optional veggies (I placed a single leaf of baby spinach in each of mine – I think a cherry tomato would be good in there, too) and then sprinkle a bit of cheese on top.

Bake for roughly ten minutes (or until the cheese is melted and the egg is cooked all the way through.)

Using a large spoon, scoop your turkey shells out, serve, and enjoy.

As far as our review… these were awesome!  I’ve made a lot of recipes, and a great number of them ended up with this review.  “Meh… it’s not bad… but I probably won’t make it again.”

Tina and I both decided, “We are definitely going to make this again.”

We made some of ours with Tomato Basil Chutney and Roasted Red Pepper instead of salsa.  I preferred the salsa; Tina slightly preferred the Roasted Red Pepper and wants me to mix it with the salsa next time.  Neither of us cared for the Tomato Basil Chutney.  It was far too sweat.

However, it was still amazingly good.  There may be only three on that plate, but we both ate six.

There are a lot of variations you could do with this, too.  You could use a different lunch meat (we’ll probably do ham next time), you could do just egg whites, etc.  It’s pretty versatile, really quick, and surprisingly good.

The holidays were truly not as frightening as I feared they would be.  No Bill Goldberg coming down our chimney to kill me in my sleep, gifts (and some frickin’ awesome gifts) galore, and the weight gain truly was minimal.  I ate what I wanted, tried to be physically active, and my weight this morning was about what it was on the 23^rd.  I consider that a victory.

The holidays started on the night of the 23^rd.  We went to see our friends Patti and Dana at Opry Mills hotel, both to see the lights and eat out.  Bad idea.  The time spent with friends was wonderful.  The food we ended up eating at a small pub was only okay.  The time spent in traffic, literally bumper to bumper, was agonizing.  But it’s the holidays.  I should have realized it and expected it.

Christmas Eve and Christmas Day were pretty much busy times, as we had four Christmases to make.  We went to Tina’s Dad Christmas Eve afternoon and then to my parent’s house to see my siblings Christmas Eve night.  We went back to my parents Christmas morning for Christmas with them, and then we went to Tina’s mom’s late Christmas morning thru afternoon for her Christmas.  All in all, fun.  Lots of running, which I didn’t care for, but the time spent with family was great.

When it came to gifts, we racked up.  Aside from the usual small items, my mother got us a Bose sound system, and Tina’s mother got us a 42” plasma widescreen television.  They swear they didn’t collaborate; given that they don’t really know each other and have only met once, they probably didn’t, but I thought it was pretty wild that Tina and I went from a standard TV with no sound system to an awesome TV with an awesome sound system.

The rest of the weekend was spent relaxing, and it was wonderful.  I can’t wait to retire.  I really can’t.  Or at least run my own business, where even if I have to work like a dog (and probably harder than I work now), at least it will be for my benefit and not my organizations.  (Not that I’m anti-“the place I work.”  I just want to work for me.  Isn’t that the American dream or something?)

Tina and I are cracking down on the diet.  We’re not waiting for New Year’s.  We started Sunday.  We’re eating much more healthy, and we had a pantry purge and got rid of pretty much everything white.  (i.e. – Pop Tarts, white pasta, white bread…)  We’re not saying “never again,” but this is definitely a case of, “Not for now.”  We’re also eating TONS more veggies, which has had (for me) the pronounced benefit of extreme regularity.

I had Tina take a slightly fuzzy photo of me Sunday night.  (The photo was on purpose, the fuzziness was not.  I have a complicated camera.)  Anyway, I plan to start regularly posting photos of me as I lose weight.

Me, 12-27-09

And no, I was not unhappy when this photo was taken.  I just can’t seem to smile like a normal person in a photo.  I look like a child molester or general back alley rapist on my driver’s license.  That’s why when I find a photo where I have a nice smile, I’m absolutely amazed and use it all the time.  Like this one of Tina and I snorkeling off the coast of Cancun.

Snorkeling n Cancun

I realize I need to take one shirtless.  I don’t know that I’ll post that on here until I can say, “See, this is what I looked like BEFORE I had a six-pack.”  I commend those of you who can strip your shirt off and pose on your blog.  I am not yet one of you.  Perhaps some day.  But Tina pointed out, if I want to be a personal trainer or motivational speaker some day, I really may want to have a shirtless before photo, so I’m going to take one.

On a slightly different note, I have found an awesome software called Artisteer that I have used to completely revamp my blog.  I love my new look and layout, and I love that it was simple enough to use that I can completely change my blog’s look whenever I feel like. 

I’m also always on the lookout for weight loss blogs.  Know of any good ones?

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas!

I don’t know if I’ll post again before Christmas, but in case I don’t, I want to wish anyone reading this a very Merry Christmas and general happy holidays.

On the weight loss front, I got a little sloppy with my point counting for a few days and my weight loss stagnated.  So today, I pulled my calendar back out and went to counting.  Hopefully, I’ll show a loss tomorrow.  Exercise is going great, though.  We’re not seeing our personal trainer until after the New Year, and we have been given permission to do nothing but cardio until then.  Don’t get me wrong; I love lifting weights, but lately, I have been in such a cardio mood, it’s all I want to do!  Tonight will be another hour on the elliptical.

Before I move on to Christmas talk, let me share this awesome image I came across today on the internet.  A lot of people are offended by it; I think this picture is genius, and I just wish I had thought of it.  I frankly wish my gym would post it on the walls.

Trapped in a Fat Guy

Trapped in a Fat Guy 2

On Christmas news, Tina and I had ours, just the two of us, on Saturday.  We woke up, had breakfast, and opened our presents.  We gave us a $50 budget that we HAD to stick to.  We did, and it was a little tough, but it’s good for us.  We both probably would have spent two hundred dollars or better, and with the wedding and other miscellaneous expenses on the horizon, we just can’t afford that.  She got me several awesome gifts.  I got a new filter for my digital camera, a Bob Ross “thing” for oil painting (hard to describe – I’ll post the painting I make from it after I do it), a puzzle (which I plan to mount and post in my office at work), and season 12 of The Simpsons.  I got her a Barbie puzzle, a Heidi Klum collector Barbie (can you gather that Tina likes to collect Barbie stuff?), season two of Flight of the Conchords (lamest show ever, but she likes it), and Yahtzee.  (We have a tradition of buying at least one board game every Christmas.  Next year is her turn to buy me a board game.)

On a similar note, Tina and I are trying to watch a few holiday movies before Christmas is over.  This holiday season has just flown by, and I really feel like we haven’t gotten to do as much Christmassy stuff as I would have liked.  With the self-imposed budget on how much we could spend on each other, the stress of my old job, the excitement of my new job, and all of the change going in between the two, Christmas has really slipped away from me this year more than I would like.  But that’s okay, because I’ve got four days left, and I intend to make them VERY Christmassy.

I had planned for us to watch Gremlins last night, which is one of my favorite Christmas movies.  (Really.  It’s set at Christmas.  Gizmo was a Christmas gift.)

Instead, I clicked the OnDemand button on our cable remote to see what was new.  I always go to FearNet.  I love horror movies; what can I say?  It had been a few weeks since I had checked out FearNet, and I saw that they had a new category called Happy HorrorDays.  I clicked it, expecting to see the expected Christmas Evil and Silent Night, Deadly Night.  They were both there.

But a surprise movie, one I didn’t even know about, was sitting there.

Santa’s Slay.  A horror comedy starring Bill Goldberg.

Santa's Slay

In this gem of a movie, (really, I loved this flick!), Santa Claus is actually the son of Satan, who lost a bet to an angel 1,000 years ago, that for the next millennium, he had to not only stop killing people and waging destruction on Christmas Day, but he actually had to be good and give presents to children.  For the last one thousand years, he’s had to do this.  But this year, the bet is over, and he can do as much murder and mayhem as he’d like.  And he does.  In goofy, violent fashion.  It’s not very gory, unfortunately.  All of the gore takes place off camera, for the most part, but it’s definitely violent, it’s definitely fun, and I really enjoyed watching it.  Emilie de Ravin (Tess from Roswell) is in it, and she has one of the greatest lines I believe I’ve heard EVER in any movie.

The crux of the immediate situation they are in is that Santa will lose his powers at 7:00 local time, because that is midnight at the pole, and at midnight, Christmas will be over.  Well, 7:00 comes, and they think he is powerless, but Santa explains, “You know, most people make the same mistake.  The correct time at the pole is completely discretionary, because the poles are where the time zones actually converge.”  In other words, as long as it is Christmas SOMEWHERE, he still has power.  And at that point, Emilie says, “He’s scary, yet educational!”

I hope to post again before Christmas, but in case I don’t, have a wonderful Christmas. 

I have decided I am going to share one of my deepest secrets on this blog. I know I have a few readers, but not a ton, and that’s okay. Maybe this will be a little easier to share without having such a large crowd listening. Er, reading. Someday, I hope to have a larger crowd, and when I do, by that time, this secret will be common knowledge. Heck, I might even post it in my new header graphic, whenever I get around to having a new site design that I actually created myself.

I have shared this with exactly one person, and that is my fiancé. She hopes to see this come to pass some day. She wants my secret dream to become my very public reality, and I think the first step is to say it out loud, make myself at least a little bit accountable, and see what happens next.

So here goes.

I want to be triple threat: personal trainer/owner of a gym for the overweight/weight loss motivational speaker.

That is my dream. That is my dream job, and I desperately want to see it come to pass.

The reason this is a little embarrassing to admit – I’m well over one hundred and twenty pounds overweight. However, I have been thinner. At one point, I was a good eighty pounds lighter than I am now. I know what it is like to have been super morbidly obese (I once weighed 403 pounds), and I know what it is like to have a very embarrassing relapse of weight gain. I suffer from a severe eating disorder. I have the mindset of “if I am not stuffed, then I must be hungry.”

So that’s my dream. Will it come to pass? I’m going to make sure it does. I’m not going to say, “Well, I hope it happens.” This is going to happen. I am going to get to goal weight, I am going to stay at goal weight (or within the five pound cushion I give myself to not be a continued slave to food), and I am going to open my gym, train obese and overweight clients in weight loss and exercise, and be a motivational speaker about these very issues.

I need to post to my blog more often. I also need to come up with my own design, and I plan to teach myself how to do that in some of the downtime I hope to have over Christmas break. (I am open to any suggestions on how to create an awesome WordPress blog theme, so if you’re willing to help, or even point me to the direction of an awesome tutorial, please do so.)

My goal is to blog at least three times per week. I do not always do that. Quite frankly, I often fail. Part of it is I’ll gain a little weight, and I’m embarrassed to go on here and admit that I’ve gained.

So I’m just going to suck it up. I’m sure a lot of my readers have dealt with weight loss issues, and they know what it is like to think you are doing okay, look on the scale, and see a three pound gain. This morning, I weighed in at 340.3. That’s less than what I weighed on the 7th, which is something to celebrate, I suppose. I’ll continue to weigh loss, and I still have high hopes of making my weight loss goal in February.

Part of my desire to get fit is also to look good. I do not deny that I am a wannabe narcissist. I want to look like Ryan Reynolds.

Ryan Reynolds

I’m sure Tina wouldn’t mind, either.