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Tag Archives: Chai Latte

Liquid Calories

Drinking TigerI think what kills me when dieting is the liquid calories. Not the protein shakes those I account for. No its the chai here and there, the alcohol, the glass of wine, and the mixer for the alcohol. It doesn’t take a lot of those to boost your caloric intake for the day turning an unassuming low cal day to a high cal day. But if I can control my food I can control my liquids too. Perseverance.

What Does a Tiger Eat?

Tiger eatingA Tiger probably eats a ton of meat. I try to eat a lot more meat these days too. My daily intake is a couple of hard boiled eggs in the morning. I get to work and have a fruit plate which usually contains pineapple, cantaloupe, watermelon and papaya. Lunch is a spinach salad with sliced cucumber, tomato, and pieces of chicken breast I prep on Sunday. Dinner is whatever my maids make for a vegetable side and mutton I prep on sunday. I don’t mind the same meal every day because on the weekends I give myself some variety.

For prep I buy 6 chicken breasts which I marinate in Italian dressing and fry in coconut oil. I cut it up and put in a bowl to distribute in my salads through the week. So far that seems enough. The mutton I get 1kg of mutton cubes which is two legs worth. I cook that with spices, usually a mutton masala. I add stew vegetables to go along with it. So Carrots and okra and if in season mushrooms. I buy bags of spinach (sadly not baby spinach) and assorted vegetables. My maids cook up a variety of vegetable dishes through the week with whatever I buy. They use my coconut oil for cooking or ghee so it is all paleo friendly.

Right now I am still cheating a little with a samosa here and there or a croissant but as I am going along I am finding them not to be as much of a treat any more and feel bad after eating them so I will soon remove them from the diet all together. 80/20 is still my goal for this diet and enjoyment.

Another cheat I am working out of my diet are liquid calories. I have a rose shake and a chai everyday. While not the worst cutting them out entirely and just having water will be best.

Thanks for reading.

Eating Healthy

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The month leading up to my trip to India had me slip a bit in my healthy eating ways. I was consuming not only things that weren’t paleo but also my portions were a little more than they should have been. If I learned anything over the last year in regards to being healthier it was that portion control contributed to not being fat. Yeah on paleo you can eat a lot because it is healthy stuff but at the end of the day it is still caloric intake and activity burning those calories. Needless to say that I gained about 10lbs to 15lbs back from what I had lost.

I knew coming to India I would be able to focus on my health a good bit more and so part of that would start with eating healthy. The good part about India is they have some healthy food. Not all of it is paleo but it is easy enough to navigate around the rice and bread and beans. Even with that I maintain my 100% paleo 80% of the time rule.

Since I have been in india my breakfast has been fresh fruit, egg and cheese omelot and a couple of pieces of bacon. I usually have a fruit smoothie to go with it. Oh and of course some Masala tea.

Lunch I have just been having a lara bar cashew  bar but I am running out of those so I will probably start getting lunch but keep an eye on portions. My first day at work I did get lunch and it was some nan bread, palak paneer and a lassi. So fricking good. Of course I also have chai through out the day but the portions are like a third of a tall Starbucks so no where near as bad as the two venti chais I used to have a day at 320 calories a pop.

Dinner for me usually is usually some protein like fish, beef or chicken, some diary like paneer, and lots of vegetables. Usually I have a glass of fresh squeezed pineapple juice too. It has been really filling and not bad on the calories. I haven’t been able to get on a scale here but I can already tell I have worked on cutting back down the weight.

Now some pictures of what I have been eating for dinner.

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220

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This morning I weighed in at exactly 220lbs. Since I started I have lost 60lbs. Since I have started weighing myself with my Fitbit scale I have lost 20lbs towards my goal. My current goal is 210lbs which I feel is very attainable though perhaps not by my birthday. I had a few weeks of staying steady at 225 and that kind of put me off target. I cut back this week on my caloric intake which I was apprehensive about at first but I found to be easier than I thought. I switched up my breakfast to be a little bit lighter as well as lunch and dinner and cut out a chai latte and reduced the size.

Once I hit my goal weight I may aim for another 10lbs lower but I will pretty happy at 210. Like I have said before I am lighter than I have ever been in my adult life and most likely thinking back probably mid-high school.

As it gets colder here getting in my walks outside have been switched to walking in circles in my apartment. Not that exciting but I have my tv going while I do it and so I am able to catch up on shows as I walk. I still try to get in some strength training with pushups, planks, mountain climbers and crunches but they are not that exciting.

30 Day challenges and stuff

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As I have lost a bunch of weight over the last few months with just diet and some walking, I have decided I need to add some weight training in to my regime. I probably should add some cardio too but baby steps. For the last 15 days I have been doing two different 30 day challenges. An arm and an Ab one. They have been really good and I can see the changes which are nice. I will probably keep going, or at least change them up once I am done with them.

Sadly I have stalled on my weight loss. Which means I either need to up my activity or lower my caloric intake. I know a couple places I could lower caloric intake (Chai, I am looking at you) but really I am pretty happy with the amount I am taking in so I will try and focus on upping my activity level. That means either more walking or some cardio or a mixture of both.

It is getting cold here faster than I would like which may mean I need to find a lot more indoor activities I like for keeping this going or invest in some snow shoes.

Anyway still going, toning up and working towards my goal but it is now not targeting for my birthday. Without doing anything drastic I may just have to live with that and be happy I am still seeing physical changes that are positive beyond weight.

I Should Post More

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My apologies to anyone who actually reads this. I totally have been traveling every other week and then not posting. Here is a post though. I have been working hard at my current goal post being obese. That goal has a date attached to it which is my Birthday in November. As of today I am Halfway to my goal from when I set it which was 15lbs ago. I am actually 16lbs down but lets just call it half. So the goal is 210 by my birthday. I feel pretty good about it. Definitely think I will make it.

Fit bit is still my favorite tool for keeping me on course. My scale gives me three fun numbers to play with. My weight, body fat percentage and my BMI. Sure people say BMI is bullshit and it might very well be but you know what is cool watching all these numbers go down. I will take it.

Of course as I lose weight my fitbit page adjusts my calorie intake to reflect how much I should eat to meet my goal. That number also keeps going down which means I need to make some sacrifices in my eating or kick up my activity level. First compromise which has worked well is switching from my beloved Venti Chai Latte to a Tall (or Mezzo as they call it here). That little move shaves off 120 calories each drink and since I am an addict I have 2 a day and that saves me 240 calories. That is awesome. Means I can eat like half a sausage or something stupid.

My daily meals routine is roughly the same.

Breakfast: 2 pieces of Bacon and 1 egg

Morning Snack: Banana and a tall chai latte

Lunch: 2 sausage and some peppers. onions and mushrooms with tomato sauce

Afternoon Snack: tall chai latte

Dinner: Beef stew with carrots, mushrooms and onions

Desert: Maybe another Banana

Activity for me is on average 10k steps. Though I am working hard to get more than that in a day to help offset the ever decreasing calories I am able to have with my lower weight. More activity means more food and I like this reward.

Also with Winter looming ahead I need to find an activity that will replace some of the walking that will not be happening in the snow. Walking was easy and getting myself to walk more wasnt much of a challenge. But what to do when walking isnt an option. Considering more Yoga, some of those 30 day challenges or maybe even P90X.

I am hoping my all or nothing behavior will kick in for one of these and I will ride the train to awesome fitness. We will see.

Till next time stay groovy.

State of the Chris

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So life has been good. Today I earned my 15lbs lost badge on Fitbit. This based on from having my Aria scale for about a month now so the amount lost is from my highest weight I hit while having it 153 and I am now 137. Which is great and an all time low for my adult life. I keep repeating this because seriously I have been obese all of my adult life. That is kind of crazy to think about but it is true. The reality is I was obese all of my teenage years and a good portion of my youth. So now at 35 I am making the right changes to make that not the case. I am well on target for a personal goal I want to achieve before the end of this month. Then I have another for my birthday in November.

I was gaining weight or really maintaining weight and not really understanding why. I was doing lots of stairs, doing my 10k of steps and 5 miles a day. I thought I was tracking my calories correctly (no reason to lie to myself about what I was eating). I cut out fruit, I briefly cut out my Chai Lattes and still just standing still or losing then gaining.

So I looked at my intake and realized I was missing some important information. Liquid Calories that were not being recorded. I drink a lot of water but I also drink Almond milk because it is way tastier than water. I was drinking a lot of it. Since it is 80 Calories a cup and I was pounding down more and more a day I was not tracking it well enough to realize I was blowing through extra calories. So I cut out the Almond milk, increased my water, had a chai or two and looked at my portions as a whole and BAM back to a steady weight decrease.

For food I have cut down my breakfast portions slightly. I was doing 2 eggs and 3-4 pieces of bacon for breakfast and then a bunch of fruit for a snack in the morning. I now moved to one egg, 2 pieces of bacon and a banana for breakfast. No more fruit. Lunch is still baby spinach salad and I add raw mushrooms and some grilled chicken strips. Dinner this week has been a small pork chop and some Brussels sprouts and carrots. Keeping the portions reasonable and recorded. I might now be over estimating my calories vs before where I was underestimating but that is ok.

I still try to do 9 flights a stairs at a time but if not I at least do bursts of 4-5 at a time. I am averaging about 40-50 flights of stairs a day. I am steadily doing 10k steps a day with the occasional rest day. Like Saturday I did 500 steps total which was me moving from my bed, to kitchen to couch to bathroom etc. It was a blissful rest day. I watched a lot of episodes of the Vampire Diaries. This week I have been working on going to bed earlier and waking up earlier to fit in some Yoga in the morning. So far it has gone well and have done it 3 days in a row. I started some Yoga in the evening as well right before Bed. We will see if that one lasts but I do like that I am able to add some more healthy habits as I go along. I may get back to Dance Central as a periodic cardio thing to break up the other stuff or as an addition but for now I feel I have made great strides from being sedentary to being more active.

Every day is a change for the better. Any step backwards I analyze and improve upon. I will be the perfect me.

Remember when I said I would kill you last?

05

I Lied.

Ok so I lied about the Chai Lattes. I didnt give them up. But I also found that wasnt my problem, well at least for not feeling good after because I drink them and I feel fine so I maybe had a something else going on. They are still 320 calories of my 2k calorie day so two of those bad boys and there isnt much else I am taking in that day aside from that. So I should cut back on them but still glad to have them in my life.