Cermak Fresh Market

There is a new grocery store in Aurora called Cermak Fresh Market. It's on Route 31 a couple miles south of I-88 and a couple miles north of downtown. It is fantastic! It's typical of this type of market in that the meat and produce are abundant and cheap, but brand name stuff like cereal and soda is expensive. They have a great selection of ethnic specialty items too. There were many Mexican and Asian products. I went on Saturday to only buy produce, meat, and some Asian condiments. By the way, Vietnamese red chili sauce is way hotter than the chili sauce I had at a Thai restaurant this weekend!

There were some sales, and we bought local Gala apples, huge Spanish onions, pears, and limes for 10 cents each. The prices of the meat were great. A package of assorted pork chops was .79 per pound. Rib eye steak was $4 per pound! I didn't need any meat, but I might start shopping weekly to get fresh produce and meat. Meat is one of the few things that I really crave that fits into a healthy diet.

- schneid

Sept 16 update

I weighed 196 this morning.

We had a great time with Kim and Dennis last night. We had Thai food and watched a play at a small theater in downtown Aurora called the Riverfront Theater. It seats about 100 people. We saw "The Night of the Living Dead - The Musical". It was really funny and I really enjoyed the atmosphere of the small theater. Everyone in the audience and the cast seemed to know each other.

Food:

• no breakfast, granola and yogurt, and coffee for lunch
  
• 12 oz. fruit smoothie (strawberries, raspberries, and ice, maybe sugar)
  
• a few bites of ice cream
  
• crusted tilapia on curried vegetables with homemade fresh salsa, and peas
  
• about 30 almonds

Exercise:

• chasing Ben while he learned to ride his bike. He's finally got it! He was able to ride almost the length of the block a few times.

We went to Oberweis to celebrate Ben's accomplishment. The kids had these huge waffles cones that were dipped in chocolate and sprinkles. I had a fruit smoothie, which may have had some sugar. I only ate 3/4 of it and had a few bites of everyone's ice cream. Their chocolate peanut butter ice cream is awesome.

The tilapia wasn't as crunchy as I would've liked. But the combination of the tilapia, curried vegetables (more of a thick sauce), and salsa was great. Yum!

- schneid

Sept 15 update

Hooray, it's Saturday. I weighed 197 today. I've done a good job for about 3.5 days.

Food:

• granola bar crushed into yogurt
  
• coffee with 2% milk and 1 Equal
  
• 1 can tuna, 2 tbsp mayo, celery, onions, green pepper, green onions, pickles, cilantro. I don't have fat free mayo yet, so that was a little excessive (90 calories per tbsp), but I've only had about 600 calories so far today.
  
• 2 diet Pepsi
  
• 3 cups jasmine tea
  
• 1 helping cashew chicken
  
• 2 satay chicken
  
• tiny bit of yellow curry
  
• 1/2 cup rice
  
• some cucumbers and other veggies
  
• 3 tbsp chili sauce
  
• 1/2 bowl of popcorn

Exercise:

• shot baskets with our neighbor Matt for a little while. I'll try to do more later.

We had Thai for dinner with Kim and Dennis at Thai Spice in Aurora. I love yellow curry but it has a lot of coconut milk, so I just had a tiny bit. The chili sauce was really good and I had a lot, so hopefully there's nothing bad in it. I ate about 2 or 3 cashews in the cashew chicken. This was about 1/3 or 1/4 of what I would usually eat at a Thai restaurant.

Suzette and I split a bag of microwave popcorn. It has surprisingly few calories for the amount that you can eat and it's filling.

- schneid

Dinner with Charon and Ryan

On Friday, I had dinner with two friends from high school who I hadn't seen in 21 years. I don't have time to post now, but I wanted to create this entry so I don't forget. I'll try to do it this week.

Also, here's a link to Charon's photos from the 20-year reunion of the Woodstock High School Class of 1987. I can only recognize a few people. Charon, I hope you don't mind.

- schneid

Sept 14 update

I was a hair under 198 this morning...we'll just call it 198. My shins are really sore from the exercise, but the rest of me is just regular muscle soreness and my joints feel good.

Food:

• light yogurt with a granola bar crushed in it
  
• 12 oz coffee with 1 tsp (15 cals) of hazelnut powdered creamer - no sweetener
  
• 3 oz Ethiopian coffee, black
  
• huge salad for lunch, spinach, romaine, carrots, green peppers, peas, onions, kidney beans, vinegar and oil.
  
• black tea
  
• granola bar
  
• went out to dinner: 1 glass red wine, 1 scallop, 1 date wrapped with bacon (bad I know), 2 lamb chops (small rack of lamb size), 1 slice bread and olive oil, about 1/2 a potato, and assorted greens and mushrooms from the appetizers.

My friend Rob W. at work generously shared a taste of his homebrew coffee. He buys green Ethiopian coffee beans and roasts them. I was surprised at how good it was. It was the best coffee that I've ever had without cream and sugar. I can drink black coffee - I never thought I would say that - if it's this good. So I'm going to buy some and start roasting myself (roasting the beans, that is, I'm not climbing into the oven). Rob has pointed out a couple of good sites for ordering coffee beans: Sweet Maria's and Fresh Coffee Beans Company.

And no diet soda today yet. It hasn't been that hard to cut out, although I need the caffeine. I've been drinking green tea and black tea instead.

Exercise:

• 20 minutes on the bike
• 20 minutes lifting weights

- schneid

Sept 13 Update

I have lost 2 lbs so far! Down to 198.

I don't think it's water weight since I drank about 2 gallons yesterday. Anyway, we'll know within a week that it's real weight if the number keeps going down. I'm writing my weight in a column of numbers on the bathroom mirror at Greg's suggestion. I need that immediate feedback. I'll live if I don't lose weight over a couple of days; I realize that I'm putting on some muscle too.

I'm also going to set a reward for getting my weight below 170. Of course, if it's an expensive one, I'll have to get spousal approval. But honey, I'm going to save $720 a year in health insurance costs! It's been 10 years since I've been under 170.

I feel great physically and emotionally. In fact, this is physically the best I've ever felt after jumping back into serious exercise. Usually, the first time I return to lifting weights, I overdo it and I'm in serious pain for days. I'm sore now, but it's a good sore. I think all the veggies, antioxidants, and water yesterday helped, and I'm sure the Advil didn't hurt.

I've found a cool web site called MyPyramid Tracker. You can enter everything you eat and it does a complete nutritional analysis. I've used this in the past because I thought I was deficient in certain vitamins and minerals. Even with the current healthy diet, I'm not getting enough B vitamins, due to barely eating any grains yesterday. I'll have to work on that.

The funny thing about yesterday is that most of my calories were from fat. I basically only ate vegetables...there was oil in the stir fry and oil in the ranch dressing. I'm going to cut down on the oil we use to cook and use nonfat mayonnaise to make homemade dressing.

I skipped the diet soda and had some green tea instead. I have some friends at work who are coffee snobs (they roast their own beans) and they are educating me about the joys of really good coffee.

Food:

• 1 granola bar
  
• coffee + half and half + Equal
  
• green tea, orange herb tea
  
• mongolian stir fry - lots of veggies, only a little rice, with szechuan sauce
  
• handful of sunflower seeds
  
• Rosh Hashanah dinner: 1 matzoh ball soup, 1 gefilte fish, 1 kishke, 2 small meatballs, 2 small slices of brisket, and a 1/2 glass of red wine. (If you want to know what any of that stuff is, feel free to ask.) For dessert, one small chocolate chip cookie, decaf coffee with artificial sweetener and skim milk, and a few pieces of fruit salad.
  
• lots of water

Exercise:

• 2.5 minutes on the elliptical machine (man that's hard)
  
• 12 minutes on the bike
  
• 15 minutes lifting weights
  
• 25 minute walk around Tellabs. We have really nice walking paths. I had no idea it took so long. I couldn't work out any more so I thought I would take a cooldown walk (wasn't all that cool) and decided to walk the whole path.

And remember, if you see me putting unhealthy food in my mouth, knock it out of my hand or tackle me!

- schneid

Sept 12 Update

Man, I was sore when I woke up today. In particular, my ankles were really sore from the run, and my entire legs were too.

Exercise for today:

• I rode the stationary bike for 20 minutes. My legs wanted to quit after about 5 but fortunately the World Series of Poker was on TV and that kept me going. I should put some episodes onto my video iPod.
  
• I hit the weights hard and did 1 set on each of about 6 machines. I checked the time and only 10 minutes had gone by (sheesh). So I did 10 more minutes on mostly the same machines. My legs were shot so I did all upper body.
  
• I also took the damn stairs this morning.
  

Here's what I ate today:

• granola bar (90 calories) for breakfast
  
• 16 oz coffee with 1 cream and Equal
  
• big salad for lunch with lots of spinach, green peppers, celery, onions, and no cheese or bacon. I did have 2 tbsp of Ranch dressing which I watered down. I need to make some homemade lo-cal dressing.
  
• 1 cup green tea
  
• handful of sunflower seeds
  
• 1 diet Pepsi
  
• stir fry for dinner, no rice
  
• lots of water
  

And that's all I ate today. Under 900 calories according to http://www.mypyramidtracker.gov. And not bad. The stir fry was awesome. Suzette made it with fresh ginger, garlic, cilantro, sesame oil, green peppers, zucchini, onions, and chicken. I didn't feel deprived. I enjoy eating vegetables, it's just that my brain thinks that I want cheeseburgers.

I don't know what to do about the cream in my coffee, but it's only about 50 calories. Maybe I'll bring some milk into work or get some low-cal powder creamer.

I am sore and tired, but it's a good sore, mostly muscle aches and not too much joint pain. I might have been in better shape than I thought.

Thanks so much for everyone's support! Day 1 has been a success!

- schneid

It's time to lose weight

I'm making a serious commitment to losing weight. The impetus is a conversation that I had with Paul at our pack meeting tonight. While talking about the chocolate caramel corn that the Cub Scouts sell, he mentioned that he had lost 70 lbs about 18 months ago. I was shocked, because Paul is in good shape. He changed his diet, changed his work schedule, and worked out twice a day - he lost 70 lbs in 3 months. I don't expect to lose so much weight so fast, but I need to start doing something about it.

I recently found a health assessment from 1996. According to it, I weighed 167 and had a body fat percentage of 20%. I was running with Marty and Gary and I got into decent shape, running 4 miles three times a week. That lasted about a year.

A lot of time has passed and I am now 200 lbs and who knows what % body fat. Frankly, I will be very happy to lose any weight. I haven't been 190 in a few years, and I certainly haven't seen 180 in about 7 years. 165-170 would be a good range to shoot for. I'm only 5'7", so in theory I could get down to 150. I haven't seen 150 since college (about 17 years ago). I really enjoy playing volleyball and basketball and I'd obviously play much better (ok, my friends might say I would still suck) if I lost a bunch of weight.

I even have financial incentive. I pay $90 per month for life insurance because I'm so overweight that I'm in the same category as a smoker. It would only cost $30 per month if I lost 30 lbs. I could save $720 per year and buy my kids 3 more minutes at college.

Here's where you can help: Please read this blog and post comments. Trash talk, encouraging words, harassment, support, ridicule, advice, anything is fair game. I will post all my exercise and every single thing that I eat.

I have slightly improved over the last 6 months. I eat a huge salad for lunch a couple of days a week and I rarely eat breakfast from McDonald's. That might not sound like much of an achievement, but I was eating crap for breakfast a couple of times a week and crap for lunch every day. I've been playing volleyball once a week. I've gotten into the gym sporadically. We have a fitness center at work so there is no excuse. The guys also play basketball at lunch time several days a week, and I've felt like I needed to get into better shape to play, but no more excuses.

Here's the plan:

• Exercise at least 5 days a week.
  
• Use the stairs at work (I'm on the fourth floor).
  
• No fast food.
  
• Limited sweets.
  
• No junk food.
  
• Cut down on snacks on poker night.
  
• Eat yogurt, fruit, or granola bars for breakfast.
  
• Actually eat breakfast.
  
• Eat salads for lunch as much as possible.
  
• Eat more of the healthy stuff at dinner and less fattening food.
  
• Drink lots of water. I'm always dehydrated.
  
• Drink green tea.
  
• Cut back on beer.

That last one is going to hurt. I've found a lot of good beer lately, and I've been drinking about 7 per week. That's not too much, but I'll cut back and slowly add it back to see what the effect is. There's a reason they call it a beer gut.

This list is pretty funny. I'm on the 4th floor at work and in the first year, used the stairs once. I'm totally out of breath when I get to the 4th.

Before writing this post, after my conversation with Paul, I came home and jogged for 20 minutes. It was a nice cool night, about 58 degrees. It felt great (and awful). Then I drove my car to check the distance, and it was only 1.6 miles, so I tried to jog more, but I'd already drunk about a gallon of water, and only did 2 more minutes and .2 more miles. But that's farther than I've run in about 10 years, so it's a start. The total was 1.8 miles in 22 minutes.

I'll post my progress daily (except maybe on weekends) - if I don't, bug me!

- schneid

Summer Volleyball Second Place

Here's our summer volleyball team, To Kill a Blocking Nerd. From L-R, Jim, Westy, Mike, and Schneid.

Well, we took second place again in summer volleyball at Tellabs. We played decently overall. We've never taken a game against the team that beat us in three matches this summer, and probably a couple matches in 2006. We'll get to play them again in the fall league once or twice. They're good sports and we really enjoy playing them, it would just be nice to win. They're very consistent and don't make a lot of mistakes, but if we played our best, we could win.

- schneid

Cub Scouts Starts

Yes, the insanity begins...Ben started selling popcorn for Cub Scouts yesterday. He is a Wolf Scout this year and I'm the den leader. Fortunately, I have some parents who will be co-leading the den, since we are combining with another den. That will help a lot, in addition to the experience from last year.

- schneid