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I love pizza.  Too much.  It’s a core reason I ended up in the position I was in.  I gross myself out now thinking what I did…for many years.  But – I have also been learning a lot about nutrition and just watched a video this week on magnesium.  Apparently, magnesium is a calming agent.  And guess what?  Apparently all of the antacids I had to take for 15-20 years blocked magnesium absorption.  Yup.  So get this…

Bad diet based on “stress”….leads to overeating and smoking for me…which led to terrible acid…which led to magnesium deficiencies…which led to more stress.

Well, when you break the chains of that cycle, you realize that “hey, I’ve only needed my antacids twice in the last year”.  You then realize that stress doesn’t eat at you, like ever…and you tend to then turn to your prepped meals rather than stuffing your face with comfort foods and running to the cigarettes.

So Friday was crazy for me.  Put in 74 hours this past week.  Came home Friday night at 8:15 and went to the diner with the wife.  Got a cheeseburger, fries, and mozz sticks.  After all of that debauchery, I was still under for the day around 200.  I spent some of that drive home thinking about pizza.  Stressed, yes, but this was more of a “it’s Friday, I used to order pizzas all the time” thought.  Then I realized I hadn’t had pizza in about 6 weeks.  What??

So I plotted a pizza move.

The challenge, was – how can I experience pizza in the most “healthy” way possible, and it still taste like pizza?  I wasn’t digging the cauliflower crusts I’ve been seeing.  I did watch some videos with this obnoxious guy (don’t want to name him) who seems like a severe db in real life, but he did have some good meal suggestions.  Lots of them used fat free cheeses.  My experience with these cheeses 20 years ago were “plastic” and “didn’t melt”.  Time to give it a second look.  I also wanted to try and reduce the macro imbalance.  Typically – pizza is really high in carbs, high in fat, and lower in protein.  I wanted something that reduced the cheese fats, carbs, and added more protein.

Enter the flatbread pizza!!  This was phenomenal!!!!!!!

Macros – for TWO pieces, combined, are: 540 calories, 61g carbs, 7g fat, 60g protein.  The huge bump in protein is due to the fat free cheese and the turkey pepperoni.  I cut these with a pizza cutter into 4 big slices, then put on a plate.  To eat, I folded.  Really freaking good!!  This was an entire meal for lunch for me yesterday – and previously, this might have been ONE slice out of a pizza I would have ordered.

To make this:

1. Put flatbread in oven at 375 for 2 minutes, take out.
2. Put on 3 TBSP of sauce, 2 oz mozz fat free cheese, .5 oz of turkey pepperoni on each.  I also added a few shakes of salt and plenty of oregano.
3. Place back in for 5 minutes or so until cheese is melted.

Hiking….

I’m looking for more ways to burn calories that are productive, in a sense.  My running is progressing in my 1 mile speed, but I still feel like I’m too much weight to run frequently without injuring myself.  This has me running twice a week at about .75-1.25 miles at a clip.  I’m trying to run my fastest time, each time, so this isn’t my leisurely pace over 20, 30, or 45 minutes.  THAT is coming in late September/October when it gets a little cooler.  I’ll go to my old college track, put on the tunes, and just run in the evening for an hour or so at a leisurely clip.  Can’t WAIT!!

I read an article from MyFitnessPal about how to improve the calories you’re on for a walk.  Something simple – walk with inclines.  Most of the walking I do is walking the dog around my development.  It’s mostly flat and due to my size, I still get the calories burned….lol.  But it gets boring.  I found a park 3 miles from my house called Rocky Ridge – well, as it turns out, there’s like 7 walking/hiking trails there deep in the woods.   They have maps hung up on the path and elevations.  The one I started on was 1.2 miles and had an elevation difference of maybe 50 feet.  Some of them are 200-300 feet difference!!  As I lose more weight, I’m going to be doing this more!!  I feel I need a canteen or some shit to do this.

There were some people biking it.  Full gear of helmets, mountain bike, etc.  I have a hybrid bike with thinner tires, so I decided I was going to look up how much a mountain bike costs.  That was hysterical.  These bikes are $2,000…on the LOW end.  So I watched some mountain biking videos.  Fuck that.  These guys are insane.  They have these mountain trails rated just like skiing – double black diamond.  Maybe I do some light mountain bike riding on those trails, but these wackos that that hurl themselves down a legit mountain?  Nope.  That will get me killed.  Not interested.

Freedom…..

While my weight has not changed drastically in a month…my clothing keeps getting bigger.  I’ve been hitting my macros, working out hard, and my muscle mass continues to grow while my size is shrinking.

Not to numb you with nuance of sizes….but I’m now legit in a 2x.  Bought my first 2x shirt yesterday – in 20 years.  I also bought a size 46.  My “true waist” is a 46.  That was also a first in 20 years for that purchase.  My dress shirt size is now a 19-19.5.  Let me turn the way-back machine a year ago.

While my pant size was a 52…I had a much bigger belly.  My “true waist” was 66 inches.  Yeah.  When I got the tape measure out and that number came up, that was also one of the key motivators.  That crushed me.  So while I was wearing a 52 pants, which were tight, had I “pulled up my pants” I would have needed a 64-66.  Yup.  So, I have lost TWENTY inches around my waist.  This, in turn, has a weird effect.  It makes my shirts much longer.  So….I now own a lot of really long shirts.  I was buying a 4X this time last year for the first time, that was also soul crushing.  My dress shirt was a 22.

What’s also of interest, to me, is that the last time I was in a 46/2X/19, I was 15 pounds lighter.  I was not expecting my clothing to be this loose for another 15 pounds.  Or perhaps another 2-3 months of weight loss.  The fact that I’m at this weight and in smaller sizes is mostly being attributed to having more muscle on me now than many years ago.  So – yesterday was a BIG day for me.  I bought ONE outfit because my casual Fridays at work have been having me wear clown outfits.

Now, one thing I’m concerned about.  All of my dress pants are also ridiculously big.  I have about $3,000 in dress clothing….that now are wayyyy too big.  I wear suits every day to work.  So, I don’t want to now go out and buy another $3,000 in suits.  Going to try and get my pants altered sometime in the next month.  All of my expensive belts also have 2-3 holes drilled in them by me over the past 3-4 months.  First world problems, I know.

But this also has provided me some freedom.

1. Tying shoes.  Many of you don’t realize the terror that ridiculously overweight people have with simple things like tying shoes.
2. Going to sporting events.  I went to a minor league baseball game with my family this year and fit extremely comfortably in the chairs.  This now opens up sporting events to do.
3. Travel.  I have been hesitant to go on planes.  It’s not fun to travel when you’re large – as you are keenly aware of how everyone around you despises you.  Things don’t fit well, if at all.  You have to ask for a seat belt extender, which is utterly humiliating.  Then – taking your shoes off and putting them back on – see item 1 above.
4. Activity.  I am no longer as lazy as I was.  I’m out mowing the grass on weekends, out doing all kinds of stuff.  I was actually considering the day probably next year when I kayak on a lake.
5. Clothing shopping.  There’s one store 25 miles from me that any large person within the radius can shop at.  ONE.  As sizes reduce, this also means I’ll be able to buy clothing anywhere.  The last time I bought an item of clothing at the gap – it was 1995.  So, I’m looking forward to reducing size so I can actually buy off the rack.  Mind you, the big and tall stores cost a fortune for clothing as well.