Five Tips for How to Lose Weight the Healthy Way

Eat veggies at every meal to aid healthy weight loss

Here are five tips for how to lose weight the healthy way. Start making incremental changes and remain consistent with these five tips to lose weight. You will soon find you are well on your way to achieving your weight loss goals.

1. Limit your portion sizes. Use smaller plates or smaller food-prep containers. If you put a small amount of food on a big plate, you might feel like you are missing out. Trick your brain with smaller plates and containers. You will be amazed at how satisfied you are with smaller portions when the container you are using is full.

2. Eat vegetables at every meal. Yes, even at breakfast. Try starting your day with scrambled eggs for protein and stir in some frozen spinach or collard greens. The fiber will help fill you up, and you will be getting more nutrients right off the bat. These nutrients will signal to your body that it is getting what it needs and it will be less likely to trigger a binge response that often accompanies attempts to lose weight.

3. Stay hydrated. The rule of thumb is to drink 8 oz. of water for every 20 pounds of body weight. If you are morbidly obese this may seem like a gargantuan task, and if it doesn't feel right for you definitely consult your doctor for recommendations. In general, though, just start drinking more water than you are drinking now. Among the benefits, drinking more water helps your food digest and get out of your body quicker.

4. Walk. This is seriously the best thing you can do for your body no matter your weight. Even if you cannot walk easily, get out there and do it for five minutes a day. If you can do more, do more. Park at the edge of the parking lot instead of in front of the door. Walk around up and down every aisle of Wal Mart just to get in the steps. Go to the local park, or just walk around the block. Your core will thank you as you begin burning fat more efficiently.

5. Create an accountability network. It is easier to lose weight when others are on the journey with you. Whether it is a health coach, coworkers, family members, or folks from church, you will find that sharing your struggles as well as your successes with others will make losing weight easier than if you simply go it alone.

Good luck! I'm on this journey with you. Stay tuned for more.

Despite M*A*S*H movie theme song lyrics, suicide's not painless

As we remember actress Sally Kellerman, the original "hot lips" Houlihan in the M*A*SH movie, who can recall the words to the original M*A*S*H theme song? TRIGGER WARNING.

It's called Suicide is Painless, and its tone and lyrics left the listener feeling an indifference toward the act but treating it almost like self-care. "Suicide is painless. It brings on many changes. And I can take or leave it if I please."

I remember seeing the deeper contextual meaning of the song, that suicide may be a desirable alternative to being forced by duty or circumstance to live out one's destined role in a war. And even though the series dropped the lyrics, I feel that in a way the melody was seared into our collective GenX minds, which were in adolescence at the time. The words for many of us became imprinted on the prime real estate of our GenX souls.

Suicide took a step brother from me as well as the brother of my best childhood friend. Not to mention, I survived my own brush with suicide during my hopeless closeted teenage years. GenX and subsequent generations have been hit hard by suicide. As it is, and as each of us has learned by experience, suicide is anything but painless for those left behind.

National Suicide Prevention Hotline (U.S.): 800-273-8255

Healthy Eating Mukbang - reacting to Walmart Santa Fe salad

I spent $402 on a box of Optavia

I spent $402 on a box of Optavia that will last for 30 days, and I’m beginning to have buyer’s remorse. I’m sure when I follow the plan for 30 days I will indeed lose weight - maybe even a pound a day. But the cost seems to be more expensive than I’d first perceived, especially considering this price buys just one third of my daily calories. The rest I have to add in myself.

Here’s the breakdown. For $402, I am receiving 22 boxes with seven "fuelings" in each box, for a total of 154 fuelings. Each fueling has about 110 calories and is to be consumed at a rate of five per day spaced out between two and three hours apart. I'll still have to grocery shop to prepare an additional 1,300 calories of "lean and green" meals and snacks.

Optavia works for tons of people, but cost is a huge factor.

This initial package apparently includes five free boxes, or 35 additional fuelings. To continue the program into a second 30 days, I would have to buy the total of 22 boxes monthly. Since each box costs about $21, my next order would cost approximately $60 more. And then, of course, there’s the cost of shipping, which brings the cost for a 30-day supply of fuelings to around $500.

Given the convenience factor, I get that the food might be a bit more expensive. But I can save hundreds of dollars and still be successful in my weight loss by sourcing on-the-go bars and shakes elsewhere and prepping all meals and snacks on my own.

Regardless of my methods, it’s all up to me to make the right choices in my life. Knowing this going in, I’m going to make the most of this Optavia trial to kick start and hone my portion control and meal prep skills. It’s an expensive kick in the pants. But it's just the kick in the pants I need right now.

Grief and coming to terms with the imperfect self

Coming to terms with the imperfect self is an important stage in grieving. One thing I've felt guilt about since mom died is pulling away from her physically as the cancer took hold, as she lost her hair, as she became more frail and sick.

I'll never forget when my mom got her first post-chemo wig. I almost couldn't recognize her. It was like she was wearing some kind of silly hat. But she was so happy to have hair again. She wanted me to love her new look. More importantly, she wanted me to see she was getting stronger, that she was still here, living life on her own terms!

Selfishly though, I struggled with a sort of dysphoria with her new appearance. Before, I had taken pictures of her and with her all the time. From that point on, I rarely took a selfie with her again, and any pictures I did take made me feel sadness rather than pride.

Looking back, I see things differently. Now I can focus not on the wig - not on the cancer - but on my mom's lasting beauty that shone from beneath the wig with brilliance. I can see her eyes sparkling as she touched up the wig with her fingers asking me how she looked. Yes, mom, you looked beautiful..truly beautiful...ratchet wig and all.

Anyway, I'm freeing myself today from this memory, from these feelings of shame I've been carrying for not being a better son. For not taking more pictures. For focusing on her slipping physical beauty instead of focusing on her inner beauty. For not seeing that she was still here, and being proud.

Today, I forgive myself. I'm not perfect. And that's okay. She knew that, and she loved me anyway.

Stalled weight loss progress can be so frustrating

The most frustrating part of trying to lose weight is questioning every little thing you do (and don't do), especially when you hit plateaus that never seem to end. That's where I am right now. Totally frustrated. I have tried every tip in the book, from cutting out all added sugars and the obvious reducing calories to increasing calories, having a cheat day, and exercising regularly. I'm still at 396 pounds, stuck after losing 30 pounds directly following a big lifestyle change - cutting out fast food entirely from my diet.

Today I go to the doctor, and within a week or so I'll have some stats come back from bloodwork. We'll see if there's some hidden info there. My endocrinologist wants to order some tests, too, so I'll give that a go. But I have a feeling I'm missing something. And I think what I'm missing is I'm not getting 10,000 steps a day. I'm stalling out at around 6,500. I have a gut feeling that getting my steps up to the 10,000-step recommended daily allowance will get my weight loss started again.

So that is my goal today. To get stepping. It's hard to do, especially on my day off when I try to Uber as much as I can and just chill out for the rest of the time watching random crap on Amazon Prime or YouTube. But I'm going to do it today, for sure. That's my goal and I'm sticking to it. What will tomorrow bring? I don't know. I'm doing this one step at a time.

5 Star Nutrition Body Composition Analysis - July 13, 2018

On the recommendation of a couple of online fitness vloggers, I checked out my local 5 Star Nutrition here at Stonefield Commons in Charlottesville. Justin was extremely helpful. The first thing he did was check my body composition with complete muscle-fat analysis, obesity analysis, and segmental lean analysis. Then he helped me pick out some supplements and a meal replacement to help me achieve my weight loss and muscle building goals.

Here are my stats as of today, July 13, 2018:

Basic Body Composition with Muscle-Fat and Obesity Analysis

Weight: 396 lbs

Percent Body Fat (PBF)" 48.2%

Total Body Water: 151.2 lbs

Skeletal Muscle Mass (SMM): 117.3 lbs

Dry Lean Mass: 54.2 lbs

Body Fat Mass: 191.2 lbs

Lean Body Mass 205.5

Body Mass Index (BMI) 52.3

Percent Body Fat: 48.2%

As for calorie intake, the analysis recommends that I eat 3100 calories per day in order to lose weight. My Basal Metabolic Rate (the rate at which my body burns calories while at rest) is 2383 calories. My Base calorie intake would then be 3600 calories per day. The recommendation is to have a 500-calorie deficit per day, which is how the recommended calorie intake was figured.

This being said, I'm not comfortable eating so many calories per day, as I worry it will delay weight loss. So I am going to aim for about 2500 calories per day with a 300-calorie increase on days I do a complete workout at the gym.

In order to achieve this goal, I'm also going to increase the amount of green vegetables, eat a healthy balance of complex carbohydrates, especially prior to a workout, and focus on eating more lean proteins while limiting my intake of high fat proteins.

Overall, I had a great first visit at 5 Star Nutrition at Stonefield Commons in Charlottesville. I'll post more about my progress as I get into my new routines. I will be doing a follow up analysis at 5 Star Nutrition in two weeks. Check back in with me then!