Use It and Lose It - My Fitness Goals for 2016

I have my Altra shoes. I have equipment. Hell, I have a whole home gym with a treadmill, an elliptical, weights, access to Daily Burn and DDP Yoga and god knows whatever online workouts

that are available; so to not exercise would be lazy.

Plus, I have a lifestyle I want to live. I don't want to drink water, eat lettuce, and call it a day. I want to eat fancy and healthy. I enjoy my wine and occasional martini. I like to watch TV, see movies, and play video games.

Also, as a best selling author, I spend a lot of time on my ass writing, researching, and editing my work.

So I have to exercise, if nothing more than to keep the continental drift of my gut at bay.

 

 

How many of you reading this have exercise equipment in a room, a closet or in your garage that you haven't touched. I'm actually laughing out loud as I type this because I used to be you too and ballooned up to 270 pounds. The ability to exercise was at my fingertips but I ignored it, just as I ignored long glances in the mirror that could have told me what I already knew. Plus, pictured don't lie.

Then came Afghanistan.

Then came a 60 pound weight loss.

And this is me at 215 Pounds

This is me at 270 pounds

And I'm back now.  Or mostly. I've gained ten of the sixty pounds that I'd lost back. That's ten pounds  in twenty six months, mostly the result of not exercising due to injuries. But now I'm hale and healthy. My legs and feet feel great. So it's time to kick it up a notch.

Goal 1: 9.5 minute mile. I ran a 15 minute mile in 2014. By the end of 2015 I'm at a 12 minute mile. I can do this.

Goal 2: Sirsisana-- headstand yoga pose. I want to do this.

Goal 3: Lose 20 pounds.

And how am I going to do it? The trick is to exercise every day. 

EVERY DAY!!!

"But I don't have time, Drill Sergeant Ochse."

No time, then TABATA! What is that? It's a four minute workout. Check it out here. 

"But I'm traveling and don't have anything with me," you cry pathetically.

We'll just forget that pretty much every hotel that isn't Motel 6 has a workout room. If you're traveling, then TABATA. Or get your wifi cranking and go to Youtube and type in yoga or hotel room exercises. You'll be surprised at the shit ton of free workouts that all you have to do is follow. Now your laptop or tablet or phone is a piece of exercise equipment.

The trick is to do something. By doing something-- anything -- what it does is give a destination for your food. Instead of going to fat, it goes to repairing torn muscles and fibers or building new muscles and fibers. The trick is everything in moderation and switch it up.

"Wait! That's like three tricks you've mentioned," you snivel.

Yeah?  So? Thank you Captain Obvious, now stop quibbling and do what I said -- Use it and Lose it.

What are your goals for the year? How are you going to make sure it happens? Do you have a tracking mechanism? Do you have an online support group? I'm curious to know.

Please note that I am an Altra Running Affiliate. The shoes below are ones I own and use all the time. From the Instincts I use indoors on the treadmill, to the Lone Peaks I use for hiking and trail running, to the Olympus which I use for street running, I use all of these. I wouldn't be pimping them if I didn't. If your arches hurt and if shoes feel too tight for you, these shoes are the ones for you.

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Snap -- I Tripped and Fell in My High Fructose Corn Syrup

Up front. High Fructose Corn Syrup 

(herein referred to as HFCS) is bad.

Period.

 

You shouldn't be eating it at all, but damned if it isn't hard not to. I thought I'd been doing fine, but when a friend of mine whom I'm cooking for let me know that he can't eat any HFCS-containing foods, I started checking my labels.

And damn!!

There goes my favorite BBQ sauce. Syonara Sweet Baby Ray, it was sweet while it lasted. (And it's not just Sweet Baby. Virtually all BBQ sauces have HFCS.) For the record I'm trying Ann's Organic BBQ Sauce. Here's a list of some other BBQ sauces put together by BBQ Sauce Reviews.

There are even some BBQ Sauces out there that claim online not to have HFCS. Like Bull's Eye who claims that their BBQ sauce does not contain HFCS. Just check out their website here. But if you go to the store and read the label, it's the first ingredient mentioned. Thank God companies still have to mention at least some ingredients.

So why the frufru about HFCS?

Doctor Mark Hyman explains it better than I ever could in his not so very subtle article titled 5 Reasons High Fructose Corn Syrup Will Kill You. (Notice he didn't say can but used the very definitive helping verb will)

Some basic biochemistry will help you understand this. Regular cane sugar (sucrose) is made of two-sugar molecules bound tightly together– glucose and fructose in equal amounts.The enzymes in your digestive tract must break down the sucrose into glucose and fructose, which are then absorbed into the body. HFCS also consists of glucose and fructose, not in a 50-50 ratio, but a 55-45 fructose to glucose ratio in an unbound form. Fructose is sweeter than glucose... Since there is there is no chemical bond between them, no digestion is required so they are more rapidly absorbed into your blood stream. Fructose goes right to the liver and triggers lipogenesis (the production of fats like triglycerides and cholesterol) this is why it is the major cause of liver damage in this country and causes a condition called “fatty liver” which affects 70 million people.The rapidly absorbed glucose triggers big spikes in insulin–our body’s major fat storage hormone. Both these features of HFCS lead to increased metabolic disturbances that drive increases in appetite, weight gain, diabetes, heart disease, cancer, dementia, and more.

 He goes on in the article to give many examples of how the corn industry has propagandized HFCS

claiming that it's the same chemically as cane sugar. He shows where the industry has created their own fake news websites and have targeted doctors with information, even going so far as to vaguely promise that there will be consequences if they don't stop saying HFCS is bad for the human body.

But if you don't trust a medical doctor, then why not trust the master drill sergeant of all body coaches, Jillian Michaels of The Big Fat Loser fame in her article MYTH: High-Fructose Corn Syrup Is No Worse for You Than Table Sugar.  

In a recent study at Princeton University, researchers found that rats with access to high-fructose corn syrup gained significantly more weight than those with access to water sweetened with table sugar — even when they consumed the same number of calories. A second study they conducted monitored their weight gain over a period of six months and found that the rats consuming HFCS showed abnormal weight gain, significant increases in circulating triglycerides (which prevent the hormone leptin from telling the brain you’re full), and significant fat around the belly. Many health organizations link the increased use of HFCS in foods to the increased obesity rates in this country. Though nothing has been proven 100 percent, many studies point to these negative effects from HFCS.

 Summarized- You get fatter from eating HFCS in the same quantity as regular sugar. 

Oh, and there's chemistry involved. There will be a test. 

A study done at the University of Pennsylvania found that fructose does not suppress the hunger-hormone ghrelin the way that glucose (table sugar does). Women who ate fructose instead of glucose had higher ghrelin levels throughout the day, overnight, and into the next day. To put it simply, these women felt like they were starving all day, thanks to the fructose. In addition to making ghrelin levels rise, HFCS somehow tricks the body into not releasing the hormones insulin and leptin (the hormones released when your body feels full).

So here's what all this means to me with the start of 2016. I'm going to go through my refrigerator and pantry (and our pantry annex) and get rid of everything with HFCS. It's going to be a lot of things. It's not going to be pretty. Then I'm going to concentrate when I shop and buy only those things HFCS free. I mean to do otherwise is kind of stupid, right?

I don't drink sodas or anything with artificial sweeteners (until they start artificially sweetening Chardonnay then I'm screwed), but I know I'm going to encounter this out in the wild (eating at restaurants). I just have to choose carefully and ask questions.

I promised there'd be a test, right? 

Okay. Here's the test. 

Do you want to continue eating HFCS and see how long you live? Or do you want to do away with it and see how long you live? My favorite BBQ sauce and ketchup isn't worth taking 5, 10, 15 years off my life. I can see you now on your final day. "I'm dying, but at least I continued eating X Brand BBQ Sauce."  

Yeah. 

Right. 

You're not fooling no one.

So seriously. 

WTF are you going to do?

PARMESAN EGGPLANT FRIES - A Living Dangerously Recipe

PARMESAN EGGPLANT FRIES

Author: Living Dangerously

Duration: 30 minutes

Average Cost: $3.00 US

Serves: 4-6 (or two who just can't stop eating)

Who doesn't love fries? I could eat an entire plate of them virtually every day. I remember when I was stationed in Afghanistan in 2013. Every Sunday night I'd have three baked chicken breasts and a heaping plate of fries. So nice. So good. So damned fattening.

But now I think I've discovered a way to eat them and get away with it. Yes! Baked Eggplant Fries.

These are seriously good and taste just like they're fried.

I kid you not.

So, get out  your cutting board, baking sheet covered in foil and rack, and preheat the oven to 450 degrees F.

Here we go.

Peel medium eggplant. Starting on the longest edge, slice the peeled eggplant into 1/2-inch pieces. Lay the widest pieces, from the center, cut side down, and slice in half length-ways so all the pieces are equally about 1/2 by 1/2 by 4 inches in length.

 Place the flour in a medium bowl and season with the salt and pepper. Place the egg whites in another bowl and beat until frothy, about 30 seconds. Combine the Parmesan and bread crumbs in a third bowl.

Coat the eggplant pieces in the seasoned flour and pat to remove any excess flour. Dip the floured eggplant in the egg whites and then into the Parmesan mixture, gently pressing the mixture into the eggplant. Place the breaded eggplant pieces on a rack on a baking sheet. This should really be done with a rack, so if you don't have one, consider getting one. Bake for 15 to 20 minutes until golden brown. Toss in a bowl with a little garlic salt (or not) and serve. 

Cook's Note: The eggplant fries can be dipped in ketchup, marinara sauce, pesto, ranch dressing, vinaigrette, or really anything you want. We used curry ketchup, but next time I think I'll try a Dijon-lemon-mayo mixture.

Ingredients

1 Medium Eggplant

1/2 cup all-purpose flour (or gluten free substitute)

1/2 teaspoon fine sea salt

1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

3 egg whites

1 cup grated Parmesan

1 cup seasoned bread crumbs (or gluten free substitute)

Eating, Restraint, and the Best Thing I Cooked in 2014

I've been slacking. There are a bunch of blog posts I've been wanting to make--I actually have a list of them-- but I've been sick on and off for a month and deep in the nightmare realm of writing deadlines and edits. I know it's a terrible excuse, but it's all I got, so it will have to do. 

As many of you know, I take a lot of food pictures and do a lot of cooking. I even host a FB group called Taste of Sierra Vista highlighting the foods of the town and region in which I live. I'm not doing it to show off. I'm also not doing it to brag about my mad cooking skills because as a chef I am a complete work in progress. I cook like I live life, two steps forward and one step backward. No, I write and blog about food on the occasion because I once weighed sixty pounds more than I do now. I got that way by eating crap. And a lot of crap. Basically, I'd shove down my big fat maw anything that tasted good. I was like a kitchen krakon, eating anything you'd offered me.

But no more.

That was then. This is now.

If it's something loaded with calories, then it better be damn good and special. I need to be convinced to expend the calories and it has to be a rare occasion.

For instance, if I'm going to have a burger, I'm not going to go to a  fast food restaurant. I'm going to

APE Burger - Brie, Bacon and Apple Burger

expend those calories on the best burger I can think of-- best burger available. I'm not going to do it often, but when I do, it's going to be the best ingredients, cooked the best possible way, and in the coolest place. For instance, my go-to burger spot is a place called The Cafe in Sonoita, Arizona and run by Chef Adam Puckle. They have the APE Burger (APE-Adam Puckle Experience). It's a half pound of either farm-raised beef or bison, prepared your way, with his choice of toppings. It's mad good and an experience to boot. So when I said it needs to be special, THAT'S what I'm talking about.

By the way, I wrote about this burger place back in September in an article called Burgers with Chefitude. You can find that here.

Don't get me wrong. I expend calories for food all the time, but most of the time it's pretty healthy. For instance, last night I cooked Miso Glazed Cod over Steamed Cabbage and Basil with a sesame, mirin, and lemon vinaigrette, with quick pickled cucumbers in matcha mirin. It was pretty freaking awesome. But I'd be surprised if the entire plate was more than six hundred calories. It was light, it was filling, and it was sumptious and it's something I'd definitely cook again. (I can provide the recipe to anyone who asks.)

So driving into work today, I listened to a Mimi Sheraton being interviewed about her book 1000 Foods to Eat Before You Die. You can listen to it here if you want. It got me to thinking what was the best thing I ate last year. I was surprised to say that it was probably the Razor Clams I had in Portland back in May. Razor clams are one of my new favorite foods. I'd move to Oregon if I could have them everyday. THAT's how much I love them.

Then I asked myself what about all the food you cooked--which recipe do you like the best? It came to me right away. There was a simplicity to this dish, but there was also a depth and combination of flavor that I loved. This wasn't my wife's favorite dish by far. I think she'd say the Pacific Lobster Tails or Penne Con Ragu di Mortadella, which is a dish I love that I stole from Chef Michael White, which is his go to dish when he's hungry late at night. 

No, this is merely my favorite and I'll share it with you here.

Let me start by saying that this isn't my recipe. Sometimes I make up my own recipes based on ingredients available and the taste I want to cultivate. Other times I look at a recipe and tweak it, making it my own. In this case, I followed someone else's recipe-- Master Chef Geoffrey Zakarian. 

The Recipe is -- Orecchiette with Shrimp, Pancetta and Fresno Chiles

Orrechiette is sort of the perfect pasta. It means small ear in Italian and is the perfect pouch for containing small ingredients. I want to use it more. In fact, in 2015 I WILL use it more (You didn't see it, but I just pinky swore to myself).

I'm not going to rewrite the recipe. You can find it here. You should try it. It's awesome. Truly.

I'd be curious to see if you'd make it and then get your opinion. Please share it here if you do.

I'm also curious to know of all the things you cooked last year which is your favorite. I'd like to know.

Now back to writing and editing. So many ideas, so many works in progress, so much glorious life to live and so little time.

Ciao!

The Joys of Power Bowls

POWER BOWLS: Optimize taste and quantity while delivering low calories and high protein.

Author: Living Dangerously

Duration: 30 minutes

Average Cost: $8.00 US

Serves: 4 

Here's the thing. You need protein. Web MD says that adults in the U.S. are encouraged to get 10% to 35% of their day's calories from protein foods. That's about 46 grams of protein for women, and 56 grams of protein for men. Most people get enough protein, but they also get the fat that goes with it. Not good. So how do you get enough protein without the fat? Let's see.

But before we do that, though, let's find out what happens if we don't eat enough protein.

RunsOnPlants says you become more tired, lose muscle tone, you feel weaker when exercising, your recovery from injury and pain takes longer, and your hair falls out. Livestrong adds another important point. If your goal is weight loss, don't skimp on protein; compared to fat and carbohydrate, protein is the most satiating of the macronutrients, meaning it will help fill you up and keep you feeling full so you avoid overeating and food cravings.

I notice lack of protein when I'm tired and when an exercise that I normally do easily becomes more difficult. Because I constantly exercise, I need more protein to help in building muscle. The more muscle you have the more efficient your body is in processing, rather than storing, what you eat.

But doesn't eating a lot of proteins mean a lot of calories? It does if you're thinking of  a Fred Flintstone steak. If this question crossed your mind, then you probably aren't well-read on protein alternatives.

Enter the world of Power Bowls.

What's a Power Bowl? IDEA Health and Fitness describes it as a bow which can be filled with any power foods that you can think of including fruit, vegetables, protein, and more. They provide five of their favorite recipes. 

Thrive Forward has recipes that concentrate on complex carbs and proteins designed to give you the most protein and nutrients, while reducing calories and keeping you full.

I see Power Bowls as a blank canvas to do whatever you want with them. The picture above has most of the ingredients I normally like with the exception of the vegan sausage.

The ingredients are: Farro, baked cauliflower in sesame oil, blanched asparagus, quick cooked kale, Field Roast brand Apple and Sage vegan sausage, cold Baja mirepoix (avocado, cucumber and red bell pepper), sunny side egg, little siracha, little ponzu. About 700 calories with 28 grams of protein. 

I normally don't have the vegan sausage (which was terrific btw), but I always have farro, kale, Baja mirepoix (my name for it), and egg. I sometimes add quinoa or black beans.

Let me talk Farro for a moment. It's the only grain in this Power Bowl. But as Three Fat Chicks say, it's a good grain. It's also the oldest cultivated grain in the world.

Here's the Nutritional Value for Faro thanks to Three Fat Chicks:

Additionally, farro has twice the fiber and protein than modern wheat. Different than some other whole grains, a carbohydrate in farro called cyanogenic glucosides has been found to stimulate the immune system, lower cholesterol and help maintain blood sugar levels. While farro does contain gluten, the gluten molecules are weaker than modern wheat, making it more easily digested. Below are more detailed facts regarding farro’s nutritional value:
Per ½ cup raw farro:

• 170 calories
• 1.5 g of fat
• 0 g saturated fat
• 0 mg of sodium
• 34 g of carbohydrates
• 5 g of dietary fiber
• 2 mg of iron
• 6 g of protein
• 4 mg of niacin
• 60 mg of magnesium
• 2 mg zinc

In addition to minerals and vitamins, farro is rich in antioxidants, phytonutrients, lignans and betaine.  Betaine, when combined with choline, has been shown to prevent or reduce stress-included inflammation, which can be beneficial for individuals suffering from certain medical conditions.

I don't do too many grains, but when I do, and when it's a Power Bowl, farro is it. Just look at the protein in 1/2 a cup. Incidentally, I have to get my farro at a food co-op. I can't get it at any of my grocers.

So there you have it.

The Power Bowl.

Do you have any favorite Power Bowl recipes? Please share them here. Here's a great site for a whole lot of Power Bowl ideas.

And remember. Eat healthy, exercise often, and enjoy life longer.

Weston's February Fitness and Health Review - 2014

So I have this expensive watch that gives me all sorts of terrific data. I'm going to begin doing monthly summaries and self analysis so I can determine how best to fine tune my workouts. My stats. 48 years old male with military service related disabilities. Doesn't smoke. Drinks wine. Lives life well.

~~~

February was a tough month. I had to travel for my job and I'm behind in my current SEAL Team 666 novel and a novella due to another publisher. Add to that a lot of personal and professional challenges, finding the time and motivation to exercise was the hardest since I returned from Afghanistan in October 2013. As it turned out, I only exercised 16 out of 28 days.

My Suunto Ambit 2S watch recorded and posted 17 total moves to Movescount.com for a total duration of 7:44 hours, total distance of 33.55 kilometers, and total caloric burn of 4443 cals.

The break down is:

• Running Outside 4:14.22 hours
• DDP Yoga 2:12 hours
• Running on Treadmill 43.42 minutes
• Circuit Training 33.09 minutes

Pathetic.

It looks like I ran a lot more than anything else, which is much different than my previous months. My Average HR was 134. Since 137 is 80% of my heart rate max, this is pretty good, but I could make it better. My average speed is 7.5 km per hour. I need to improve that.

Yoga absolutely suffered. I think with all the challenges to my time, I didn't want to commit the time, which is a terrific mistake. Those 2:12 hours were only two Yoga sessions the entire month. One on Feb 1 and one on Feb 26. The latter I did outside and it was grand. But the muscles that aren't worked by anything else are screaming at me, something that hadn't happened since July last year.

I also wasn't able to do a single spin class this month. Grrrr.

I need to recommit to yoga.

I was thinking I could just dash off a run because it's a quick burn of 400 calories and spikes my metabolism, but that's not good enough. I need Yoga. I need circuit training. It's a balance.

I also see where there were several three and one four day period where I didn't exercise at all. Shoot, I was

in Virginia Beach and ran along the Atlantic Ocean when it was 40 degrees. If I can do that, there's no excuse not to exercise more.

One highlight his month was my second ever 5K. Yvonne signed us up for the Run or Dye 5K and it was a terrific blast!!!

About weight and body composition. I've gained about 5 pounds since I returned 5 months ago, but I feel that most of that is muscle. I didn't do any weight training in Afghanistan, but I've been incorporating that into my circuit training and can see the difference.

Weight Watch:

• March 2013    275 Pounds
• October 2013  217 Pounds
• March 2014     222 Pounds
• Next Month Goal - 219 Pounds
• Ultimate Goal - 190 Pounds

My exercise goals for next month:

• Exercise 25 days, even if it's nothing more than a five minute Tabata
• Balance running with Yoga and use circuit training to shock the muscles.
• Do at least 4 Spin Classes
• Improve running speed to 8 km per hour
• Learn and Do the DDP Black Crow

What's the DDP Black Crow you ask?

Here's some guy doing it real cool.

Here's Diamond Dallas Page's instruction:

Finally let's talk about food.

Bacon Leek Pasta

Most of you who follow me on Facebook see me cooking fantastic dishes. And they are. But many of these are super bowls with kale and ferro, or have fish or chicken as the main ingredient, or are totally meatless. I think I had one steak last month and one plate of spare ribs. I ate no sausage of any kind except for a few pieces in the Paella I made. Eating healthy isn't hard. It's math and surprise. Math, meaning, a male my age and size burns about 2400 calories a day before exercise. I do the math and drink and eat less than that, then I can lose weight. There's a few more twists and turns, but that's really the magic. But just as you have to jumpstart your workouts by doing different things, you also need to jumpstart your eating. You need to surprise your tummy.

So I cook. I try new things all the time, but try and make them a little more healthy. The must decadent thing I made all month was Bacon Leek Pasta (Thanks Food Network Magazine). But I used a low glycemic index gluten free pasta instead of regular pasta and I also didn't use any cream at all, but instead reserved pasta water and folded it in. I also used bacon bits instead of slab bacon. How many calories a serving? 600 cals. Go back to the previous paragraph and do the math. Yep. Fun eating can be done.

I need to watch what I eat when I go out, but I've been pretty good about that. I drink a lot of water too. If it's not wine, it's water. That's it. No sugar drinks, no tea, and a coffee every morning.

So that's it, I guess.

Let me review my goals:

• Exercise 25 days, even if it's nothing more than a five minute Tabata
• Balance running with Yoga and use circuit training to shock the muscles.
• Do at least 4 Spin Classes
• Improve running speed to 8 km per hour
• Learn and Do the DDP Black Crow
• Lose 3 pounds

March here I come!

6 Dangers in Making Zucchini Noodles and Aoli

Making Zucchini Noodles can be more dangerous 

than you think!

I did it.

If you read yesterday's post, you know that I was going attempt to make zucchini noodles for the first time. It was pathetically easy. Thanks to Against All Grain for the buying advice for the slicer and the tutorial.

I took a video on my iPad but lacked the skill necessary for me to upload it to YouTube. It wanted me to log-in but wouldn't let me type anything. So I'm afraid I leave you with this link, instead. It's about 2:54 minutes. Stay until the end. You'll crack up.

But there was some danger, so here are the things to watch for.

1. Make sure your slicer is secured to the counter. As you can see in the video, mine moved around a lot in the beginning. I could have lost a finger or even an arm.

2. Don't try and turn the wheel with your left hand like I did. It makes you look goofy and not all of the noodles come out long and beautiful. Once I got the hang of it, some of my noodles were four feet long.

3. Block the view of family and friends who want to watch. This will keep them from laughing uproariously at you and will, in turn, keep you from wanting to push them through the noodle slicer.

4. When making aoli, it makes a big difference in how many garlic cloves you add. I used six garlic cloves and 3/4 cup of avocado oil, two egg whites, and salt and pepper (pulsed until thick). It would have worked find with three cloves. The evening news showed a significant increase in vampire deaths in our zip code and the ones surrounding us. I'm positive that this was from our breath. We should be paid for our service.

5. Sweat the noodles in the oven by placing them in a single layer on a paper towel on an oven tray. Sprinkles with sea salt. Put the oven to 225 deg for 30 minutes. Then remove. You still might want to dab them with paper towels or else your pasta will be too watery.

6. When adding the noodles to reheat and finish in a saute pan, do it gently. Fold them into the sauce, don't stir. Do this for five minutes on medium low heat and you'll rock the meal.

So what did I make?

Zucchini noodle pasta with a lemon aoli, kalamata olives, chives, and Parmesan cheese.

Recipe

Makes 2 servings.

• Noodles from two large zucchini, sweated and ready.
• Make Aoli (see above) but also add 4 tbs lemon juice, and use less garlic than I used.
• Drain can of kalamata olives, then pulse in food processor until quarter-moon size.
• In deep frying/saute pan poor two tbs olive oil and heat high. Add olives for two minutes, then reduce to medium low. Add noodles and fold several times. Add aoli and fold until noodles are completely coated. Heat for 4 minutes. Add 1/4 cup grated Parmesan cheese, fold, then serve. I added a little baked fish for protein and crunch.

This was delicious.

I'd like to hear how others make zuchini noodles.

If you try this, please let me know.

Cheers

Now go cook and buy my books

Weston Ochse
Renaissance Man
Super Hero for Rent
Yakuza of the Written Word

OMG - Too Many Vegetables?

What do you do when you get too many vegetables besides panic?

This weekend Yvonne and I went to Market on the Move. It's a program that brings fruits and vegetables to communities at very cheap prices. We paid $10 for 60 pounds worth of vegetables and fruit. Something like 15 grapefruit, 8 eggplants, 8 Roma tomatoes, 7 red peppers, 24 yellow squash 12 Mexican gray squash, 6 huge zucchinis and a 7 pound bag of cherry tomatoes.

WOW!

But with these vegetables came great responsibility. I was concerned that there might be too many...that some of it would perish before we got to it. I was actually a little panicked.

So, the first thing I did was bake a lasagna with wide zucchini noodles and eggplant. I also used lean turkey and low fat ricotta cheese. Making the wide noodles was hard because I'd never made any before. I baked it. We snuck a taste--OMG it was good--then we portioned it out into 8 portions for 4 meals. One went into the fridge and the rest our freezer.

Then for lunch I made eggplant sandwiches. Using pieces of grilled eggplant for bread, I smeared them with jalapeno hummus then added two slices of tomato, pieces of red pepper, and cucumber slices. A little messy, but amazing.


Since then, we've had lots of veggies at every meal. We've even had all veg meals. The only meats we've had this week were fish and the lean ground turkey for the lasagna. We haven't had a single packaged product and no pasta or breads. I've made two pans of roasted vegetables. One we've eaten and the other I portioned and put in the freezer.

We still have a lot left, but I think we're doing good.

One thing I did discover was that there are these things called zucchini noodles. What the what you say? Absolutely. Against All Grain Dot Com had this video I'm sharing below. You are going to be amazed how easy it looks. I ordered my slicer from Amazon and it came last night. I'm making noodles to night -LIVE WITHOUT A NET - and I'll give you the full report tomorrow.

I do love veggies, but sometimes it's hard to figure out ways to cook them that's not the boring old same-o-same-o. This bounty gave me the opportunity to try new things. It's exciting to eat well, eat healthy, and stay in shape.

I'll report tomorrow or so about the zucchini noodles.

Bon Chance.

Working Out With French Fries

Weston Ochse (pronounced 'oaks') is the author of ten novels, is currently stationed in Afghanistan, and has lost 55 pounds in the last five months by working out six days a week and eating healthy six days a week. He has cheat days. He's not perfect. But these are some of his secrets.

--- --- ---

I lost two pounds in the last 24 hours. One pound was lost after my workout. When I woke up this morning after eating two grilled chicken breasts, a mixed salad, and a double-helping of French Fries for dinner, I'd lost another pound. How can that happen? And the funny thing is, this happens to me all the time. It's not magic. It's chemistry. I'm sure there's some professor out there who can explain it with an equation. But I'm an author. I use words. So here's my reasoning.

Sometimes my body craves French Fries. I'm sure you have no idea what I'm talking about. Not the craving you get when it's ten at night and you drive by a fast food restaurant and smell the air being pumped out from their artificial French Fry Pump-n-Spray machines, but the hint of a smell, that incites memories of laughter and joking with friends and that French Fry goodness associated with a slight crunch on the outside, soft heat on the inside, dipped in a glob of glorious ketchup, and the joy that leaps from your mouth as it anticipates the...

Sorry about the food porn. I couldn't help myself.

But you get the idea. We've all been there. If you've kept reading so far then you at least have a passing fancy towards French Fries. I've met a few people who don't like them. They are either so damn healthy and fit that they lose calories just by breathing, or they just haven't figured what to drench the fries in. If you're the latter, might I recommend the Canadian delicacy poutine, a gelatinous yet tasty accoutrement to French Fries which can covers your tasty potato bits in everything from duck confit to the traditional cheese curd gravy. Please note however that the American Lung, Heart, Kidney, Liver and Spleen Foundations have a picture of this delicacy in the mail rooms of their headquarters, designating it as Body Enemy #1. Personally, I think that's a little harsh, but my guess is they did it because it's from Canada.

Nuff said on that.

Back to regular French Fries and how they can become an integral part of your workout diet. That's right. Go back and read it again. Read it three times if you want. I know. It's a wondrous sentence. Some of you are probably going to get the words '...integral part of your workout diet' tattooed on your bodies. I don't blame you. But it's a true statement.

Back to cravings. When you're eating between a 1200 and 1800 calorie diet and burning about 500 calories a day, do you get the craving for French Fries or possibly even potato chips? I do. Sometimes I'll burp slightly and it will taste like a potato chip. Now, not having had one in weeks, this is an interesting phenomenon, so I'm left with the idea that I have potato chip phantoms lurking in my
large intestines, or my body is trying to tell me something.

While I am a writer of horror and dark fiction by trade, and I think it would be very cool to have ethereal parts of anthropomorphized processed foods speaking to me, I defer to the idea that my body is trying to tell me something instead.

And this is it. Too often in our attempts to become healthy we completely remove fat from our meals. This makes us crave. This makes us cheat. This makes us fail. The bottom line is that you cannot remove fat from your diet. I know, right, another great tattoo idea. But wait, there's more.

The glycemic index for potatoes is exceptionally high, which means your body burns it up quickly and what it doesn't use as energy, it stores as fat. But your caloric burn continues after your workout for up to 48 hours. I eat fries once a week and it's not even my cheat day. My cheat day is a small pizza with blue cheese and mozzarella cheese and pepperoni. Now that's a cheat!

I'm not a scientist, but as an author I'm a researcher. This is what I've discovered and this is what I use.

1 - Glycemic Foods. I'm very careful about high glycemic foods and only eat them rarely, which includes the potatoes used in French Fries.

2 -Afterburn. I eat them within three hours of exercise, capitalizing on the continual burn. A NY Times article reporting on a study conducted by Dr. Knapp in the journal Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise that test subjects burned an extra 37% calories over the next 14 hours. This is commonly known as the afterburn, created by Post Exercise Oxygen Consumption (EPOC). When I cheat, I make sure I cheat during this period so it's like I'm exercising and eating at the same time.

3 - Water. I drink 6-8 8oz glasses of water every day. This is in addition to coffee, tea, etc. You need it for your body. There has been tons of research on the subject. Here's a sampling from Reuters.

4 - Fried Foods Are Bad. Let's face it, everything is bad in too many quantities. Fried Foods are even worse. I'm not for a second kidding myself into believing that I can exercise and sit back and eat fries and lose weight. The body doesn't roll that way. But, so I can have that one glorious plate of fries, I eat absolutely no fried foods at all except for this French Fries cheat.

5 - Fat Is Good. I always eat a little fat with each meal. I've read in a hundred places that your body needs a little fat to balance it out. I usually stick with a little cheese, but will also add fish, both fresh and canned. Here are a few random facts I've been told from google-

The brain is 70% fat. Insufficient fats can cause lower IQs, mental illnesses, depression, etc.

The right fats help to lower blood pressure, thin blood, and prevent clots.

Fats help the body to absorb essential vitamins including A,D,E, and K.

Without fats hair and skin can become flaky.

Lack of Omega-3's can cause eye problems such as Macular degeneration.

Lack of Omega-6's can lead to Diabetes.

6 - Fat vs Carbs. I do reduce my complex carbohydrate intake. The folks over at Mercola have a take on it I tend to believe, going back and following historical trends. If it's processed, I limit it. Then again, I do have a pizza every week and guess what. I don't gain weight after that either. So, I replace the easy to grab cookie, cracker, bread, etc, with fresh fruit, veggies, or a piece of mouth candy, and I save my carbs for the good stuff (another great tattoo idea).

7 - Probiotics. Have a healthy tummy. There should be millions of little beasts in there cleaning and brushing. You should have a bowel movement at least once a day. I take probiotic pills once a day (Dr. Ohirra) and two sets of two fiber capsules a day to help the body out. I can tell the difference when my stomach is not perfect.

So, enough science and fact.

Let's go straight to my supposition.

Here's what I think happens to my body. I've read a bunch of places that agree with me and almost as many which don't. Everyone's an expert on their own bodies. This is my belief and I've been living and breathing it through 55 pounds of weight loss. So what's happening? I think our bodies have been evolutionary conditioned to process a certain amount of fat. We're omnivores. It has to be the case. When we exercise and limit our caloric intake, we also teeter on the edge of starving our bodies, putting them into starvation mode, and eating enough for our bodies to use. I'm as much a victim\culprit as the next person. I often don't eat enough, I think, and my body begins storing energy fearful that I'm killing it. Moments like when I eat a plate of French Fries convince my body it isn't starving and it uses what I give it to rebuild and replace. It's such a funny thing. I usually lose the most weight after a week of maintaining the same weight eating healthy, then in one swoop after eating French Fries, it's gone.

This is what happens to my body.

This is what's working for me.

I'd love to hear about your experiences.

What's working for you?

Do you work out with fries like me?

Isn't it glorious?

(Major warning - Here is the reason: when a starchy food such as a potato is cooked to a temperature above 248 degrees, it produces a cancer-causing chemical called acrylamide.)

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Weston Ochse has spent 29 years in the military in one shape or fashion. He's a world traveler and an internationally best-selling author of high action fiction. Please Note: This article is copyrighted by Weston Ochse. Any reproduction in whole or in part without the author’s permission is prosecutable by public law. If you'd like to borrow part of this or see it reprinted, contact me here. I'll probably say yes. You can link to this article. Thank you. © 2013

6 Tricks to Eating Smaller Portions

It would be so easy to toss off a few tricks, either completely made up or culled from the internet, but then I'd lose your trust. One thing you've been counting on is my honesty, which I have shared through my current 40 pound weight loss. So I won't do what I see a lot of sites doing. Instead, I'll give you the 6 Tricks that have worked for me.

And why do we call them tricks and not strategies or tactics?

Because we have to fool our bodies and mind into believing they've had enough to eat. All the strategies in the world won't have much affect if we can't stop eating. Because the same mind which makes up the strategy is crying for more food. By now you already know the extents your imagination will go through just to rationalize why that piece of cheese cake or that double cheese burger with bacon and onion rings is something you should eat.

After all, you deserve it, right?

Yeah. Right. You just go on and keep believing that.

Or you can learn a few tricks to defeat that nasty imagination of yours. Just as a magician can stand in

front of you and with slight of hand trick your eyes into believing something ludicrous, you can trick your mind into believing it's full. In case you didn't know, magicians don't really pull rabbits out of hats. There is no magic. It's a trick.

1 - Smaller Plate. If you're at home, look at the size of your plates. Are they more like platters? Would an entire family have eaten from one 100 years ago, meaning is it platter sized? Current average plate sizes are between 10 - 13 inches. And you have to have a full plate, right? Why not buy a couple small plates and eat with those for a few weeks. Try in the 8-9 inch range.

And if you're at a buffet, use a salad plate. Sure, you might have to go back a few more times, but the time it takes you to go back and forth, plus the time it takes for you to eat, will give your stomach a chance to realize it's full.

2 - Know the spoon portions. We've already determined that you're going to fill your plate up whatever the size (this is my reverse hypnotic psychology working here). But in case you don't-- hint hint-- know the size of your serving spoons. They aren't standard, so you'll have to figure it out. Are they a quarter cup, half a cup, a full cup? This is important. When you blindly heap the food on your plate, you have the blissful ignorance of not knowing how much you eat. If you'er at all serious about your weight loss, you'll eventually decide to start keeping track of your food, if only for a little while. Actually seeing that you normall heap two cups of spagetti and a cup and a half of sauce on your plate with each helping will show you once and for all what you're really doing.

3 - Drink water first. First of all, you should be drinking between 48 and 64 ounces of water a day anyway. I know it makes you pee. But that's a good thing. You need to flush your system of its toxins, so stop fighting it. When you sit down, if you drink a full glass of water, preferably cold, it will help control your appettite. Simple. So do it.

4 - Sit back a for a few minutes halfway through. For Heaven's sake, come up for air. Halfway through your meal, why not stop eating for a few minutes. Let's say five. Five whole minutes. OH MY GOD someone will come and take your food. It might get cold. The world will end. Planets will dive into ths sun. Or, maybe, just maybe, you'll give your body enough time to realize that it's almost full already.

5 - Load up on low GI foods. This is science. Both Harvard Medical School and Nutritional Data dot Com have excellent sites and lists which explain the importance of knowing the glycemic index of foods and how to build a GI load. So what is the glycemic index? Worlds Healthiest Foods Dot Org defines it as:

The Glycemic Index (GI) is a numerical scale used to indicate how fast and how high a particular food can raise our blood glucose (blood sugar) level. A food with a low GI will typically prompt a moderate rise in blood glucose, while a food with a high GI may cause our blood glucose level to increase above the optimal level. An awareness of foods' Glycemic Index can help you control your blood sugar levels, and by doing so, may help you prevent heart disease, improve cholesterol levels, prevent insulin resistance and type-2 diabetes, prevent certain cancers, and achieve or maintain a healthy weight. A substantial amount of research suggests a low GI diet provides these significant health benefits. So, it's worth taking a look at the basic principles of a low GI way of eating.

Words like cancer and diabetes scare me, so let's ignore those for a moment and concentrate on the simple-- how can I use these charts (see links)? If you have a meal with all high GI foods, you're going to digest them quickly, you'll have a sugar spike, and if unused, it will be rendered as fat. It will also make you more hungry. You want to have as many (but not all) low GI foods as you can. It takes them longer to digest making you fuller longer.

So if you're building a salad, add some chickpeas, kidney beans, peanuts and the like. These are low GI foods, which will balance many of the other high GI salad incredients. Here are some lunch ideas for low GI meals.

See? Science.

6 - Sensa or some equivelant. Speaking of science, the PHDs at Sensa have created something. If all

else fails, then you double cheat. Not only do I use the above five principles, but I also use Sensa. We bought this at Costco and it sat on the shelf for about six months. On a lark, I decided to bring it to Afghanistan. It's tasteless. I sprinkle it on the food before I eat. And I almost always end up leaving food on my plate.

FREEBEE - And here's a freebee. Always leave food on your plate. My wife was told that she had to finish her meal because there were starving kids in Africa. My mom said the same thing. My wife however, offered to box it up and mail it, which is classic. But even so, there's no way you're helping starving people by overeating. It's ridiculous. (Note to Mom who is probably reading this and getting a little irritated right now -- I am not calling you ridiculous). If you put more food on your plate than you need, then leave it there. Don't feel forced to eat it. In fact, step away a little hungry and have another glass of water. Trust me. It works. I've lost 40 pounds to prove it.

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Please Note: This article is copyrighted by Weston Ochse. Any reproduction in whole or in part without the author’s permission is prosecutable by public law. If you'd like to borrow part of this or see it reprinted, contact me here. Thank you. © 2013

Personal Victories - I RAN A 5K TODAY!!!

"You look like you just got your ass kicked in the gym," were the first words this friend I work with said to me after I finished my first-ever on-purpose 5K Run today.

They were some of the nicest words anyone said to me in a long while. I said, 'Thank you," and I meant it.

Those of you who read the Ode to My Fat Boy Shoes essay know the story of my feet and shins and what the Army did to me. Even in my best shape in the last ten years, I couldn't have finished a 5K. Why? My feet would have responded with crippling pain halfway through, forcing me to stop. Seriously. I wouldn't even be breathing hard, but the bridge of my foot would feel like it was about to snap off.

No Mas Corre!

My Proud Feet - Victorious!!

My strategy outlined in the previous essay has worked. My base is much stronger. My thighs and calves have been built up through exercises like aquats, stairs, etc. DDP Yoga has strengthened my ligaments and muscles as well. Paying attention to what's holding me up paid off.

And so did my Five Finger Shoes.

I'll lay 50 bucks I couldn't have done this in regular shoes. I still wear my regular shoes to the gym sometimes and my feet start to ache in them after awhile. I absolutely think the way the Five Fingers lets my feet contact the ground helps them. I'm sitting here and my feet don't even hurt. Not even a tiny bit. It's honestly amazing.

RANT ALERT--FEEL FREE TO SKIP IT!

---MINI RANT---
I've had my fair share of people yell at me for slowing down or stopping over the years. I know people even now, who have always been in terrific shape, who just can't grok the sort of foot pain me and millions of other Americans experience. Just the other day one made a snide remark on Facebook about Army PT people not pulling their weight.  Note to these people-- the Army has already acknowledged they F$ucked up my feet. Want to see the check they cut me every month? Those docs didn't help one bit. It took me finally figuring it out on my own. Why not stop calling them names and start helping out. I was them and it took me helping myself because the system in place only helps those who don't really need it.
---END MINI RANT--

So what made me Run a 5 K today?

I started running next to a co-worker on a kilometer-metered treadmill. I walked the first two minutes, then began running. I can normally only run about 3-5 minutes at a time on the treadmill, before I have to walk for a spell. But this time I ran for 7 minutes. Then I walked for 4, then I ran for 6. Next thing I knew, I was looking at 2.9 Kilometers and I wasn't hurting. Sure, my heart rate was at 157, but that was good. So I said what the heck. Let me try it. I can always breathe hard or puke, but as long as my feet don't hurt, let me keep going.

And I sprinted the last two tenths of a kilometer.

Man do I feel great.

What's my time you say?

I knew you'd ask.

I'm sure it's not very good. At least it gives me something to work against.

So I ran it in 42:27. I ran about 65% of the time in a slow steady pace of 8 km per hour.

I think this is what I looked like
the last 2 tenths of a mile

My strategy was to run 7 min, walk 4 min, run 6 min, walk 4 min, run 5 min, walk 4 min, run 4 minutes, then ran every 2 minutes for 2 minutes to the end. Not very good, I know, but it's a place to start.

More importantly, it's the first on-purpose 5K I've ever ran in my life and my feet don't hurt.

When I reached 5K on the machine, I threw up both my hands like I'd just crossed the finish line and let out a yell.

People stared at me.

I'm used to it.

It's part of being me.

Ode to My Fat Boy Shoes

I’m writing this from Afghanistan. I’ve lost 40 pounds so far and am able to do all the exercises I couldn’t do just three months ago. I arrived here with my Fat Boy Shoes, and I’m not going to leave here with them. But out of respect and honor to their service, I want to compose an ode to them, for although I’m leaving them, I never want to forget them.

Here it is. (You’ll forgive me if I forgo the lyrical stanza structure and provide you just the narrative. If you just have to have something in the background, try humming either Boy George’s Karma Chameleon or Journey’s Don’t Stop Believing.)

I’ve had a love-hate affair with running shoes for years. I love shoes. I love the colors. I love the styles. I am a marketer’s dream client. But I can’t wear everything I want to wear.

Sound familiar?

My Fat Boy Shoes

Add to that the fact that my weight crept up so high that wearing those fabulous-looking running shoes made me feel like a rhinoceros trying to balance on the head of a pin. I eventually gave up on any hope of wearing the cool shoes and was forced to buy high tops, or what I call fat boy shoes. Had I been playing basketball with them, then they could have been called basketball shoes, but I don’t play basketball. I try and run. I lumber. I limp. Nope. They might have been sold as basketball shoes, but they were fat boy shoes to me.

So what happened?

Somewhere back at Fort Bragg, right in the middle of doing physical training once every morning and once every evening, I got full blown stress fractures. At the hospital, the images of my shins in the fluoroscopy looked like the San Andreas fault back when the earth was formed. They wanted me to wear crutches. They wanted me to stay off my feet. Were they crazy? I was in a Special Operations unit. I couldn’t do that.

So for the next ten years in the U.S. Army, I spent dodging more stress fractures, best friend to shin splints, and cousin to the constant pain I felt running. Now realize I was an All City hurdler in high school and a soccer player who’d caught the attention of several college coaches. So I could run. I could run really fast.

That is until Fort Bragg. It’s funny, I don’t blame Fort Bragg, because some of the best and worst times of my life occurred there. But when we talk about my feet and people ask me what happened, I always tell them Fort Bragg happened.

But what really happened has happened to a lot of us. An injury starts us on a slippery slope that ends with us years later looking back, noticing that we’d gained a ton of weight and wondering what happened. The feet and shins are tricky parts of the body. They are our platform, our base. We can’t do hardly anything without them.

And when I call it a slippery slope, I’m not kidding. Ever try and climb back up a waterslide? It can’t be done. That’s foot and shin problems for you. The longer it hurts, the less you do, the less you do, the more weight you gain, the more weight you gain, the more it hurts, the more it hurts... sound familiar yet?

Like most people, I’d get sick and tired of looking this way or the New Year would turn and I’d decide to make the change now. I’d strap on my shoes, whatever shoes I’d last been using, usually bought because they had a cool design and made me look as sleek as a cougar and go out and exercise for about a week, until my feet and shins would start to hurt, then I’d stop.

I suppose one of my problems was that my solution to getting back in shape was to run. Blame the Army for that. No. Better yet, blame Fort Bragg. I couldn’t help it. We ran everywhere. It was what we did. It was who we were. Sure, I could have done other exercises, but those hurt my feet too. So if my feet were going to hurt anyway, I might as well do the thing that lost the most weight in the shortest amount of time. Running.

My last year in the Army I met a Navy doctor at Balboa Hospital in San Diego. Bless her soul, she took one look at me, had me walk up and down the hallway for a few moments, and was able to diagnose what dozens of Army doctors had treated with a no-running profile and the admonishment to get used to the pain. She told me I was a pronator. I said, ‘Excuse me?’ Then she explained that pronation was a rotation of the foot as it struck the ground. Not only was I a pronator, but I was an over pronator. My mom was right. I always overdo everything.

In more scientific terms, according to Runner’s World, it’s explained as: As with the "normal pronation" sequence, the outside of the heel makes the initial ground contact. However, the foot rolls inward more than the ideal fifteen percent, which is called "overpronation." This means the foot and ankle have problems stabilizing the body, and shock isn't absorbed as efficiently. At the end of the gait cycle, the front of the foot pushes off the ground using mainly the big toe and second toe, which then must do all the work.  

A lot of bad stuff happens because of this. The more I weigh, the more the rotation messes with my foot, the less stable it becomes, and more bad stuff happens.

Enough of the science.

What was cool was that she was able to go to her computer, type in my problem, and tell me the exact pair of New Balance running shoes I needed. It seemed that those weren’t just random numbers on their shoes as I’d been thinking. As it turned out, the numbers referred to a certain condition each shoe was trying to fix. I took the number she gave me, went to a store, bought those shoes and never looked back.

If only that was the end of the story. Gosh, I love happy endings.  But it wasn’t. I got the shoes. I started running and my feet felt amazing. So amazing I ran more and faster and kept doing it until, my feet started hurting.

Again.

Sigh.

Then I retired from the military and the Veteran’s Administration thought my feet were bad enough that they cut me a check every month. Lot of good that does my feet, though. Or my weight. I retired my cool New Balances and eventually ended up with my Fat Boy Shoes.

And that lasted ten years until recently.

So what happened?

How’d I stop the cycle?

I started to think about my feet and legs as individual parts of my body that needed to get in shape. It’s a bow change idea. I’d been thinking of them as means to an end, but they were far more important than that. I needed to build them up and get them strong before I could start any of the Fort Bragg stuff—you know—running.

When I started this leg of my journey, I was 275 pounds. I wore my Fat Boy Shoes when I exercised. I couldn’t run. Life sucked. Then I discovered no-impact exercising in the form of Diamond Dallas Page Yoga (DDP Yoga). Not only was this no impact, but I could do it barefoot. I did this for a month and lost 15 pounds (Of course I ate well, etc, but that’s another article.). Then I lost another five pounds and began to run as daintily as a 255 pound man can on a treadmill, terrified and afraid that I might hurt my feet again and start the vicious cycle all over. And low and behold, my feet started to ache.

Instead of driving on or quitting, like I normally did, I tried something new. I looked at my legs and thought that I needed to make them stronger, especially the muscles around my knees. DDP Yoga was doing this, but I wanted something else, so I began working out on the stairmaster or some version of it. The burn, the burn, the burn. My god did my legs burn. But it was a good burn.

About this time I began to research Vibram Five Finger Shoes. I read how they were made for natural runners, the type who pronated. Hey! That’s me? So I ordered some Five Finger Bikilas, they arrived in the mail, and I proceeded to walk around like a human platypus. Even the walls laughed at me.

But I got used to them. I began to do stairmaster in them. I began to run in them. And miracle of miracles, I was faster and stronger than in my Fat Boy Shoes. They hurt after awhile, but it was a different sort of hurt, one that I’d learned was part of breaking these special weird shoes in.

I began doing Kettle Get Ups, which entail laying on your back with your hand holding a kettle bell straight in the air as if you were the Statue of Liberty, then standing straight up, then laying back down. These helped my legs and my core.

HAHAHAHA!! TOE SHOES!!!!

I began doing burpees, which begins from the standing position, you drop and do a push up and stand back up again. These helped my legs and my core.

And I began doing spinning, which entails riding a stationary bicycle with a few dozen others, while music is blaring, a man in spandex is screaming at you, and you legs are burning so much that you think they are on fire. These also helped my legs and my core.

I sent home for my running shoes. I can wear them now. They feel good. I switch off between my shoes and my toe shoes. I love the feeling of both. Switching off for me works right now. I’m not sure if I’ll ever stick with one or the other. Right now, I don’t have to. I love them both.

The one thing that I do know is that my legs are stronger. My feet have been taken care of. And now I’ve lost 40 pounds. I’m going to lose another 10 most definitely. Hopefully 20 more. Whatever happens happens. This is all part of my self-improvement program.

I no longer feel like I’m on the waterslide trying to climb back up. I no longer feel stuck in a cycle. This is good. I couldn’t have started this journey without my Fat Boy Shoes. But like most training wheels, you reach a point where you don’t need them anymore.

So if you’re in Afghanistan and you see a kid wearing my old Fat Boy Shoes, give him a wave. My guess is he saw them and thought, hey, these are cool, they’ll make me run fast like a cougar.

 * * *

Please Note: This article is copyrighted by Weston Ochse. Any reproduction in whole or in part without the author’s permission is prosecutable by public law. If you'd like to borrow part of this or see it reprinted, contact me here. Thank you. © 2013