Ed. Note: Welcome to AlmostFit. This is a personal entry on my plans to lose 25 pounds this summer. The diet choices I’m describing are my own, and are not recommended for everyone – in other words, consult a doctor before you make any significant dietary changes.

Summer has finally arrived in the Pacific Northwest, and it certainly was a long time in coming this year. Between a worn out pair of shoes with holes in the soles letting my socks get soaked daily from record rainfall, some pretty big bouts with seasonal depression, and some employment ambiguity, it has been a rough spring. But with 75-degree temperatures and mostly sunny skies, a new pair of hole-free shoes, and the kids out of school for the summer, things are looking up.

An Opportunity in the Making

One of the summer activities we have planned is to go camping with my wife’s extended family in mid-August. Her family has an annual family camping reunion each summer, and it generally involves lots of activities during the day, a fair bit of lounging and visiting, and not just a little food and drink. We always have an absolute blast, but I remember last year how it really would have been so much nicer to be a little thinner when we’re hiking around the mountains or swimming in the rivers.

With all of that on the roadmap, it occurred to me that this is one of those golden opportunities to use an imminent event to my weight loss advantage. Some folks will recall that I lost about 20 lbs at the beginning of the year using a combination of intermittent fasting (IF), whole foods, and reasonable indulgences. But the biggest motivator? An event – a weekend getaway trip with my wife to central California. I used that event as a focal point to lose weight, and it worked. Couple the food plan with exercise, and I was able to lose that weight pretty quickly.

Once the event was over, I wondered how well I would do with keeping the weight off. And to my surprise, I have kept most of it off since then. I say surprise because a) I wasn’t sure whether the quick loss of 20 lbs with IF would be a permanent thing, and b) I’ve taken my eye off the ball exercise and moderation-wise for the last few months. I think what is saving me here is that I’ve developed better food habits over the last couple of years, so my default foods are now whole foods rather than the junk I ate when I was younger. I have crept back up on the scale between 3 or 4 pounds from my low this year, but I can guarantee that its a direct result of a few too many craft beers combined with a lack of an exercise plan, and a whole lot of stress (stress and boredom eaters of the world, unite!).

But that ended earlier this week, with a conscious decision to make some changes to meet my family camping trip goal.

The Plan

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Welcome to Almost Fit. If this is your first time here, Almost Fit focuses on losing weight and improving your health through eating real food in moderation. If you enjoy this post, please consider subscribing – it’s free, as always. Thanks.

To begin this post, I have two choices for an opening sentence – I’ll leave it to you to choose which you like better:

“It was a dark, stormy, sawdusty and bloated night…”

- Or -

“Once upon a time, in a far away land, I was an overweight cabinetmaker.”

(I’m leaning toward the latter.)

During college, I worked as a cabinetmaker in a small shop in the San Juan islands. One of my shining moments as an apprentice (and by shining, I mean horribly painful and incompetent) was during one of my first installations.

As the apprentice my job was primarily to fetch tools, carry heavy things, and clean up, leaving the real installation work to the more experienced installer I was helping. On this fateful day however, things went slightly different.

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I want to let you in on a little secret:

I love thrift store shopping.

And not just to save money.

In addition to being pretty frugal on certain things, I enjoy shopping at thrift stores for more than just the savings. Don’t get me wrong – I love finding that amazing deal, but that’s not quite enough to keep me coming back to the mysterious color-coded tagging systems, “vintage” kitchy glassware, and dusty late ’80s electronics bins. And although you might question how this is connected to improving my health, I assure you there are logical reasons.

There are also a few gigantic, impossible, James-Cameron-like stretches of reason – but hear me out.

Before I get into that, let me be clear that there are a few things I don’t buy ever at thrift stores. Old non-stick cookware is out. Old electronics? Very rarely, if ever. Underwear? No way ever ever ever. And the king of things to never buy? Intimate items for your significant other, which amazingly they do sell (never never ever, gentlemen).

Reasons I love shopping at thrift stores – oh yeah and that health tie-in thing

Here’s a list of some of the reasons why I love shopping at thrift stores when you’re trying to lose weight.

- Rewarding yourself with clothes that fit – on a budget. One of many great tips I come across repeatedly (and use to my advantage) is to “reward” yourself with clothes that fit as you get in better shape. Similarly, you can set up a goal by buying something that you love but that is a little too small – Its a great motivator for me.

However, clearly this could get expensive if you’ve got a lot of weight to lose, and especially if you’re eating higher quality food that may force you to rethink your budget priorities a little. And that’s where thrift stores come in.

Case in point: The pants in the picture.

I bought these pants today knowing full well that they do not fit – YET. They are about a size too small in the waist, but the quality was too good to pass up. So, these pants become a great weight loss tool: they are an affordable source of motivation to get down another pants size.

And these pants are luscious. Yeah, I just said “luscious”.

They are pants that normally retail for easily more than I’d spend on 3 pairs of pants, but being a find at the thrift store means they’re within my inner cheapskate’s boundaries. And the best part? Today was blue tag day at the thrift store, so they were marked down by an additional 50% to $7.47 – an almost 95% discount off of retail, and never worn as far as I can tell. But they will be soon, proudly.

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At the beginning of this year I described 3 major goals for 2010 with regard to my overall health and fitness (“2010: Setting them up and knocking them down“). So how are things progressing? I will do a summary post after the month is over, but with about a week to go I want to check in to give myself enough time to push a little if I’m coming up short. Here’s a quick summary of my goals, sub-goals, and the milestones I’m shooting for.

• Year goal: Complete at least one major running event this year.

Sub-goal: Beat my aversion to running in the Oregon rain.

Milestone for January: Return to running 3 miles 3 times per week, with one 5 mile run by the end of January.

• Year goal: Lose 75 lbs this year – and if I lose it early, keep it off.

Milestone for January: Lose 10 lbs this month.

• Year goal: Start writing at least one meaningful post per week for Almost Fit.

Milestone for January: you guessed it – 5 Almost Fit posts.

So how am I doing so far?

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Ed. note: This part 1 of a post that was written on Saturday after a day of trying intermittent fasting, or IF. Note that fasting is not starvation, and is a discipline that has been practiced for thousands of years by cultures around the globe. That said, I approached it as an experiment, with some pretty surprising results.

The idea of intermittent fasting (IF) has intrigued me for some time. I am a big fan of the website Fitness Spotlight, and have read their exhaustive research on the subject of IF several times, always wondering whether it is realistic for me. Today, I gave it a shot.

A little context: Before I tried the fast I had a doctor’s appointment at which I discovered a) that I had already lost two pounds on the year at that point, and b) my blood pressure was surprisingly good (122/78) despite increased stress right now. This was great news since it was a significant improvement from borderline high blood pressure a year ago, and made me feel as though my longterm dietary changes have helped my overall health. Of course one measurement is not enough to establish a trend, but I’ll take it until the next BP check. Although I am far from in ideal condition weight-wise, my other vitals appear to be pretty good.

Good news at the doctor’s office, even a little, is a great energizer.

Second, this morning I got up with the kids at around 7:00AM, and felt motivated to go hard after my general dietary goals. I realized that I hadn’t eaten anything last night after about 9:00PM or so. Having been reading about the paleo/primal methods of eating over the past few days, and the use of intermittent fasting in combination with it, it occurred to me that I was in an ideal state to give it a try. I knew that I had a 3-mile run scheduled for the afternoon, so I was curious to see not only how I would deal with it throughout the day, but how it would affect my energy levels.

Why fasting?

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Editor’s note: This post is a “Real Food” recipe that follows the core philosophy of this site: Eat Real Food in Moderation. The idea is to find delicious, practical, seasonal alternatives to industrial food products. Of course, the recipes do not focus on low fat/low carb dietary ideas, so the key as always is moderation. If you enjoy this article, please consider subscribing to my feed. Thanks.

Green corn tamales are a seasonal favorite in the American southwest, various areas of Mexico including Sonora and Veracruz, and even a few islands in the Caribbean. If you’re unfamiliar with green corn tamales, one of the hallmarks is the texture: where a traditional, well-made tamale is moist and cake-like, a green corn tamale is generally a little “wetter”. Depending on the version, the texture can range from nearly a creamy corn salad to somewhat like a thick custard. They are best made when corn is in season, generally from May to October in northern regions.

After doing some digging, it’s clear that there are a variety of theories on why they’re called green corn tamales. I’ve read ideas ranging from the use of the green husks to wrap them, to the fact that some include a non-traditional whole green chile (I highly doubt the latter as the reason). The theory I find most likely however is the use of fresh corn straight off the cob. Where “traditional” tamales rely on corn flour (masa) as the primary ingredient for the dough, green corn tamales generally use fresh corn as the main ingredient. The physical difference is obviously the moisture content in fresh corn, but I’ve also found that the flavor is (usually) slightly sweeter (particularly if the corn is ripe). The flavor also has an “earthy” quality to it that I don’t seem to get as much of in corn flour tamales. I also tend to think that the use of fresh corn for the tamale probably predates corn flour, but I don’t have any proof – it’s just a hunch.

Are green corn tamales worth the effort?

When I decided to try to make green corn tamales for the first time, I received a variety of responses from folks I knew who had made tamales before. But mostly it seemed that each comment echoed two themes: a) It is a LOT of work, and b) what time should I come over for dinner? Read the rest of this entry »

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Note to Almost Fit readers: This photo is, surprise surprise, ME, from a while back. I rarely post photos of myself, but I think I’m going to try to change that over the coming months to increase my level of accountability. At any rate, this is what I looked like – 4 years ago after having run 13.1 miles .

That’s not physically possible for me to do

When my wife and I trained with a group for a 1/2 marathon a few years ago, part of our motivation was to spend time together. That worked sometimes, but the truth be told when we ran together, my wife was always holding her pace back a little, and I was usually pushing harder than was healthy for my body at the time. Essentially I was trying to “catch up” even though my body really wasn’t ready for it.

When we trained, I was put in a slower pace group. When I expressed my wish to catch my wife’s pace group to our coach through extra training, she looked into my eyes, put her hand on my shoulder, and quietly said, “I hate to break this to you, but…you’re not going to. I know you think that if you just work harder you’re going to get there, but the truth is? Not possible.”

I was rather shocked.

I mean, wasn’t she supposed to say, “Great Goal, Big Guy! You can do anything you want to do! Why, you can be President someday if you just put your mind to it! Go Team Go!”

But realistically? She was right. Part of me thinks that given a longer stretch of time and some really consistent training, I could eventually have caught up with her. But one obvious problem with the aspiration was that our event was only 3 months away, and there simply wasn’t time for me to get there in that short of a training window. But beyond that, I had to remember – my wife was literally less than 1/2 my weight, and in good shape. Secondly, for every hard run with my slower pace group, she was logging a hard run with her faster group. In other words, with every day we trained, we each got faster and stronger.

So what was the lesson? The coach was trying to help me to see that overtraining would not help me accomplish my goals, and with such a limited timeframe, my goal was truly unrealistic. If I wanted to complete the task, I was going to have to forget about the competitive aspect of trying to catch up with someone much faster than I, and just focus on where I’m at, and where I’m going.

Lesson learned.

Catching up – on Reading: Part 1

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Welcome to Almost Fit. Almost Fit focuses on improving your health by eating real food in moderation. This post is about motivation, which is central to accomplishing health, fitness, and life improvement goals. If you enjoy this post, please consider subscribing. It’s free, as always. Thanks.

Last night we had a great evening out. The idea was to get a babysitter for the kids, have dinner with friends, then go to a parenting class, and finally head to a pub for a well-earned drink or two.

Mission accomplished.

However, in the midst of all of that fun, I learned something tremendously useful that I thought Almost Fit readers either a) already do (and I’m clearly in the dark again), or b) might find really useful, as I have.

Get with the program

Our friend K. runs a very successful business, and he has done quite well despite the current economy. That in itself is a feat given that I’ve heard of several of his peers that have gone out of business recently in Oregon, but add to that a full docket of family responsibilities, and I have wondered how he does it all.

As we ate dinner, in passing I described what feels like a slightly new philosophical direction for Leo at ZenHabits.net – one of the few blogs I read every day. Leo has made a few fairly “radical” moves lately, including attempting to eliminate email from his life altogether and bucking the popular productivity trends of heavy long and short-term planning in favor of going with the flow, with a focus on being present. Not exactly common ideas in productivity and motivational circles from my admittedly limited (but interested) experience, but the concept of being present really resonates with me.

In that context, K. described how a seminar he attended has really changed his life toward being present, organized, and effective without a lot of expensive planning tools ruling his every move. His wife also noted that this has made a huge difference for K., so much so that friends have asked what has happened to him lately. [Ed. Note: At this point I'm going to leave out the name of the system until I can get a few more details, but sufficed to say I think the readers that are interested in motivation and productivity may have heard of this. I'll update the post when I can verify the facts.]

I was intensely interested in this, not only because I’m working on a variety of personal projects that have stalled in some ways (including reviving Almost Fit to a level I’m happy with), but I really believe that the concepts of motivation and organization contribute to success in achieving health goals.

The ideas behind the system are not revolutionary; basically it involves using a log to capture thoughts, and then organizing those ideas at an established time each day. The system relies on using a calendar as a repository for thoughts and actions. As I said, these things are not new; however as part of this system they suggest a series of simple techniques that are all designed to free your mind from the clutter of a fast-paced life.

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Ed. note: This entry is about working toward lifelong dietary goals by eating real food in moderation. The list of techniques will change over time, but this is where I’m starting from. This is actually an update from an article I wrote a little over a year ago, including my observations, corrections, and a handful of new ideas. Your constructive feedback is always appreciated. If this is your first time here and you enjoy this article, please consider subscribing via RSS. Thanks.

“Action Feeds Motivation.”

This thought occurred to me as I finished my first run of the year today, in the rain and wind. Yes, you read correctly: my FIRST, as best I can recall. As many readers have noticed, I’ve been a little scarce lately. I’ll write another post soon with my theories (and a few personal facts) on why that has been so, but for now I thought it was more important to simply do something about it. And as it turns out, that phrase, “Action Feeds Motivation” is going to be one of my recurrent themes for Almost Fit in 2009.

A year ago I was fully motivated to pursue these techniques. I didn’t need a whole lot of inspiration; I was ready to go. Over the last few months however, I haven’t been “feeling it” like I was. That tide however, is changing. So in an effort to really rekindle that fire I decided to review some of what I wrote a year ago to try to learn from my successes and mistakes, which is one of the great side-effects of writing your thoughts down in a public format like this one. For this analysis, I came back to one of my all-time favorite posts: 33 tips on how to lose weight without dieting, and one that I now think, after a year of trying out this approach to eating, needs a little revision.

As regular readers know, my focus here on Almost Fit is to do one simple thing: Eat Real Food in Moderation. No low fat this or low carb that; just real, whole foods in moderate amounts. As simple as the statement is, the principle is much harder to apply, particularly if you live in what I think of as a culture of excess. Most of us have come to accept as normal the gigantic, oversized meals that are available at every restaurant you go to, and on every food commercial or ad you encounter. We’ve confused quantity with value, and we’ve also convinced ourselves that the cost of food should be minimal – meaning it’s common to think that we simply can’t afford to eat better. I disagree; however, applying it on a daily basis is a lot like trying to light a candle in a hurricane.

In the 2008 article, I stated:

“I don’t believe that moderation in itself is the answer; eating moderate amounts of garbage still means you’re eating garbage. If I eat real food, in moderation, I am convinced that the weight will come off naturally. Changing my diet to focus on vegetables first, and then moderate amounts of high quality meat, grains, and dairy, makes sense to me. And so far, its working with little or no negative side effects including the emotional struggle that I associate with every diet I’ve ever tried, and I haven’t had to buy a single pre-packaged plan or frozen low fat dinner to do it.”

I still very much stand by these statements, and my diet and current condition is living proof. And that’s because I’m now thin, right?

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“OK Dad it’s your turn.”

“OK, let’s see. What made me happy today was drinking hot chocolate with Jonah and his Mama after sledding.”

“OK Mom, now your turn.”

“What made me happy was…well Dad stole my idea, but I’m going to say getting to sleep in a little today on a Sunday morning.”

“OK my turn: My favorite part was…Dad can I have the same favorite part as you?”

We’ve begun a new tradition in our house.

Of Tequila and Artichokes

For whatever reason we don’t really seem to have many family traditions; Neither of us have a lot of “extra” things that we simply have to do regularly out of a sense of duty, solely because that is what one does under the circumstances. We have definite habits, patterns, and schedules, but the vast majority of the time we’re not conscious of daily, annual, or seasonal out of the ordinary traditions that we look forward to. Having just passed through the holiday season, it is pretty clear that many families have a lot of food-related traditions, which come in every shape and quantity imaginable, but it’s also equally clear that many of us have lost those traditions.

I would say my wife’s family has a few traditions that we honor; when they get together my wife’s siblings and their Mother truly enjoy sharing a steamed artichoke together, which reminds them of times gone by when sharing an artichoke was an extravagance. And in times of either joy or sorrow, a shot of tequila is their family drink – a tradition that as an inlaw (or, “Outlaw” as we’re collectively named) I apparently heartily embrace. Read the rest of this entry »

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