Day 8 -- Chosing the Right Meal Plan

I know that Body-for-LIFE can work. Just look at that skinny guy in the photo from my first success. But I also know that it is important to choose an eating plan to meet my transformation goals.

With my first challenge, the variety of Myoplex drinks and bars available now, did not exist. I just purchased a big variety pack of ready-mix Myoplex nutrition shakes. I cooked three meals a day and had three shakes a day, pretty simple plan, and I finished the entire challenge. I later injured my knees, stopped working out completely and put on a bunch of weight.

For my second challenge, I decided that I wanted to bulk up more. EAS now offered a variety of products, including ready-mixed drinks in a lite formula or carb control. I decided to take on the strength and power eating program, and I went for the Myoplex Deluxe drinks along with Phosphagen XP. I started bulking up and did not worry about losing any weight, because I figured it would come off at the end due to the fat burning machine I would become and by cutting calories. However, around week 5 I sustained a hernia injury and that was the end of my weight lifting regime. I had bulked up and become substantially stronger, but I ALSO HAD NOT LOST ANY WEIGHT!

I tried Atkins and South Beach diets to try and loose the weight without working out, but those plans made me feel "wigged out" all the time.

So here I go again, challenge number 3. This time I am drinking the ready-mix Myoplex lite and eating Balance protein bars. I have already lost some weight even in this first week. I am still taking the phosphagen XP because I know how important building muscle is to create my own Body-for-LIFE. I know that loosing weight is very important to my appearance and to my overall health. Once I meet my healthy weight, only then I can pursue a "bulking up" nutrition plan.

After week one, I feel I have chosen the right meal plan for me. We'll see how I feel in week 6. I also feel great under the BFL system, unlike Atkins or South Beach.

Day 6 -- BFL -- Free Day! Semi-Religious Experience

Its Free Day! I always have problems rationalizing when Free-Day starts. Friday night is so tempting because I am usually going out or ready to unwind from a hectic week. I begin with, well can't free day begin at 6pm on Friday and end at 6pm on Saturday? I sound like a Biblical pharisee making up rules for the Sabbath day, another special day that only comes around once a week. This week I resisted. I sat through dinner and ate a reasonable proportion and watched while everyone else ate strawberry short cake with ice cream. And these are not your spongy cakes from the store. These are the home-made golden-brown, crispy on the outside, moist and some how crumbly, cakes that my wife makes. However, later that night I looked at the clock and it was 12:01 pm. My brain screamed "Its FREE DAY!" I poured the fresh strawberries from the fridge onto one of the beautiful cakes and ate it even without ice cream. It was soooo good. Then this morning I ate a pint of Hagen Daz chocolate ice cream for breakfast. I actually feel sick now. While satiated, I need to remember to tell my self that free day is part of the plan, but stretching its time period out until it envelopes the whole weekend is not. My goal is going to eat what ever I want (I believe that Bill Phillips is right that this is part of the plan) but from the time I wake up in the morning, until I go to bed. I can do this! I also need to monitor my cholesterol. I know that the plan works for helping me loose my hunger pangs, for loosing weight and building muscle, but I need a plan that eventually works to lower my cholesterol too.

Day 3 -- Body-for-Life -- Eating-for-LIFE at O'Faolain's

All four of my kids were gone today. My two oldest girls at camp and Jonathan and Ellie went to Aunt Stephanie's for what will no doubt be an XBox extravaganza. So tonight was Shelley-and-Marc night out. We decided to go to an Irish restaurant called O'Faolain's that was featured in Northern Virginia magazine. It was awesome! We started out with steamed mussels in a white wine sauce with garlic and chili flecks. The sauce had not been simply pour over boiled mussels. You know what I mean? Instead, you could taste that the mussels had really simmered in the sauce and were permiated with flavor. The dish was so good that I asked the waiter for the receipe. Unfortunately the chef said it was a secret. I'm glad today wasn't cheat day, or I would have selected the baked brie in a berry Guinness sauce for an appetizer, and entirely missed out on the mussels. I was tempted by many BFL non-compliant entrees, such as the chicken pot pie and the beer-battered fish & chips. The Shepard's pie might have been okay, but I played it safe and ordered the corn beef and cabbage with parsley boiled potatoes. I had a "hankering" for good corn beef for a while now and this dish had the perfect portions of protein, carbohydrates and even my second serving of vegetables. Perfect! What made the corn beef and cabbage particularly good was the selection of imported mustards from Ireland. I can't recall the names on the lables, but one was an extra sharp mustard and the other, which was seriously "to die for" good, contained whole mustard seeds in a whiskey sauce. I still have trouble sticking to my BFL schedules. My morning work out was three hours off schedule, which also caused me to miss my 10 am scheduled meal. I am proud though that I had the flexibility and commitment to reschedule and complete my exercise.

Day 2 Eating-for-LIFE -- Plug for meals by "Let's Dish"

I just need to put in a quick plug for Let's Dish (http://www.letsdish.com/). Let's Dish is a company that prepares all the ingredients for dinners (chops up veggies, single servings of protien ready, etc.), and then customers can come in to mix and bag 12 to 24 dinners in a single night. Shelley will go to Let's Dish once a month and create pre-made dinners that are kept in the freezer. The dinners are then made up really quickly when it is meal time, with very little mess! We save a bunch of money because our family dines out much more when Shelley or I are too tired to put together a dinner from scratch. HOW DOES THIS RELATE TO "EATING-FOR-LIFE"? As follows: When I start on the Body-for-Life eating plan, it is difficult to find recipes that work for both me and my "family" at dinner time. I have four kids, 6 to 15 years old. However, the Let's Dish dinners seem to generally work. Its not always perfectly consistent with Eating-for LIFE, but it is a great way to still have family dinner each night while only preparing one meal. For example, last night we had Italian Chicken with Cous Cous. The chicken was not breaded, but baked in a tomato sauce with some low fat mozzarella cheese melted on top. The cous cous are not whole grain, of course, but a "palm" sized portion of chicken and a "fist" sized portion of cous with some steamed broccoli was a pretty good meal the whole family could eat. Tonight we are having Dry BBQ rubbed Chicken with mashed sweet potatoes. The recipe could come straight out of Eating-for-LIFE. Convenience that lets you still enjoy a family dinner. ISN'T THAT GREAT!!

McDonald's Asian Chicken Salad?

Today I ate the Asian Grilled Chicken Salad at McDonald's. It wasn't on my eating plan, but my errands ran way over and while I had had a protein bar mid-day, my kids were starving.

NUTRITION: Without the dressing the Asian Salad has 300 calories, 10g fat, 23g carbs, and 32g protein. The HUGE package of dressing has 90 calories, 2.5g fat, 15g carbs, and 1g protein. I used about a third of the dressing and so total was 330 calories, 11g fat, 28g carbs and 33g protein. That fits within my BFL guidelines! Also the salad comes with Mandarin oranges, edemane, snow peas, red bell peppers and sliced almonds, so you fit in a serving of vegetables and nuts to boot. All this with only 1 gram of saturated fat because the fat comes from soybean and sesame seed oil and the almonds. Not bad!

TASTE: Compared to anything else on the menu, this salad actually tastes pretty good. I really enjoyed the edemane (soybeans), snow peas and sliced almonds.