Day 27 Non-Stick Spray and Two-A-Days

Day 27

Non-Stick Spray and Two-A-Days

Last night I divided up all the snack crackers into neat little plastic bags with 100 calories in each. It took some very simple math and all of about twenty minutes. I ended up with about twelve bucks worth of 100 calorie packs for under five bucks! Take that Mr. Nabisco! During the week I usually have fruit and cream oatmeal for breakfast. It's good for cholesterol and I'm very lucky my number is well below 200. Don't get me wrong, I didn't get that number on purpose. It was a complete accident. Let's chalk it up to genetics or possibly a lab error. Because I've had everything they say you should cut down on, and I've obviously had it in excess, and I still have a low number. Every time I've had it checked it surprises me and the doctor. A doctor of mine once said in a puzzled tone, “your cholesterol is better than mine”. Very blessed indeed. If there was such a thing as a cholesterol competition I would be a champion and all the other competitors would be dumbfounded how such a large out-of-shape man could beat them. Waking up this morning, I decided I would try something different for breakfast. The very cholesterol challenging fried egg sandwich! Oh yeah! I recently purchased some butter flavor cooking spray and I have to say, it's amazing! The egg didn't stick to the pan, the spray is calorie free, and I enjoyed every last bite. I had my fried egg on toasted light wheat with white american cheese and a teaspoon of Miracle Whip. The cheese was all melty, the Miracle Whip was all zippy, and the calorie count was nifty, coming in at 235! Well worth it indeed. I can't believe I haven't used the cooking spray in the past. We normally would use some kind of calorie laden oil or just straight up real butter. I use to think that real butter was the only way to go when cooking eggs, but now I know that butter flavored cooking spray is better because it's zero calories! I remember my mom using Pam cooking spray when I was a kid, same thing, but for some reason I just never did until now. A little variety is good sometimes. When you're counting calories it's real easy to rely on the same foods again and again. A little variety adds to your overall calorie value, so be adventurous and enjoy.

In all fairness to the King of flame broiled burgers, I wanted to correct some info about the calories at BK that I talked about yesterday. The Quad Stacker has just over 1,000 calories, not 1,100. The Triple Whopper with Cheese however has 1,250. Both are what I consider to be very poor calorie value choices. If I have it my way neither will ever cross my lips.

We all have turning points in our life. Some good and some bad. This journey I'm on is definitely a good turning point. But when I look back and analyze major turning points in my life I can't help but think walking away from football two-a-days in my sophomore year of high school was one of the biggest in terms of contributing to my size and health as an adult. My entire childhood I always heard people say, “you should play football”. Some might say, “Sean, don't focus on the bad and beat yourself up”, but keep in mind I'm not doing this to focus on the negative, I'm just trying to understand the behaviors and habits that made me this big over the years. By understanding my past decisions, maybe I can prevent some bad ones later. Because I don't want to ever see 505 pounds again! Here's the football story: I had never played organized football on a team in my life, but after getting hassled by my friends at school to give it a shot, I decided to go out my sophomore year. Two-a-days started in early August and on that first day it must have been 100 degrees or more. I was severely out of shape and the coaches knew it. I needed some heavy duty work and they were gonna give it to me. And did they ever. I remember trying to run around that track over and over again. And since I was the slowest I would hear “Anderson, another lap!”. I never understood why I needed to run the extra lap, after all it was clear that I was having the hardest time. Shouldn't the guys that made it look easy run the extra lap? After two extra laps I was just about dead. I was so happy to finish that second extra lap, I just knew it had to be break time soon, “where's the kool-aid?” And then I heard the devil again, “Anderson, another lap!”. Were they trying to kill me? Some might say what I did next was quitting. I like to call it surviving. I started that third extra lap at a pace just slightly faster than walking slow on sand. Somewhere between the start of the lap and the first turn I made a critical life changing decision. I was done. That was it, they broke me, I couldn't take it anymore. When the track turned I didn't. I just kept on going straight...down the hill and into a shopping center across the street. I felt like a fugitive on the run and I still had on my prison issued clothes, I mean my team issued shirt and shorts. The shirt said “Pioneer Pride”, but there was no pride in what I had just done. I ducked into a Boot shop and was immediately asked by the shopkeeper, “so, practice already over?” “Uh, for some of us” was my weak reply. The guy was clearly suspicious of me, after all how many kids leave practice all sweaty and beat to hurry into a boot store? He went on to tell me that his son Todd was on the team too. Great! Out of all the places I could have ducked into, I pick a place where the owners son is one of the stars on the team! That's right, stars! Turns out that boot store owner had two sons that would go down as a couple of the best kickers Stillwater High ever had, maybe not as good as my late Uncle “Golden Toe” Hadley, but good enough that they both went on to kick on the college level, Todd Wright at Arkansas and Tate Wright at Kansas State. When he told me who his son was I remember thinking how funny it was that the kickers' family owned a boot store. I was trying to think of anything to take my mind off what I had just done. When I went outside I didn't see any coaches chasing after me, they were probably too busy shaking their heads and thinking, “wow, some kids just can't be helped”. I realize now that they were trying to help me, but I was still twenty-one years away from being in the right mindset. I can't help but wonder what would have happened had I allowed them to mold me into a football player. At over six foot and nearly 300 pounds as a sophomore, I could've been transformed into a real college prospect by my senior year, you never know. I did survive that day, but I survived by quiting, and I've always been ashamed of that. It all comes down to gravitating to the line of least resistance. I've used that phrase in these blogs before. It's much easier to quit. It's much easier to not work out. It's much easier to eat whatever and however much you want. The line of least resistance is a line filled with quitters and slackers. I refuse to be either this time. I will make this journey the greatest turning point of my entire life, and although I've said “it's easy”, at times it isn't. But like they say, nothing worth having is easy. A longer, healthier, more rewarding life is definitely worth having. And I'm going to do everything I can to get there.

Good Choices,
Sean