Meat... Meet Fruit and Veggies!

Chicken and Sausage....

Spring mix, tomatoes, strawberries and grapes...

A marriage of balanced nutrition and beauty.

A tour of CrossFit WMD in Angleton....

They had a BBQ and let me tell you, the brisket was melt in your mouth tender and after meeting my weight goal, I had a few slices, a small link of sausage and a Bud Light...

Nice, well organized facility ...

And love the WMD theme and murals...

This is my new House of Pain!

Like my Daddy always said...

Don't worry about the Mule....

Just load the Wagon!

1 small apple 1 banana and a 3-1/2 mile run

And bingo....

183.8 - Met my 185 goal....

That's 11 lbs lost in 13 days....

See?

You don't eat...

You lose weight!

Everywhere I go I see Fat People!!!

I just don't get it.

How can you possibly eat enough for long enough to get as overweight as the majority of the people I see?

Believe me. I'm not looking for it. I'm not trying to be mean. I just see them everywhere.... Probably 75% of the people I see.

I know the world is a stressful place and we are programmed to eat huge portions of processed unhealthy foods but at some point you just have to say....

No! And take charge of your life and health.

There's enough good information out there on diet and exercise to get you started and keep you on the right path.

It's pretty simple - just eat lean meat and fresh veggies with lots of dark, leafy vegetables in salads.

If you want something sweet, eat fresh fruit.

And eggs are a good thing. In fact, they're a near perfect food.

Stay away from dairy and bad carbs such as rice, bread, pasta, potatoes, beans and anything wheat.

Yes.... A lot of people are allergic to wheat. It messes me up bad. I get headaches and am incredibly sluggish when I eat anything with wheat.

And obviously, no pie, cake or pastries.

And limit your alcohol to 2 servings a week.

If you really want something sweet, eat 2 oz of good quality chocolate and call it a day.

Then find 3 days of the week to do some sort of rigorous exercise for 1 hour. If you miss a day make it up on the weekend.

Assuming you sleep 8 hours a night, that's 3 hours out of 112 hours per week.

Surely you have time for that especially for something as important as your health.

Think about it.

Final meal of the day...

Dice up a yellow squash, zucchini and half a sweet onion and dust with S&P and sauté in a hot cast iron skillet.

Add a small portion of diced Holmes Pork & Venison sausage and some fine diced garlic.

Plate it and had some thin sliced mango for sweetness and pizazz!

Dust it all with a little cayenne and enjoy!

Dialing 911 for a Workout Recovery Meal!!

And thar she blows....

Spring mix, tomato, strawberry, fresh jalapeño and boiled egg....

So where'a that post workout 30+ g of protein?

Aaaah.... There it is!!!

A nice thin cut breast of chicken.

Now let's put it all together and some red grapes for my sweet tooth....

So how was the introduction to CrossFit?

In a word....

CrossFit was TOUGH.

I basically did a warm-up and learned several different exercises / movements.

Started out with double under rope jumping for 50. Then throwing a 14# ball 9' up a wall for 20. Then front squats with overhead press for 20. They call them thrusters. Then 20 burpees.

Then shoulder stretching with a PVC bar.

Then myofascial release on hips and legs front and back.

Then massaging shoulders and chest with a lacrosse ball against the wall.

That was just the warmup.

Then the instructor showed me a "Core Elements" 3 exercise group consisting of 10 air squats (deep squats with arms held overhead), 10 push-ups (hands closer than normal - almost a Tricep push-up) and 10 Deadlifts.

We worked on form on those and then he had me do 3 rounds of those with a 200m sprint for each one for time.

I did 3 rounds of the 4 elements in 6 minutes flat.

Wasn't the best I could do but was very sore and tired from this week's workouts and running yesterday and from dieting for the last 11 days.

I weighed 185.6 after the workout.

In a nutshell, it was hard but I did it.

I will do 2 more Core Elements sessions with the instructor and then be released to do the normal WODs (Workout Of the Day).

I liked it.

I'm going back for more.

On 2nd thought this is my favorite place to sit...

I think I'm dumb...

But maybe I'm just happy.

My CrossFit preworkout meal...

Been watching what I eat pretty closely over the last 11 days and have dropped about 7 lbs.

Main reason was my body was telling me I was too heavy....

My left knee was starting to hurt again.... My back was hurting.... I was sluggish.... Breathing too hard in the strenuous Boot Camp workouts.

So I cut out all but the essentials.

Paleo 101...

Meat, veggies, fruit, water....

Oh and coffee....

That's a food group right?

Anyway, everytime I do this the carb addict in me screams for sugar in the form of the wrong kind of carbs and calories....

I want bread and peanut butter and jelly and baklava and rice and beans and potatoes and pasta....

Ok. I better stop there or I'll be making a run to the grocery store or a Mexican food restaurant.

What works for me is to satisfy my craving for sweets with fruit.

I know it's still sugar and it's still calories but for whatever reason, my body processes these calories and sugar different from the aforementioned kind.

So for my preworkout meal today (about 2 hours before the workout) I put together a beautiful array of fruit with a little protein sprinkled on top.... Literally!!

Start with a cut up ripe banana and a small delicious apple...

Note the mango and boiled egg on deck...

Cut up half the mango (save the other half for a post workout treat) and add it to the mix and then cut up the boiled egg and add it to the top with a sprinkle of salt.

It's beautiful, nutritious and packed with all the vitamins and electrolytes to power you through a strenuous workout.

CrossFit - here I come!!!

Doing my first CrossFit workout this morning...

I kinda got tired of the LesMills stuff over recent months.... Body Pump and Body Combat.

And more importantly, I had plateaued. Wasn't making any progress.

A few weeks back I was watching the 2013 Women's CrossFit Championships and got the notion that I wanted to give it a try.

Then I visited my son a couple of weeks ago and did a short duration high intensity CrossFit-style workout with him consisting of heavy dumbbell snatches, heavy lunges while holding weight overhead and weighted pull-ups.

I could tell I was deficient in those movements and decided to give CrossFit a try so I went and visited CrossFit WMD in Angleton (not thrilled about the name by the way).

One of the co-owners gave me the 20 minute sales pitch and I signed up for a 15 session trial.

I went to the CrossFit website and reviewed some of the exercise demo videos.

http://www.crossfit.com/cf-info/exercise.html

There's a lot of technique involved in many of these exercises and many are movements I haven't done before so I'm anxious to see how it goes.

Have been cutting my calories and eating really clean on my Paleo diet for the last 2 weeks and am down to 186.5 this morning.

I'll let you know how this 51 year old body does with a CrossFit workout.

Perfect example of what living on the Gulf Coast is like...

I just got back from a 33 minute slow jog... About 3.5 miles.

Here's the weather conditions in good ole Lake Jackson Tx....

79 degrees 76% humidity...

That's not bad for Lake Jackson.

2 months from now it'll be 95 and 95...

That's right 95 degrees and 95% humidity.

I weighed before I left and after I came back.

I lost 2.1 lbs in 33 minutes!!

That's 1 quart of sweat....

In a half an hour.

And it ain't even hot yet.

I would sweat 3 times that rate at 95 and 95.

Forget that....

Come on mountains!!

Please somebody buy my house so I can get the hell out of....

HELL.

Oh well... At least I tried.

One of these days I'll meet an...

And I'll remember what could have been....

This is what I want!!!

This is not what I want!!
87% humidity.... Yuck!!!

Dealing with the Real Estate Machine Bias against selling your home yourself......

Geez..... Never seen anything like it.

I am trying to sell my home myself with the following mechanism:

• Listed on ForSaleByOwner.com
• Signed a flat fee MLS listing agreement with My Castle Realty in Houston to put my house on the Houston Associaton of Realtors MLS listing - www.har.com
• Agreement includes a 2% Buyer's Agent Commission, meaning that if any real estate agent brings me a buyer, said real estate agent gets 2% of the sales price.
• If approached by a buyer not represented by a real estate buyer's agent, i.e. an individual, I do not pay the 2% Commission.

The normal procedure is to list a house for sale with a real estate agency with a 4 - 6% sales price commission broken down as follows:

• 2 - 3% to the listing agency
• 2 - 3% to the buyer's agent / buyer's agent agency

So the only real difference between what I'm doing is taking away the 2 - 3% that normally goes to the listing agency.

In exchange for this consideration, I have the sole responsibility of showing the house, evaluating offers and negotiating with the potential buyer or buyer's agent and filling out the real estate sales contract should be buyer not be represented by a buyer's agent.... basically what the listing agent would do.... not much for $6000.

You would not believe the rude and unprofessional response I have gotten from specific real estate agents and the real estate industry in general, just because I'm selling the house myself.

These real estate agents are not used to dealing with an individual or a For Sale by Owner situation..... basically they are used to showing a few houses, filling out a few forms and raking in $6000 for 10 - 20 hours work..... AMAZING!

The local real estate agency industry has basically blackballed me or intentionally guided potential buyers away from my house because I have not listed with a local agency.

I have never met this kind of response in any other Do it Yourself situation.

It makes me think even less of the real estate agency industry in general and the profession of being a real estate agent in particular

I may end up having to list my house with a local real estate agency just to sell my house.... but it won't change my opinion of the profession or the industry.

It's a money making, good ole boy / girl network, where competition is squashed through information isolationism techniques and negative bias.

Only in good ole Lake Jackson Tx..... can't wait to get out of this sonofabitch!

I know why you wanna hate me....

Cause hate is all the world has seen lately...

No cooking tonight!!!

Eating out at my favorite Mexican restaurant, El Toro, but sticking to the diet game plan....

With a bowl of chicken tortilla soup with extra veggies, avocado, pico de gallo, fresh jalapeños and a cold, draft Miller Lite to wash it down.

Aaaaaah! Now that's good!

Everybody jumps from the sound of a

A small change can make a big difference....

That's the beauty of a simple concept....

You can always change it and come up with something just as effective but different...

Take for example your mix of veggies....

Getting tired of salad as your main low calorie base for your protein?

Then dice up a poblano pepper, jalapeño pepper, squash and sweet onion, sprinkle with some S&P and sauté that mix till al dente and then add the usual protein suspects...

Different textures and tastes to the same ole same ole.

Same,,,, but different.

Building a 5 Stage Food Rocket

Stage 1: Start with a rainbow!

Dark, leafy greens, red tomatoes, yellow avocado, purple blackberries and red raspberries and strawberries....

Stage 2: Add some lean protein filled fuel. Sauté a link of diced pork and venison sausage...

Stage 3: Combine the veggies and fruit...

And add the sausage

Stage 4: More fuel. Sauté a thin cut adobo seasoned chicken breast...

And add to the pile...

And for the booster stage...

Stage 5: Add a mixture of equal parts of fruit punch Creatine mix, Fresca and Cabernet!

For you big eaters, this is the way to go.

A 5 stage rocket to food heaven!!!

Tell me.... Are you really

Waiter.... Lunch menu please

Today's lunch special is thin cut adobo seasoned chicken breast and a side of ground turkey breast mix on a bed of Spring mix greens and tomato with sweet onion.

Here you are....

And for dessert, our protein - fruit bowl consisting of a mix of banana, strawberry, raspberry and blackberry topped with a boiled egg.

Bone that Appetite!

This is fighting.... This is why we watch....

http://sports.yahoo.com/news/ufc-natal-ex-post-facto-130259998--mma.html

Watched this fight and Dan Henderson was getting his ass kicked and face pounded for 2 rounds.....

But in the 3rd, he uncorked a right hand that f'd up Shogun's face bad..... fight over.

Dan Henderson is one bad ass old SOB.

GO OLD GUYS!!!

2 Questions for this Tuesday morning....

Are you breathing?

Do you have any regrets?

Rules of 3, Words to Live By and other Random Thoughts....

In all things..... simply SIMPLIFY.

And Rules of 3 always apply:

If it has more than 3 ingredients, DON'T EAT IT!

If it takes more than 3 sentences to explain, DON'T BELIEVE IT!

If it costs more than $300, spend at least an hour researching the best option and the best price.

If you don't have the money in the bank to buy it, DON'T BUY IT!

If you haven't used it in the last 3 years, you don't need it, GET RID OF IT!

That includes everything..... including spouses.....especially spouses.

If you can't pull your car in the garage, you got too much shit!  SELL IT!

If it breaks down 3 times, fix it and then SELL IT!

If you can't fight it and beat it or run from it and escape.... LOSE SOME WEIGHT!

TAKE CARE OF YOU FIRST!..... if you don't, you're no good to any of those people you say you love so much.

When in doubt, RENT DON'T BUY!

It gives you time to check out the product, the area or the lay without risking any long term capital - monetary or emotional.

ASK FOR A LOWER PRICE ON EVERYTHING!.... No is an answer not a death sentence.

GET AN EDUCATION!.... it's expensive to be poor.... and uneducated.

When your gut tells you something's wrong - LISTEN!

You know your gut has a brain right?

Wes Scantlin always sounds like he's pissed off when he sings...

And I like that....

And Lenny Kravitz...

Well - Lenny Kravitz is just cool....

And I like that.

With your iPhone on Shuffle....

You never know what's next...

Need more of that. So that's good...

Yep... Need some realignment... So good so far.

And some new Hootie....

Yes!!!

No Brown Food for me!!!

Bright colors in food means lots of nutrition plus it's appealing to your visual sense of appetite....

Bright greens, red berries and tomatoes....

That's what my mind and body wants....

Wash that down with a mix of equal portions of fruit punch Creatine mix, Fresca and a cheap but tasty Cab and you got a meal fit for a King that won't break your budget or your belt.

Go Colorful Food!!!

After the workout...

You must have sustenance and lots of protein...

A bed of veggies...

Spring mix, tomatoes, avocado, strawberries, EVOO and S&P with a side of green onions.

Jalapeño seasoned thin cut chicken breast and lean ground meat mix...

Now that's a lot of food and grams of protein with a minimum of calories.

If you can't get full on that much, you need to rethink how much you eat.