So Joe…

Now that I’ve calculated how many calories and what type of calories I should be eating each day, I need to know when to eat them. I’ve been doing the ‘6 meals a day’ thing for a bit now and it seems to work fine (keeps my metabolism going), so I’ll continue on that path. Now, I just need to divide up the calories into those 6 meals. After looking around at different plans and rationals, here’s how I’ve decided to spread my calories out:

• Breakfast (approx 7:30am) 25%
  Breakfast is a much more important meal than I’ve given it credit for in the past. Now that I’m doing cardio when I get up, and eating breakfast, I feel much more energized throughout the day. I’m going to dedicate 25% of the calories to this meal to help lay a good foundation for the day, and to take advantage of the fact that I have full access to my kitchen, and can be more creative with the meal.
• Morning Snack (approx 10:15am) 10%
  The goal of the snack is to maintain consistent blood-sugar levels, and to feed the muscles as they continue to grow.
• Lunch (approx 1:00pm) 20%
  Lunch is important to provide that extra energy boost to make it through the afternoon. Generally being at work for this meal, I don’t have as many options.
• Afternoon Snack (approx 3:45pm) 10%
  The goal of the snack is to maintain consistent blood-sugar levels, and to feed the muscles as they continue to grow.
• Dinner (approx 6:30pm) 25%
  Dinner is my ‘enjoyment’ meal of the day. Here’s where I hope to spend a little extra time making something that’s not only healthy, but enjoyable to eat. On days I workout, this will likely be the meal after the workout, which is also important for getting the right mix of nutients to the recuperating muscles.
• Evening Snack (approx 9:15pm) 10%
  The goal of the snack is to maintain consistent blood-sugar levels, and to feed the muscles as they continue to grow.

So, now I know how many calories I need, I know when I need them, and how much of each kind of calorie I need for each meal. Now I can look at what kinds of meals I can have, stay tuned!

Based on my current measurements of 150.5lbs and 15.5% body fat, I have a bit more than 23lbs of body fat. That means my Lean Body Mass (LBM) is 127lbs.¹ Based on that, my Basal Metabolic Rate (BMR)² is 1619, (370 + (21.6 * LBM) / 2.2).

To then include calories burned for typical daily activites, aka ‘Activity Factor’, I multiply this by 1.4 which is typical for light to moderate activity. So, my calories burned through basic activity is 647. Throw in 30 minutes of rowing (300), and add the 45 minute walk at 4 mph (264) and it goes to 2830.

I’ve been averaging 1581 calories per day, which is 1249 calories shy of what I need to maintain weight. That would be 8743 calories per week. It takes 3500 calories to burn one pound of fat, so my 8743 would result in 2.5lbs of fat loss per week. I’ve been losing an average of about 2lbs a week (sometimes higher, sometimes lower), so my estimated calorie count is at least within the ballpark.

Wow, I’m gonna be adding over 1000 calories to my daily diet just to stop loosing weight. How to do it? Well, what I eat is going to be important if I want to continue losing body fat and gaining muscle. This means increasing protein notably, and from what I’ve seen, a 40:40:20 breakdown should work well for my goals. This means 40% carbs, 40% protein, and 20% fat. Knowing this, I can calculate the number of grams I’ll need of each. Carbs and Protein have 4 calories per gram, and fat has 9 calories per gram. So, doing the math, I get the following:

• Carbs: 1132 calories, 283 grams
• Protein: 1132 calories, 283 grams
• Fat: 566 calories, 63 grams

So, starting on Sunday, I’m going to switch to this new plan. Note that none of this factors in the weight training. I’m going to first try these levels, while still training with weights, and see how it goes. After a few weeks, I can make adjustments as necessary depending on what happens to body fat and LBM. Now that I know how much I need to eat, stay tuned to see when and what I’m going to eat.

A blonde called her old boyfriend and said, “Please come over here and help me. I have a killer jigsaw puzzle, and I can’t figure it out or how to get it started.”

Her old boyfriend asked, “What is it supposed to be when it’s finished?”

The blonde said, “According to the picture on the box, it’s a tiger.”

Her old boyfriend decided to go over and help with the puzzle.

She let him in and showed him where she had the puzzle spread all over the table.

He studied the pieces for a moment, then looked at the box, then turned to her and said, “First of all, no matter what we do, we’re not going to be able to assemble these pieces into anything resembling a tiger.

He took her hand and said, “Second, I want you to relax. Let’s have a nice cup of hot chocolate and then…………” he sighed…

“Let’s put all these frosted flakes back in the box.”

• Why does the sun lightens our hair, but darkens our skin?
• Why can’t women can’t put on mascara with their mouth closed?
• Why don’t you ever see the headline “Psychic Wins Lottery”?
• Why is “abbreviated” such a long word?
• Why is it that doctors call what they do “practice”?
• Why is lemon juice made with artificial flavor, and dishwashing liquid made with real lemons?
• Why the man who invests all your money is called a broker?
• Why is the time of day with the slowest traffic called rush hour?
• Why isn’t there mouse-flavored cat food?
• Why didn’t Noah swat those two mosquitoes?
• Why do they sterilize the needle for lethal injections?
• You know that indestructible black box that is used on airplanes? Why don’t they make the whole plane out of that stuff?
• Why don’t sheep shrink when it rains?
• Why are they called apartments when they are all stuck together?
• If flying is so safe, why do they call the airport the terminal?

Only in America:

• do drugstores make the sick walk all the way to the back of the store to get their prescriptions while healthy people can buy cigarettes at the front.
• do people order double cheeseburgers, large fries, and a diet coke!
• do banks leave both doors open and then chain the pens to the counters.
• do we leave cars worth thousands of dollars in the driveway and put our useless junk in the garage.
• do we buy hot dogs in packages of ten and buns in packages of eight.
• do we use the word ‘politics’ to describe the process so well: ‘Poli’ in Latin meaning ‘many’ and ‘tics’ meaning ‘bloodsucking creatures’.
• do they have drive-up ATM machines with Braille lettering.

She spent the first day packing her belongings into boxes, crates and suitcases. On the second day, she had the movers come and collect her things. On the third day, she sat down for the last time at their beautiful dining room table by candlelight, put on some soft background music and feasted on a pound of shrimp, a jar of caviar and a bottle of Chardonnay.

When she had finished, she went into each and every room and deposited a few half-eaten shrimp shells dipped in caviar, into the hollow of the curtain rods. She then cleaned up the kitchen and left. Read more…

This is part of my series on How to Install Windows Applications Silently.

Often times their will be a need for you to create a ‘text’ file. This may be used to craft a ‘reg’ file, an ‘ini’ file, a ‘bat’ file, or just a simple ‘txt’ text file. This is very easy to do, and their are many ways to do it, but also a few methods to avoid. When considering which tool to use to create your text file, consider that many of the processes that may make use of that text file require that the file be ‘text only’, and won’t work properly if the file contains anything more. What this means is files created with programs capable of producing more than just ASCII characters may create a file that is not truly ‘text only’. Read more…

Read more…

Well, it’s Sunday, time to take my measurements. Here’s the results:

• Weight: 150.5lbs (down 1.5lbs)
• Body Fat: 15.5% (scale=16, caliper=15, down 1%)
• Belly: 33.25″ (down .75″)

Not bad, I’m almost there. If you remember from my original goal, I wanted to get to 150lbs, 15% body fat, and 32″ belly by June 1. I’m pretty suprised, not only that I’ll hit that almost two months early, but that those three different, and not strictly related numbers, have all come so equally close to my goal at the same time. Damn I’m good!

Now that I’ve figured out the formula to loosing body fat, which is actually pretty simple if you are willing to do the work, I need to change things, and it will probably become more difficult. I’m gonna stay with the current plan for one more week, which should easily hit my target weight and body fat, and come within .5″ of my belly goal. Then I’m going to change things up to try and gain muscle, and loose body fat. Weight lose will likely stop decreasing for a short time, and then go up slowly as the muscle mass replaces the body fat (muscle weighs more than fat). This is going to be difficult, since I’ll be eating more calories to promote growth, yet trying not to have any of that go to fat.

I’m going to try and do weight training three times this week (as long as the muscles feel like they’re ready for it). I’ll try to balance getting enough workout in, while still allowing enough opportunity for muscle growth. Stay tuned, things should get interesting!

A little boy goes to his father and asks “Daddy, how was I born?”

The Father answers: Well son, I guess one day you were going to find out anyway! Your Mom and I first got together in a chat room on Yahoo. Then I set up a date via e-mail and we met at a cyber-cafe. We sneaked into a secluded room, where your mother agreed to a download from my hard drive. As soon as I was ready to upload, we discovered that neither one of us had used a firewall. Since it was too late to hit the delete button, a little Pop-Up appeared nine months later that said:

You’ve got Male.