Eat To Lose

You want to lose weight, be it just a few vanity pounds or over 30 plus pounds or anything in between, but are not sure where to begin.  Maybe you hear some anecdotal advice that if you do this or do that or eat this one thing, the pounds will just drop off.  You are bombarded by constantly by ads for green coffee beans, magic dust, raspberry ketones, acai berry, exercise machines that target specific areas, shoes or other clothing and a thousand more things that will make your head spin around in confusion.

The truth is, none of it works.  You might get some results from these gimmicks but once you stop using it, what is lost will come back.

The best way to lose and keep it off is with a balanced NUTRITIOUS diet and exercise. What that means is 4-6 oz of lean protein, vegetables, salad and a small bit of carbs; if you just have to have them.  Exercise does not mean turning into a gym rat or running marathons every week.  Exercise can be as simple as walking , gardening or any activity that gets the heart rate up above a sitting on your ass level.

Some people like to count calories, which is great but remember to find out what your minimum calorie intake should be to lose weight is and make sure that is the number you end on everyday.  If you exercise or workout, you want to replenish what you burn to help maintain the goal of getting towards that minimum intake goal.  Example would be if you have to consume 2000 calories a day to lose weight and you go to the gym and burn 800 calories, you should consume a total of 2800 calories to offset that the 800 that was burned up in exercise.  The reason this should be done, is that if you fall to far under your minimum, your body can enter starvation mode.  This is when your body converts the food that you eat into fat and will use lean muscle as fuel as it is easier to convert that into energy rather than trying to convert the fat stores into energy.  You could lose pounds during this time but will be losing muscle mass instead of fat; this is why a balanced nutritious diet is important.

You have to eat to lose weight.  That does seem very counter intuitive but it is the truth.  You think that eating got me fat and so not eating will make me skinny.  Think about this, would you rather be skinny and sickly or skinny and healthy?

Moon

I step outside onto my porch, the coolness of the evening touches my face, the dampness of the wood is felt under the soles of my feet.  The yard is bathed in a white gray light from the moon that casts an ethereal glow over everything.  I look up to the Moon and feel her gentle pull on my skin, hear the mournful calling of her sorrow on my ears.  The pull becomes overwhelming to the hold that Earth has on me.  I feel almost weightless; with a slight hop, I leave the ground and begin to ascend to my Gray Mistress.  With a slight force of will, I accelerate faster into her arms.

Grilled

I like grilled food and enjoy grilling food as well.  I am by no means a grill master but just simple meats done simply; I am however, as it seems to be, a grill snob.

What that means is that I enjoy charcoal grills and grilling, I am not a big fan of propane or propane accessories.  I've also grown up around Weber grills and enjoy them very much and that is where things get dicey.  See, recently I purchased a grill for my girlfriends place since we both enjoy grilled foods.  The grill I purchased was not a Weber but some cheap knock off Backyard Grill that was purchased for 42 bucks at the local Wal-mart.  This decision was a financial one at that time seeing as I didn't have the money to plop down on the Weber of similar size; this decision was quickly realized a mistake.  Upon getting the grill home and starting assembly, it was easy but was held together by several screws and bolts and washers whereas a Weber is just pushed together with minimal tools and or screws and bolts and washers.

The assembly did not deter me or shake my belief that this knock-off Weber would be just as good as the original but I would be proven wrong.

The beauty of a Weber is in the design that allows you to close off the air flow through tightly fitted vents on the top and the bottom which allow you to control the heat of the fire and to help conserve your coals once the grilling is done by shutting off the air flow.  The Backyard Grill has loose vents on the ash catcher on the bottom and a vent on top but the bottom ones are much too loose to stop all the air flow.  This is also compounded by the top warming rack that is connected through the hinged lid, again loosely, which allows more air into the grill with the lid down.  With all this air flowing into the grill causes it to burn hot and you cannot just let the meat cook slowly but must be fretted over like a over protective parent towards a sheltered child.

Why is this an issue to me?  Because a large bag of coal was purchased at the same time of the grill and was used for a total of three to maybe four times grilling.  A similar bag on a similar sized Weber (22.5") would last easily twice that for the amount of grilling that was done with the Backyard Grill.  That grilling was for two people cooking two pieces of meat and once some baked potatoes as well.

Next time I get some extra money, I will be getting a Weber and more coal.

And if someone has a Weber they want to trade even up for a low hour grill, have I got a deal for you.