How I became slim, fit and healthy Part V: Diet is important II

I like meat. Meat is delicious. Be it meat from say, a cow, a bird or some other type of livestock, it's damn good. It's also important for protein. I usually bought steak and other forms of beef around 2011. I liked chicken but for some reason, I didn't like to cook it or rather, I was too scared to cook it. Salmonella is no joke. But eventually, I tried to cook it and it came out better than expected(Wasn't the first time I cooked chicken. At twelve, I fried a drumstick and it came out okay. Burnt on the outside for the most part). Plus, the amount of protein was even higher than the beef I purchased.  I would then make a rule to alternate between the two.

What would I eat with my meat?  In the beginning, mixed vegetables in a can. A nice variety, but not ideal for nutrients. That said, I still go for canned fruit when making smoothies. I then noticed a pack of spring mix for a discount price. Since then, I would switch out the canned vegetables for the fresh leafy greens. They go great with a sirloin, breast or on the bottom of a serving of pasta. Even better if you mix it with your sauce. I know pasta isn't good for you, but moderation and alternative ingredients for your spaghetti noodles/sauce is key. MOD. DER. RATION.

Moving on, fish is now my top priority food when it comes to protein and overall taste. A nice salmon fillet fried in some vegetable oil can be the best thing to me on a bad day. To think I avoided fish altogether because I didn't know how to cook it. Seafood in general is delicious and some of the smaller organisms have more to offer than say, a large slab of flank steak. But again, alternate between all of them. They're all good in their own right. Sometimes I'd go for salmon, other times I'd lean toward tilapia, swai, and whiting. In a blue moon, I could find swordfish. Not too many people can say they got to try that. I'd love to try it after being on a grill. It's made for it. Perch and flounder, however aren't my forte. too flimsy. All in all, there's a great amount of variety to be found within fish and seafood. Try it sometime, there's something for everyone.

On the subject of vegetables, I'm still picky with them. I hate squash and okra. Some others like eggplant and asparagus don't even look appetizing to me. I do enjoy carrots, celery and radishes. Basic stuff, to be frank. Leafy greens are a big favorite. I can eat them bare just cause and it's fun to chew through them. I'm very cautious with mushrooms. Even some of the edible ones can be harmful and the harmful ones can be mistaken for edible fungi. Maybe I'll muster up some courage and go for them in the future.

That covers this entry. I think that I was lucky to have moved from New York. It forced me to make different choices for my diet and I still see the benefits from it now. But even with a good diet, exercise is still important for a body's growth and development. Remember that!

How I became slim, fit and healthy Part IV: Calisthenics and the like

I was already doing great with sit-ups but I needed to do more. I attempted to do push-ups and at first they were hard to do. I managed only twenty-ish before I would tire out. At some point I reached maybe thirty-ish before I stopped doing them altogether. Laziness, you are truly a thorn in my side...

But moving on, I started to do them again. Making small progress within each set. I made it a rule to do some every morning to give myself some bloodflow to get through the day, especially if I had to work that day. Funny enough, if I were at work cleaning bathrooms, I would try to sneak some in. Around twenty to avoid detection. If it was at night or early morning, I'd try for thirty. I remember being able to do forty around Christmas of 2011. It was that slow. I would then try to do less in sets. Around ten sets of ten or fifteen if I could muster up the strength. It was stimulating to say the least. At some time, I'd get lazy, but not too lazy that I wouldn't do any at all. After all, sleep is the most important thing to benefit a developing body, no?

However, after being healthy over a year, I caught a nasty cold and had to put my training on hold. It was horrid. When I got better, I couldn't reach forty push-ups anymore. It hit me hard. But again, there were other ways to exercise. In addition to push-ups, I would attempt jumping jacks and some yoga exercises my gym teacher taught me in 11th grade. I loved her. She was an amazing teacher and I still do said exercises to this day. Jumping jacks were easy and efficient to do in the bathroom. Once I managed a thousand and ten(Had to add some to break the even number). I've yet to do so again, but I think I got it in me moreso now.

There's still a lot for me to do and achieve but I think by another three years, I can look more polished than I am now. I've only just begun.

How I became slim, fit and healthy Part III: The Pokéwalker

On August, I purchased a game. It was Pokémon SoulSilver Version.  In it was a little pedometer called the Pokéwalker. You can transfer your Pokémon from the game to it and take it for walks, similar to a Tamagatchi or virtual pet. The walker keeps count of how many steps you take and your Pokémon often gives you gifts while it happens. I was enticed by it, moving around and seeing my progress day by day. Eventually I moved around the area, trying to get some more progress in the Pokéwalker. It was pretty enriching for me, as I saw a lot of things and places. I love animals and nature and I'd often take a gander at the flower bushes in Forsyth Park and even encountered birds like Cardinals and Blue Jays.

I only moved around the park and then around the area near it, coming back home. I would do this often, and I noticed I lost more weight. Seeing this, I would expand my tumult to downtown and River Street. I would do this after I got my first job. I would get 10,000 steps in on average, maybe more. Most I got was 44,400+. When you get in ten million steps, you no longer can register any more steps for your max total but still can keep a look on your weekly tumult. I don't use it anymore but I keep as a memento for starting me off on the path to fitness and health. I give a big thanks to the minds at Game Freak for developing the device. They're by far my favorite video game developer and I look forward to Pokémon X & Y in October.

Next up: Learning how to build muscle in place of the fat that I used to harness.

How I became slim, fit and healthy Part II: Diet is important

The days I went without lunch were gruesome but as the days went on, I didn't mind at all. The next thing I know, the school would start to give out fruits and vegetables. I liked both, but with vegetables, I was(and still am to a lesser extent)picky with them. There were carrots and I believe celery some days with ranch dip. I wasn't too fond of putting fresh vegetables into a fatty condiment, so I would eat them as is and occasionally used dip if I had a taste for it that day. Fruit-wise, we would get grapes, oranges, tangerines or pears. I LOVE pears. Absolutely love them. The grapes were often sour and no good. In a blue moon the school got strawberries. But moving on to the pears, I finally found my compensation for lunch and whenever I was hungry.

The pears were often Anjou, though I'd see Bosc and Bartlett from time to time. The other students didn't care for them or the oranges, so I'd have my pick. One day I took thirty+ pears with me home. That's how many were leftover. Some days the same bag of pears would be still where they were from yesterday. Because I had so many, I went and put them in a juice with some of the carrots and the canned fruit I'd get from my cousin. It was really a great way to finally get something inside of me after a hard day and I didn't have to waste any money on junk and the overpriced pizza. I was blending since I was sixteen, but finally I had access to more ingredients. After I graduated, I noticed that I slimmed down from my waist a little. Wanting to keep that appearance, I attempted sit-ups. I would do a lot of them whenever I woke up, around 100-150 during the morning. Sometimes more if I was in good condition. It was slow, but it steadily showed some more results. I would do this often and eventually found myself to moving up to bigger and better things. Keep in mind that this was done by someone who didn't have to attend gym at all during his last year of grade school. It's a miracle I didn't balloon up more.

However, I still had a yearning for junk food. I still would munch on the packs of cookies and fig bars and potato chips. I would still drink juice cocktails, the beverages known to have very little juice and using High Fructose Corn Syrup to sweeten them even more. I had to try to drink more water, as it's the one thing your body can't do without. The tap was my go-to source, and to the people who don't drink tap water for fear of chemicals: There's nothing to worry about. In New York, I was raised on the tap. The tap isn't gonna kill you. I understand that spring and mineral water is supposed to be more healthy and better for you. But unless your tap comes from a polluted area, I think you can succumb to a few pitchers of the stuff. Get a filter if you feel the need. At least you can save on needless water bottles and cash.

Right around August is where I would discover a little device that actually encouraged me to walk around the area more. I think this one little bauble potentially saved my life in the long run...

How I became slim, fit and healthy

As a child, I often was lazy and preferred to sit at home and stuff my face with junk food and the like. I still do from time to time but I've limited the amount severely and switched to more healthier alternatives instead.

When I was still in New York as a high school student, I would go to a dollar store and buy various junk foods. Chips, candy, you name it. When I was twelve, they had these gummi bunnies that were to die for. I loved them in spite of how hard they were to chew. One day, I bought some Hershey's Nuggets(They resembled them, so it's a possibility they were the same brand. This store was known to have some bootleg merchandise at times). They had a hint of strawberry in them along with cookie crumbles. It was an orgasm in my mouth. I bought them more than I should and it came to a point where I think I fractured a tooth on the right side of my mouth. Months later my dentist would claim there wasn't anything wrong with said tooth. I still feel something off about it though. On the subject of my teeth, all of that junk would do a fair amount of damage to them.

Finally, when I moved to Savannah, I would still indulge in candy and junk. But one thing I noticed were the increased prices for simple things like Skittles and Snickers bars. Eighty-Nine cents for one of those treats was too much. In New York, you'd only pay fifty cents for one of them. Sometimes sixty cents. The prices did go up a little. For a quarter, you can buy a pack of seeds or a fudge pop. Got a dollar? Four of those for you! But that was long ago. Now, they were thirty-five cents or even more. Down here such treats weren't around. I would spend the $2 for a can of Pringles, as they were the same price, more or less. But this didn't last long. I had to tighten my belt and my waistline. I could live without the junk food. It wasn't a dire situation. I was husky and had a gut but nowhere near the obesity line. That's probably why I don't miss such things as much and why it was easy for me to lose the weight. But the one thing that really got to me was the school lunch system in my second high school. For a slice of pizza, you had to pay $3. One slice of pizza for fucking 3$. Now that's worth its own subject. I only did it once and it wasn't spectacular. I went the rest of my days at that school without lunch but that wouldn't a problem for me after New Year's Day, when we returned to school...

This is only the beginning of my journey into staying slim, fit and healthy. And it hasn't even ended yet. I still have a long path to tread. Stay tuned!