344 isn’t the only number that scared me into changing my life.

145 and 120 were scary, too.

These numbers were my respective systolic and diastolic levels a few years ago.  They represented hypertension (high blood pressure).  With numbers so high I was in very real danger of suffering a heart attack or stroke.

I was a ticking time bomb at the incredibly young age of 22.

There wasn’t a shadow of a doubt that I was going to die sooner rather than later the way I was treating my body.  It wasn’t a question of how, but a question of when and where and who would be around to see me leave this world.  Would it be my daughter?  Wife?  The whole family?  If I had not turned my life around I wouldn’t have lived to see my 40th birthday.

Even more likely, I would’ve been 450+ pounds and dead at 30.

That was taken yesterday morning.

I have to say that seeing 199 pounds on the scale was exhilarating, something I’m very proud of and undoubtedly always will be.  That number really isn’t the important one, though.  Those numbers you see in the picture above — 113/74 — are much, much more exciting to see appear in front of me.

Go have your blood pressure taken.  Find time today.  Unless you live in the woods, you can drive probably 5 or 10 minutes in any direction and find a way to take it.  I went to Wal-Mart (and do quite often) with the sole purpose of taking my blood pressure.  You can either go there, most other grocery stores, drug stores, or of course the doctor to find out what your numbers look like.

Let me know what you find out in the comments below.

Grocery trip Monday night

Food is fuel, energy for us to function and live by.  It’s not our crutch, companion, or way to solve problems or situations in our lives.

It only complicates them.

If we have a bad day at work, a few chocolate chip cookies when we get home isn’t going to go back in time and stop our boss from yelling at us.  Sitting in traffic for twenty extra minutes and opting for fast food instead of a home cooked meal isn’t going to earn back that time we sat in traffic.   Sure, the fast food may save us an additional 10 minutes as don’t have to cook anything, as well as provide a few minutes of joy as we scarf it down, but at what cost to our health?

Next time you pull up to the drive thru, know that it will take a day or two of work to gain back what you just gave away in a few minutes of temporary enjoyment.  It should be enough to stop you from doing it often.

Food is fuel, not a fix or remedy to the following problems:

• Bad days at work
• Traffic delays
• Busy days
• Romantic breakups
• Lazy, rainy days

…or any other excuse we have for opting for fast, fattening food, or for being lazy and not preparing a nutritious, healthy meal.  There are always times to celebrate and socialize around food, but not every day.  And neither are the “fake holidays,” you know, Columbus Day, Groundhog Day, etc.

If you don’t get off work, don’t get off your healthy lifestyle.

We need to stop looking at food like it’s something more than just fuel, energy to live by.  Once you’re hungry, eat until you’re no longer hungry (NOT stuffed!), and keep moving along.  Next time you’re hungry, eat.

Food is fuel.  Eat to live, don’t live to eat.

I shop for groceries about once a week.  I go to the Piggly Wiggly (no, I didn’t make that up) near my house — the grocery store that Morgan Freeman drove Daisy to in Driving Miss Daisy.

A typical shopping cart looks like this:

I think this snapshot represents my diet fairly well (minus sushi).  It contains a variety of lean meats (and not so lean), fruits, and vegetables.

Many natural foods, but a few processed.

I’ve neglected talking about food for so long on this blog.  I don’t know a whole lot of fancy recipes and I don’t have my own cookbook (here’s looking at you, Joy Manning), so I haven’t felt qualified to talk about food.  And while I still don’t feel qualified (to do anything, really), I do know how to make simple, quick low calorie meals.  Meals for college students and people in a hurry.  Meals for bachelors.  Meals for people who aren’t culinary masters in the kitchen.  Meals for people trying to lose weight.

I’ll start sharing some of my meals with directions and pictures starting on Saturday.  These meals will be filling, low in calories, and easy to make.

Ya’ll come back now, ya hear?

I’m physically and mentally exhausted.

I haven’t slept for more than 6 hours a night for the last week. Between work, family, and the whirlwind that CNN brought into my life sleep is #493 on my list of priorities. It takes a lot of time to respond to comments and e-mails, but it’s my personal policy to not let one go unanswered. If you take the time to write me, I’ll take the time to write you.

I’m especially exhausted this morning because on Tuesdays in January I have to show up at the WLTX studios at 5, which means I have to wake up at 4. I got 5 hours of sleep last night. I could have gone to sleep earlier, but I’m stubborn and went to the gym and grocery shopping instead.

Don’t worry, I realize sleep is an important part of a healthy lifestyle. Today my level of exhaustion will reach a climax and I should be back to normal on Wednesday. After work this afternoon I plan on going to the gym and then go home to a waiting dinner, prepared by my wonderful wife. After a few hours of family time I’ll pass out and get at least 8 hours of sleep.

Tomorrow, I’ll wake up and remember what I’m fighting for.

I’ve had a lot of people contact me over the last week.  Old readers.  New readers.  People trying to lose weight.  People that have lost weight.  Media.  Advertisers.  Business owners.  Oprah (no, not really).

One business owner in particular was Dean of PapayaHead.com.  Dean started PapayaHead late last year to help those trying to eat healthy (or those with allergies).  With the site you can create recipes from scratch, save and share those recipes with others (or yourself), and even compose printable shopping lists on the fly to take with you to the grocery store.

PapayaHead really shines with the information that it provides about food.  I signed up for free and briefly filled out a profile — I listed what foods I like and dislike.  If I were allergic to a food, I would list it here and the program would warn me if I added a recipe that contained such an item.

Once my profile was created, I added a recipe to calculate the calories that I consumed last night with my homemade enchiladas — PapayaHead was right on the money.  Not only did it tell me about the calories, protein, carbs, and fat I consumed, but it also gave me a myriad of information like if the enchiladas were heart healthy, high in fiber, low in sugar, low in sodium, etc.

It provides tons of information in a quick, easy to read summary:

(My enchiladas were heart healthy and free of sugar)

The nutrition meter you see on the right is a fast, numerical way to see whether or not what I’m eating is generally healthy.  The higher the number, the better, with meals ranked over 75 considered “healthy.”

I’ve been asked a lot recently if I pay attention to other items on a nutritional label — the answer is yes.  While counting calories are the key to losing weight, I still watch the amount of sodium, sugar, fiber, and protein I consume on a daily basis.  In my uneducated, humble opinion, here are the cliff notes why:

Sodium — leads directly to high blood pressure
Sugar — gives me that temporary energy, then crash
Fiber — a lack of fiber provides less than favorable experiences
Protein — building blocks of big, strong muscles

There are a lot of tools and services out there to help track this information.  While that might be the case, we also didn’t help mold them.  Dean, the CEO of PapayaHead, Inc. has agreed to read (and respond) to your suggestions and criticisms below.  Try PapayaHead (it’s free, doesn’t cost a dime) and then let him know what you like, what you don’t like, and what will keep you using it.

Oh, and by the way — tomorrow is weigh-in number 51.  This might be too much information, but an excess of fiber leads to good numbers on the scale.