Dark Chocolate

We all know how it works with Hershey's Miniatures...You buy a bag and dump them in a bowl. The Krackel & Mr. Goodbars go first, and then the regular milk chocolate. Now you are left with a dozen or so of the dark chocolate bars that linger in the bowl for the next two weeks until you either throw them out or eat them in a fit of self-loathing.

I've always assumed that I didn't like dark chocolate. But that's because I've only ever had the Hershey's dark chocolate. All of that has changed.

On our recent trip over Thanksgiving to visit family in Oregon, we took a couple of days & drove over to the eastern part of the state to visit some good friends that live in Milton-Freewater. It's a little town just south of Walla Walla, Washington.

In our room where we'd staying for the night, they put together a little welcome basket, full of all kinds of delicious snacks. Among the items was a bar of Dove dark chocolate. Now, I'm familiar with Dove chocolates. As I've been on the Journey I've develop some tricks to help along the way. To keep me from binging and devouring a whole candy bar, I keep some of the little foil wrapped squares of Dove chocolate in my desk. When I'm craving some sweet, sweet sugar, I'll slowly eat one of them, one little bite at a time. And since chocolate makes me thirsty, one little square eaten over time will cause me to drink a liter of water. Drinking lots of water is a big key to weight loss, so it all works together.

At some point that evening I was hungrin' for something sweet, so out of desperation, I tore into the dark chocolate. And while it wasn't as good as milk chocolate, it was good. It was definitely way better than the Hershey's dark chocolate.

I feel like I've discovered a whole new world. I went to my local mega-mart and got some of the Ghirardelli 60% Cacao dark chocolate. It's pretty tasty! Because the flavor is still a little bitter, just one little bite causes me to drink a lot of water & satisfies the sweet tooth for quite a while. This one 3.5 ounce bar has lasted me all week That works out to about 95 calories a day, which is equivalent to about half a candy bar. And who ever eats just half a candy bar?

So over time, as I can afford it, I'm on a mission to try out some the other dark chocolate options in the candy aisle. Hershey's will not be among the candidates...

The Journey: HCG Diet

I'm back from my trip to Oregon & I've got a couple of different posts in mind to do, but I'm short on time...

However, I saw this in the news & thought it was worth passing on. The HCG diet is the current fad out there. It's not cheap, and now the FDA says that their claims are illegal and dangerous.

This post from Scott Hensley at NPR lays out the details.Here are the highlights:

HCG is a natural hormone made by the placenta during pregnancy. A prescription-strength version is given by injection as a part of fertility treatment.
But companies that sell the stuff in drops, sprays and pellets without a prescription claim it can recalibrate the body's metabolism, the FDA says. A dieter is supposed to take HCG to help curb cravings while adhering to an extremely low-calorie diet of, say, 500 calories a day. Stick with that and you're supposed to lose a pound a day.

 "These products are marketed with incredible claims and people think that if they're losing weight, HCG must be working," Elizabeth Miller, acting director of FDA's Division of Non-Prescription Drugs and Health Fraud, says in a statement. But there's absolutely no proof of that, the agency says. "Any loss is from severe calorie restriction. Not from the HCG."

Aside from the issues with HCG, the FDA says a 500-calorie diet by itself is pretty risky. You can get gallstones and develop other health problems from such severe restrictions on what you eat.

MSNBC also had an article on it here...

Bottom line: There's no shortcut to weight loss other than proper diet & exercise. Which really sucks...

Oregon for Thanksgiving

We decided to surprise my parents by showing up unannounced in Oregon for Thanksgiving. We flew the red eye flight and got to Portland at 6am Thanksgiving morning. After grabbing breakfast we woke mom up to let us in the house. She was shocked but happy to see us.

Because of everyone's travel & work schedule, we did our Thanksgiving dinner on Saturday. There was over 20 of the family there. I got to see both of my grandmothers and all of my nephew & nieces. I had 2 nephews & 3 nieces that I had never met before. It's been 3 years since we've been down here. It was really good to connect with everyone. The one regret I have for living in Alaska is that I'm so far from the rest of family.

We'll be spending a total of 10 days here. We are spending time with my parents & getting some shopping down. We also took a couple of days to drive across the state to Milton-Freewater to see some friends who have moved there from Alaska. It was an incredible drive over & back along the Columbia River. And it was even better to spend a little time with some incredible people who we miss very much. I was going to include some pictures of the drive, but they are on another computer & I'm too lazy to get up...

The Journey will resume when I return home. The complete lack of results in the last month do not give me much motivation, but I can't give up... My goal a few months ago was to be back down to 315 for this trip. That was my weight before I lost momentum back in May. I completely failed on that goal. I was also wanting to be 299 by the end of the year. That's not going to happen either. I also wanted to be 271 by March 24th, 2012, which would be 100 pounds lost in 2 years. That goal *might* be doable if my body will start responding to the exercise.

I just remember I could grab the pictures off of facebook:

The mighty Columbia River

Mount Hood

Multnomah Falls

Our rental car. I've had it up to 108 MPH so far...

A recreation of Stonehedge built in 1918 as a WW I memorial

The vineyards behind where we stayed in Milton-Freewater, Oregon.

We saw hundreds of these wind turbines on the drive.

Worth it?

From Seth Godin:

Worth it?

That's a question you hear a lot. "Was it worth it?"
Not certain what either "it" refers to, but generally we're saying, "was the destination worth the journey? Was the effort worth the reward?"
The thing about effort is that effort is its own reward if you allow it to be.
So the answer can always be "yes" if you let it.

After you've done your best

From Seth Godin:

After you've done your best

(and it didn't work)
...then what do you do?
Slamming your six iron into the ground, yelling at yourself, cursing out your staff, second-guessing, berating bystanders—there are plenty of ways we demonstrate our frustration that our best didn't work this time.
But is it helpful?
Learning from a failure is critical. Connecting effort with failure at an emotional level is crippling. After all, we've already agreed you did your best.
Early in our careers, we're encouraged to avoid failure, and one way we do that is by building up a set of emotions around failure, emotions we try to avoid, and emotions that we associate with the effort of people who fail. It turns out that this is precisely the opposite of the approach of people who end up succeeding.
If you believe that righteous effort leads to the shame of personal failure, you'll seek to avoid righteous effort.
Successful people analytically figure out what didn't work and redefine what their best work will be in the future. And then they get back to work.
Let the guys at ESPN do the racket throwing.

The Journey: Why Am I Bothering?

The one or two of you who even bother to read this blog may have noticed that I've been off schedule the last few weeks.

The truth is I'm horribly discouraged. I've hit the gym HARD for the last month. I've been careful in what I'm eating. I feel like I'm putting 100% effort in. Yet I'm seeing NO, zero, none, nada, nyet results. I'm STUCK at 330 pounds.

My goal of being 299 by the end of the year is completely unattainable at this point. There's just no way I could make up that much lost time.

I'm use to effort in equaling results out. Work more hours, get more pay. Drive faster and get there sooner. Up until now in the Journey this has been truth. The harder I've worked the gym, the more weight loss. But this is no longer the case.

I would give up completely, but then I think of a friend of mine who is a commercial fisherman. He works hard. The thing is, no matter how much effort he puts in, sometimes the fish just aren't there. But if he didn't put in the hard work, then the fish could be there and he'd miss it. So, fish or no fish: You have to put in the work to take advantage of when the fish are there.

Therefore, I will continue to put in the time at the gym. At least I will know I'm doing my part, even if the desired results don't come.

Don't Be Common

I Do Not Choose to Be a Common Man

It is my right to be uncommon—if I can.

I seek opportunity—not security. I do not wish to be a kept
citizen, humbled and dulled by having the state look after
me.

I want to take the calculated risk; to dream and to build, to
fail and to succeed.

I refuse to barter incentive for a dole. I prefer the
challenges of life to the guaranteed existence; the thrill of
fulfillment to the stale calm of utopia.

I will not trade freedom for beneficence nor my dignity for
a handout. I will never cower before any master nor bend
to any threat.

It is my heritage to stand erect, proud and unafraid; to
think and act for myself, enjoy the benefit of my creations
and to face the world boldly and say, “This I have done.”

~By Dean Alfange
*Originally published in This Week Magazine.
Later reprinted in The Reader’s Digest, October 1952 and January 1954.

The Honorable Dean Alfange was an American statesman born December 2, 1899, in Constantinople
(now Istanbul). He was raised in upstate New York. He served in the U.S. Army during World War I and attended Hamilton College, graduating in the class of 1922. He attended Columbia University where he received his law degree and opened a practice in Manhattan. In 1942, Alfange was the American Labor Party candidate for governor of New York and a founder of the Liberal Party of New York. Dean Alfange was also Professor Emeritus at UMass Amherst and a leading figure in various pro-Zionist organizations. Between other actions, in November 1943, he appeared before the House of Representatives and addressed them on the rescue of the Jewish people of Europe. He died in Manhattan at the age of 91 on October 27, 1989.