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Down 100 Pounds
A Sustainable Approach to Losing Weight That Actually Lasts
Now, I am at 178 and feel like I was given a second lease on life. I am not here to pat myself on the back, though. I would just like to share some sustainable changes I made that had a huge impact on my weight loss and, by extension, my life.
Image via giphy Stay hydrated
If you can, have plenty of water and ice on hand.
I drink a minimum of 12 glasses of water each day. It keeps me hydrated, feeling good, and feeling full. When we are dehydrated, our bodies confuse hunger and thirst, and we eat more. So, drinking enough water can check off a number of boxes right there.
Tip: If you are not a water drinker, filtered water and ice help. Start your day out with a glass of ice water and refill it whenever it gets low. It will quickly become routine.
Do not give up the things you love
Do you love pizza, wings, and fries? Me too! I eat them every week. Just be reasonable about it.
Unless you have a medical reason to use substitutions like cauliflower pizza crust, I do not have a compelling argument why you should.
If you love pizza and think cauliflower crust is the answer then you’re not going to feel that same sense of satiation as you may have. So, just eat pizza and wings, but be reasonable. Eating half a large pizza is never a good idea.
Tip: Pick a number and stick with it. I allot two slices of pizza, three wings, and a cup of fries when we order out. When you know what you will eat in advance, it is easier to adjust your meals accordingly during the day. It is also easier to keep track of what you have eaten if it remains consistent each time.
“Weight loss is not linear and not constant — and that’s okay.”
Do give up (a lot of) the things you should hate
Ultra-processed and processed foods are pure garbage and should be avoided. To me, some of those things were obvious, like chips and white bread. Other items, like many cereals, granola bars, and pre-sliced deli turkey, were not. Those, of course, happened to be the foods I would eat as substitutes whenever I tried dieting before. Whoops.
We all know, but perhaps pretend not to recognize, how addictive sugar can be. So, it can be tough to cut out something like soda, but it is well worth the effort in the long run. I have not had soda, Doritos, or any other junky snack in a long time and I do not miss them at all. Next to drinking water, no longer drinking soda has probably been the biggest help to me.
Tip: There are a ton of sparkling water options on the market these days. My family’s favorite is Sparkling Ice.
Start the day off right
I never ate breakfast before. Given the option to eat breakfast or sleep for another 15 minutes, I chose sleep 10-out-of-10 times. I still love sleep, but having breakfast every day has helped more than I ever thought it would. Although I mix it up, my breakfast generally consists of a Chobani Strawberry Banana yogurt drink, a banana, and a cold glass of water.
Tip: There are plenty of portable breakfast options, like a banana and a yogurt drink. You can eat it at your desk, in your car, or as you are walking down the hall; just avoid rushing. Take your time to eat and drink so you can enjoy the meal and control your appetite.
Data is your friend
I wear an Apple Watch but am not a runner. I also subscribe to Noom but do not diet. These tools, along with Apple’s Health app and my hospital’s portal app, all integrate to provide helpful insights — like how many steps I walked or how much I slept. Noom, to me, is like a to do list, serving as a prompt to eat and drink. It also provides me with upfront knowledge of the predefined value of a certain food, and a record of how many calories I have consumed.
Tip: Getting into the habit of using this is very helpful in the beginning. As time goes on, you can make more informed decisions without needing to consult their database.
Diets and cheat days are not real
To use an extreme example, if you were a recovering heroin addict, you would not have a “cheat day” where you would shoot up, right? You also would not use a fleeting term like “dieting” to mean you have made a positive change in your life. What you are doing is big, important, beneficial, and permanent. Celebrate that for what it is.
Tip: It does not matter if you lost one pound or 100 pounds, you should be proud of yourself — but do not use it as a way to contextualize “cheating.”
Image v Weight ain’t nothin’ but a number
I had — and still have — a target weight. I am pretty close to it, which is exciting, but not that important. Weight loss is not linear and not constant. You may weigh yourself at the same time on three consecutive mornings after eating and doing roughly the same things and still have totally different weights; that is okay. It is okay if I never hit my goal, and it is also okay if I continue to go past it (within reason, of course). If you set a goal, once you cross the finish line, you may feel like the race is over, which could cause backsliding.
Tip: You need to prepare for this in advance. Get yourself in the right mindset and know it is okay to gain weight along the way. If you do not, it will be a lot harder to accept when it happens — because it will happen.
Make sustainable meal changes easy
I constantly fall in the trap of either not having enough ingredients to make a dish, or not having the time to make it. Now, I have some safeguards in place. Instead of filling up the fridge with proteins, fruits, and vegetables that may go bad before I use them, I go to local businesses that offer their house-made meals that can be refrigerated or frozen. It is just as easy to throw one of these meals in the oven as it is a frozen pizza, but it tastes so much better. In many instances, it is also cheaper to get a gourmet-ish meal than it is to order from your local pizzeria too.
Tip: If you have an Italian specialty market nearby, you may find a wide variety of premade meals. These days, many offer a family meal at least once a week that may come hot, or ready to just throw in the oven.
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Is Quiche the best iOS browser yet?
A design-forward iOS browser built by a former Google UX engineer that just gets it right
As someone who is moving away from certain applications and services, I went through a lengthy browser search. The criteria were simple: it had to work well, be fast, look good, and be modular. From Arc to Zen, nothing checked all of the boxes for me, and Quiche did not seem like a good option at first, as there were neither tablet nor desktop versions yet.
I was wrong. It is, indeed, worth it.
When we consider browser customization options, we typically think of themes and extensions. Quiche reinvents what a browser can do. The options are seemingly endless, including a gallery of toolbar designs, nearly 50 app icons, button styles, and multiple layouts for tab views. It Is smart enough to intelligently define how actions trigger specific responses, pause background tabs, spoof user agents, and provide adaptive colors schemes that change with the theme of the active website.
Quiche is not just another iOS browser; it is a thoughtfully designed five-star experience
Quiche is a gorgeous design-forward secure browser that simply works. It is both minimalist in feel and powerful in function. It does what Safari has failed to do, and Steve Jobs likely would have loved the browser. With an iPadOS version in the works, it takes another step closer to becoming a full-scale replacement.
Quiche is not just another iOS browser; it is a thoughtfully designed five-star experience created by former Google UX Engineer, Gregory de J. Gregory was also part of the teams behind the iA writing app, Beam, and Appier. The browser is available through the App Store, actively supported, and worth watching as it expands to other platforms.
Have you tried Quiche? Let me know what you think in the comments below!
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My wife’s approach to cancer teaches me to be a better person
Over the 22 years of our relationship, my wife’s dedication as an oncology nurse — often working exhausting overnight shifts — has not only defined her professional life but has deeply influenced our family dynamics and personal interactions.
Her schedule was erratic, switching between 7 p.m. — 7 a.m. work shifts, and trying to stay up to be with us on her days off. When we had kids, she voluntarily chose to go without sleep for days to do everything she could for our children.
The work she did was incredibly challenging. As an oncology nurse working with a long-term patient population, she saw death all the time, and people at their absolute lowest. In addition to her actual responsibilities, she went out of her way to provide comfort in her patients’ last moments, and support for their families.
Her dedication and hard work pushed her forward to help others at every opportunity. I had no frame of reference to gauge whether the effort she put in was normal or extraordinary, but I got a better idea when she began garnering recognition and winning awards for her work.
A couple of years ago, she transitioned to a daytime role, which marked a significant shift; she brought home not just her presence but a newfound energy that infused our evenings with laughter and warmth, revealing sides of her I am still discovering. I was and still continue to be so happy that we get to spend our nights together, eat dinner as a family, and enjoy our time with one another.
When she switched to day shift, I met a new person. The woman who understandably struggled to stay awake through the evening was suddenly vivacious, humorous (don’t tell her I admitted that), and ready to take on the world.
This surge in vitality not only rejuvenated our family life but also expanded her social circle even further, attracting everyone with her charismatic and caring nature. I love it. I love her. I love continuing to get to know this new person I have known since the last millennium.
I have yet to meet a person who doesn’t love her or enjoy getting to know her. Her circle is vast.
For context, I am not a social being. I am riddled with anxiety and quite prone to depression. I do not go out of my way to make friends, and am more likely to bail on plans than to show up. It’s not that I don’t want to be social, it’s just that I struggle. A lot.
My wife, as you can imagine, is the opposite. She will go out with five strangers and, somehow, leave with six new friends. It blows my mind.
Despite her vibrant social interactions and indefatigable spirit, life threw us a curveball recently when she was diagnosed with triple-negative breast cancer, as well as an unrelated benign brain tumor and spinal tumors. It has forced her to consciously slow down a little bit, but has not changed who she is as a person at all.
After a whirlwind trip to see Adele in Las Vegas — which was canceled — she came home, took a brief nap, and then went in for a brain scan. They admitted her that night and she promptly had surgery to remove the tumor.
She had one primary concern about herself, and she brought it up to her surgeon.
“Am I still going to be funny?”
The surgeon confirmed that she would.
The second she woke up from surgery, she asked if the kids got to school ok and if our daughter got to her doctor’s appointment. After telling her they did, she had one more question.
“Is the anesthesiologist ok? He looked sad. I want to make sure he’s ok.”
The doctors and nurses did not know, but they were doubled over in laughter as she spoke. Thankfully, she was still funny.
As word of her surgery spread, the community’s response was immediate and overwhelming, mirroring the support she has always extended to others. Her sister drove down from New England as soon as she heard. A friend flew in from Texas, another started a GoFundMe, and another a Meal Train. Friends organized as groups to provide all sorts of help, ranging from rides to financial guidance. The gifts kept coming; clothes, books, candy, and anything else you can imagine.
So many words of kindness that came her way echoed the same sentiment: She puts so much good out into the world, and now it was coming back to her — and it came in droves.
Later, when we were alone, she teared up, feeling guilty that people were doing this, and that she hadn’t done anything to deserve it, as if it were a favor people would repay someday.
That is just who she is.
As she began her chemotherapy treatments, the influx of visitors continued, each person eager to offer the same warmth and support she has always provided. No matter who shows up, she focuses the conversation on them. If one visitor just had a birthday, and another has a kid who is struggling in school, she knows about it and asks about it.
While the chemo drug, Taxol, typically makes people nauseous, she is a radiant beam of light, smiling from ear to ear — where her headband scar starts and ends — and fully invested in her guests.
Her indomitable approach to what she merely considers an ‘annoyance’ rather than a sickness teaches me daily about resilience, underscoring every lesson in how to truly be a better person. This really stuck out to me. It is not in my nature to think that way, but those words are beginning to have a profound impact.
I considered our differences to be counterbalances that kept everything in check, but now I find myself trying to make my mindset more like hers. I think we could all benefit from her philosophies:
Be kind and loving. Be altruistic. Be minimalistic. Be funny and laugh freely. Be a little bit of a hippie. Care selflessly and truly about others. Don’t let life get in the way of living. Go Phillies.
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On Italian Cuisine in America
To define Italian cuisine in America, we must first look at the history of Italy itself and distinguish it from its Italian-American counterpart
The waters of the Po river filled the brine wells of Salsomaggiore Terme. The wells were mined as a source of salt for the Emilia-Romagna region of Italy. The common ingredient found in all of our pantries was pivotal to the development of the delicacies from the region we still love to eat today.
In the 13th century, Benedictine and Cistercian monks were looking for a way to preserve cheese. Using the salt of Salsomaggiore, which contained high concentration of iodine and bromine that were crucial in the process of preserving food, and the milk from local cows, they created a cheese in large wheels that aged spectacularly.
The lore of the cheese grew to the surrounding regions over the following centuries and the growth in production and sales followed suit. The process became industrialized and made more efficient. As happens with all great foods, it also became widely forged.
To protect the authenticity of the cheese, The Duke of Parma, Ranuccio I Farnese, created the Protected Denomination of Origin (PDO, or DOP in Italian) in 1612 to ensure the authenticity of this cheese we now know as, Parmigiano-Reggiano, The King of Cheese.
In this same region, select breeds of pigs, such as Duroc, were selected for their meaty thighs to be cured using the Salsomaggiore salt in one of the first and most essential steps of creating Prosciutto di Parma. The roots of the process itself can be traced back over two-thousand years, when preserved pork legs from the Po valley were being traded with Greece.
Think about that for a second. The origin of prosciutto is as old as Jesus.
So, why does that matter?
It’s simple, really. Italy was unified as a nation in the 1850s and became a Republic in 1946. Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese is over 600 years older than Italy. Prosciutto is even older. Italian food is older than Italy. That means Italian cuisine is not national, it is regional.
Let’s localize that for a second. What is American cuisine? Depending upon in which part of the country you may live, you may consider it to be barbecue, gumbo, burgers, or even pizza.
We use the expression, “as American as apple pie” but apples are not native to America and apple pie was created in England. We coopted it and made it ours.
The same happened with Italian cuisine. When Italians emigrated to the United States, they had access to affordable meat for the first time. From that, Italian-American cuisine was born. It (d)evolved over the years and became the ubiquitous red sauce and meatball dishes that surround us today.
Italian-American cuisine is a product of the region, in the same way that Italian cuisine is defined by its regions. They are wholly distinct from one another.
The dishes of Emilia-Romagna differ greatly from those of Lazio which differ greatly from those of Sardinia. Thankfully, all of them differ from chicken parm.
In the four years since opening my first food business, my perception of Italian cuisine has continuously changed. At first, I stuck with what I knew, the comforting foods of Abruzzo, which cookbook author, Anna Teresa Callen, deemed to be Italy’s pastoral land. These were not the dishes I cooked or served in restaurants, but they were the dishes I grew up eating.
I gathered the recipes that belonged to my mom and my Nonna and began making the dishes they made for me as a child. The more I cooked, the more of a pattern I noticed. The recipes focused on a handful of fresh, local ingredients where each complemented the next.
That, at its core, is what we can call Italian cuisine: treating fresh ingredients with the respect they deserve. That philosophy, not a specific dish or ingredient, is what unifies the regions of Italy as one cuisine.
This is the same approach we must take in America to create Italian cuisine. We must respect the ingredients, using what is fresh and local to us. We must make the most of what we have, regardless of whether or not it grows in Italy.
We can make great use of tomatoes and cucumbers in New Jersey, mimicking the vegetables that grow in Italy but we can also use cranberries and sweet corn and treat them with the same regard.
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piebald
we are the only friends we have
‘If the name Piebald means anything at all to you, you know that it is rare for the band to put out any substandard songs. There latest offering, “We are the Only Friends We Have” does not stray from that norm.
If the name does not mean anything to you, then this might just be a record that would be worthy to be a part of any collection. Piebald is a band of wonderful geeks from Massachusetts. Armed with an undying wit and a penchant for arena rock, they continually fine-tune their formula in the quest for musical supremacy. The only obstacle holding the band back from ruling the underground rock world would be Travis Shettel’s voice. It’s hit or miss with the audience, a reason to either love or hate the band.
With each passing album, Travis’s voice has progressively gotten stronger. Unfortunately, the ware and tear of the road and recording cause a bit too much of a strain on Travis’s voice. He recently underwent surgery on his throat.
Piebald is a band paying constant homage to their personal rock gods of Van Halen. “We are the Only Friends We Have” fits in line with the band’s catalogue. It is packed with loud guitars that scream their solos (“Fear and Loathing on Cape Cod) and run the length of marathon octaves (“Long Nights”). It is rock with an indie background, somewhat similar to Saves the Day, The Getup Kids, and A Newfound Glory, but it does so much more too.
This album expands upon their typical formula to include small horn parts and even a chorus of singing school children.
Piebald songs usually hit one of two extremes. Either they touch on issues affecting social consciousness and justice (“American Hearts,” “The Monkey versus the Robot”) or they are downright clever and humorous (“Sex Sells and (Unfortunately) I’m Buying,” or their first full length album “If it wasn’t for Venetian Blinds It Would Be Curtains for Us All”). No matter which angle the band takes, though, they do it well.
Overall, this is one of their best productions to date. It is well written and well produced. The only low point is the first song, “King of the World” which sounds too much like one of their earlier songs, “The Rock Revolution Will Not be Televised.” Actually, this album contains the song “American Hearts” which was originally released on “The Rock Revolution.”
The best tracks on this album are “Just a Simple Plan,” “The Monkey versus the Robot,” and “Look, I Just Don’t Like You.”
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Vaux
The real deal
‘Vaux must be exhausted. This past year was extremely busy for them, and 2004 does not seem to be any different. Within the past 12 months, they played the Warped Tour, the South By Southwest music conference, and recorded a new full-length, the much-touted “There Must Be Some Way To Stop Them.”
They are stopping briefly home in Denver off their long, recent tour with Coheed & Cambria. Still, they show no signs of weariness. They recently left their independent California-based label Volcom behind to sign to Atlantic. Bigger bands need bigger britches.
What’s not to be said about this band? They’re a local band and deserving of local support – but that’s an excuse that should be passed on to bands of lesser caliber. This is melodic hardcore at its best. They’re loud, aggressive and tough as nails. You should see this band because their “must-see” label is absolutely authentic.
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my chemical romance
i brought you my bullets, you brought me your love
‘Ever wonder what a cross between Guns N? Roses, At the Drive-In, and an overdose of Scorsese movies would produce?
Whatever it sounds like, My Chemical Romance?s healthy dose of screaming vocals, religious and mafia references, and New Jersey attitudes cannot be to far off from the answer.
Gerard Way may not be the most intellectual of lyricists (?Can you take this spike. Will it wash away this jet black feeling.?) and bassist Mikey Way may have broken the first commandment of rock by wearing his own band?s t-shirt in concert but these things can be overlooked. So can obsessively over-recurring themes of death, bullets, ?the patron saint of switchblade fights.?
Seriously, Gerard, you might want to go see a psychiatrist.
It is easy to look passed these things because, plain and simple; My Chemical Romance rocks harder than any new band has in years. To go out on a limb here, they may be the next ATDI. The afros are probably incidental, though.
The typical drum/bass/guitar instrumentation has a sense of purpose behind it, in addition to the enormous amount of energy put out in both the harder and softer parts.
His screams sound more like a pissed-off shrieking rant than melodically structured bawls at times, but Gerard?s voice has a very endearing quality about him. It fits well into his pretty-boy, leather-jacket-clad persona and brings the sounds of MCR to a much higher and more reputable level.
?I Brought You My Bullets may have you thinking of a younger Ray Liota confessing, ?As far back as I can remember, I wanted to be in the mafia.? It gives the record a concept album feel: the music Frank Sinatra may have made if he was alive and in a punk band today.
Although the angle is barely noticeable, the songs on the album progress downward in a fairly linear fashion. The last songs are not all that much worse than the first, but the first half of the album is, without a doubt, stronger than the second.
?Honey, This Mirror Isn?t Big Enough for the Two of Us,? ?Vampires Will Never Hurt You,? and ?Headfirst for Halos,? the mandatory east coast song against suicide, are the best tracks on the album.
The strongest points of MCR are the constants that run through every song: the band?s character, attitude, stage presence in concert, and their virility.
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Rosie Thomas
Songstress is all heart
‘It takes no longer than a moment to realize Rosie Thomas’ altruistic qualities. Her demeanor is relentlessly upbeat, her disposition sunny and her outlook positive. Her instant charm and willing openness creates the persona of a mythical girl-next-door – the person who is often overlooked but, once noticed, becomes the absolute be-all and end-all.
Her values stick close to these characteristics. She’s admittedly aware of her fears but refuses to be defeated by them. She’s bright and funny, but open about her heartaches. She’s both the person whom you want to rely upon for matters of the utmost gravity, and also the person you can count on to make you laugh.
Thomas is a self-proclaimed entertainer, recoiling from the label of musician. Her songs are public radio-friendly tunes built on standard folk progressions with despondent lyrics that are still outlined by the silhouette of hope.
She is built upon contradictions. At one moment, she is Rosie, the mild-mannered girl who loves her family and beams with beauty. At the next, she is Sheila, a walking calamity. Her glasses are geek-ish and awkward; a brace adorns her neck. Sheila has not quite mastered the obvious and always knows the wrong thing to say. Sheila is the yin to Rosie’s yang, her comic relief.rnSound
schizophrenic? It’s not that Thomas is speaking out of both sides of her mouth at once. It’s just that she has the parts of a comedian pre-wired into her. At some shows, she appears on stage in entire Sheila, the Gilda Radner-reminiscent wreck of a pizza-delivery girl, garb. As this alter-ego, she plays a few songs and makes a few jokes. Then, she may just leave unannounced and return as Rosie. One never mentions a word about the other.
“Sheila is very spontaneous,” said Rosie Thomas. “I never know when she is going to show up. I carry her costume with me in a bag and just put it on at the last minute.”
Her path to both music and comedy may have been charted long before her first show or first record. It may have even begun before she was born. It may have begun with her father, a musician and one of the main inspirations in her life. He bought her first guitar – at Rosie’s request – and taught her how to play. Their relationship was founded on expressing and sharing these creative abilities.rn”My
dad was in a band in Detroit and they put out a few vinyl records,” she said. “As a musician his main source of income was playing music. When my parents got married, they played as duos in restaurants together. They are both very talented.”
When she was first booked to play shows, she did not have enough songs for an entire set. So, her father agreed to join her on stage. They took turns playing their songs as well as playing a few together.
“He’s awesome,” she said. “He’s 62 but he’s like a big kid. He’ll call me at 3 a.m. all excited to tell me he figured out a new finger-picking pattern, or how to play a new Simon and Garfunkel song. I love him.”
Thomas says that she grew up on her father’s record collection, which was heavily packed with Detroit soul music and folk artists like Bob Dylan. Most of these musicians she came to appreciate as her father explained their “purposes.” For instance, he taught her to look past Dylan’s voice and to focus on the story he told. It completely altered her take on music.
Of course, not all of those records struck a chord with her. She admits that there are some artists, like Hall and Oates, which she just could not accept. They were just too funny – in a bad way.
While already an aspiring musician, she chose to focus on the “funny” first. As a result, her career did not start in music. It started with her childhood dream, in comedy. During her short-lived standup years, she scored a handful of opening acts for notable comedians, including Mitch Hedberg. It was during her experience with comedy that Sheila was born.
“I grew up thinking the funny girls were all ugly and loud and nobody liked them,” she said. “I don’t think I fit that role but it is part of me and I wanted to give people both parts of myself. I need to have hope in my life but I can also be a disaster deep down. So, I decided I needed to come out on stage as a completely different person than what I show people. I needed to show Sheila.”
During Sheila’s set, she plays tragic ’80s songs that can be described as nothing but “terrible.” Although it has yet to make it onto Sheila’s playlist, she promises that Hall and Oates’ “Maneater” will soon be there.
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r.e.m.
in time
‘The first question any true R.E.M. fans should ask him- or herself is: “How can you create a best-of record when it does not include the group’s best material, the pre-WB years?”
Easy, you slap a timeframe and “Losing My Religion” in the mix and don’t look back. Besides, if you want a more accurate best-of, you probably already own “Eponymous,” which does a much better job at staying true to its name.
“In Time” sort of picks up were that record left off. It focuses on the band’s more recent material, including two new songs that show that R.E.M. still has the potential to do what they do best – write safe music under the guise of being edgy.
Owners of this album will find that the selections made for this compilation are the radio-friendly singles, most of which the band has played and continues to play on tour. It’s not the band’s “best” material but it is bound to appease any listener. This is the collection that draws heavily upon the “Man on the Moon” and “Everybody Hurts” sects of the R.E.M. archives. Still, the archives are vast, which makes the ability to guess what tracks the band considers to be at the top of their lists nearly as difficult as deciphering Stipe’s lyrics.
Of course, a greatest-hits album that does not include the pre-WB material is still a worthy record. The fact of the matter is that the creative spark does tend to dim after such an extensive career.
At both their age and with their wealth, they have no need to continue writing music or touring. Yet, they still do so. Also, over their career that spanned two-plus decades, this is only the second time the band has attempted to release a greatest-hits record, both of which were only single discs. (“Eponymous” features tracks from their I.R.S. years.) These are signs of their dedication to their craft.
This is a good road-trip record, something to take for long drives and potential sing-alongs. It’s somewhere above ambient but below art, missing the points marks where R.E.M. showed off either their experimental side or shed light on their fun, drunken nights in the studio. It is neither their most dense nor their most complex material. Rather, it is their most agreeable.
