The Thoughts of Gunnar

My strong guess is that I am down at least 10lbs now.  Today, being the fourth of July, I can assure you, I will eat a few things off of the beaten path for me as of late.  I’m OK with that.  But I am very grateful for the grace, and sense of purpose I have had, to stick with it thus far.  I have a goal in mind, and I have been rather focused on that when temptation has come to go astray in my snacks or meals.

I do find myself really missing some foods with a passion…nachos being the foremost.  (I loooooooove nachos!)  I also find myself craving some certain fruits I am laying off of.  Eventually, I can eat any fruit, but for weight loss purposes, I am limiting myself to mostly berries.  I have ‘cheated’ with fruits a few times, but there is no way I am going to hammer myself for that!

A huge part of the reason I am going after this weight loss is some physical requirements I will have in the future, (and some of which I am experiencing now) that weighing less will be super beneficial for.  For workouts, there is a specific lift I figured out to strengthen my upper back, and while I have been working on it, I know my lower back is not strong enough yet for what will be required of it.  I also just figured out that ‘rowing’ will perhaps be the aerobic exercise that has the most practical benefit for me in the work that will be required.  For that I am thrilled.

See, unlike in the past, I have ZERO motivation to work out just to work out and be generally in good shape.  I want the workouts I do to be as beneficial as possible in a practical way for the kinds of physical activities I will need to be able to perform.  Thus, I am thrilled with my recent workout realizations.  And more thrilled that they don’t require me to run.  (I think running is completely boring.)

So, I have been following the Maker’s Diet now for a month, and in that month, I have worked out twice, and dropped 8 pounds.  While I plan to work out much more, due to adjusting my insulin levels and diet, (I am currently being healed of Type 1 Diabetes) I have backed off of working out for the first part.  I saw my Dr. today, and she gave me some great tips to making the adjustment to working out with all of my variables in play.  (She even gave me a call after I left the office because she remembered another tip…I have never had a Dr. do that before…she was way cool.)

I can tell I have slimmed down just a shade, and overall, my energy is way up.  I have only had a coffee a few times before work, which was a HUGE change for me overall.  I never went to my night job without drilling the caffeine straight into my veins, God bless that perfectly legal drug.

I don’t have another weigh in at the doctors for 2 months, but I hope to lose another 8 to 12 pounds this month.  That would get me into striking range of my goal of 180, which is where I believe I will need to stick around for the next transition in my life and the physical demands of that, which I will get into before too long.

Located in the old library in downtown Hillsboro, diagonally across the street from the courthouse, this place is it.  Period.  I have not seen a Japanese restaurant counterpart in the Portland area, myself that can match this. (It may exist, I just have not met it!) And it is in downtown Hillsboro!

I just ate here again tonight, and I believe it was my eighth time there.  The restaurant has switched the menu around a bit over time, now being a style of Japanese pub that serves up small dishes instead of entrees, with sharing encouraged.  No matter, just as my first visit there up until know, I have not encountered a dish there that is anything less than outstanding.

Of particular note, I am a smoked salmon connoiseur of sorts, and their sashimi plate of salmon is the absolute best, hands down, I can find anywhere .  Incredibly rich and buttery, I could eat about 6 plates of that alone.

The sushi here can match anyone’s, and while they have won awards for it several times from Citisearch, don’t let it distract you from going all out with the fantastic salads, appetizer dishes, and anything else they offer.  And there is no way you can afford to miss desert.  Every one of them, (I know, personally) is worth it.

If you really want to give Syun Izakaya justice, make reservations for 6 to 8, and order most all of the menu to share.

While you can drop some money on the spirits, wine, and saki here, the food is unbelievably priced when compared with the presentation and quality the restaurant offers.  Danielle and I had an wonderful dinner for only $43, which plenty of selection to share.  With 6 to 8 people splitting the bill, you can live large while not dropping too much dough.

As in, yes, apparently, we are having another baby.  This came as a slight bit of a shock to me, and I will leave it at that.  (And yes, I have a fair to middlin’ understanding of the birds and the bees and how that all works.)

It is a pleasant, shock though.  Danielle and I have often felt that if we have a daughter, we will name her Lydia Pearl.  I am trying to run by Danielle the concept of naming a future son we may have Norris Bauer Falk.  We will have to see.  She may not give in on that one.

What is sad to me, and something I want to get free from, was the initial pangs of fear I had when I found out the news, that not only tried to mix in with the happiness, but even take it over, to be honest.  ”How can we afford another baby,” “What about all of these plans we have, and how will we have the time to accomplish them..” etc, etc, etc.

Reflecting in the short time since I have heard the news, I am convinced that not one of those thoughts is from God.  And even though I mess up all the time, I cannot deny He is real to me, and in my life, and He has ALWAYS, ALWAYS, ALWAYS, ALWAYS provided and cared for us.  My responsibility is to remember those times He has come through for us, and trust in the one He has sent.  Period.  In that, I know I can have the excitement that I know He has for this new addition to our family!

Fortunately, Danielle, do to her smarts, and the major, serious help of our friend Carolyn, and her delightful sister Marilyn,…has really started a bit of business activity with Ebay and other stuff, and it has been going well so far.  I don’t just want more pay from my job, (I’ll take it, but I just don’t want that.)  I want to figure out how to leverage some stuff and have business activities of my own going on.  I think having another child VERY DEFINITELY gets me motivated that way, and it is a great thing.  I look forward to the challenges.

I also hope this child is gifted with an incredible mental ability to grasp early potty training.

Looking forward to hitting the scales next Wednesday at my doctor’s appointment, and feeling very confident that my weight will be less than the last time I weighed myself.  I have been able to consistently stick with my new way of eating, from the Maker’s Diet, mentioned in previous blogs, rather well.  Tonight, I went out to eat with Danielle, and went off the beaten path a bit, but we are celebrating, which I will mention later, and I am completely, 100% OK with it.  At times I get a bit tired, but overall, I am extremely energized, especially considering I am laying off the caffeine for the most part as well.  Very glad I am doing what I am doing.  And I can tell I look just a tad bit thinner as well.

So, I just finished my first week of The Maker’s Diet.

I won’t weigh myself until I have a doctors appointment here in a few weeks, but here is my report.

I feel fantastic.  Energy WAAAAAY increased.  I didn’t think I would work out until I had dieted for at least a week, to make sure my bloodsugars were in order, but they have been doing good, and I hit the gym twice.  Only problem is both times, I got a low blood sugar after going to the gym, so I have to watch that.  (Maybe only a diabetic can understand, but, once one’s blood sugar dips, there is NO WAY my body is going to let me ‘push it’ on the bench press, or any exercise, for that matter.

Danielle has been great and made me a few dishes I can enjoy on the diet, but mostly, I am cooking for myself.  I pack my dinner at work, and lay off of the ‘free dinner’ they provide.  That is hard on me, being as that I thrive emotionally off of the ’savings’ a free meal provides.

I cheated just a few times, and for just a few bites.  I did have a few pancakes I shouldn’t have had, but my blood sugar was low, and it had to be dealt with, so I am not going to beat myself up.

Physically, I notice my stomach does not feel like it is ‘pushing out’ as much on me, so to speak.  In fact, it feels as if it has shrank just a wee bit.  I doubt I lost more than a few pounds, but before this, I was gaining about a pound a week for awhile, so just stemming that growth was huge!

I have done a few things like this before, but the severity of it all hit me in a way that has really given me some resolve and resolution with this.  Getting in shape is one thing, but to have the endurance I physically will need for some things, just having 30 lbs less will be super effective, I am sure.

A bit over three years ago, I left Kansas City and moved back to Portland, and left my newfound eating habits I had learned from The Maker’s Diet.  I loved the diet because, I pretty much ate the volume I wanted to off of the list of foods I could eat, and still dropped a ton of weight…well, maybe not a ton, but I was down to 185.

Again, that was over three years ago.  I am strapping it up at 208 as of last Thursday, and three days ago, I decided, that was plenty enough.  I am going back on.

From time to time, I am going to give an update about how the journey is going.  Not that it was not important for me to have done this before, but at this juncture of my life, I honestly believe it is absolutely critical.  Blogging about it, to me, will help me have to get real serious about coming to grips with where I am on the progress meter.  By this fall, I am pretty sure I will need to get down to 180 to do some things I need to do. (An explanation of that will come in forthcoming blogs…lets just say increased physical activity, endurance, and flexibility is in my personal forecast, and I need to get my body prepared for it.)

So far, I have been on the diet two days.  I have decided not to work out for a week or so until I get my insulin set straight with this. (I am currently waiting to be fully cured of Type 1 Diabetes.)  As the diet necessitates, I am spending a fortune on food, as it requires not only organic foods, but also, foods that are ‘off the beaten foodpath’ that cost a lot, such as raw goat milk cheese.  The great news is my first grocery bill just about killed me emotionally, but God is good, and I have a great week at work this week which will help cover it.

The results after day 2?  I don’t have a scale, but my focus has dramatically increased for some reason, as has my energy a bit, and in the first phase of the Maker’s Diet, you are detoxifying yourself, and I can tell that battle is going on.  There are foods I am truly craving right now, but again, that weigh in at 208 REALLY sunk in to me.  A few times in my life, I had approached 200, but this past time, I didn’t just approach it, I soared past it.

So, the battle is on!

Life can be tough.

So, Danielle made some fantastic enchiladas, with some brown sauce on them, and late Sunday, I was eating them out of the cooking dish, just loving it.

Afterwards, I picked up Lincoln, and held him on my chest as we watched a few videos.

A few minutes later, I noticed I must of spilled some enchilada on my shirt, because it was all over the front.  Of course, I had to dip my finger in it because the sauce Danielle made was so good.

Problem was, it wasn’t enchilada sauce on my shirt.  It was Lincoln’s stool.

Fortunately, I had not at this point swallowed.  I could tell the taste was really bad, and I smelled my finger, and it smelled like death.  Oh, I was getting pissy fast.  (Pun intended.)

Again, not having swallowed, I got a paper towl, wiped off my tongue, and immediately began applying liberal doses of antibacterial soap to my tongue.

As a side note, I tasted a bar of soap a few times as a kid, and if you are at that stage of your life, and want to make it easier, beg your mother to use antibacterial soap.  It is better than a bar of soap, at least by my recollection.

I scrubbed my tongue like crazy.  I then prayed to God Almighty that I don’t get hepatitis or anything like that.  

Now, Danielle will verify I avoid crappy diapers in general, although I do step up from time to time to take care of business.  I hate being around crap.  So, this was literally my worst nightmare come true.  Just horrible.

Danielle laughed at it pretty hard, but I have to point out, her enchiladas are very, very good, but it may be a bad sign if one can confuse her enchiladas with human baby feces.  Just a point to consider.  

I guess my lesson learned is if I am going to continue to eat off of my shirt, I need to smell what I am eating first.

In this passage, the Bible says to be DEVOTED to the teaching of the apostles, to fellowship, the breaking of bread together, and to prayer. (And shortly thereafter, the scripture says they gathered together DAILY at their homes.)

Devoted is a really, really strong word.  And so is the word ‘daily,’ in this context.  What I want to get at is, if we are part of groups that really only end up meeting once a week, (or that is all the gatherings we attend,) there is no way, long run, your church experience will suffice as when held to this passage in the new testament.  At least in my practices, I have never been part of a group where gathering only once a week, for even 4 to 5 hours, could possibly suffice for our needs to be devoted to the teachings of the apostles, or to devotion to fellowship, to the breaking of bread, and to prayer.  

I am believing more and more each day we were all meant to be in such an environment.  Sure, it may look different for some than others, and I also respect ’seasons’ of our lives where perhaps one of those four things gets more time than others for a spell.  But at the end of it, I would think it would be well for our lives if we can say, “In my following of Jesus Christ, I was devoted to Him in these four areas.”  Apparently, that plan was sufficient for the church at the very beginning.

I also find it interesting how those devotions were listed immediately after the church SUCCESSFULLY handled growing from 120 to 3120, in one day!  This passage struck me recently, when I was thinking of how many sermons (A LOT!) I have heard about ‘preparing, and being ready for the harvest.  Well, I’d say going from 120 to 3120 a day is a pretty fantastic harvest.  And their ‘program’ (I am using ‘program’ tongue-in-cheek) was again, being devoted in those four areas, amongst some other things listed through verse 44.  The math on that is for every believer that was there at the beginning, 26 new ones were added, IN ONE DAY. 

My prayer for myself today is that I choose to live devotion to Jesus and His wisdom DAILY, and while life has many things that will come my way, I will not stop being devoted to knowing His Word and the teachings of the apostles, I will not stop being devoted to fellowshipping with my brothers and sisters in Christ, that I will break the bread with spiritual (and real) family God has given me, and that I will not stop being devoted to prayer-all on a daily basis.

For the past 10 days, I have restarted a journey I  never  should have left, doing my own little version of The Maker’s Diet.  Already, I cannot describe how much better I feel, and my pants are not quite as suffocatingly tight as they used they were just a week and a half ago!  (And when you learn how most clothes are actually made, you don’t want to be getting new clothes just because you are gaining weight!  Trust me!)

The ways I cheat the diet are that I like popcorn, so I eat popcorn.  And occasionally, I have had a few organic tortilla chips.  Due to type 1 diabetes, I have occasionally had to have one of my previously blogged about FruitStix every now and then when my blood sugar level has dipped low do to this lifestyle adjustment.

At 33 years old, I will not even hold the notion for a second that I want to get the 6 pack abs, bench press 300lbs, or anything like that.  But, I do want to have my body mass index be acceptable, and not have my belly lurching beyond the top of my pants.  To reach that goal, that will take a bit of improvement over where I am at.  But I am desiring to be healthy for the sake of my family and to fulfill God’s purposes in my life.