All in all I didn't have a terrible day on the eating front yesterday but since I didn't record almost half of what I ate and I didn't stick by my new plan of only eating 75% of what I'm putting in front of me, I simple can't give myself credit for Day Six of my quest for my #7daychip. Bummer! Also I gained 2 pounds this week, no doubt caused by not exercising and having a ton of salty sunflower seeds yesterday. My plan for this upcoming week is to take a new angle at the #7daychip, this time I'm going to focus on exercise rather than eating. We'll see how it goes.

In the meanwhile, as I have done before, I wanted to highlight some of the great food pics that have caught my eye this week. Here are some of my favorite pictures from the past week by other bloggers.

I love me a sexy mise en place and this one by Beth from Beth's Journey does it for me. I also love the fact she took the time to organize it and arrange on a clean cutting board just for the photo. Neat little piles of green pepper, red onion, Italian parsley, English cucumber, tomato, and spinach chiffonade. Awesome.

Nicole from Prevention RD always takes such gorgeous food pictures and any woman who puts an avocado in her website header is alright by me. This week the photo of hers that caught my eye was a salmon patty made from canned salmon. But the part I liked the best was her quick tip on the topping – a light mayo with dijon mustard and capers. I always have a jar of capers in my fridge but other than chicken piccata I haven't found many uses for them. This would have made a good addition to my omelet this morning (see below) if I had been thinking.

I was attracted to this picture of a mini pizza by Marisa from Loser for Life because of exactly how mini it really was (that's one small pizza!) and because of how minimalist her dinner was with just that pizza a some orange slices. I have to to learn to do this – you can always eat more later if you are hungry, right?

Of course it can always be grilling season no matter where you live, but here in Minnesota my grill tends to stay packed up until we get all the lounge furniture setup around the pool. Our pool is closed and the furniture is still under wraps. Highs this week were in the 40s with rain. Ugh. Maybe next week will be better and once the grill comes out I plan to do a lot of cooking like grilled fruit and vegetable kabobs like these by Suzi from Spunkysuzi working towards a healthier me. Add a little turkey sausage and corn on the cob and you have a beautiful plate of food that seems like it would be pretty good for you as long as you can minimize the oil used in the cooking and the butter sometimes slathered on later.

This bright bowl of blueberries and strawberries by Biz from My Bizzy Kitchen eventually made it's way into a cooked cobbler, but I like it just the way it is – this is a combination I'll eat occasionally because I like how it looks and how it tastes. Throw on a dollop of something white and you have a great 4th of July dessert.

Beth from Beth's Journey get's a two-fer today as this bowl of edamame caught my eye. Like her, this is one of my favorite appetizers to get when eating Japanese. I love edamame! For the uninitiated these are young soybeans still in their pods. I tried once to make at home but had a bad experience as I could tell the soybeans were fermented, which fortunately I was able to tell right away as I pulled from the package and not as I was trying to eat them!

OK, so this one is from John of John is Fit. Wait, that's me! Yeah, I just really liked this dish and picture and decided to include it since I don't plan to include in another post here today. Best part about having salmon for dinner is having leftover salmon to put in an omelet in the morning. Included a little cook sliced lemon, a sliced avocado, an English muffin half and a little sprig of dill as a garnish. I know the foodies among you hate garnishes you can't eat but what can I say, I learned how to cook at Denny's. Tasted great although you really needed to include a bite of avocado with each bite of salmon and egg since it was the only fat I had in the dish. Really wish I had remembered to try Nicole's capered mayo. Overall, great way to start Easter.

One thing that jumped out at me as I compare my photo with the other photos that inspired me this week – there is so much more food on mine. Clearly, portion size is one of my problems. I easily could have gone with half an avocado and a 2-egg omelet instead of a 3-egg. Half as much salmon too.

I'm learning.

Do food pictures inspire you? Have you changed any eating behavior because of what you have seen on someone's blog?

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Post from: John Is Fit - Personal Weight Loss Blog

More Great Food Pictures of the Week

Rut city, baby. How best to get out of it? Check out what people better than I are doing. And eating.

Here are some of my favorite pictures from the past week by other bloggers.

Check out the healthy market basket from David of Keep It Up, David. Lack of shopping has been one of my problems lately – I love to stock up like this (I'll usually add things like fennel, radishes and kohlrabi that I don't see here) because I've found that when I do it, and especially when I prep the food quickly, that I'm much more likely to eat well. Things I see here that I've never eaten: yellow carrots.

Maybe my problem is the lack of cute little animals in my pics? Seems to do the trick for Roz of Weighting for 50s. I love this morning snack of fresh fruit – this is a mix that I frequently purchase when I go shopping – pineapple, strawberries, blackberries and blueberries. Makes me healthy just thinking about it.

I love the closeup shot on this simple sandwich wrap by Marisa from Loser for Life. I could have chosen her picture of asparagus soup too – nice and green! I'll bet the wasabi mustard she used tasted great. One thing I noticed about her wrap was there doesn't seem to be much lettuce – I tend to really stuff mine, but the result is it doesn't look as nice in the photo.

Another nice selection of produce, this time from Beth from Beth's Journey. I can't decide which layout I like better for taking photos, this one or David's. But like David, she is buying many of the same produce I do – with the exception of the grapefruits and the plantain. Looks like she did a wrap with the plantain, very unique.

Well here is the problem with putting the pictures together one day and writing about them the next – I've managed to lose track of who posted this great picture of what I think is a stuffed chicken breast. Could be a pork chop too. Looks like it's stuffed with a relish of some sort – yummy. Did you take this picture? Let me know!

I love this sandwich picture by Biz from My Bizzy Kitchen because it's so different from the egg sandwich I might normally have. I don't even know what schiacciata is, but it looks good. And corned beef on an egg sandwich? Never would thought of that. I love corned beef but don't usually have it at home. Also, I'm trying to figure out how she staged that picture – looks the she has the table cloth pulled up against something in the back? Nice idea for a background.

This is Cranberry Couscous by Erin (my daughter's name, whoop whoop) from A Girl & Her Mutt. Cool picture and taken of something I'm pretty sure I have never made before. Maybe I made a box mix once, but if I did it wasn't good and it didn't look as good as this. I pretty much can't identify anything but the grain and the cranberries though – what's all that other stuff? Pepitas maybe?

Love this simple plate of food by Anne-Marie from This Mama Cooks. I'm going to go out right now and find some plates like that to put on my Amazon wish list. Looks great for portion control. And nice pictures. I have to say though, the last time I made a side dish with beets, beet stalks and beet greens I peed beet red for a couple of days. Fun times.

Times are tough but I'd sure like them not to be. I have to figure out how to get back in the groove yet again, and this has helped. I'll be away on business for a couple of days but I'll get the chance to do some shopping – I'm seeing lots of fruit and veg in my future.

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Post from: John Is Fit - Personal Weight Loss Blog

Great Food Pics of the Week

Since my sleep pattern isn't yet back to normal I thought I would spend some early morning hours going through my Google Reader and finding some other weight loss blogs, fitness blogs, etc that I should be following more than I have been. I feel like I am on this constant hunt for inspiration and one way to get that is to engage with some new bloggers.

I subscribe to a lot of sites in Google Reader, far more than I can ever keep up with. I've got one group of websites that are also sites I have added to my blogroll and another group of websites in a "watch" list that I have found interesting, or have commented on my site but I have not yet added them to my website.

Because I was really busy before leaving for vacation and didn't do much online reading during vacation I have a nice archive of posts from the last month or so built up and I figured what I would do is check out the top 10-12 websites in my "watch" folder as based solely on number of posts. It's not a great metric to use, but it was an easy one so that's what I went with. As it happens, I think it was actually a good metric to choose because everyone that was posting a lot was actively engaged with their journey and that's what I need to see.

So here are some of the blogs I have added to my blogroll and who have graduated from the "watch" folder:

• The Balanced Foodie – The tagline of Katy's site is "Balancing Health, Wellness, and Great Food" and her posts reflect that. She has a natural, friendly writing style and takes a lot of great photographs of the food she eats. And she has the same green bowls that I do!
• Fatman Getting Skinny – The tagline of John's site is "The Weight Loss Journal of John Parkins. Losing 100 pounds in 2010." John and I have a lot in common other than our first names – he's got a couple of kids my age and he likes poker and pizza. Most of his posts are videos and pictures. Love his sidebar image with his belly goalline!
• Jack Sh*t, Gettin' Fit – The tagline of Jack's site is "If you think losing weight is impossible, you don't know Jack Sh*t." I honestly don't know why I hadn't added Jack a long time ago because I have read him for a long time, this one was an oversight that I am now correcting. You probably already read Jack too. If you don't, prepare to read some some honest and creative writing from a guy who has had great success on his weight loss journey.
• The Daily Diary of a Winning Loser – Sean has this super long tagline that I'll let you read, but he's a former 505 pound man on a mission to lose nearly 300 pounds, and right now he's lost almost half his starting body weight. Freaking amazing. He writes every day and he writes a lot. Really like when he reflects back on his journey.
• Kat's Adventures in Dietland – The tagline of Kat's site is "Weeding through the hype to find the help and the hope" which is surely something a lot of us can relate to. Love her honest writing and she does a lot of giveaways which I really should start entering.
• Log My Loss – The tagline of "South Beach" Steve's site is "This isn't a diet, it is your life!" Steve has had some great success and has some great insights that he shares. On every post he writes "Don't just lurk here, drop a comment!" and I've been terrible at doing that. I'll try more now that I have you blogrolled Steve!
• Health for the Whole Self – The tagline of Katie's site is "A Journey Toward Balance for Body, Mind, and Spirit." The reason I like Katie's site is that she eats really healthy and takes great photos of her food, really sets a good example for someone trying to do the same.
• Two Lives, One Lifestyle – The Two Lives are those of authors Katie and Kelli who take a lot of great pictures of their food, which I think is why I first started reading their site. I've stayed because they are also entertaining and set good eating examples.
• JAG's Diet & Fitness Blog – The tagline of JAG's site is "Obsessed is a word used by the lazy to describe the dedicated" which is an awesome line. She's had great weight loss success and continues to excel at writing about her journey and taking a lot of pictures along the way.

Go check them out, maybe you'll find some inspiration too.

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Post from: John Is Fit - Personal Weight Loss Blog

Exploring Some Other Blogs

I'm pleased to be taking part in a virtual blog tour being conducted by Jennette Fulda, author of Half-Assed: A Weight-Loss Memoir. You may know her as PastaQueen. For those of you who have been living in a cave (or a pantry closet?) Jennette has an amazing and touching story to tell, having lost half her body weight while finding strength and determination.

The virtual blog tour allows readers that may not otherwise know about Jennette to learn more about her, and the book that may become an inspiration to them. Through reviews, Q & A's, video posts about the book, and guest posts on various blogs, the word gets out about Jennette and Half-Assed, on six different blogs, for six consecutive days.

This is Day Four and for my part I am reviewing her book and offering a copy as a giveaway to one lucky reader (U.S. only, sorry Andrew!). See the end of this post for the simple way to win.

The Backstory

Jennette, or PastaQueen as I knew her online, was my inspiration for starting this weight loss blog back in August of 2007. Here is the comment I wrote on her blog on August 2nd, 2007 – the day after I first posted here:

PastaQueen,

I just wanted to let you know that you have inspired me to make changes in my own life. I can only hope to be half as successful as you.

Thank you

I'm pleased to see that my past self did not brag "first!" as that would have been embarrassing to look at years later – although my sugar-sweet tone isn't much better.

Considering that Jennette is one of my favorite weight loss bloggers and that she was actually the very first person on my blogroll, you would have thought I had already bought and read the book prior to this virtual blog tour. The reason why I did not is the reason I want to write this review – I thought it would be a rehash of everything I had read for free on her blog. And I want you to know that it isn't.

The Review

Sporting a terrific cover featuring the author standing in one pant leg of her old slacks, Half-Assed: A Weight-Loss Memoir tells the story of Jennette Fulda as she journeys from worrying about almost weighing 400 pounds to being happy and comfortable in the world in a body literally half it's former size.

With the proliferation of self-publishing tools such as Blurb that allow blog authors to easily craft whole books out of recycled blog posts it would be natural to conclude that this book had followed the same course but that is not the case. Half-Assed follows much of the same path as her blog but it complements it rather than repeats it. It fills in gaps, adds color and follows different story lines that even devoted readers of her blog will find new and entertaining.

I loved Half-Assed for the same reason I love her blog and any other blog penned by a funny, honest and sincere weight loss blogger – the stories resonate with my own experiences.

Jennette failed at writing a daily food journal just like I have. When she writes about not being allowed to comment on a fat acceptance blog because she was a weight loss blogger I remember hitting the very same wall. She was blogging for nine months before telling anyone about her blog and it took me a year before I told my wife about mine. She laments the missing weight loss bloggers just like I have.

In short, her story is my story, and your story too – no matter where you are on your weight loss journey.

Anyone struggling with their weight will find Half-Assed a poignant and inspirational story. She may not ride off in the sunset with the perfect man, but Jennette does leave us with a reminder of why we want to succeed at our goals and the inspiration to know that we can do it. And I'll bet that feels great.

Finding Inspiration Again

Seventeen months after telling Jeannette she was my inspiration I can confirm that I have made some of the changes I had hoped to make, but not nearly enough. After seeing great success the first few months I have struggled with losing weight and getting in shape. Reading Half-Assed reminded me of where I've been and where I have yet to be – so once again PastaQueen becomes the inspiration I need.

As she wrote when she finally got serious about losing weight:

Enough.

Oh really, let's fucking do this already! Here. Now. No more waiting.

Indeed.

To keep following Jennette on her virtual tour head over to Escape from Obesity tomorrow, January 23rd, 2009.

Jennette was nice enough to send me two copies of her book. One I am keeping, the other is for you! Want to win your own copy of Half-Assed? Simply comment on this post for an entry. Stumble this post for two entries. Link to this post for three entries. Contest ends January 31st and the winner will be selected via a random draw. U.S. only.

Contest is over. Winner is workout mommy. Congrats!

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Post from: John Is Fit - Personal Weight Loss Blog

On Tour With a Weight Loss Rock Star

While it gives me great joy to celebrate new weight loss bloggers it pains me to think that some of them "won't make it." At some point in their journey they will stumble and for whatever reason their new blog will become at best a burden, at worst a lasting testament to their failure (looking at the latest update to my weight loss chart I'm thinking that's what this blog will soon be). Regular readers will be the first to notice as days and then weeks go by without any posts on their blog or comments on others. Some will stick around and put up a post trying to get back in the game, while others will simply delete their blog and be done with it. Some take the time to explain why they are leaving. Almost assuredly their weight loss efforts follow a similar path.

That makes me sad.

Anybody who has started a weight loss blog has shown they have the cojones to put their lives out in public, for good or for bad, and that is something they should be applauded for. Nobody starts writing a weight loss blog thinking it is going to be easy, and everyone runs into walls on their journey from fat to fit. I've been there (9 Tips For Kick-Starting Your Dormant Weight Loss Blog is one of my more popular posts) but I keep coming back here because I know, eventually, I am going to make my goals and this blog will be one of the reasons why.

I'm about to do something that could very well piss some people off and if it does, please understand I do this with only the very best intentions. It is not my goal to call anyone out or embarrass anyone. The fact is I miss these bloggers and I would love to see them write again, for better or for worse.

I occasionally prune my blogroll page of blogs that have not been updated for months or have been deleted. When I do this I don't delete them, I simply save them as another category that doesn't show on that page. Assuming I have been good about following people on RSS I usually don't need to review that page as I will be notified via RSS if someone starts posting again, but I am not always 100% with subscribing to blogs I blogroll so this is just an additional method.

Right now I have 32 blogs in my "Not Updating" link category. Here are some of the ones I really miss and I would like to hear from again:

jfarrlley from 50 pounds in 50 weeks – this was one of the first weight loss blogs I followed and what was really great about it is that it was written by a guy. In case you haven't noticed this space is dominated by women, so it is always nice finding a male putting their life out there. Hasn't posted since 12/18/07.

Kiran from The Big Drop – His Top 100 Reasons I Want to Lose Weight sums up much of why I am on this journey as well. Hasn't posted since 10/10/07.

Alex Costa from Minimize Me – I really liked Alex's honesty and putting up easily seen pictures if himself shirtless in his sidebar shows he's got guts. Hasn't posted since 9/26/2008.

The Pound Slayer – We started our blogs at about the same time. I really liked to read him because he was a professional writer and had a great way with words. At some point he deleted his blog with only the main page remaining.

Mike from Because every kid deserves a healthy dad – His weight loss progress chart looks very much like mine – great initial success and then a long trending up slope. I can understand his frustration and I hope he is breaking through that. Hasn't posted since 5/20/2008.

On a positive note I found a few blogs that I had marked as not updating that have started to write again. Check out Go You Chicken Fat, Go!, Salad is NOT an Entree and Lose The Chubbadoo.

There are a myriad of reasons why people stop writing on their blogs. The fact is it takes time that many people can't find! My hope for everyone I wrote about is that they are healthy and happy.

I hope we hear from you again.

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Post from: John Is Fit - Personal Weight Loss Blog

The Demise of a Weight Loss Blog

I was very careful when I wrote my post on new weight loss bloggers to include only "real" people with interesting stories to tell about their weight loss or fitness journey. That's because, in case you have not noticed, there has been a plethora of blogs (or more correctly websites purporting to be blogs) being created lately to take advantage of people looking to weight loss bloggers for their input into what made them a success. And for most of these phony blogs you can bet what made them a success this year was Colon Cleansing and Acai Berries!

Steve from Weight Loss Weapons noticed this trend and has put up a page called Weight Loss Scam Sites where he keeps a running list of all the scammers.

Here is an example of his research:

Nicole’s Weight Loss Blog Scam

Site Url:
www.nicolesweightlossblog.com
Promotes:
Acai Berry – Free Trials
Colon Cleanse – Free Trials
Scam:
Fake Blog
Signs of the Scam:
The comments are fake, enter your comment and it will not be approved. The “post” is dated November 1st, 2008 but the site wasn’t created until November 14th, 2008. This is the same “Nicole” from www.nicolesweightloss.com where she claims to have lost the same amount of weight using 2 different products. The site is registered using DomainsByProxy.com which hides the persons identity.

How can you help?

If you are someone struggling with your weight don't look for the quick and easy solutions that taking a pill or eating a berry offer. If it sounds too good to be true then it probably is. Need to know what to do to be a success? Read stories about real people like Matt Keeling or Tony Posnanski, each of whom has lost over 100 pounds the hard way, the real way – through hard work, sweat, and tears.

If you have a weight loss blog yourself then I'd suggest doing a couple of things:

• Get the word out to your readers about these phony weight loss blogs
• If you utilize ads make sure you aren't supporting these people

I don't run Adsense on this blog anymore but if you do you are probably hosting up ads pointing your readers to these fake blogs. The good news is that Google lets you filter out results. So go to Steve's page and grab all the URLs and enter them into your Adsense account so that those ads will not be presented to your readers.

Another thing that I am doing is removing much of the ads I had on my site that promoted some of these questionable products. I actually have been trying out Colon Cleanse Pro and as you'll read in my review IT DOESN'T WORK. I am going to try to remove all ads for products I know don't work.

The marketers publishing these fake weight loss blogs are preying on people like you and me. Let's work together to hit them where it hurts – their pocketbooks.

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Post from: John Is Fit - Personal Weight Loss Blog

Beware Phony Weight Loss Blogs

The last few months of the year is prime time for starting a new weight loss blog. I've decided to highlight the real ones I have found recently. I say real, because unfortunately there has been a rash of fake ones lately. I'm quite confident the blogs represented here are real people with real and interesting stories.

I'm going to do the following for each of the blogs, I hope you follow along and at a minimum do #3:

1. Write a little blurb about the blog here
2. Add the blog to my sidebar
3. Subscribe to the blog

281
The newest of the new blogs, which was started yesterday, 281 is written by Cincinnati, OH blogger Perfectlychic. Why 281 for the title of her blog? As she puts it, "So where does 281 come in? Well— 281 is where I got disgusted with my life in general. 281.5 to be exact."

Here is what Perfectlychic would like to get out of her new weight loss blog:

This blog is going to be the story of my liberation– and the tribulations that come along the way. What is my ultimate goal? To be more satisified with the way I look. I would love to break into the 100's– that would be my ultimate goal! It just seems so ominous— I will be updating with what I'm doing to lose weight–those three dreaded numbers– along with how (if) my life changes because of it.

Turtle Progress
Liz, or Ms. Turtle as she likes to be called, started Turtle Progress "in order to share the pitfalls and insights I experience along my journey to lose 80 pounds and gain some sanity."

Here is how she introduced herself back in October when she started her blog:

Hi! I’m Liz. The bare facts are that I’m 31 years old and 5′3 tall, and I weigh about 200 pounds (exact weight to be determined at weigh-in this weekend). I haven’t always been fat, but I have already spent several years at my current size. Informal survey says: there’s a lot to be said for being at a lower weight!

Fitbethlin's Journal
Bethlin doesn't have as much to lose as most of us, but that doesn't mean she doesn't deal with all of the same struggles.

Here is how she is approaching her weight loss goals:

Of course, without the stress and time crunch of work, I'm also trying to lose those dratted 30 lbs. Again. I'm following the SparkPeople method this time. I'm in Stage 1, which is basically the "warm-up" before you get really reved up and in full "diet" mode.

Smoke Yourself Thin!
Julie has found blogging as another method for getting support. As she wrote in her first post in November, "I keep hearing all this stuff about support being important, and this will have to be my support."

Here is how Julie describes her blog:

Actually, this has nothing to do with smoking, nor Troy McClure. I’m a single woman, late 30s, trying to lose 50 pounds and keep it off. So far I’m down 20, and it’s a slow road, filled with exercise but not too much food restriction. I’ve always been a fruit and veggie fan, and was vegetarian for a long time (but not now). I don’t diet, don’t obsess, don’t beat myself up if I eat something fattening occasionally. It’s okay, really. I’ve studied nutrition and biochemistry, but mostly what I’ve learned is from trial and error. And I do mean error!

Should any of you reading this wonder if you should start writing a weight loss blog, please read 4 Reasons You Should Be Writing a Weight Loss Blog. If you had been writing one but have abandoned it, take a look at 9 Tips For Kick-Starting Your Dormant Weight Loss Blog.

Are you writing a new weight loss blog? Have a good new one you are subscribed to? Let me know about it and I'll look into adding it.

Good luck to all of you!

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Post from: John Is Fit - Personal Weight Loss Blog

Celebrating New Weight Loss Bloggers

If there is one thing I have learned this year it is that you only have so much time in a day to accomplish all of the things you need to get done. Think of a 24 hour period as a box, and the daily tasks blocks that you are putting into the box. There are only so many blocks you can put into that box! Which means you need to take a hard look at those blocks.

Sleep. Work. Commute time. Laundry. Cooking. Cleaning. Exercise. Yard work. These are all the little blocks of life that we work on filling up our daily boxes. We telecommute so we can eliminate or reduce the commute time block. We go through drive-through to shrink the cooking block. We pay our kids to mow the lawn so we can focus on another block. Life is constantly choosing the blocks of time we focus on.

I haven't been getting done all of the things I want to get done lately and so I spent some time this weekend reducing some of the clutter that has built up in my daily habits. Blocks of clutter that while well-meaning, were reducing the amount of space in my box.

The first thing I did was uninstall Steam from my primary computer. Steam is a multi-player gaming engine that allows one to easily download and play a number of cool games. I actually had uninstalled this over a year ago but my son asked me to install it so that he and I could play some multiplayer games together. I had not been playing it too much but a few weeks ago I started playing it again seriouslly, spending a number of hours each night "unwinding" with the game.

Now "unwinding" is a reasonable block to put in your box but in my case the block was getting too big. Steam has a new feature now where you can see how many hours you have played a game over the last two weeks and on Saturday I saw that I had been playing Steam for 25 hours over the past two weeks.

That's a big block!

So I uninstalled that clutter. I know myself well enough to know that I have to go cold-turkey on these things. I can't just say "From here on out I will only spend 4 hours a week unwinding on Steam." I had to uninstall it. So I did.

After uninstalling Steam I took a look at Google Reader. Over the years I have built up an impressive number of RSS feeds that I read. I never read them all and periodically I just mark all as reader in Google whenever I feel overwhelmed by the number of unread feeds. But managing that process and reading feeds that are similar content to other feeds are again, blocks of clutter that were impacting my ability to do other things.

So I have started picking the best of the best from my reader and flushing the rest. This pruning will need to be done often as I add new feeds as time goes by. But I feel liberated by having a smaller reading list.

So now that I have reduced some of this clutter; got rid of some of the blocks of life, what will I get done? Will, this post is one thing. Exercise should be another. I'm coaching both of my kid's soccer teams this fall, that will be something too.

Do you have clutter in your life? What are you doing to get rid of it?

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Post from: John Is Fit - Personal Weight Loss Blog

Reducing the Clutter of Life

This is Inspiring Fit Week at Back in Skinny Jeans and Stephanie chose my story to kick things off!  All week she will be highlighting stories of "What others are doing to get fit."

Check out my story here.  As luck would have it when I made the submission I had just weighed myself in at 262 (this was over a week ago) and I was really stoked about the possibility of seeing 259.  Haven't been that low since!

Looks like she is going to be posting a bunch of stories each day – there were a total of three today.  Also, she is running a contest this week. 

The prizes:

To make this week really fun, you have a chance to win 1 of 2 cool prizes. The first prize is one Insignia KIX 1GB mp3 player courtesy of our pals at Best Buy. If you want to know more about the KIX, you can read my review. The second prize is one $25 eGift certificate from Sephora.com courtesy of yours truly. Nothing like a little pampering to highlight the goods you got!

To enter simply enter a comment on any of the entries.  Make sure it is substantive!

I'm sure most of you already read Stephanie but if not, head on over and check it out this week.

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Post from: John Is Fit - Personal Weight Loss Blog

Inspiring Fit Week

One of my readers pointed me to Fit by Jen, the bio website of Jennifer Marnell, a young mother who went from 300 pounds (at only 5 feet tall) to 120 pounds and a personal trainer.

On her Bio page she gives a pretty brief overview of her journey, including how she changed her mindset and managed to get through plateaus.  I only wish she had blogged her entire journey.  As motivating as it is to see such success (check out her pictures to see an amazing transformation) I am finding that I really like to read what people had to say when they were heavy.  That's why I like Half of Me so much – you can spend hours perusing PastaQueen's archives from when she was, well, twice of her.

Jen has posted a good list of Weight Loss Tips that I am happy to say I have already been mostly following.

My task is to take motivation from stories like this and make the changes I need to make to get there myself.

Post from: John Is Fit - Personal Weight Loss Blog

Another Success Story

From Big T:

I am failing.
The same shit that always happens to me when I try to lose weight is happening again.
And seriously, I don't have a clue as to why.
I've gotten lazy again, I'm eating poorly again, I'm not working out.
My motivation is down to nothing.
……..
This is the time when I need someone to tell me that I can do this — because right now, I don't feel that I can.

What do you say readers?  Head on over and leave a comment of encouragement.  We all need it once in awhile.

Thanks

Post from: John Is Fit - Personal Weight Loss Blog

A Blogger Needs Some Words of Encouragement

Jan B from Just A Mom, That's More Than Enough wrote a great post last week called More things I like about having lost weight that was really inspiring to me.  Jan has had great success on her weight loss journey, where she is closing in on the magical 100 pounds lost.  The list is mostly simple, every day things I think we all take for granted (or would love to do so!) like: 

Being able to tie a jacket around my waist and not thinking about how my arms are just not long enough to get them to tie anymore.

Not having to worry that the ladder can't hold me. It was only rated to 250 lbs.

Not feeling my belly lay on my thighs. I can't say that one enough.

Not wearing sweats – ever.

Thanks for the post Jan, and congrats on your accomplishments!

Post from: John Is Fit - Personal Weight Loss Blog

Inspiring Success Story

I'm surprised but honored to have been selected as one of 11 weight loss blogs represented in the Nursing Online Education Database's Top 100 Health and Wellness Blogs list.  That's me at #24.  Whoever put this list together really took the time to find and annotate a wide variety of very fitting blogs.  What makes me happy is that this list opened me up to a number of very interesting blogs that I had not previously read but to which I am now subscribed, such as:

Jenn Loses Weight
Jenn chronicles her journey to a healthier lifestyle. Jenn began this blog in September, so it will be interesting to read how she does with her weight loss ups and downs as she progresses.

eDiet Blog
This blog is part of a larger portal that offers meal deliveries. You don't, however, need to participate in that program to read information about diet and fitness from this site, which includes recipes, success stories, and advice.

Maria's Last Diet
Dr. Kenneth Schwarz, a psychologist and psychoanalyst, and his wife Julie Schwarz, a psychology technician at Dutchess Psychology Practice, started this blog by setting down important ideas from diet and weight-loss research and studies concerning personal change. Julie interviews women who have lost weight, and they provide information that helps readers to overcome diet failures.

I've been getting a trickle of traffic from the post, all new readers.  For some dumb reason by being put on the list I now feel more obligated to be successful! As Jenn said in her post about being on the Top 100 list – The pressure is on now!!

Post from: John Is Fit - Personal Weight Loss Blog

I'm in the Top 100