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So today Leah, Ryanne and I went to the Perrysburg Farmer’s Market for the first time. Let me tell ya’, it was awesome.

Ryanne and I have lived in Perrysburg now for two years, and this was the first time we have ever set foot in downtown Perrysburg. Yes, it was extremely hot, but it was a lot of fun.

There was probably somewhere between twenty to twenty-five vendors, so not huge or anything… but still a good selection. Mostly people were selling vegetables and fruits, although there were a few other specialty stands thrown in (crafts, flowers, bread, local beef and lamb). The atmosphere was great, lots of people having a good time together. The farmers, or people selling the goods were all extremely friendly, and for the most part the prices were reasonable.

In the end, Ryanne and I bought: three ears of corn, two pounds of sunburst cherry tomato’s, a quart of peaches, a quart of sun gold apples,  and a quart of fresh strawberry jam, all for nineteen dollars. We didn’t really do a whole lot of shopping for best prices either, I’m sure we could have spent less if we would have comparatively shopped.

And the results? We have tried everything we purchased now. And here’s the rundown:

Best peaches we’ve ever tasted.
Best cherry tomato’s we’ve ever tasted.
Strawberry jam is ridiculously good.
Corn is extremely good, close to the best I’ve had.
Apples, while not the best, are also extraordinary.

In the end, I cannot possibly say enough about the Perrysburg Farmer’s Market. If you have the opportunity to go, I cannot stress enough how much you should. It’s every Thursday through October, from 3:00pm till 8:00pm, right down Louisiana Avenue in downtown Perrysburg.

/infomercial off

Found this on Digg today… and just because you drink diet soda, doesn’t make you exempt. Make sure you click the link below to read the story, there’s some amazing stuff there. Some things I already knew (bad for teeth and highly acidic) others I didn’t, specifically about diet soda.

For the record, I’m well aware of the fact that this list is hosted on an obviously biased website (water for life), yet I don’t think anything in that list is made-up or overexaggerated.
 

We would wager money that many of you are “doing the dew” or “doing what tastes right” this very moment. Before you take another gulp from your soft drink can, here are 8 facts about soda to consider that may drastically affect the quality of your health.

read more | digg story

Got the new scale in today. This time I ordered a super-high limit scale (440) that was not made of glass. It just makes no sense to me to have someone who weighs around 400 pounds standing on a thin sheet of glass. Anyway, this one works quite well. When it arrived at CedarCreek, Brent and I unboxed it and I used it right away, wanting to get a good measurement of my weight. Since I just weighed myself this morning at my dad’s, I wanted to have an accurate number for next week’s weigh-in.

Well it turns out my dad’s freight scale is more accurate than he let on… this brand new scale I got in the mail has me at 394.1, same as the one at my dad’s work this morning. Rock on.

Hey, if anyone is interested, Ryanne and I are going to the Perrysburg Farmers Market on Thursday. We’ve never been, so hold off any questions about price or anything… all we know is it’s on Thursdays, it closes at 8pm, and is supposedly in downtown Perrysburg. If anyone is interested in going on an adventure in local produce with us, we’re probably heading down around 6pm.

Not only are you helping the environment by buying locally and regionally, but for me it’s more about supporting the local farmers.

By the way… click here for the truth on those 0 calorie butter sprays! It’s not horrible or anything, but they’re not exactly honest in the advertising. I honestly have been staying away from these anyway, just because of the fact that I cannot wrap my head around the idea that something that contains zero butter, tastes like better. And I can’t decide what’s worse, a few extra calories, or a mountain of weird chemicals.

Act II Extreme Butter Popcorn — 40 calories per cup
Servings per bag — 3
Total calories — 120

BEAUTIFUL!

On the way home from work today, Ryanne and I got to talking about what we were going to do for dinner. We already knew that it was “leftover” night, and that I was relegated to eating three-day old pasta. I looked at the fact that my pasta dinner was 600+ calories, even though it only included a cup and a half of pasta! Then, something Pete told me yesterday about eating more food for the calorie-buck popped in my head. I got online and checked out how many turkey sandwiches I could have for the same or less amount of calories.

Well here I am at 8:15pm, two turkey sandwiches and a bag of popcorn later, and still have 200 calories to eat before I hit my budget of 1600 calories. Pasta just ain’t worth that.

In other news, second to last episode of Hell’s Kitchen is on tonight.

HOLLA!

Also, just a reminder… this blog is obviously going to be a lot more fun with interaction. So if you’re around and checking out the posts, leave a comment! I’ll more than likely reply back. That way this is more than just a one way conversation.

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Today was family lunch day over at my parent’s house. These are generally my favorite Saturdays, as it’s a good time spent with family, on a beautiful patio/deck. I thought I’d share some photos I took this time. They’re all in thumbnail form, so just click on them for a bigger picture. They include pictures of the humming bird that decided to join us, what a sodomized chicken looks like, and random shots of the family.

Last night we tried making a halibut fish dish, called Creamy Baked Halibut. It was basically a couple halibut steaks, baked in the oven with a sour cream, chives and dill sauce on top. I don’t know if we got bad hailbut or what, but it was disgusting. It’s unfortunate, because it was only 127 calories per serving, and packed with good stuff for your body.

Instead? We planned out, and went to Arby’s for dinner. Now that I’m even watching out for trans fats and/or partially hydrogenated oils, it’s a little tougher to eat out too. Nonetheless, we planned everything before we left the house, and both of us managed to stay under our calories for the day — I actually even had to eat some ice cream as a snack later in the day to make sure I hit my budget… it’s a tough life! The cool thing though, is that now that we’re portioning better, what used to be a $12 - $15 trip to Arby’s was only a $6.72 trip to Arby’s this time. We just got the 5 for $5.95 deal and split up what we ordered. Worked fantastic.

See, diets are not only good for our bodies, they’re good for our checkbooks!

Dear God,

Amen.

On another topic, met with my men’s group I lead this morning over at Tom Turner’s home. He and his wife made us homemade southern-style biscuits and gravy for breakfast. And I’m not joking, nor overexagerating here, these were by far and away the best biscuits and gravy I’ve ever had. Unfortunately I couldn’t have a whole lot as I am paying the price today and tomorrow for my over-indulgence of Chinese food last night. We met out on his patio in the back yard (which prompted this whole discussion with God on the weather), just a beautiful day. Great discussion, great guys, great food… this was one of the best Saturday mornings I can remember in a long time.

“God giveth, and God taketh away.” I suppose.

So I haven’t spoken too much about it here, but I’ve put into motion a plan to dramatically overhaul my life. About four years ago I started examining my life, and there seemed to be a lot of glaring irresponsibilities that I was just glossing over, or justifying (lamely). I spent way too much time invested in the wrongdoings and immaturity of the people I hung out with at the time (and by the way, they were not nearly as bad as I thought back then, and more importantly, it was wrong of me to judge them.)

In order of things I’ve tackled (along with help from my wonderful wife), these things have already been put into motion:

• I gave my life to Christ, and began a walk so far apart from the life I had been living previously.
• I got serious about my career, and as fate would have it, I have now been working at a Church for over three years.
• I got serious about my love life, and married the most wonderful woman I have ever met.
• I am becoming more eco-friendly. Ryanne and I have switched all our household light bulbs to the more energy efficient CFL bulbs, have started unplugging anything not in use, we only have one car, we purchase organic products wherever and whenever we can, for the most part we try to buy local produce, and we are just now beginning to recycle. I am also taking this responsibility to my work, where I intend on at least setting up recycle bins in my area, hopefully everyone else will catch on with time. I personally have moved to only printing documents when absolutely necessary, and always use double-sided printing (having a printer that supports this makes life so much easier).
• We have become more socially responsible. We’re donating money to causes, donating time to causes, buying organic (read up on it… it’s amazing how much you’re helping others, in addition to yourself by buying organic products), I only drink fair-trade certified coffee, and the easiest thing we have done to do a better job with this; pay attention. We try and watch the news or read a newspaper more often than in the past where we just lived in a bubble, and hadn’t the slightest idea what was happening in the world around us.
• I am becoming a well-informed citizen and getting more involved in the political process. I believe without a shadow of a doubt the biggest threat to the American Democracy is the attitude of “all politics and politicians are evil, there is nothing I can do to change it, so why should I care.” The wool has been pulled from my relatively new Christian eyes, and I no longer believe that just because I am a Christ-follower, I am also a registered card-carrying right-wing republican.
• As of Wednesday, July 11th I have undertaken quite possibly the biggest challenge I may ever face in my life; I am on life-changing quest, no longer can it be simply called a “diet.” I have fooled around with this idea for long enough. I honestly can’t even tell you what pushed me over the edge and made me decide to do it, I really just kind of woke up one morning and decided it was time. All the poking and prodding in the world from my wife, friends, and family made no difference, what it came down to finally was a decision I had to make personally. Actually, there was one thing; in my Men’s Group I lead every Saturday morning, we’re discussing the book of 1 Timothy. A couple weeks ago, while studying the fourth chapter of the book, I noticed this, verse eight “For physical training is of some value, but godliness has value for all things, holding promise for both the present life and the life to come.” I have read, and heard this passage many times before, but something clicked this time. I noticed the wording “physical training has some value” and came to the conclusion that taking care of our bodies is in fact a Biblical truth that I had overlooked. Sure, I knew all the verses about “your body is a temple” but none of that made any sense to me, not like this did. Paul could have flat out said “physical training is stupid, study the Bible and pray more,” but instead he chose to declare that there is indeed value in physical training.

So, my plan is; I have cut my calorie intake by %60 to get this thing started. I used to average right around 5,000 calories I day (I am not exaggerating, before starting this I spent a week logging every bit of food I ate every day). Now, I have two goals per day, a “happy” goal, and a “sad” goal. The happy goal is staying under 2,000 calories, the sad goal is to stay below 2,500. Short term goal is to lose fifty pounds by February, and two hundred (yes, two hundred) by December 2009. That gives me thirty months, one hundred and thirty weeks, more days than I choose to count (or launch the calculator program.) I know it’s lofty, and to be quite honest, there is a huge chance I will hit a BIG wall sometime during this plan, but I am taking it seriously, perhaps for the first time, and I refuse to tip-toe through the tulips with this.

I’m not toeing the water to test it out, I’m cannon-balling in, baby.

So, I will now be spending time on this blog discussing my journey. I plan on weighing in once-a-week, Monday mornings… and I will log those here. Look for the first weigh-in sometime tomorrow.