Disclaimer: This post is part of my participation in the Genghis Grill Health Kwest Challenge. #Healthkwest #GenghisGrillAd http://t.co/JcWNs8HuyX. It is a cross-post from Health.JMBranum.com.

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This was previously posted at: http://health.jmbranum.com/2015/02/14/six-days-in-time-for-a-photo-recap/

Disclaimer: This post is part of my participation in the Genghis Grill Health Kwest Challenge.  #Healthkwest #GenghisGrillAd http://t.co/JcWNs8HuyX

I’m having a wonderful time so far in the Genghis Grill Health Kwest contest, but have been crazy busy keeping up with my diet, exercise and social media tasks for the contest (along with all of my regular work/school/family responsibilities), so I’m little tardy in blogging.

So, I thought what I do to catch up is tell the story with pictures!

Day 1 , Monday – Didn’t count calories, 1 hour exercise

I came into this day super-nervous. I have dieted so many times before and was worried about how I would do, but there’s a time to just plunge in and go for it.

So I did the weigh-in (302 pounds! yikes!) and then later that day got in my first bowl at Genghis Grill.

As you can see from the pictures, my wife brought roses for me to celebrate the occasion!

And here’s my first bowl. Super good!

 

And here’s my wife Becky and my son Ty eating with me…

 

 

Then we ended the night by working out at the Lighthouse Gym in NW OKC.

Day 2, Tuesday – 2028 calories – 45 minutes exercise

Unfortunately I can’t eat all of my meals at Genghis Grill, so I’m working on improving my cooking skills to use more veggies. So here’s what I fixed for breakfast…

 

Then later in the day I met my co-workers from the Center for Conscience in Action, a non-profit peace and social justice organization I work with. Of course we ate GG.

And here’s my bowl…

 

Later that night I worked out with my family. I’m shooting for 40 minutes to an hour per day, doing a mix of interval training on the bike and weight training.

Day 3 – 2025 calories – 45 minutes exercise

This was a crazy good bowl…

 

Very busy day but still got in the workout thanks to my wife’s encouragement.

Day 4 – 1904 calories – 1 hour exercise

Thursday was a very busy day but I got in my bowl and my exericse.

Day 5 – 1826 calories – 45 minutes exercise

Friday was a gloriously good day. It started in the afternoon with an awesome bowl – this time made with the citrus ginger sauce!

 

 

 

 

And then that evening we had a glorious Valentine’s eve date!

Day 6 – Still counting

Today I took my family and my in-laws to GG for lunch. This afternoon I will be out driving the pedicab and hopefully burning off a lot of calories.

 

This was originally posted at: http://health.jmbranum.com/2015/02/09/day-1-the-weigh-in/

Disclaimer: This post is part of my participation in the Genghis Grill Health Kwest Challenge. #Ad http://t.co/JcWNs8HuyX

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The Kwest is now officially underway as I did my first weigh in. Relatively painless but I didn’t like what the scale said (my home scale shows much lower —  of course I normally weigh after getting out of the shower in the morning so this must be a factor). But that is why I’m in this contest.

So here’s my checklist of tasks for the rest of today in Kwest for good health…

• Eat a healthy bowl at Genghis Grill for supper
• Get an hour of exercise in
• Spend some time in prayer and meditation
• Kiss my wife!

This was previously posted at http://health.jmbranum.com/2015/02/08/the-last-day-before-the-kwest-begins/

Disclaimer: This post is part of my participation in the Genghis Grill Health Kwest Challenge. #Ad http://t.co/JcWNs8HuyX

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Tomorrow is my first day of the Genghis Grill Health Kwest challenge. I will be doing the weigh in and of course eating my first bowl for the challenge at Genghis Grill.

I’ve been doing a lot of research on nutrition and exercise over the last few weeks to put together my plan of action. I’m sure I will have to tweak a lot along the way, but want to start well.

My first goal is to stay healthy through this contest. I’ve talked to my doctor (and will be meeting again later in the month for another checkup), but from what she has told me I can’t go wrong by eating lots of veggies, lean protein and getting lots of exercise. Carb-wise, I need to closely monitor those, ideally spreading them out through the day, and course monitoring my blood sugar (I’m diabetic) and make adjustments in food through out the day.

My second goal is to lose a lot of weight and win this contest. From what I can tell, past winners have an average of 4-7 pounds per week, so I’m shooting to lose a minimum of 4 pounds per week.

So based on my current weight, I need to eat 3400 calories per day to maintain my weight (FYI, I’m rounding these numbers for simplicity’s sake), which means to lose one pound of weight, I need to reduce my caloric intake by about 500 calories per day.

So to lose

• 1 pound per week = Eat no more than 2900 calories per day (9 pounds total in Kwest)
• 2 pounds per week = Eat no more than 2400 calories per day (18 pounds total)
• 3 pounds per week = Eat no more than 1900 calories per day (27 pounds total)
• 4 pounds per week = Eat no more than 1400 calories per day (36 pounds total)
• 5 pounds per week = Eat no more than 900 calories per day (45 pounds total)

Obviously there is a problem here. Going from around 3500 calories per day to 900 calories per day would be disastrous for me both mentally and physically.  Does this mean winning is impossible?

No. I don’t think so.

The key to making this doable will be exercise, mostly in my case bicycling (both on my regular bike and on the pedicab). From what I can tell from several sources, I burn about 789 calories by riding my bicycle at a moderate pace (10-12 mph) for one hour! This is huge!!!

So, my plan (at least out of the gate) will be to shoot for 2100 calories per day but to ride at least one hour per day during the challenge. If I do this, my net calories (calories consumed minus extra calories burned through exercise) would be around 1400 calories per day, which would give me projected weight loss of four pounds per day. Then on days that I have time or energy to ride more, then I could either boost my calories (I may have to, to keep my blood sugar where it needs to be) or just speed up the weight loss.

One last part of the plan. 1/3 of my meals will be at Genghis Grill, so it is important that I am smart about what I eat there for my daily bowls. After a lot of searching, I found what I think is accurate nutritional information on most of the ingredients of Genghis Grill Bowls, the biggie being that this site provides the portion size for the ingredients (saying “Chicken is X number of calories” does me no good if I have no idea how much chicken is X number of calories).  The obvious change to the bowls to gain the most calorie savings will be to load them up high with veggies, to go easy on the meat (and maybe some days to go all veggies), dilute the sauces (either with garlic water or soy sauce — I have yet to find accurate information on the calorie counts for the sauces) and then go easy on the starches (or maybe even eliminate them some days).

The good news here is that if I allocate 1/3 of my calories for my GG bowl, then I can use up to 700 calories, which will be a very doable proposition while still eating very well.

So that’s my game plan.