Will Sawyer's Guide to Designing Your Own Perfect Life!
You can imagine the hate that comes from people who are supposed to be God’s Chief Love Officers. It comes, and in response often I can be pretty acerbic and witty. Sometimes my Mormon and Christian friends and family are put off at how open I am atheist. I really have no room for God at this point; it is beyond my ability to understand.
I have been so busy with school that I have not updated everyone with how fantastic the yoga lifestyle is for me and I hope for you also! Here is a quick before and after photo though I am down another 5 pounds from that photo!
Ingredients: Sriracha Hot Chile Sauce, 2 packages of ground turkey, lettuce, onions, bell peppers, celery, rice vinegar, soy sauce, Mirin, salt pepper, fresh garlic. This is going to be the base recipe for two different meals, breakfast and dinner.
It is so hard to develop what I call my ‘go to foods’. ‘Go to Foods’ are the daily meal options that I have created for myself to help me avoid eating poorly. This recipe does quadruple duty, it can be lunch, dinner, snack, or made into a tasty high protein breakfast.
This recipe is not really measured, so much as it is thrown together. To eat healthy on a daily basis you have to replace your current, ‘go to foods’ with new ‘go to foods’.
What exactly are ‘go to foods’? Simply explained it is what you eat when your hungry, that you know will satisfy that craving be it emotional or real. We all think that we eat a wide
Get the pan hot with two teaspoons of either canola oil or olive oil. I use them both. Fat is not an issue when you eat good fats. I use about two tablespoons.Always get the pan hot before you add the food.
variety of foods, but the realities are: Most of us eat two or three different breakfast, lunch, or dinner options. Look at your last week honestly and tell me often you repeated a type of food? Did you have three or four hamburgers last week, or 4 turkey sandwiches, or three breakfast burritos. Did spaghetti or pizza show up numerous times? I want you to really look at how many different meals you ate. One of the most diet defeating things that most diet gurus do is provide great daily diet plans with simple to follow menus and shopping list. Which begs the following question:
I use a Slap Chop for the garlic, lettuce, bell peppers, and celery. Plus I use a great big pan. I am making Bill and I at least 4 meals each out of this dish. So you can see I added the celery, onions, and bell peppers.
How many of you use a shopping list and plan your meals for a week in advance?
I suspect that unless you are a stay at home housewife or house husband and your bored, then you have time to follow a meal plan and a diet. Freak, that is too much work and too much drama. So I am sharing recipes and quick ways of cooking that has helped me loose over 50 pounds.
So throw away your old style of eating and try some of the foods I eat, create some quick go to meals on your own based on what I do or what you already know. Replace your old ‘go
Once the veggies are cooked down I add the turkey. I already gave a squirt of Sriracha to the veggies prior to adding the turkey.
to foods’ with a battery of new ‘go to foods”. When your house is full of your “go to foods’ you eat better. Here are links to several of my favorite “go to foods” cooking ideas.
Zesty Chicken White Beans and Bacon
The Fat Yogi’s Bag of Tricks This is not a recipe it is a link to skills that I have adopted to help me make better choices.
Hope you enjoy today’s meal option! Tomorrow we will make the breakfast option!
Add the Sriracha Hot Chili Oil and the mirin, rice wine vinegar, soy sauce, and if you have it, you can add some tasted sesame seed oil. I am cooking in one pan and not taking time to prepare it like a FOODIE would. This is 'go to food' so you can cook, clean and eat quicker than going out or nuking. We all look for short cuts in everything, that is what drives human forward. To lose 50 plus pounds you need to make your go to foods quick and tasty. They need to satisfy a craving.Brown in one pan. There is going to be a lot of juices, you can drain if you want. I don't drain. The turkey was low fat. I made about a 12 to 14 serving dish, so the addition of Mirin (max two tablespoons) and the other liquids create the flavor. Without adding the guilt. Just remember to really look at the sugar and carbs of condiments. Use Sparingly over large dishes for flavor.Scoop and serve! Now lets take this mixture and make it BREAKFAST!!!!
As I look at all the messages, life lessons, and traditions that I have shared with my children, perhaps one of the most important has been the key to healthy living. My parents were pretty naive about food. The biggest imprint they left on me was to try anything and everything and to clean my plate.
So that got me to thinking about the messages that I send my daughters about food. To be honest I never really shared with them the knowledge I gained from the nutrition courses that were completed as part of my undergraduate education or the many diets that their mother and I had been on over the years as we both yo-yo’d up and down.
But the entire picture had never been as clear as it is to me now or as simple. Yes there is a lot of explanations about what I eat and what I don’t eat, in this blog and on my ever evolving food plan. The simple message I share with my daughters, the secret Sawyer Family tradition to looking great and feeling young as you age is:
“Eat Beans, Meat, and Vegetables Six Days a Week and on the Seventh Day eat whatever you want. On top of that MOVE, I do Yoga!”
That is the entire family secret to a healthy life and longevity. It is brief and to the point. There is no counting calories, though I do pay attention to calories. The is no measuring the quantity of what you eat, you simply eat a series of no-carb, a slow-carb or low carb days, following cheat day. Which series your going to follow depends on how much weight you want to achieve and how often you have been on the stage you are on. You should never go on the no carb stage of the diet for more than three weeks at a time.
But to keep the message simple I always start and end with the same old time tested and true advice from the annals of Sawyer Family legend.
We can be skinny, we can be vibrant, we can be healthy if we “eat our beans meat and vegetables”.
The things I notice is that I look thin sitting down. You can see space between my elbows, I did a happy dance when I saw this photo!
……finally, came to my rescue and took that picture. Okay, for the first 20 minutes the squirrels in Mears’ Park literally ran circles around those lovely white birch trees dancing mere inches from Corky’s nose just across the water. They were relentless, if I had my F350 dually and was out at the Torturro’s I ‘d saunter over to my truck pull out my pink pistol pull the trigger and shoot corn nuggets to feed the poor fellows. I am not that red neck, I don’t own a gun, yet! My dad did make sure I was proficient in gun safety and I did my share of shooting as a kid. Just not a real gun fan now a days. No need to own one, at least not for me.
I just knew that Corky and I would look so cute sitting there, that surely someone would come and offer to take our picture. I hadn’t planned on the squirrels or the fact that by the time the dog settled down and my clearly obvious gestures of sitting there with my Droid……
Bill's sister lives on Little Birch lake and we spend many weekends at her cabin with Bill's neice and nephew. Linda is one of the strongest women I know and she raised two fine children I am proud to call family!
…..in my hand taking pictures would surely end, when a kind person finally offered to take the photo. Thirty minutes on a small flat stone surrounded by cold water, one can say I was stiff and that smile was trying. But it is the photo I was looking for to celebrate the next chapter of Will and Bill’s Excellent Adventures.
You see moving to Minnesotawas Bill’s idea, not mine. However, Bill has followed me all over the country this last decade while we opened a bed and breakfast and an equestrian event production company, so there was never a question when Bill wanted to return to his family. The problem was
After we got my great photo I wanted one of Corky!
The Fat Yogi and Nicole.....look at that fat cowboy it is a wonder my horse ran that fast!
that once I got here, it did not feel like home and then to add to the misery, Minneapolis got hit by the November Snownami 2010 and then pummeled by one of the worst winters in more than 30 years….. I don’t do snow!
I like to cross-country ski and downhill ski and I am little kid on a tube or a sled, but…… I don’t do snow! Just like as a cowboy barrel racer, I did not do horse shit. Of course I have shoveled, albeit less than my fair share of shit and snow, but I have shoveled a great deal in my life. I would not call me lazy, I am just extremely motivated to find other options than shoveling. You might say I have shovel PTSD. In fact I shoveled my way through six years of graduate and undergraduate education. Every summer I worked for my Mormon buddy who owned a landscape company. He and I would spend weekends in the fall either setting up a pumpkin stand or preparing for the Christmas Trees and gift shop sale at his nursery retail center in Idaho. I more than know the value of work and being poor, but i also know how to avoid a shovel at all cost…..I bet I am not alone in that skill. It is all because my father had me shovel 13 tons of mud from behind our house in the 80′s to pay for my high school ring.
I have shoveled so much that I know I don’t like to shovel, it is a job best left to those who enjoy it and I am willing to go to great lengths to avoid things I don’t like. So my horses were kept in stables and my life is in a loft in Lowertown St. Paul.
Why Lowertown Saint Paul?
Last year after spending several weekends trapped in our home or a hotel because our hybrid could not clear the snow in the alley. It did not matter though, none of the
Living in a loft neither of us will have to shovel! Poor Bill he was way better at shoveling than I was.
4wd’s could clear it either, the city was shut down. Shortly after the trauma I told Bill that I would live in Minnesota as long as we are in a Sky Way condo or loft and then I worked until I found us one. Hence the photos of the our loft. Next week we will showcase the loft in it’s own blog post.
So the reason this photo of our next life adventure, is of me alone sitting contentedly in Mears Park with Corky. Is because I finally am feeling like I have found a home. I have a vision for my future and a
Bill on a tractor in Oklahoma!
plan. I have a wonderful family that supports all I do and I have a brilliant husband whom I adore. Lowertown Saint Paul, Minnesota is now my home.
The Fat Yogi’s Next Bold Adventure!
So as Bill settles into his new job at an IT firm in the Twin Citiesarea it is time for me to begin working on my next projects. Here is where things are getting interesting. Once I shed the weight, I found some incredible energy and a new vision for my life. Bill says, “You change the world one person at a time, Will”. I never really know what he means but I think the person who changed
So here we are! Will and Bill in Minnesota!
from my blogging so openly and honestly about being fat and doing yoga is myself and since I love to write and create and share, I truly hope that I can inspire others to shed their fears and find their own best life. Along the way I am going to blog about my schooling, not only will the recipes continue, but there will be projects that I share with my readers as I learn them and work on them in my new studio/mudroom in our loft. I often feel as if I have been blessed with an incredible curiosity but a short attention spanwhich was why barrel racing was such a great sport for me. The
Here is the cool old werehouse that houses our loft!
entire competition would run from 14-18 seconds, I probably have ADHD and that was about all the concentration I have, of course we accomplish about 80 separate movements in that 14 seconds….lol…back to the story….
So I have been accepted into the pre-interior design program at University of Minnesota College of Design. I know exactly what my readers are thinking and they are right, gay guys barrel race, no matter how much I pretended the sport is filled with straight dudes, there are a few, but honestly that sport is gay guys and hot chicks. So yes I am following my next passion in life and going to design school as a 47-year-old man. My daughter Hillary just got a $20,000 scholarship to the University of British Columbia, so we will both graduate the same summer in 2015. How cute is that?
We are never to old to got back to school and chase our dreams!
Here is one of the rooms I did at the Inn and Spa at Parkside that Bill and I owned in Sacramento, CA. Bill really wanted a yellow room and it is not one of my favorite colors to work with so I used it once! The end result surprised me. The room was called Kiss and I imagine there was a lot of kissing done in this room. That was the point!
So the Fat Yogi is still going to be a blog where we really talk a lot about being fat and doing yoga, because it is an everyday struggle for me to eat correctly. But I do go back to the principles out lined in my food plan every time I take a diet holiday I never go more than three days and then with steely determination I start over and the end result is 182 pounds and dropping!!! Yogafabulistic!!!
During the first week or so of moving into our new loft while we were building walls and furniture our diet was less than perfect and as we got all the dishes unpacked and the kitchen restocked, we went firmly back on the eating plan.
So yes we are going to still be a blog about food and yoga and reclaiming our lives, but part of reclaiming our lives is following our passions. My entire life has been spent it chasing
It took us 30 days, two new walls, a new entry area studio/mudroom, and 1300 square feet of vast empty space. Are you curious about what I have gotten done and what is going to be done? Stay tuned!
my passions and it is fitting that my hunger for design and my desire to live with my husband Bill Swenson has brought me to the first home I have truly felt is not just Bill’s home but this loft on Mears’ Park in Saint Paul. Is now my home also!
I am taking a break from part three of “The Fat Yogi’s Bag of Tricks” to bring you a little fun! Last week while we were in Oklahoma I had to leave behind three pairs of pants because they were falling off. The two pairs I bought to replace them are already falling off and all my large shirts and too large. So I decided to go buy an outfit to wear to out or to work that actually fits. Buying new clothes is so much fun
So vote for the outfit you like the most.
I like how casual and nice this cobination is. Though I am not sure it is dressy enough for a night at the Ordway or the Guthrie.
From 230 Pounds to 186 Pounds!!!!
Yesterday is was 40 pounds today it is 41 pounds…..woohoo!!! Bill snapped todays photos and he was impatient. I interrupted his birthday eggs to take this picture. Tonight we are going to the Ordway to see the hit new Broadway musical, Next to Normal, to celebrate his big day! Hence the photos are a little blurry.
December 17, 2010 Wow I was FAT!!! 230 Pounds!!! Looking trim at 189.6 Pounds!
189.6 Pounds!!!!
Part 3: Hunger Pain and The Yoga Connection!
On December 17th, 2010 I began this blog and I weighed 230 pounds. Boy was I a big guy and my poor horse had been hauling my fat ass all over the country. Today I am down 40 pounds and my blood pressure is that of an athlete, 115/75.
What you see above is evidence of the binges around the time of Easter, hence my favorite trailer trash confection, PEEPS! Now I did not eat this all at once, but over about three weeks, every couple of days or so, and after Bill would go to bed. I would drive over to Walgreen’s or McDonald’s and either eat a Big Mac or two boxes of peeps.
Confessions Suck! The entire time Bill was being completely faithful to our new choices, but I was adding a few bad food choices on a meal here or there. Plus, almost the entire time Bill and I have been following the low carb diet I have been eating one to two small bags of movie popcorn, no butter and a large diet coke.
Yet I still lost 40 pounds in the last five months and I am continuing to lose. I credit my success to a regular yoga practice, better food choices, bingeing, and learning to enjoy the feeling of hunger. The synergy of yoga and diet over the last 5 months is absolutely amazing and it created what I call my ‘Bag of Tricks’ (Bag of Tricks blog post part 2, tomorrow).
I have read almost every credible book written and tried every credible diet. I have taken multiple nutrition courses at the college level. I would have to say that no diet has ever given me permission to cheat as much as I have cheated on this diet and still lose 40 pounds.
I must have been eating close to 5000 calories a day or more prior to December 2010. So the occasional bad meal on top of about 1500 calories a day plus excercise (yoga, swimming biking) really did not change the over all outcome of the diet.
That is because, when I had a meal, where I made bad food choices. I did not let that meal or snack start the beginning of a spiral to seven years of bad food choices. I simply enjoyed the moment and my next meal was a correct choice. I attribute that to calories, even though I am not counting them.
A Big Mac has 540 calories and I would probably eat about 500 calories of PEEPS. Good thing PEEPS are so sugary, you can eat to many and after a box of 4 bunnies the second box is never as good.
So that would bring my calorie count to about 2000 on the days I was bad. Yet Bill hit a plateau and I was still loosing weight. I think eating 1500 calories or so a day for three or four days and then one day of 2000 and then back to 1500 calories for a few days before the big binge day, is the key. My metabolism probaly can’t figure out if I am starving it or fueling it. That was the beginning of my developing my “Bag of Tricks” to help me lose the weight and continue to lose wieght without feeling discouraged.
Feeling discouraged is worse than feeling hungry……….REPEAT THIS PHRASE….it is a key piece of information to the secret to losing weight.
When you are changing your daily eating habits, you are not joining a monastery, you are changing your day-to-day eating habits. That does not mean you can’t enjoy the occasional splurge several times a week, but you must have rules that you put in place to guide you willingly back to better food choices for the next bite that goes into your mouth.
If you are like the old me, one Snicker bar on the way home from work would set me off for weeks. Always waiting for the next Monday, while a growing sense of shame and FAT creeped into my soul and leaked out into my jeans. I was a pro at starting over.
I stopped starting over and started living……REPEAT!!!!
But I still have not talked about hiding food, hmmm……..the evidence is above and it is humiliating to look at. Hiding food, secret eating, am I alone?
I had never hidden food before, but Bill and I are making the same food choices and eating the same foods. So when I made a decision to (how can I minimize this????…hmmm..) I surely did not want him to know I was cheating, he would think so poorly of me. Plus he takes out the trash and would see the evidence. The thought occurred to me that this might be how people start a food disorder. Hence the confession and of course I have not done a Big Mac run or had a PEEP melt down since Easter. More importantly, I stopped hiding food. I can tell you those secret trips taught me more about my relationship with food than any thing I have ever read. We will come back to this but I would like some feedback about others secret eating and secret food stashing.
If you are brave enough to share your story about your unhealthy relationship with food…..I can tell you the 3000 followers of this blog would love to read about it, send me an email at wdsted@gmail.com and I will select one or more to blog about. I feel like I am only scratching the surface.
This is a part post!
Part 2: The Bag of Tricks and Before and after photos…
Part 3: Hunger Pains and the Yoga Connection
1400 Square feet basically in one room.....
Bill and I really like the raised area, looks like it might be a stage for a drag show......or I can put a mirror on the wall and call it my yoga studio up there!
Has a nicely sized patio. We are not street facing so we have no view of the park or the street. We will avoid the noise of the street and the dust....
We are kitty corner to the crown jewel of downtown Saint Paul, Lowertown's Mears Park. Complete with a band shell and music and movies in the park in the summer.
There is plenty of space to entertain!
Good thing these are before pictures. I can't wait to decorate this place!
Yes the KITCHEN needs work.....back splashes, new cabinets, a beautiful custom made pot rack has been ordered!
Lots of space in the hallway!
This area is going to get a complete transformation!
This room area is huge. We are going to build a loft a above for guest to sleep in and build walls around part of the area to enclose a bedroom for Bill and I.
Just a nice large fun place!
Nothing is ever coming between me and my Calvin's ever again!
The last couple of weeks have continued to be as busy as we have made an offer on a loft in Saint Paul, bought bikes and have been cycling the great city of Minneapolis. I have been stretching and doing yoga at home. I have a 20 minute routine I have developed to keep me flexible between yoga classes when I get busy. If anyone would like to learn my 20 minute routine let me know. It is simple but gets your major joints open each day for a more enjoyable day. Especially if you are an avid outdoor enthusiast. We are planning to do cheat day bike rides as a way to get out doors and see the Twin Cities
