Jerry Wayne Odom Jr

I’m starting to notice a trend in my adventures of beer brewing.    I’m becoming a bit of a beer brewing equipment snob as I learn more about the craft of brewing beer.   Don’t confuse this with a beer snob as I’ll drink any beer especially free beer.   I don’t care if it’s natural light, high life or Colt 45 malt liqour the only bad beer is no beer!   

Anyhow before I get too far off topic I’ll tell you why I’m becoming a beer equipment snob.   I haven’t brewed beer in about 3 months due to the fact that I lost my freezer that I use as a temperature control tank.    I had to wait until I was able to purchase another freezer which I did about 2 weeks ago.    I can remember when I would brew an ale and throw it in the coolest corner of the house for a few weeks and happily drink it.     Now days I’m not happy unless the hydrometer shows ideal results in ideal time and I am a big critic of my results being that brewing a beer usually involves slaving over a brew setup for 4 hours.(it takes so long because I also only brew all grain now)

Ok it gets worse.

In addition to the freezer I also impulsively ordered an expensive stainless steel wort chiller because I am worried the small one isn’t cooling my hand made stainless steel keg pots fast enough.   I also ordered hop balls because I feel like trub and hops getting tossed to the side walls of the pot is hurting my bitter.    For strike three I’ve also ordered an expensive refractometer because I want another verdict on my gravity readings versus my hydrometer.

I feel like I’ve become a beer brewing equipment snob.   I remember when I happily brewed with $150 worth of equipment and now I know it must be 10 times that!     I warn you all out there that beer brewing can become an expensive addiction like fishing, golfing or any other accessory driven activity.    But it sure is fun!

I just ended a 3 month weight loss challenge  at work.   I started at 174.5 pounds and ended at 149 pounds even.    Additionally I own a body fat scale that was telling me 22% when this thing started and it’s telling me 13% now.    So in addition to losing all that weight I lost a far more impressive amount of body fat.    Doing a little dirty math that means I was carrying around 38 pounds of body fat when this thing started and now I’m carrying around about 20 pounds of body fat which means I lost 6 pounds of fat alone every month not to mention gaining muscle.   I lost inches as well.    I was about to have to start wearing size 36 waist pants and now I’ve purchased size 32 waist pants and they’re lose. 

I thought I’d share what I’m calling my “Baton Rouge Weight Loss Plan” because of course my structure was around Baton Rouge being that I live here and it involves my gym, restaurants and shopping locally.   So here is how I got it done.

Exercise

I like most people had an exercise routine that wasn’t really showing results.   I ran 4-5 days a week, worked out with weights in my garage and punched a heavy bag but I was stuck at 185 or so pounds which is way to heavy at my height of 5’9″.    So I got online and started looking around.   A little research will show you why when you compare your work out with what I turned to for this challenge it’s a real eye opener that you’re not burning many calories compared to what you could do in the same amount of time.      I saw signs for LA Boxing around town and researching their 1000 calorie burn  in an hour advertisement I realized I wasn’t burning much of anything running.    I tried their free demo class, could barely walk out of there and got pretty humbled about the kind of condition I was in.    I signed up that day.

I started with LA Boxing about 3 months before the weight loss challenge started and was doing it 2-3 times a week.   I got in much better physical shape and lost down to 175 pounds and the 22% body fat I initially talked about.     When the opportunity to do the team weight loss challenge came up I decided to get really motivated, set a goal and hit it hard for 3 months.   I stepped up to going to LA Boxing classes 4-5 times a week minimum when the challenge started.   They have a Tuesday/Thursday morning class and a large number of classes in the evenings so no excuses and no more screwing around. It’s important to point out that I ramped up to the 3 month loss plan physically. If you’re out of shape like I was you might want to do a period of ramp up exercise in a place like LA Boxing.   It hit me so hard for the first month of membership I’d have to rest for 20-30 minutes before driving home because I was so shaky.  I couldn’t have done it 4-5 times a week at first.

Daily Diet Plan

If you want to burn fat and get lean you have to diet.   I don’t have time to always cook special meals every day so I put together a list of restaurants I could reasonably eat at and eat healthy.    I put together the simple recipes you’ll find on this website in the recipes category.    I also have a list of common foods I purchased to use as snacks, breakfast.   The biggest part of the diet is you have to plan it ahead of time so you have options to run to when you’re starving .   Also as a suggestion that really helps to burn fat you should stay away from bad carbohydrates such as white rice, white bread, white flour.    For me this meant avoiding biscuits, eating gumbo or sauce without rice and just a little less beer.  Don’t totally deny yourself the good stuff but avoid it most of the time.

For daily breakfast I had either plain Quaker oatmeal with a little honey on it or grape nuts.    Additionally later in the competition at the recommendation of Calvin at LA Boxing I had a scoop of Optimum Nutrition Gold Standard 100% Natural Whey protein in water.   It worked out great and I never had a hunger issues before lunch.   If I did get hungry before lunch I had V8 low sodium in a 12 oz can.   I hate V8 so I would leave it room temperature so I could chug it really quick without freezing my throat and then wash it down with water.    Anything to wipe away hunger while on a diet!

Lunch for me was always eating out at restaurants.   I don’t bring my lunch to work and realized from previous experience that I’m just not going to do it.   Luckily I know a lot about local restaurants from building    and was able to put together a list of places I could find good things to eat.   It’s surprising to most that you can find good stuff that isn’t that bad for your diet.

• Serop’s Express – A Lebanese restaurant with a couple of locations in town they offer a selection of around 30 different sides many of which are steamed, baked or smothered vegetables.   I would get a selection of 2 vegetables with chicken shawarma.
• Voodoo BBQ or Cou-Yons- Believe it or not you can eat good at a BBQ place.   Order the chicken and get green beans and cole slaw.  
• Ichiban Sushi or other favorite sushi joint – Get just sashimi fish and you’re eating good.   No rice or rolls!   Miso soup is ok and it’s a very comforting food.

Supplements

After discussion with one of the trainers at LA Boxing and a co-worker who’s big in to fitness it was pretty clear that thermogenic fat burners are a good way to go when you want to lose weight and lose fat.   So for starters I purchased OxyElite Pro Super Thermogenic off of Amazon.    I took it in the morning 30 minutes before breakfast and right at noon.   On the bottle it says you can take a third daily but for my situation this didn’t work.   It makes you feel a little edgy but it certainly showed results.

In the last three weeks of the competition I was looking at purchasing protein powder for when the competition was over.   It was about this time Calvin at LA Boxing recommended it as part of the diet because it helps them with weight cutting.     It would have been better to  talk to Calvin earlier in the competition I guess.   He has had lots of great ideas in regards to weight management as a professional fighter.     So for breakfast I had a protein shake and I felt less tired after workouts and not as hungry.    My weight loss increased with the addition of the morning protein shake.

Know Your Burn Rate and Intake on Calories

For me this was pretty simple but for others it might be difficult.   I looked around on Google for “How many calories do I burn” calculators.    After playing with a few of them and sort of averaging them I figured out that I burned 2500 calories a day when I didn’t work out and around 3200 calories when I did.   I also used the Self Nutrition Data website daily to estimate what I was eating. I set a realistic goal of 2 pounds per week and adjusted my calorie intake and work out rate to fit this. I feel like it’s important that people don’t try to average out and say flat out “I’m going to eat 2000 calories a day period” because this doesn’t work. With a flat suffering calorie intake you get weak and quit your diet. Setting a target weight loss over a period time and allowing yourself days to eat based on the math of the calorie intake vs burn will make it easier and help you not quit on your diet.

Conclusion

It’s a pretty basic formula of  diet + exercise + suppliments + research.    I think that you have to be honest with yourself as well.    Many of my friends have asked “Why do LA Boxing when you can do P90X or Insantiy at home?” and the answer is honestly I wouldn’t commit to those things at home.    With a gym you have people all around you working out and getting fit so it’s motivational.    When you’re in a class and a woman 15 years older than you is pushing through it you can’t stop and keep your man card.    Additionally you have to be honest about your calorie intake with yourself.    Once you realize just what you’re eating versus what you’re burning you realize you have to change.   Now that I understand all these things working out and staying in shape is not a chore anymore.    It’s just part of my routine.   

Further you have to understand your surroundings.    Everything I need to eat healthy and lose weight in the Baton Rouge community I know about now.     It took some research but now that I’ve got it I always know where to turn to to get back to 155 pounds and 13% bodyfat.     Just in case I forget it’s right here in this blog post for me and hopefully anyone else in Baton Rouge who’s lost and wants to get back in shape.

Hope this helps.

I realized a few years back that unless I wanted to be only a software developer for the rest of my life I needed to grow professionally beyond just staying latest and greatest in software development. Lately I’ve been noticing a number of my peers having decades more experience and still basically doing the same job. There’s nothing against that as it’s a high pay, low stress profession that allows you to solve new problems every day. However I got in to software development because I enjoy the challenges but my time working with others who are more experienced made me realize that eventually it’s all the same thing even with the business problems you have to address.   I’ve thought of earning an MBA(still am thinking) but something came upon me that allowed an opportunity to grow right now.

To me it seemed if I really want to take it to the next level then I’ll need to move in to project management or architecture and I was lucky enough to move in to the project management sort of role around a year ago. Being double lucky they’ve enrolled me through the Business Project Management Program at LSU and for me it’s really added so much perspective in my day to day as a software developer let alone my growth as a Project Manager.  The courses are designed to develop you in project management as defined by the Project Management Institute which is “the” organization for the promotion of project management as a profession.  Essentially if you learn to manage a project their way you can manage a project anywhere for any business sense.  But that aside I have to say that as a developer you gain so much more insight on goals and objectives within an organizational structure.   Things that previously made no sense about why certain things were being done become clear or you at least understand the possible reasons your enterprise might be doing what they’re doing.

To me becoming skilled as a project manager is also exciting because not only can I manage IT and software development projects but I can also manage any project in any business beyond IT with their framework.   By pursuing this extension of my skillset in to this field I’ve given myself a world of new possible opportunity where I was presently pretty much set on being a developer.   You might think “Does this mean you’re thinking of leaving software development?” and the answer is no but options for consideration are nice to have.   I love developing software but I’ve had friends talk about their fields and thought it’d be exciting to work in that direction.   As a skilled project manager you have a niche that allows you to move across industry beyond a certain functional area.(IT)

As I said the program at LSU allows you to learn as it relates to the PMI but it also bridges gaps between yourself and other professionals.   For instance in the construction business you have planners & estimaters who consider many of us software developers so alien we might as well be from Mars.    However when they saw PMP study guides and material in regards to Project Management they instantly had something to talk about from their perspective.   On the other hand I found myself better capable of discussing software development with them.  So instantly this was positive and showing to be a worthwhile investment.   Further in later discussions