Adventures in Finding the Perfect Snack

The key to every good diet is eating... According to Michigan.gov (No I do not live in Michigan) One of the reasons fad diets fail is that: "Diets Deprive us."

Average diets tell us when and how much we are allowed to eat. They give us certain foods to stay away from and demand that we eat other ridiculously expensive foods or foods that taste like shit... Like Acai Berries.

I do not know about the rest of you but I do not have a lot of money; I can not afford and do not have the time to cook every night. I work a very demanding job and finding the time to eat can be hard.

Thats where nature box comes in!

NatureBox has many options to serve your needs.

1. Just feeding yourself at your desk while at work - try out the $13.95 option, recommended for an army of 1, and choose three snacks and take the bags to work with you... its better than grabbing a doughnut out of the break room.
2. Got a Battle Buddy or Family that needs some snacks to - The Deluxe Box is recommended for 1 - 3 people and lets you choose 5 snacks that you can share. and it only costs $19.95
3. Are you in ROTC and your whole Squad wants to snack along with you? - Your in luck for just $29.95 you can get the Happy Snacker Box. 2 bags each of 5 customizable options that you can share with your squad. Recommended for up to 5 people. Divide the price and get the above option for 2 people for only $15 each.
4. Want to feed a whole Platoon? - You can with the Smart Snacker option! For only 49.95 you get 4 bags each of your 5 Favorite snacks or let them surprise you. Split the cost 4 ways and each person gets option 2 for less than option one... comes out to just under $12.50 per person. Recommended for a small army AKA 8 to 10 people!

For the last two months we have been running on the happy snacker and this is what we got this month!

I was sadly disappointed by most of the products that we selected for this box.

Honey Mustard Dipping Sticks

Well the Kids Liked Them

These were not even edible in my opinion. I tried them by themselves and I also tried to eat them with ranch (kinda defeating the purpose of healthy snacks) They were a very sharp taste and I did not enjoy them at all.

Mango Orange Chews

I Want a Lifetime Supply

Similar to the welch's fruit snacks you can buy at the grocery store but so much better.

There have been many times where I have gone to walmart on my way home from worked and grabbed a box of fruit snacks and ate all the none grape and raspberry flavors for my dinner.

I wish they sold these in the grocery store I would eat so many of them.

Southern BBQ Sunflower Seeds

My Wife Wants a Lifetime Supply

 

I did not eat any of these as I am not a huge fan of sunflower seeds but my wife loved them and is getting more of them in our next box.

Lemon Tea Biscuits

Probably better with Tea

   

These were not horrible but they were not great. They were really dry but I did like the lemonyish taste if you ate like 6 of them at a time.

Apple Pie Figgy Bars

Is it still American if I say I did not like these?

I don't not like them but compared to the strawberry ones I got for June I was very disappointed. I would have loved them if they had little apple chunks in them and they were a little juicy.

We are possibly upgrading to the Smart Snacker ($50) box next month depending on our finances.

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Have a Happy and Healthy Week



Thomas Gould!

Obesity is a terrorist that does not work alone!

“Obesity is a terrorist that does not work alone!” <- Tweet This! - Don't be a twit

Depression and Obesity work together to take over your life and destroy you! You have to declare war on terror and fight back! The only way to defeat obesity is to lose weight, which is hard when you are depressed; but you can combat depression everyday.

Since I spoke to the recruiters at the beginning of this month I have been depressed and that has set me back. I know I need to lose weight and to reach my goals, but I had convinced myself that my goals were not worth the fight anymore since everything keeps getting in the way. It took me almost a full month to get over this depression.

What makes depression bad

If you Google what is depression you get two definitions

1. Severe despondency and dejection, typically felt over a period of time and accompanied by feelings of hopelessness and inadequacy
2. The act of lowering something or pressing something down.

So what does all that mean?

While if you translate definition one from geek speak to Standard English it says Severe sadness felt over a period of time and accompanied by feelings of hopelessness and inadequacy.

That is a little easier to track but still could use some clarification to explain why it is bad. To assist in this clarification I will use the example from my own life

I have been sad over the last 2-3 weeks because I am inadequate (not good enough) for the SEALs and my ability to do what I want seems more and more hopeless.

This is bad because it caused me to not want to do anything and become complacent. I have felt like I can never do anything better than my current job, despite my bosses boss thinking I am good enough for a promotion.

I stopped exercising, I stopped eating right, I stopped trying!

I had fun at my National Guard experience, and despite this I put myself in a state of perpetual failure.

How did I overcome this?

I was talking to my best friend that I have known since the second grade via text message while I was bored at work and his failed attempt to motivate me didn’t quite fail!

I commented to him that I was depressed to which he responded:

“Don't be depressed you can always go for corrections with me.”

I was like:

"How is that supposed to make me depressed? Instead of moving out of Arizona, seeing the world, shooting at evil, and generally just being awesome. You get to stay in Arizona be overheated and an overpaid babysitter.”

He of course took offence and said that I should slit my wrists now if I am going to think like that. Drama Queen!

I told him to think about it:

“If I were to become a corrections officer I could be a corrections officer or a supervisor of correction officers. If I were to go into the military I could be a helicopter mechanic, helicopter pilot, or I could go into some sort of computer field like cryptology or network security. Someday I could get vision correction surgery and become a jet pilot.”

At that point I realized that I was being stupid and that even if I can’t be a SEAL I can still be awesome, that I should not be giving up just because a physical issue pushed me out of my goal.

My Advice

Talk to someone: A true friend will never turn you away!

Anyone: Doctors, Teachers, Counselors, Priests, Mommy, Daddy, Security at Walmart!

Pick up the phone book and dial random numbers till someone is willing to help you if that is what it takes.

Don't give up! DO NOT EAT THAT DOUGHNUT!

Sometimes pushing yourself to be more awesome… to keep striving for the goal even though you cannot obtain it will still keep you motivated and push the depression out.

Keep yourself on track no matter how much you want to give up, cry, or die.

If you give up then the terrorists win!

Do you want to let the terrorists win?

If you said yes to that you are on the wrong blog!

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Have a Happy and Healthy Week!

Thomas Gould!


Images provided by RaccoonGirlDesign

How I am Progressing!

National Guard Weekend

We took a crappy old school bus style bus up to flagstaff, the bus would not even go the speed limit up the mountain so it took us 3 hours to complete a 2 hour drive.

 After we arrived they had all of us fall into formation and the instructed us on where we would be staying, by the time we arrived it was already really cold probably around 60 degrees Fahrenheit and a large part of the platoon was shivering, but I wasn't.

 We all got beds to sleep on which was nice because David told me that we would either be on cots or on the floor. Despite having an actual bed to sleep on and a sleeping bag designed for the temperature up in flag I slept like shit the first night. I have not spent a night away from my wife in ten years and I have not spent a night away from my kids since they were born.

SATURDAY

I woke up at 4:45 am, 15 minutes before we were required to be up, I took that time to shave and brush my teeth.

During first formation we did warm-up PT(Physical Training), followed by the 2, 2, 2 which is 2 minute push-ups, 2 minutes sit-ups, and a 2 mile run. At which point we had one person pass out.

PT in flagstaff sucks. We were at an elevation of over 7300 feet and the air is thinner up there and no matter how hard you try you can not get enough air in.

My scores on the Personal Fitness Test were horrible

32 push-ups
19 sit-ups
> 22 min 2 mile run

We all thought that once we were done with PT we were going to get shower time but we ended up going straight from PT to breakfast

OMG Breakfast... So Delicious!

Scrambled eggs with bacon, hash-browns, and toast. served by a local diner.

We spent most of the rest if the day in classes.

• Land Navigation
• Sexual Harassment Prevention
• Suicide Prevention
• Drill and Ceremony

In the middle of the classes they had all the enlisted people go get there uniforms issued and the five guests in my class all had to stand in formation and wait for them to get there uniforms and change into them (about an hour). I got really badly sunburned

After the last class we did some actual drill and ceremony and we did not move fast enough for the Sargent so we ended up having to do a bunch of push-ups and flutter kicks on hot asphalt. At which point our second person of the day passed out.

Our lunch sucked... We had and MRE (Meal Ready to Eat) and while they are not as horrible as I remember from the ones I had when I was a kid they are not as good as fresh cooked restaurant food.

Dinner was just as good as breakfast, we went back to the same restaurant and had Spaghetti and meatballs.

After dinner we were free to do as we pleased as long as we stayed in the barracks. So me and David and a few other guys decided to play poker but we did not have any chips so we had to play PT poker.

30 second dead cockroaches

Sunday

After more scrambled eggs we drove up into the mountains and went hiking.

Land navigation was fun I was the only person in my group that did not have to have map reading and point plotting and compass reading explained to them over and over.

After land navigation we were issued another MRE and then we were sent home.

Summary

I had so much fun despite being yelled at constantly and forced to do more push-ups then I have ever done in one day. I want to go back next month but I had a very hard time getting the time off this month and no one seems receptive to giving me the time off again.

Rest of the Week

On my day off I went to the eye doctor and failed my eye exam

I bet you are wondering how you fail and eye exam. Easy the Navy Seals require no worse then 20/70 vision without glass and it must be correctable to 20/20. I have 20/100 correctable to 20/20. So I failed the part of the requirements to get into the SEALs that I can not do anything about.

After my eye exam I went to talk to the navy recruiter and they told me with my family and debt there is a 50/50 chance that I will get a enlistment waiver approved.

So I went and talked to the Army recruiter and they said that I need to lose 5 lbs and gain an inch in my neck and lose an inch in my waist.

My Measurements

National Guard: 

• Neck - 17.5 
• Waist - 39

Navy

• Neck - 17.5
• Waist - 41

Army

• Neck - 16.5
• Waist - 39

Need

• Neck - 17.5
• Waist - 38

So basically at this point I am looking down the barrel of a loaded cannon. I can never do what I want to do in the military. The branch I want to go into I am locked out of because I have two kids, my second option has a 50/50 chance of being locked out of, and my third option needs me to be 22% body fat to pass MEPs.

We will see how the next 30 days go and see what my body will let me do.

Have a happy and Healthy week

Thoams Gould