Well my target day I set out to lose as much weight as I could is next week (Oct 21, my beautiful wife’s bday). The good news is that I've been steadily losing it and the great news is that I'm only 1 pound away from this goal! WOOOT!!!

I started at 208lbs in March. Fast forward to October and I'm at 171lbs; 37lbs! I want to thank my wife for hanging in there and for being my inspiration. She's supported me through my let's-try-every-single-whey-protein-in-the-market-and-type-of-coconut-oil phase. The reality is that I did this all for her. I looked at my self on the mirror one day and said, Holly cow! I'm as fat as a cow!!! My wife deserves waaaaay better than this slow-poke energyless guy I had become. I'm now below the weight I was when I got married and feeling super energetic and full of life. 

Again, my only "secret" was reading Frank Suarez's the Power of your Metabolism book and increasing my intake of protein a day. Once I started to get my energy back (after 2 weeks) I started doing light workout because I was so full of energy I didn't know what to do with it. Now I work out 3-4 days a week and feel great :)

Hope this helps inspire someone and it will make a difference. Again thanks for all the support and compliments. I love you all :{D


EDIT- Here are the link for the book in Amazon.com: In English. In Spanish.

So even I was exercising 5 times a week I was not losing weight. I was feeling more fit (I even ran a 5K with my coworkers that I wouldn't have been able to do without the rebounding I had done thus far) but still nothing noticeable in my weight. So I went back to apply what I read in the book; changing the eating habits first then exercise. 

So I cut down sugars and complex carbs out of my diet. It doesn't mean I don't have a soda every once in a while or enjoy a slice of cake here and there. Here's what really changed everything - eating more protein. That simple. I was told by a nutritionist friend of mine that my metabolism was fine but it was lacking protein in general. Since when you grow older you start to lose some muscle mass and he recommended that should get about 145g of protein a day. So now I have 3 protein shakes (25g each) in a day to supply enough protein for the body. 

Here's what I do: I eat a protein shake for breakfast (protein + coconut oil + almond milk). I eat a good lunch and dinner (my wife is an awesome cook and cooks very healthy) and I just add a protein shake after lunch and dinner. The shakes are not only getting me the protein the body was lacking but I'm no longer hungry after each meal. Before I would eat a very healthy meal and then felt like I should have some cookies or a dessert of some kind or have to snack at 3pm. With the protein shake after eating, the body realizes that it has all the nutrients and protein it needs and doesn't feel hungry. It's like magic! And with that I started to drop weight like noting; between 1-2lbs a week (which is the recommended way to lose weight so you give the body time to adjust). I'm ecstatic about this! 

Also since I've started to do this I'm more energetic and actually feel like working out. Before I would force myself to work out but now I can tell the body wants to do it because it has that extra energy to burn. 

So I recommend that if you really want to get some very good information about nutrition and how to slim down, to read the Power of your Metabolism and start working on a healthier you by just eating smarter and healthier :{D

I've been consistently increasing my weigh at about 10lbs a year and when I finally got to 208lbs it hit me; I'm obese and I'm not doing anything about it. This is not healthy, not healthy at all. The good news is that last Friday (June 3rd, 2011) marks the day I finally beat obesity; I've lost 20lbs and now I'm just overweight and on my way to my ideal weight! 

So what have I done to lose 20lbs? For starters I read a book called The Power of Metabolism by Frank Suarez. My Mom gave me this book last November; I think she was trying to say something. So I read up on it and I really liked the viewpoint that Frank Suarez has; it's mostly what we eat why we're overweight, diets don't work since they just restrict you from something you can't have which in turn will cause you to crave it even more. Then eventually you’ll stop following the diet and you'll end up even heavier than before. Yes exercise does play its role but as Frank Suarez explains that comes after you've fixed your eating habits. 

I take full responsibility of how I became obese since there's no one I can blame but myself. I mean I was eating tons of fast food, cookies after eating lunch and/or dinner (yikes!), eating 2 slices of cake (it's always someone's birthday at the office) and eating late snacks (chips or candy). This wasn't helping anyone. 

So after reading the book Frank Suarez mentioned the best way to exercise was to do rebounding since you work out your whole body literally since every cell is being moved by the up and down motion of the rebounding (For more info on rebounding see David Hall's site www.cellersice.com). So I got a rebounder for Xmas and started using it every day. For about 15 minutes a day I would jog and do various exercises and I could feel my body was getting better because I felt better but there was still no weight loss. So what now?! I've always just worked out and went back to a reasonable weight. 

Stay tuned for the part 2 :{D

I've been looking forward to buy a new lens recently. I love my Canon 50mm f1.4; it's beautiful and super fast but when I went to Islands of Adventure on my wife's Bday and I took the 50 and the kit lens. The 50mm was a bit long to just walk around and take pictures. The kit did great since I could take wide and zoom shots with the sunshine but once I got indoors its lack of better aperture would show right away. 

So I started to browse Amazon.com, B&H Photo and Adorama for reviews and looking for a good "walk about" lens which is a multipurpose lens that can take wide shots as well as zoomed. It was a bit difficult to find "the lens" since you didn't have anything to start from. So after hours of browsing and reading reviews I was pretty much set on the lens I want.

Then I found this awsome new site called lenshero.com which made all the leg work I had already made but in a few second. I can select my camera, the budget, the type of photography I'd like to shoot and voila! I get a page with a whole bunch of recommendations and it includes awesome info such as Reviews from users, Pros and Cons, etc. I can sort by brand, by budget and much more.

I highly recommend this site to anyone who has a DSLR and is in search of new lens and doesn't know where to begin. It certainly makes it easier for one to find the right lens and puts one in the right direction.  

We switch from AT&T to Sprint at my company about 2 months ago. This meant we went from iPhones to HTC EVO 4G's. At first not every one was happy since it meant a new phone a new system and not what we were used to. 

So after having the HTC Evo for 2 months I can say that I'm really loving it! Don't get me wrong the iPhone is an awesome piece of equipment, I used it for about a year, but it was lacking on the nerdier end of the spectrum. I love the iPod functionality in the iPhone and the games but some times I thought I was a little restricted on what I could and could not do. For one you have iTunes, I already had an iTunes and its account setup since I have a couple of iPods but this meant that I would have to wait for the end of the day to go home and do a backup at my home computer since it's where I had everything in regards to the iPhone. The Evo just hooks up to the internet and I can do what I want to do, I've even setup to backup some of my apps onto my Dropbox. I've downloaded and purchased some apps and it's really easy since I already had a gmail.com account.

The main difference I see is that the iPhone is more a phone with a multimedia/gaming environment which is doing a great job at it (I did have a 3GS not an iPhone 4). The Evo is more of a phone with a small computer (much more powerful than the first computers I used to play with). I love that I can arrange my desktop and put widgets and apps I want to have easy access to but I still have all the apps on my app drawer, which to me means a cleaner look. The multimedia aspect of the Evo is not the best but it works quite good and that's the thing, if I want an app for music there's tons that can be found on the market to satisfy what I'm looking for. 

So needless to say I'm very happy with this phone and enjoy tweaking it here and there. It reminds me of the good ol' days of changing icons and setting up your desktop and wallpapers when I first started to use computers. And since the company pays, I'm happy :)