18 Months in, a First 5 Recommendations List

A Dream Inspired

Back in early 2014, hearing James Altucher speak and listening to his podcast started me on a journey of getting serious about pursuing the "someday" goals that had always been in my mind but had never really come to much more than daydreams in the past.

From the podcast I began making notes when I would hear authors interviewed whose books on lifestyle creation and breaking out of the conventional rat race resonated with me. I've mentioned previously in the blog that the very first one of these was The 4-Hour Workweek by Timothy Ferriss. The book is absolutely inspiring in terms of thinking about possibilities for how you could live your life differently and examples pulled from the author and from many others who have successfully said, "No, thanks!" to tradition and have pursued life a little differently.

A Gap Defined

The one thing that became utterly apparent from the start with Ferriss's book is that the author is a super A-type personality. He is hard-wired to achieve and investigate and experiment and life hack to find the unconventional. But as of 18 months ago, that is a skill I had not yet acquired. A lot of the ideas that the author presents in the book are incredibly seductive, but the rule-constrained, order-following, permission-seeking side that dominates my personality was highly resistant to doing more than dreaming about how I could somehow bring those things to pass in my life.

The one thing that did stick with me from The 4-Hour Workweek is opening my eyes to the possibility that there is something better, different, new, and achievable if I will but reach out and grasp it. It made me hungry to find the pathway to get there from where I was, but I was going to need a few more breadcrumbs to find my way to that trail. So I kept listening to James and I kept making notes and I kept adding books to my collection--and consuming them! The books do no good collecting dust, so I would immediately start on them as soon as I purchased them. In addition to the Tim Ferriss title, I soon had books by James Altucher, Ramit Sethi, Charles D. Ellis and Burton G. Malkiel, Joel Greenblatt, Howard Marks, Matthew Capala, Peter Thiel and Blake Masters, Brian Tracy, Chris Gillebeau, and David Bach.

A Library in Construction

My collection grew slowly at first, because I was using my two credits per month from Audible to buy a book from the Altucher podcasts and a book from my Sci-Fi and Fantasy book club as well. yes--I was buying these titles all as audio books. The reason is simple: I've kept myself incredibly busy for the past few years, and the main time I have for myself is my lunch hour, when I have been in the habit (since I started with my present employer in 2005) of taking a 3.5-mile walk around the perimeter of our office park. I found The Sword and Laser online book club not long after it was launched, and I began using Audible credits to download the audio books of the monthly selections and then listening to them during my lunchtime walk each day.

So for the first nine months or so of 2014, I was alternating a book I heard on Altucher's podcast and a book from my book club. All the titles were fascinating and inspiring, but almost all of them seemed to want to speak to an audience of already A-type readers that had already been trying to find the right life hack and simply needed guidance on a system.

But several of them actually gave me something I could use right away, and I did gain something from them. I'll tell you which ones they were in a moment, but it wasn't until July of 2015 that I stumbled onto two books that I think lay the foundation and are helping to point me in a direction to make all the wisdom from the other books that much more effective. After thinking about which books had the most immediate impact, and which ones build upon the principles taught in others, I've put together a personal "first five" list of book I would recommend. These are the ones that have helped me the most, in the order that I think their messages would be the most useful. This order may work for others also; all I can do is share what has seemed to work well for me.

My Personal First Five Recommendations

Book One: The Miracle Morning by Hal Elrod



Earlier this month when I heard James Altucher interview Hal Elrod about his book, The Miracle Morning. During the interview, Hal mentioned a quote by the late Jim Rohn that he said had struck him powerfully, and it was like a thunderbolt to me when I heard it. Rohn once said, "Your level of success will rarely exceed your level of personal development." It sounds a lot like things we've all heard said a thousand times before by everyone from parents, counselors, motivational authors and speakers, and even spiritual texts. But that quote immediately resonated as something I needed to hear, and even as I continued listening to the interview, I immediately went to Audible's order page and used a credit to get Hal Elrod's book. It was around 10:00 am, and I decided I would start listening to it during my lunch break that very day.

Indeed, Hal Elrod's book outlines a morning daily practice that fundamentally promotes personal development through a ritual of daily disciplines. In other books in the library I had built up, I had heard many times discussions of the importance of daily exercises for the mind, the heart, the spirit, and the body. And The Miracle Morning's ritual of daily "Life Savers" hits all of those first thing out of bed and jump-starts your mindset for the day.

Book Two: The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up, by Marie Kondo



You may wonder what this has to do with personal development, but there's that old saying about a cluttered space reflecting a cluttered mind, and I really think that's true. In 2014, two elderly relatives passed away, so that left me with three households worth of stuff crammed into my small house, even after all the rest of the family members came and took away what they wanted. The piles and boxes and bags and clutter had just become overwhelming, and another common thread echoed in many of the books I had read was the concept of "elimination" to get rid of the need to worry about keeping track of so much stuff. I heard James Altucher first mention this book in late June or early July of 2015.

I have to admit there's a certain lazy streak in my personality has always made it difficult for me to keep a tidy house anyway, and this book has been an incredible revelation on how to actually tackle the overwhelming amount of stuff that is confronting me in my home. I have to be honest I just finished this book today and I spent a few hours starting on the author's method when I got home today. Mind absolutely blown. A process for tackling one task that I thought might take months was finished in a matter of a few hours. Granted, this was just the first step of many steps I need to take as I start decluttering my physical living space, but the confidence boost and the sense of accomplishment from seeing this first step completed is motivating me to really dive deeply into this process to get it completed throughout my house.

Book Three: Eat That Frog! by Brian Tracy



Brian Tracy's book is a very practical guide to tackling those things in life that are really important but are quite unpleasant. These things differ from person to person, but the effect is always the same: these are the chores, assignments, presentations, projects, or other things that seem so daunting and so stressful that inevitably you simply wind up avoiding them.

I came across Brian Tracy from some of my other reading. It occurred to me that his name was one that had come up several times in multiple books I had read. It was finally while I was reading another book on this list, The Success Principles, that I stopped and took time to look up what he had written and select the best one that seemed most helpful to me. I came across this book in May of 2015.

I really like the book because it teaches concrete processes, systems, and strategies for dealing with things. I've been implementing Tracy's systems at work for the past couple of months and I'm already noticing better results. Now that I've started implementing Hal Elrod's Miracle Morning ritual, I've seen another quantum leap in the effectiveness of these processes, which is why I would recommend tackling Hal's book first.

Book Four: I Will Teach You To Be Rich, by Ramit Sethi



While Sethi's book has a pretentious title, it's more of a practical guide to making conscious decisions to control your money so that your financial situation doesn't wind up controlling you. If you have dreams of radically shifting your lifestyle, understanding and controlling your income is something that's going to be incredibly critical to sustaining that, so it's better to get a handle on it now and start mastering it. Once again, the foundational disciplines established in the first three books are something that will make implementing Sethi's teaching about handling your personal finances a lot easier than if you come to it before having the other disciplines already established (as was the case for me).

Ramit Sethi was interviewed on James Altucher's show in the first half of 2014, thus it was one of the first books I began working through in this list. It was a bit of a confidence booster because I found I was doing several things the way he recommended--or close to the way he recommended. He did offer me some suggestions for tweaking and improving my methods, which I found quite helpful.

Book Five: The Success Principles, by Jack Canfield



Jack Canfield is probably best known as the co-author of the Chicken Soup for the Soul series of books. He's also a motivational speaker and a great collector of practical wisdom. His Success Principles book goes into great detail about many of the different techniques and practices that you find discussed in the first four books on my list, as well as many other of the books in the personal development library I've been building.

Jack was interviewed on James Altucher's show in early 2015, talking about the 10th anniversary edition of this book. It's a very detailed, broad-spectrum book on many principles employed by a number of the most successful people around.

I include this one in my First Five list because I think it reinforces and ties together a lot of what the first four books have to offer, and it also acts as a catalyst or springboard to lead into a deeper study of whatever area of self-development you want to pursue next. For those with the lifestyle design itch, understanding the content of The Success Principles will make reading The 4-Hour Workweek that much more powerful and immediately useful. If you have dreams of entrepreneurship, then it would make books like Chris Gillebeau's The $100 Startup, or Peter Thiel's Zero to One that much more easy to implement immediately.

The other thing about Canfield's book is that moreso than any of the others it is filled with the powerful example of personal stories. For every one of the principles Canfield describes (and there are over sixty), there are stories of people who have achieved remarkable results through the use of each one.

If you are like me and have been motivated by some inspiring personal development or entrepreneurial or lifestyle design books but have been struggling to find a place to start, I hope this list will help. On the other hand, I have to say that these books in this order are the ones that seem to make the most sense to me and have been most helpful. I cannot say that you would find them the most helpful in this order. In fact, if you have suggestions or ideas of your own about the best order to start on your journey, I'd love it if you share that in the comments below.

Opponent Lookalikes: New York Red Bulls Edition

If you want to try your hand at adding additional lookalikes in the comments below, you can find roster head shots for New York Red Bulls here.

Player	Lookalike
Anatole Abang	Chris Rock
Sacha Kljestan	Hedo Turkoglu
Santiago Castano	George Michael
Matt Miazga	Lyle Lovett
Marius Obekop	Hershel Dalton

For more fun content related to Orlando City, be sure to check out the Lion's Teeth Blog!

Overcoming Internal Inertia Killers

I wrote a few posts ago about how finding James Altucher's podcast last year was a catalyst to begin me moving toward some long-term goals that had frankly been nothing but glorified daydreams. I say they were daydreams because they were always prefixed with "some day" or "one day" or "I'm going to" followed by many vague ambitions born of momentary enthusiasm but destined to die at the first sign of obstacle or impediment.

These goals ranged from the minor and frivolous, such as, "I'm going to do every quest in that video game I play," to the dramatic and exclusive, like, "I'm going to spend July in France one year and follow every stage of the Tour de France." From writing books to losing weight to starting businesses to finding the woman of my dreams they all pretty much came to naught in the grand scheme of things.

But the more I listened to Altucher's podcast and the more inspiring stories I heard from people who had done remarkable things and accomplished remarkable achievements, the more I was inspired to learn more about the mechanics of how those were accomplished. So I started downloading audiobooks of the most intriguing titles that I heard authors speak about on the podcast. I have had a long-standing daily discipline of taking a walk at lunch time, and for many years I had used that time to listen to fiction books for entertainment, but I decided I would start using that time to listen to some of these inspirational audiobooks instead.

I wrote before how the first of these books was The 4-Hour Work Week by Tim Ferriss. It was indeed inspiring and gave me something of a road map, but it felt as though there were a gap between where I was and the starting point where Tim Ferriss had been before he began uncovering the secrets that led him to his lifestyle design breakthrough. He clearly is an Alpha type personality--the kind of person who is motivated to achieve when someone tells him something is impossible. I'd like to claim to have that kind of personality, but everyone who knows me pretty well knows that the truth is I am often a pretty linear thinker. I think usually in terms of incremental advances and I often have a hard time grasping or accepting radical paradigm shifts without some clarity on how to get from here to there. That's a skill I still need to develop.

Even so, Tim's book was so compelling that I actually began making notes and working on some of the exercises he recommended to build confidence, challenge myself, and try to push forward. It also left me hungry for more details on how I could bridge the gap between where I found myself a year ago to where I wanted to be in the near future. Meanwhile, I kept listening to the Altucher podcast and I kept making notes about other authors and books that seemed compelling.

One of my long-term goals (e.g., dreams) has been to start and run my own business that can replace my need to get up and go to work for someone else every day. Instead I could get up and be eager to go do something I love that enriches my life and makes the world a little better place for others at the same time--and not have to live in material poverty. I'm blessed to have a job that pays a good salary and permits me to indulge some hobbies like following favorite sports teams, travel a few times a year, and enjoy a few fun gadgets. I don't need a mansion, a yacht, luxury resort accommodations when I travel, or a super fancy vehicle. But I really dislike having to get up every morning and going to a job that can be a bit tedious instead of waking up every morning with limitless possibilities and a sense of adventure ahead. Then one day James Altucher was interviewing a guy that sounded like he was little more than a college kid on his show, but the man had accomplished quite a bit. He was the son of immigrants from India, and his name was Ramit Sethi. He was talking about setting financial foundations for a successful life (with success defined by an individual's own motivations and desires), which he had written about in his book with a pretty materialistic sounding title, I Will Teach You To Be Rich. I have some friends who may find that title offensive because "rich" brings to mind social protests over income gaps and the perceived injustice of wealth distribution. But I would urge those people to think of "rich" in this context as "fulfilled." Think about what you value money for the most: education, philanthropy, travel, entertainment, experiences with friends or family, or buying stuff. In this context, living a "rich" life means being able to fulfill those things that are most in line with your core values. That doesn't mean being a slum lord, running a company on sweatshop labor, or finding ways to avoid paying your taxes.

Sethi's book was much closer to what I was seeking. It has six major principles that he outlines as fundamental ways to control your money so it doesn't control you and how to consciously spend on those things that help you feel more fulfilled without financially starving yourself on an artificial budget. The first few steps of the book start with where you are and move you toward a healthy command of your present circumstances. Thereafter he offers some strategies and tips to grow your income if that's what you think you need to do in order to achieve the things you want to be able to do with your money. Being a more incremental guide, it was much better suited to my personality and I could easily understand, adopt, and begin using some of the concepts, strategies, and ideas Sethi taught in his book to move me forward. Progress.

Over the last year or so, many more books have been added to my library and I've listened through most of them. But the best one so far is one that seems to get down to the core and fundamental issue that's always held me back from achieving what I want. This book is Hal Elrod's The Miracle Morning, and I just found out about it a few days ago. I heard Altucher's interview with the author on Monday morning, and I immediately went to the Audible web page and used one of my credits to purchase the book. Then at lunch when I went for my walk I started listening to it. Most of these books use inspirational or motivational quotes throughout, and one of the first that Elrod included (in fact, the one he credits for motivating him to develop his daily practice in the first place) really struck a nerve with me. The quote is from the late motivational speaker and success coach, Jim Rohn.

Your level of success will seldom exceed your level of personal development.

 It sounds obvious and it's undoubtedly true--think about the people whose accomplishments and achievements inspire and motivate you, and chances are that they have developed some lifelong habits that have helped them to achieve and accomplish all they have attained. This notion is also of course, not new. Since the days of Aristotle, sages and wise leaders in the fields of philosophy, religion, and success have taught and preached daily habits or rituals that form the foundation of their life. I've heard a lot of it too--repeated in different ways throughout sources like the book of Proverbs from the Bible, the classic Seven Habits of Highly Effective People by the late Steven Covey, which I learned about from a company I worked for nearly 20 years ago, and repeated in many of the books I had consumed over the past year.

But there was something about the way Rohn's quote was worded that spoke to Elrod and it spoke to me as well. It was as though I had been looking at two jigsaw puzzle pieces trying to figure out how they connect, and Rohn's quote turned them to the correct orientation and I finally saw how they fit together. In that instant, I finally felt like I had the "aha" moment that helped me see the connections that have always been there but were not obvious to me. This is the book that I feel like is the true starting point for my journey.

Don't get me wrong--I've done quite a bit in the last year. I've started a blog related to my favorite sports team and some fun game day activities, I've committed to turning my daily journals from my time being diagnosed, treated, and recovering from leukemia into a book that can provide some first-hand guidance and a sense of hope to others who are newly diagnosed and their families, and I'm actually taking steps to start building alternate income streams to supplement (and eventually replace) my day job. But I feel like the daily practices outlined in this book are something that will prevent those projects from dying as unfulfilled dreams and instead help them grow into their full potential.

I think if someone else were in the same shoes I was a year ago and asked me where I would start, I would probably point them to The Miracle Morning first. It seems to be the easiest starting point because it emphasizes developing internal habits and building up daily habits to improve spiritual, mental, emotional, and physical disciplines first, which better prepare you for moving beyond the present into a better future. The other books have definitely been helpful, but as I rank and sort them into an order that seems to build one to another, I'll definitely go back through them again, this time seeing what new insights I gain as I develop into a better, more accomplished, and more refined version of myself.

Opponent Lookalikes: FC Dallas Edition

If you want to try your hand at adding additional lookalikes in the comments below, you can find roster head shots for FC Dallas here (you will have to click on a player's name to see his photo).

Player	Lookalike
Kellyn Acosta	Dwight Howard's "Mini Me"
Michael Barrios	Darwin Ceren
Kyle Bekker	Marty O'Leary
Fabian Castillo	Eddie Murphy
Rolando Escobar	Admiral Akbar
Matt Hedges	Beaker
Stephen Keel	Donald "Duck" Dunn
Dan Kennedy	Simon Baker (Mentalist actor)
Chris Seitz	Grizzly Adams

For more fun content related to Orlando City, be sure to check out the Lion's Teeth Blog!

Fan Games: Opponent Lookalikes -- Real Salt Lake Edition

If you want to try your hand at adding additional lookalikes in the comments below, you can find roster head shots for Real Salt Lake here (you will have to click on a player's name to see his photo).

Player	Lookalike
Jeff Attinella	Liam Neeson
Kyle Beckerman	The Predator
Tony Beltran	Dario Franchitti
Lalo Fernandez	Erik Estrada
Luis Gil	Pizza the Hut
Abdoulie Mansally	James Blake
Nick Rimando	Manuel Noriega
Devon Sandoval	Inigo Montoya
Chris Schuler	Chris Rock
Elias Vasquez	Lurch

Starting at Square One

I think all of us have experienced the momentary or passing thought about starting a business or building a brand or living a lifestyle independent of a "day job" where we have to report to a boss and punch a time clock (physically or otherwise).

Some people have done more than think about it and have registered small business names. I know I've done that in the past. Others still have actually made sales and enjoyed some limited success. My father did that for a brief time, running his own small business back in the 1970s and early 80s for a few brief years.

But it's rarer still to find people that have actually built companies that become household names. And it's more rare that you actually hear about it as it's happening. Usually they build huge companies, become celebrated entrepreneurs, and then sit around on their beach cabanas or custom yachts and reminisce to some author or reporter that tells a condensed and shortened story of how they went from zero to hero without really being able to capture or show the hard work along the way.

I'm optimistic, so I tend to think that my efforts will one day generate a comfortable stream of income for myself and my family, and I may stumble across an idea that turns my brand into a company that rivals Apple or Google or Coca-Cola for global recognition. However unlikely that may be, I want to capture (even if nobody else cares right now) the steps and starts and stumbles and challenges along the way. Then when someone wants to know the real story, I can give them the Cliff's Notes version and point them here for full details.

Telling Stories

I've always been a natural story-teller. My mom used to tell me that when I was in pre-K, my teachers would tell her that during free time I would entertain the other kids telling them stories, usually about some random toy or object that was in our play area. As I got older, I channeled this ability into a lot of what seemed like frivolous and fanciful efforts, such as making up backgrounds for characters of table-top RPGs (like Dungeons & Dragons) or creating alternate mythologies to explain the world of computer games I played because I didn't want to take time to read the lore of the game developers (such as EverQuest and World of Warcraft).

I took some creative writing in college, but "common sense" got the better of me and I majored in technical communications, which is a fancy way of saying I went to college to learn how to write online help and user manuals. Yes, that's pretty dry and boring stuff, and believe me it gets a bit boring communicating those essential details to users all the time.

People have always told me I am a good writer, but frankly the thought of cranking out a book-length manuscript always seemed a bit daunting to me, and I was always good at starting stories, but had a hard time ever coming up with a satisfying ending. In fact the only short story that I ever remember thinking was good enough to submit to any kind of a contest was one that featured a knight on a quest to rescue the princess from a vile dragon. As the story went, the knight tracked the beast to its lair, fought it to defeat, rescued the princess, and was rewarded by the king with his daughter's hand in marriage. But to the knight's great horror, on his wedding night as his bride gazed at him with a victorious grin he noticed her pupils had the same vertical reptilian pupils as the dragon he had supposedly slain. The story received an honorable mention but it did not get published in the anthology for which it had been submitted.

Later when Internet newsgroups were a new and fancy thing, I actually chronicled the adventures of a weekly gaming group in which I participated. I played a bard, so I would write the story of our heroic adventures (always making the bard as much the hero as possible, of course) and re-writing lyrics to popular songs of the 70s, 80s, and early 90s to tell of our tales. One day I actually received an email from someone who had just moved into our city and he said he had been reading my posts since he learned he would be transferred and he wanted to join our group. So I guess that means Tom was my first real fan.

Blogs without a Reason

Since I first heard about blogging, I thought there might be a way to scratch the creative storytelling itch I had, but they came out at a time when I was convinced that blogs needed to have a purpose to be monetized, and while I would get occasional inspiration to write about something, I had neither the depth of knowledge nor the time to conduct research in order to make sense of anything, so my posts were like shotgun blasts in different directions, scattered and devoid of a focus and purpose. Unsurprisingly they never really gained a following and I abandoned them pretty quickly. Instead, I focused on my day job that paid the bills and those hobbies that gave me most enjoyment for the least effort.

Breakthrough Inspiration

Actually the breakthrough moment that brought me my first idea generating a body of material that was actually focused and sustained over a lengthy period was a dramatic and catastrophic health concern that hit me in December of 2010. I was diagnosed with leukemia (acute myleoid leukemia, to be more precise) and was hospitalized on death's doorstep. Within about 48 hours of being diagnosed, I was informed that the strain of AML I suffered was among the most aggressive the doctors knew, and it could literally kill within six weeks or less of initial onset.

Obviously I survived since it's nearly five years later as I write this entry, but in the first day or so of hospitalization I exceeded my data, voice, and text limits on my phone wildly by answering so many questions from friends and distant relatives. So I hit on an idea. I had a pretty good network of facebook friends, and I decided once I had my father bring my laptop to me in the hospital that I would create a facebook page dedicated to my illness and just point all my friends there to find the daily and weekly updates on what was happening. On the one hand it was an effective communication tool. On the other, it gave me something productive to do instead of sitting around all day in a hospital bed being bored to tears.

This page produced months worth of detailed descriptions, notes, and raw material. And many friends and relatives told me I should turn it into a book. But almost as soon as I returned to work and was pronounced out of the woods for my health, my elderly father began a long, slow spiral downward. He held on for about three more years, spending the final six months of his life in an assisted living facility where he could get the 24-hour care he needed. But I was also dealing with an elderly uncle who passed away during the same period, and between caretaker roles and my full-time job and managing estate paperwork I didn't have much time to do anything but dream about something different or better.

But in the final year of my father's life I finally began to realize I didn't want to reach that stage regretting all the things I'd never done. As a result I began seeking out and reading and researching how to do something on my own and how to break out of the monotony of the nine-to-five world. That's safe and traditional, but that's not what I wanted.

And So It Begins

Thus, in the late spring of 2014 I began a daily discipline of listening to James Altucher's interviews on his current and back catalog of podcasts and making notes about books that would be helpful and ideas that were inspiring. James calls inspiration "the idea muscle" and he says that like any muscle it has to be exercised to grow. I knew I needed to generate ideas and over the course of the next few months I did.

In February of 2015 I launched my first blog with a real purpose. It's called The Lion's Teeth, and it's dedicated to the local MLS franchise, Orlando City SC. I spent money to have a logo created and made up business cards and it's developed a small but steadily growing following among fans, players, front office staff, and even fans spread around the world that have only heard about the team but don't follow it regularly.

In future posts I'll detail more about that blog, and also about the next step I've taken, only yesterday. You remember that inspiration I received when I was sick and the encouragement people gave me to write about it? Well, I'm finally doing it. I've launched an online campaign to raise the money needed to turn those notes into a physical book and an e-book. And I have a second related title planned, which will focus on the remarkable story of my bone marrow donor.

I'll also talk more about that campaign and the effort to get that project created in future posts. But for now I'll close with a few of the books that I've read over the last year that have been the most inspiring to me.

Living Healthy - Batch Cooking

In the "about" section of my Blogger profile you may have noticed it says I am a leukemia survivor. I indeed was diagnosed with AML (acute myleoid leukemia) in December of 2010. After undergoing several rounds of aggressive chemotherapy I had a bone marrow transplant in April of 2011.

While I was otherwise fairly healthy before that diagnosis, not having had any other serious health concerns identified by my doctors, I had weighed about 250 pounds before my diagnosis, which means that by standards like BMI and most nutritional experts I was 75 pounds overweight. I felt chubby and fat and lethargic a lot before my diagnosis, even though I did low-impact aerobic exercise several times a week and I had been moderately- to somewhat-active in going to the gym to work out.

Clearly, however, I was eating way too many calories of the wrong type and not burning off nearly enough of them to maintain a healthy weight. I was also eating a lot of the wrong type of calories--relying on frozen dinners, eating out, and drinking soda pop where I should have been drinking water.

If there was one positive side effect about chemotherapy, it's that it made me lose a lot of weight. The medication is so harsh on your system that often you lose appetite and over the course of five months I lost over 60 pounds. After my bone marrow transplant the weight stayed off for another six months or so, but as my appetite began to recover, I started noticing the weight was coming back on. When I woke up one day and realized the scale had reached 230 pounds again, I knew it was time for a serious lifestyle evaluation.

I talked with my doctors and told them I wanted a drug-free option and they recommended three simple things: track calories, eat unprocessed, nutritious foods, and get a moderate amount of exercise. So among other things I found several great online communities, web sites and smart phone apps for tracking calories and exercise plans.

I'm happy to report that I've lost some of that weight and I'm on my way toward my goal weight of 175 pounds. Being active certainly helps, but the number one tool I've found that really helps me is my nutrition. I'm a once-a-week shopper when it comes to the supermarket, so I have learned to shop for good ingredients and then cook up something tasty, usually on Sundays, that will give me my lunches for the office during the week. I also buy some healthy snacks.

Today I'm sharing my menu for this week, which I cooked up on Sunday, June 21 after my weekly shopping trip.

Main Protein

My main protein for this week is chicken breast. But I never simply do a bland dish. I always like to add some flavoring and spices. Usually this comes in the form of some wet and dry spices, and this week the marinade I created was no exception.

As the base for my marinade, I started with my go-to ingredient: zesty Italian salad dressing. I also had a packet of Savory Monterey spice that I bought at the Supermarket to add to that. Those were my pre-mixed ingredients.

To these ingredients I added some low sodium soy sauce, some minced garlic, and some coarse-ground Dijon mustard. I like my chicken to have a bit of a bold and slightly unique flavor, so I vary the exact ingredients every time I cook--basically I go with whatever seems like it would taste good at the time. I know that some people may complain about adding calories to the meat by putting spices on it, but honestly they don't add very many calories per serving (fewer than 25 calories per serving from all the flavorings combined) and the only reason I would recommend not using any additional flavorings is if you are under strict physician-supervised dietary restrictions or if you have an allergy to something.

At any rate, after I get the marinade made, I put it in with the chicken and throw it in the fridge for a while. I like to let my marinade go for anywhere from 30 minutes to 24 hours depending on how ambitious I am. This week it was closer to 30 minutes.

Since the total weight of the chicken was a little over two pounds, each of the six servings I cooked is just under six ounces, but for purposes of tracking the calories I call it six ounces. I then cook the chicken on my stovetop grill, and after 12 - 15 minutes (I like to make sure it's thoroughly cooked but not overcooked) it comes out looking wonderful.

Vegetables

I can't have a meal without vegetables, and I'm a fan of fresh veggies with a little bit of spice and flavor to them. So this week I created a marinade with most of the same ingredients as I used for the chicken (I only left out the Monterey spice). For the veggies themselves, I selected onions and green peppers. I know some people don't like green peppers, but I do appreciate the fact that they have a nice hearty flavor and a crunchy texture. I toss the veggies in the marinade, and once the chicken is cooked I put all the ingredients in a large sealable plastic container to go into the fridge.

This will sit in the fridge all week. And every day I will take a single piece of chicken and some of the veggies out to put in a smaller sealed container for work. I had a few soft taco tortillas left over from a recent tailgate party, so I took those to the office as well on Monday and will use a couple of them each day to help me eat up my lunch in a fun wrap.

Breakfast and Snacks

For my weekday breakfasts and snacks, I like to buy and take something to the office that is both tasty and nutritious. Every day I carry about five snacks, all of which I eat between the time I arrive at work and about 10:00 am, usually:

• +/- 1 ounce block of hard cheese (Asiago this week)
• 5.3 ounce cup of Lowfat Greek Yogurt
• Small banana
• Handful of fresh berries (raspberries this week)
• 3 ounce bag of baby-cut carrots

The snacks are usually pretty similar every week, although I will sometimes substitute nuts for the cheese and a pair of Fig Newtons for the berries. As you can tell I try to be conscious about what I eat, but I'm not an obsessed lunatic who will sacrifice flavor for the sake of a few calories. The main thing I want is to greatly reduce the amount of processed food in my diet and have better control over where my calories are coming from and how many there are in each meal. 

Lunchercise

The other important thing I build into my workday is exercise. I work in an office park that measures a little over 3 miles in circumference if you walk around the main perimeter and border roads. Most of the route is shaded, and walking it gives me between 45 and 50 minutes out of the office in the fresh air every day. I take a bottle of water on my walk, especially during the summer months, and then I eat lunch at my desk after I return. Between my walk and the normal walking through the office that I do on a daily basis, I almost always hit my 10,000 step daily goal, which is about five miles of walking as measured by my various fitness apps and gadgets. This cardio exercise every day helps keep me feeling active and gives me energy to focus for the afternoon when I get back to the office without having to resort to any energy drinks or sugary sodas.

Another benefit of getting out of the office for a walk like this is being able to listen to audiobooks. I'm a member of an online book club called the Sword & Laser, and I alternate listening through the monthly pick for that book club or listening to something inspirational. Occasionally I will really need just a dose of good music, so I'll tune in to one of my custom play lists and jam out to that while I'm on my walk. Below I've listed a few of my favorite audiobooks from the past year that were part of the book club's selection.