As of yesterday, I'm officially ten pounds lighter than I was when I started counting calories!  Hooray!

I'm in my fourth week of the calorie count, and I still don't quite feel ready to abandon counting calories yet.  I'm more excited about the rate of weight loss than I am bugged by logging everything that I eat.  I'll continue to be really strict in my counting and I'll continue to stick to my daily allotment of calories and I should continue to lose!

Speaking of my daily allotment of calories, now that I'm ten pounds lighter, my allotment has dropped by about 50 calories.  What??  No fair!  However, it does make sense.  There is less of me to maintain.

I can't really see the weight loss yet.  That will come in about 10-15 more pounds.  My wife says she can see it and I am noticing that my clothes (especially my pants) are fitting looser, so I'm seeing the progress.  It's just not very visual yet.

But I FEEL a lot better, mostly because the upward trend in my weight has been reversed.

I also feel much better knowing that I have found something that both works for me and is something I can continue to do all my life.  It takes a little bit of time and a lot of willpower.  It doesn't mean any special diet that I'm eventually going to go off of and gain my weight back.  It doesn't mean that I have to stop eating any of the foods that I love--I just have to keep track of the calories of the foods that I love, and eat less of them.  I am avoiding a couple of things right now, because as much as I love them, I wouldn't be able to fit them in my current calorie plan.  But I'm not swearing off of them for life--just until I get to the point that I'm maintaining my weight loss and I will have a larger calorie allotment each day.

I have been thinking about maintenance already.  When I hit my target weight, I'll count calories for a month or so--until I better understand how much a 190-lb me can eat and not gain weight--and then I'll stop calorie counting.  But I also have a "trigger" weight (200 lbs) where I have to start counting calories again, like it or not.  This way, I have a plan to keep the weight from slowly creeping back on until I have to do something more drastic again.

And yes, I'm going to celebrate ten pounds of weight loss, and I'm going to celebrate it with food.  I'm going to smoke a turkey tomorrow.

Today, someone said something to me  that I've heard many times in the past, and today, I'm finally going to blog about it.

Pleasant Grove High School is currently putting on a production of Phantom of the Opera.  My sons went to see it last night and really enjoyed themselves.  One of them told me today that he's had the songs in his head all day.

A co-worker who knows that I'm into theater (or, at least used to be.  More on that in a future blog entry...maybe) asked me if I had seen it yet.  When I mentioned that I hadn't, he told me that I needed to make sure and go see it.  Then he said it:

I saw Phantom in Toronto, and those kids at Pleasant Grove High School did every bit as good as the professional group.

NO. THEY. DID. NOT!

I've heard this time and time again.  "I saw <insert show name here> in <insert city here>, but <insert local theater group here> did a production that was just as good."

I understand that you thoroughly enjoyed the local production.  I get that.  I enjoy theater as much, if not more, than the next guy.  But there's no way that the local theater group is even in the same league as the professional group.

I have only seen one show on Broadway.  I have seen several shows put on by Broadway touring groups.  I've been in and seen more amateur and semiprofessional theater productions than I can count.  I don't feel like I'm disrespecting the local theater groups by saying that even the very best local theater doesn't compare to the professional groups.

Does this mean that I didn't enjoy the local groups?  No.  Does this mean that the local groups didn't put on a good show?  Absolutely not.

What I'm saying is that with multi-million-dollar budgets and with a MUCH larger talent pool, the professional groups have a big advantage right from the start.  Local theaters will rehearse a musical for a month or two.  The length of a run for a local theater is anywhere from a few days to a few weeks.  Professional groups have a much longer rehearsal period followed by a much MUCH longer production period.  This also leads (generally) to a higher quality production.

Are there exceptions to this?  I'm sure there are.  I'm sure that there are bad performances by professional groups and exceptional performances by local groups that approach each other in quality.  But this is, by far, the exception, not the rule.  As often as I hear the superlative praise of local theater groups and its less-than-apt comparison to professional theater, I'm quite certain that there is a lot of exaggeration going on.

So please don't tell me that the production you saw at a local High School was as good as the production you saw on Broadway, because that's when I'm going to stop listening to you.  Instead, tell me how much you enjoyed the production.  Give me  details about what you liked and why.  That goes a LOT farther than an overly-gushing comparison that has an unbelievably slim chance of actually being true.

On Friday, I took a bunch of scouts, leaders, and dads to the cross-country ski camp at Camp Maple Dell up Payson Canyon.

BOY am I sore!

It was a ton of fun.  They cross-country ski camp is set up so that you only have to worry about learning to ski.  They let us sleep in a nice, heated lodge.  They prepared all of our meals for us.  They had people on staff to make sure we were properly equipped.  The staff guided us on a couple of fun ski trips.

On Friday night, we didn't start out until around 9:00 pm and we skied in the dark for a couple of hours.  This was probably pretty good, because I'm pretty sure we all looked much less than graceful as we were figuring out what we were doing.  I think I pulled a lot more muscles trying NOT to fall than I did by actually falling.

On Saturday morning, we headed out from Camp Maple Dell to Maple Lake, which is 2.5 miles away from the camp.  It's uphill pretty much the whole way there, which means that it's downhill pretty much the whole way back.  The temperature had climbed above freezing, so the snow was pretty sticky.  I kept having to knock the snow off the bottom of my skis so I didn't feel like I was going to roll my ankle the whole time.

It was a really good workout.  And now I'm really REALLY sore.  My calves, hips, and triceps HATE me today.

Though I DID burn almost 2200 calories on Saturday.  That's more calories than I usually get to eat in a day.

I'm two weeks into calorie counting and I'm 7 pounds down!  I haven't been hungry all the time as I thought I might be.  I have been eating pretty much everything I'm used to eating.  I even get desserts, especially if I work out that day.

This is a very good thing!  I'm already a sixth of the way to my goal!

I know some people in this group.  It would be great to send them to New York!  If you're reading this, please vote for their idea.  You can vote once per day per email address.

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As of this morning, I'm down four pounds my first week.  FOUR!  Like I said in my previous post, it's probably not all REAL weight loss, but probably half of it is, which means that the app is doing pretty good.  I told it that I wanted to lose two pounds a week, and if half of the weight loss is water weight or some other fluctuation, then it's spot on.  I've stuck pretty close to the calories and I've lost two pounds.

Now for week two.

I'm trying something a little bit new in my constant lifelong fight against fatness. I'm quite sure that this is something that I will be fighting against my whole life. I've been blessed with a slowish metabolism and I've also been blessed with a love for food. These things combine to make for a very large "me" unless I really work against these two things.

A while back, I posted something about skipping breakfast and how that's a way that I combat being fat. That's probably the reason that between mid-November and the end of December, I actually lost two pounds. For the first Christmas season that I remember, I didn't gain a few pounds.

That still doesn't change the fact that, in medical terms, I'm obese. I'm not overweight. I'm obese.

I've tried a couple of fad diets. They worked for me temporarily. The best thing I ever did was when I decided to ride my first century ride a few years ago. I dropped a lot of weight that summer, ending up under 200 lbs for the first time in many, many years. Yet, over the last few years, I've slowly gained it all back.

It didn't help that the one sport I really really enjoyed has been taken away from me. I loved racquetball. It's not going to ever be an option for me again. It didn't help that for a whole year, I couldn't ride a real bike because I didn't have the strength in my right hand to brake. It didn't help that even when I had the tendon problem in my elbow fixed, I didn't get back on my bike again.

Yet those are all just excuses.

So this week, I started an exercise that has been eye opening. I downloaded the "LiveStrong" app for my iPad and I started tracking my caloric input/output.

I'm sure that there are more accurate methods, but for $2.99 plus tax, this has a lot of bang for the buck.

I put in my height and weight and some other information (such as my activity level--sedentary. I'm a computer programmer, after all) and told the app that I wanted to lose 2 lbs a week and the app told me that I can consume 1702 calories per day.

It's actually not so bad, especially since I skip breakfast anyway. On days that I actually do something more physical--such as ride the spinner--I can eat more, because the 1702 calories are "net" calories--the difference between what I eat and what I burn. 45 minutes sweating away on the spinner can buy my a few hundred more calories.

The app also has a pretty large database of foods. It's not 100% accurate, I'm sure, but it's a lot better than not knowing at all how many calories I'm eating. I plan out what I'm going to eat for the day and I use the app to figure out approximately what I eat in a day.

It's been eye opening. Geez. No wonder I'm fat.

So I started this on Tuesday. I don't know how long I'll continue to actually log every single thing I eat, but I think it will be something that I can come back to if I can't figure out why I keep getting heavier and heavier. I think that when I hit a point where I want to just maintain my weight, I'll count calories for a while to figure out how much I can continue to eat.

So far so good. I'm down about 2 1/2 pounds. I know it's probably not all REAL weight loss, but at least part of it is.

I'm also planning on riding my bike this summer. A lot. I'm going to do multiple century rides and I'm going to do the cycling merit badge with the scouts in my area.

I'm hopeful that I'll be able to drop 30 or 40 lbs this year and this will be one more tool that I'll have to keep from gaining it all back. Again.

Wish me luck. I'll post updates here from time to time.

Younger Son's Birthday was yesterday.  For his Birthday, he wanted ribs.  I, of course, used this as another opportunity to use my new smoker.

I found a recipe called BRITU.  (Best Ribs In The Universe)  If the name of the recipe isn't the whole truth, it comes pretty close.

I sprinkled the ribs with spices and smoked them for four hours using hickory and cherry woods.  When they passed the "tear test," I pulled them off, cut them into individual rib sections, and served them the sauce specified in the recipe.

They were VERY excellent ribs.  The meat didn't fall off the bone, but it did pull off without too much effort when I bit into them.  The smallest ends of the slabs of ribs were a little overcooked and dry, but the rest of the slabs were nice and juicy.  There was a great smoke ring on them, and the hickory gave them a bacon-y flavor that was really good.  The spice sprinkle was salty, which went really well with the sweet sauce.  The sauce really was a condiment and not a necessity--the flavor of the ribs spoke for themselves.

Happy Birthday, Younger Son!

So what did I do in 2010?

• I tried playing racquetball again.  My elbow didn't like it much, so I realized that racquetball is probably out for the rest of my life--at least, right-handed racquetball
• I slept in a burrito during another "Klondike Derby" with my younger son, then slept in a burrito yet again for my older son's "Denali Base Camp."
• I performed in a benefit concert for the Syd Riggs Scholarship Foundation.
• I earned my Wood Badge beads.
• I left Symantec and started working for the LDS Church
• My older son turned 16 and started driving, causing a spike in both blood pressure and insurance premium.
• I spent a few days on the Green River, canoeing 68 miles.
• I spent a week in San Diego with my family--a very fun family vacation.
• I camped with my scouts at Camp Bartlett near Montpelier, Idaho
• My younger son got a full set of braces
• I was made a development lead at my new job and was given a new project to work on
• I sold the last Saturn I will likely ever own and I purchased my third Subaru.
• I took the scouts to a "Centennial Camporall" in commemoration of 100 years of Scouting in the United States.  Early morning temperatures were lower than the winter campout in January.
• I shunned NaBloPoMo
• I cooked the perfect Thanksgiving turkey.
• I took up smoking--I smoked a couple of chickens.

What am I planning on for 2011?  A lot more of the same.  Scouting will continue to take up a lot of time.  I'm still enjoying it a lot.  However, tomorrow is younger son's Birthday, and he won't be in my troop any more.  I wonder if it will be the same without him.  I'm planning on doing a lot more cycling this year.  I need to get in shape or I'm going to end up on The Biggest Loser someday soon.  So I have several long rides planned, starting in February.  I'm also planning on playing my guitar more in 2011.  I miss making music when I get away from it.

I'm also hoping to learn how to smoke lots of things this year.  Before 2011 is over, I want to feel confident in smoking ribs, turkeys, brisket, and pork shoulder.

This June will be my 20th wedding anniversary.  20 years??  It's crazy.  I was married shortly after my parents' 25th anniversary.  There are a couple of family things that I need to focus on this year too.  I only have a couple more years left and my older son will be heading out on his own.  If I don't focus on the family things now, the opportunity will pass me by completely.

My life is good and I'm looking forward to the opportunities this year will bring.

Disclaimer – The views expressed here are the opinions of DeShawn Smith and do not necessarily reflect the views of Employer Solutions Group or The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

Today, I fell in love with yet another method of cooking.

For Christmas, this year, I got a Weber Smokey Mountain Cooker.  Today, I used it for the first time.  I cooked two chickens.

BEST. CHICKEN. EVER.

No, SERIOUSLY.

Seriously.

Costco sells chickens for 99 cents per pound.  I bought a pair of 5 lb chickens last week in anticipation of being able to smoke them on my Christmas present.  You're probably wondering how I knew I was getting the Smokey Mountain Cooker for Christmas.  Well, it's rather hard to hide.  It's more than 3 feet tall an almost 2 feet in diameter.  Not to mention the fact that I ordered it myself.  :D

Last night, after waffling for a while on exactly how I was going to prepare the chickens for smoking, I finally decided to brine them instead of marinating them.  I removed the backbones and keel bones from the chickens and cut them into halves.  I put them in a brine mixture of water, salt, and brown sugar, and let them brine overnight.

This morning, I took them out of the brine and put them on a sheet pan in the refrigerator to let the skin air dry for a few hours.  Then it was time to decide what kind of a rub I wanted to put on the outside of the chickens.  I decided to use a basic bird rub recipe I found in a barbecue cookbook.  This meant a trip to the grocery store to get some dried chilies.  After seeding, toasting, and grinding up the chilies, I made the rub--a mixture of the fresh-made chili powder, cumin, curry powder, salt, and pepper.

While the charcoal was getting ready, I applied the rub to the chicken halves.  After placing some apple wood chunks on the top of the charcoal, I finished assembling the cooker and put the chicken on the grate.

A few minutes later, I went back outside to check on the smoker temperature.  It was smoking away within the perfect smoking temperature range and the apple wood was smelling sweet and delicious.  After an hour, I flipped the chicken over, and after another half hour, I put my thermometer probe in one of the chicken breasts.

The breasts still needed to rise another ten degrees before it was safe to eat.  20 minutes later, the temperature had only come up another degree.  It was taking longer than I thought it would, probably because the chickens were bigger than those called for in most recipes I had seen.  Since we wanted to eat at a decent hour, I pulled the chickens out of the smoker and put them in a 400 degree oven to bring them up to temperature.

And wow.  WOW!  Amazing.

Chicken really takes on the smoke flavor.  The combination of the sweet apple smoke and the spicy rub is amazing.  Amazing, I say!  The bright pink smoke ring looked great and the smoky flavor had penetrated the chicken all the way through.  It didn't really taste like chicken any more.  The chicken had been transformed into something entirely new.

The kitchen has a lingering sweet, smoky aroma and there are a few leftovers in the fridge that will disappear quickly tomorrow.

I'm hooked.  I can't wait to try smoking a turkey, a brisket, some ribs, a pork butt...

*happy sigh*