Tuna Salad ALA LyonHart

You know, the hardest thing about a diet to me has always been missing things I'm used to and things I love. I've always gone off diets before because I craved the stuff I was keeping from myself, and when I went off I went off big. This time I've been more sucessful by instead of shunning everything, trying to find ways to enjoy things in a healthier manner. Some stuff like bacon cheeseburgers are notably off the list, sure, but there is plenty of good things out there to sub with. For example I love hot dogs on the weekend. It's easy to get fat free turkey hot dogs pretty much anywhere that taste great (the fat free beef hotdogs taste like a dead dog's dick, be warned) and a can of bushes vegetarian baked beans, or the store brand equivalant, which is fat free as well. These both do have a little too much sodium and sugars and such, so i stick to the weekend for those, but there is one compromise recipe that is so healthy I've worked it into my weekday regimen with delicious and satisfying results. I feel bad for you if you've read all this to this point and hate tunafish, cause I love it, and that is what my recipe is for, a satisfying tuna sandwich with almost no fat, and a near trivial number of calories that tastes great and wont leave you hungry. Without any further ado, Tuna Salad ALA LyonHart!



Now I know what you are saying "hey what was that again, you mumble mouthed prick?" well here is a quick recap in text form.

You need...

2 cans of chunk light tuna (or white, whatever racists...)
2 Tbsp of Pickle Relish
1/2 Tbsp of Dijon Mustard
1/2 Tbsp of Light Mayo (or full mayo, its so little it dont really matter)
1/2 cup of plain non-fat yogurt

You mix all that up real good, get everything nice and evenly distributed, put it in a tupperware, and you've got yourself 5 sammiches ready to roll for the week. Toss it on some whole grain bread (with no high fructose corn syrup, god dammit!) and enjoy.

Bad Knees and Fatness, two great tastes that taste great together!

I'm no athlete, I've never been. I'm strong, and I can put some power down when i need to, but I'm not a sports guy. I learned this as a child many times over. I got hit the face with a baseball playing right field, I would consistently run the wrong way playing soccer, and then while playing volleyball in gym class in seventh grade, I jumped, came down all sorts of weird, and blew out my knee.

I remember at the time no one believed me. I howled in pain and people around me were like "come on, man, get up!" as if they couldn't understand how anyone could get seriously hurt jumping up and down, but I did. After I spent some time in the nurses office trying to convince her I was actually injured and not just fucking around, she called my mother and we went to the doctor. The total damage was a torn MCL, and Torn meniscus. The MCL isn't all that big a deal, It's a ligament that runs down the outside of the knee, to keep it from slipping, with it torn basically I need to wear a brace when I'm doing lateral movement. It's the meniscus that's a bitch.

See that is the meniscus right there, that layer of cartilage between the top and bottom of the knee. Highlighted are the two sorts of tears you can get in the meniscus. Lucky me, I got both in various places. The bucket tears are however not that big a deal, they weaken the meniscus a little and can lead to arthritis, but the flap tears are the ones that suck hard. They are the reason I'm writing this post, and the excuse I'm going to use for not having lost any weight since my last weigh in.

See when a flap tear gets inflamed, like mine did a couple weeks back, it starts to move around in the joint, and gets caught in the joint as it opens and closes. That hurts... a lot... So over the last couple weeks I've been playing Russian roulette when i stand up with whether or not the meniscus flap would get jammed in my knee joint and walking would either be normal, or a painful disaster. There is no real way to stop it when it gets like this other than to move your knee around a lot and try and get it out of there.

So yeah, I'm still at 340, as of two days ago when I went to the doctor, and she gave me some anti-inflammatory for my knee. It feels good now, and this week I'll be getting back at it, so look for more posts to come. Hopefully this story makes you feel better about yourself if you have fully functional knees.

BJJ: You Had Me At BJ

During the 66th session of American Legion Jersey Boys State (a program I have been on staff for since attending myself in 1997), Ricardo Almeida, 3rd Degree BJJ Blackbelt under Renzo Gracie and UFC veteran, stopped by the Rider University campus to give a small seminar to about 30 lucky statesmen, a few state troopers and some staff. Over the course of two hours the attendees were put through basic calisthenics, a small but quick paced run that yours truly bailed on, and 90+ minutes of chokes, guards, sweeps and defenses. It was a wonderful experience for all involved and a great test case for making self-defense a larger part of the program. One can dare to dream it would be a sport in future years, but I think for now, the seminar at least will live on next session. Ricardo even promised to bring some additional BJJ studs with him next year. Frankie Edgar? Who knows?

In the interest of full disclosure I should say it was very cool meeting Ricardo as two of my college friends are students of his and owners of their own schools Brunswick BJJ and Ocean County BJJ respectively. BJJ was something I've always found myself interested in but talked myself out of as the self-defense credo of being pinned on the ground won out. Now that I'm out of shape and in my 30s, I'm more likely to call the police or hide in my car than face an attacker or unruly child. So I figured it couldn't hurt to give BJJ a shot for the sport aspect of it, or the mental. During my first seminar I learned that those moves you see on the UFC are a lot harder to perform than you would think. READ: Don't ever try to put a State Trooper in a Triangle choke.

While I'd love to commute to Ricardo's School in Hamilton, NJ, Haz's in East Brunswick or Tom Deblass's down the shore, that's just not realistic for a burgeoning family man with a leased SUV. So I searched bjj in Piscataway and found a gym a few miles from my house, MMA Combinations. I swung by tonight to give BJJ a shot, and I really liked it. The school is running a 6-week for $75 introductory offer, and I'm going to give it a shot. I could promise that I'll blog about my experiences there here, but realistically I'll just flake off again. Either way, I'll do my best.

As far as a 'Making Weight' update, I am currently down 22 lbs to 230. I expect to crack the 220s by the end of the Holiday weekend (and then to go back to the 230s after I eat at La Familia Pizzeria on the 5th with my Pregnant Wife). If you're keeping track at home I was 252 on 5/16 and am now 230 on 6/30. 22 lbs in 44 days (not too shabby). [(much better than The Lyonhart)]

Let's do a weekly weight check!

So it's been two weeks now, one with Lyon actually having a weight to work on, so let's see where the guys are...

you may remember Chris's first week weighin saw him shedding nearly 10 pounds and checking in at a svlete-ish 244 lbs. Let's see how he's ringing up today!

239 puts him another 5 down, and under the 240 mark! that leaves him 34 pounds from his goal of 205! Fuck him! I don't understand how two people of reasonably similar ethnic background have such different abilities to gain and lose weight.

I say that because as you may recall i had my first weigh in last week due to me being too heavy for people scales. I weighed in at 345 a week ago and today this is what I'm looking at...

If it's too small for you to read, I'll save you the trouble, it's 340. So that's a measly 5 pounds. Considering I have DOUBLE the weight to lose and am losing it at HALF the rate, I think Chris has this situation pretty locked down... maybe I'll convince him to go middle weight... He would'nt look TOO freaky at 185...

Let's do our second weigh-in!

So it's been a little more than a week since we first weighed in, Chris weighing in at 252 and the Big Cat crushing the scale's very ego and coming out with less information then he went in with. Well the LyonHart has come back with a brand new scale sure to calculate his girth, and Chris will keep using his puny mortal scale, so let's check in with the guy's numbers!