Baby porcupine I almost stepped on at the Irving nature park.

After a rough winter of lung infections and steroids I had gotten to an all time high weight of 273 lbs. I am proud to report the battle is going well. Down to 248 lbs as of this morning 2nd June 2011 and walking on a regular basis.

Anyone that wantsd to know how I am doing it, I will tell you. It’s easy!

The very first thing one must do is establish their list of priorities and commit to adhering to them. Mine looks like this.

1) My health
2) My family
3) My finances
4) My work.
5-99) Every other thing in my life.
100) Excuses for why I can’t do anything to improve the above listed items.

Once you have a list similar to this its easy to see that you simply plan for your health, your family time and your money and everything else like sleeping in, going out drinking or eating junk food all fall into the later categories. Make a conscious, tangible action plan based on your priorities and  it all starts to get easy!

As for my health… So far this is my plan. I even wrote it out to help keep the parameters clear for myself.

I use my iphone to track my calories, and I maintain no more than 1300-1800 calories per day. 1300 on days with no exercise and 1800 max with exercise. Inside those caloric limits I also now apply the reasonings of Ketonic diets or Atkins or low carbs. Honestly they are all the same. Start off eating very few carbs, eliminate almost all carb heavy foods. any carb food you do eat must be slow absorbing like whole grains or oatmeal. eat low carbs, med protien and high fat for 2 weeks, then adjust accordingly. reintroduce foods such as blueberries, broccoli, spinach, salads, almonds, beans, some fruits and always, always, always get out for a walk if you can. Walk at least 40-45 minutes 3-4 times a week.

If you do that you will become healthy. If you try it and fail I put it back on you.

See you on the trail,
David Sullivan

PS. Almost any given day I will be walking the Irving nature park or Rockwood Park. Email me if you want to go.

Friendly neighborhood bus driver!

I am very happy to proclaim that the asthma attacks have subsided and the exercise has reconvened! I went from 10 minutes of walking causing asthma attacks to 70 minute brisk walking on the treadmill in one week. I started with 2 weeks of daily treadmill jaunts of 60-70 minutes and now I have added power walking around the McAllister Mall on my breaks at work.

We did attempt a nice 4 Mile walk around the nature park with complete success. Unfortunately in the last 20 feet of our walk, while sidestepping some large boulders, I pulled my Achilles Tendon. It is healing. Plenty of ice and heat and long gentle stretches are helping.

To sum it all up, I had jumped from 253lbs to 273lbs and now as a result of the calorie counting and exercise I have reclaimed 15lbs of my health in 3 weeks. Weighing in at 258lbs this morning, I excitedly look forward to many long walks and a trimmer life with my sweetheart, Jo-elle and the children.

With the weather finally breaking and summer peeking around every corner, expect to see abundant photography from yours truly, the Odyssey Photographers

David Sullivan
Odyssey Photographer

I hope to integrate my other blogs into one site. Gradually bringing my thoughts and ideas into a manageable entity would be wonderful. I haven’t forgotten about you.

On an up note, last year was a terrific year for a new blog. We had many hits, comments and much interaction. All in all, I am very impressed with this blog for 2010. Let’s make 2011 a bigger and better year.

I will be keeping this blog active as my photography blog. On http://thedave.org I will be discussing my various projects from financial investing to RC Helicopters and these topics should provide many photographic opportunities.

Stay tuned…

Dave

The Blog-Health-o-Meter™ reads Wow.

Crunchy numbers

A Boeing 747-400 passenger jet can hold 416 passengers. This blog was viewed about 3,500 times in 2010. That’s about 8 full 747s.

In 2010, there were 38 new posts, not bad for the first year! There were 697 pictures uploaded, taking up a total of 374mb. That’s about 2 pictures per day.

The busiest day of the year was May 25th with 631 views. The most popular post that day was May run 2010, Ryan’s Farm, Barnesville, New Brunswick SUCCESS.

Where did they come from?

The top referring sites in 2010 were facebook.com, android-vs-ipad.co.cc, healthfitnesstherapy.com, WordPress Dashboard, and bigextracash.com.

Some visitors came searching, mostly for ryans farm may run, takemyportrait@gmail.com, “the adventure of photography” and “lesson”, ryan farm newbrunswick, and 2010ryanfarm.

Attractions in 2010

These are the posts and pages that got the most views in 2010.

May run 2010, Ryan’s Farm, Barnesville, New Brunswick SUCCESS May 2010

May 24 Mud run, Ryan’s Farm, Barnesville, New Brunswick May 2010
1 comment

Synchronicity – A walk in the local park. June 2010
2 comments

May Run 2010 Photos 8×10 Enlargements Available $20 May 2010

Fan Page May 2010

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uHCdlpClBMY

Saint John Animal Rescue League

Nice day. Received the Facebook notice that they were in bad need of Kitten food. Jo-elle pulled out the puppy dog sad eyes and said “Dave… “

So, being the over achiever I am, and being completely driven to try to solve everyones problems I started working on my sinister plan to feed cute little Kittens.

Hey doesn't that pigeon look yummy!

$200 and a few hours later, we arrived at the shelter with $500 worth of Kitten, Cat, Puppy and Dog food. Plus and extra box of treats.

Special Thanks today going to the wonderful people at “Village Pet Center”. They had an ample supply of great coupons to help us get the most food for the money and they donated another $300 worth of excellent quality high grade food for the animals.

Village Pet Center

So all in all a great day.  Grand total aprox $500 worth of Animal food.
(Keep in mind that will feed the Kittens, cats and Dogs for roughly 5 to 7 Days)

Kitten and Cat food

More Cat food and Dog food.

Sasha, one of the many wonderful dogs living at the shelter that need homes. She was so well behaved and gentle.

Remember, we are now volunteering on occasion out at the Saint John Animal Rescue League Shelter and are accepting any donations through the Pay-pal link on the top right of this page. All donations will be directly used to purchase any required food for the shelter. Thank you in advance.

David Sullivan
An Odyssey Photographer

Thousands of animals require help, many now and many to come Odyssey will be taking a trip over to the Saint John Animal Rescue League today to visit and offer support. The volunteers are working around the clock to provide love, care and medical attention to many, wonderful animals that need homes, love and FOOD.

This morning a Facebook a plea for kitten food came out across the wire and we realized we have the ability to help. We have at least 40 regular readers and that can be a powerful

SJ Animal Rescue League needs your help.

force. Thanks to our two first donations Jo-elle and I will be delivering $200 worth of Kitten food today and we are asking you our readers if you would help us.

Thanks to pay-pal we will be taking donations and using them directly to purchase and deliver food for the Saint John Animal Rescue League. We will also keep everyone up-to-date with stories and images here on the blog of our progress.

So Ladies and Gentlemen, on behalf of Odyssey Photography I am asking for your support

Dave and Jo-elle

in our endeavor to help the Saint John Animal Rescue League. Using the link below please make what ever donation makes you comfortable. Keep in mind they have many, many, many animals to take care of.

If you are not sure of how much to donate, remember every penny counts. If all our readers donated $20 each we would be able to deliver $1000 of desperately needed food.

** Any amount will be a big help. If you can please donate.

Thank you in advance for all of your support!
David Sullivan

OK problems solved. Please use the donate button on the top right of this webPage to make your donation. Simply press the image that says donate, fill in the amount you are willing to donate and then submit.

Eat lots of fiber and keep good snacks around

1. Don’t keep junk food around.
(We have a varied selection of fiber rich or protein rich Low carb and little to NO Sugar

snacks around) ie sugar free jello and silhouette 0% yogurt. combine these two to make a nice jello jiggler like treat (Yumm)

2 boxes of sugar free jello
2 Cups of boiling water
Mix until jello is dissolved
Stir in 1 cup of ice cubes until dissolved
Stir in 1 cup of Silhouette 0% Yogurt.

Let stand until firm. cut up and serve. roughly 2 protien, 0 carbs, 0 sugar per serving. excellent. and amazingly cheap. I make this up in a large corningware dish making 4 batches at once. LOVE it.

2. Always pack my lunch.
If I don’t take my lunch. I will buy lunch. BAD! I will also crave food because I don’t have my lunch box as a comfort blanket if you will. I am not sure why this is true. however; it is. Every time I go with out my lunch box. I blow my diet right out of the water.

3. Take just the foods you need in your lunch and always have a couple of lite snacks or candies for the craving moments. I find Werthers really good for this.

4. Get on the scale EVERYDAY!!
This really should be rule number one, but I just remembered it now.
Ignoring this rule is to intentionally ignore the problem. Getting on the scale does two things. It reminds you of where you are and it serves as a motivator to work harder.

Track your results on livestrong.com or any other sight so you can see a chart. This really helps me.
** I always laugh when people tell me, “I am scared that it will depress me, so I don’t get on the scale!”
This is another topic all together. If you are depressed you need to handle that first.

STOP BLAMING THE SCALE AND YOUR WEIGHT.

The weight can be a side effect of the depression. Not visa-versa.

5. Eat lots of fiber and drink lots of water.
I started having a fiber cereal every morning and often before bed and I had instant results.

RESULTS: I have successfully lost 12 lbs this last month without exercising above or

A lighter, slightly more excited, happier me! No the bus was not moving ;P

beyond my regular going to work, driving the bus, loving my woman, mowing the lawn, running to the fridge for water and jello routine.

One lost battle: I did have a set back on the weekend of July 17-18. Jo-elle and I took a stay-cation to  Fredericton. On said stay-cation we had drinks and meals outside of the diet that pushed my weight up for almost a week. It was a real struggle to get it to fall again. However; a couple of days of Steak and eggs, lots of fiber cereal and some fruit and the weight started dropping like a rock.

Tell next report.
David Sullivan

Ps. Still winning the war.

What is Exposure? Simply put exposure is the amount of light that is permitted to hit the film or digital sensor. Try to think of light as flowing water or marbles. It can come in through a big hole (Low aperture 1.8,2.8, etc) fast or it can flow steady slow through a small hole (high aperture 13,18,20 etc).

The smaller the opening the slower the light flows. Now in order to get the same amount of light with a smaller hole you need to wait longer (Shutter speed)

The third element is ISO which represents how sensitive your film or sensor is to light.

The balance of these three elements determines how much light you capture in your photo.

Problem / how to fix (Remember this is a basic introduction)
Photo is too Dark/More exposure – Increased ISO, Lower shutter speed, lower aperture#

Photo is to Light/Less exposure – Decrease ISO, raise shutter speed or increase aperture#

Thanks for reading. Tune in tomorrow or the next day when I will write about each setting in more detail.

Now. “Where have I been?” You ask.
I would answer, “Lost in the sea of life.”

Things have been a little stagnant around here lately. My perceived life has been getting in the way of my real life. Today that is all changing. I had to get my focus back.

Those of you that know me know this to be true. I am stubborn. Lately, I have been letting life lead me around, instead of being the one in charge. Thanks to this momentary laps in judgement my weigh jumped up another 10 lbs bringing the total to 269 lbs this morning.

I am calling this a dark day. However the clouds have parted.

“I, David Sullivan am declaring WAR on my life. No longer will I stand by and allow things to flow down the proverbial drain.”

This morning, I re-established myself on livestrong.com. I set the date and the amount. I will reach 200 lbs by March 13th, 2011 (Our anniversary) and I printed myself a

Declaration of War

reminder. I framed this reminder in a nice matted frame and hung it beside my night table so I would have to see it every evening and every morning. Now I am declaring it to the world and making myself accountable to you.

Today I ate better than I have in a while. I am heading over to pick up a GPS and Jo-elle and I are going for a walk and a swim at the “RES”, a local swimming hole. This should give me plenty of photographic opportunities.

Thank you for your support and stay tuned for the photos.

Dave Sullivan
Odyssey Photographer.