[Best_Wordpress_Gallery id=”66″ gal_title=”october 4, food and fitness”]
Welcome Back!
Hello Folks,, and thanks for joining me for an update on the fitness portion of my life-style change. When I launched livedeckers.com back in June, I had also set out on a mission to completely change the way that I think and eat on a daily basis. Controlling my weight my entire life has always been a battle. As a young child, being left with the option of either having epileptic seizures or taking the energy draining anti-convulsion drugs was a constant battle when it came to controlling my weight. No energy=weight gain, so it was always a struggle to burn off my unhealthy dietary choices and keep my weight to a healthy level. Fast forward to where I am now, I’ve got a heart that has been repaired and a neurological condition that has been under control for quite some time. With these issues out of the way, the path to optimal health and wellness was finally in my sights! After many years of trying to manage my stress level and stick to a proper diet, which is a major cause of my seizures, I decided it was time pursue my dream of being an outdoor writer, blogger, and photographer and leave the food and beverage industry and follow my heart and health! The everyday stress of running a restaurant, combined with the inconsistent schedule and infrequent times to eat a proper meal, I realized that I had fallen into the “industry trap” that so many young people unknowingly fall into with no regard for how these life-style habits shape you into “self” down the road. Well, 30 years later, it was time to make the change. Hence, the creation of this website and blog. When I began my quest to lose 100 pounds, I weighed in at a whopping 279 pounds! I was borderline diabetic, suffered from severe joint pain, and hardly had the enthusiasm to go to work on a daily basis. Today, it’s October 4 and I’m extremely happy to announce that I’m down to 217 pounds! Yes, I have lost 60 pounds in just under 4 months!
In this paragraph I would like to share with you how I’ve lost all this weight in just a short period of time. Keeping in mind that I had lost about 80 pounds between 2013 and 2014, I had already used road cycling as my main source of physical activity that led to most of that weight loss. In October of 2014, I suffered a shoulder injury that kept me off of the bike until I rehabbed the shoulder on my own. Like most men, I decided that I didn’t really have “that bad” of a shoulder injury, so I suffered through all of 2015 with chronic shoulder pain. The problem here was not only the fact that I had completely stopped riding the bike, I was never really focusing on what I was eating during this entire weight loss period. Therefore, when I stopped riding and kept on eating the same way, 80 of the 100 pounds I shed came right back! This time it was accompanied with the fore mentioned joint pain, night sweats, and general overall fatigue! Compounding my problems with a bout of pneumonia that led to my third battle with Congestive Heart Failure, I had to act now, or the next time I may not have a choice in the matter. After going home to the east coast in June to attend my nephew’s High School graduation, I returned home to look at some of the pictures of me from my trip. I was horrified! All that work in 2013/2014 went to crap! Who was this guy and how was I going to fix this mess that I was looking at? As I was on this very trip home, livedeckerscolorado.com had come to life and the site was turned over to me on June 6, 2016. This was it! I had created a platform to share my thoughts, photographs, and life here in beautiful South Platte River Valley. Alright, enough on the background of why, and more about the “how I’ve gotten to this point” Starting each morning at about 5:45/6:00, I eat breakfast within 30 minutes of being awake. After sleeping, your body is craving what it needs to give YOU what you need, so getting that food in your system is key! My breakfast is typically a mix of components that I prepare ahead of time in order for me to always have the right foods to eat. This is a very important part of the process for me, going back to being a Chef of 30 years, it’s easy to just grab what’s there. Each week, usually on Sunday, I will make a vegetarian Bean Pot, a couple of cups of Lentils, bake a few sweet potatoes, roast a butternut squash, a batch of brown rice and pearled barley . Each morning I’ll have a cup of the rice/barley, 1 cup of the bean mix, 1/4 cup lentils, 2-3oz. sweet potato/squash, and one over-easy egg. Add a banana and a couple of strawberries and I’ve got the fuel I need to head out for my daily 25 mile bike ride! After the ride, I usually come back home and have a mix of the same components, with the addition of some lean protein such as deli turkey or grilled chicken or fish. Only about 2/3 oz. of meat added to these lunch meals. Next up, it’s usually time for a hike or a work project that is usually involving physical work such as wood stacking or some other labor intensive project! My philosophy is that if I’m not working, I’m working out. Hopefully, the work that pays the rent is also work that involves strenuous physical activity, particularly heavy repetition like shoveling or wood stacking! The goal here is to completely incorporate a physical life-style around a healthy diet and positive attitude to achieve optimal health! My evening meal is usually a small salad, consisting mostly of vegetables and perhaps some of those breakfast components, simply cold. As I spend most of my day on the river or in the forest, I’m burning tons of calories. To keep the energy up all day, I like to snack on nuts, dried fruits, raw vegetable and drink lots of water. In the evening time I like to reward myself with a couple of strawberries and a little non-fat yogurt. That’s really it my friends. I’m not really doing anything special, I’m just being consistent and trying my best to hold myself accountable for the way I look, feel, and want to live each day. My goal here is to hopefully continue this life-style change and be able to be an example to others that if you want to make a change, YOU have to be the one to do it! Today’s picture gallery is a collection of the food I have been preparing for the last three months, plus some before and after pictures to show you my progress since June. Thanks for reading and all the support! If you like what I have written, please share with your friends and spread the good news about https://discoverdeckers.com. Have a great day and I’ll be back with more soon!
Chris
Oct.7, Daily Update
Fishing Conditions, fishing report[Best_Wordpress_Gallery id=”69″ gal_title=”October 7, 2016″]
Hi there Folks!
Weather conditions are great, the fishing has been up and down for me the last couple of days. I’ve been spending quite a bit of time shooting pictures and watching fish, but not so much catching for me lately! I spent another day today in the Cheesman Canyon, this time taking the upper trail and hiking all the way down to the base of the dam. This was a pretty vigorous hike that takes about an hour to get you in, and about an hour and a half to get you out. With steep climbs and descents, I would say this is an easy 2,000-2,500 foot elevation climb, after both directions. For a beautiful Friday in the South Platte valley, there was not another soul on the trail or in the upper trail head parking lot. Decker’s has been seeing fewer Anglers during the early weekdays, with pretty good traffic on the weekends, as the weather has been fantastic. Clarity is good, not much moss, with flows in Decker’s/Trumbull at 321, with the flow below Cheesman Dam, at 311. The weekend forecast looks great, with temps in the low 60’s, and plenty of sunshine. Our day in the Canyon was pretty humbling, I must say. All I had as far as strike went, was two big bow’s that came up on a wooley-bugger, as I made one last attempt to get a fish to remotely show some interest in what I had to offer. After being denied the fish fruits of the three hours of hiking, we returned home to Trumbull, to be each rewarded with a fish within the first five minutes of fishing! We both were using a foam back, chocolate thunder.
With this being my first trip this far up to the dam itself, I was thankful and happy to finally be standing at the base of one of most pivotal and controversial environmental wonders of the west, which happens to be basically in my back yard! The Cheesman Reservoir and Dam. Please visit the website link here for more information on this truly wonderful feat of engineering. http://www.denverwater.org/Recreation/Cheesman/. I hope you enjoy the photos I took today and I look forward to seeing you on the river! Until next time, have a great evening!
Chris
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October 6, 2016 Let it snow
Fishing Conditions, fishing report[Best_Wordpress_Gallery id=”68″ gal_title=”october 6,2016″]
Good evening my friends!
Wow, all kinds of conditions up here today! Woke up to snow as the front moved in overnight, bring us a dusting down here in the valley, with a little bit more at higher elevations. We then moved into the afternoon with sunshine and passing clouds, light wind, and temps in the low 60’s. Flows in Trumbull/Decker’s is at 321, with 314 below the dam at Cheesman. The fish were rather active throughout the day, feeding aggressively both above and below the surface. After some morning errands and doing some photo-editing, I got out on the river at 4:30pm, with my neighbor who lives up the hill. Started out with small, flash-back rubber-legs, follow with zebra midge and trailing a grey, RS-2. I took two fish on this rig, while my buddy zero’ed in on the browns hitting a Chocolate Thunder, but wasn’t sure what the rest of his set-up was. The weather is looking good for the weekend, so look for increased pressure in the Decker’s Resort area, but consider heading downstream towards the confluence ,where’s there’s much more open space to try your luck! A bit of fall excitement taking place tomorrow night at the Decker’s Corner Cafe! http://www.deckerscorner.com Band starts at 7pm! That’s all for now folks! Hope to see you on the river soon.
Chris
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October 5, 2016 Cheesman Canyon
camping, Fishing Conditions[Best_Wordpress_Gallery id=”67″ gal_title=”october 5, cheesman canyon hike”]
Good Evening folks!
Wow, covered some ground today and hiked the Gill Trail along the South Platte River, Cheesman Canyon. I didn’t fish, but I’ll get the conditions I observed in just a bit. Let’s get you up to speed on what’s happening currently in Decker’s/Trumbull. It was a beautiful day up here today, with mild temperatures in the low 60’s, after some pretty darn chilly morning temps in the low 30’s. The forecast for the weekend keeps improving each day, as we inch closer to Friday. We saw a drop in the flow from the Dam today, with current flows below the dam at 314 and 318 in Trumbull. The river coming through my back yard has cleared up considerably since the winds blew through over the last two days, even more clear up in the canyon. I didn’t fish today, just took pictures as I hiked the Gill Trail nearly to the dam. For more information on this trail, visit http://www.trailheadfinder.com As hard as it is to go into the canyon without taking my gear, I took this opportunity to take some great photos of this historical landmark area, as well as watch the behavior patterns of some pretty big Rainbow and Brown trout. Doing my best not to disturb any Anglers that were enjoying the serenity and peacefulness of their surroundings, I was careful not to get too close to anyone enjoying their time on the river. As the Gill trail traverses the river, 100 feet up the canyon wall and high above the gin clear South Platte, I was able to use my telephoto lens to observe the feeding activity of the trout. With the decrease in the flow today, the trout that had been previously been feeding much closer to the bottom, as this tends to happen here when the flows are higher, were aggressively feeding up and down the water column and occasionally breaking the surface during a midge hatch. The clarity of the water allowed me to spot, what I would say, are pretty solid numbers of fish congregated in most of the pools I observed. When I arrived in the parking lot, there were only a small number of vehicles parked, guessing 12-15, and spotted only about 6-8 Anglers the entire time. I did take the time to introduce myself to a few guys that were hiking along the trail and explained that I was writing a blog about the fishing conditions. They offered up to me their thoughts on how the canyon was fishing, as I was happy to listen. By the first hour in the river, they both claimed to have bagged 5 fish each, with the average fish being about 18 inches. Egg patterns were working early, with a worm and emerger in the afternoon. I’ll be back on the river tomorrow, as I’m planning to fish the Lone Rock campground, back to Decker’s bridge. For camping information and to make a reservation at this campground, visit http://www.reserveamerica.com. Hoping the cloud cover and cold front are going to get the fish active tomorrow. That’s it for now folks! Have a great evening and I hope to see you on the river soon!
Chris
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Fitness Update! “the skinny” 10/05/16
lifestyle and fitness[Best_Wordpress_Gallery id=”66″ gal_title=”october 4, food and fitness”]
Welcome Back!
Hello Folks,, and thanks for joining me for an update on the fitness portion of my life-style change. When I launched livedeckers.com back in June, I had also set out on a mission to completely change the way that I think and eat on a daily basis. Controlling my weight my entire life has always been a battle. As a young child, being left with the option of either having epileptic seizures or taking the energy draining anti-convulsion drugs was a constant battle when it came to controlling my weight. No energy=weight gain, so it was always a struggle to burn off my unhealthy dietary choices and keep my weight to a healthy level. Fast forward to where I am now, I’ve got a heart that has been repaired and a neurological condition that has been under control for quite some time. With these issues out of the way, the path to optimal health and wellness was finally in my sights! After many years of trying to manage my stress level and stick to a proper diet, which is a major cause of my seizures, I decided it was time pursue my dream of being an outdoor writer, blogger, and photographer and leave the food and beverage industry and follow my heart and health! The everyday stress of running a restaurant, combined with the inconsistent schedule and infrequent times to eat a proper meal, I realized that I had fallen into the “industry trap” that so many young people unknowingly fall into with no regard for how these life-style habits shape you into “self” down the road. Well, 30 years later, it was time to make the change. Hence, the creation of this website and blog. When I began my quest to lose 100 pounds, I weighed in at a whopping 279 pounds! I was borderline diabetic, suffered from severe joint pain, and hardly had the enthusiasm to go to work on a daily basis. Today, it’s October 4 and I’m extremely happy to announce that I’m down to 217 pounds! Yes, I have lost 60 pounds in just under 4 months!
In this paragraph I would like to share with you how I’ve lost all this weight in just a short period of time. Keeping in mind that I had lost about 80 pounds between 2013 and 2014, I had already used road cycling as my main source of physical activity that led to most of that weight loss. In October of 2014, I suffered a shoulder injury that kept me off of the bike until I rehabbed the shoulder on my own. Like most men, I decided that I didn’t really have “that bad” of a shoulder injury, so I suffered through all of 2015 with chronic shoulder pain. The problem here was not only the fact that I had completely stopped riding the bike, I was never really focusing on what I was eating during this entire weight loss period. Therefore, when I stopped riding and kept on eating the same way, 80 of the 100 pounds I shed came right back! This time it was accompanied with the fore mentioned joint pain, night sweats, and general overall fatigue! Compounding my problems with a bout of pneumonia that led to my third battle with Congestive Heart Failure, I had to act now, or the next time I may not have a choice in the matter. After going home to the east coast in June to attend my nephew’s High School graduation, I returned home to look at some of the pictures of me from my trip. I was horrified! All that work in 2013/2014 went to crap! Who was this guy and how was I going to fix this mess that I was looking at? As I was on this very trip home, livedeckerscolorado.com had come to life and the site was turned over to me on June 6, 2016. This was it! I had created a platform to share my thoughts, photographs, and life here in beautiful South Platte River Valley. Alright, enough on the background of why, and more about the “how I’ve gotten to this point” Starting each morning at about 5:45/6:00, I eat breakfast within 30 minutes of being awake. After sleeping, your body is craving what it needs to give YOU what you need, so getting that food in your system is key! My breakfast is typically a mix of components that I prepare ahead of time in order for me to always have the right foods to eat. This is a very important part of the process for me, going back to being a Chef of 30 years, it’s easy to just grab what’s there. Each week, usually on Sunday, I will make a vegetarian Bean Pot, a couple of cups of Lentils, bake a few sweet potatoes, roast a butternut squash, a batch of brown rice and pearled barley . Each morning I’ll have a cup of the rice/barley, 1 cup of the bean mix, 1/4 cup lentils, 2-3oz. sweet potato/squash, and one over-easy egg. Add a banana and a couple of strawberries and I’ve got the fuel I need to head out for my daily 25 mile bike ride! After the ride, I usually come back home and have a mix of the same components, with the addition of some lean protein such as deli turkey or grilled chicken or fish. Only about 2/3 oz. of meat added to these lunch meals. Next up, it’s usually time for a hike or a work project that is usually involving physical work such as wood stacking or some other labor intensive project! My philosophy is that if I’m not working, I’m working out. Hopefully, the work that pays the rent is also work that involves strenuous physical activity, particularly heavy repetition like shoveling or wood stacking! The goal here is to completely incorporate a physical life-style around a healthy diet and positive attitude to achieve optimal health! My evening meal is usually a small salad, consisting mostly of vegetables and perhaps some of those breakfast components, simply cold. As I spend most of my day on the river or in the forest, I’m burning tons of calories. To keep the energy up all day, I like to snack on nuts, dried fruits, raw vegetable and drink lots of water. In the evening time I like to reward myself with a couple of strawberries and a little non-fat yogurt. That’s really it my friends. I’m not really doing anything special, I’m just being consistent and trying my best to hold myself accountable for the way I look, feel, and want to live each day. My goal here is to hopefully continue this life-style change and be able to be an example to others that if you want to make a change, YOU have to be the one to do it! Today’s picture gallery is a collection of the food I have been preparing for the last three months, plus some before and after pictures to show you my progress since June. Thanks for reading and all the support! If you like what I have written, please share with your friends and spread the good news about https://discoverdeckers.com. Have a great day and I’ll be back with more soon!
Chris
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Decker’s in real time! 10/04/16
Fishing Conditions, fishing report[Best_Wordpress_Gallery id=”65″ gal_title=”October 4, 2016″]
Good Evening my Friends!
Wow, what a day in the beautiful South Platte River Valley, Decker’s, Colorado!! It was much cooler this morning, with a low of 39 when I got up. Flows are down just a little bit from yesterday, with 367 below the dam and 373 here in Decker’s/Trumbull. Good news is the flow has been consistent for almost a week now, and the fish are actively feeding. However, with the high winds we’ve seen in the last 48 hours, the river does have some debris to deal with. Pine straw, leaves, and other floating obstacles can hamper your efforts from time to time, but shouldn’t stop you from getting out there and fishing! I started out this morning with my usual 25 mile bike ride down river along Platte River Road. I use this as my daily training ride, but I also use this time to check out the river conditions downstream from Decker’s and Tumbull. This has turned out to be a pretty good way of establishing areas that are producing consistent hatches and what bugs are coming off. After some river reconnaissance up near the “wire” on the YMCA road in Decker’s, I finally got into the river to do some fishing in Trumbull around 3:30pm. By 4pm, the midges were coming off pretty thick, but I stuck with the nymphing rig as I didn’t see a rise on the midge hatch. Consisting of a San Juan Worm, followed with a Pheasant Tail #22, then trailing a Rainbow Warrior, I worked a faster riffle just upstream from a drop-off into deeper water. With just two or three throws of my rig, I quickly hooked into a smaller rainbow but lost it before I could set the hook. After a few hits with no hook-ups, I moved on to a dry-dropper as a few trout came up to take a few of the midges that had made their way down to surface level. With an Amy’s Ant, trailing a Blue-winged Olive, I took two more fish from a deeper pool against the granite rock wall. Today’s picture gallery is from my day around the Decker’s/Trumbull area! The weather is looking pretty much the same as it was today for tomorrow. Waking up to lows in the 30’s, warming up to the mid-60’s, with another windy day on tap. That’s all for today folks. Keep the comments coming and I hope to see you on the river soon!
Chris
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