Easy run

3.7 miles, 38:01, 10:18 pace. Temp in the high 60s.

Check.

Weighed in at 183.5 this morning. Damned donuts.

Weight up slightly

Yesterday I weighed 179.5. This morning it was 181.0, which is up a bit but still way lower than previously.

30 day trend is 184.05.

Still watching for excessive weight loss.

Weight drop

This morning, after sleeping in a bit, I woke up and weighed myself.

I weighed 179.5. I did it twice to make sure it wasn't an error.

That's a seven pound drop from Wednesday.

That's kinda scary, actually. I've been eating less since Wednesday, and ran a couple of times. But, still. I'm going to keep a watch on this and if I suddenly start dropping lots of pounds, I'll see a doctor.

My 30-day trend stands at 184.35.

Out of control

I made good choices for food yesterday. Except for the two donuts (a glazed donut after breakfast, and a glazed twist in the afternoon), the giant slice of pizza for lunch, oh, and the feta cheese and honey mustard on the salad, and the four pieces of buttered bread with my roasted red pepper soup for dinner, oh, and especially the cup of cappuccino and blackberry gelato for dessert.

Yeah. Great choices.

Oh, and I started but did not finish my dumbbell workout and otherwise got no exercise yesterday.

Today I am up a half-pound (to 186.5) - but I expect another bounce up tomorrow - and my 30-day trend is back up over 185 (to 185.3) after briefly flirting with being under 185 for several days.

I need to get back to my good eating habits. Today I feel bloated and puffy, and mentally I'm beating myself up.

Poor choice, good choice

Because yesterday was a non-running day, I wanted to keep my calorie intake low. I was doing well after I left work - I'd only had around 1200 calories. A small dinner, and I'd be fine.

I wanted two, small, corn tacos. No chips, no salsa, no guacamole or rice and beans. Just two small tacos. Fish, chicken, steak, didn't matter.

When I got off the bus in my neighborhood, though... my favorite restaurant, the Iron Horse, was calling. I rationalized that I could order the lemon garlic chicken taco platter, and just eat two tacos, no chips, no salsa, no rice or beans... and take the rest home.

I almost did it. I ate about 20 tortilla chips (yes, I tried to count), and I ate a couple spoonfuls each of the rice and black beans. And two chicken tacos. And a couple of forkfuls of the left-over chicken.

I did, however, take home a lot of left-overs.

Then I walked home from there, about a mile and a half. And later, I did my upper-body barbell workout.

So at least I tried to offset the poor choice of restaurant (giving in to temptation and placing myself in temptation's path) with some restraint in eating, and some mild exercise.

Dread

I ate well yesterday, even though I spent the evening with my friend and that often leads to over-eating. Instead, I had a modest salad (with some BBQ chicken on it and a small amount of ranch dressing), and a tiny cup of chocolate-coconut gelato for dessert. In fact, I ended up under 2000 calories for the day, which combined with lots of water and my early-morning run, combined made me proud of my own choices.

This morning, though, for some reason I felt dread when I approached the scale. I felt bloated, and, yes, even fat. I was certain that I was going to see my weight go up. I mentally prepared myself for that eventuality; my internal self-talk was about managing my expectations. "I can live with it going up a pound from yesterday. That won't be the end of the world. I can just knuckle down and keep going I can work it off. I'll eat lightly today! It'll be OK!"

Imagine, then, my surprise when I saw 186.5 on the scale, when I finally got up the courage to step on.

Huh? It went down? But I feel fat. How...?

Obviously something else was happening. This feeling, this "full" feeling is not what I'm interpreting it to be. I am not "fat". I'm doing all the right things, making all the right choices lately. And it's working. I need to re-wire how I'm interpreting what signals my body is sending me.

It's working and I feel great.

And now the guilt

As predicted, I feel bad for over-eating yesterday. I guess that's a good thing - that'll keep me from doing that often.

I weighed in at 189 this morning. At least I'm still under 190; that's good, too. My 30-day trend is up a bit to 187.35 (from 187.2 the day before).

I'm going to bicycle a lot today and keep my calorie intake under 1700. Let's see how much better I can do on Monday, weight-wise.

Good choices, no effect (yet)

I did pretty well on calories yesterday. Had 400-500 left around dinner time, so I walked down to the Thai place and had stir-fry veggies and chicken (no rice). Then for dessert, even though I was craving cake gelato or donuts or somethin', I had a cup of frozen mixed berries. Yum. Also walked up to the grocery store right after dinner.

This morning I weighed in at 187.5, exactly what I've been for the last several days. Is this a plateau? Do I need to do a little extra starving to push down below this? At least my trend continues to go down - the 30-day rolling average is 187.35. But that's below my actual weight - it can't keep going down if my actual weight stays the same.

Early run

I got up early today to run, just as I'd planned. Ran my 3.5 mile route, only in the opposite direction from last Tuesday. I wasn't supposed to care about time or pace, but I brought my watch, and noted that around the half-way mark, I was basically doing a 10:30 pace. I tried to push the second half but, no, I ended up doing the loop in 37:05, for a 10:23 pace.

It felt a bit chilly, the internets told me it was 53° F when I left the house, so I wore a long-sleeved technical shirt. It felt fine... until the half-way point, when it was a bit warm on my arms, so I pushed up the sleeves. Once again, for future reference, I need to dress for the middle of the run, not the beginning.

Weight was 187.5 again, which is up, but the trend went slightly down, to 187.45. Yes, just slightly below my actual weight. I thought I had done very well on calories yesterday, but I think the chicken Caesar salad from the Limelight was a bit more than the ~350 I'd calculated. When I got home, I couldn't help snacking a bit on croutons, and a few (less than 10 total) almonds, and finally a couple of teaspoons of peanut butter and jelly. I mean, I could have done worse, so I can cut myself a break. But, still.

Still going

Yesterday, I had to get up early to return my Zipcar (a MINI Convertible - suh-weet!) before 8:00 AM, so on my way back I decided I'd have a giant breakfast at the 24 Hour Pancake House.

So I did. And vowed not to eat too much the rest of the day. I had two pancakes, four pieces of bacon, a scrambled egg, and copious coffee. I counted everything, including the syrup and pats of butter, and it all came to around 950 calories. Totally do-able, considering I didn't eat until close to 10 (due to bus travel ordering and general slowness at the restaurant and suchlike), leaving lots of calories for a big-ish snack and dinner.

I almost went over, anyway, because I hung out at the local coffee shop for a couple of hours in the late afternoon, and Nicole had made my favorite kind of cake: white with chocolate frosting. But I resisted and just drank coffee (and counted those calories!).

Before I went to bed, I weighed myself. I've found that my morning weight is usually about 1.5-2.0 pounds lower than my right-before-bed weight, so it gives me a preview. I was surprised to find 189.5 staring me in the face. Ugh. I thought I'd done well, but that seemed high.

So this morning when I got up, I was prepared for disappointment. Instead I weighed in at 186.5 - only a half-pound up from yesterday! Nice! It must have been water weight.

I've had a small breakfast (my usual - yogurt cup and peanut butter and jam on toast) about an hour and a half ago, and now I'm going out for my hard run.

I decided on an interval run - warmup, then alternate between hard 8:30-9:00 pace half-miles, and jog/walking half-miles, for a total of 3 apiece. That will be just over 5 miles. And it should be difficult to make that pace on the last fast segment. But I'd like to get faster, and the only way to do that is to, y'know, run faster.

I'll report back on how well I did.

Ever down

Yesterday I ran 4 miles at an east pace (that turned out to be just under 11:00 per mile), had a small dinner of a turkey and cheese sandwiich, then went out drinkng. A vodka martini and a gin & tonic. Mmmmmm.

And this morning I weighed in at 186 lbs even. Niiiiice.

Weight watching

I had about 500-600 calories left for the day when dinner rolled around. So I went to the local Thai restaurant (it's only 2 blocks from home) and ordered stir-fry vegetables and chicken. I should've told them not to bring rice, but they did. I mostly ignored the rice, though, and just ate the veggies and chicken and delicious sauce. I ordered it hot, and it was what I call "Portland hot" - spicy but not mouth-searing.

I gave in and ate about a half-cup of the rice. I used it to sop up the remaining sauce.

My mental estimate of the calories for that dinner suggested I had another 100 or so left, and I wanted to hang out at the coffee shop. I went next door and ordered a non-fat chai latte. However, when I sat down to actually count up the calories, I ended up going a little bit over for the day. Probably should have skipped the chai.

I worried that I would be up over 190 lbs. I know, silly. But it all worked out in the end, because this morning I was only up by a half-pound, to 188 even, from yesterday. My 30-day trend actually went down some more, to 188.9. *phew*

Like I said, this weekend will be the test. I really want to keep my numbers under 190 for a week. I can do it!

Tonight after work I'm going for a run, even though it'll probably be warm and muggy. I think I'll aim for 4-5 miles. Then this weekend... hmmm. Long run? Or some kind of speed work, or hill work? I can't decide. Somethin' hard, anyway.

I beat Monday

Tuesday, in spite of having an Oreo-covered Voodoo Donut with lunch, and gelato for dinner, I stayed under my calorie count for the day, and woke up this morning the same weight as yesterday, 188.5. Maybe the 2 hour walk helped. And my 30-day trend dropped below 190, to 189.65. As I said before, when it stays below 190 for a week, I'm celebrating with dinner at Macaroni Grill. This coming weekend will be the acid test.

And this morning I was up early for a run. I ran the same 3.65 mile loop I ran on Monday, although in the opposite direction. And I was determined to run it faster. I didn't stop at any of the water fountains along the route, and only braked to a stop twice, very briefly, to avoid being hit by traffic. And I did it! I finished in 37:33, over a minute faster than Monday's time, for an average pace of 10:13 per mile. So in a very real and measurable way, in both weight and exercise, I beat Monday.

Bad Brian! No donut!

I gave in, late last night, and walked up to Foster's Market to get a couple of delicious donuts. I'd already eaten almost 2000 calories worth of food, and I didn't even feel hungry. I was just bored. I got a raspberry jelly filled, and an apple-filled bear claw. So good. But...

This morning I weighed in at 190 lbs even. And my 30-day trend went up from 190.2 to 190.25. I know that some of that is just water and won't stay with me, but I'm going to use it as a reminder to stick with the program and not to indulge when I'm doing so well.

Gettin' there

This morning I weighed 188.5, which matches my second-lowest weight of the year. Another half-pound and I'll match my lowest all-year weight.

Then after that, I'll be in new territory again.

My trend this morning, which is a rolling average that Calorie Count calculates based on the past 30 days of weigh-ins, is 190.20.

I just had a slice of toast (Franz Oregon Trail 100% Whole Wheat with delicious "pockets of honey") with peanut butter and raspberry preserves. Yum. In an hour or two, I'll go for a nice long run. My plan is my old 6+ mile loop. First and last mile will be warmup, but I'll be timing myself on the middle 4 miles and hope to maintain a 10:00 pace. Of course it's hot and I haven't run that far in months, so I will have to cut myself a break if I don't meet my goal.

One of my projects for the day is to map out and annotate my various neighborhood loops for future reference and link them here. Time to bust out Google Earth!

One pound away

Weighed 189.5 this morning.

Whoo-hoo! I'm below 190 again! It's been a while.

And I'm just a pound away from weighing less than my all-year low of 189.0.

I did OK on calories. After my run in the heat yesterday, I went to the Iron Horse and tried something new - pork tacos, with pineapple salsa and rice and refried black beans. Yum. That put me at around 1000 calories - and I only ate 10 tortilla chips! Yes, I counted them out.

I drank lots of water but didn't get a snack when I went to see a movie, and got a slice of pizza and salad after the movie.

I really wanted something sweet later on, so I got a small piece of cheesecake from the local coffee shop, and then at home, in a fit of hunger, scarfed down the left-over Santa Fe chicken sandwich from the night before. Which brought me to around 2300 calories - high, but not too bad considering the exercise.

Weekend update

I managed to stay 192 lbs all weekend long, in spite of much bike-riding and barely going over in calories. I did not, however, run.

My overall trend is approaching 192 lbs (as of this morning, it's 192.15) so if I want the trend to keep going down I really need to weigh under 192 tomorrow morning. Which means running, not just biking.

Up bounce

This morning I'm back up a pound. Not sure why and I'm trying not to be discouraged by it.

I had lunch yesterday at American Dream pizza with my friends. One giant slice of BBQ chicken pizza and a salad drenched in their delicious honey mustard dressing and feta cheese. I tried to be pessimistic about the calories but either I wasn't pessimistic enough, or there was way more salt, or... I don't know. Maybe going to bed early was the culprit? Or sleeping for 12 hours?

I can't tell. My body is sometimes a mystery. Today I should get plenty of exercise, though. Will probably ride my bike downtown and catch a movie and stuff and suchlike and whatnot.

Keep on keepin' on

191.5 this morning, which is my all-year low. I thought 192 was my all-year low but I was wrong. At any rate, it's going in the right direction, finally.

Just before I left work, I had about 1350 calories for the day. Since I was downtown, I planned on going to see a movie after work, and then grabbing a slice of my favorite pizza and a salad from Pizza Schmizza. I had enough calories that I could stay under 1800 calories total if I did that.

But...

I was at a different work site than normal, and in one section there's some ladies who have a huge smorgasbord of candy. All kinds; chocolate, gummi, crunchy. Even some nuts and non-sugared snacks like pretzels. It's very hard for me to work there and not stop by. I generally do two things to counter my candy urge, though: I make sure and donate some money to their candy fund, and I try to keep track of all the calories from what I get. That helps me scale back.

Yesterday, I dropped a dollar in the cup, and took out four dark chocolate malt balls. So yummy. Four balls of about 1" in diameter. After I ate them, I then had to figure out their calories. I looked up Whoppers on Calorie-Count, the site I use to track my diet, and what they showed was 120 calories for "1.0 ounce". Hmmm... how many balls to an ounce? And aren't Whoppers smaller than 1" diameter?

Yes, Whoppers are smaller than the malt balls I ate. I didn't calculate it right away, since I had a movie to go see, but I knew I would have to do some math to compare how much larger a 1" diameter sphere is than a 3/4" diameter sphere. All through the movie, I worried that eating that candy, plus a slice of pizza and a salad, would put me over, and jeopardize my awesome day.

After the movie, I walked over to a store and found a box of Whoppers. One serving was 41 grams, or about 18 balls, for 180 calories, and, yes, those are smaller than the candies I ate, by about a quarter inch.

I went ahead and ate the pizza dinner I'd been craving. Afterward, because of the fear of going over my calorie limit, I felt the strong urge to just give in and grab dessert or a donut or a coffee drink. Just give up.

But I told myself several things:

1. I was full from dinner. Eating more would only make me feel over-full.
   
2. Whatever brief pleasure I got from eating something sweet would not feel better than the satisfaction tomorrow of maintaining control and not eating one more bite.
   
3. That the disappointment of seeing my weight go up tomorrow is greater than the pleasure of seeing it remain the same or going down.

And the best part is that I believed all that. I could see the logic and the pleasure in each thought.

On the bus ride home from downtown, I did the math and found that a 1" diameter sphere is about 2.3 times larger in volume than a 3/4" sphere, which is more than I thought it would be. So assuming the candies are proportioned the same, I figured one of those large dark chocolate balls was 2.3 times the calories of one of the Whoppers, which means those four balls I ate were approximately equal to 9.2 of the Whoppers, or about 90 calories. Don't you just love math?

And, as I said above, I weighed in a half-pound lower this morning. So vindicated.

And I rode my bicycle to work today! More exercise, please!

Lower

Yesterday should have been an exercise day, but I had some kind of sinus-y cold thing. On the bright side, my lack of appetite made calorie control easier and I ate less than 1800 calories for the day. In fact, I had to force myself to eat dinner (a half-sandwich) even though I wasn't hungry.

This morning I slept in a bit and didn't go to work. My weigh-in was 192.5, which may be the lowest I've been in months. So I'll keep on keepin' on.

Today I pick up my bicycle, a Kona Smoke 2-9, from my friendly neighborhood Bike Gallery in Woodstock. That will help me stay active even on days I don't run, and I'm hoping to be able to ride to work once in a while, too. More ways to be active are better. Right?

Down but up

I was down to 194.0 this morning.

But my trend line still went up a bit. Hate that.

Last night I ran-in-place for 30 minutes and kept my calories around 1900 or so. Not awesome but still good. Went to bed hungry. Thought I'd have lost more but no go. Gotta keep on keepin' on.

Bump

After my high calorie intake weekend I hoped against, but did not expect, a bump up in weight. And I got one. I weighed 195 yesterday morning.

So I knew I had to be great yesterday to get back on track. And then Ken wanted to eat at a pizza place known for giant slices of thick crust pizza. Then there were free donuts left over at the coffee stand in my office building. So when I left work, I had consumed nearly 1600 calories already.

I had a coffee for dinner, partly because I had a brand-new filling in my tooth. I drank some water and went to bed early.

This morning I'm at 194.5. Again. And that made a bump up in my trend. Argh.

Control

I managed to stay under 2200 calories today, even with a stop at Dairy Queen and brinner (breakfast-at-dinner) at the 24 Hour Pancake House.

I only ate half of my strawberry pancakes. So, technically, just one pancake.

I would've been under if I hadn't had four cups of coffee and a beef jerky stick. I think that's pretty good.

Tomorrow I run six miles.

Still on track

After avoiding temptation (in the form of cupcakes) last night as I was leaving work, I spent the rest of the evening starving myself, until around 7:30 when I gave in and made a half-sandwich.

This morning I'm down a half-pound to 194. Again. Yay.

Steady

194.5 again today. So yesterday probably wasn't a fluke. Still woulda been nice to lose, but not gaining is almost as good.

More exercise

More exercise (running in place for 30 minutes) tonight and I did so much better calorie-wise (kept it under 1900 for the day) and now I'm hungry and I'm going to bed.

G'night.

Reset again

Crap. 196 this morning. Up two and a half pounds.

That's what I get for eating donuts last night.

I'm my own worst obstacle.

How to splurge

I went out to dinner last night with Tracy last night to celebrate her birthday. On my suggestion, we went to Macaroni Grill, because their food is yummy and they post their nutrition info online, so I can try (and I do mean try) to stay within my diet.

I did really well with dinner - ordered chicken cannelloni, and only ate about a third of it. I ordered a nice vodka martini, which isn't so bad. Did have a lot of bread; Tracy and I split the loaf.

But when dessert rolled around... I ordered the apple crisper a la mode.

And ate the whole thing.

Per the website, just the dessert was 1080 calories. Whoa. But damn it was delicious. I cleaned my plate.

I rationalized it by saying I had run 5+ miles earlier that day, but the whole reason I run long on the weekends is to burn more calories. The whole strategy only works if I run hard and still stay under calories.

But when I woke up this morning, I weighed the same as yesterday. 193.5. No change.

Today, as of this post, I've only eaten about 1200 calories. I'm going to stay way under for the day. And I just ran in place for 30 minutes, also. I don't want the calories from yesterday to show up on the scale tomorrow morning.

We'll see how it goes.

One step at a time

Weighed 193.5 this morning. Just as I'd hoped. I resisted temptation mightily yesterday after a large lunch at Chang's Mongolian Grill (celebrating Tracy's birthday), which included ice cream. Tracy kindly offered me one of her chocolate chip cookies, and I had to turn her down. I didn't even have dinner, nor any snack, even though I stayed up late to watch Battlestar Galactica and didn't get to bed until after 11:00p.

I did have about 3000 mg of Vitamin C, though! Ha! Those chewable tablets are about 5 calories each and I had six. Just had to have something in my mouth, I guess. Better than eating a donut and regretting it in the morning, though.

Succeeding a day at a time

194 even this morning. My diet required some attention yesterday because I and my co-workers ate at American Dream Pizza for lunch, and one slice of their pizza is a lot of calories. But I avoided snacks by telling myself I didn't need them (and I didnt) and I ran, actually ran outside, for 35-40 minutes, and ate a simple sandwich for dinner, and drank lots of water.

I was afraid that I'd want a late night snack because I was staying up to watch the season finale of "Lost", which didnt finish until about 2 hours past my normal bedtime. And I did want a snack. But rather than walking to Foster's Market for donuts, or a cup of coffee from Twin Paradox (with plenty of cream and sugar), instead I ate an apple, and barely went over my goal at all.

And it paid off when the scale showed a half pound drop from yesterday. Good choices lead to good results.

Oh, and another thing: count everything. I ate some jelly beans from a vending machine. Just a handful, maybe 10 or so. Almost dismissed them but didn't. Ate part of Tracy's giant chocolate chip cookie, just a bite or two in size. Almost dismissed it but didn't. And those two things together would've put me over by 250 calories! So count everything!

Finally

Finally dropped under 195 today. By a half pound. Right direction, though.

Again

195. Again. Ugh. No loss? What the fuck?

Stuck

Damn. 195 even again this morning. And Calorie Count says my trend went up, not down. I'll just keep keepin' on.

Resisting tempation

Just as I said, I ran-in-place in my apartment for a (timed) thirty minutes. Man, was I sweaty afterward, but it felt good. And I was very hungry.

My late lunch / early dinner tonight was another Applewood Smoked Bacon White Cheddar Burger from Mike's Drive-In, just like yesterday. However, today I only about about 75-80% of the burger. Yes, I resisted temptation. I did eat all my French fries, though. That was around 4:30p.

And then I didn't eat anything else for the rest of the night. I did drink a lot of water, though.

Keeping on

I went to bed early last night, partially because I felt tired and partially to avoid eating more than the 1850 calories I'd already consumed.

Woke up around 9 AM and weighed in at 195.5, which did not budge my trend line at all.

Ate a single slice of toast with a modest amount of peanut butter and raspberry jam, then two hours later went out for a run. I followed my 5.5 mile course, and it was muggy, and I walked a lot, and it took me around 70 minutes.

Then I ate an applewood smoked bacon and white cheddar burger and fries. I'm not hungry but I don't feel over-full, either. Just perfect.

Poor eating habits

I'm at 197.5 today, after three straight days of being 197.

Gotta stop eating so much. Just gotta.

After effect

If I'm going to give myself a guilt-free eating day, as I did yesterday, I shouldn't keep track of calories.

I kept track yesterday: over 3100 calories in.

And today I'm up to 197 pounds.

Yeah, guilt.

Falling in the right way

195 even this morning, which, while up a half pound from yesterday, still pushes my overall 30 day trend under 196 for the first time since my latest "new beginning".

Delicious pizza

I was craving delicious Pizza Schmizza pizza yesterday and by FSM, I got some in the evening. It put me a tiny bit over calories for the day (total for the day was 2016) but I also walked a mile or so and I'm running tonight, so I don't feel too bad. Also, I ate not just one, but two green salads, both with very little dressing, yesterday, and the goodness of fresh veggies totally offsets any potential badness of eating too many calories.

Today I'm up a half-pound to 195.5 but I am not worried.

I'm down another half pound, to 195 even.

A good weekend

Saturday was hard and I ended up over my calorie goal. Not sure how much because I dint count the cake I ate at my ex-girlfriend's wedding reception. But I was at 2400 before then.

Sunday started with a 1600+ calorie late breakfast at the Limelight. Mmmmm, meat scramble. That stayed with me all day. Around 5p while I was killing time for the bus I stepped in to a Starbucks... and ordered a skinny latte. Even though there were cinnamon rolls and cookies in plain sight.

This morning I'm down to 195.5 lbs. Yay me!

Another day

198.5.

That is all.

198

I hope this is just a random uptick. 198 pounds this morning.

Starting again and again

196.5 this morning.

Fuckin' weekend.

Trend is down

In spite of doing very well both diet-wise and exercise-wise, my actual weight was up this morning to 197.

But Calorie Count+ still shows my trend on its way down. Yay!

Pretty good day

I woke up around 8 AM this morning. Maybe earlier. Can't remember.

Weighed in at 195.5, which is down. Yay!

Ate a light breakfast (orange yogurt, two slices of toast with peanut butter, raspberry preserves, and a little chocolate topping!), and later, around 11:30 AM or so, a sandwich, some trail mix, and an apple.

Tracy texted me after a long walk in the sunshine around noon, so shortly after 1:00 PM, out of guilt, I went for a long walk myself. About two hours worth! I wore shorts but a long-sleeved shirt, and my old Brooks GTS 6s (the ones with MoGo), and listened to the new B-52s album. I got warm about halfway!

Stopped at the Limelight for an early dinner. Santa Fe chicken sandwich and a small green salad. Yum. And that put me at 1800 calories.

I am done eating for the day. I hope.

Ugh

When I got out of the movie last night, I felt full, bloated even. Mustve been the 64 oz. Diet Coke I (tried to) consume during the movie. I seriously considered getting dinner anyway; after all, I could have had delicious pizza, and I still would've been under 1900 calories for the day.

In the end, I realized that it was foolish to eat when wasn't hungry. No dinner for me. I did have a snack of a handful of smoked almonds when I got home.

This morning I weighed in at 196.5.

Setback again

Yesterday, someone brought in donuts. If you know me at all, you know that I love donuts the way Homer Simpson loves... donuts. OK, that's not a great analogy.

I had two. Two delicious donuts. And before lunchtime rolled around, because of my "normal" breakfast and the delicious donuts, I had already eaten over 1000 calories.

Lunch was with my buddy Ken, and we went to Taco del Mar. Oh, delicious Taco del Mar. I could have pigged out with a giant burrito, but I had enough self-control to get the taco deal - two fish tacos and some beans and rice.

Which put me at over 1800 calories.

If only I could have, y'know, stopped eating. Then I would have been fine. But, no, I felt sleepy around 3p, so I went upstairs to get some coffee to get me through the rest of the afternoon. And the donuts were on sale.

Yes. I ate three donuts yesterday. I'm going to stop calling them "donuts" and start calling them "kryptonite". That would help a lot. That put me at 2300 calories.

In the evening, after work, I had to go to the store to get allergy meds and laundry soap. Ah, the life of a bachelor.

Then I walked past the Limelight and saw that they had cream of spinach soup as their special... and I walked in and ordered a cup of soup... and a plate of fries. Fuck. 2900 calories. And no exercise. And lots of salty food.

This morning I weighed in at 198. And the trend line for the past couple of weeks is going up again.

Gotta keep trying.

197. Again

Dammit. Last night, after my run, I went up to the Limelight and ordered a Sante Fe chicken sandwich and fries.

The sandwich was huge - not just on a round hamburger bun, but on an oblong sandwich roll.

Damn it was good, though. And the fries, dipped in ranch? Delicious. And altogether they were about 985 calories. Which is 500 calories more than I needed if I want to keep losing weight.

And then? And then? I walked back home (yay, me!) and stopped at Foster's Market to get a couple of donuts (boo, me). Another 509 calories I did not need. Fuck.

So, no surprise this morning, when I woke up and weighed myself. I knew the number before I could see the number on the scale.

One hundred and ninety seven pounds.

Which is where I was when I started being serious about dieting again, 12 days ago.

Actual vs. Trend

My actual weight was up a half-pound, but the trend went down by a tenth. So weird.

I did well with calories yesterday. Not so good with actual nutrition; half of my calories were from sugar and pastries. Damned cookies and donuts. Gotta learn to pass those up.

Salty food, I hope, explains it

195.5 today, and the 10-day rolling average provided by Calorie Count is 195.55. Yes, the trend is almost the as the actual, and above the actual. Not good. Dammit, I was so good yesterday. Even if I undercounted the fries, that would only put me over by 100 or so. And I undercounted the calorie burn of my running. Oh, snap.

It's only been 10 days, though, and I haven't been running as much as I'd like. I'll get there. I will get there.

WIN

When I got home from work last night, I had eaten about 1500 calories so far. I had planned on running, which meant I would have about 500 calories for dinner afterward.

Then it started raining. OK, I said, I can run in the rain.

Then it started hailing. Fuck this, I said.

Which meant I only had about 200 calories left for the day, if I didn't run.

I went to bed early last night (around 7:00p) to avoid overeating.

This morning I weighed in 2 lbs. down, at 194.5. WIN.

Keep on trying

Yesterday morning I weighed 195.5, up a pound and a half. There was some confusion over my calories, at least in my mind; the burrito from Taco del Mar seemed a bit large for a half-size one, and I counted all the tortilla chips as 1.5 ounces. Oh, and I ate a kreme-filled donut that I had bought and ignored the day before, which put me over but not by much.

So this morning I weighed in another hal-pound up. I feel a little lighter but maybe it's just in my head... Most of what I ate the last two days has been high in salt; maybe that's the reason.

I'm running tonight, though. That'll help.

Learning

Just got out of bed from a nap that started around 6:30p.

Didn't run. Stupid cold rain. I got as far as getting dressed to run, but just couldn't leave my warm apartment. Finally dithered so much I bumped into the time I needed to return my ZipCar. So I got back into street clothes and drove the car back and had dinner. Slice of pizza and a salad, like I had planned.

Did avoid too much overeating - finished yesterday with around 2000 calories, more than I'm aiming for on non-running days, but, oh, man, it could've been so much worse. Came dangerously close to grabbing a bunch of donuts from Foster's Market but turned back at the last minute when I realized eating them would only make me feel worse later.

I feel bloated now and will weigh in after a bit more sleep. Only drank about a liter, maybe a liter and a half, of water yesterday so let's hope that's why I feel puffy.