Keeping Busy

I’ve not been doing a good job of continuing with posting on a daily basis. I missed like 2 or 3 days now, which, isn’t good. But, I’ve been busy working on some other things.

I went for a run both yesterday and today. That would have been unthinkable on the meat/veg only diet. Today was also my longest run in quite a long time… roughly 6.5k. As I was reaching close to the end of the 5k, I realized I still felt like I could go further, so I decided to press on a bit more. The reason for the .5 instead of the 6 was just that the extra stretch of the route I went on happened to take me that much further out, and I figured I may as well just run the whole rest of the way back to the start.

At any rate, I definitely could have still gone farther, but, I didn’t want to push it too much. Since I now know I can handle a longer distance and also that I can handle back to back days, I’m going to try to do 4 runs a week (probably 2 weekdays + saturday and sunday) – maybe even more – and on at least one of the days – specifically a weekend day – make the run longer… maybe try increasing it by 1K each week. I have to deal with K since that’s all my watch will track. Besides, it’s shorter than a mile so the increments are a bit less. If I decide I need it to be smaller increments still, I can always do half a K I guess.

Oh right, I never told you about my bagel. Amazing. I’ve really enjoyed having other foods again… I just got in a little big ago from my first grocery store run since changing my diet… got some soups and some sandwich stuff. Happy to have different things.

And I’m also enjoying a beer again here tonight. Part of my motivation for running is, it gets me enough extra calories burned so that I have some extra to spare for a beer without having to cut my food calories too much. So, if I can only have a beer on days that I run… then I will probably be running a lot of days.. haha.

Anyway, I’ll probably type up something election related tomorrow. I’d have done it tonight but… I’m just kinda tired.

Proof

I continue to enjoy eating things that are not meat or vegetables. I mean, some meat and vegetables slip in, but the other things accompanying them are great.

I know I keep promising not-diet-related posts, but that’s not today, and probably not tomorrow, I’m still too excited about the things I get to have now.

Here’s today’s rundown on food:

 

Breakfast: Maple and Brown Sugar Oatmeal.

Lunch: A “SmartMade” frozen meal… mexican pulled pork bowl – had some rice and corn and cheese and stuff.. pretty good.

Dinner: Black and Bleu steak sandwich

and finally… BEER.

Having finally had my first beer in 100+ days, I can definitely confirm for you that this Ben Franklin guy knew what he was talking about. This stuff is definitely proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy.

My first beer upon my return to drinking it? Bell’s Porter. I’d never had this one before, but, it’s really good.

And there’s some more great news too. I went for a run today. Weather was awesome for it, but, more importantly I can definitely confirm that the diet was the reason I was tiring out so quickly into the run. Tonight, not only did I not have to walk at all, but I could have easily kept running beyond the 5k if I had wanted to.

AND, weigh in this morning was pretty good. I was kind of expecting a raise. We’ll see what happens in the coming days, could be a delayed changeup I guess. But so far, so good. I’m feeling pretty good about things.

Tomorrow you’ll get to hear me rave about bagels and cream cheese. Maybe on Saturday you’ll get a not-diet post.

Until tomorrow!

The End of an Era

What era? The era of eating only meat and vegetables.

I ate a lot today that I could not have had before, but I stayed at my allotted calorie range.

 

Breakfast? Greek yogurt with strawberries.

Lunch? 2 slices of pizza

Snack? Brownie

Dinner? Ahi Tuna, asparagus, and spinach

 

I came in basically right at 1500 calories by my best estimates – those were assisted by the Lose It app.

 

I am really interested to see how this affects the scale tomorrow. I kind of anticipate an increase? Which I don’t look forward to. But I think the carbs and such will increase water weight a bit… it won’t be REAL weight gain, but I think it will be an increase on the scale.

This morning I was still not back to my lowest weight since I started trying to lose, but it was headed back that direction. Ultimately, it will be whatever it is. I’m going to give this a try at least until the end of the year and if I’m displeased with the results, I can reassess then. Of course, I’m not making any kind of additional commitment here. My commitment is to keep trying to lose weight until I see the scale display my goal: 165. The method I get there through at this point is just going to be whatever I decide to try… so if a few weeks into this I feel like it’s going completely awry, I might change it earlier than I intend to. But I hope not. I hope this way works well for me.

 

I’m going to do my first run in awhile tomorrow as well. That will maybe earn me some bonus calories if I want to use them. I’m hoping that I’ll start to see my run performance improve now that I’ll have some carbs in me for fuel. We’ll see.

 

These will stop being diet related at some point, I swear… But it’s what’s on my mind at the moment, so… you’ll have to deal.

Days Ninety-Nine and One Hundred

…99 …100!

 

Ok so I could play it off like I meant to not post yesterday, but that’s just not true. I forgot again, and this morning I had no time to do a post, so, I’m just combining them into one… and… as a special surprise, I’m cutting the diet off a day early.

Why? Well, continuing through the end of the month was sort of an arbitrary decision, and I had debated a lot if I would go to 100 or the end of the month. Since it was only a matter of 1 day, I decided why not just go to the end of the month.

Well, at the time, I hadn’t realized there’d be a Halloween event at work, and, well, I’d like to be able to indulge a little bit there. So I’m ending things a day early.

Now, I will most definitely still be on a diet… calorie counting will be the name of the game though, not outright bans on most foods. I will still follow some rules I’ve got in my head most days (like generally I’m not going to eat things like chips), but I’ll make the occasional exception, mostly on the weekly cheat day where I’m allowed some extra calories.

I guess the idea is, slow down the weight loss a bit and migrate a bit more toward a sustainable way of eating. I think my goal will cease to be 2 pounds a week and start to be 1 pound a week. If I see those results I’ll be happy.

I was sort of scared of changing up because weight loss had been going real steady the last 3 weeks or so, but then this week it’s pretty much halted. Changing up the diet may help.

Let’s see here… Things I haven’t had in 100 days:

Pizza
Beer
French Fries
A Sandwich
Bagel
Donuts
Chips
Cheese (kind of a lie, some small bits slipped in)
Latte/Cappuccino
Milk of any kind
Soda
Juice
Fruit
Anything with added sugar or sweetener (probably messed up at some point on that, but generally)

There’s a lot more things. I’m psyched to get to have some of them. Korean BBQ is coming my way soon. Beer is coming my way on Thursday. A couple slices of pizza are coming my way for lunch at work tomorrow.

Anyway, blog posts will continue… but no more of this number nonsense. 100 days is enough!

Day Ninety-Eight

98! Only a few days left now, and then this diet will be left behind… at least until 2019, at which point I may revisit it, depending on how things go. But, if I can settle into something where I continue to lose weight, but more gradually, and I can eat a bigger variety of things, well… that will be worthwhile.

I downloaded Mars Edit to start typing up my posts on, this is really the first time I’m using it. I’m only sort of getting a first glimpse, but I kinda like it. Seems like it integrates with WordPress really well. I’ll have to play with it a lot more in the coming days.

After Day One Hundred and One, I will be changing up what I do here. Hopefully it will be more interesting… and also hopefully it will be consistent. I’ve worked hard to try to make sure I post every day. Obviously, it hasn’t been perfect, but I’ve gotten pretty close to it, and I at least made up for the missed posts the following day.

I suspect that less people are reading these now since it’s no longer being posted to Facebook. Perhaps no one is. If you’re out there still, let me know!

Day Ninety-Seven

97! And I did it again – I forgot to post yesterday, so I’ll make up for it this morning.

I’m still hovering in the 178 range – hopeful that I’ll get a glimpse of 175 by my weigh in the morning of November 1st. The lowest I’ve seen thus far is 177.3, and usually after it goes back up for a few days, the next drop can be significant. So something like 175.9 (which I’d consider a glimpse of 175) is certainly possible. But, it’s not a given.

All that said, I’m excited to be able to eat a little more normally in a few days. And when I say normally I mean more like “how normal humans eats” rather than “how I normally eat”. At this point I don’t think I have a how I normally eat. Or at least I hope I don’t, because that was a big part of this. I truly am used to eating this way, and I could keep doing it if I wanted to / had to.

So what I see changing for me in the coming weeks is that starting on Thursday, I will probably begin eating some of the fruit there at work. I am going to try to hold off on snacky junk food for now (things like potato chips, crackers, etc). I’ll also likely start eating some yogurt for breakfast to start, though I *AM* going to have bagels w/ cream cheese on Fridays… because man, do I miss those.

Dinners will probably change less drastically. I guess cheese won’t be banned anymore, so there will be that. But they’re probably going to stay pretty low carb.

Anyway, I’ve gotta leave something to talk about tonight, so I better shut up now. It may already be too late.

Day Ninety-Six

96! Today was the last day that I have to skip the bagel at work. Next Friday I am totally having a bagel w/ cream cheese for breakfast. 400-500 calories well worth it.

This will also be the last weekend that I’m on the diet… I have to decide what my “cheat day” will be… either saturday or sunday. I think I’m going to say 2500 calories are allowed on that day, but, I’m not required to use them all.

Anyway, I’m tired… that’s all I’ve got tonight.

Day Ninety-Five

95! And my first blog post going to Twitter rather than Facebook. I’m kinda psyched to delve into the world of Twitter… I spent a good deal of time going through following a bunch of personalities I like. Still a lot to go I’m sure, but I have things started. I’ve already found some musicians that I like irritate the hell out of me with their political posts. Ah well.

As far as the diet goes, it’s all still good. I had a new low on the scale this morning, so, hopefully that continues tomorrow as well and this week can get back on track rather than being kind of a slowdown. Even if it just holds where it was today though, that’d be great.

A week from now, I will be having the first beer I will have drank in 101 days. That’s pretty amazing.

 

Anyway, I’ve pretty much abandoned the number fact thing, because most of the numbers this high it’s hard to find anything interesting. I’m not even going to try tonight. Call me lazy… 😉

Day Ninety-Four

94! Another day down. This time a week from now (maybe plus a few hours, I’m writing this up a bit earlier than I typically do) I will be writing one of these posts for the last time…

Good news concerning the scale, it did adjust back down, though, it’s not back to a low point yet. Maybe tomorrow. I imagine by Saturday it will be.

Also, I decided earlier today… I am going to go ahead and start my sabbatical from Facebook tonight. You won’t actually notice anything different other than a lack of me posting anything there. Facebook seems to have done away with the ability to set all your old posts to be only visible to yourself (your only options are “friends” or “public”). I’m still not going to deactivate it, at least for now, but I’ve already removed it from my phone, except for messenger, I will continue to use that.

So, shortly after this is posted I will post on FB a link to a twitter profile (I’m setting up a new one). I will continue to post blogs there. You can follow me there and converse with me there if you so desire as well. Or you can just bookmark this page, and use the wordpress comments if you want to comment.

Day Ninety-Three

93! Today the scale upticked a bit higher than I would have liked – I’ll just hope it’s a fluke and things return to a more appreciable level tomorrow. But, if I’m hitting another stall, that will at least make me feel better about changing things up. I kind of don’t really like the idea of changing things up when this is working pretty well – but, I also want to switch things up, ideally to something resembling more of a long term solution.

Otherwise things are pretty good – no struggles with sticking to the diet or anything like that. I’m looking forward to Thursday of next week though – somewhere between 180 and 200 of my allotted 1500 calories will be reserved for a beer that day. The first I’ll have had in over 3 months.

It’ll be tricky trying to find the right balance to continue weight loss at a steady rate I think, but, if after getting through the end of this year I find I want things to move more quickly, I can always tighten it up.