The Weekend Cometh
First of all, let me preface this would good, yet possibly dangerous, news. Friday was my first weigh-in day, and I now have a brand-new, classic-style, round-spinning-wheel type of bathroom scale with which to weigh myself. Now, the last time I was weighed was back in November (or maybe October, details are fuzzy) at the doctor's office, when I clocked in at 252. Now, I've long suspected that doctor's office scales weigh one higher than they actually are, perhaps to convince people to lose weight. If so, it worked. On Friday, however, on my new home scale, I weighed in at a relatively svelte 245. That's a loss of 7 pounds over the Christmas holiday, which is pretty impressive, assuming the scales are in sync. The danger now lies in complacency, and I have to make sure that I don't figure I'm doing fine, so I can cheat a little, especially since weigh-in Friday leads directly into (dun-dun-DUNNN) the weekend.
Weekends, as we all know, run under their own rules, and often their own power. This weekend was perhaps more of an example of that than even most, because my friend Carlos had his annual weekend-long nuclear birthday party throwdown, which was a literally weekend-long party in which people, including myself, drifted in and out and generally had a crazy time. Now, I am not the craziest of the crazy in instances like this, but I did go there Friday and Saturday night and enjoyed some socializing time with the fairly sizeable horde at his house.
I honestly have no idea how many calories are in two KFC hot wings, or in two slices of shitty pizza from the hole in the wall down the street from Carlos's house, but I did eat those. I also have no idea how damaging mixed drinks are, but I had a few of those as well, plus one (I think) Sam Adams, enough red wine to remind myself why I think it's nasty, Sprite and apple cider as mixers, and a whole lot of water. In the end, however, I felt pretty good about my ability to refrain from eating like a monster in a social setting. Having eaten sensible food before I left the house on both nights, it allowed me to not have to fight hunger pangs while I was out, which was key.
And no, I don't remember what I ate beforehand. I am deliberately not writing everything down over the weekend, because it's the weekend. If nothing else I often won't be here to transcribe it all, and I don't want to become That Guy who has to chronicle every handful of pretzels he eats while he's out with his friends. That's just depressing.
So I'm kind of winging the weekends, but I definitely avoided the high-fat stuff. Anything I'll need to keep close watch on, limit my portion size, or starve the rest of the day for - such as that flank steak which has been in my freezer for two weeks - can be saved for during-the-week meals with no problems. Now that it's Monday, I'll restart all of my due diligence as I'd been doing before. I haven't eaten yet today, so I can start up my record-keeping when I do, which, judging from the growling noises in my stomach, will be soon.
Along those lines, I have another idea, and that is to count 'Calories from Fat'. It's on every label, and it makes more sense to me because I have been avoiding eating things like bananas and Alpen (that is, Mueslix) cereal because of the 100 or 200 calories they bring. Fat is what I'm trying to lose, and if I track that instead, it just makes sense to me that I won't be sacrificing protein or carbs, but really targeting the fat itself. The down side is that I have no measuring stick for how many is too many, so I'm just going to play a game where I try to keep the Calories from Fat as low as humanly possible. Let's see if I can come in under 100 per day this week.
But anyway, the weekend's over, and a new week begins. I have to restart my exercise routine, which I have been neglecting, and I will accept no excuses from myself for why I'm not doing it. I feel good about this week coming up, and about my chances to prove (again, to myself) that the seven pound Christmas weight loss was not a fluke, but the beginning of a trend.
And now if you'll excuse me, there's a bowl of Alpen downstairs with my name on it.
Weekends, as we all know, run under their own rules, and often their own power. This weekend was perhaps more of an example of that than even most, because my friend Carlos had his annual weekend-long nuclear birthday party throwdown, which was a literally weekend-long party in which people, including myself, drifted in and out and generally had a crazy time. Now, I am not the craziest of the crazy in instances like this, but I did go there Friday and Saturday night and enjoyed some socializing time with the fairly sizeable horde at his house.
I honestly have no idea how many calories are in two KFC hot wings, or in two slices of shitty pizza from the hole in the wall down the street from Carlos's house, but I did eat those. I also have no idea how damaging mixed drinks are, but I had a few of those as well, plus one (I think) Sam Adams, enough red wine to remind myself why I think it's nasty, Sprite and apple cider as mixers, and a whole lot of water. In the end, however, I felt pretty good about my ability to refrain from eating like a monster in a social setting. Having eaten sensible food before I left the house on both nights, it allowed me to not have to fight hunger pangs while I was out, which was key.
And no, I don't remember what I ate beforehand. I am deliberately not writing everything down over the weekend, because it's the weekend. If nothing else I often won't be here to transcribe it all, and I don't want to become That Guy who has to chronicle every handful of pretzels he eats while he's out with his friends. That's just depressing.
So I'm kind of winging the weekends, but I definitely avoided the high-fat stuff. Anything I'll need to keep close watch on, limit my portion size, or starve the rest of the day for - such as that flank steak which has been in my freezer for two weeks - can be saved for during-the-week meals with no problems. Now that it's Monday, I'll restart all of my due diligence as I'd been doing before. I haven't eaten yet today, so I can start up my record-keeping when I do, which, judging from the growling noises in my stomach, will be soon.
Along those lines, I have another idea, and that is to count 'Calories from Fat'. It's on every label, and it makes more sense to me because I have been avoiding eating things like bananas and Alpen (that is, Mueslix) cereal because of the 100 or 200 calories they bring. Fat is what I'm trying to lose, and if I track that instead, it just makes sense to me that I won't be sacrificing protein or carbs, but really targeting the fat itself. The down side is that I have no measuring stick for how many is too many, so I'm just going to play a game where I try to keep the Calories from Fat as low as humanly possible. Let's see if I can come in under 100 per day this week.
But anyway, the weekend's over, and a new week begins. I have to restart my exercise routine, which I have been neglecting, and I will accept no excuses from myself for why I'm not doing it. I feel good about this week coming up, and about my chances to prove (again, to myself) that the seven pound Christmas weight loss was not a fluke, but the beginning of a trend.
And now if you'll excuse me, there's a bowl of Alpen downstairs with my name on it.
