Galaxy Gaming for Life

[Galaxy Gamer]

My intro is here. Short version: I got a wake-up call from my annual physical three weeks ago. My numbers were off, my liver is being choked by fat, and I've somehow allowed myself to get over 50 pounds overweight. Especially embarrassing to be so out of shape when I'm writing a sports series for kids!

 

My doctor has prescribed:

• Blood pressure medication. Ugh. I hate having to take this stuff every day and having to renew the prescription every month. If I lose weight and get healthy, there's every possibility that I will be able to drop the meds from my regimen.
• Weight Watchers Online. My father-in-law has gotten good results, and Doc recommended it, so I joined. The main benefit has been tracking my food intake and keeping within a goal range of points. I should be able to do this on my own eventually, once good eating has become ingrained as a habit.
• Younger Next Year by Chris Crowley & Henry S. Lodge. Doc is all about this book so I'm reading it and the sequel, Thinner This Year. Some good advice, though I'm not a fan of the folksy writing style and dumbed-down science. Medical expert Dr. Lodge seems to believe that we evolved from dinosaurs, so how can I really trust his knowledge of endocrinology?
• Exercise. As much as I can manage, given an 8-hour desk job and 2-hour commute (each way). Last week, I started using the Wii Fit in the evenings before bedtime for 20 minutes or so.
• A better diet. I'm not completely sold on Paleo, but may end up taking bits and pieces of it. Mostly I've given up on soda, started drinking coffee and tea without sugar and cream, made salad my go-to lunch, and swapped my bagel and cream cheese breakfasts for egg-white McMuffins. Small changes that will become permanent habits and have already made a big difference.
• Ultrasound and followup labs for the liver, to make sure nothing more serious is wrong. Good news this week is that Sir Bile of Livermore (got to think of a better nickname) is doing fine and that particular test number has come back into the normal range just from the diet/exercise routine I've already done!

As of this week, I have lost 13 pounds (8 in the first week, 2.5 in the second, and another 2.5 in the third). This, I figure, is the 13 pounds I'd added in the past 18 months of sitting on my butt in a chair for 12 hours a day. I can twist again just like I did last summer! My old clothes fit better and my new clothes are becoming too loose. However, I am still "BMI obese" and my gut still hangs out over my belt. A long way left to go!

 

Weekly Progress toward 50 Pounds:

16%

16%

21%

21%

26%

26%

 

I'm not looking to get buff or run a marathon. I have nothing to prove. I am not in competition with anyone. I just want to get healthy and stay that way. My daughter is a ball of energy, so I'd like to be able to keep up with her, and with another on the way I'll need all the energy I can get. I'd like to stick around for them both for a very long time. Long term goal is to lose 50 pounds and develop as many healthy habits as I can fit into my lifestyle. Keeping this log will hopefully become one of those habits.

[Galaxy Gamer]

Yesterday was the toughest day since I started this whole thing.

 

First, I'm wondering who keeps putting cookies in the break room. Yesterday was the second time this week! And they're better cookies every time, possibly homemade with big chocolate chunks... They left my willpower reserves dangerously depleted.

 

Later in the day, I had to pick up my blood pressure meds. The pharmacy has a candy counter next to the entrance and a gauntlet of snacks between the entrance and pharmacist's counter. I never realized this before, but all pharmacies are arranged this way, aren't they? Our CVS also sells cigarettes--I don't smoke but it always struck me as odd that a business in the health business would sell such an unhealthy product. The urge to snack was irresistible so I bought myself a bag of beef jerky. The brand that Sasquatch likes. I'm not doing the Paleo diet, so this is the closest I'll come to eating like a caveman. Or like a Sasquatch.

 

At dinnertime, a call from my wife: she'd had the worst day ever at work and needed to order a take-out pizza. This is where the day went off the rails for me. I can't tell her no because the number one rule of pregnancy is that the pregnant lady gets to eat whatever she wants--within reason. And although I could have made something just for myself, I had the daily WW points available and decided what the heck, I'd just hit the Wii Fit extra hard to make up for it.

 

But then my daughter's fish died, so I had to spend all evening consoling her instead of working out. Priorities.

 

So all in one day I was tempted into unplanned snacking, ate pizza for dinner, suffered a death in the family, and didn't work out.  The worst part is that I know there will be more days like this in the future and that my inclination is to slack off. This is going to be a lot of work to overcome.

[Galaxy Gamer]

I feel like I've got to stick up for McDonald's. All the diet references I've seen lump fast food into the same category as rat poison, as if a Big Mac meal weren't made from the same basic ingredients that an upscale restaurant might use to create an expensive gourmet masterpiece: beef marinaded in a special sauce; salad of lettuce, onion, and cucumber; potatoes au-gratin; sesame-seeded dinner roll; plus a beverage. The only difference is that one is served on fine china while the other gets stuffed into a paper bag.

 

Chris "Younger Next Year" Crowley puts McDonald's on the peak of his metaphorical Mountain of Slop and Despair. He calls it Dead Food. He implies that the FDA is covering up information about how bad for you this food is because of kickbacks and bribes from the fast food industry. Morgan "Super Size Me" Spurlock suggests that McDonald's hamburgers are scientifically designed to have an addictive combination of carbs, sugars, and fat. Okay, so maybe hamburgers aren't exactly healthy, but it's not because of some diabolical conspiracy theory against public health. Chopped meat sandwiches predate the Golden Arches by centuries!

 

It is possible to eat healthy(ish) at McDonald's. They have salads, yogurt parfaits, apple slices, and no longer offer super-sized portions. I've been making a daily breakfast of Egg White Delight McMuffins (hold the bacon) and still losing weight. Protein from egg whites, a bit of dairy, some whole grain muffin--200 calories of pretty good food that tastes good and clocks in at only 5 WW PointsPlus points. So much for the Mountain of Slop and Despair.

 

The only catch is that you have to ignore all the unhealthy choices to get to the healthy ones. Like yesterday, when the cashier handed me a coupon for a free Big Mac. Why, why, why? It can't be because I'm looking too skinny and she's trying to fatten me up, and yet this never happened before I started my diet.

[Galaxy Gamer]

More thoughts today on my goal to lose 50 pounds. I have broken the main goal down into sub-goals for convenience and ease of mental processing.

 

Phase 1: The first sub-goal was to lose the estimated 13 pounds I've gained during my current desk job--accomplished as of Week 3! This was dramatic recent weight gain that my body wanted to lose, so it came off pretty fast, and I realize it will only get harder from here. However, since this is the most damaging part of my weight, the pounds that had pushed my lipid and blood serum levels into dangerous levels, I can already claim to be healthier today than I was last month. Followup medical tests have confirmed this, so victory is mine!

 

Phase 2: In Weeks 4 and 5, I am working on the 5 "self-image" pounds I spent a couple years pretending not to have gained. This was the period where I continued telling myself (and everyone else) that I still weighed "about 220 pounds" while knowing in the back of my head that I had really expanded to somewhere around 225.  Not that big of a difference, except on the BMI chart. For a six-foot-tall male, there's a line at 221 pounds marking the boundary between an unhealthy body and one that's officially obese. I was physically obese but mentally only a bit overweight, which was not worth doing anything about.

 

Phase 3: After I hit my Phase 2 goal, I'll be 18 pounds down with 32 to go. 22 of those will get me to 198, which is what I weighed at the end of my 2003-2004 weight loss program. That will match my 21st Century low, so I know I can get back down there because I have been there before.

 

Phase 4: The 10 pounds after that are the pounds I gained studying for the bar exam. That will bring me to 188, which is about what I weighed after law school. I will still be overweight by BMI standards when I'm done with this phase, but hopefully healthier, more energetic, more active, and maintaining a bunch of new healthy habits to keep me that way.

 

I would love to have at least Phase 3 accomplished before my next doctor's appointment in May 2014, and to have a regular exercise program in place, and to be able to ask what my next step should be.

 

Edited because math.

[Galaxy Gamer]

Tuesday is my weigh-in day. As of this morning, I am down to 221.5 lbs, a loss of 3.5 for the week and 16.5 lbs over the past four weeks.

 

Weekly Progress toward 50 Pounds:

16%

16%

21%

21%

26%

26%

33%

33%

 

Cue the ominous music! My WW app warns me that I am losing weight too fast and may be putting myself at risk for anemia, irregular heartbeat, and muscle loss. Their recommendation is no more than an average of 2 pounds per week over any four-week period, and I've done more than double that with my quick start jolt. Ironic because while I am working hard to lose weight for my health, I may be doing it in a way that puts my health in even more danger. Should I slow down, or should I try to compensate better by adding strength training to my routine and eating more protein?

 

I will probably ease off a little bit, temper my impatience, reduce the stresses on my system, and still be able to meet my goals. For example, I would love to be down 20 pounds total on Christmas Day, when I get together with relatives I haven't seen in a year.  That's one week to lose 1.5 lbs to complete Phase 2 on time, and one week to lose an additional 2 lbs, which is entirely reasonable.

 

This process is a marathon, not a sprint, right?

[Galaxy Gamer]

I tried a cardio workout last night (on YouTube) and it kicked my butt. I only got through 15 minutes before I had to shut it off. I'll keep at it, but it's shameful how little endurance I have.

 

Also last night, I realized that my bathroom scale can measure body fat as well as weight, which gives it two ways to lie instead of just one. The scale claims that I am 41% fat, which seems very high to me, but it repeated the same value again this morning. This is the same scale that might give me values two pounds apart if I step on more than once, so I've got to keep stepping until I get the same weight three times in a row. The scale is ten years old and has had that problem since it was bought, so if the technology has gotten better it might be time for a replacement.

 

By the way, I'm keeping this log to keep myself honest, but doing it in this forum because I'm hoping for some feedback and advice. Because I'm new at this and have no idea what I'm doing. So always feel free to leave comments--thanks!

[Galaxy Gamer]

I was almost late for the train this morning, but I kicked it into high gear and ran all-out from my car, across the parking lot, down the path to the sidewalk, across the street, across a sheet of ice, all with time to spare. It felt good (although it could have gone tragically wrong if I'd slipped on that ice). I'm not saying I couldn't have done a fast tenth of a mile last month--I wasn't that out of shape--but I would have been slower, especially at the end. It would have been a closer call. I wouldn't have had enough breath left to have a conversation with the conductor afterward. I wouldn't have recovered as quickly. And I certainly wouldn't have had as much fun.

 

It's great to see some results from my new routine that aren't just numbers on a scale. Aside from being able to run faster for longer, I am now able to fit into a shirt and pants that had gotten too tight for me, and I've had to purchase a belt that offers some additional holes. That's the outfit I was wearing today when I made my mad dash for the train. Go, me!

 

In another thread, I mentioned the small steps I'm taking toward Paleo eating--for now it's no pasta or pizza for me anymore, so if my family wants to have a pizza night I'll just find something else for myself. My wife is gluten free so it's easier to avoid cookies and crackers because we already don't have those in the house except for our daughter. Maybe I will add rice to my list in the new year, or at least cut back. Maybe I'll stop eating Shredded Wheat on the weekends. I'm not totally sold on the concept, but I'm removing one source of grains at a time and cutting out as much processed sugar and refined grains as possible.

[darksakura]

Just wanted to say hi and give you a thumbs up for your hard work! Keep at it!

[Galaxy Gamer]

Thanks for the encouragement!

[Galaxy Gamer]

Despite the progress I've made, my wardrobe success, and newfound encouragement from the Nerd Fitness community, this has turned into a slack week for me. After my YouTube workout on Tuesday, my legs were sore for two days, so I held off on additional exercise while letting my muscles recover. That, and I was dog-tired in the evenings. I also set a lower bar for weight loss and have been allowing myself more calories--perhaps too many, including some that were unplanned temptations.

 

On Wednesday, the building management company held its annual breakfast for tenants and their employees. Raspberry crepes! Fritatas! Lox and bagels with chopped onion and chives! How could I resist a little reward when I've been doing so well? Then on Thursday, some catered meeting produced a huge platter of leftover sandwiches from an upscale gourmet deli.

 

With a good day today and a moderate weekend, I can still weigh in with a loss for the week. I hope. But for the first time I don't think I'll make the weekly goal I set for myself and that makes me feel a bit disappointed in my lack of effort and willpower. I anticipated having some bad weeks and fit that into my long-term plan, but that doesn't make it feel any less like a losing effort.

 

This challenge goes beyond just losing weight or getting healthy. This is a challenge to my personal integrity. Anybody else ever feel this way?

[Galaxy Gamer]

Drumroll, please. My scale says I am down to 219.8 lbs, a loss of 1.7 for the week and 18.2 lbs over the past five weeks. As a result, the BMI chart says I am no longer officially obese, just highly overweight! As a result, the scale and BMI chart are my two new best friends.

 

Weekly Progress toward 50 Pounds:

16%

16%

21%

21%

26%

26%

33%

33%

36.4%

36.4%

 

I was mentally prepared this morning to have the scale say I hadn't lost anything this week, because my willpower failed me in little bits all week. I gave in to the annual breakfast event at work on Wednesday, the surplus meeting sandwich I ate on Thursday, the box of fudge at the reception desk on Friday, and the break room pizza somebody left out on Monday. Work has been sabotaging me with food even after making me sedentary for twelve hours a day!

 

Luckily, I found a secret ally over the weekend: Snow + Broken Snowblower = Hours of Shoveling. Also, my daughter was invited to a birthday party at one of those inflatable jump-house, slide, and trampoline places, so I got to bounce around with the kids for an hour or so. That's what pulled me back from the brink of giving up--I've got to at least get healthy enough to keep up with an energetic five-year-old.

 

With Phase 2 is behind me, I now weigh what I did back in 2003. Not that I was skinny in 2003 or anything--I was still highly overweight, and highly motivated to start my previous diet/exercise program in which I lost 22 pounds and got down to 198 pounds in 2004. Phase 3, starting today, will be an attempt to replicate that result in 2014. And more, if I work extra hard enough, and if people stop tempting me with workplace treats.

[Galaxy Gamer]

Eight more inches of snow yesterday, and a whole lot more shoveling. If winter continues to be like this, I'll be fit and trim by the spring thaw!

In another thread, somebody wooted about their weight loss being noticed by objective third parties. I haven't hit that milestone yet myself, though friends who already know I'm losing weight say they can tell, and my wife says my face no longer looks puffy. I wish I could say it surprised me to hear that my face had gotten puffy, but I also have access to mirrors...

 

She asked me how much I weighed when we met in 2002, and I figured it had to be around 217 pounds, give or take a couple. This morning, my scale registered 218.6, so I'm almost back to my prime bachelor weight.

[Basement Cat]

Looking good, Fishbone!

 

Keep up the good work, you'll get there!

[Galaxy Gamer]

Thanks!

[Galaxy Gamer]

So. About this blog post: "Stop Doing That. Seriously!"

 

It's cool, for a change, to have things to stop doing rather than more things to start doing.

 

Stop doing that exercise!

 

This one doesn't apply to me, since strength training is still on my to do list until after the holidays, but if I were to jump into it, I'd probably be all about the sit-ups, crunches, and half-assed squats. The easiest time to stop doing something is before you start, right?

 

Seriously, stop freaking out!

 

I am guilty of weighing myself every day, but in my defense it's only because I have the world's least accurate digital bathroom scale and like to keep at it until the scale agrees with itself three times in a row. I stepped on it today, and it said 218.4. Then it said 221.5. then it said 219.2. Then it said 219.2 again. Then it said 220.5. Then it said 218.2 twice in a row before giving me 219.6 three times in a row.  I only record my weight once a week, always at the same time of day, but given the wide range of possible values at any given minute, I need weekly checks just to make sure the weekly number makes sense.

 

I also have been tracking calories, moving from Weight Watchers to Livestrong in the past week. I find that it really makes me think about what I'm eating and keeps me on track.  At the moment, my sole focus is weight and the primary method available to me is counting calories, but that should change over time.  For now, I need the tracker as my crutch.

 

Stop perpetuating that mindset!

 

Very helpful to keep in mind that getting physical is 90% mental, although I did "deserve" a whole bag of snap pea crisps after shoveling the front walk and I did feel guilty about snagging a square of fudge from the reception desk at work. This one will take an effort though. Mindset is a difficult thing to change.

 

What I should be doing:

 

Small changes. Experimentation. Constant improvement. Agreed! This is for the win. This is for the long term. I'm Galaxy Gaming for life!

[Galaxy Gamer]

I am working on developing healthy eating habits that will stay with me in the long run. Back in the day, a typical workday breakfast might have come from Cosi, a local (and probably national) chain of restaurants in the space between fast food and table service. They feature high-quality, fresh ingredients with a healthy patina. I liked to order the TBM squagel, which is a weirdly-shaped bagel with tomato, basil, mozzarella, egg, and some kind of sauce. Add a piece of fruit and the required coffee (with cream and sugar, naturally), and I could start my day with something that seemed like a hearty and healthy meal.

 

Because I never bothered to check the nutritional information on the Cosi website, I had no idea this simple breakfast sandwich weighed in at 624 calories...plus 15 calories per sugar packet (times 4)...plus half and half and the fruit... Yikes!

 

 

Today for breakfast, I had yogurt with flaxseed, black coffee with Splenda, a pear, and two hard boiled eggs--more food that I've been eating lately for breakfast, so it felt indulgent and filled me up to the point where I couldn't imagine eating anything else.

 

Old Breakfast: 830 calories, 34g fat, 32g protein, 91g carbs, 37g sugar, 780mg sodium

 

New Breakfast: 353 calories, 13g fat, 20g protein, 42g carbs, 26g sugar, 218mg sodium

 

Holy crap, that's a difference of almost 500 calories!  I'm losing about a pound a week just by eating a better breakfast!

[Galaxy Gamer]

I'm coming to the end of Week 6, another challenging week with more tempting foods and distractions from exercise. They sure don't get any easier, do they? Goal for the week is to be down 20 pounds from my starting weight by tomorrow morning--wish me luck!

 

Now here's a question about rationalization...  The Olive Garden has "under 575 calorie" meals that include an unlimited amount of soup, salad, and breadsticks plus a chocolate candy that comes with the check. How do they cram all of that potentially infinite food into so few calories?

[Galaxy Gamer]

The bathroom scale is becoming a source of stress in my life. The worry that I'll have a bad Tuesday morning weigh-in starts on Friday, takes me through a weekend of dread, and into the workweek. I can't help obsessing over lapses in my diet or skipped exercise days. I worry that a bad weigh-in will stall my momentum and lead to a bad trend or plateau while my ultimate goal weight remains out of reach.  And when the scale gods smile on me and bestow another 2.5 pound loss, I can't help thinking that they're just setting me up for an even more spectacular failure in the weeks ahead.

 

That said, progress has been made!

 

Weekly Progress toward 50 Pounds:

16%

16%

21%

21%

26%

26%

33%

33%

36.4%

36.4%

41.2%

41.2%

 

I've lost over 20 pounds in six weeks. My four week rolling average is about 2.5 pounds per week. That's a great accomplishment for me, but I know that pace is unsustainable and I have 30 pounds to go. At some point soon, I will transition from the quick start to the long slog. It may not entirely be my choice when that happens, but I expect things to become more difficult and for 2.5 pound losses to go from routine to unobtainable.

 

Or am I being too much of a pessimist?

 

Being 20 pounds down on Christmas will be nice, since family members I'll be seeing don't even know I've been dieting, but I do still have a belly that wobbles like a bowl of jelly. It's just a smaller bowl than it used to be.

[Galaxy Gamer]

Merry Christmas, everyone!

 

If you're looking for a Christmas holiday tradition that's all about food but not about eating, we take dinners to elderly shut-ins every year. It's deeply gratifying and we get to meet lots of interesting people. And they are always so grateful and happy, it's a huge ego boost as well. We met a 94-year-old man who is still with it and looks much younger that he is--which is the type of 94-year-old I aspire to be when the time comes.  Truly inspiring.

[Galaxy Gamer]

I'm still in the process of learning about health, nutrition, and exercise, and so apparently are the scientists who study these areas for their entire lifetimes. Anytime I think I have a handle on some aspect, it turns out to be even more complicated and nuanced than expected. There are good fats and bad fats? There's good cholesterol and bad cholesterol, but some of the bad cholesterol is really bad and some is actually not so bad after all? And even the really bad stuff is only bad under a certain set of circumstances? Argh!

 

I vaguely remember learning stuff back in grade school, but the only memory that sticks with me is of a teacher trying (and failing) to explain to the class why potato chips shouldn't be considered a vegetable. Any why nuts were in the "meat group," as it was called back then. "That's just the way it is" didn't cut it as an explanation. We'd certainly have paid more attention if we'd been told that some experts swear on a low-fat diet full of whole grains, while others advocate no grains, and some are vegan, etc. Controversy and conflict are more interesting to read about, because then we can imagine putting all these experts into an ultimate cage-match challenge to see who emerges, bloodied and battered, as the winner.

 

My goal is to get healthy, which means dropping my blood pressure and normalizing my glucose and lipid numbers. I'm told that this will require weight loss and a higher activity level so fine, that's the path I'm taking. I felt pretty good this month when my BMI dropped from obese to merely overweight, when I was able to adjust my belt inward by two notches, and when my pants started falling down. Shopping for new clothes isn't normally something I enjoy, but I do love downsizing. I bought a pair of 38-waist jeans  that are the first 38's I've worn in years! It was gratifying because I'd just learned about another number that I need to track, because it seems that a 40-inch-or-more waist puts men at a higher risk for developing metabolic syndrome. With my 38's on, I was out of a danger I didn't know I'd been in!

 

Except that I'm not. My gut, where it hangs out above my waistband, turns out to be 42 inches across. Still! Even after I've lost 20 pounds and notched the belt inward twice! It must have been 44 inches or so when I began, which means I probably still have 20 to 30 pounds to go before I'm in safe gut territory.

 

So I guess what I'm saying is that I'm picking up more knowledge, tracking an additional health variable, and setting yet another goal. Instead of just needing to lose 30 pounds, I also need to lose 3 more inches of waist circumference.

[Galaxy Gamer]

On the road for New Year's.  As a result, I checked in this morning on a different bathroom scale that's possibly off in a different way than my own scale is off, but I like the number so I'm going with it.

 

Weekly Progress toward 50 Pounds:

16%

16%

21%

21%

26%

26%

33%

33%

36.4%

36.4%

41.2%

41.2%

46%

46%

 

So here I am at the cusp of a new year, already in the middle of a self-improvement program. Unlike all previous New Year's Eves, I already have seven weeks of momentum going into this Resolution Season. I won't be adding a whole bunch of new things and hoping that something sticks. Instead, my resolution is to stay on the path I'm already on, which seems a whole lot less daunting. I think it's going to be a great year for weight reduction and personal growth.

 

Happy 2014, everyone!

 

[Galaxy Gamer]

This would explain why all those cookies keep appearing in the break room at work.

 

 

Someone is trying to fatten the rest of us up as part of their insidious plot to look better by comparison!

[Galaxy Gamer]

Milestone time!

 

• I've lost 25 pounds as of this morning's weekly weigh-in. WW app informs me that this is 10% of my original body weight and that, if I were attending in-person Weight Watchers workshops instead of Weight Watchers Online, I'd be entitled to a snazzy keychain.
• 25 pounds also represents the halfway point in my quest to lose 50 pounds!
• I'm only eight weeks into my twenty-six week period between doctor's visits. 40 pounds of the 50 was my goal for these weeks, with the whole 50 being my stretch goal. Though my progress shows signs of slowing a bit, the stretch goal is looking more and more likely--now just another 25 pounds to go and eighteen whole weeks in which to do it.
• Now setting a super-stretch goal of 55 pounds in 26 weeks, which would bring me into the healthy part of the BMI chart for the first time in over 20 years or so.
• My wife tells me my weight loss is becoming more and more noticeable. 
• I'm starting my first six-week challenge with more health and creativity goals.
• I've joined an accountability group. Go Renaissance Rebels--rebirth for everyone!

Looking to the future at the various guilds, I find myself drawn to the Druids. I'm fairly sure I don't have the balance or flexibility for yoga, but I'm also not interested in pumping iron, running marathons, taking karate classes, or learning parkour.  General self-improvement in a variety of areas at a gradual pace that puts me in harmony with nature, sounds pretty good to me. Except for the yoga, that is.

 

Weekly Progress toward 50 Pounds:

16%

16%

21%

21%

26%

26%

33%

33%

36.4%

36.4%

41.2%

41.2%

46%

46%

50%

50%

[Galaxy Gamer]

Today, I found myself slacking off on being so conscientious about my diet. I've finally gotten into a nice workday routine of eating a piece of fruit during my commute, having some oatmeal or a hardboiled egg for breakfast, a salad for lunch, reasonable snacks, and going home to a healthy dinner that no longer includes rice, pizza, or pasta. I'm still tracking my intake, but I'm no longer actively thinking so much about what I'm going to eat next, or when my next scheduled snack will be, or how hungry I feel at any given moment. I don't eat everything I take for lunch. I leave some for tomorrow, or purposely take in a container of spinach or head of cauliflower that's meant to last the week. I've surrounded myself with a variety of possible choices and eat just what I feel like having whenever my body tells me it needs more food--and the calories still tracked fine.

 

I'm excited about this. It feels like a breakthrough. I think it means that I'm developing actual habits, instead of just losing weight. The habits are more important to me. Suddenly, I no longer care how it takes to hit my 50 pound goal as long as I'm making steady progress, and as long as I'm putting the habits in place to keep myself in the healthy range for the rest of my life. At least for today, my diet is under control. If I can keep it up and then do the same for my exercise level, I'll be golden.

[Galaxy Gamer]

I haven't been as mindless about my diet in the past couple days, but I have had four servings of salmon this week. I don't think I've ever had more than one serving in any previous week in my life! I just wish I'd noticed earlier that the frozen entree I had for lunch yesterday and today was "best eaten by July 2013," but the DHA is probably still good as long as I don't need to have it pumped from my stomach.

 

I'm rocking my skinny jeans today, but yesterday found that one of my favorite dress shirts now looks like a circus tent on me. Turns out, it's a XXL. Now I've always prided myself on being an XL kind of guy, so if I'd ever consciously purchased an XXL, I'd remember it. Trust me, I'd have been shocked and horrified. And yet, I'd somehow been wearing this shirt for years without realizing the size. I got it the last time I'd bought shirts at Fancy Menswear Shop That Shall Remain Nameless. "And here's one in your size," is what the sales associate said, and I never once thought to look at the label for myself. But here's the thing--it was my favorite shirt because it fit me so much better than my other shirts, and now it no longer does.