I knew today that I would have backslid some, and I did.  Lots of pigging out this week, and a significant loss of devotion to fruits and veggies.

I’ve decided to stop weekly weigh-ins for a while.  While I set a poundage goal (150 by next Christmas) and plan to keep that goal, this process has been more about trying to change bad habits and establish healthier ones.  Specifically, I wanted to:

1. Exercise at least 4 times/ week (This has been my most successful one.)
2. Reduce portion sizes, or to use another term, stop “pigging out.”  (This one went well for a while but has been going by the board recently.)
3. Gradually increase my intake of fruits and veggies. (I’ve done better here, but still am working on it.  THere has been some backsliding in recent weeks, but on the whole I am accomplishing this.)

So since this is more about overall health and healthy habits, and since the weighing has been more of a discouragement than encouragement over the last few weeks, I intend to suspend weigh-ins for a while and focus on the the big THREE goals above, especially the portion size thing.

Thanks for all the encouragement, and COLIN< WHERE THE HECK ARE YOU?

Official weigh-day today, and I showed at 161.4.  In other words, no progress.  I do need recommendations for films to watch while I treadmill - I usually get about 40 minutes watched per day.  Preferable films I can get for cheap at Family Video - so not too new release and not too old cuz those are hard to find at the video store.  Please comment with movie recommendations.

As my regular readers know, I watch movies while I treamill.  Here are my reviews of some of the movies I watched recently:

Love Story: Picked this up at the public library since I had not ever seen it.  I enjoyed it, it really had the look and feel of the 70’s about it.  Ali mcGraw as Jennifer Cavallieri is probably the  best part of the movie - her brassy, obnoxious and frequently profane 70’s feminist shtick is fun to watch.  Ryan O’Neal was fine - not great but fine.  I enjoyed the way the story was underplayed - it had a much more realistic feel to it than most movie romances, and the whole tear-jerker thing was way less over-the-top than I expected.  I give it 7 stars out of 10, getting a half-star bonus because virtually all of the outdoor scenes were actually filmed outdoors in natural light.  (I hate movies that film most of their outdoor scenes indoors, it looks so FAKE!)   (For a great example of a horrible looking scene of this type, see the iconic “Characters walking over a mountain pass” scene from The Fellowship of the Ring, supposedly taking place outdoors but transparently filmed in-studio.)

Teen Wolf: Wow, a flashback to the 80’s here!  Dumb movie, badly done, with paper thin characters and creepy werewolf hair glued all over Michael J. Fox.  Watched it  because it was a day off and it happened to be on TV while I was treadmilling.  Not recommended.  4 stars out of 10.  Gets a full extra star for this fine quote, from TeenWolf’s basketball coach: “There are three rules that I live by: never get less than twelve hours sleep; never play cards with a guy who has the same first name as a city; and never get involved with a woman with a tattoo of a dagger on her body. Now you stick to that, and everything else is cream cheese.”  Oh, btw, Fox was 24 when he played a high schooler in this movie, and one of his teamates (Chubby) was 27! at the time.  For bonus points, see if you can tell me what part the actor who played Chubby played in one of my favorite baseball movies, A League of their Own.

Napoleon Dynamite: 9.5 stars out of ten.  If you love movies, you owe it to yourself to run, not walk, to a video store and rent this classic.  Long, awkward pauses,  an amazing sense of place, characters you have never met before in a movie but may have met in real life, improbable happiness, Vote for Pedro, some of the most quotable lines in a movie in years, glamour shots, this movie has it all.  Did I mention the best use of the word “Gosh!” ever?  I am not joking when I say this movie should have at least been nominated for an Academy Award for best picture.  No matter how many movies you have seen, trust me, you have not seen a movie quite like this.

Here is a Good Idea if you are a Good Catholic.  Weigh in first thing in the morning on Holy Saturday ( the saturday between Good Friday and Easter.)  If you fasted on Friday, it is fun!

I did it, and weighed in at 160.0, my lowest in years and only .1 pounds from seeing the 150’s again, which is my short-term goal.  (For those of you unfamiliar with Catholic traditions, Catholics are barred from eating between meals on Good Friday and Ash Wednesday, and are supposed to fast, which in our low expectations society is now defined by the Vatican as “eating only one full meal, and up to two smaller meals to sustain strength, but not greater in quantity together than the one full meal.” (paraphrase)

Of course I ate a lot worse Sunday, although not too bad on Saturday, and then Monday was a day at home in a home filled with Easter candy.  Given all of that, I felt fortunate to see 161.4 on the scale this morning, and hopefully a good day today will make my official weigh-in tomorrow good news.

Bad breakfast this morning.  Was too lazy to cut a grapefruit, so I ate three Eggo waffles with syrup, then had skim milk and grapefruit juice.

Yesterday wasn’t exactly a “diet” day.  It didn’t start too bad; after dropping off Easter baskets at Elizabeth’s work we went to the “New Colony” diner in Bridgeport.  Classic.

I had two eggs over-easy, hash browns, an English muffin and bacon.   Other than nibbling on some Easter candy, I didn’t eat anything else until later in the day.  In total I think I probably had about a dozen Easter treats yesterday. (bite size eggs, whoppers robins eggs, jellybean eggs)

We had a dinner party for 7 people (including us).  Before supper there was olives and nuts and a couple glasses of Champagne.

Supper consisted of prime rib roast with a red wine au jus reduction, oven roast potatoes, green beans and rolls.  Delish!  I ate a  healthy, but not extravagant portion.

After supper we had cookies and ice cream for dessert.

Now I must fast.  For a week or so.

… I start my daily post.  11:01pm EDT, and that’s after a pretty busy and eventful day.  We started by going on a hike to Webb Mountain Park in Monroe Connecticut.  We met up with a meet up group that we have hiked with before.  The day was beautiful, the scenery spectacular and the company was good as well.

I should back up.  Before we went on the hike we had some breakfast.  For me that meant:  tea with milk and Splenda, Special K cereal mixed with Corn Pops, and a banana.

When the hike was done we had some nuts in the car on our way to finding out that the recycling depot was closed.  Sigh.

We stopped at a Duchess and I had a cheeseburger and shared an onion rings with Elizabeth.  That was late enough that we weren’t hungry around supper time.

We spent our afternoon digging out the spot where we’re going to put our vegetable garden this year.  We also did some random clearing up around our yard.  I was on dead fall patrol.  You wouldn’t believe how much falls off of trees over a winter.  We’re in kindling for months!

We did some grocery shopping for our Easter dinner party and decorated some eggs.  I had a slice of Pizza.  I’m thinking about trying some of the new coffee and cream flavored liqueur when I’m done here.

Well … that’s it for today.  I guess I should review my consumption yesterday.

I had:

• breakfast: coffee and a bagel with cheddar cheese
• lunch: a sandwich with pork loin and greens
• supper: (we went to an Italian restaurant) fresh bread, garlic bread, shrimp scampi over linguine, 2 glasses of wine and an amaretto coffee.

Yes.  Only three days in I missed a post. Yeesh.

Yesterday (Thursday) was a little out of the ordinary routine.  I had a dentist appointment in the afternoon, and a crisis at work in the morning.  Somebody who may or may not be at my company for much longer accidentally executed a script on our production system while using another persons account.  That’s the sort of thing our security people frown on.

In the evening I spent a bunch of time working through my new Ruby on Rails book.  What I’m doing at work right now isn’t particularly technical (more of an organizational change project), so I have plenty of spare brain power and technical enthusiasm left over.  I’ve decided to check out this Web 2.0 stuff.  Pretty cool so far.

In any case, I only realized that I had missed posting for the day when I was headed for bed.  At that point I didn’t have then energy to do a post justice, so I decided to cheat and make up for it today.

Without further ado, here’s a recap of Wednesday.

“Today I’ve had my usual cereal and coffee.  Lunch is noodles and sauce that I didn’t use in the lasagna plus the usual options (carrots, apples, yogurt).  More on that tomorrow.“

Well, that’s exactly what I had.   For lunch I had the pasta, a bunch of baby carrots, an apple and a fat-free yogurt.  In the evening we went to the show, which was pretty good, but it is a little strange seeing a bunch of guys in their 40s and 50s pretending to be The Beatles.  If you closed your eyes though, they we dead on.

At the show Elizabeth and I had a Italian sandwiches.  I ate all of mine (’cause I was hungry).  We also had a couple beers each. (bottles of Newcastle Brown Ale, or “Dog” if you’re from Newcastle)

That was it for Wednesday.  On Thursday morning I weighed in and was delighted to find myself at 198lbs.  Yippee.  That’s down 1.5lbs from the week before.

Thursday was also a pretty good day food-wise.  I ate:

• Breakfast: Cereal and coffee
• Lunch: a smallish portion of pasta served with broccoli and chicken in a vodka sauce.
• Supper: talapia poached in grapefruit juice and a salad.
• Snacking while hacking: a handful of nuts
• Post hacking TV time: a dirty gin martini and 5 Ritz crackers.

Today I’m at home and I’m going to spend some more time tearing apart the basement.  I should  be able to get the rest of the demolition done today.  Hopefully I won’t cut any more pipes!

Yes, I was perfect yesterday.  At least, this is the kind of eating day I would like to have at least 4-5 times per week.  To wit:

• Half a grapefruit and two pineapple rings for breakfast
• Black coffee
• Two small chicken salad sandwiches, a few potato chips, good sized helping of raw vegetables with a bit of dip for lunch
• about 12 peanut M&M’s
• Stir-fry with lots of veggies over rice for dinner
• Apples, cinnamon and nuts bedtime snack
• 12 oz. flavored water

Plus I walked hard.  Note I had at least 5 servings of fruit/veggies, and yes, I was craving something unhealthy at the end of the day but went to bed and read a book instead.

I’m currently watching Love Story on the treadmill - review to come.

Yesterday I was talking to Elizabeth about my new found blogging enthusiasm.  I was all proud that I managed to stick to it for two whole days.  Not good enough, apparently, ’cause as she put it, my posts are boring.  Pictures, she suggested.  Since I do everything my wife tells me to: pictures it is.

On to the food!  To recap, here’s what I wrote yesterday about my consumption:

 “When I got to work I had double coffee with Splenda and half ‘n half. (from now on I’ll just say “coffee” .. as I always prepare it the same way)  I also had about 1.5 cups of “Raisin Bran with Crunchy Granola - Shaw’s brand) with skim milk.

For lunch I have cheese ravioli with home made meat sauce. (a reasonable portion).  I have some options for side dishes, but we’ll see how it goes.”

I fared pretty well for the rest of the day.  With my pasta I had about 1/2 of a cucumber and a bunch of baby carrots.  In the afternoon I had a low fat yogurt.

For supper I cooked a lasagna.  Successfully.  Finally.  I’m a pretty good cook if-I-do-say-so-myself, but lasagna has been my nemesis.  I’ve made two bad ones in a row.  This time I got some advice from Elizabeth’s sister (Mary) who made a lovely Lasagna last time we were in Iowa.  The bottom line: more sauce, more cheese.

I had one serving of the lasagna last night, and I was still mildly peckish when I finished.  I wanted more but held off.   That’s it for the day.  I didn’t have anything else but water.

Today I’ve had my usual cereal and coffee.  Lunch is noodles and sauce that I didn’t use in the lasagna plus the usual options (carrots, apples, yogurt).  More on that tomorrow.

I have a couple of challenges coming up.  First, we are going out tonight to see the opening night of the Beatles show at the theatre where Elizabeth works.  The setup there is that you can bring your own food / drink in “picnic style” and eat and drink during the show.  I don’t know what’s on the menu as Elizabeth will be organizing the food.  I’m going to ask for a healthy option, but I also have to stop myself from snacking for the entire length of the show.

The next hurdle will be on the weekend.  Not only is it Easter, but we are having a house guest.  Sarah, one of our pub buddies from Maida Vale is coming to stay with us over Sunday night.  There will likely be beer consumed in greater quantities than normal.  Thankfully, my tolerance is way down since we left.  We are also hosting a dinner on Sunday night.  That should be fun, but always means extra food to avoid.

164.2???!!!  I thought it would be even this week (I didn’t eat too well) or maybe down a bit since I have been ratcheting up the intensity of my morning workout. (I have gone from burning 270 calories on my morning walk to over 400 according to the treadmill readout).

So I guess I am joining Colin in making this blog into a bit of a food diary.  Yesterday:

Coffee and McDonalds McBurrito thing.
Banana
Diet Pepsi - one can
Taco Bell beef combo burrito - 1
Two helpings of beef tortellini
One garlic bun
Large glass of grapefruit juice
Half a box of Good & Plenty’s

Not a great day food choices wise but portions were for the most part reasonable.  MAN! 3.4 lbs!  That stinks.