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Post 2086
- 7 years and 163 days since I started this blog -
- 7 years and 163 days since I started this blog -
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It has been five days since I last wrote here. I don't write up the blog when I go on trips, because I don't weigh myself during weekends or when I'm away from home. I just like to give myself a break from the routine things on weekends. When I'm traveling, it is a distraction, and detracts from fully participating in the experience I've traveled for. I also regard travel time as 'special' when it comes to food. When someone prepares a meal for me, I automatically eat what they've prepared, with gratitude. Love comes before anything else, and cooking is - or can be (should be?) - about love.
These last few days were all about travel and friendship. But a lot of friendly conversation happens over food. Usually, when presented with a menu (options), I try for the closest-to-on-plan but desirable item. But, especially when I'm traveling, should an off-plan item be the most desirable thing (a specialty, a novelty, a rarity, a favorite), I go for it with no regrets or self-recrimination.
An unintended consequence of my days away this trip was a lot of off-plan eating, especially yesterday. This is the down-side of my blog's weekend/travel policy (don't). I wrestle with it every time I go away. The reason I blog is to help me maintain the weight loss . The most successful dieters (any plan) keep a food journal. It has been found that you self-modify your eating, easily, when you keep track of what you eat. Paying attention to what you eat makes it easy to modify your eating behavior. You can simply use the scale for a success metric.
It is the fact that I'm not blogging what I eat on the weekends or on trips that, in general, makes them so prone to be times of great weight gain. I'm not paying attention to what I eat or connecting it with health or weight control, which I do (naturally, effortlessly) when I'm blogging.
In the beginning, when I was in the weight-loss part of blogging, it was a seven-day-a-week thing. When I added some commentary, every day (or nearly), this became something of a chore. That's when I cut back to blogging only on weekdays (from the beginning, I never blogged when traveling).
I may go back to blogging except when traveling, as the time spent away from home has been increasing since I retired, and looks like it will keep doing that (I'll be on the road for the first nine weeks of 2019 - last year it was the first seven out of eight weeks).
Which means, from mid-December, 2018 to mid-March, 2019, there will be very few blog entries (only when I come home from one trip and transition to the next).
When last I wrote here, I had just scheduled a trip to Lisbon, and was thinking about revisiting Chiang Mai. Last Friday, I got down to scheduling that Chiang Mai trip.
Then I drove to Norwalk, Connecticut.
My goal there was, first, to hang with my New Orleans running buddy Kokomo Slim, in 'exile' while working on a contract; second, to meet up with my Chiang Mai-met musician friend Scott; and lastly, to introduce the two.
Mission accomplished, along with a big Thai meal and an even bigger barbecue.
I drove home Sunday, stopped home to pick up a bass, and drove to the Rooters Sunday Blues Jam and BBQ. Where I ate a lot of 'cue, along with rolls, macaroni and cheese and sweet (ugh) cole slaw (the only vegetable available).
Monday, I was picked up at Noon (straight out of bed) by the three other male members of I am Fool for a trip out to see Dead & Co. at the Saratoga Performing Arts Center (almost three hours away). FWIW, the female member of the band was in Colorado - she would have been welcome, of course.
This is where everything completely collapsed, dietarily. The trip is one big pot party, and people's ideas about food and snacks don't include anything remotely healthy. No fruits or vegetables in evidence. Any protein is usually buried in carbs. Same with fat, and good fats are also absent.
Before I left, I ate a couple of Quest bars (all I had left). Once I got picked up, and at the show, I ate bags of cinnamon-sugar-covered almonds, grilled cheese and bacon sandwiches, popcorn and potato chips, different kinds of cookies, a corn dog. And stuff I've forgotten I ate. At home at three-fifteen in the morning I ate hard-boiled eggs and prosciutto and cheese.
I had a great time these last for days. I gained an average of about a pound-and-a-half a day, but if I had to guess, I put on half the new pounds yesterday. It's hard to say when you aren't keeping track.
I'm grateful for having a wonderful time. I shrugged off my typical restraints, and now I'm back home and I need to be very rigid about staying on plan. But that's tomorrow. I am going to see Samantha Fish at Funk'n Waffles tonight, and I'll be eating there, even though I shouldn't. But, you know, shouldn't is a bad word. What I should do is enjoy myself.
I am all about gratitude, and I couldn't be more grateful for my friends and the good times. Gotta keep having them and being grateful for them. I am that.
Today's Weight: 206.7 lbs.
Previous Weight (6/7/18): 200.6 lbs.
Liquid Intake
These last few days were all about travel and friendship. But a lot of friendly conversation happens over food. Usually, when presented with a menu (options), I try for the closest-to-on-plan but desirable item. But, especially when I'm traveling, should an off-plan item be the most desirable thing (a specialty, a novelty, a rarity, a favorite), I go for it with no regrets or self-recrimination.
An unintended consequence of my days away this trip was a lot of off-plan eating, especially yesterday. This is the down-side of my blog's weekend/travel policy (don't). I wrestle with it every time I go away. The reason I blog is to help me maintain the weight loss . The most successful dieters (any plan) keep a food journal. It has been found that you self-modify your eating, easily, when you keep track of what you eat. Paying attention to what you eat makes it easy to modify your eating behavior. You can simply use the scale for a success metric.
It is the fact that I'm not blogging what I eat on the weekends or on trips that, in general, makes them so prone to be times of great weight gain. I'm not paying attention to what I eat or connecting it with health or weight control, which I do (naturally, effortlessly) when I'm blogging.
In the beginning, when I was in the weight-loss part of blogging, it was a seven-day-a-week thing. When I added some commentary, every day (or nearly), this became something of a chore. That's when I cut back to blogging only on weekdays (from the beginning, I never blogged when traveling).
I may go back to blogging except when traveling, as the time spent away from home has been increasing since I retired, and looks like it will keep doing that (I'll be on the road for the first nine weeks of 2019 - last year it was the first seven out of eight weeks).
Which means, from mid-December, 2018 to mid-March, 2019, there will be very few blog entries (only when I come home from one trip and transition to the next).
When last I wrote here, I had just scheduled a trip to Lisbon, and was thinking about revisiting Chiang Mai. Last Friday, I got down to scheduling that Chiang Mai trip.
Then I drove to Norwalk, Connecticut.
My goal there was, first, to hang with my New Orleans running buddy Kokomo Slim, in 'exile' while working on a contract; second, to meet up with my Chiang Mai-met musician friend Scott; and lastly, to introduce the two.
Mission accomplished, along with a big Thai meal and an even bigger barbecue.
I drove home Sunday, stopped home to pick up a bass, and drove to the Rooters Sunday Blues Jam and BBQ. Where I ate a lot of 'cue, along with rolls, macaroni and cheese and sweet (ugh) cole slaw (the only vegetable available).
Monday, I was picked up at Noon (straight out of bed) by the three other male members of I am Fool for a trip out to see Dead & Co. at the Saratoga Performing Arts Center (almost three hours away). FWIW, the female member of the band was in Colorado - she would have been welcome, of course.
This is where everything completely collapsed, dietarily. The trip is one big pot party, and people's ideas about food and snacks don't include anything remotely healthy. No fruits or vegetables in evidence. Any protein is usually buried in carbs. Same with fat, and good fats are also absent.
Before I left, I ate a couple of Quest bars (all I had left). Once I got picked up, and at the show, I ate bags of cinnamon-sugar-covered almonds, grilled cheese and bacon sandwiches, popcorn and potato chips, different kinds of cookies, a corn dog. And stuff I've forgotten I ate. At home at three-fifteen in the morning I ate hard-boiled eggs and prosciutto and cheese.
I had a great time these last for days. I gained an average of about a pound-and-a-half a day, but if I had to guess, I put on half the new pounds yesterday. It's hard to say when you aren't keeping track.
I'm grateful for having a wonderful time. I shrugged off my typical restraints, and now I'm back home and I need to be very rigid about staying on plan. But that's tomorrow. I am going to see Samantha Fish at Funk'n Waffles tonight, and I'll be eating there, even though I shouldn't. But, you know, shouldn't is a bad word. What I should do is enjoy myself.
I am all about gratitude, and I couldn't be more grateful for my friends and the good times. Gotta keep having them and being grateful for them. I am that.
Food and Diet
Net Loss/Gain: + 6.1 lbs.
Diet Comment
Although my weight gain since I last weighed in is over a pound-and-a-half per day, I'd be willing to bet yesterday's stoned trip to see Dead & Co. is responsible for more than half of that gain. Coming off in the next week, I vow.
Food Log
Breakfast
Skipped.
Lunch
8:00pm, at Funk'n'Waffles:
Dinner
12:30am: Dubliner cheese, prosciutto, and walnuts.
Skipped.
Lunch
8:00pm, at Funk'n'Waffles:
 |
| Bootsy Brunch waffle (bacon-stuffed buttermilk waffle, two eggs and cheddar cheese). |
12:30am: Dubliner cheese, prosciutto, and walnuts.
Liquid Intake
Espressos: 2; Coffee: 24 oz.; Tea: 0 oz.; Water: 42+ oz.; and a shot of Jameson's Irish whiskey
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