Low fat dairy is for self-delusional fatties of all sizes.

Accept no substitutes, imitations, or percentages.

Once upon a time, I was very close to a person who claimed that fat-free Fage Greek Yogurt was just as tasty as full-fat Fage. When we'd have friends over, she'd give them a side-by-side taste test to try to convince them that there was no real difference. Friends would politely choose the full fat version, or try to say something politically sensitive like, "Well, they're both yummy in different ways." 

I don't eat a lot of dairy, but when I do, it's full fat. I don't purposefully avoid dairy, except for the reason that it's relatively high-calorie, makes my stomach go funny when I eat it with meat or fish,  and it's been squeezed out by the preponderance of fiber-rich, water-filled vegetables in my diet. Milk shakes, cheeses and souffles, I ain't got time for that.

When dairy meets hamburger in mah belly. The Kosher police, perhaps?

Since the beginning of the attempt to right my health through a combination of physical activity and (mostly) better eating, I've gone by the theory that whole, unprocessed food is better than fractionated, processed food in all classes of foodstuff, including dairy. Ideally, if I'm going to ingest something as strange and unnatural as the mother's milk from a whole other mammal, it would be best from their teat to my mouth. 

Oh Tom Green, your hilarious foibles exposing the ridiculousness of every day life, how we miss you so.

But that's not how it works, for the same reason we don't keep and slaughter our own pigs and cows in our studio apartments. Modern dairy is already pretty damned processed -- after being mechanically milked, the product is cooked a.k.a. pasteurized, which makes it both safe and dead, then it's separated into it's components. The components are then measured back into different batches, to make consistent cream, half and half, "whole" milk, 2%, 1%, fat-free, etc, then shot through a pressurized cannon at high speed against a wall to make all the fat globules stick to the water molecules (homogenization). Supposedly "whole" milk is close to the natural fat content of the original pre-processed product. I've had raw milk before, and it's quite delicious, and quite illegal, but that's for another post.

RIP ODB: he liked it raw.

So it's nice to hear new research that confirms my hypothesis: if you want to be healthier and happier, avoid fat-free dairy all together and just eat a calorie-correct amount of full-fat dairy. NPR has been touting a couple of recent studies that people who eat fat-free dairy are fatter than those who tend to eat full-fat dairy.

It's not clear what might explain this phenomenon. Lots of folks point to the satiety factor. The higher levels of fat in whole milk products may make us feel fuller, faster. And as a result, the thinking goes, we may end up eating less.
Or the explanation could be more complex. "There may be bio-active substances in the milk fat that may be altering our metabolism in a way that helps us utilize the fat and burn it for energy, rather than storing it in our bodies," Miller says.

The science just isn't there yet to say exactly why, but the evidence is mounting to say exactly what.

The entire marketing push behind "fat free" and calorie-reduced food is not for your health or even to help you control your weight. The reasoning behind these hyper-processed foods is to encourage you eat more without fear of gluttony, or at best keep you eating (spending) the same amount while giving yourself a virtuous illusion. To paraphrase Pollan and the new foodists, the real solution to our obesity woahs is to eat real food, and less of it.

There is too much nutritional mystical mumbo jumbo out there -- the fact is the science has yet to be funded and uncovered. We're still in the hang-over phase of the 80s, where fat was declared the enemy and Susan Powter was a thing. (Carbs were the enemy of the '00s and some vegans are trying to make protein happen. Cut it out, vegans!) 

Not gonna happen.

When one macro nutrient is declared the enemy, it opens up a field for the marketers to sell you on another macronutrient (hello, evil sugar-filled fat-free Snackwells!) It serves no one's profits to tell you the truth, because that would set you free from the need for marketing -- just eat less, dummy. And maybe cut out the foods that you find compulsively tempting, like certain laboratory-tested combinations of sugar, salt and fat.

Twice a week, I eat my full fat Fage, and it's rockin'. Some people (mostly female) complain it's too rich, like that's a problem. Easy solution -- eat less of it. This is my recipe for perfect breakfast yogurt, which I eat twice a week:

• Fage Total -- 110g
• Honey -- 5g
• Vanilla extract -- 1 to 2 tsp
• Almonds -- 28g

Mix all together, eat. 285 calories. It's a tiny amount of honey, less than 1/3 of a teaspoon. It doesn't make the yogurt sweet, but it is powerful enough to knock out all the bitter top notes of this rather tart product. It's a small portion, but it's full o' protein & fat and it satisfies until lunch.

Of course, with the Fage taste test of fat free vs full fat, it's a ridiculous notion -- food with fat tastes better than food without fat because we are biologically programmed that way.  It's not a choice, but I guess self-delusion is not a choice, either. But hey, this is a food blog with some personal stuff, not a personal blog with food stuff, so I'll quit it. Fage Total roolz!
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PORN!! Urmagerd! (Safe for work. You trust me, right?)

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WEEKLY AVERAGE: 2690

Something is afoot. Looking at the numbers, yes, I started out on track then as the week went on, the numbers kept on going up. However, due to some things outside the scope of this blog, my eating over the weekend was a lot less....compulsive? Wild? Over the top? Certain emotional components are shifting, suggesting my over-eating was a symptom of a seemingly unrelated issue, not the issue itself. Perhaps this will be the topic of it's own entry, but for now, I'll just take it as it comes.

MONDAY COUNT: 2050

SLEPT: 8:30pm-5am, 8.5 hrs
Presidents day, no work or school. Lifted weights in the early AM, caught a good yoga class with the HVS later in the morning. Despite such an unstructured day, was able to keep my eating tight. After the last few weeks of multiple disruptions, just needed a tight day to feel good about things. Hopefully I can roll this into an entire tight week.

AM SNACK: 5:30 am, iced green tea, 0 cal

BREAKFAST: 7:15am, apple/beet/celery/carrot/cayenne/cucumber/ginger juice, 160 cal

BREAKFAST 2: 10:45am, steel cut oatmeal, 300 cal

AM SNACK: 11:30am, spicy pickle, 10 cal

LUNCH: 12:45pm, sardine & avocado on whole wheat toast, health salad, pickles, 600 cal

PM SNACK: 2pm, momma salad, 100 cal

PM SNACK: 4:30pm, cashews, 170 cal

DINNER: 6:30pm, 2 pieces tilapia, asparagus , poppa salad with homemade Italian dressing,  590 cal

EVENING SNACK: 6:45pm, pizza crackers from graze box, water, 120 cal

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TUESDAY COUNT: 1930

SLEPT: 8:15pm-6am, 9.75 hrs
Good friend E came over with wine and shared dinner with me, then helped with the evening routine. Despite later night hunger, it helped me not indulge in any food. Second day of keeping' it clean!

AM SNACK: 6:30 am, iced green tea, 0 cal

BREAKFAST: 7:30am, apple/beet/celery/carrot/cayenne/cucumber/ginger juice, 160 cal

BREAKFAST 2: 10am, Fage whole yogurt with honey, almonds and vanilla, 285 cal

LUNCH: 1pm, chicken meatballs, steamed string beans, madras lentils, pickles, 680 cal

PM SNACK: 3 pm, momma salad, with baguette crackers and BBQ relish from graze box, 185 cal

PM SNACK: 4:30pm, poppa salad with homemade Italian, 150 cal

DINNER: 6:30pm, chicken breast, roasted brussel sprouts, kimchi, half glass of wine, 470 cal
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WEDNESDAY COUNT: 2435

SLEPT: 10:30pm-6am, 7.5 hrs
Though I busted the budget, I did not lose control or eat compulsively. Though I intended to stop after dinner, I still felt honestly hungry, recognized it as such, and had a snack that did not set me off. -pats self on back-

AM SNACK: 6:15am, iced green tea, 0 cal

BREAKFAST: 7am, apple/beet/celery/carrot/cayenne/cucumber/ginger juice, 160 cal

BREAKFAST 2: 10:30am, steel cut oatmeal, 300 cal

LUNCH: 1pm, chicken sausage, brussel sprouts, sofrito black beans, pickles, 600 cal

PM SNACK: 3 pm, momma salad, cinnamon pretzels  from graze box, 235 cal

PM SNACK: 5pm, poppa salad with homemade Italian dressing, 150 cal

PM SNACK: 6pm, cashews, 320 cal

DINNER: 8:15pm, shirataki stir fry with shrimp, shitaki mushrooms and oyster sauce, 360 cal 

EVENING SNACK: 8:45pm, cheetos, 300 cal
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THURSDAY COUNT: 3590

SLEPT: 10:30pm-4:30am, 6 hrs
Woke up earlier than expected, took the time to concentrate on weight lifting and cleaning up the house. Woke up unusually hungry, too, guess the cheetos last night didn't do much damage. Unfortunately in the evening, I fell off. Got home late, felt good but it was a combination of real hunger, tiredness, emotional turmoil and…that secret sauce of compulsion. Ugg. Not gonna beat myself up, tomorrow is a fresh start.

AM SNACK: 4:45am, iced green tea, 0 cal

BREAKFAST: 7am, apple/beet/celery/carrot/cayenne/cucumber/ginger juice, 160 cal

BREAKFAST 2: 10:30am, Fage Total with honey, vanilla, almonds, 285 cal

LUNCH: 1pm, chicken breast, quinoa, health salad, pickle, 710 cal

PM SNACK: 3 pm, momma salad, herby crackers  from graze box, 190 cal

PM SNACK: 4:15pm, poppa salad with homemade Italian dressing, 150 cal

PM SNACK: 5:30pm, cashews, 160 cal

DINNER: 7:30pm, Subway 6" veggie burger sub, diet coke, 435

EVENING GORGE: 9:30pm, 2 bowls of cheetos, 2 portions of ziti, a few spoonfuls of almond butter & chocolate syrup, +/- 1500 cal
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FRIDAY COUNT: 3445

SLEPT: 12am-6am
As expected, my stomach was a bit off this morning but I made myself do the juice. Swapped out an early fruit smoothie for a lighter yogurt breakfast later.

AM SNACK: 6:15am, iced green tea, 0 cal

BREAKFAST: 8:15 am, apple/beet/celery/carrot/cayenne/cucumber/ginger juice, 160 cal

BREAKFAST 2: 10:30am, Fage Total with honey, vanilla, almonds, 285 cal

LUNCH: 12:45pm, almond butter & grape jelly on whole wheat, health salad, pickle, 600 cal

PM SNACK: 3 pm, momma salad, smokey gazpacho dip & crackers  from graze box, half a roasted vegetable sandwich, +/-350 cal
Lots of food and sweets floating around the office, including bowls of chocolates in the sinks on the bathroom, grrrrr.

DINNER: 5:30pm, Quarter pounder, fries, diet coke, 1 nugget, some of Edie's fries, an ice cream cone, a cookie, +/- 900 cal

SNICKLE SNACK: 7:15pm, some popcorn, +/- 300 cal

EVENING SNACK: 10pm, 2 small cups of ice cream, cheetos, +/- 850 cal
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WEEKEND REPORT
Nice "warm" weather weekend buried in an otherwise unremitting harsh NYC winter. Got to get on the road bike twice, especially sweet as I just took it home from the shop on Friday, where it had it's once-every-2-years overhaul to make it run like new. Too bad just got a whole set of new salty gunky all up in it.

SATURDAY
SLEPT: 11pm-4am, 5 hrs
BIKE CREDIT: 600 cal

AM SNACK: 4:15am, iced green tea & 100mg caffeine

BIKE SNACK: 6:15am, homemade granola bar

BREAKFAST: 9:45am, sausage mcmuffin, hash brown, water

AM SNACK: 10:15am, chocolate cookies, tea
With Edie at a cute pastry shop

BRUNCH: 12:30pm, french toast, water

PM SNACK: 3:30pm donuts

DINNER: 6pm, box of frozen White Castle burgers

SUNDAY
SLEPT: 9pm-6:30am, 9.5 hrs
BIKE CREDIT: 965 cal

AM SNACK: 7am, iced green tea

BREAKFAST: 8am, pancake, corn muffin, potatoes, bacon, diet coke
Shared with the kids, not particularly heavy

BIKE SNACK: 12:30pm, chocolate bar, 100mg caffeine

BIKE SNACK: 2pm, homemade granola bar

BIKE SNACK: 4:15pm, homemade granola bar

DINNER: 6pm, shrimp burrito, guac & pico with chips, water

EVENING SNACK: 8pm, almond butter & chocolate syrup
Not a huge amount. Found myself honestly hungry and looking for something sweet. Glad I didn't have the Costco 10 lb bag of M&Ms anymore, or I certainly would have gorged. This was a few tablespoons, not a few bowls...

CVS: healthcare central?

I'm assuming this guy is angry and not, y'know, fapping.

Why is this recent news story making me irrationally angry?

CVS Caremark, the country’s largest drugstore chain in overall sales, announced on Wednesday that it planned to stop selling cigarettes and other tobacco products by October.
The company’s move was yet another sign of its metamorphosis into becoming more of a health care provider than a largely retail business, with its stores offering more miniclinics and health advice to aid customers visiting its pharmacies.

Our health care system is so f'd up that CVS is planning to transform itself into a "health care provider"? This is the same chain of drug stores that sell crappy chocolate heart-shaped boxes on Valentines day, really crappy music on CDs and a wide variety of lipsticks, shampoos and school supplies?

Once I get beyond the mild shock and creeping disgust at the thought, I then have to think about the outright hypocrisy of the move. Selling "health care" and cigarettes together is too obvious a contradiction for even the average stupid person to swallow, but what about all the food? The shelf-stable cookies & chips, the refrigerator case full of hyper-processed convenience foods and the freezer stocked with tubs of crappy industrial ice cream, what about that? Let's not even mention the fig leaf of a few "good for you" questionably fresh GMO-filled green salads and gallons of hormone-riddled ultra-pasteurized milk.

Even the stupidest among us can see the contradiction of selling cigarettes and health care side by side. Uh, right?

My apartment building has a kosher butcher, an old-school Greek diner and a huge CVS in it's retail space. The CVS took over from an independently run supermarket the year I moved in, about 15 years ago. CVS is a national chain, but I've noticed how it's evolved and catered to the needs of the neighborhood -- mainly by adding the previously mentioned aisle of crappy food in the past decade. They saw all the crappy bodegas in the surrounding neighborhood, and decided to compete.

There were other pharmacies around when CVS showed up. When an old drugstore went out of business down the block, CVS paid to have all the prescription-fulfillment of the their clients transferred over. When my mom was terribly sick and on the way to die, I tried to fill her script for methadone at CVS. I got a lot of hemming and hawing and told it would take a week -- I needed it no later than the next day when what the hospital gave us would run out. I went down the street to a mom-n-pop independently run pharmacy and they filled my script and delivered the drugs to my mom's home health aid by 9am the next morning. That's health care with the stress on "care". Suffice to say, I have not given the corporate "health care professionals" at CVS my business since.

Our corporate overlords don't discriminate...between flu shots and grapeade, as long as it makes a buck. Credit.

But back to the larger point. My CVS replaced a full-service supermarket with fresh fruits, vegetables, meats and more. The horrible convenience store food that CVS sells is just as big or probably bigger a threat to the public's health than tobacco products. Tobacco use has been on the downswing for decades now, as the heaviest users (like my mom) die and fewer teens get suckered into it's "coolness". Obesity, however, has been on the upswing, and the food industry, the paid-for government regulators and the for-profit "health care" system has no real interest in implicating a growing profit-center in a major health crisis. Tobacco was easy to throw overboard for CVS, because if you just follow the money, the media value of squashing tobacco's sale is much higher than the minimal (and shrinking) profit they bring in. Those boxes of oreos, bags of Frito's and tubs of "lite" ice cream, however, -crickets-.

Why is there this cloud of unclarity  when it comes to crap food? Two articles in the Times suggests two specific reasons: one, lack of research, and two, the politics of money.

For the very first few weeks of this blog, I beat the drum that sugar is both a foodstuff and a mind-altering drug. However, if you read the "facts" at the sugar-industry's website, that very concept is not only ignored, but is in direct contradiction to the wholesome, safe image they spin. But to be honest, despite the drum beat of this individual blogger, it is not really backed up by science.  You just don't have studies on human populations that really definitively say this.

In 1960, fewer than 13 percent of Americans were obese, and diabetes had been diagnosed in 1 percent. Today, the percentage of obese Americans has almost tripled; the percentage of Americans with diabetes has increased sevenfold.
Meanwhile, the research literature on obesity has also ballooned. In 1960, fewer than 1,100 articles were published on obesity or diabetes in the indexed medical literature. Last year it was more than 44,000. In total, over 600,000 articles have been published purporting to convey some meaningful information on these conditions.
It would be nice to think that this deluge of research has brought clarity to the issue. The trend data argue otherwise. If we understand these disorders so well, why have we failed so miserably to prevent them? The conventional explanation is that this is the manifestation of an unfortunate reality: Type 2 diabetes is caused or exacerbated by obesity, and obesity is a complex, intractable disorder. The more we learn, the more we need to know.
Here’s another possibility: The 600,000 articles — along with several tens of thousands of diet books — are the noise generated by a dysfunctional research establishment. Because the nutrition research community has failed to establish reliable, unambiguous knowledge about the environmental triggers of obesity and diabetes, it has opened the door to a diversity of opinions on the subject, of hypotheses about cause, cure and prevention, many of which cannot be refuted by the existing evidence. Everyone has a theory. The evidence doesn’t exist to say unequivocally who’s wrong.

Bottom line: to find out the root causes of obesity with 99.9% certainty of the scientific community (because science only tests theories and finds evidence in support and never can actually be 100% certain...y'know, like the tiny, eensy weensy bit of scientific uncertainty around evolution and climate change that conservatives love to rally around when science contradicts their faith or prejudices, -sigh-), there has to be HUGE human studies. Nutrition is a comparatively young science, maybe a few hundred years old compared to, say, chemistry's 500 (lead to gold, anyone?) or physics and astronomy's 1000s.

The TED organization recognizes that the relative youth of nutritional science and lack of scientifically rigorous  research is a problem, and has issued policy notes that warn for 'pseudo-science', particularly in topics such as food as medicine, GMOs, and vaccinations & autism.

Of course, my favorite source of nutritional mumbo jumbo is my man Yuri, the Canadian Eyebrow. In his series of podcasts and videos that are in support of the sale of his nutritional plan-for-life, he always couches it in vague (and not so vague) conspiracy theory and tiny, limited studies that he equates with hard science. I found him interesting for a while, but the basic rootlessness of his wandering in an unformed science that, to take TED's term, is basically pseudo, nonsensical and contradictory, well, I just don't find him interesting anymore. (And no, TED does not ban the subject of GMOs, just the subject of GMOs when it is approached from an invalid, half-assed, unscientific perspective, which is a great deal of Yuri's stock-in-trade.)

New science needs new research - on people, not rats. That takes a large amount of money, and big money takes political will. Health care, and it's antecedent health research, should be forever non-profit, run by government without the interference of for-profit actors, free for all like public parks (minus the private conservancies.) Of course, that is the pie-in-the-sky liberal in me daydreaming. If the current evidence is pointing to things like added sweeteners as the root cause of obesity and diabetes, do you think the Sweetener Industry's love of humanity and our children's health will overwhelm it's desire for profit and fund the tens of billions of dollars it'll take to do a conclusive human study that may or may not give a result in it's favor? (italics mine)

WASHINGTON — The corn refinery and sugar industries, bitter rivals in the manufacture of billions of dollars’ worth of sweeteners for sodas and other high-calorie foods, covertly funded dueling nonprofit groups in Washington in a multiyear effort to grab market share, while also stoking fears among consumers about possible health risks, court records made public in a federal lawsuit between the two parties show.
The lawsuit, which has brought hundreds of pages of secret corporate emails and strategy documents into the public domain, demonstrates how Washington-based groups and academic experts frequently become extensions of corporate lobbying campaigns as rival industries use them to try to inflict damage on their competitors or defend their reputations against such assaults.

Essentially, rival sweeteners will spend gobs of money on politicians, policy and bad science to promote their own product and besmirch competitors. Non-partisan science (which, hello, should be ALL science) has said again and again, in reality that sugar is sugar, period. Whether it is from cane or corn, it's the same when it comes to the processing in the body. Ugg, I can't even go down that rabbit hole right now and find some supporting links. There is just so much noise and contradictory information that's funded by groups who are protecting their cash cows. Nutritional science has taken a back seat to profit and political expediency.

In my neighborhood, a few blocks down Grand Street from the CVS trying to transform itself into a local health care clinic, sits an old building up for sale and in the news recently for attempts to landmark it. (Again, italics mine, all mine. Gimme all the italics!)

On Jan. 14, 2013, Friends of the Lower East Side submitted a Request for Evaluation to the Landmarks Preservation Commission as a first step toward landmark designation for 75 Essex Street, the former Good Samaritan/Eastern District Dispensary, constructed in 1890.
The free-standing, four-story, brick building was designed in the Italianate style by eminent architects Rose & Stone and survives remarkably intact, featuring ground-floor rusticated masonry and a series of rounded arches. The dispensary, constructed with private donations and operated for 60 years with city funding, was a walk-in community medical facility offering free or low-cost health care and prescription medicines.

I know nostalgia for a time I never lived in is silly and unproductive, but really, man? From this to CVS pimping flu shots and grapeade? -sigh-
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Brought my road bike into the premier road bike shop this past week for full service -- take the bike apart, clean each piece from inside out, repack bearings, true wheels, replace whatever is worn out, and basically make it run like a brand new bike. The bike itself has been ridden hard since '99, but I indulge in this service at this shop every other year (it ain't cheap, but it saves mightily on doing it piecemeal.) I figure I won't be able to ride anyway this week because of snow storms predicted and scheduling with the kids, but still it's making me inordinately giddy -- Spring is gonna see some deep f'ing riding. Viva   l'étrange cyclisme!
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WEEKLY AVERAGE: 2859

Oy, not a good eating week. Really feeling winter. Part of it was a snow day from work on Thursday that really interrupted what would have otherwise been a good eating day. Looking forward to the Spring and hitting the bike hard.

MONDAY COUNT: 2440

SLEPT: 9:30pm-4:30am, 7 hrs
Standard Monday. Already planned on cashews to end the day, but slipped in cheetos because Edie & Mili were eating cheetos as an evening snack, and it was sooo much fun to sit with them and play "cheers" with the things, shouting CHEERS! then knocking cheetos together before popping them in our mouths. -sigh-, I got the greatest kids.

AM SNACK:4:45 am, iced green tea, 0 cal

BREAKFAST: 8:45am, apple/beet/celery/carrot/cayenne/cucumber/ginger juice, 160 cal

BREAKFAST 2: 10:30am, steel cut oatmeal, 300 cal

LUNCH: 1pm, falafel, leek artichoke & potato soup, health salad, pickles, 870 cal

PM SNACK: 3:30pm, momma salad, humus 150 cal

PM SNACK: 4:30pm, poppa salad with light Italian, 75 cal

DINNER: 6:45pm, tilapia, asparagus , 415 cal

EVENING SNACK: 7pm, cheetos, 300 cal

EVENING SNACK: 7:15pm, cashews, 170 cal

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TUESDAY COUNT: 3160

SLEPT: 8:30pm-5am, 8.5 hrs
Woke up with a sore throat, has been a little sore for a few days but this was notable. Ears still clogged up a bit, doc saw it, says it's no biggie, just the standard.  Slept well despite having a toddler in bed with me. When I put myself to bed at 8:15, I still had cravings for more, but I was glad I made it through the day. Unfortunately, I could not fall asleep due getting too much sleep the night before and a one hour nap during the day at work (it wasn't busy, there is a private 'wellness' room that locks with a 'do not disturb' sign) and my sore throat was acting up a little. I ate a little cheetos, the bottom the bag, and that was it, off to the races. -sigh- I did this last week, too, though it was a little bit more dramatic. Striving to be better, not perfection.

AM SNACK: 6am, iced green tea, 0 cal

BREAKFAST: 8:30am, apple/beet/celery/carrot/cayenne/cucumber/ginger juice, 160 cal

BREAKFAST 2: 10am, Fage whole yogurt with honey, almonds and vanilla, 285 cal

LUNCH: 1pm, chicken meatballs, steamed string beans, madras lentils, pickles, 680 cal

PM SNACK: 3:45 pm, momma salad, with hummus, 150 cal

PM SNACK: 5pm, poppa salad with bottled ranch, 110 cal

PM SNACK: 6:45pm, cheetos, 300 cal

DINNER: 6:45pm, grilled pork loin, roasted brussel sprouts, 465 cal

EVENING GORGE: 9pm, a little cheetos, a lotta M&Ms, +/- 1000 cal

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WEDNESDAY COUNT: 2135

SLEPT: 11pm-6am, 7 hrs
A little insomnia, not helped by the M&Ms the night before. Fortunately, I had pre-done a few chores with some spare time the day before so I let myself sleep in for an extra hour, which in the end was all I needed for a normal amount of sleep. 

AM SNACK: 6:15am, iced green tea, 0 cal

BREAKFAST: 7:15am, apple/beet/celery/carrot/cayenne/cucumber/ginger juice, 160 cal

BREAKFAST 2: 10:30am, steel cut oatmeal, 300 cal

LUNCH: 1pm, grilled pork loin, roasted brussel sprouts, quinoa, pickles, 745 cal

PM SNACK: 3:45 pm, momma salad, with hummus, 150 cal

PM SNACK: 5pm, poppa salad with homemade Italian, 150 cal

PM SNACK: 6:30pm, cashews, 170 cal

DINNER: 8:30pm, shirataki stir fry with shrimp, shitaki mushrooms and oyster sauce, 360 cal 

EVENING SNACK: 8:45pm, japanese style crackers from graze box, 100 cal

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THURSDAY COUNT: 3505

SLEPT: 10:15pm-5am, 6.75 hrs
Snow day. Stuck to my schedule and got a good lift in in the early AM. Between helping get kids to school in the morning, picking up Edie from school early then going home and lying on the couch instead of my Thursday activities, I guess I should have seen some gorging coming. Ate well until dinner, but felt run down, my stomach felt a little funny and I hit the bathroom a few extra times. I think my body was telling me to just relax a bit in the evening, but my appetite overtook my rational mind in the evening.

AM SNACK: 5:15am, iced green tea, 0 cal

BREAKFAST: 7am, apple/beet/celery/carrot/cayenne/cucumber/ginger juice, 160 cal

BREAKFAST 2: 9:30am, fruit smoothie, 410 cal

LUNCH: 12:30pm, grilled pork loin, roasted brussel sprouts, quinoa, pickles, 745 cal

PM SNACK: 2:30 pm, momma salad, peppercorn rice crackers from graze box 200 cal

PM SNACK: 4:30pm, cashews, 170 cal

DINNER: 5:30pm, Stouffers Frenchbread pizzas, 820 cal

EVENING SNACK: 6:30pm, big bowl of popcorn, big bowl of M&Ms, +/- 1000 cal

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FRIDAY COUNT: 3055

SLEPT: 8:15pm-5am, 8.75 hrs
Funny, sometimes my stomach feels a little off after a gorging night, but I felt fine this morning. Pleasantly sore in the upper-outer chest area, I purposefully hit the elevated pushups a little harder yesterday, nice to get a response the next morning, confirming that yes, I did try harder than usual.

AM SNACK: 5:15am, iced green tea, 0 cal

BREAKFAST: 6:45am, apple/beet/celery/carrot/cayenne/cucumber/ginger juice, 160 cal

BREAKFAST 2: 10:30am, Fage whole yogurt with vanilla, honey and almonds, 285 cal

LUNCH: 1pm, almond butter & grape jelly on whole wheat, health salad, pickles, 610 cal

PM SNACK: 2:45 pm, momma salad, slice of stretza, +/-300 cal
Lots of free pizza in the office, managed to indulge in just one slice by swapping out my graze box nibble and hitching it to the baby carrots. Made eating it slowly, bites inbetween masticating the crunchy carrots, much easier and more satisfying.

DINNER: 5:30pm, Cesar Salad, some fries, some chicken finger, some brownie & ice cream, a few small pieces of good chocolate+/- 800 cal

DINNER 2: 8pm, 1 small burger, 2 glasses of wine, 8 pieces of cheap chocolate, +/- 800 cal

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WEEKEND REPORT
Didn't really keep track of the eating, and am too tired to try to recall. Over all ate too much, but it felt a little less compulsive, due to some things outside the scope of this blog. Does anyone actually read this far down? C'mon, someone, give me some inspiration!

Drill Down: Poppa Salad (I blame Hitler for being fat)

Hitler made me fat. There is a direct line from Hitler decimating the Jews to me overeating. I guess all the food corporations pushing hyper processed comfort food, the government subsidising commodity grains to make fresh fruit and vegetables seem expensive by comparison, and a culture of excessive consumption are off the hook. Thanks, Obama Hitler!

There is history behind why I call my chopped, dressed salad "poppa salad" and baby carrots and hunks of pepper and cucumber "momma salad", which I touched on before. I've been in a searching, reflective mood the past month or so, so I'm gonna delve a little bit deeper and drill down in to what I call the "poppa salad".

My father was born in Vienna, Austria in 1934 -- history has shown that this was not the ideal time to be born a Jew in those parts. His earliest memories were quite pleasant -- he had a nanny who took care of him during the day, his mom kept house for his father and two other brothers, and his father ran a music business. At this time, music retail was changing: sheet music and big radios were becoming old-fashioned and Victrolas and 78s were the new hotness for the burgeoning middle class. Despite the world-wide depression, my dad's family did fine for itself.

One memory he came back to were the bakeries, the sweets of Vienna -- its not for nothing that "Viennese table" is term for a formal buffet overflowing with pastries and sweets. At every corner was another shop selling tarts and cakes and cookies and truffles and all sorts of things we'd probably find a little odd today. Being a sugar-crazed little kid wasn't just his quirk -- it was a major civic pass-time.

When the late 30s saw the National Socialist movement emerge, Hitler rose to power.  The Jews (and gays and gypsies and the mentally ill and more) first experienced the sting of what to come, and my father was there. My dad remember walking by the Danube river with his nanny, and asking her, "Why do the benches say 'No Jews'?" He was 4 at the time, the same age as my daughter.

The picture above is my my father lower left, my grandfather upper right and my grandmother and younger uncle lower right. My grandfather sold everything for paperwork and passage on a ship from Vienna to Cuba in 1939, and they left with the clothing on their back and a few pieces of silver, which remain heirlooms amongst my extended family today. (I'm lucky to have their family passport, which hangs in my living room today.)

Ellis Island stole the last extra n from my last name, those nnerds.

My grandfather died before I was born and by the time my grandmother passed when I was in my late teens. She never spoke to any of us of her experience, though the numbers of the tattoo on her forearms suggested a story too horrible to utter out loud. My father did not remember much, as he was very young. When asked about his time in Cuba, the story he would tell would be coming through Ellis Island. Everyone had to take a shower, which were segregated by gender. His older brother was old enough to go with his dad, his youngest brother was young enough to go with his mom. He, however, was on the fence, and ended up going with his mom. He was young enough for this to be appropriate, but old enough to think, "Holy sh@t, what kinda country is this?!"

Missing from this story is the year he and his family spent in Cuba. Because the US were not accepting refugees from fascism and the world was not fully up to speed on the terror of the Holocaust, Cuba was one of the few places to go. Because Hitler was putting pressure on countries around the world to not accept refugees, my dad and his family resided in a Cuban prison for about 6 months. After that time, when the geopolitics shifted a bit, they were released to a refugee camp in Cuba for another 6 months or so before being given passage to the United States.

I bring this up on my food blog of all places because I can't help but wonder how this experience shaped my father's relationship to food, and therefore mine. I imagine Cuban prison food and refugee camp cuisine must have been quite the change from the tarts and cakes from the local bakeries of Vienna. That kid in the picture above was young enough to just go with the flow and follow his parents lead, protected by their love from the horrible tides of history that was literally out to murder them.

So it's not hard to explain the large cupboard in the basement of the house I grew up in that was always full of canned goods and jars and boxes of food, and when some would go bad Dad would just toss it and buy new stuff. It's not hard to understand the chocolates and sweets he'd keep hidden in a drawer in his home office, which I would raid with impunity and feel like I was sharing this great unspoken treat with him.

And then there was the salad. There is a word in Yiddish that my mom used to describe it: ungapatchka.

I guess it's ok to talk smack if everyone I'm talking about is dead, right? My mom hated her mother-in-law. My mom was a career woman coming out of the woman's lib movement, and my dad's mom was a traditionally kept housewife who never expressed a desire to be more, either because of history or lack of desire. Mom felt this woman kept too short a leash on my dad, knuckling him under to be too much of a "momma's boy" (my mom's description, not mine). Worst of all, her house, her fixtures, her curtains were all so big and heavy and old-world and ungapatchka.

My grandmother would have hated it.

When it came to home decorating, my parents were on the same page, snapping up a lot of anti-ungapatchka pieces of the 50s and 60s modern Danish variety, some of which I have in my own home to this day. Where they did not see eye-to-eye, however, was vegetable salad.

According to my mother, my father's salad was ungapatchka. Just too much work, too much chopping, too many ingredients, made all fancy with a noisy dressing. My dad's salads were standard ice berg lettuce, riled up by shredding purple cabbage, red onion, scallion, radish, green pepper, carrot, cucumber, cornichons or Italian gherkins, boxed croutons, grated cheese and a few other things I'm probably forgetting. My dad was never a food professional, but his knife work was determined, his measures balanced, and his seasoning thoughtful. Unlike my mom, he actually cooked.

My mom's salad was a tonal poem of minimalism in comparison. My mom's mom was of Israeli heritage, and her salad (d)evolved from a Mediterranean ideal. Some sticks of carrot, a few hunks of cucumber, some bites of pepper, throw some salt on it and a little olive oil if you're feeling extra motivated, and there you go. Vienna vs. Jerusalem in a nutshell.

My grandfather passed before I could meet him, but I recently felt a strong kinship with him a few months ago, while on a gig for my little knish business:

Family lore has it that my grandfather had a shop/worked in a shop/was about to open a shop in "Radio Row" when the whole area was condemned to make way for the original World Trade Center site. How he'd feel about his grandson giving away (giving away? oy gevault!) artisan knishes (knishes? what, nothing has changed in 65 years?!) on these grounds, I can only imagine (I am the ghost of your grandfather! I only speak in ellipses in blog posts....)
Regardless, like all New Yorkers who lived through 9/11, I'm happy to see that hole in our city filled in, and I'm especially proud to be part of this event, representing real NYC food and, by blood, Radio Row.

We are more than the sum of our parent's genetic material. We are also the receptors and broadcasters of the culture they inherited from their parents so we can pass it along to our broods. And whether it be knishes, candy drawers, or poppa salads, food is shaped by the history it passes through to feed us, generation to generation.
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191.8-->191.8-->190

Stood on the scale Friday morning, 188.6, which only last week was over 196. Measured again at the doctors office about an hour later after a couple of pints of fluid, 190. So in a rare case of FBIWC revisionist history, I'm stepping back last week's weigh in and using my doctor's weight. I'm going to credit all the reasons in the "anti" side last week, as well as water weight.

Hopefully not in the spirit of, "I'm not a racist, but...": Not to go into a long self-congratulatory rant, but I'm glad despite the discouraging numbers last week, I knew in my gut that it wasn't right. That is a sense I didn't really have a year ago. I could have freaked out or despaired or hit the food twice as hard, but I knew I was ok and I've stayed the course. Maybe this whole 'permanent weight loss' thing might work out after all.
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WEEKLY AVERAGE: 2732

Urrrg, not a good weekly average at all. Fell off on Tuesday, then the expected up-ramp Friday night with one stupid box of cookies. Looking at my notes, Tuesday was fine, I accept it, but I can do better than what I did on Friday eve. Not perfection, just improvement.

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MONDAY COUNT: 2265

SLEPT: 9:15pm-5am, 7.75 hrs
Snow got me late to work, then had to leave early to pick up Edie, as public schools cancelled after school programming. Damn, this winter. Regardless, was able to keep on track diet-wise most of the way. I do see that eating a super-light dinner tends to end up with cheesy poofs filling in the gap to 2000 cal, but it doesn't satisfy -- it makes me want to eat more. I cap THAT off with some nuts, which is very effective. I think I need to reintroduce a grain like quinoa or whole wheat cous cows to the light dinner, cut out the cheetos, and depend on nuts as an eating-cap.

AM SNACK: 5:15 am, iced green tea, 0 cal

BREAKFAST: 9:45am, apple/beet/celery/carrot/cayenne/cucumber/ginger juice, 160 cal

BREAKFAST 2: 11:30am, steel cut oatmeal, 300 cal
Did a remeasure on the calorie count of the pot, found it surprisingly less dense due to overnight soak instead of simmering. Rather than 2/3 of a pint, closer to a full pint with 1/4 less calories over all.

LUNCH: 1pm, falafel, leek artichoke & potato soup, health salad, pickles, 870 cal

PM SNACK: 4:15 pm, momma salad, Nori crackers from graze box, 160 cal
Vaguely sweet, salty rice rounds with bits of green. Yet again, I'm a fan.

DINNER: 6:45pm, sautéed chicken breast, asparagus, poppa salad with light Italian, 465 cal

EVENING SNACK: 7:15pm, cheesy poofs, 300 cal

EVENING SNACK: 7:30pm, cashews, 170 cal

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TUESDAY COUNT: 3335

SLEPT: 8:30pm-4:45am, 8.25 hrs
Large quantity of sleep, but the quality interrupted by a toddler who is very active in her sleep. Regardless, loved every second of it and resulted in lots of hugs and squeezes through the night.

Had a bit of a problem when I got home from work -- didn't feel like cooking, felt a bit overwhelmed and a bit down, but felt compelled to be 100% present for my kids, who were there. There was some ravioli that was made for them but not being eaten, so as I started my food prep I popped one in my mouth….and it was all over. It revved up the engine beyond toleration and after I got my Brussels in the oven, I finished the small pot of ravioli and then zapped some homemade knishes. Still hungry after that, I ate some cashews in hopes of shutting down the drive, but after 10 minutes, the peanut M&Ms started flying while the kids watched TV. Oy. Not going to totally beat myself up, but this can not happen too often. Yes, I'm feelin' mah feelins and all that and need to be kind, but this many excess calories is not kind to myself, it's indulgent.

Can't help but wonder if it's related to the work it took to write the 1st draft of this entry today, I've been missing my parents like crazy this past month or two...

AM SNACK: 5am, iced green tea, 0 cal

BREAKFAST: 7am, apple/beet/celery/carrot/cayenne/cucumber/ginger juice, 160 cal

BREAKFAST 2: 10am, Fage whole yogurt with honey, almonds and vanilla, 300 cal
Forgot how sweet honey is. Added 1/2 a serving - 10g for 30 cal. Next time will do 5g.

LUNCH: 1pm, chicken meatballs, steamed stringbeans, spinach lentils, pickles, 580 cal

PM SNACK: 3:45 pm, momma salad, Picante rustica crackers from graze box, 220 cal

PM SNACK: 5pm, poppa salad with light Italian dressing, 75 cal

DINNER: 6:45pm, undressed cheese ravioli, 2 potato knishes with mustard, cashews, peanut M&Ms, +/- 2000 cal

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WEDNESDAY COUNT: 2095

SLEPT: 8:30pm-5am, 7.25 hrs
Up for an hour in the middle of the night, probably partially related to the chocolate. Weather too horrible to go to work, worked from home

AM SNACK: 6:15am, iced green tea, 0 cal

BREAKFAST: 7am, apple/beet/celery/carrot/cayenne/cucumber/ginger juice, 160 cal

BREAKFAST 2: 9:30am, thick-ass fruit smoothie, 400 cal

LUNCH: 1pm, chicken sausage, brussel sprouts, sofrito black beans, pickles, 700 cal

PM SNACK: 3 pm, momma salad, olive and rosemary brushetta crackers from graze box, 240 cal

PM SNACK: 5pm, poppa salad with light Italian dressing, 75 cal

PM SNACK: 6pm, cashews, 160 cal

DINNER: 8:15pm, shirataki stir fry with shrimp, shitaki mushrooms and oyster sauce, 360 cal 

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THURSDAY COUNT: 1960

SLEPT: 9:30pm-5am, 7.5 hrs
Got a strong weight lift knocked out in the morning.

AM SNACK: 6:15am, iced green tea, 0 cal

BREAKFAST: 7am, apple/beet/celery/carrot/cayenne/cucumber/ginger juice, 160 cal

BREAKFAST 2: 10am,steel cut oatmeal, 300 cal

LUNCH: 1pm, grilled chicken breast, brussel sprouts, sofrito black beans, kimchi, 680 cal

PM SNACK: 3 pm, momma salad, salsa fresca and rice crackers from graze box, 150 cal

PM SNACK: 5pm, poppa salad with light Italian dressing, 75 cal

PM SNACK: 6pm, cashews, 160 cal

DINNER: 7pm, Subway 6" veggie burger sub, diet coke, 435

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FRIDAY COUNT: 4,005

SLEPT:11pm-5am, 6 hrs
Late night, not quite enough sleep, but the week of proper sleep carries me through. Happy morning with the weigh-ins, stressful at work during the day.

AM SNACK: 5:15am, iced green tea, 0 cal

BREAKFAST:9:30am, apple/beet/celery/carrot/cayenne/cucumber/ginger juice, 160 cal

BREAKFAST 2: 10:15am, Fage whole yogurt with 5g honey, vanilla and almonds, 285 cal

LUNCH: 1pm, almond butter & grape jelly on whole wheat, roasted brussel sprouts, kimchi, 710 cal

PM SNACK: 3:30 pm, momma salad, hummus, 150 cal

PM SNACK: 4:30pm, honeynut cheerios, +/- 100 cal

DINNER: 6pm, meatballs in marinara with cheese, pasta, 2 slices pizza, water, chocolate cake & ice cream +/- 1000 cal

EVENING SNACK: 7pm, digestive cookies, 1,600 cal

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WEEKEND REPORT
Not the worst weekend, not the best. Started eating too much Friday night, went through Saturday. Sunday my stomach was OK, but a little "full" in a weird general sense, and I had to tell myself that I didn't want to eat because I wasn't hungry, I just wanted the experience of eating. It allowed me to consciously keep myself busy in other ways, interesting.

SATURDAY: 3365 cal
SLEPT: 8pm-12:30am, 4:30am-7am, 7 hrs

AM SNACK: 7:15am, iced green tea

BREAKFAST: 7:45am, BLT on bagel, homefries, diet coke, +/- 800 cal

PM SNACK: noon, pirate bootie, 65 cal

LUNCH: 1pm, Special K protein version with 2% milk, peanut M&Ms, +/- 800 cal

PM SNACK: 5:15pm, chocolate kind bar, 200 cal

DINNER: 6:30pm, falafel sandwich, stuffed grape leaves, +/- 500 cal

EVENING SNACK: 7pm, vanilla kind bar, 200 cal

EVENING SNACK: 7:30pm, peanut M&Ms, +/- 500 cal

EVENING SNACK: 8pm, popcorn, +/- 300 cal

SUNDAY
SLEPT: 10pm-6am, 8 hours

AM SNACK: 6:15am, iced green tea

BREAKFAST: 8am, homemade granola with 2% milk

LUNCH: 1pm, quarter pounder, fries, diet coke

PM SNACK: 2pm, apple tart, green tea

PM SNACK: 6pm, one good whisky on the rocks

DINNER: 7:45pm, shrimp burrito

EVENING SNACK: 8:15pm, chocolate kind bar
Surprised how satisfying a snack these things are. Mostly nuts, mildly sweet, amped up with inulin, oh excuse me, "Chicory root extract", a mildly sweet fiber. Got a box of these for the kids, but I find myself eying them, he he.

Five pounds of stress? Five pounds of angst? Five pounds of FABULOUSNESS?

191.8-->191.8-->196.8

Five pounds up in a month, but have no fear. I have some legit reasons why I don't think it's as bad as all that. As the old wives tale says, a pound of fat is an additional 3,500 calories. That means I had to pack in an extra 583 calories every day this past month -- my weekend eating was not great, but not that bad.

On the pro five pounds side:

1. I had a really shitty, stressful month that included a week off from work.
2. It's January, unusually cold weather, and the recovery from the holidays.
3. The rollers didn't stick, and I have bike-ridden minimally.
4. My weekend eating was really off da hook.

On the anti five pounds side:

1. I've started to use the 2nd notch on my belt on a semi-regular basis, and the short sleeved gingham shirt that I got a while ago which I try on at every weigh in, feels a little closer to fitting.
2. Some friends commented that I look thinner this month, some crediting it to stress.
3. My lifting and pull ups are stronger than ever, and to my touch, my torso just feels a bit toner.
4. This weigh in was the first on a brand new scale.

So take that as you will. I'm still a fatty, but a smaller fatty. This coming Thursday, I have my annual physical. Looking above, see that spike around February '13? That was around the time of my last physical, and I found the doctor's scale to be a few pounds less than the home scale. So I'll take the doc's number as a legit secondary weight check.

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I treated myself to a new Vitamix blender, a small kindness while other parts of my life feel a bit troubled and uncertain. I never really bothered listening to the hype, it sounded a bit like a cross between the promises of an infomercial and the unrealistic jibber jabber of a cult, and they're so damn expensive. I got mine direct from the company, refurbished, so it wasn't full-on stupid expensive, but still more than I ever spent on a blender. After making my first smoothie with it, I instantly understood what the hype was about.

In the old blender, my smoothie would have to go about 2-3 minutes to get smooth, and would have the consistency of a thick, loose shake. In the vitamix, all the same exact ingredients and proportions, blended about 20 seconds and the thing was perfectly smooth and the consistency of soft serve ice cream. Just frozen fruit, Greek yogurt, chia seeds, a little pomegranate juice, vanilla, salt. Amazeballs.

Last week I made a blender soup (leek artichoke potato) and "light" Italian dressing in the blender from the recipe book that came with the blender. (I put "light" as opposed to "lite" on the dressing because there are no chemicals, thickeners or weird stuff in it -- at it's heart is a fresh tomato that has been blended out of existence to balance the oil and vinegar. On my next go, I may add some guar gum...) Both recipes need improvement, but bottom line the blender meets it's promises. May have to do a full entry once I have had more time with it.
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Pure and utter evil.

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WEEKLY AVERAGE: 2678

Ugg, way over budget thanks to Friday night blow-out, but all considered, a decent week. I'm not going to beat myself up, it's winter.

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MONDAY COUNT: 2165

SLEPT: 10:15pm-4am, 5.75 hrs
Feeling a little bit under the weather, digestive issues. Powered through it, lifted weights, met all my obligations anyway.

AM SNACK: 4:15 am, iced green tea, 0 cal

BREAKFAST: 6:45am, apple/beet/celery/carrot/cayenne/cucumber/ginger juice, 160 cal

BREAKFAST 2: 10:30am, steel cut oatmeal, 410 cal

LUNCH: 1pm, falafel, leek artichoke & potato soup, health salad, pickles, 870 cal

PM SNACK: 3:15 pm, momma salad, hummus, 150 cal

PM SNACK: 5 pm, poppa salad with homemade "light" Italian, 75 cal

DINNER: 7:15pm, mahi mahi, asparagus, cheese flavored crackers from graze box 500 cal
New Graze Box on the table while I ate, had to try one. Unlike last week, I was able to stop at just one. Really good.

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TUESDAY COUNT: 2435

SLEPT: 8:30pm-5am, 8.5 hrs
Good night sleep despite a toddler waking up in the middle of the night. Early morning cold weather bike ride to the UWS to deliver knishes to a bris, heated gloves worked well but toes got a little icy despite thick wool socks.

AM SNACK: 5:15 am, iced green tea, 0 cal

BREAKFAST: 6:45am, apple/beet/celery/carrot/cayenne/cucumber/ginger juice, 160 cal

BREAKFAST 2: 10:45am, Fage yogurt with agave, vanilla, almonds, 310 cal

LUNCH: 1pm, chicken meat balls, steamed string beans, madras lentils, pickles, 680 cal

PM SNACK: 3 pm, momma salad, hummus, 150 cal

PM SNACK: 3:15pm, korean chili rice crackers from graze box, 70 cal

PM SNACK: 5 pm, poppa salad with homemade "light" Italian dressing, 75 cal

DINNER: 7pm, grilled pork loin, roasted brussel sprouts, 390 cal

EVENING SNACK: 7:30pm, cheetos, 300

EVENING SNACK: 7:45pm, cashews, +/- 300
It blew the budget, but I was honestly hungry and cashews are reasonably healthy. The extra hour and a half I spent cycling in sub-freezing weather this morning probably explains the caloric shortfall, so I'm not too broken up about it.

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WEDNESDAY COUNT: 2865

SLEPT: 9pm-2am,5am-6am 6 hrs
Up early, couldn't get back to sleep so I rolled with it and did chores and watched a bit of TV. Then Edie woke up and cried for snuggling, so I jumped into bed with her and had a heavenly one hour snugglefest.

Due to being short of oatmeal and the light nature of the day, added instant ramen to lunch to bring the numbers up, a rare occasion. I know, I should try to pad with better quality calories, but this is a fun (and rare) indulgence back to the college days.

Was hungry in the evening and saw 3 tiny left over chocolate chip cookies in the pantry from the kids. First thought was to throw them out, second thought was what a waste that would be so I threw them back without much thought. BING! Game on! Two bowls of peanut M&Ms then jumped off the shelf and forced them down my throat.

Fair enough, I had a stressful day at work and family stuff, it was a sweet release (pun intended) and as long as it doesn't become a new regular habit, I'm not going to beat myself up. It's too far into the month to effect Friday's weigh in, one way or the other.

AM SNACK: 2:15 am, iced green tea, 0 cal

BREAKFAST: 6:45am, apple/beet/celery/carrot/cayenne/cucumber/ginger juice, 160 cal

BREAKFAST 2: 9:45am,  steel cut oatmeal, 295

PM SNACK: 12:15pm, pomodoro crackers from Graze Box, 65 cal

LUNCH: 12:45pm, grilled pork tenderloin, roasted brussel sprouts, ramen, 2 pickles,  790 cal

PM SNACK: 4:15pm, momma salad, hummus, 150 cal

PM SNACK: 5:30 pm, poppa salad with "light" Italian dressing, 75 cal

PM SNACK: 6:30pm, roasted salted cashews, 160 cal

DINNER: 8:15pm, shirataki stir fry with shrimp, shitaki mushrooms and oyster sauce, 360 cal 

EVENING GORGE: 8:30pm, 3 little chocolate chip cookies, 2 small bowls of peanut M&Ms, +/- 800 cal
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THURSDAY COUNT: 2195

SLEPT: 10:30pm-5am, 6.5 hrs

Did a work out, felt a weird body-cloudiness -- not quite tired, not quite achy, not quite zoned out, somewhere in between all three, and the only thing I can think is that the M&Ms I ate last night are showing their effect on my physiology. When I was heavier and regularly indulging in sweets and high-calorie binges, it's effects would have simply been "normal", but now it stands out. Interestin'. 

AM SNACK: 5:15 am, iced green tea, 0 cal

BREAKFAST: 7:30am, apple/beet/celery/carrot/cayenne/cucumber/ginger juice, 160 cal

BREAKFAST 2: 10am,  fage whole yogurt with agave, vanilla and almonds, 310 cal

AM SNACK: 11:45am, black pepper pistachios from Graze Box, 105 cal
Nice in it's simplicity, but made ordinary pistachios pop well.

LUNCH: 12:45pm, grilled pork tenderloin, roasted brussel sprouts, 2 pickles,  410 cal

PM SNACK: 3:45pm, momma salad, 2 pieces of fancy cheesy bread with charcuterie, an olive, a mini quiche, +/- 400 cal
Fancy event for the staff in the office I work. Skipped hummus, ate around the sweets. Good thing I had under-planned for my calorie consumption today.

PM SNACK: 4:45 pm, poppa salad with "light" Italian dressing, handful of olives, mini quiche, 2 pieces of fancy cheesy bread with tomato, +/-375 cal
More fancy food with the salad.

DINNER: 7:15pm, Subway 6" veggie burger sub, diet coke, 435
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FRIDAY COUNT: 3730

SLEPT: 10:15pm-4:45am, 6.5 hrs

Ugg, blow out into the weekend. In the past I wouldn't report these, just chalking it up to an early start to the weekend, so here is a point for honesty...

AM SNACK: 5 am, iced green tea, 0 cal

BREAKFAST: 7am, apple/beet/celery/carrot/cayenne/cucumber/ginger juice, 160 cal

BREAKFAST 2: 9am,  thick fruit smoothie, 410 cal

LUNCH: 12:45pm, almond butter & grape jelly on whole wheat, health salad, 2 pickles, 610 cal

PM SNACK: 3:45pm, momma salad, hummus, 150 cal

PM SNACK: 4:30pm, cheetos and tortilla chips, +/- 100 cal

DINNER: 5:15pm, steak sandwich, fries, a little ice cream and cookie, +/- 1000 cal

EVENING SNACK: 7pm, slice of streetza, +/- 300 cal

EVENING SNACK: 8pm, bag of cookies, some homemade vanilla ice cream, +/- 1000 cal

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WEEKEND REPORT:
New month, might as well get back on the horse, as I'll probably/hopefully never has a month as quite as uniquely horrible as January. Saturday brought a reprieve in the weather and got a nice 50 mile ride in the morning, and lots of friends and kids over in the afternoon for a puppy party, featuring ice cream and brownies. Sunday I took it upon myself to be mindful of calories, and now that I estimated it, damn, I can do better than that.

SATURDAY
BIKE CREDIT: 1165 cal
SLEEP: 8:30pm-4am, 7.5 hrs

BREAKFAST: 4:30am, ice green tea, 100mg caffeine, a little homemade chocolate ice cream

BIKE SNACK: 7am, homemade granola bar

BIKE SNACK: 9am, homemade granola bar

AM WATERING: 10am, quart of water

LUNCH: 12:30pm, 1 french bread pizza, handful of pizza bagels, water

PM SNORT: 1:30pm, 1 glass of cava

PM SNACK: 3pm, 1 medium portion of homemade brownie and ice cream

PM SNACK: 4:30pm, a little chocolate ice cream

DINNER: 5:45pm, sesame chicken and pork fried rice, egg roll, half a full-sugar coke, some vegetable lomein
Sesame chicken was gross, left most it over and threw it out.

EVENING SNACK: 9pm, cheetos, peanut M&Ms


SUNDAY: +/-3440 cal
SLEPT: 10pm-5:45am, 7.75 hrs

AM SNACK: 6am, iced green tea, 0 cal

AM SNACK: 6:15am, bowl of cheetos, cashews and peanut M&Ms, 540 cal

BREAKFAST: 9:45am, 3 waffles, chocolate ice cream, 4 slices of bacon, +/- 1200 cal

PM SNACK: 5pm, almonds & M&Ms, +/- 600 cal

DINNER: 7:30pm, chicken tikka roll, salad, +/- 600 cal

EVENING SNACK: 8pm, homemade chocolate brownie, +/- 500 cal