Monthly Weight In: Flat Lining

206.8-->206.8-->207.0
Another month, another holding of the line, as .2 lbs is not statistically significant. Looking over the past month (as well as the official start of eating season kicked off on Thursday with Thanksgiving), I'm a little surprised my weight held steady -- I've been regularly approaching 3K calories a day. You see from the chart above that from 2010 to 2012 (and probably long before) my weigth would fluctuate up in the winter and down in the summer. I've seemed to have broken that cycle, but that doesn't mean that demon still doesn't lurk.

But I feel good, my body is healthy and while most of my "skinny" clothes have been feeling snug for a while now, they're still wearable. As Fall is soon turing to Winter, I need to reactivate on the weight lifting as cycling becomes more restricted.

I think my only concern is the fact that I've been working from home almost exclusively since June, and it has afforded me more flexibility in my eating routine than I'm used to. I've started to change things up a little to avoid boredom and take advantage of a new-found trust in myself not to be a garbage-person, but y'know, freedom can be scary. Hence the mindful check of the food diary you all read with great attention and interest. (I know, sarcasm doesn't read well, you'll just have to take that leap...)

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WEEKLY AVERAGE: Void

Didn't record starting Wednesday evening, you'll just have to take my word for it that my eating remained sane, reasonable and enjoyable. Still need this system to get more vegetables into my body, but I did not blow myself out on sugar-binges or never-ending bowls of pasta.

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MONDAY COUNT: 2390

SLEPT: 11pm-7am, 8 hrs

AM SNACK: 7:15am, iced green tea

BREAKFAST: 10:30am, apple/beet/celery/carrot/cayenne/cucumber/ginger juice, 160 cal

PM SNACK: 1:15pm, momma salad, 100 cal

LUNCH: 3pm, beef patty, chicken soup, 480 cal

DINNER: 6:45pm, grouper fish, asparagus,  poppa salad with dressing, 750 cal

EVENING SNACK: 7:15pm, popcorn, homemade babka, +/-900

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TUESDAY COUNT: 3045

SLEPT: 9pm-2am, 5:45am-7:30am,  6.75hrs

AM SNACK: 3 am,  iced green tea

BREAKFAST: 10:15am, apple/beet/celery/carrot/cayenne/cucumber/ginger juice, 160 cal

BREAKFAST 2: 1pm, greek yogurt with honey, almonds, vanilla, 450 cal

PM SNACK: 3:15pm, momma salad, cheezits, 310 cal

DINNER: 5:30pm, burrito & diet coke, 925cal

EVENING HUNGER SNACKS: 6:30pm, ramen, babka, chocolate chips & cashews, +/- 1200, hunger 9/10
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WEDNESDAY COUNT: x

SLEPT: 9pm-4am, 7 hrs

AM SNACK: 4:30am, iced green tea

AM SNACK: 8:30am, school waffle, +/- 100 cal

BREAKFAST: 10:15am, apple/beet/celery/carrot/cayenne/cucumber/ginger juice, 160 cal

LUNCH: 1pm, Stouffers French Bread pizzas, momma salad, 920cal

PM SNACK: 2pm, snippets of cornbread, stuffing, apple juice, +/- 300 cal

Discounting sexy, where is the line between crazy and cool?

Subtle advertising, doodz!

Orthorexia is an obsession with healthy eating. Obsession is is the key word -- there is nothing wrong with wanting to put nutrient-dense food in your body that keeps you healthy, but as we struggle without a users-guide that should have come with our bodies when we were born, what "healthy" means is open to interpretation. And it is in that interpretation where obsession can manifest. 

In last week's post, I questioned whether tracking my food and recording it five days a week is on a path to orthorexia. I dated a woman over the winter who, towards the end of our relationship when things weren't going too well, implied that the attention I paid to myself in my eating seemed like some sort of eating disorder to her. On the face of it, it seemed silly and just something hurtful that is said when trying to distract attention from your own issues and noise. But it landed, and it sat with me, a potential red flag humming in the background since before the summer.

So again the pages of the NYT opens and seems to directly address my concerns. Is keeping track of your eating so crazy, or is it cool and in ripe need of a NYT trends piece?

Research shows that people who keep track of what they eat and weigh are more likely to succeed at losing weight and keeping it off. Self-tracking teaches people how their environment and behaviors affect health, said Carly Pacanowski, a National Institutes of Health postdoctoral fellow who studies eating behavior.
“It’s a preventive daily strategy that always stays with you,” she said. “Over time, it provides you a lot of interesting information. It lets people be more in the driver’s seat with regards to their health.”
The key to successful tracking is consistency. An analysis by Withings and MyFitnessPal of their users found that those who tracked food and weight at least once every three days lost an average eight pounds over a year, compared with just one pound for those who less vigorously recorded the data.

Early on I tried MyFitnessPal and found that it's database skewed heavily towards restaurant and packaged food, stuff I can just look on the packaging and weigh out to get numbers from - I quickly sussed that if I were to invest my energies in these apps, it would encourage me to literally eat crappier, as the corporate might that got the processed food into their apps would be a self-strengthening closed loop.

Will Chilli ever forgive me?

I've basically been doing what the app does on the fly in this blog, remembering loosely numbers of different dishes week to week.

The strategy might also work better for men than women, according to research by Dr. Pacanowski. Self-tracking works by forcing people to pay attention to how food affects weight; it may be that women are already exposed to so many ads and messages about weight that the extra attention makes little difference.
Dr. Pacanowski also cautions that those already overly concerned with weight and shape — or who are at risk for disordered eating — could be adversely affected by detailed self-tracking. 

This sounds like the truth. People who are scrutinized most about their appearance and weight are the ones who get eating disorders most often. The main trigger in getting me on this path was a bought of kidney stones and impending middle age, not a concern about how I look in a bathing suite or younger guys competing with me for dates. Food tracking is a little time consuming, but in the scheme of things -- maybe 20 minutes total during the week and an hour or so to write these essays -- is really time well spent. It is in balance. Unlike what my ex implied, I don't really spend a lot of time drilling down on myself -- when I am thinking of food, it's about the fun of eating out, the fun of cooking, or the fun of eating with my kids. The tracking of the food is kinda the opposite, a balance to the partying.

Fat used to be the enemy, more recently carbs have been vilified, and with the recent meat-cancer links, proteins are coming under scrutiny. Tracking food intake, at least the way I do it, is not about trying to find the ideal ratio of macronutrients. It is about portion size -- people have tried all sorts of fad diets, restricted this and that, and time and again they go back to however they were eating and get fat or fatter. Tracking is, at it's core, about portion size. We Americans eat too much, and it is encouraged from the moment we wake to the moment we sleep -- you could say we as a nation have an eating disorder: we've been hypnotized by Big Food to consume more and more, and when someone suggests perhaps we should eat less, they respond by saying we should be free to eat as much as we want, just exercise more. It's insanity, but it's profitable. Fat, carbs or proteins need not be demonized, just portion sizes and any corporation who profits from keeping portions consistently growing.

The piece then goes on to a long disertation about one guy who tracked his food, his ups and downs, and his relative success. Found this quite boring, who cares what another slob puts in his gob day to day? I mean, just read my diary below, boring! While keeping a food diary seemed unbalanced and disordery to my ex, I can comfortably say now, with thought, that no, it is just a corrective to restore balance from the disordered eating we have accepted as normal due to assiduous interests in the market.

A sampling of the food that MyFitnessPal can automatically track...

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WEEKLY AVERAGE: 2957

Heavy eating week, but not out of control. As can be seen from the content of the last few weeks, the gears are turning...

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MONDAY COUNT: 3320

SLEPT: 9:30pm-6am, 8.5 hrs

AM SNACK: 6:15am, iced green tea

BREAKFAST: 10am, apple/beet/celery/carrot/cayenne/cucumber/ginger juice, 160 cal

BREAKFAST 2: 11am, Fage with honey, almonds, vanilla, 450 cal

LUNCH: 1pm, beef patty, chicken soup, momma salad, health salad 750 cal

PM SNACK: 3:15pm, cheezits, 210 cal

DINNER: 6:45pm, scrod fish, asparagus,  poppa salad with dressing, 750 cal

EVENING SNACK: 7:15pm, popcorn, pocky, +/-900

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TUESDAY COUNT: 3300 cal

SLEPT: 9pm-5:30am,  8.5hrs

AM SNACK: 5:45 am,  iced green tea

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

BREAKFAST 2: 11am, steel cut oats, 450 cal

LUNCH: 2:15pm, chicken meatballs, lentil curry, steamed stringbeans, 680 cal

PM SNACK: 3:15pm, momma salad, cheezits, 310 cal

DINNER: 5:15pm, vegetarian dim sum, +/-700 cal

EVENING SNACK: 7pm, 3 packs pocky, a few homemade brownies, +/- 1000 cal
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WEDNESDAY COUNT: 3005

SLEPT: 8:30pm-12am, 4:30am-6:30am 5.5 hrs

AM SNACK: 8:30am, 2 small school pancake +/- 100 cal

BREAKFAST: 10:15am, apple/beet/celery/carrot/cayenne/cucumber/ginger juice, 160 cal

BREAKFAST 2: 12:45pm, fruit smoothie, 450 cal

LUNCH: 3:15pm, shrimp and mushrooms with oyster sauce,  poppa salad with dressing, 670cal

DINNER: 8pm, burrito & diet coke, 925cal

EVENING SNACK: 8:30pm, ice cream, +/- 300 cal

HUNGER SNACK: 9:30pm, pocky, brownie, +/- 400 cal, hunger 8/10
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THURSDAY COUNT: 2660

SLEPT: 10:30pm-5:30am, 7 hours

AM SNACK: 5:45am, iced green tea, 2 tylenol

BREAKFAST: 11am, apple/beet/celery/carrot/cayenne/cucumber/ginger juice, 160 cal

BREAKFAST 2: 12:30pm, Steel cut oatmeal, 450 cal

PM SNACK: 1:15pm, momma salad, 100 cal

LUNCH: 3pm, bacon, poppa salad with dressing, 440 cal

DINNER: 6pm, seafood platter, coq au vain, 1 beet, chocolate cake and creme brûlée, bread & butter, bite of steak frites+/- 1500 cal
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FRIDAY COUNT: 2500

SLEPT: 10pm-6am, 8 hrs

AM SNACK: 6:15am, iced green tea, 

BREAKFAST: 10:15am, apple/beet/celery/carrot/cayenne/cucumber/ginger juice, 2 tylenol, 160cal

BREAKFAST 2: noon, Fage with honey, almonds, vanilla, 450 cal

LUNCH: 2pm, steak, poppa salad, +/- 600 cal

PM SNACK 4pm, momma salad, pringles, 290 cal

DINNER: 6pm, sushi meal, chocolate chips & cashews, +/- 1000 cal

Eating Clean: the Disorder

I wrote about "eating clean" a little over a year ago:

I was out for brunch over the weekend, and while we were pursuing an exciting, free-form conversation stretching across too many topics to recount here,  my perfectly pleasant dining companion mentioned that she ate freely during the weekend (sounds familiar), and during the week she ate "clean".
I've heard that buzzword before on the periphery, and to be honest it raised my bullshit antenna. I casually asked, "Oh, clean? What does that mean?" Her eyes glanced down and to the side, a physical sign that she perhaps was not completely comfortable. She said something about no sugar and no flour. "Oh, carb free diet?" No, well, kinda, lean proteins and vegetables. I kind of wanted to ask more questions, but I could tell pushing it would not be gentlemanly. Fair enough, guys needling ladies about their eating habits can be creepy in the wrong context, and perhaps this afternoon was the wrong context.

I think my instinct was right -- our eating habits are very personal and subjective, and not a good topic for a 2nd (and in this case, final) date. But I do remember this lady well, she was quite impressive. She was the director of a major department at the NY Times, raising a kid on her own in a fantasy Brooklyn brownstone, and really nice on the eyes. I let the conversation about eating habits go, despite me having a lot to say on the topic, because her body language expressed discomfort, the kind of discomfort that usually doesn't lead to a third date.

This is how sexy NYT ladies dress for the office.

I've thought of her twice in the past few months. First, her department was reorganized and I saw her name in an article about it in the newspaper, which indicated she took a new role in her specialty outside of the newspaper -- maybe moving back to Cali to be closer to the baby daddy? I also thought of her this past week, when I buzzed passed this article while writing last week's entry about the licensing effect.

The idea of an eating disorder that didn't involve a loss of appetite or the desire to purge began hitting the zeitgeist a year and a half ago. The disease was called orthorexia, a term coined by Dr. Steven Bratman in 1997. "Orthorexia is defined as an unhealthy obsession with healthy food," Dr. Bratman tells Broadly. "It's not the diet that is orthorexia, it's the diet that could lead to it. The more extreme or restrictive the diet, the more likely it could lead to orthorexia."

Eat disorders are a facet of addiction, if you believe that addiction is not simply the physical craving caused by things like heroine, caffeine and alcohol. Anything that gives pleasure can be obsessed over and brought out of balance, whether than is drugs, booze, food, sex, money, gambling, whatever, pick your poison. The idea of being obsessed with something righteous and healthy is something I wrestle with -- I ride my bicycle 100+ miles a week, but as far as I can tell it is in balance with my work, family, interpersonal relationships and health. And the fact that I monitor my eating on a daily basis during the week, similar to the NY Times Clean Eating Woman (NYTCEW), am I on a spectrum? Am I on a path to orthorexia?

After coining the term, Dr. Bratman went on to publish several books about orthorexia and healthy living. Today, he has created an official scientific definition for the disease and is working on getting it published and accepted by the medical community. But Dr. Bratman was not the one to bring orthorexia to the mainstream some year and a half ago. Jordan Younger, a 25-year-old lifestyle blogger from California, was.
Younger was a devout raw vegan who had built an online following of tens of thousands by writing about veganism and her virtuous diet on her then-blog The Blonde Vegan. To Younger, veganism was the cure-all she was hoping for—no longer did she suffer from chronic indigestion or feelings of bloating and discomfort. As she preached about the benefits of a plant-based diet alongside photos of bright green smoothies, mason jars brimming with chia seeds, and chopped kale salads, the popularity of her vegan persona grew.

Cut to the chase, gradually she went more and more hardcore. All that extreme experimenting in foods that are deemed to be unquestionably healthy did a number on her.  And it is in the following graph, as they say in clickbait, she really nailed it (bolding mine):

Eventually, Younger came to understand that she had a problem. But hers wasn't a classic eating disorder that people were familiar with; hers was a fixation on the virtue of food. She introduced the term orthorexia to her following, saying that she was suffering and was going to get help. The response she got was overwhelming: "Once I started talking about experience with orthorexia on my blog and national news picked up on it, a flood of people came forward saying they identified with me," Younger tells Broadly. "We're talking tens of thousands of messages. It's been a year and a half and I haven't stopped hearing from people. It's not that number anymore; it's a couple people a day now, but it showed me how many people feel inadequate and feel that living a balanced life is not enough."

All that bad stock photography of ladies eating salad? Just make 'em frown and POOF! orthorexia.

Balance is all there is - it is an acceptance that things are not black or white, that to function we must live in a shade of gray. For example, the problem tearing the Republican Party apart is an adherence to ideology over governing, to beliefs over facts. It is reflected in out culture, nailed by Stephen Colbert as "truthiness", the feeling that something is true, regardless of reality. To believe a raw-vegan-regular-detox habit is healthy for your body, mind and planet despite the immediate evidence to the contrary is a symptom of truthiness, and definitely needs a place in medical literature. Hopefully the "Eat Clean" lobby won't interfere in that process, god knows how much good has been prevented by financial interests who politicizes things that should be simple public health concerns (hello, Big Soda & the defeat of soda taxes!)

"There is nothing wrong with eating local or being a vegetarian or vegan. I think a lot of those diets are inherently valuable. The problem is that we have moralized eating, weight, food, and exercise. Food has become presented—more and more—as the answer."

Other than a very brief and furtive make-out session with NYTCEW, there was never another opportunity to explore what she meant about "eating clean". I do admit, perhaps because of my male privilege or own obsession with food, when she avoided the conversation it was a red flag for me -- is there an issue here? Is this blog out of balance, or a tool to keep in balance?

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WEEKLY AVERAGE: 2836

Disappointing but not surprising high average.

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MONDAY COUNT: 2470

SLEPT: 11:30pm-6:45am, 7.25 hrs

AM SNACK: 7am, iced green tea

BREAKFAST: 10:15am, apple/beet/celery/carrot/cayenne/cucumber/ginger juice, 160 cal

BREAKFAST 2: noon, Fage with honey, almonds, vanilla, 450 cal

PM SNACK: 3:15pm, momma salad, cheezits, 310 cal

DINNER: 5pm, beef patty, chicken soup,  poppa salad with dressing, 750 cal

EVENING SNACK: 7:15pm, popcorn, almond butter & chocolate syrup, +/-800

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TUESDAY COUNT: 2850

SLEPT: 8:30pm-2am,  5.5hrs

AM SNACK: 2:30 am,  iced green tea

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

BREAKFAST 2: 11am, steel cut oats, 450 cal

LUNCH: 1pm, sole, asparagus, momma salad, 600 cal

PM SNACK: 2:15pm, birthday cupcake, +/-200 cal

DINNER: 6:45pm, Stouffers French Bread Pizzas, poppa salad with dressing, 1040 cal

HUNGER SNACK: 7:30pm, peanut butter and chocolate syrup, +/- 400 cal, hunger 9/10
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WEDNESDAY COUNT: 3275

SLEPT: 8:30pm-5:30am, 9 hrs

AM SNACK: 5:45am, iced green tea

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

AM SNACK: 8:30am, bite of donut, +/- 50 cal

BREAKFAST 2: 10:15am, fruit smoothie, 450 cal

LUNCH: 1pm, bacon,  poppa salad with dressing, 440cal

PM SNACK: 3:15pm, momma salad, cheezits, 310 cal

PM SNACK: 4:45pm, cashews, 250 cal

DINNER: 8pm, burrito & diet coke, 925cal

EVENING SNACK: 8:30pm, ice cream, +/- 500 cal

HUNGER SNACK: 9:30pm pringles, 190 cal, hunger 8/10
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BIKE CREDIT: 1055
THURSDAY COUNT: 3025

SLEPT: 10:30pm-3am, 4.5 hours

AM SNACK: 3:45am, iced green tea, 150mg caffeine

BIKE SNACK: 4:45am, homemade granola bar, 320 cal

BIKE SNACK: 6:15am, homemade granola bar, 320 cal

BREAKFAST: 10:15am, apple/beet/celery/carrot/cayenne/cucumber/ginger juice, 160 cal

BREAKFAST 2: 11am, Steel cut oatmeal, 450 cal

LUNCH: 12:45pm, beef patty, chicken soup, momma salad, pickle, 660 cal

PM SNACK: 2:15pm, veggie straws, 160 cal

PM SNACK: 3pm, kind bar, 200 cal

PM SNACK: 5pm, cheezits, 210 cal

PM SNACK: 6:15pm, homemade browmies, +/- 300 cal

DINNER: 7pm, pork tenderloin, mashed potato & mushroom gravy, steam string beans, +/- 900 cal

EVENING SNACK: 9pm, home made brownies, +/- 500 cal
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FRIDAY COUNT: 2560

SLEPT: 9:45pm-12:30am,  1:30am-7am, 8.25 hrs

BREAKFAST: 10am, apple/beet/celery/carrot/cayenne/cucumber/ginger juice, 80cal

AM SNACK: 11am, Fage with honey, almonds, vanilla, 450 cal

LUNCH: 2pm, sardine and avocado on whole wheat toast, poppa salad, pickle, 770 cal

PM SNACK 4pm, momma salad, veggie straws, 260 cal

DINNER: 5:15pm, slice of pizza, hot dog, fries, ice cream, +/- 1000 cal

License to be a Fatty McFatterson

Good habit to match with driving everywhere.

We tell each other lies, but the worst are the lies we tell our selves because sometimes we don't even know that we are lying. At the heart of many of these lies is "false equivalency". Fox News is a master of the false equivalency lie: to be "fair and balanced", one fact must be balanced with an equal and opposite fact. An unfavored set of facts set off  a move to "balance" them with equal and opposite falsehoods under cover of "opinion". If there is any place in our personal lives where the line between opinion and facts are blurred, it's how we approach food.

Route data from more than 1,000 shoppers, matched to their purchases at checkout, revealed a clear pattern: Drop a bunch of kale into your cart and you’re more likely to head next to the ice cream or beer section. The more “virtuous” products you have in your basket, the stronger your temptation to succumb to vice.

Why make yourself TOO miserable with eating the healthy stuff? There needs to be "balance" to satisfy our baser cravings to prevent them from taking over. This is the "virtuous" thinking behind my eating for the past couple of years -- keep to the kale juice Monday through Friday, and hold on to your hats when the weekend came along. And to be honest, it worked for quite a while...as a transitional step, not a routine to live by forever. I used to mindlessly eat 95% crap, and by regimenting myself into 70% strict/30% whatever, I found a new balance that seemed fair to me. But  my body has seemed to settle on a new (lower) weight for a while now, and I'd like a new strategy to retain my health and get a little slimmer as an investment in my well-being as I teeter into my mid and late 40s.

Well, I guess thats fair. And balanced.

But it’s a particular problem in health because we’re confronted with so many decisions on a daily basis and yet the outcomes we’re most concerned about — like disease, disability and, ultimately, death — are difficult to measure, heavily influenced by chance or too far into the future to be sure of cause and effect. That leaves us vulnerable, because unlike Newton’s Third Law, the actions and reactions of the licensing effect aren’t necessarily “equal and opposite.” Few of our health decisions are clear-cut, so we’re left weighing uncertain benefits against unknowable behavioral compensation.
So how can we maximize our chances of coming out ahead? Psychologists have identified a few tactics.

A head of kale is not the equal or the opposite of a pint of ice cream. Eating well for 5 days does not license me to eat like a f'ing retard for 2 days. Maybe I'm being a little bit too harsh, but it is a line of thinking that has been brought to my attention a while ago by a loved one, and is now only starting to sink in. Disordered eating doesn't have to be as dramatic as death-taunting anorexia/bulimia -- it can be as simple as some one trying to "eat clean" obsessively or, uh, keeping a food diary on line for years and years. Obsession with healthy eating is no good because it's an OBSESSION, and by definition obsessions are out of balance.

One is to focus on the process of living healthfully rather than the goal of being healthy. (italics mine.)

It goes back to that ol' buzzword of the moment: mindfulness, living in the moment, not worrying about what my eating habits are going to do for me at the end of the month at weigh in, or years down the line when others of my age are crumbling. It's thinking how this food is going to make me feel after it hits my stomach in the next 30 minutes, will it get me through feeling strong to the next meal and not sap my energy or send me through a blood sugar rush? It is about shopping on Monday so I have good stuff to eat through the week. There is no need to think further than how long it takes for said head of kale to wilt and go funky.

A recent University of Zurich study tracked the progress of 126 dieters and found that, as predicted by licensing theory, the more weight the subjects lost in any given week, the less weight they would lose (or the more they would gain) the following week. But this rebound effect was weakest when the subjects homed in on the process of changing their eating behavior rather than on the outcome of losing weight or improving their appearance.

It is a truism that people who go on crash diets and are desperate to lose weight by any means necessary eventually stop panicking, return to "normal" and gain all the weight back. Nice to see (albeit small and maybe statistically undependable) study say in no uncertain terms, just worry about the process being good and healthy and sane, let the outcome take care of itself.

Another approach, proposed by Professors Khan and Dhar, is to narrow your focus so that you weigh the pros and cons of each decision in isolation. To illustrate this principle, they offered either a single free movie rental or two rentals (once a week for two weeks) to a group of undergrads. In the one-shot choice, just over half the subjects opted for a “lowbrow” film like “Dumb and Dumber” rather than a weightier selection like “Schindler’s List.” But when they knew they’d get another chance to make a “good” choice, the number who went lowbrow shot up to 80 percent.

In other words, judge each eating choice like it's the sole determinant of the outcome. There is no need or option to balance a virtuous choice with a guilty pleasure. Not every choice has to be kale, but every choice doesn't need to be kale OR ice cream, the trap of licensing and Fox New's "balanced fairness."

It would be funny if Fox News & it's corporate overlords weren't actually doing real damage to our country and our democracy.

I've depending on the recording of my eating to allow me to go on automatic during the week, but my life has been such since June that I'm able to work from home, therefore cook from home, too. No need to pack lunches that can be cooked in an office microwave. My life has gotten better in the past year, maybe it's time to ease up on the lock step of eating to the beat and get a little jazzy.  I'm kinda little scared, but more excited than fearful.

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WEEKLY AVERAGE: 2861

I don't like the high average, but I can live with it.

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MONDAY COUNT: 2805

SLEPT: 7:30pm-4:30am, 9 hrs

AM SNACK: 4:45am, iced green tea

BREAKFAST: 7am, Fage with honey, almonds, vanilla, 450 cal

BREAKFAST 2: 10:15am, apple/beet/celery/carrot/cayenne/cucumber/ginger juice, 160 cal

LUNCH: 1pm, beef patty, chicken mulligatawny soup, momma salad, health salad, 825 cal

DINNER: 6:45pm, tilapia, asparagus,  poppa salad with dressing, 570 cal

EVENING SNACK: 7:15pm, popcorn, +/- 400

HUNGER SNACK: 8pm, almond butter with chocolate syrup, +/- 400
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TUESDAY COUNT: 3340

SLEPT: 11:15pm-4am,  4.75hrs

AM SNACK: 4:30 am,  iced green tea

AM SNACK: 8:30am, half a donut, +/- 150 cal

BREAKFAST: 11am, apple/beet/celery/carrot/cayenne/cucumber/ginger juice, 160 cal

BREAKFAST 2: noon, steel cut oats, 450 cal

LUNCH: 3pm, chicken meatballs, mushroom curry, steamed string beans, 650 cal

PM SNACK: 3:30pm, momma salad, 100 cal

DINNER: 6:45pm, Stouffers French Bread Pizzas, poppa salad with dressing, 1040 cal

HUNGER SNACK: 8pm, pringles, 2 kind bars, 790 cal, hunger 9/10
-----

WEDNESDAY COUNT: 2655

SLEPT: 9pm-4am, 7 hrs

AM SNACK: 4:15am, iced green tea

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

BREAKFAST 2: 9:45am, fruit smoothie, 450 cal

LUNCH: 1:15pm, sauteed shrimp and mushrooms in oyster sauce, poppa salad, 670cal

PM SNACK: 3:45pm, momma salad, 100 cal

PM SNACK: 6pm, slice of streetza, +/- 250 cal

DINNER: 8pm, burrito & diet coke, 925cal

EVENING SNORT: 10pm, whiskey, +/- 100 cal
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BIKE CREDIT: 1055
THURSDAY COUNT: 3005

SLEPT: 10:30pm-1am, 2:30am-3:30am, 3.5 hours

AM SNACK: 1:30am, 2 kind bars, cheezits, 410 cal

AM SNACK: 3:45am, iced green tea, 150mg caffeine

BIKE SNACK: 6am, homemade granola bar, 240 cal

BREAKFAST: 10am, apple/beet/celery/carrot/cayenne/cucumber/ginger juice, 160 cal

BREAKFAST 2: 11:45am, Steel cut oatmeal, 450 cal

LUNCH: 2:15pm, vegetarian samosa and chickpea curry, momma salad, +/- 900 cal

DINNER 1: 7pm, whole wheat pasta with homemade sauce and parm, poppa salad, 700 cal

DINNER 2: 9pm, 1 slice pizza, ice cream, oreos, +/- 1200 cal

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FRIDAY COUNT: 2550

SLEPT: 10pm-5am, 7 hrs

AM SNACK: 5:15am, iced green tea

BREAKFAST: 10am, apple/beet/celery/carrot/cayenne/cucumber/ginger juice, 160 cal

AM SNACK: 11am, momma salad, cheezits, 310 cal

LUNCH: 2pm, beef patty, pickle, 410 cal

PM SNACK 3pm, kind bar, 200 cal

PM SNACKS: 5pm beef patty, pringles, veggie straws, 720 cal

DINNER: 6:15pm,  peking duck, shrimp, dumplings, +/- 750 cal

Monthly Weigh In: Steady, Freddy

209.8-->206.8-->206.8

I think this past month I spent the least amount of time thinking about food and my diet; I suspect riffing in these blog essays are my only time to really think about food, the rest of the time I've been running on automatic, assisted by documenting what I eat. When I write the list below, I literally have a copy of last week's, and to a certain extent I let it guide what I eat. So it's no great surprise that my weight did not go up or down this past month.

The clocks just turned back, the holiday season just kicked off with a candy-fest. My bike riding will start to decrease while the seasonal foods get heavier. I guess right now, the only note to myself is to keep my head in the diet game while I focus on the professional and personal developments swirling around me.

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WEEKLY AVERAGE: 2778

Surprisingly high, but looking at what I went through Thursday, I can't really beat myself up.

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MONDAY COUNT: 2475

SLEPT: 9:30pm-4am, 4:30am-7am, 9 hrs

AM SNACK: 10am, iced green tea

BREAKFAST: 11am, apple/beet/celery/carrot/cayenne/cucumber/ginger juice, 160 cal

BREAKFAST: noon, Fage with honey, almonds, vanilla, 450 cal

LUNCH: 3pm, beef patty, chicken mulligatawny soup, momma salad, health salad, 825 cal

DINNER: 6:15pm, Frenchbread Pizzas,  poppa salad with dressing, 1040 cal
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BIKE CREDIT: 645
TUESDAY COUNT: 2995

SLEPT: 9pm-3am,  6hrs

AM SNACK: 3:30 am,  iced green tea

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

BREAKFAST 2: 9:30am, fruit smoothie, 450 cal

PM SNACK: 1pm, momma salad, 100 cal

LUNCH: 1:30pm, chicken meatballs, mushroom curry, steamed string beans, 650 cal

BIKE SNACK: 3:30pm, homemade granola bar, 350 cal

DINNER: 6:15pm, shrimp with whole wheat pasta, homemade tomato sauce and grated parm,  poppa salad with dressing, 1150 cal

HUNGER SNACK: 9pm, cookies, 780 cal, hunger 10/10
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WEDNESDAY COUNT: 2675

SLEPT: 9:15pm-11am, 1am-7am 7.75 hrs

AM SNACK: 7:15am, iced green tea

BREAKFAST: 9:15am, apple/beet/celery/carrot/cayenne/cucumber/ginger juice, 160 cal

BREAKFAST 2: 12:15pm, granola with whole milk, +/- 450 cal

LUNCH: 4:15pm, flounder, asparagus, poppa salad, 440cal

DINNER: 7:30pm, burrito & diet coke, 925cal

EVENING SNORT: 8:45pm, beer, 2 cookies, +/- 300 cal

HUNGER SNACK: 11pm, kind bar, pringles, 400 cal, 9/10
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THURSDAY COUNT: 3385

SLEPT: 11:30pm-5:15am, 5.75 hours

AM SNACK: 5:30am, iced green tea

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

BREAKFAST 2: 11am, Steel cut oatmeal, 450 cal

LUNCH: 1:45pm, chicken breast in oyster sauce and mushrooms, poppa salad with dressing, 675 cal

PM SNACK: 5pm, momma salad, 100 cal

DINNER: 8pm, fried mixed perigees with kraut and onions, +/- 1000 cal

EMOTIONAL SNACK: 9pm, 4 cupcakes, +/- 1000 cal
I attended a one-time event that was a year in the making this evening that was difficult but necessary, and I allowed myself this heavy dinner and snack to just kinda cope. As long as these things only happen once a year, I'm not going to beat myself up.
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FRIDAY COUNT: 2360

SLEPT: 9:30pm-7:15am, 9.75 hrs

AM SNACK: 7:30am, iced green tea

BREAKFAST: 12:30pm, apple/beet/celery/carrot/cayenne/cucumber/ginger juice, 160 cal

PM SNACK: 2pm, momma salad, 100 cal

LUNCH: 3pm, beef patty, poppa salad with dressing, 600 cal

DINNER: 5:15pm, fish & chips, 1.5 hotdogs, ice cream, +/- 1500 cal