Day 11:
Giving away money is hard. So many things went wrong with the scholarship award that I can't list them here. Suffice it to say that my mood was semi-permanently marred. I was due for an off day anyway, so I didn't do anything today.

I had a bagel with a slice of Swiss cheese for breakfast, a Boca Chic'n for lunch (along with way to many nacho chips and a little leftover quinoa). We went out to dinner and I had a salad and half a plate of pretty good gnocchi with a decent bottle of Pinot Noir. Some diet, eh?



I'll pay for today later, I'm sure

Day 10:
Slept way in and barely got up in time for my haircut. I have to be at a high school awards ceremony tomorrow morning to give out a scholarship to a graduating senior so I have to look spiffy.

I had a couple of big pieces of bread with Swiss cheese for breakfast, a small Clif bar for lunch and a baked sweet potato with all the fixings for dinner. Good diet day, but I feel pretty tired. Rain and lightening broke up my swim plans so I ran a couple miles on the treadmill and did a bunch of push ups and pull ups. Otherwise. this was a pretty lazy day. The scale at the gym says 184, which is progress, but not as much as I'd like.

Day Nine:
I got up early and ran the standard 5.5 with G. After the run I had a salt bagel with red onion and Swiss cheese and spent a couple hours reading Donna Haraway's Modest Witness@Second Millenium. FemaleMan Meets OncoMouse: Feminism and Technoscience. It's an embarrassing title, but the book is ok and necessary for some of the research I'm doing on my current essay. Later I had a corn bread and tomato sandwich for lunch and went to a double baby shower (two monthers--not twins) where I ate entirely too many cookies. My attempts to catch the semi-local group ride at 6:00 failed so I came back home and mostly procrastinated. Dinner was fritata and I had a very small bowl of vanilla ice cream, peach bits and a angle food cake for dessert. I'm going to say today was probably 3000 kcal or more so bad me...bad me.

Day Eight:

I think the diet caught up with me bit today. I ran with G at 7:30--our usual 5.5 route--and then came home for a breakfast of an egg white, Swiss cheese, onion and jalapeno omelet with some grits, cottage cheese and half a grapefruit. Lunch was a bowl of leftover pinto bean soup, a piece of corn bread with cheddar, and a popcicle. I ran into the office for a couple hours to finish some research and answer a few emails that had been lingering and then ran a series or small errands (recycling, bank, Et al.). I got home by around 4:00 and was totally wiped. I fought it for about forty-five minutes, but gave in a little before 5:00 and took what I was thinking would be a one hour nap before I hit the pool. I was drooling and disoriented when I woke up at 7:30 and, of course, missed my swim. Dinner was quinoa with sauteed vegetables, basil and garlic. All told I must be around 2100 kcal for today. Since I missed my swim I also missed weigh in. I'll try to swing by the gym tomorrow to do the walk of shame so I can report the actual numbers.

I'm running with G again tomorrow morning and hoping to get in on my first group ride in a long time at 4:30 pm so I'll have to watch intakes more carefully to see if I'm shorting myself.

Inspiring photo of the day comes from the Velonews website:

One of the things that I love about the European peleton is that it's manly enough that they sometimes get into fights, but not so much that they hesitate to race their hearts out for a pink shirt.

Day Seven:

Two scones with dried cherries and a little butter and half grapefruit for breakfast. The holiday meant the pool was closed, so I went for a run instead. For lunch I had two sandwiches (one Boca Chik'n, one cheese and jalapeno) and a popsicle. Dinner was a small baked sweet potato with onions and sauerkraut. We watched a movie after dinner and I had some plain popcorn. All told, the damage had to be around 2500 kcal. I went to bed slightly hungry, which I take to be a good sign.

I plan on weighing in tomorrow. To be on track for my goal I'll need to be down to about 184/183. While I'm at the gym (that's the only scale) I'll try to do 1K in the pool.

Boring post, I know, but I'll try to come up with something more exciting next time.

Day Six:

Curried home fries made from three red C potatoes and an egg white omelet for breakfast started the day off pretty nicely. We opened a new can of coffee this morning and even though it's the same brand we usually have, this batch has a much stronger smokey flavor. I thought I'd mis-measured the grounds or something. I had a small cheese sandwich with fresh basil along with an apple for lunch and wrapped things up with pinto bean soup and two small pieces of cornbread. Considering that it was just the one bowl of soup, I'm going to have to guess that today fell into the 2200 kcal range.

I finally got to the pool, but almost feel like I would have been better off without it. My swim has swum, apparently, as I was hard pressed to finish my first hundred meters without falling back on the breast stroke.

I didn't think I'd look like this:


but I didn't expect to look like this either:


I'm going back on Tuesday, but I'm going to have to really think hard about the triathlon in September. I tacked on a couple of easy miles on the treadmill, mostly to take the edge off the drubbing my ego suffered in the pool, and wrapped up with some push-pulls and a couple sets of one-legged squats.


My bike is still in the shop and since they'll probably be closed tomorrow, I'll probably leave it with them until Wednesday's group ride. It's been close to a year since I've ridden with a group--I hope I remember how.

Day Five:

Slept waaaay in this morning and then broke my fast with a couple of VERY good pancakes along with some facon, scrambled egg whites with hot sauce,and a couple of navel oranges (all made by my wife). Good times...good times.

I spent the bulk of the afternoon doing boring email stuff for work and rearranging my research piles so I can hit the ground running tomorrow and hopefully put together two (that's right TWO pages tomorrow). I had about a cup of couscous with caramelized onions and sesame oil for lunch and then did a bunch more of the boring stuff.

I wasn't feeling especially creative so I ran the route G and I usually do and wrapped it up in just over forty minutes. The humidity went to eleven so I couldn't tell when I'd cooled down, but after a while I went inside and did some asymmetrical squats along with some more pull ups.

We scrounged for dinner and I made a salad with pretzel sticks. Over all I'm thinking I finished the day in the 2300 kcal range.

There's a legend that the pool is open tomorrow. I'll try to get that 1K swim in tomorrow and also pick up my bike from the shop. I'm contemplating a mountain bike ride on the way to the bike shop so there may be some injury photos for the next entry.

The cool song I listened to this run was:



God, Birmingham is really doing something right.

Day 4

I went to a retirement party tonight for a professor who had been teaching here for forty-one years. I kind of can't imagine it at all--two generations of students moving through your classroom. This is a guy who probably had the grandson of former students in his last class.

It was a catered party, but the only vegetarian parts of the dinner were the anemic rolls, the cole slaw, cake and beer. I had some of each. I'd started the day well with a fried egg sandwich and grapefruit for breakfast. For lunch I had some leftover rice with Sriracha and soy sauce and a small Clif bar. I'm less confident about the kcals with the catering and all, but I'm thinking I ended the day at around 2500 kcals.

I ran with G again--we almost always go the same route so we clocked 5.5 miles in just about one hour. I did some more pull ups (I'm hoping a little more upper body will help burn some more calories) and extra stretches for a slightly tender left knee and called it a night.

Today's inspirational photo comes from Gym Jones:


Baaaad!

Day Three:

Pretty solid, but goddamn the pool schedule. I went to the gym at 4:30 with every intention of doing a mini brick (2 mile run and 1K swim), but the pool schedule wasn't what was posted online so instead of opening up for lap swim at 5:00--like it said online--I would have waited until 6:00. Instead of cooling my heels I did push-up pull-up circuts instead and made myself crazy, slurry worn out in something like eighteen minutes.

Diet-wise things were good. I had cottage cheese, strawberries, a fried egg and grapefruit for breakfast. For lunch I had a small bowl of rice with Sriracha (there's a great article about it by John T. Edge in the NYT here: (http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/20/dining/20united.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=huy&st=cse) and soy sauce and a cheese sandwich with a Kaiser roll. Dinner was pretty nice too. I had a bowl of Thai Peanut Butter noodles and a celery and mushroom salad. I'm guessing something like 2000 or 2200 kcals.

The damage on the scale wasn't as bad as I expected. I weighed in at a whopping 186 this afternoon. Using the quick and dirty online calculator that means I'm at about 15% body fat.

We're on our way to the big city to do some shopping and hopefully get some bike tuning tomorrow. I'm going to try to get in that swim before we go and then do a run in the afternoon when we're back.

Day two seems better:

I had grits and facon (fake bacon) for breakfast, then an apple and mini Clif bar for lunch and an assorted pop for a snack. For dinner I had one bowl of couscous and tofu curry and skipped dessert--I'm thinking around 1900 kcals. Additionally, I managed to run with my friend G (who has a two-month-old baby and a fairly serious Black and Mild habit). We go slow when he's along. Still, I squeezed out close to six miles. I'd meant to follow that up with a 1K swim, but I got the pool hours wrong and will have to do my swimming tomorrow.

Speaking of miscues, I tried to take my bike into the shop (thirty minutes away) for a tune up and possibly some replacement parts for the drive train. It seems like a really cool shop, but I can only guess since they are closed on Wednesdays. I have to go to REI to pick up a Rocky Mounts tray for my bike rack tomorrow, so I guess I'll swing back by the bike shop tomorrow morning and see if they can hook me up with some new cables, a derailleur adjustment and maybe a couple of new chain rings.

Anyway, the plan for tomorrow is errands, swim, and sillyverals. Which is a workout I invented to cope with my apparently innate inability to take intervals seriously. Here's part of what I'll be listening to on my blisteringly fast quarter-mile sprints tomorrow.



I hope taking my workout feel better pill makes my workout feel better.

Additionally, tomorrow should feature the first official weigh in of my hungry month and maybe even some baseline photos.

An inauspicious beginning: I ate reasonably well--egg white omelets with lightly sauteed vegs for breakfast, a BLT with fake bacon (because I'm a vegetarian) for lunch, an apple and then some Indian cabbage with cannelline beans followed by a couple spoons of ice cream and strawberries and a small piece of angel food cake for dessert. I'm thinking the whole thing clocks out at around 2000, maybe 2200 kcal.

The thing is, I was totally worn out after work this afternoon so I skipped my workout. I'll put in a couple extra miles tomorrow, but I know the damage was done. Either way, while it wasn't the best it also wasn't the worst way to start a hungry month.

Argument:

I've been zeroing in on genuine and actual fitness for something like five or six years now. I put in my miles (for the most part) but I don't really see the results I want. I've come to believe that the most pressing problem (there are several) is the extra fifteen pounds of dinner table I've been carrying around on my runs and bike rides--so here's my line in the potato salad, as it were--my marshmallow line (we'll pretend like history doesn't remember how quickly the French defenses fell). I'm going to maintain a reasonably high level of exercise over the next thirty days while drastically curbing the worst of my eating. This blog, then, serves on two levels. First, it will force me to at least loosely track my eating and second, it will make me vulnerable to semi-public scorn and humiliation if I don't actually hold to a generally reasonable diet and exercise regime for the next thirty days.

Plan:

This isn't a food diary. I'm not going to carry a little book around with me everywhere I go. I will be honest and open, but I do not think that a man who weighs his pasta is technically alive. I will also consider the realities of my life and make certain allowances for exercise and travel. My goal here isn't to be a fascist or a spartan, but simply to hold myself to a reasonable diet (say, 2300 to 3200 kcal/day) and justify my consumption for at least the next thirty days.

Hopes:

Thirty days from now I would love to weigh 175 pounds (roughly fifteen pounds less than my current weight) without having given up any of my exercise. If that's where I am a month from now, I'm not going to argue with a single one of the decisions I made. If not, it will be time to regroup and see what I need to do. Short of that, I suppose I can get abs implants--big, jiggly, fake-tanned ab implants. But that's another blog altogether.