100 Days

What I ate today

Breakfast (10 a.m.)
2 ½ cups of Special K cereal
2 cups of skim milk
Calories: 465
Fat: 0 grams

Lunch (1:30 p.m.)
1 healthy choice smoked sausage
2 slices of multi grain bread
Calories: 370
Fat: 9.75 grams

Snack (5 p.m.)
½ cup of brown rice
Calories: 320
Fat: 2 grams

Dinner (8 p.m.)
Salad
A few handfuls of lettuce, we’ll call it four servings
A few things of Broccoli
1 can of tuna
4 servings of Fat Free Italian Dressing
2 servings of Just 2 Good Bleu Cheese
Calories: 340
Fat: 5.5 grams

Snack (10 p.m.)
2 servings of baby carrots
Calories: 70
Fat: 0 grams

Total Calories: 1,565
Total fat: 17.25 grams

Exercise: 40 minutes on elliptical trainer. Upper body workout.

First some mail:

Dammit, I deleted the email. I suck. Anyway, a guy took issue with my comparing Flavor Flav to the guy that dances around for the Mighty Mighty Bosstones. The point of his issue was that the Bosstones guy was quite superior to Flav in every way. Let me tell you, I wasn’t really ready for that kind of email. I never thought anyone would come to the defense of the Bosstones dancer. (according to the email, the dancer guy, who apparently has a name which I forget at this moment, does very important Bosstones-related things behind the scenes. So I guess dancing is not his only job.) I expected someone to come to Flav’s defense, Public Enemy was a very big part of the popular culture in the late 80s and early 90s. No one did. Sorry Flav. Anyway, just to go on record, I enjoy the dancing guy’s body of work much more than I enjoy Flav’s.

Anyway, good day today. Too many carbs probably, and just out of the calorie range, but oh well. What are ya gonna do?

I was getting worried that since I added carbs to this diet (in the form of brown rice, oatmeal and, now, Special K) I was growing stagnant. A lot of thoughts raced through my head. First and foremost was whether I inadvertently mimicked Atkins a little too closely. No, there weren’t any bacon breakfasts or steaks fried in butter, but from my experiences with Atkins, it works very quickly (like my diet did) and you will start gaining weight if you eat carbs every day. Also, I knew that one of my basic rules for this diet was to beef up on protein and try to cut down on carbs.

But still, I was eating bread every day. That was what tipped me off to the fact that this wasn’t Atkins. But still, I was a little worried.

That all changed today with another mini breakthrough. Since I got to 330 a while ago, I started to feel heavier. Then I had the epic fight with the buffet table last week, and got back on the horse over the weekend. I weighed in today at 326.5 pounds, down 3.5 from last week. That was fantastic news. At this point I don’t care that much about how fast the weight comes off, as long as I know that I am doing things that will make it come off. Call it a phobia or a silly fear or whatever, but I really worry that no matter how I change my diet, even if I eat 2,500 less calories than I burn per day, that somehow I will be doing something wrong that will screw the whole thing up.

But now I can just be content with the fact that I am doing things right, and as a result, I am losing weight.

This is a really hard time in some ways. Yes, they say life is a journey, not a destination (at least Aerosmith did in “Amazing” Although I think, like Steven Tyler, I got the saying wrong. Though I’m not sure about that, so I’ll stick with it. Maybe “They” don’t say it at all. Maybe only Steve Tyler says it. Oh well.) and I guess that means that most things in life are made great because of what you go through to get there.

For this diet, I disagree. I’ve mentioned this to people and they always say “Hey, it will mean so much more to you because you had to work so hard.” Well fuck that.

I think being healthy and in shape would mean the same thing to me if I was that way naturally. And the fact that I’m not that way natural is a bit of an annoyance. Do you guys really think I wanted to get up to 370 just for the life lessons? Not likely. And it is difficult sometimes to be going through this conversion process. Yes, I have come very far. But still, I have so far to go. And it is still something of a mystery as to how successful I will be overall. Yes, I could quit right now and tell myself I lost a lot of weight, but if I do that, I will still weigh over 325 pounds. Will those 43.5 pounds really mean so much to me? Probably not. They will be a reminder of how I spent my mid 20s with cheese running through my blood. Do I really want to remember the three years I’ve spent without a serious relationship (probably, though, for more reasons than just my weight). Sure I can look at those things and see how far I’ve come, but in reality, I just want to have a moment to really enjoy. And I don’t think looking back on my old weight will help bring those moments to fruition.

Maybe it will, though. Who knows. But I do wish I could just snap my fingers and get down to 240 or wherever I ultimately want to be. It isn’t because I want to go back to eating shit. I guess it is more because I am so worried that my 20’s are slipping away and every attractive woman my age is probably getting married soon. I don’t want to be 30 and picking up chicks at high school graduation parties. So I want this to happen as fast as possible.

But they also say patience is a virtue. So I guess I am stuck with that saying. I am very virtuous.