100 Days

What I ate today

Breakfast (9:30 a.m.)
1 can of tuna
2 slices of multi grain bread
2 servings of fat free Mayo
Calories: 270
Fat: 3.5 grams

Lunch (2 p.m.)
1 foot long Subway chicken breast sub
Calories: 640
Fat: 10 grams

Dinner (9 p.m.)
1 foot long Subway club
Calories: 640
Fat: 12 grams

Total Calories: 1,550
Total Fat: 25.5 grams

Exercise: 40 minutes on elliptical machine. Full body lifting (not really full body, just arms, legs and back, but to me that is full body. Oh, also worked the stomachs a bit, so I guess that really is full body, but well, I didn’t do lower back or forearms. So not really full body.)

Hey! I’m back from Wyoming!

Did you miss me? I know you did. I am very missable. I did manage one entry on Tuesday night, but that was all. And I got back Thursday night but decided to take that off from writing. I did, however, begin the diet again Thursday.

My friend Guy asked me on Wednesday if he thought I was rationalizing eating like shit in Wyoming by saying that I believed I could easily go back to the diet when I got home. That was a legitimate question, since usually I would be rationalizing. I had to think about it.

I suppose in a way I was rationalizing the shit eating this week. For the sake of self respect, I needed to convince myself it was ok, right? So yes I guess I was rationalizing a bit.

But at the same time, I truly believed that I could easily go back to eating right. During the trip, I found myself wishing I was back home on the diet. Not because I wasn’t having a good time, but because I knew that if I was home I wouldn’t be in a situation where many of the day’s events revolved around eating.

There were lunches with the coaches (In case you don’t know, I was in Wyoming covering a basketball tournament) and postgame meals with the entire team and free food at the arena (which came in handy for a poor motherfucker like me). And it wasn’t difficult to convince myself to break off the diet.

But that doesn’t mean I wanted to. I would look at myself in the mirror every day and see a guy who is smaller than he was two months ago, but still not anywhere near not fat. I would grab on to my stomach and feel the handfuls of fat that still overlapped my belt. And then I would pinch the loose skin where fat used to be. And you know what? There was a lot more fat than loose skin. (Although I am guessing that the skin tightens up since there seems to be less of it than there was even a month ago when I was 15 pounds heavier.) And I wasn’t happy with the way I looked. I wasn’t happy with my wardrobe and how other people saw me.

Of course I was proud of the journey, though. But I am constantly realizing that I have so much further to go. And I guess what I mean when I said I wasn’t worried about eating poorly for a few days was that I know how far I still have to go. I know exactly what I want to look like and I have a solid grasp on what it will take for me to get there.

I think that if I keep those thoughts in the front of my mind, then I will not fail. I really feel that I have changed my life in the last 65 days and that the future is brighter now than it has been since college.

Maybe I was rationalizing, but I was using solid collateral to back it up. I was taking the 45 pounds I have lost to date and giving some back with the knowledge that they would come back to me. And if that doesn’t make sense, then remember that it is 11:30 p.m. and I am tired.

A few highlights from the trip that are worth mentioning.

First, back at the hotel after the championship game, the head coach used a phone call I had to leave the room during an interview. While he was gone, he somehow figured out that there were two girls giving it up to his players in their room. So he got the key to their room, went in and threw the girls out and ripped into his players for letting them in. As a horny male, I think it was a bad move by the coach because that is just outright cock blocking. But as someone who respects authority and, more importantly, that the coach is a man of integrity who tries to teach his players about life, instead of just basketball, I think it was a great move. I like the fact that this coach cares about his players as people and not just as basketball cattle.

Also, the second day I was there, the team I covered was getting ready to play a 1 p.m. game in an empty gym. Right before tip, I was doing a quick radio pregame spot. In mid-sentence the play by play guy nudges me and points to an old guy walking slowly up the stands. I thought he was making fun of the guy and I thought that was kind of mean. But I looked a little closer, it was Bobby Knight. He was there to recruit one of the players from the team I cover. I was a little star struck. This guy is a college basketball icon. He has a show on ESPN (Which oddly I was watching the night before with the coaches). I didn’t complete another sentence during the radio interview.

There is a place around Wyoming and Colorado called Sanfords. Sanfords has the best shrimp pasta I have ever had. I loved it and I MADE love to it.

I learned something about my new body. It really doesn’t like grease, red meat or delicious things that aren’t Subway. It tells me this by forming a pain ball in my upper abdomen (much like the one that formed after the Wendy’s episode a few weeks ago.) and won’t relent until it is forced out through the top or bottom. This led to a very unexpected and ugly episode at the arena Sunday night. Let’s just say that the pavement next to my parking spot that night has now been christened in a very bad way. Stupid chicken and noodles. But hey, I learned my lesson after the third time it happened this week. I guess we all learn from repetition.

The team I covered lost the championship game in double overtime. That is bad news because they probably deserved to win. But that is good news because I don’t have to go to Kansas at the end of the month for the national tournament. That means that it is business as usual from here on out. No more buffets, no more long road trips and no more grease.

And you know what? I was right. I got back on the diet like a fucking champ. Thursday I was back on the 1,500 calories or less bandwagon. I started the day with a bowl of Special K from the hotel’s breakfast buffet (2% milk though, all they had) and then checked out. On the six-hour drive home I enjoyed some beef jerky, then stopped off in Casper, Wyoming for Subway (Club, no cheese) and then caught up with the team in Cheyenne to eat with them at Taco John’s (Where I got just a Diet Pepsi). I came home, realized my fridge was empty (I cleaned it out before I left so nothing would stink up the house while I was gone) and went to Subway for dinner. Today I only ate three times and went to Subway twice because I had no time to go shopping. But I feel good. I am officially back, baby. There are 35 days left until the 100 days is over. I want to lose 25 more pounds. It all starts right now.