Dan Nied's Fortress of Weight Loss: Day 13

THE COUNTER
Starting weight: 299
Last weigh-in: 287.8
Total pounds lost: 11.2
Pounds until 240: 47.8

What I ate today
Honestly, I really need to start tracking calories better.

Breakfast
2 Cups of Wheaties
1 ½ Cup of skim milk
Calories: 375
Fat: 0 grams

Snack
1 Handful (1 serving?) of what apparently are “Cheetos Puffs Cheese Flavored Snacks” (according to the website)
Calories: 160
Fat: 10 grams (I guess)

Lunch
1 Footlong Subway club,
1 Footlong Subway veggie
(yes, two feet of sandwiches, only four more for a party sub!)
Calories: 1,100
Fat: 18 grams

Dinner
2 Chicken breasts, 1 big, 1 small
Calories: 325 (a guess, since the bag of chicken says 120 calories per “piece”, yet one of these pieces was better than twice as big as the other. Somehow I don’t trust their rationalization on serving size.)
Fat: 4.5 grams

Total calories: 1,960 (according to my calculations. However, I don’t believe for a second that it was under 2,200)
Total fat: 32.5 (yikes)

Exercise: None. I am, for some reason, staying away from the gym right now. I don’t know why, but I do know that I will think about it and talk about it tomorrow.

So Monday was a bizarre day in the old Fortress.

As you can see, there were some odd eating choices. Will I rationalize them? Nope. But I will, however, point out that even with a handful of some sort of puffy Cheetos product and two footlong subs over the course of 15 minutes, I still managed to have a semi-acceptable calorie count.

I am fairly confident in those numbers, I suppose. Though I can’t be sure I only had one serving of the Cheetos product (but if not, it wasn’t much more), I used the nutritional value provided on the company’s Web site, as I did for Subway (I knew the count on the club, wasn’t sure on the veggie. By the way, it is less calories and fat if you get a double meat footlong club instead of a footlong club with a 6-inch veggie. Interesting, eh?)

But I think I should explain what happened on Monday, though it might not be that interesting.

The Cheetos came from my roommate, Ruben, a portly guy himself who, to be honest, eats like total shit at all times. He went shopping, as he is known to do, and came home precisely at the time that I was debating ordering a pizza. When I saw the Cheetos, which were not normal Cheetos but some sort of white-cheddar puffed out variation of Cheetos, I decided to go nuts. He offered, I accepted and grabbed a handful. Hey, why not warm myself up for that pizza?

But ultimately, I walked away from totally gorging and went to Subway instead, where I beefed up the normal club order with the veggie sub. That was sort of to reward myself for staying on the diet (sort of) and also to ensure that I would not want to order a pizza later on.

It worked, I’ll say. And I am proud to have salvaged a potentially damaging situation.

Now, why was I about to order a pizza? No, it wasn’t some irresistible craving, and it wasn’t a total breakdown of my self-concocted system. It was actually a give-and-take with myself, and a little bit of frustration at the limitations I’ve currently set in place.

There were two factors at work here.

1. When I woke up, I weighed a slight 287.8, a full 11.2 pounds less than when I began 12 days before. That, in my book, equals success, especially with how difficult it was to get started. So don’t I deserve a reward? Maybe. (Though I suspect weight gain tomorrow, based on high fat intake and a fairly high intake of sodium. Gotta hit that water tomorrow.)

2. Sunday had been my seventh straight day without a major screw up. My goal, if you remember, was to go 14 straight days without a screw up before my next scheduled off day. But after breaking the 10-pound barrier, I kind of felt I deserved a break. Perhaps the reason I felt I deserved a break is because I am kind of sick of eating low-calorie, low-fat foods every day. Yeah, it only took a week, some resolve I have. But still, the idea of choosing from the same six or seven foods I’ve had for the past week, and knowing that none of them tasted like melted cheese, was kind of frustrating.

So played a little game with myself, as many dieters do, in which I tried to convince myself that I deserved a day off. I’d been good, I’d seen results, I knew I could go back on the plan the next day (and I know I can). So why not let loose, especially with a major sporting event happening? (BCS title game, if you weren’t aware) So I briefly moved up the planned off day a week, and started thinking about most delicious yet economical pizza I could get.

In the end, though, I had to say no. The reason wasn’t just for the numbers on the scale, but really to set some sort of precedent with off-days.

I’ve said before that I will be taking off-days throughout this process. But I also have said that I want those to come on my terms. They won’t be the product of frustration or cravings. If I let that happen, then this whole thing could fall apart at any time. Indulgence one day leads to indulgence the next. I can tell myself that I can get back on the wagon at any time, but if I keep indulging, then the wagon will have passed me by, and I’ll have to wait for the next one to come around, which could take months.

Instead, I have planned the off-days, though they are subject to change within a reasonable time. The next scheduled off-day is on Monday, however I have given myself the option of moving it up to Friday, my next day off of work. I’ll decide by Thursday if I’ll take that option. Much of that will depend on the numbers on the scale, and the strength of my frustration with the current food choices.

But though I might be indulging on Friday or Monday, I also know for certain that I will be back eating low-calorie, low-fat food the next day, and the day after that, until the next scheduled break.