What's New?

Yesterday, I sort of thumb-nailed the upcoming four month's expectations. Today I will go a little more in depth as to what I expect from myself in the final days for the drive.  What will I eat?  What exercise will be involved?  What will you read about here?

One of the pieces of the puzzle that I laid out in the "Home Stretch Reboot" post was that the daily offerings would be shorter.  Somehow I will need to have a brevity gene implanted into me sometime soon.  If you know me, or anyone else in my family, brevity is not our strong suit.  Ask us the time and we'll tell you about a distant, long-dead relative that made watches for a Czar.  The daily posts will gradually ease into a recap of what I did that day, how I felt, any angst I may have faced staring down my demons and, hopefully, the good-humored information you have come to expect.  Yes, the first couple of days where I explain the framework will take up more space, but I promise you, if you show up here daily, you should be in and out quickly.  Think somewhere between a Post-It® note and an index card's worth of info.

Exercise is more critical now than ever.  I calculate that if I can exercise daily, enough to burn at least 300 calories, I can add more than 11 lbs. to the weight loss tally.  Currently my countdown ticker says there are 129 days left until I turn the big Five-O (Great...now we will all have 70's TV theme music stuck in our heads for a while.  Sorry!  Book'em, Dano.)  129 days times 300 calories equals 38,700 calories burned.  At 3500 calories per pound, it works out to about 11 lbs.  What is 300 calories worth of exercise?  For me, it's about 35 minutes of walking at a 3 MPH pace.  That will change as I lighten the load, of course, but all I need is a rough idea to execute this well.

Gotta eat, right?  One of the unfortunate draw backs of being a food addict and attempting great weight loss is the need to eat.  I've researched the viable alternatives and while decomposition is certainly effective at shedding pounds, death isn't an option.  So, eat I will.  In the next month or so until my weigh-in I will limit meat of all kinds.  Chicken and turkey will be my very occasional indulgence.  Mostly I plan on a vegetable based diet that is supplemented with fish, minimal, but some dairy, no alcohol and little, or no bread.  A few of these tenets were devices that made me successful early on. Once allowances were made for drinking, dairy and meat, they became more and more pervasive in my daily routine and I faltered.  Back to basics, as they say.  Back to what gave me success before.

That about sums up what my life "should" look like for the next 129 days.  If life was a compilation of realized "shoulds" we'd all be rich, thin and brilliant, right?  I'll do my best reach for these expectations and roll with the punches that life throws my way.

Cya next time,
M

What I ate today and how I exercised:
Breakfast ~ A much more successful smoothie concoction today.  1 small cooked beet, 1 carrot, 1/2 frozen banana, 1/4 red bell pepper, 3/4 cup spinach leaves and about 3/4 cup of unsweetened vanilla almond milk. A very tasty accompaniment to reading my work emails on the patio.

Lunch ~ Health Magazine voted this the #2 best fast food lunch and I have to agree.  It's Starbucks Protein Bistro Box: 370 calories, a little high in fat but tolerable.  I also enjoyed a Skinny Iced Decaf Caramel Macchiato for 90 calories.
Dinner ~ Pan-seared Mahi Mahi over sauteed spinach and pan-roasted broccoli.  Deeeeelicious. 
Exercise ~ A 3 mile Leslie Sansone walking video.  
Find it here ----> YouTube Walking Video