Diet Log: Week 7, Day 5

The other day, I was researching why Water is supposedly better for the dieter than Soda. So I googled "water better than diet soda for dieting and I did not really find any answers, but I did find this really cool video of what I can do with all of my leftover Diet Pepsi . Rest assured that I will try this out for myself, and since my Nieces and Nephew are in-town this weekend, I will be teaching them how to do it as well.

I was initially disappointed in water week, but I had a pretty good day yesterday, so maybe there is something to it after all. I will say this - I have STUCK to it a little better than any of my other previous schemes. I may even keep it up for a while - maybe not rigorously, but I will try to cut down on how much Diet Soda I drink.

Workout: 45 minutes on the treadmill + 40 pushups and situps. I watched the first half of last night's American Inventor which was pretty fun because I got into the show kind of late, so most of those things I had never seen before. I am disappointed in their choice for the outrageous inventions, though. I thought the "Naughty Knot" (sorry, no link - my little brother reads this) was way more outrageous than some of the ones they chose. I think they had a hard time distinguising "Outrageous" from just plain stupid.

Weigh-in: - 19. Woohoo! all new low. Now we're getting somewhere.

Breakfast: 2 oranges and an apple. About 140 Calories.

Lunch: applebees Quesedilla burger. I don't know how many Calories - probably too many.

Dinner:Tacos again, and for some reason I felt like rewarding myself with some peanut-butter-cup ice cream from lone oak, so I had some of that, too - just a small amount, though.

Total for the day ???

Continued

Diet Log: Week 7, Day 4

Workout: 45 minutes on the treadmill + 40 pushups and situps.

Weigh-in: Still holding at -17. So far, water week has not impressed me.

Breakfast: 2 small oranges and a banana. About 190 calories.

Lunch: Maruchan Noodles w/shrimp left over from Noodle week. 290 Calories.

Snack: 1 twinkie. 150 Calories.

Snack: 16 reduced fat Wheat Thins w/ low-fat spreadable swiss cheese. 165 Calories.

Dinner: 3 tacos - no sour cream, light on the cheese. 500 calories.

Total for the day: 1295

Continued

Diet Log: Week 7, Day 3

No time for an intro today, I'll get right to it:

Workout: 45 minutes on the treadmill + 40 situps and pushups. When the treadmill went crazy this morning, it seemed like I was able to keep up with it longer than normal.

Weigh-in: -17. Better.

Breakfast: A banana, and an orange. About 170 Calories.

Lunch: I met a friend for Lunch today, and when I got there, he had already ordered my a Diet Pepsi (apparently doesn't read this blog). So, not wanting to let it go to waste, I drank it - but I only drank one instead of my typical 6 or 7. (alright, just kidding - usually 2 or 3 - unless i'm thirsty). I asked the waitress to bring me ice water as well, and drank two glasses of that. For food, I had the grilled Chicken Ceasar Salad. They do not have nutritional info on any menu items except the specific weight watchers one, but based on the size of the salad, I can interpolate from other Chicken ceasar salads I have had recently - about 600-700 calories. Hopefully it will keep me full enough to get all the way through Awana tonight without stopping at McDonalds.

Dinner: A can of Mushroom soup, a smoked turkey sandwich made with Light Miracle Whip and another oz. of cape cod Sea Salt and Vinager chips. About 650 calories.

Total Calories for the day: 1520.

Total water consumption for the day: .5 liter (16.9 oz) with breakfast, + 3 cups (probably about 10 oz) at my desk throughout the morning, 2 20 oz glasses at lunch, another 10 oz cup in the afternoon + another half liter bottle. A half-liter bottle on the way home from work, and two large glasses of it at dinner. Pretty sure I got to my goal of 1 gallon, but I'm too lazy to add it all up.

Number of trips to the bathroom: I lost count.

Continued

Diet Log: Week 7, Day 2

I keep hearing more anecdotal evidence about how drinking water helps lose weight, but not one person has been able to explain why. What is the science behind it? I must know!
It's not clear to me why one 0 calorie drink would be better for losing weight than another. What does Water do? Does it raise your metabolism? Does it prevent your body from absorbing more food than it needs? I'm not doubting anybody's stories, but it would be nice to understand what exactly is going on. Considering this is a very Scientific process already, I cannot afford to have it damaged by crackpot experiments.

It's been about 36 hours now since I have had any Diet Pepsi - or any substantial quantity of caffeine - and so far the side effects are not too bad. No headaches or anything like that. I DID doze off during Episode 12 of the 2nd Season of the Jack Bauer Show (some of you may refer to it as 24) and I had to re-watch parts of it this morning during my workout. The ride to work this morning was a little adventurous, but fortunately, my no-caffeinated drinks week coincides with the week I am driving my parents car to work instead of mine.

workout: 45 minutes on the treadmill and 40 pushups and situps.

Weigh-in: Still holding at -16. I wonder if I'm retaining water. Maybe I'm not drinking enough of it.

Breakfast: One Medium-to-large sized orange and a 20 oz bottle of "Dasani" water. Calories: about 65.

Lunch: Decided to go out to lunch today. Went to Boston Market and ordered a Turkey Carver Sandwich. Like A dummy, I ordered the combo out of sheer habit. Now, one of the things I hate the most is not getting my money's worth out of something, so here I am standing there with cup in my hand thinking that I just paid an extra $1 for a glass of water. Sorry - couldn't do it. I got the lemonade. It still achieves my real goal of not drinking soda, but is technically a violation. Sigh. I'm not very good at sticking to ANYTHING. Even for one stinking day!. Another source of frustration was when I realized that what I really wanted was the macaroni and cheese for a side item. I figured it would be pretty high in calories, so I asked for a side salad instead. She gave me a CEASAR salad - might as well have just had the Macaroni. I made the most of it and only used a small portion of the Ceasar dressing, so the Salad was only about 150 calories. When I was ordering I figured - how can I go wrong with a turkey sandwich? Then I got back to my desk and looked at their website. HOLY CRAP!!!!!! 830 Calories for a sandwich! I should have gone to D'angelos and had a steak and cheese - or to McDonalds for a couple of double cheeseburgers and saved myself $6 All in all, including the lemonade, it was about an 1100 calorie lunch. Ouch. On the plus side, I am pretty full, so maybe I won't need a big dinner.

Dinner: My wife made BLT's for dinner, which aren't actually that bad (as long as you don't eat 6 of them) - even with real mayo, they come in at about 300 calories. I had two, plus 1 0z of cape cod Salt and Vinager Chips. Calories: 750

Total Calories for the day: 1915

Continued

Diet Log: Week 7, Day 1

So it turns out that Egg Week was not all it was cracked up to be. By Thursday afternoon I had all but given up. (although I DID have an egg-based breakfast Sandwich on Friday morning). What with the game on Thurs. night, and then a company function with nothing but delicious appetizers for lunch on Friday and Chinese food on Friday night (although I did manage to eat an egg-roll), I had too many things that made it difficult to count calories. In addition, there was the fact that I missed my workout on Thursday AND Friday mornings as well.

So anyway, I am going to change things up a little bit this week. A good friend of mine who shall remain nameless (lives in South Berwick and we never see him anymore) tried to convince me the other day that the best way to lose weight is to drink water. He couldn't really explain why, though. Now obviously, water is going to be better for losing weight than milkshakes, delicious Dunkin Donuts Lattes, cool-aid, Regular Soda, etc... but is it better than say fruit juice? And what about Diet Soda? Diet Soda admittedly is a pretty worthless food as far as nutritional value goes, but for losing weight is it different than drinking water? It is zero calorie just like water. He couldn't answer these questions, but he swears that it works. He even said he knew a guy once that did a study on it and found that it's true. Well, that's different, why didn't you say so in the first place? So, armed with this incontrovertible scientific evidence, I am going to make this week "Water Week"

This will be difficult for me. My beverage of choice is Diet Pepsi - and I drink an enormous quantity of it. probably 2-3 cans per day on my daily commute, plus a 20 oz glass or so at meals (way more if its a restaraunt with "free" refills), plus a few more while I'm sitting around watching TV or working in the office at night (or replacing a hot water heater). On average I probably drink a whole 2-liter per day or more. So this week, I will try to drink nothing but water. If I am feeling drowsy during my commute, I will permit myself ONE caffeine-based drink to keep myself from falling asleep and ramming my car into a bridge abutment (after all, what good is it to be healthy if you are already dead?). But other than that, it will be all water - especially with meals.

I'm sure this will be healthier for me, but will it help me lose weight? We shall see.

To reward myself for this sacrifice, I am going to allow myself to eat whatever I want. The other rules of my diet still apply - I will be still be counting calories, and limiting my consumption, but I will not focus on one specific food this week.

Weigh - in: - 16. ouch. Not sure if it was the egg week or the fact that I didn't really stick to it. Actually considering that I have not worked out since last Wednesday, that's not too bad. I've been hovering around the - 15 mark for a while now, and it would be nice to get well past it.

Workout: Oh, man - It was obvious this morning that I hadn't worked out in since last Wednesday. 45 minutes on the treadmill and then 40 pushups and 40 situps. The treadmill apparently enjoyed it's little vacation, because it took nearly 20 minutes to start acting up this morning.

BreakfastI was rummaging around in the refrigerator and found some Yogurt that my wife had purchased for me some time ago, but I never ate because I was on this wacky diet. I looked at them - one was Hannaford Brand Banana Cream flavor, dated April 25. The other was Walmart brand Strawberry flavor, dated April 22. I shook them both and they sounded a little weird, but since there was nothing else in the house, I decided to give them a shot. Up first was the banana Cream stuff - when I opened it, it had a consistency that more like milk than yogurt and I found it was actually easier to drink it than use a spoon. (very convenient since I was driving at the time). It actually didn't taste too bad. Next up was the Strawberry stuff. When I opened it, it looked very chunky - and not from chunks of fruit, either. It also had an odd smell to it. However, I decided to give it a try. After one bite, though, I decided I was better off without it. Calories: 120

Lunch: Went downstairs and had a ham and swiss cheese sandwich with just a tiny bit of mayo. (Dieting Hint: If you can't stand the taste of "light" mayo, then try using a very small quantity of regular mayo. A little bit of flavor actually goes a long way, but if you can keep your sandwich to 1/2 or less of a serving, then it's not that bad for you). I turned down the chips in favor of the pretzels for the side dish. They are not a LOT lower calorie, but they are a little, and they are fat-free. About 500 calories.

Dinner two SMALL pieces of steak (about 4 oz each) and some Pasta Salad. oh - and some leftover pad thai from last week. I have to estimate this one, but I'm thinking no more than 700-800 calories.

Total Calories for the day: 1320-1420 ?

Continued

Diet Log: Week 6, Day 5

Today has been a really bad, awful, terrible, no good day - so far. For the second day in a row , I missed my workout. This time it was intentional, though. The hot water heater leak has gotten worse, so I had to drain it yesterday. That meant there was no hot water available for showers this morning so I decided the best plan would be to skip the shower AND the workout. (I had a shower yesterday afternoon right before I drained it, so it's not QUITE as gross as it seems) The hard-boiled egss are all gone, so I decided to leave without eating breakfast. My car is in the shop for repairs, so I had to borrow my parent's car. Of course, I left my EZ-PASS transponder in MY car, so I realized for the first time in months I had to come up with some change for the tolls. All I had in my wallet was a 20, which I COULD have used, but the car was also nearly out of gas, so I figured I would get gas, grab an egg-based sandwich at the burger king across the street, and get some change for the tolls all at the same time. So I got my breakfast sandwich - I decided to try their new "french toast" sausage egg sandwich, took a bite and decided that it was really not a very good sandwich. At $4.37 for the meal, it was not a very good value, that's for sure. The bread they use to make their "french toast" just tasted weird. It also tasted a little bit burnt to me. So anyway, I get back on the highway and cruise on down to the dover tolls, only to discover that I did NOT have any change still. I HAD DRIVEN OFF AT THE BURGER KING DRIVE THROUGH WITHOUT MY CHANGE. So I had to loop back around, PAY the toll AGAIN, go back to Burger King, get my change, get BACK on the highway, and go back through the toll and pay it ONE MORE TIME. Just not a good way to start out the day.

Workout: None

Weigh-in: No shower, so once again I didn't do it. I DID do an informal weigh-in yesterday afternoon, and I was still holding at -17, so that's not too bad. It's hard to compare because it was at a different time of day than normal after I had eaten breakfast AND lunch.

Breakfast: French Toast Egg Sausage Sandwich from Burger king - complete with Hash Browns. I wasn't going to eat the Hash browns, but after paying nearly $9 ($4.37 for the meal + $1 for the extra 2 tolls + $3 for the gallon of gas I burned going back for my change) for the stupid meal and not even LIKING the sandwich I was determined to get my Money's worth. Calories: 640 - not actually that bad, considering.

Total Calories for the day: 640

Continued

Diet Log: Week 6, Day 4

Apparently I spurred some discussion about swallowing gum Yesterday. Let me put your fears about old wives tales to rest. The tale goes that gum will stay in your stomach for seven years. This is false. The truth is that there is no harm in swallowing the occasional piece of gum. It is true that it is not digestable, but in truth a lot of the stuff we eat on a daily basis is not digestable. That is what bowel movements are for - the body getting rid of indigestible stuff. The unique thing about gum is that there is NO PART of it that is digestable, so it comes back out largely intact - kind of like the little lego pieces we all swallowed when we were kids. So, while it may be true that if you sit a piece of gum in a pool of stomach acid, it will take 7 years to dissolve (no idea, I'm just speculating) there is no way your body will allow that to happen.

The only exception is if you swallow a large quantity of it in a relatively short period of time. Kind of like if you are on an ATV trip and need to consume an entire pack to get rid of the horrible taste left in your mouth from licking the coal-dust-mud off of your glasses. In that case it would be best not to swallow it. There is a danger that if you swallow a large enough amount, it can all stick together and become to large to pass through the bowels. This is particularly true if you have also eaten a large quantity of other stuff (like sunflower seeds) that is indigestable. It could make a giant sticky ball that will get stuck somewhere. However, I would submit that if you DO have a severe intestinal blockage, you would require surgery way before 7 years, so even in this case the old wives tale is false.

So, if you really enjoy swallowing your gum, go for it. But why? Is it THAT hard to find a trash can or the bottom of a table somewhere? If you are going to swallow it, why not just save your body the the trouble and spit it directly into the toilet?

Workout: I slept in this morning and did not get to work out.

Weigh-in: Partially because I am working from home this morning, and partially because I have a leaky hot water tank, I have not had a shower yet today, so I haven't weighed myself.

Breakfast: Egg Salad on toast. I cannot believe I have gone almost 4 days on the egg diet and still haven't had an omelet which is pretty much my all-time favorite breakfast food. Calories: 200

Lunch: Finally got my Omelet. Three Eggs + a generous amount of mushrooms + a sprinkling of cheese and ham. About 300 Calories

Dinner: Went to the Sox game tonight, so I had a sausage, but was able to hold off on the Fenway Franks. I went to the game with my wife, and since we get so few nights out by ourselves, we didn't want the night to end. As it happens, our car was parked at the prudential center, which also happens to house a CheeseCake Factory, so we decided to go out to dinner. I had the "Ranch House Burger" which is described as "pieces of steak, covered in sauteeed Onions, Mushrooms, Bacon and cheese ON TOP of a burger." mmmmmmm.... I did have a small victory in that I only hate half of it and was able to push the other half away and declined a piece of the delicious cheesecake. Calories? I don't know and right now I don't care.

Calories for the day: 500 until dinner and then after that I have no idea.

Continued

Diet Log: Week 6, Day 3

I have been curious for a long time about the Nutritional Information found on packs of gum. The particular brand I prefer to chew is "Wrigley's Eclipse"

Anyway, this gum has 5 calories in it. I have often wondered - Are the calories absorbed merely by the chewing? Or do you actually have to swallow the gum? If they are absorbed by the chewing, then do you ingest Additional calories if you swallow it? If I chew a whole pack of gum in a day, the results could be a significant part of my calorie count. So I decided to pose the question. Unfortunately, I did not save the content of my actual question, and they chose not to include it as part of their reply, so I cannot share the actual question with you - those of you that know me can probably imagine the things I had to say.. This was Three days ago. Today, I got THIS reply. (note, I did NOT use my real name. The form on the website required a name, and due to privacy issues I usually put in a fake name. However, I wanted them to answer the question, so I did not want any of my favorite OBVIOUSLY fake name like "John Doe", "John Johnson", "James Jameson", "King Tut", "Fakey Fakerson III", etc.. SO, I chose the name "Quentin Prey")

**************************

Dear Quentin,

Thank you for contacting the Wrigley Company to request information.
We are always happy to hear from our consumers and will be happy to
answer your question.

In response to your request, the five calories are released from the
gum when you start to chew it. You do not get the calories by swallowing
the gum get them from chewing the gum.

We thank you once again for taking time to contact us.

Sincerely,

Melissa Griffin
Consumer Affairs Representative

**************************

Anyway, In case anybody else has been wondering, there it is. I will try to include pieces of gum in my daily calorie count. By the way, to Melissa for being a good sport and taking seriously what was probably a silly question and a waste of her valuable time (despite the fact that she was obviously in a bit of a hurry when writing that last sentence). Just for that, I am going to give Eclipse a free Plug here - If you like to chew gum, chew Eclipse. It is tasty, makes your breath smell nice (somebody actually said that to me), and the flavor last longer than most gums. At $1.19 for 12, it is a little pricey, but you can get the three-pack for $1.99 at Walmart, or you could go to BJ's and get the 12-pack for about $6.

Workout: 45 minutes on the treadmill. I watched an old taped version of The new adventures of Old Christine. That is really a horrible show. I have watched a couple of episodes, only because I will usually give anybody that used to be on Seinfeld a chance. But I cannot stress how awful this show is. I would rather watch The View - well, maybe not. But it's pretty close. Also did the requisite 40 pushups and situps.

Weigh-in: -17 Woohoo! I was afraid that taking the lower value yesterday would come back to haunt me today, but I guess not. This is an all new low.

Breakfast: 2 hardboild eggs. 152 Calories

Lunch: Another Egg-Salad sandwich. I have forgotten how much I like Egg-salad. I think I could eat it every day (if not for the crippling amounts of cholseterol) especially with nice fresh crispy lettuce and tomatoes. Also served with the sandwich instead of the chips I chose a salad. Today the salad du Jour was some sort of mystery leaf (looked kind of like spinach leaves but tasted like air - so it must have been some fancy type of lettuce), shredded carrots, and shredded cabage with a single solitary tomato piece in there. It also had this pink dressing on top, but when I started eating it, I realized what looked like pink dressing was really water from the washing of the mystery leaves that had absorbed some of the color (but not the flavor - because there IS none) of the cabbage. I cannot imagine there are any calories in such a worthless salad, so I will just count the ones from the sandwich - about 400.

Pieces of Gum: up to 2 so far, but the one in my mouth is starting to taste a little bit like poo - so I will probably spit it out pretty soon. Let's say 3. 15 Calories:

Dinner: Got home and discovered that we are totally out of eggs. Apparently, the rest of my family has followed my lead - so unless I wanted to make a late-night run to the market, I had to get creative. I started with a bowl of salad and put Ceaser dressing (egg yolks in the dressing) on it for about 200 Calories. Then I had a small bowl of leftover pasta with the Alfred sauce (also made with egg yolks) for another 200. I was still pretty hungry, though. I found 3/4 of a Burger King Chicken parmesean sandwich in the fridge which my wife did not care for. I can see why - it wasn't very good. Unfortunately, Burger King has a horrible website with no mention of this particular sandwich, so I have to guess. I cannot imagine it is any worse than the one from Wendys, so I'm going to estimate 400 Calories. Total for dinner: 800 calories.

Calories for the day: 1367

Continued

Diet Log: Week 6, Day 2

For those you check out this blog for their daily dose of comedic relief I apologize in advance. I am short on time today. I am working from home today because my Hot Water tank is leaking, and In the hour that I choose for lunch I need to somehow find time to fix that AND do my taxes, which are also due today. Unfortunately, in my ghetto plumbing system, the shutoff valve to the Hot Water Tank supply does not work at all. So I have to back up to the next closest working shutoff which shuts off ALL water to both of my bathrooms. I have discovered a temporary solution, but I don't think it's workable for the long term. The shop vac is able to keep up with the leak, so I can put the shop vac hose right at the leak (held down by some towels which are conveniently soaking wet from sopping up all the water) and turn it on whenever I need water to that side of the house (or hot water to anywhere). I have thought about making everybody pretend that we are on a car trip, so we will just have scheduled bathroom breaks every couple of hours. I will turn on the water, and the shop vac, we all use the bathroom, and then I turn it back off for a couple of hours. I think my wife would probably shoot me, though. Anyway, I digress:

Workout: 45 minutes on the treadmill + 40 pushups + 40 situps. My treadmill is starting to act up somewhere between 8-10 minutes into the workout. Not sure how much longer before it totally gives up the ghost. Kind of worried about that because I can't afford a new one right now (well, maybe I can if my water heater doesn't blow up - but I don't want to), and the thought of actually walking or running without a TV to keep my from thinking about how much I HATE walking or running might make me want to stay in bed an extra hour a day. If worse comes to worse, I could work out at work, but that means using the communal showers....

Weigh-In: I stepped on the scale twice. The first time it registered -15, and the second time it registered -16.5. In light of the way the rest of my day is shaping up, I'm going to cling to the -16.5 (all new low - woohoo!) as one small bright spot.

Breakfast: Like yesterday - two hardboiled eggs. These ones were a more palatable blue color. I'm guessing they were the handiwork of my oldest daughter.

Lunch: Two cereal-size bowls of chef's salad each with half of a crumbled egg and some Ham on top. The first bowl had Parmesean Peppercorn Ranch dressing (170 calories - not really worth it). The second bowl I went with the Fat Free Italian - which actually tastes better. Calories: about 400

Dinner: Made the mistake of going to my oldest son's baseball game BEFORE bothering to eat any dinner or feed the other kids. By the time it was over at 7:15 everybody was STARVING and we had kind of promised them Wendy's. Now, Wendy's doesn't really have anything with eggs in it, but I realized that a chicken is nothing more than an adult egg, and therefore chicken is acceptable. Fortunately, the rules committee was as hungry as everybody else, so my request was quickly approved. I had the SPICY CHICKEN sandwich, but I gave my fries away. I was still hungry a little while later, so I also had about 1/5 of my wife's leftover Homestyle Chicken Sandwich. Calories: 612 Calories.

Snack: another small egg-salad sandwich. approx 200 calories.

Total Calories for the Day: 1364

Continued

The Incredible, Edible Egg (Diet Log: Week 6, Day 1)

I was planning an article about placing blame for my weight problem on Holidays, and if you're going to blame a holiday, Easter is a good one for me. I love eggs in just about any form - but especially deviled. I also Much prefer Ham over turkey and Potato salad is way better than stuffing or mashed potatoes, so for that reason Easter is (for me) way more dangerous than say Thanksgiving or even Christmas. However, it occurred to me that blaming Easter for my weight problem would be tantamount to blaming Jesus for my problems - which I certainly don't want to do, even in jest. So I decided that for this week only, I will take responsibility for my own problems.

In honor of Easter, though, (and because we have 4 dozen hard-boiled eggs in our refrigerator that need to be used up) I have decided to make this EGG WEEK. Now, an egg has approximately 76 calories, so if I go with ONLY eggs, I would need to consume over 26 of them per day to fill up a 2000 calorie diet. This would be fine with me except that each one contains approx 200mg of cholesterol. 26 eggs would be 5200 mg which is approximately 18 TIMES more than the daily limit. I don't think I have a cholesterol problem, but I don't want to start one either, so I will expand the diet a little bit to dishes FEATURING eggs. I realize this is actually a pretty big list so we'll see how it works out.

Workout: 40 minutes on the treadmill. I Cut the workout a little short today because I had to go wake my son up. When I got off, I realized he was already up, but it didn't make sense to get back on for 5 more minutes. I started to do pushups and situps, but the dog would not leave me alone, so I gave up after 20 pushups.

Weigh-in: I felt fat from my Easter feast yesterday, so I opted to skip the weigh-in this morning. No news is good news!

Breakfast: 2 pea-green hardboiled eggs. They were the colors that only a 3-yr old makes when he decides to dip his eggs in several different colors. I got a little frightened when I looked up on this website I go to a lot and discovered that a serving was over 200 calories. Naturally, I had assumed that 1 serving of hard-boiled eggs was 1 egg. How silly of of me. Their idea of a serving was one-cup chopped - which is actually a lot of egg. Turns out a single hard-boiled egg is only about 76 calories. Total Calories: 152.

Lunch: Went to the cafeteria here at work and ordered egg salad on a tomato wrap. The sign posted says it is 58 calories per oz, and I'm guessing there are about 6 oz. of egg salad. I also had lettuce and tomato on it. Then I had a dilemma - Included in the price is always a handful of chips. You can decline the chips if you want, but it doesn't save you any money. Anybody who knows me knows that I have this driving need to always get my money's worth, so it is totall against my nature to turn something down that is in fact already paid for. Fortunately, today, the lunch lady helped noticed my hesitation and offere instead a "salad" that she had made out of cucumbers and tomatos and some sort of light vinagarette dressing. I gladly accepted a small serving of that in lieu of the chips. Anyway, the calories for the lunch are about 400.

Dinner: Two more Egg Salad Sandwiches (w lettuce and Tomato), with some pasta w/Alfredo sauce on the side (Alfredo sauce has eggs in it). Calories: about 650

Total for the day: 1202

Continued

Take Me out to the Ball Game

April 27, 2002, is a very special day for me as a Red Sox fan. A few weeks earlier, my oldest daughter was quite sick and ended up spending a couple of days in the hospital. While there, my son convinced me to enter a drawing for Red Sox tickets. He was quite positive that all you had to do to was sign up, and you would recieve the tickets. I carefully explained to him that this was a drawing, and thousands of people would enter, so we would not be likely to win - so don't get his hopes up. He seemed like he understood this little lesson - that is until a couple of weeks later when someone from the Hospital called to say we had WON the tickets!!! (He still shouldn't have gotten his hopes up, because when my wife saw them she decided she would rather that I take HER instead of him.) These tickets were really good Box seats about 8 rows behind the Red Sox dugout for a game on Saturday, April 27. Another bonus - the tickets included a free parking pass at the parking lot that was a block away from Fenway park.

We went to the game - it was a beautiful Saturday afternoon. This was my wife's RedSox game and she was very excited. It was a great game too. Along about the 6th inning, a buzz started to go through the crowd. People started to notice that Derek Lowe had not yet given up any hits. As the game went on, excitement started to build. When we stood up for the 7th inning stretch, almost nobody sat back down again. 32,000 people stayed on their feet for the last 2 innings. We were now cheering each pitch. As the 9th inning started the place was in a frenzy. Every pitch was greeted with cheers that were louder than the one before. The first batter was Russ Johnson, who was quickly dispatched when his soft line drive was caught. We all held our breath when Feliz Escalona hit fly ball to Center Field, but cheered wildly when it dropped into Rickey Henderson's glove. When Jason Tyner hit the ground ball to Second Baseman Rey Sanchez for the third out, the whole stadium exploded. We knew that this was truly special moment. This was the first no-hitter at Fenway park since 1965 - witnessing it live was truly a once in a lifetime experience. After the game was over, there was none of the usual quick exodus - people pushing and shoving to get out the door faster in hopes of beating the traffic or getting to the subway before everyone else.... No, on this day every fan stood rooted to their spots cheering and screaming for at least 15 minutes as if we wanted an encore - not wanting the moment to end. Eventually it did end - Derek Lowe Did come back out and adress the crowd for a few minutes - But we all left the stadium that day feeling like we had been a part of something very special (even though - in reality - we had nothing to do with it other than just watching it).

Unfortunately, I have been paying the price for this day ever since. The Red Sox have LOST EVERY GAME that I have been to since. And not usually just any loss - most of the time it has been a blowout. We're talking the kind of blowout where the game is over by the end of the first or second inning. This season has been no exception. Last Wednesday, I went to a game and the score was 5-0 at the end of the second inning. On Saturday, I was taking my wife and the two boys, and we had amazing seats - first row of the Loge Box over by Third Base. I guess 3-0 is not quite a blowout, but it is still a loss, and the Sox were never really in it. Ah well, It was still a great time. My wife and oldest son are turning into fans as devoted as I am. My youngest son just happy to have his own seat (last year we took advantage of the "2 and under are free" policy and subsequently had to hold him in our laps the whole game). He was pretty excited about the Hot Dogs and the Ice Cream in the mini baseball helmet though. A person in one of the rows behind us commented on the folly of "wasting" such a great seat on a 3-yr old. Folly or not, it was worth it. After the game, the kids got to go down on the field and run around the bases which they thoroughly enjoyed. They also got to meet Wally the Green Monster, Lefty and Righty (socks - the new mascots), and my personal favorite -Kelly the Ball girl. Also in attendance were Pat Patriot, Blades the Bear (Bruins Mascot), and the creepy Leprechaun dude who runs around doing flips at Celtics games (not sure what his name is, but if I had a Leprechan, I would name him Larry - "Larry the Leprechaun" just has a nice ring to it doesn't it?")

All in all, a good time was had by all. I will try to post some pictures later (after I've had a chance to photoshop my Fat Butt out of them)

Continued

Diet Log: Week 5, Day 4

So, after yesterdays partial fast, my wife accused me of being grouch because my bload sugar was probably low. I did not think I was grouchy. However, I have this one (and only one - in every other way I am perfect) personality quirk... I am usually one of the most cheerful people you will meet, but nothing makes me grouchy faster than being ACCUSED of being grouchy. It's weird - it's always like a self fulfilling prophesy (or at least a wife-fulfilling prophesy). So anyway, I WAS grouchy after she said that and decided not to repeat that today. Another downside was that I woke up ravenously hungry - it was actually painful. An upside though was that it helped me get back on track somewhat (of course, going into a weekend, who knows WHAT will happen)

Workout: 45 minutes on the treadmill. 30 situps and pushups - each without any rest in between.

Weigh-in: -14.5. woohoo!

Breakfast: I was all out of fruit salad, and I knew I had a lot of meetings at work again today, so in order to avoid the problems of yesterday I had a HAM SALAD sandwich from the local Gas Station. mmmm.. yummy. I was hoping for chicken salad (in my opinion, the king of all mayonaise-based salads). About 500 calories.

Lunch: nothing.

Dinner: Started out with a regular salad, followed by chicken salad sandwiches. I made my own chicken salad out of Light Miracle whip. It was ok. As far as Miracle whip goes, the light stuff isn't that bad, but Miracle whip is a little too sweet and doesn't quite give the same flavor as Mayonnaise. Calories: 700 (half of which was in the bread)



Total Calories for the day: 1200

Continued

Diet Log: Week 5, Day 3

I would like to add another guilty member to the list of people (in addition to my wife, and my friends) that I can blame for making me fat: The Boston Red Sox.
I was at the game last night, and before I found my seat I bought a sausage (I had promised my son a Rem Dawg, but the were all out so we had to settle for sausages). That wasn't too bad, but then in the first two innings David Wells starts getting hit HARD. Midway through the second inning, I had also consumed two Fenway Franks, not because I was hungry, but because I needed to do SOMETHING to take my mind off the game. Afterwards, my son was starving, so we went to McDonalds and had quarter-pounders and small fries. So I'm going to add my son to the list as well. (Come to think of it, I have gained a bunch of weight since he was born 10 years ago, so maybe it's all mostly HIS fault).

Anyway, I got home late last night, and I was too tired to get up for my workout this morning. (still the Red Sox fault). I KNEW better than to try stepping on the scale, so I didn't. Then I had to dash to work without breakfast and have been in meetings all day since. I have not had a chance to eat yet, which I know is not good for me, blah, blah, blah, but it couldn't be helped today. My problem now is that it's 3:30 in the afternoon, the cafeteria is closed, I have another meeting at 4:00 so there isn't time to go anywhere, so the only food available to me is in the snack machine. In case you were wondering, they DON'T sell salad in the snack machine. So I must either wait for dinner or break the weekly regimen for the second day in a row. I haven't decided yet - stay tuned.

So my report so far today is very boring:

Workout: None

Weigh-in: Didn't do it

Breakfast: None

Lunch: None

First Dinner: I am the worst dieter ever. I can't even stick to my own rules. On the way home from work, I feared that I was so hungry I might die (not from hunger, but possibly from passing out and driving my car into a bridge abutment), and since that wouldn't be good for anybody I rationalized a stop by McDonalds on the way out of town. Now, I know Mcdonalds has salads, but have you ever tried to eat one while driving? Probably more risky than passing out from hunger. Plus they are expensive. So I settled on two double-cheeseburgers off the dollar menu. Calories: 880

Second Dinner: Got home safely and was still hungry, so I had two bowls of salad (no meat) with fat free Italian dressing - one of the few fat free dressings that don't taste like weasel vomit. I also topped it off with some Marinated Mushrooms I bought at the new Hannaford the other day - they are a little expensive ($6.99 a pound), but they do dress up a salad pretty well. Calories: about 300



Total Calories for the day: 1180

Continued

Diet Log: Week 5, Day 2

One of the problems with my diet plan is that it annoys my wife. This is the first week that hasn't annoyed her by Wednesday. She loves Salad, and really enjoyed my concoction last night. In her words "I think this is going to be a really good week". When I run out of ideas and have to go into summer re-runs, Salad week will be on top of my list. Of course, being the temptress that she is, she still helped herself to an Ice Cream sandwich for desert, while I had a second plate of Salad.

I opened up the refrigerator at work and remembered that I still had about a quart of milk left over from Cereal Week. Wondering if it was still good, I opened the lid for a sniff - which was a bit of a mistake. Oops. It was too nasty to pour down the drain without stinking up the kitchen, so I just threw it away. Hopefully the poor people who empty the trash don't do anything to break the bottle open.

I was shopping last night and found some fat free creamy Ceasar dressing. After tasting it, I discovered why these are such good diet foods - They are so disgusting that they will take away your appetite. Ugh. Fortunately I had purchased a backup bottle of regular Ceasar dressing, so I was able to enjoy the salad - even though the dressing ended up being about 400 calories all by itself.

Workout: 45 minutes on the treadmill. Judging by the amount of sweat dripping off me and being abosrbed into the living room carpet, I would say it was a better workout than yesterday.

Weigh-in: -12.5. Back on track with a little help from my friend: Lettuce.

Breakfast: Another bowl of Fruit Salad. It's not actually all gone yet - I will leave it on my desk and snack on it all day. I did manage to get off my lazy butt and look it up the ingredients though, and I calculate that it is approximately 300 calories.

Lunch Chicken Ceaser salad from d'angelos again. 537 Calories

Dinner They were out of RemDawgs at the game, so I had to satisfy myself with a sausage and 2 Fenway Franks. No idea about the calories.


Total Calories for the Day: 837 + Fenway Franks + Sausage

Continued

Diet Log: Week 5, Day 1

Anybody who has ever tried to go on a diet knows that it is a difficult thing to stick to when you are on vacation. For one thing, access to nutritional information is difficult. For another thing, you want to enjoy yourself while on vacation, which is generally the opposite of dieting. And then there is the long car ride. If you are the driver, there is nothing else to do. You HAVE to snack constantly - I'm pretty sure that's a law in some states. In my case, where I was going off with a bunch of my buddies, I knew it was going to be especially hard - with the all-you-can-eat-hot-wing contests, and the "Hey Big A, I bet you can't eat that 15 lb world record cheeseburger"



or the many cans of Easy Cheese and beef jerky that must be consumed, to say nothing of the difficulty of squeezing in the daily workout around all of the busy hours of sitting around watching TV in the hotel room. In order to not totally un-do all of the progress that one makes during a vacation, Dieting experts tend to recommend devising a strategy ahead of time. I decided to go with the bold new strategy of "NOT EVEN TRYING". While I did not enter any hot-wing contests, nor did I try to eat a 15 lb burger, I didn't really think about losing weight either. We stayed across the street from a Hardees which makes delicious burgers and milkshakes. While I argued constantly about the need to find some place with a salad bar, my friends dragged me to Hardees twice a day and insisted on force-feeding me huge burgers and enormous milkshakes. When I got home I decided to stay off the scale until this morning, hoping for some massive miracle bowel movement that would instantly shed all my vacation weight.

Anyway, since I was not very good last week, I decided to be extra good this week, so my food of the week will be salad - well, except for Wednesday. I have Red sox tickets for Wednesday's game, and I WILL be eating a RemDawg. If you don't know what a RemDawg is, I will try to take a picture. What constitutes a salad you ask? Well, I am going with a pretty loose definition. It can range from a traditional salad with leafy green vegetables to anything that gets chopped up and mixed with mayonnaise. The only requirement is that it has the word "salad" in its name.

Workout: 40 minutes on the treadmill. My treadmill computer has totally pooped out now - I have no idea how fast it is going or how many calories I am burning. I just speed up until my legs hurt and I try to maintain that speed. Sticking with 30 pushups and situps again this week. I backslid a little while on vacation, so I'm going to get back on the horse slowly.

Weigh-in: -11. eh, 3 lbs higher than my last official weigh in. Not great, but not bad considering I have been off the diet for nearly 10 days. (1 week + 2 weekends).

Breakfast: Fruit Salad. I don't know how many calories, because I accdentally threw away the lid. I don't even know what the quantity was - all I can say is it was a medium sized bowl of fruit.

Lunch: Chicken Ceasar Salad from D'angelo's. About 537 calories. This is a really good salad. It comes with a little piece of pita bread that you can break off and eat along side it, or dump the contents of the bolw into it and have a ceasar salad sammich pocket. mmmmm...... sammiches. I think I may have those next week.

Dinner: For dinner, I went with the Big A Grilled Chicken Salad. This is a salad of my own invention - A bed of lettuce topped with Tomatoes and Mushrooms, crumbled Feta Cheese, Grilled chicken Breasts and creamy Ceasar dressing (wishbone brand). This was delicious if I do say so myself. I had two heaping plate fulls. I have often thought I should be a chef - but as I was busy patting myself on the back, my darling wife reminded me that I didn't actually MAKE any of the salad - I merely dictated what should be in it. She's got a point there. I am good at inventing dishes, but actually cooking stuff is a pain in the neck. I guess I should be a HEAD chef - that way my "trainees" can do all the grunt work for me. About 800 calories.

Total Calories for the Day: 1337 + fruit salad

Note about the giant burger: Yes, that picture is really a 15 lb cheeseburger. It has 11.5 lbs of meat, 25 slices of cheese, 1 head of lettuce, 3 whole tomatoes, 2 large onions, 1.5 cups of peppers, and 1.5 cups each of mayo, mustard, ketchup. At 34.99, it actually seems like a bargain. If you look closely, the "plate" it is served on is actually a pizza pan. It is my dream to someday go to Dennys Beer Barrel Pub and take the Belly Buster Challenge. This is a two-man (or woman) competition, so if anybody would like to be my teammate, let me know.

Continued

Diet Log: Vacation Week

Well, I'm off to WV with the boys for some ATV'ing. I will try to eat sensibly, but won't be able follow any real diet, nor will I be able to post updates (high-tech in WV means having a toothbrush). Check back next Monday for an update.

Continued

Out to Lunch

Overheard at the new "Fossil's" restaurant in Milton (formerly spinales)

Wife to her blind Husband: "It sure is a lot brighter in here than it used to be"

Blind Husband: "Doesn't seem like it to me"

Wife: The pretty pictures on the wall or new too. TOO BAD YOU CAN'T SEE THEM"

Husband: "They look pretty much the same to me"

Wife (talking about me and MY wife): "Those PEOPLE are laughing at you."

Continued