Diet Update

I have been shockingly busy this week at work - especially since I have NOTHING TO DO. My project was cancelled three weeks ago and not replaced with anything new yet. This week I have been helping somebody else fix a problem on THEIR boards, and by helping, I mean I have been attending meetings. Have you ever seen The Jack Bauer Show? Have you ever heard the head of CTU say he/she wants a status meeting every fifteen minutes and wondered when they were actually supposed to get the work done? That's pretty much what is going on here. We are having meetings, and pre-meetings to discuss what we are going to bring up in the meeting, and post-meetings to discuss what we are going to do between now and the next meeting (well, actually, the next pre-meeting or the PRE-pre-meeting). In between various managers and department heads keep stopping me in the hall for a private update on the situation because they are invariably on their way to some pre-meeting and/or meeting of their own where this will come up. For two days this week, I had to work remotely IN THE SAME BUILDING just so I could get some work done.

And of course every meeting has a bazillion and one managers in there, each with their own idea of what needs to be done next. Oh - and I almost forgot, here's the kicker - we solved the problem a week ago, but in doing so, saw something else that was a little weird but not a critical problem, until a bunch of the managers got wind of it.

soo... anyway, I HAVE been on my diet, but have not had time to post about it. This week I decided to eat whatever I felt like (in reasonable quantities), while testing one of the many,many,many diet supplements out there. Using a careful selection process (i.e grab the first one with a name I recognize and get out of that aisle as fast as I can before someone I know sees me) I chose Trimspa X32.

I bought a 5-7 day supply (30 pills) for $10. I knew right away there was no way I was going to spend $10 a week for a long period of time unless it had absolutely MAGICAL results, but I figured it would be worth a shot - and if not, it might be kind of fun....well, as much fun as a DIET can be.

Unfortunately, in my haste I did not read the back of the box until I had made my purchase - if I had, I might have chosen something else. First of all, it turns out that this particular product is pretty much just an appetite suppressant. AAARGH. I was hoping for some magic fat-burning, metabolism-boosting, carb-blocking, lose-weight-while-sitting-on-the-couch-watching-tv-and-eating-triple-cheeseburgers-and-pizza pills. This supplement still requires diet and exercise! Why bother? I can do that on my own and save myself $10 a week. Supposedly it is an appetite suppressant, but That has never really been my problem. I eat because I love food, and I eat foods that are bad for me. If I only ate when I was hungry, I wouldn't be in this situation in the first place? So what good is an appetite suppressant going to do me?

Reading further, I found something even more disconcerting - actually a little terrifying. (I'm paraphrasing a little bit because I don't have the box in front of me) Warning: Product may swell in your throat and cause you to choke and die

Deciding to live dangerously, I kissed my wife for good luck and swallowed the first pill (which WAS enormous by the way). Turns out years of swallowing massive amounts of food have conditioned me for this sort of thing, because it went down without a problem. Emboldened by this succes, I took another. Every day, I take six of them, and although I have not yet had a problem, I still cannot take them without at least thinking about the danger.

Diet: I had a good week, foodwise. Every day for breakfast I had a piece of fruit, for lunch a delicious sandwich, and for dinner whatever delicious thing my wife cooked for me. At least two days that involved Steak Tips from the Meat House. If you live in the Seacost, NH (and maine, I suppose) area, I highly recommend them. They are amazing - but make sure you don't cook them too long. If you are the kind of person who doesn't mind your meat a little pink in the middle, then go ahead and grill them. If you ARE the type of person who likes them to be "well done", it is probably best to broil them in a casserole dish so you don't lose any of the juices. Doing them this way will make them nice and tender as well - so if you have bad teeth, that's not a bad way to go. I did not do too much snacking, except for the occasional handful of salt 'n vinegar chips. The only really bad thing was when we went to Friendly's on Wednesday with my Son's Baseball team, and I celebrated with a bacon cheese burger (which came with a free ice cream sundae, of course).

Workouts: Having been kicked out of the soccer field last week by the cops (I was going to tell this story but never got around to it), I had to settle for plain old running/walking. I found a 3.2 Mile loop near my house which worked pretty well, so that's what I did on Monday and Wednesday. Tuesday, I had a softball game, so I skipped the morning workout. On wednesday afternoon, we spoke to the Recreation Director for the town and got explicit written permission to use the town fields, so Thursday and Friday I was back to playing soccer with my brother.

Results: I did not weigh-in this morning, but as of Yesterday, I was at -27.5 which is an all new low. (Woohoo!). However, that's not a lot more than last week, so I don't think the supplement helped me all that much.

Also, I never felt any change in appetite. I was just as hungry as normal during normal times. I did not really seem to suppress anything.

Side note - I was a little bit constipated Monday-Wednesday. And on Wednesday I noticed my urine was an odd orangish color. No idea if this was because of the supplement or not. I feel fine now, though.

Recommendation: If you are looking for a supplement, keep on looking. I didn't find that it did anything for me in addition to the regular diet.

Continued

New Email Address

For anybody else out there who is a Boston Red Sox super-fan like me, you may want to take advantage of this offer THIS OFFER:

your own email address with an @boston-Redsox.not address.

Hurry up before all the good user names are taken. Mine, of course, is biga.

Continued

Today's "Office Space" Moment

Today I was required to go to, not one, but TWO pre-meeting meetings.

Continued

Movie Review

The Break-Up

Thursday night, thanks to my wonderful sister, my wife and I had a rare opportunity to go out without the kids, so I gave her what I like to call the "Blair Special"

side note: In college, I used to have a roomate named Eric Blair who was not very imaginative, and NEVER DID ANYTHING besides dinner and a movie on his dates. So much so, that forever after we dubbed the Dinner-and-a-movie date the "Blair Special". There is also a "Big A Special" but we don't want to get into that right now.


After a delicious dinner at Longhorn Steakhouse, we wen to see The Break-up starring Vince Vaughn and Jennifer Aniston.

I was looking forward to seeing this movie, because I thought it would be funny, and because it stars Vince Vaughn who may be the funniest man alive right now. And besides, my mother-in-law said it was hilarious. (Of course, my mother-in-law also thinks Ellen Degeneres is funny and once highly recommended a movie called Mr Wrong to us, which was horrible. So maybe that wasn't the best source for a recommendation.) But, it had Vince Vaugh, so it HAD to be funny.

When we walked into the theater 2 minutes before it was supposed to start, we were the only ones in there. "uh,oh, I thought to myself - this is not a good sign" but I immediately cheered myself by the thought that if we were alone and the movie was really bad we could fool around a little bit.

As the movie progressed, I kept waiting for it to get funny, but it never really did. Oh, sure - there were a few funny scenes here and there, because after all, it DOES star Vince Vaughn, but in my view they were few and far between. I found it mostly to be sad and even a bit depressing. One thing I will say for it though - It was a pretty honest commentary on how selfishness and pride can sabatoge a relationship. People planning to get married should be forced to watch this move as part of their pre-marital counseling. Overall, if it had been billed as a drama, you might actually think it was good. As a comedy, it just doesn't quite cut it.

I am going to use as my rating system some popular Homer Simpson phrases: d'oh, meh, and woohoo. I give it one and a half mehs. If you want to watch it, wait for the DVD. If you insist on spending $8 for a movie, go see Cars or X-Men 3

Continued

Diet Update

Workout: Another hour of soccer with my brother. Walked/Ran home which is 1.7 miles. Happy to say that I was able to run more than I did yesterday.

Weigh-in: Forgot to weigh-in. Probably just as well. The sporkie and the chinese food all in the same day would have been bad.

Breakfast: 1 can of Campbells Creamy Chicken soup. 130 calories

Lunch: Dangelos/index.html Honey Dijon Chicken sandwich. A delicious sandwich, but I did not realize it had ham and swiss cheese on it, which made it higher calorie than I was expecting. About 700 Calories

Dinner: We have a babysitter tonight, so I am announcing ahead of time that I will be going off the diet tonight. It is rare that my wife and I get to go out alone, so I will be taking full advantage of it. I will try not to eat like a pig, though. Well, I promise that I will try to try.

Continued

Humble pie

I was feeling pretty good about myself after yesterday's weigh-in. This feeling lasted all day until 3-yr old son took me down a peg or two when he asked if I had a baby in my belly like mommy does. sigh.........

Workout: Went down to the Milton Town Beach with my brother and played soccer for an hour. At the end of the hour we did some 40 yard sprints, with dissapointing results. I like to think that I am still pretty fast for VERY short distances, but today I just felt like something was holding me back - I don't know, maybe it was because I was already pretty tired. Afterwards I ran/walked back to my house (about 1.5 miles). I know this was a good workout because when I got out of my car after my drive to the office this morning I was SORE - more so than I have been for a long time.

Weigh-in: -25.5. I knew yesterday's results were probably too good to be true. Still - it's 3.5 lbs lower than where I was at this time last week, so I suppose that's progress.

Breakfast: 1/2 of a chicken salad sandwich (made with light Miracle whip and light Oatmeal bread) and a can of Campbells drinkable Chicken and Stars soup. About 180 Calories.

Lunch a good friend showed up to take me out to lunch today. He chose to go to Bertucci's where the temptation to get a sporkie was just too great. So we split a large sporkie. I'll eat lite at dinner - I promise.

Dinner: My wife wanted pad thai (which has chicken in it) and Sesame chicken for dinner, so we had dinner courtesy of China Pond. This time I was able to resist the crab rangoon, but I'm guessing it still isn't very low-cal.

Total for the day No idea really

Continued

Phase II

As you know, lately I have become more and more dissatisfied with my treadmill. One of the problems is that it's not very good for running. It has this quirk where every once in a while the belt will come to a complete stop for a brief moment and then resume it's normal pace. I have gotten used to this, but I have found that I really need to be holding onto the rails when this happens or I will fall. Consequently, I have been afraid to do much running on it. I don't like to hold the rails while I'm running - I like to swing my arms - and I fear that I will fall off some day when it starts acting up. I feel like I am at the point in my workouts, though, that I need to step it up a little bit. Furthermore, the treadmill makes this awful squeaking sound now that drives my wife crazy. Since it is supposedly summer now, I decided it is time to take my workouts outdoors.

Unfortunately, as I have stated in this space many times, I HATE running. It's not that I'm lazy (no comments please) - it's just that I find it so incredibly boring. If I am playing a game like soccer or football, I can run all day (and by all day, I mean I can run for 5 minutes, take a 15 minute break, run another 5 minutes, take a break, etc...), but I can think of nothing more miserable than running just for the sake of running. Up until now, I have had my treadmill placed in front of the TV, which I have been able to use to keep my mind from dwelling on the misery of running. Obviously I cannot take the TV with me, so I had to find a new distraction. So I went out yesterday to Best Buy and bought myself an IPOD shuffle.



Now, I like new gadgets as much as the next guy, but I have thus far resisted the ipod craze because I could not actually think of a situation where I would use one. If I listen to music, I am never that far from a CD player or a radio, and frankly people with IPODs drive me nuts. They walk around in their own little worlds - totally insulated from whatever else is going on around them, OR, (even worse, IMHO), they use them as fashion accessories. They always have them clipped to their belt or whatever, with the ear buds draped casually over the shoulder. It's like they want to tell the whole world: "Hey, I had $200 bucks to waste, so I spent it on this thing". However, I must admit, for exercising it seems like the perfect accessory. No need to fiddle with radio stations or worry about CD's skipping, and you could hold many many many more songs than a CD or tape player anyway.

So I finally caved and joined the IPOD generation. I went with the shuffle for a couple of reasons. First of all, it was inexpensive. I got the 512 Mb version for $69.99, and Best Buy gave me a $10 gift card as a reward. The 512 Mb holds about 120 songs. I guess that is not a lot, but it's way more than I would ever listen to in one sitting, so it seems fine for my purposes. The other reason is the size and weight. It is .8 oz, and about the size of a pack of gum. It fits quite easily in the palm of my hand, so I figured it would be the least trouble while running. I tested this out this morning and it was ok. I may try to figure out a way to attach it to my waist at some point, but it was not a big deal to carry it. It comes with a lanyard for hanging around your neck which would probably be fine for walking or mowing the lawn or somehting, but I figured that it be annoying for running. One time I dropped it, but it is so lightweight that it did not even come unplugged from the headphones so it never hit the gound. I just grabbed the headphone cable and kept on going without breaking stride.

Other features I like:
- power. It has an internal re-chargable battery so there are no batteries to change ever. The really cool thing is that it charges while it is plugged into the USB port of your computer (which is also the way you download songs to it). So there are no extra pieces or charging cradles required.
- itunes software. easy-to-use inteface makes programming it as simple as clicking on the song titles you want and dragging them onto your ipod. Only takes a minute to download songs from your library. Also makes it easy to rip music CD's into MP3's or whatever format you want and put them in your library.
- the sound. I figured when I bought the low-power, low-feature ipod I would be sacrificing some sound quality, and maybe I am but I certainly haven't noticed it. the sound was CD quality, and I was able to crank it loud enough to be uncomfortable without noticing any distortion. There was plenty of bass in the songs that require it as well. I was really quite surprised at how good it sounded.

Things I don't like:
- the earbuds that it came with. They sounded ok, but they are not comfortable at all, and they will only stay in if I am sitting perfectly still. No way could they ever be used for any kind of workout. I had to substitute my Sony headphones immediately.
- USB connector. Thanks to the fancy plastic that dell uses on the front of their computers, the USB connector is not quite long enough to fully mate with the USB ports. I had to use the kids computer which has more accessible USB ports on the back. I understand this is really Dell's fault, but if the USB connector on the IPOD was just a centimeter longer, this could be avoided. I understand they sell USB extension cables for just this purpose, so I guess I will have to go get one.

Oh yeah, and to go along with my new toy, I figured I should put something new on it. I probably haven't purchased a new CD in 10 years, so I figured I was due. I went with The Best of Neil Diamond - 20th Century Masters, the Millenium Collection.



Ok, I guess that doesn't really qualify as "new" music, but I have been wanting to get some Neil Diamond for a while. Every time I go to a Red Sox game and they play "Sweet Caroline" during the middle of the 8th inning, I always say to myself - "I need to get me some Neil Diamond" - and then I never do. It also always makes me want to go rent Saving Silverman, which is probably the funniest movie ever made about obsessed Neil Diamond Fans (actually, it may be the only one - I'm not sure).



It's a little crude, so don't let the little kids, or my dad watch it, but pretty funny overall.





Alright, enough about that - on to the diet update:

Workout: I set out this morning with my new IPOD shuffle all charged up and loaded with Neil Diamond and ready to go. Unfortunately, there are not really that many roads in Milton, NH, so I selected as my route to cross the bridge into Lebanon, go up the east side of the lake, cross back over at the other bridge and come down 125. Another problem for me is that I don't have any watches suitable for jogging or other methods of keeping time (thanks to my low-featured ipod), so I was a little surprised when I got to the end of the Neil Diamond songs and had not yet reached what I consider to be the halfway point (the other bridge). I kept on going and ended up doubling my normal workout time to 1 1/2 hours. oops. Later, I went and clocked it with my car and discovered that the chosen route was 6.1 miles. I wish I could say I ran the whole way, but I didn't. I wish I could say I ran HALF the way, but that probably isn't true. I did a lot of walking as well, but it was still a pretty good workout. Along the way, I discovered that when I run, these particular shorts would keep falling down. So I would run for a ways, stop to pull up my shorts, walk for a while, then start the cycle all over again. So for the future, I will need to wear my drawstring shorts. I suppose it's a good sign that my shorts are starting to get too big for me, but it was a little annoying. No time for situps with the extra long workout.

Weigh-in: -26.5 woohoo! My extra effort has been rewarded. This is definitely a new low for me - even if at least half of it is likely the result of being partially dehydrated. Still, the 25 lb mark is a pretty good milestone that I am going to try really hard this week to stay on the other side of.

Breakfast skipped breakfast. Well, not so much skipped as left it sitting on the counter when I walked out the door. I DID drink 2 cans of diet pepsi, though. 0 calories

Lunch Another vendor meeting. Again, they brought in bertuccis/ pizza. Usually, there is a chicken option, but today there was none, so I had no choice but to go with another slice of the sporkie. I also tried a slice of the Pucillo - which is the same kind of sausage with peppers, onions, and mushrooms - but no Ricotta cheese. It was still pretty good, but it was certainly no sporkie. This vendor also brought in salad, so I had a plateful of that with a little bit of Italian dressing.

Total Calories for the day: I really have no idea. sporkie + Pucillo + 0?

Continued

Diet Update

Forgot to post last Friday, but I DID keep track:

Workout: 30 minutes on the treadmill, no situps (not enough time)

Weigh-in: -22

Breakfast: Another can of drinkable Clam Chowder - 120 calories

Lunch: Went to a restaurant with a friend and found out once I got there that they had absolutely NO SEAFOOD CHOICES whatsoever. It was a new-york style deli called "The Metropolitan Deli". Since I was going to have to cheat no matter what I did, I went all out - NY Style Roast Beef on Rye with Lettuce, Tomato, Swiss Cheese, Roasted Peppers, and a little bit of Mayo. oh, man - if you are ever in Westford, MA and looking for a good sandwich, I highly recommend trying this place. If you order it "NY STYLE" they will pile it so high with meat you fill find that you have trouble getting your mouth around it. I don't know how many calories and I don't care.

Dinner: Broiled Haddock, baked potato, and corn. Probably 4-500 calories. Unfortunately I was so hungry that at midnight when my week was officially over, I had a chicken Salad Sandwich and polished off the rest of the Sea Salt'n Vinegar chips.

Oh yeah - and thanks to the person who saw me this weekend (wearing socks and sandals) and came up to me and said "Hey, nice socks". Nice to know people are reading this....

Now on to this week:

I feel like Chicken tonight
As I was deciding on the menu for this week, I was considering travelin guy's suggestion of red meat, but I am afraid that having just recently gotten back on track, I might get tempted to eat too many double-cheeseburgers and quickly derail myself once again. However, it did get me thinking and I decided to do a chicken week.

Of course, that lasted until lunchtime when I went downstairs to the cafeteria and quickly discovered they did not have anything in the chicken realm that looked the least bit appetizing - but the deli special was a delicious-looking turkey sandwich, so I quickly adjusted the menu to include ALL BIRDS - since they pretty much all taste like chicken anyway.

Workout: I skipped my workout this morning because I needed to get to work early and because I have a softball game today, which I WAS planning to count as my workout. Every time I have done this in the last two weeks has proven to be a mistake. I always end up missing the game due to weather or some personal reason and therefore lose the workout. Fingers crossed but we'll see how the day goes.

Weigh-in: Forgot to weigh in this morning, but I DID do an unusual weekend weigh-in yesterday which was -24. I'm pretty sure this is a new low. I may have gotten close about 3 weeks ago before my hiatus, but I don't think I did any better than -23 and frankly I'm way too lazy to go through the archives and check. Anyway, it still feels pretty good.

Breakfast: As usual, I chose my week's menu with absolutely no planning ahead, so I had to get breakfast at the gas station where I filled up my car. You may be surprised to know that there are very few chicken based breakfast foods available at a gas station, so I had to settle for a Chicken Quesedilla Hot Pocket.



I will probably not choose this option in the future. It really wasn't that tasty. Maybe it was because I microwaved it instead of baked it, but if you can't microwave a hot pocket, why bother eating one in the first place? If I had 20 minutes to wait for one to cook in a conventional oven, I would have made myself something better.... anyway, it did NOT have a "great tortilla taste" as advertised on the packaging. What it had was a doughy, stale taste - and furthermore there was very little chicken in it. At 520 calories, I felt ripped off.

Lunch: Smoked Turkey with a sun-dried tomato Garlic spread, swiss cheese, carmelized onions, lettuce and Tomato on a delicous baguette roll. I'm guessing about 500 Calories. The sandwich was delicious, but in an effort to be good I chose the pretzels over the potato chips and was promptly rewarded with a broken tooth for my efforts.

Dinner: My lovely wife made Chicken Divan for me. This is not a particularly low-fat dish, but it's got broccoli so it must be good for you. The real problem is that is one of my favorite dishes and I usually have trouble limiting myself to a single plate. Tonight I succeeded, though - telling myself if I don't eat it all in one sitting I can enjoy it for breakfast tomorrow. Not sure how many calories, but it can't be that bad.

Total for the Day: 1020 Calories + Chicken Divan.

Continued

Quickie

Yesterday:

45 minutes on the treadmill and 80 sit-ups while watching NESN replay the game in which Clemens set the major league record for strikeouts (21).

Weighed in at -22.

Had 22 small pieces of shrimp coctail for breakfast (150 Calories)

Seafood salad pocket made from imitation crab meat and Miracle Whip, accompanied by Cape Cod Sea Salt and Vinegar chips for lunch (500 Calories)

2 cans of Beachcliff Sardines w/Louisana Hot Sauce, Saltines, and more Cape Cod Sea Salt and Vinegar chips for dinner (500 Calories)

various snacking on the Sea Salt'n Vinegar chips throughout the day (300 Calories)

Total 1450 Calories

Continued

Sporkie time

Allright, I have had some questions about Yesterday's Lunch where I raved about a thing called the "Sporkie". If you do not know what a Sporkie is, you are indeed missing out. If you are from Australia, there's not much you can do about it, but if you live in New England, or the greater Washington DC - Baltimore - Philadelphia Area and you enjoy some good italian food and/or pizza, you should run, not walk, to the nearest Bertucci's. As far as Italian Restaurant Chains go, it is the best that I have ever had - far and away better than Olive Garden. If you are a restaurant critic, it may not measure up to to one of the fine Italian restaurants you will find in Boston's North End, but for regular folks, it is is pretty good.

Anyway, a sporkie is pretty simple really. It is a regular Bertucci's Brick-Oven Cheese Pizza, with some Ricotta cheese and sweet Italian sausage. And it's not a ton of sausage either, just these little sausage "meatballs" sprinkled around with some pools of Ricotta cheese. It doesn't really sound like much, but it is very good. If you look at their menu, they actually have many unique combinations that are quite tasty, only some of which I have had a chance to try - but the sporkie is my favorite for now. And again - it is a fun word to say - try it, it has a nice ring to it. You can make up meanings to it. It can be an adjective - "I feel pretty sporkie today" - a noun - "Man, that guy is such a sporkie" - a verb - "Man, you really sporked that one, didn't you?" ......
They also have a pretty full non-pizza menu of Italian dishes. On the Pasta Menu, I also highly recommend the Scallop and Shrimp Rossini. And of course, if you are eating in the restaurant, every meal comes with salad and delicious rolls. Dangit, now I'm hungry - I may have to go to the one down the street for lunch.

You will all by happy to know that I am wearing normal boat shoes and socks today. Apparently people are fascinated by my footwear, because these boat shoes are a source of another very common comment that I get - my shoes are untied. Leather Boat shoe laces are stupid - they are only there for decoration. Over the years, I have spent tons of time tying these shoes only to have them come untied within 5 minutes. I have eventually given up. People are constantly warning me about them - which is rediculous, because in 31 3/4 years I have been on this earth, I have NEVER, to my knowledge tripped over untied shoelaces. I have done lots of other clumsy stuff, including tripping over nothing, and I have even been done in by my beloved sandals (like when I am stepping over something and my foot clears the obstacle but the front part of my sandals do not - stairs are a particular problem sometimes) but I have never been done in by the shoelaces. The worst that has ever happened is I have stepped on them and broken them - which is actually a good thing because then they become impossible to tie and they no longer flop on the floor. This is the case with my left shoe currently, but it STILL DOES NOT STOP people from telling me to tie my shoe, even when it is perfectly obvious that it is no longer possible. Oh yeah, by the way, it is rarely a man who ever mentions either the sandals or the shoelaces. It is almost always women.

Anyway, on to the diet stuff.

Workout: 45 minutes on the treadmill and 80 Situps. Watched the Season Finale of "The Apprentice". I did not really care for this season that much. I think Donald Trump is full of himself (more so than usual, I mean) and I was not all that impressed by the candidates either. Plus the ending was pretty predictable.

Weigh - in -22. To quote Homer Simpson, "meh". Not bad considering I have blown of the diet for a few weeks, but not the miracle I was hoping for when I finally worked up the courage to step on the scale again.

Breakfast: Campbells apparently got wind of my idea for drinkable soups, because they have come out with a line of their own. They should take it one step further and actually market them as "breakfast soups" for busy commuters, but anyway - I had a can (cup?) of drinkable New England Clam Chowder for Breakfast. 140 Calories. Also, even though, according the rules, I can drink whatever I want, in the spirit of things I washed down the soup with 16 oz of Clamato juice. I know it doesn't sound that appetizing, but it was pretty good. The Clamato juice was 120 calories, for a grand total of a 260 Calorie Breakfast.

Lunch seafood salad wrap from the cafeteria at work. approx 500 calories

snack the remaining 16 oz of Clamato Juice. 120 Calories

Dinner Ceasar Salad, Stuffed Haddock and fake fried potatoes. What are fake fried potatoes? They are potatoes soaked in a solution of water and sugar, that when baked, crisp up just as if you had fried them in oil. They taste just like fried potato wedges, but with a lot less calories and none of the fat that comes with frying. They are very tasty. I also didn't really care for the stuffing in the Haddock, so I took out about half of it, which is where most of the calories were anyway. Total - about 600 Calories


Total for the day: 1480

Continued

Confessions of an addict

Alright, it is time to stop fooling myself. I have finally come to realize that I have a problem. I thought it wasn't a big deal, and I thought I could control it but apparently I cannot. I thought it was just a personal problem, but now I realize it is affecting my social life and my relationships with others as well. I can't afford therapy, and I don't have time for a support group, so I'm just going to lay it all out on the table right now and rely on my fellow bloggers to get me through this. Here goes:

Hi, My name is Big A, and I wear socks with sandals. Not just sometimes, but virtually every day from April through November. I wear them with jeans, dress pants, shorts (both play and dress), and virtually anything else. I wear them to work, to church, to picnics, ball games, family gatherings, and even while I am mowing the lawn. The last time I had to make an appearance in court for sundry traffic violations (fortunately, that has been a while now) I'm pretty sure I wore them.

I do this because I like the way it feels, and increasingly I enjoy the attention I get when people mention it.

Whew... glad I got that off my chest. Now on to the diet report:

Workout Had to go to work early this morning so no workout. I justified this in my own head because I will be playing softball tonight. I'm sure that 2 hours of standing around with brief moments of activity sprinkled in should be equivalent to a normal workout.

Weigh-in Feeling pretty good this morning so I was not afraid to weight myself - however, BECAUSE I was feeling so good I totally spaced it and forgot to step on the scale.

Breakfast 1 1/2 Tuna fish sandwich on light bread - (Tuna salad mixed with Light Miracle Whip instead of Mayo - which is actually pretty good. Kind of sweet like good Ham salad). 280 Calories

Lunch Free lunch today, so I had to eat what was offered - Bertucci's pizza. I got to the meeting early and grabbed myself two slices of the "sporkie" which is always the first to go. If you ever go to Bertucci's, I highly recommend the sporkie. It is delicious and fun to say repeatedly. Sporkie.
No idea how many calories, though. Sporkie

Snack After softball, I was starving and could not wait for dinner, so I had a small handful of Cape Cod SEA Salt and Vinegar chips. These may be my favorite seafood of all time. 150 Calories

Dinner Stuffed Salmon, Stuffed Clams and some Shrimp Cocktail for an appetizer. The Shrip Cocktail was great - the stuffed Salmon and the Stuffed Clams left a little bit to be desired. These were not home-made by someone's mom's secret recipe, but rather pulled out of the grocery case, so I guess I got what I deserved. I had to use a liberal amount of Ketchup to add some flavor. My wife also mixed up some rice Pilaf, but when I discovered that there were 200 calories in a single serving, I decided not to eat it. About 600 Calories


Total for the day : 1030 + the sporkie.

Continued

Back in the Saddle

Alright, I am back on my Diet in earnest. I planned to make this week "seafood" week. Seafood is actually very good for you - at least as far as Calories go. I have no idea about any of it's other nutritional Value. For example, a cup of Lobster meat is only 142 calories. Unfortunately, we don't like to eat plain old seafood. We like to dip it in Melted Butter first, or roll it in some breading and fry it in oil. Or mix it with Mayonnaise and spread it out on bread. And For some reason we prefer to eat it with french fries. Or Fried Onion Rings. Or ColeSlaw, which is really just a cup of Mayonaise with some cabbage thrown in to help it slide through our Intestines better. Even if, in a nod to healthy eating, we decide to have it "baked" instead of fried, we put it in a baking pan and then cover it with breading, butter, cheese, and who knows what else before we bake it in the oven. And to top it all off, because it is so delicious we probably eat twice as much as we should.

Why is it that we feel compelled to take all this wonderful, healthy seafood and make it as bad for us as possible? I'm not sure. I do the same thing - but I'm going to try not to do it this week. That being said, I will probably be having seafood salad for lunch.

Workout: 45 minutes on the treadmill, 80 situps. Still not doing any push-ups because I don't want to hurt my wrists and mess up softball. Still don't have anything to watch except Glenn Beck and Sportscenter. The only redeeming quality about working out on a treadmill is watching TV. If there is nothing good to watch I may start moving my workouts outdoors - at leas twhile the weather is nice.

Weigh-in: Still wasn't ready to face the bad news this morning from taking two weeks off, so I skipped the weigh-in. I HAVE been having trouble keeping my pants up this morning, (more so than usual, I mean) so I take that as a good sign.

Breakfast: I am addicted to the Cumberland Farms version of the Slurpee. (I was going to put a link to their website, but I didn't bother because they have the worst website of all time) They have tons of delicious flavors, and at .69 for a 32 oz cup, you can't beat the price. My favorite Flavor is the Green Apple. This morning I went in for one and they were all out so I had to get the Blue Raspberry. This was pretty good, but not as good as the Green Apple. Another Downside - the stains. It stained my lips blue, like a little kid. Of course, since I was drinking through a straw, it actually only stained a small stripe down the middle of my lips. So I am walking around my office with freaky blue-striped lips. Fortunately, nobody is noticing, because they are busy looking at my sandals and socks (which is apparently a huge fashion Faux Pas - as I am constantly reminded by everybody from my sisters, to my friend's wives, to little girl at church whose mom told me she reads this blog to help stay awake at work in the middle of the night)

Anyway, to make a long story short, I had a blue raspberry slurpee for breakfast. I didn't think it would be that bad - I mean it's just a little bit of cool-aid and some crushed ice, right? Wrong - I looked it up on the web this morning and discovered it is is probably about 420 Calories. Ouch. Well, I guess that's ok if you have it as your meal, but if you drink it alongside the Jimmy Dean Sausage Sandwich (which I didn't - at least not today, anyway), then you might have a problem. Probably shouldn't make a habit of drinking these every day, though.

Lunch: Sm. Seafood sub from D'Angelos. About 500 Calories, which seems like a lot for the amount of food you get. Pretty Tasty though. They were advertising a Garden Salad w/lobster + a cup of New England Clam Chowder which also looked pretty tasty and would probably be less than the seafood Sandwich. at $8.99 it was a little pricey for lunch, but I might give it a shot one day this week anyway.

Dinner: As usual, I don't make my decisions until the first day of the week, giving myself absolutely no time to plan ahead and actually have the proper ingredients - and this week was no exception. Fortunately, we did have a couple cans of canned salmon which my lovely wife was able to whip into salmon patties. We also had scalloped potatoes (very small serving for me), green beens, and corn on the cob (very light on the butter). About 500 Calories.

Dessert: The Temptress made herself a root beer float. I am enjoying it vicariously through her. 0 Calories.

Total Calories For the Day: 1520

Continued