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.