Week 14 Day 1

Alright back from vacation and back to the regularly scheduled life.

Meals are back on track and things and settling down.

The holiday weekend wasn't bad eating wise despite my better efforts and I look forward to making good food choices this week.

Let's go back and reset the numbers. When this whole thing started fourteen short weeks ago I was at three hundred and fifty pounds. Now that is nowhere near my all time scale tipping of a verified three hundred and seventy, but it was pretty bad. I did not feel well and my body was giving clear indications that what I was doing to it was not making it happy in other ways.

My lowest weight so far has been three hundred twenty one and a decimal or two and this morning was at three hundred thirty one and a half. My specific goal is one pound a week and that resets every week. Read a different way on week 66 day 1 I will be no less than 52 pounds lighter than I am today and that fits nicely with a two year goal of being around 220 pounds, but that's week 118 and who can plan that far in advance. A key to goal setting is to come up with big goals, but create small action steps that get you through each day.

On that front my action steps are no longer picture taking of food because I eat pretty much the same thing every day and it gets boring. I also won't be detailing the calorie counts anymore as I am getting well versed in the counts of each item of food I eat regularly and I cannot find counts on some irregular items. But we'll have the numbers here.

Action step one: daily exercise.

I have dumbbells and an exercise bike. I have a relatively safe walking area for a middle aged white dude. My body is stable and healthy enough for sustained movements. Now I have to get my mind in shape to do this starting today. I think the health wackos are trying to get people up to 30 minutes a day and like seven days a week. Right now I hope to get up to 30 minutes a week and move up from there.

Action step two: lower blood pressure.

I can track my BP at home so we'll follow this progress as the weight goes down and the exercise time goes up. I also will be avoiding salt even though I never use table salt already. I eyeball most food sodium content and stay away from 20% per servings or more items. Yes, I haven't had hamburger helper in months and I mostly avoid fast food and French fries both are loaded in salt. The trick is catching the low calorie, low fat foods that make up taste in salt content and I am getting better at catching those too, mostly frozen prepared meals where the sodium content isn't advertised.

Action step three: clean up my life.

To the extent that eating is emotional and comforting I will endeavor to make my life less emotionally tumultuous and more stable. I already started on this with an easy step of cleaning out my closet of old clothes and some junk. Next is cleaning out old books, then comic books and finally old furniture and crap I just don't throw away. I am also in the process of cleaning up my credit which for many reasons, none of them smart or logical, is terrible. I will put up a running total of debt as I already track this. The reward once I straighten that all out is either a house or a car. The time line matches up too as I figure this to take two years to put right.

So that is it for the serious portion of this run.

How about those Miss State Bulldogs? Forget that it was Jackson State University and School for the Blind. "We" won 45-7. When was the last time MSU put that number on any opponent? Not once under former head coach Croomer, not once. Even better the scoring happened in the second half, which indicates actual coaching is going on and schemes can be adjusted during halftime. At Auburn this Saturday night and they are a team in turn around too. We did well there two years ago and lost at home last year, but both teams have first year head coaches and more questions than answers and maybe we'll see a great game.

And fall television starts this week, technically. CW and FOX are rolling out some shows about a week ahead of everyone else, so catch the top rated, for one week, all new "Melrose Place". I'll be watching it for Katie Cassidy.

Later.