Current mood:	content
Entry tags:	diet, food, weight-loss

Nutrition and Diet, follow-up
I've been very remiss in updating my blog lately. Part of it is work taking a lot of time, and part of it is just being lazy and tired. It's strange how the one hour time-change this month threw me off so badly. It took me literally two weeks for my body's clock to adjust, and even though it was just an hour, it meant I was losing significant sleep, and just being tired a lot.

Anyway, I wanted to follow up on how the diet is going. I've been on it six weeks, more or less, and I've lost six pounds. That's one pound a week on average. And while that isn't quite as fast as I started with the first two weeks, much of that comes from how much I've been "cheating" of late :-)

When Thane was in town, we ate out a lot, and I blew the diet a couple of days. And being a stress eater, when work got stressful these last two weeks, I've been craving comfort food. Add to that being really tired, and fast food is just so easy.

But I'll tell you something. I still haven't had any fries. I've had exactly two sodas in the last three weeks. And even though I've eaten at fast food places four times in the last week and a half, my choices have been a lot better. No soda, no fries, get a side-salad with that grilled chicken sandwich, get the "Fresco" chicken soft tacos, etc, etc.

And of course, I dutifully enter it all in the Nutrition For You site (http://www.nu4you.net/) of course, and surprisingly, I've only blown out my fat or carb or calorie intake a couple of days. The site hammers you with the fact that it's "all about choices", not some rigid and fixed diet you have to punish yourself with. I was pretty religious about it at first, and that's probably why the weight came off so fast to start. I'm more lax about it now, but I'm still within the guidelines.

What's even more interesting is how it's changed my perceptions and desires. I used to crave Big Macs, and would think nothing of getting two of them when they had those "two Big Macs for $2.22" specials. Now the whole idea just turns me off. I don't even want one. The one day I was the worst, when I was out with Thane, and ate way too much fried food (these delicious "appetizers" called "fireballs", which are minced chicken and jalapeno, formed into little balls and deep fried), I actually felt ill for several hours. They were delicious, but all that grease just made me sick. Honest to god, the one time I went to Wendy's, I didn't even WANT fries.

The whole experience has been really good, and really eye-opening. Even if I stopped using the site, I know I'd be eating better, with better portion control. I highly recommend the site if you're at all interested in losing weight or just plain eating better. I hate to sound like a salesperson, but they're having a sign-up sale for just $1, and then just $15/month, which is MORE than worth it.

For the record, I'm also sleeping better, and my heart-burn problems have really gotten a lot better as well. I've only got two more pounds to get to my goal, but I think I'm going to go for a little more. I also haven't been exercising much at all these last couple of weeks, so I need to pick that back up again.

Last January, right before the breakup, I was 196. Yesterday, I weighed in at 182. Sure, over half of that was the post-breakup weight loss, but I'm still really pleased with the results. My fat pants are officially "too big" now, which is awesome. Seeing the results in the mirror are even better motivation than looking at the number on the scale.

Other than that, not a lot going on.