Tag Archives: calorie counting

What Annoys Jeff this Week?

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1. Plateaus. I’ve been hovering about a pound or two on either side of 190 for a little over a month now. I’m not doing anything different than I was when I was steady losing. I’m just… stuck… in a spot where the numbers say I should be losing slowly but steadily. The obvious option – slash another hundred or two hundred calories out of the day isn’t appealing since I’m already coming in around 1800 a day. Losing even more time in the day to being out walking or on the damned exercise bike is equally unappealing. This process has already monopolized more time and effort than I really wanted to allocate for it. Fifteen months in, and there’s still not one bit of this effort that has proven to be a good time. 

2. The reward for good work. The reward for good work isn’t recognition, or accolades, or more money, it’s simply being assigned more work. In some cases, it’s being assigned more work that someone else in your work unit can’t or won’t do. Not only does that become a bit awkward when passing in the hall, but it’s also a bit agitating in that I don’t have the stomach to just let projects die on the vine because I don’t want to work on them. I wish I did. In the government there seems to be a whole cottage industry in being able to duck assignments you don’t want just by quietly refusing to do a damned thing with them. As I trundle into the last third of my career, I wonder if it isn’t time to take a page out of that book since there are no obvious consequences.

3. Buyer’s remorse. I bought a spanking new La-Z-Boy recliner a few months ago. It’s very comfortable. It looks good. I spent at least an hour sitting in it in the showroom before making the decision that it was the one I wanted sitting in the living room for the next 10-15 years. I thought I made a solid decision. Here’s the thing… I don’t like it as much as the recliner that it replaced. I don’t enjoy the fact that it’s a rocker as much as I thought I would. Because it’s a rocker, it also comes on a raised platform, and this is where my displeasure was unexpected and something I couldn’t have reasonably accounted for in the store. I’ve always kept a dog bed on the right-hand side of wherever I ended up sitting in every living room I’ve ever had. While I watched TV or read in the evening, I’d casually dispense ear scratches or pets. Because of the raised platform configuration of this chair, I can’t sit there and pet the dog while he’s laying down without throwing myself into some oddly convoluted listing position. So, I’ve done the only reasonable thing and pulled the old recliner out of mothballs and pressed it back into service while relegating the fancy new La-Z-Boy to the sunroom/office as a comfortable place to sit during the duty day.

Of McRib and self-denial…

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In my mind I’m sure that “diet” will always be among the most unpleasant 4-letter words in the English language. Over the last five months, though, I’ve learned a lot by tracking every bite and morsel that’s found its way into my mouth. Calories, macronutrients, I’ve plugged them all into my fancy little nanny app after giving everything a proper weigh and measure. It’s certainly changed how I view a “serving” size… some for the better, but most for the worse. 

The most important thing I’ve learned in tracking everything, however, is that over time I’m found ways to continue eating a fair number of foods I enjoy. Not all of them, of course – a Chipotle burrito and a big slice of my home-made lasagna remain well out of bounds – but I’ve been able to start re-introducing some old favorites. 

For instance, I found that if I scale back hard on breakfast and lighten up a bit on dinner, I can manage to cram in a McRib value meal for lunch.

I know that doesn’t exactly sound like an accomplishment for some people. Hell, the European Union probably doesn’t even consider it food… but I’ve loved the damned thing since I was working the grill at my local McDonald’s way back in the late 1900s. Its arrival each fall is something of a minor personal celebration here.

Yes, the sandwich and fries are a touch high in calories and saturated fat, but not prohibitively so if I tweak the rest of the day’s menu. In my mind at least it’s something well worth doing if only as a reminder that at some point I’ll again exist in world of food beyond variations on baked chicken and brown rice. Sadly, I’ve had to replace the Orange Drink with a Diet Coke. I haven’t yet come up with an acceptable way to offset the calories in a fully loaded soda yet… but it’s a compromise I’m willing to make if it means I get to enjoy the rest.

I wish I could say this process has been some kind of life changing, electrifying wonder experience. The reality is, though, even as I begin slowly adding back foods with flavor, it’s been mostly drudgery. Necessary and probably long overdue drudgery, but none the less, not an experience I’ll spend a lot of time remembering fondly. 

I’ve still got miles to go as the poet said, but I’ve suffered though much longer than I figured I’d stick with it. The real question now that I’ve passed well beyond the halfway mark is how much longer I’ll manage to stick with fairly rigid self-denial. It’s not an activity I’ve ever been particularly well suited for and one that still feels decidedly unnatural.