So after a solid first week of weight loss, my efforts flat lined last week. A decrease in my level of moderate to hard-effort workouts combined with…well….momentary lapses of reason as it pertained to dinner selections resulted in a total of 10.2 pounds lost from the inception of this endeavor through August 16th. This translates into 3.97% of my body weight being kicked to the curb….hopefully for good. I’m hoping that the results will be much stronger this week, as I’ve begun to amp up the gym time.
It’s an easy concept to understand, yet so difficult to execute: if you burn more calories in a day than your body consumes, you lose weight. That’s what it really comes down to, isn’t it? There are tons of weight loss plans out there – some are awesome, I’m sure…and others are a bit “quirky” to say the least…but they all embrace that one simple hypothesis. I normally start the day off strong – healthy breakfast of diced fruit mixed in to oatmeal and a large coffee (because I want to lose weight WITHOUT becoming a mindless ogre). I chug a bunch of water until lunch time, then score a salad to shut my stomach up. The issue here is that my stomach is dumb, but it ain’t stupid. It sees salad coming down the esophagus, and takes it as a promissory note that real food is on its way like a lone shark takes a promise to pay him over the weekend….the vig now begins to rack up.
At some point in the afternoon, I have 2 hard boiled eggs. Why? Because if I don’t, I’ll feel so hungry that my stomach begins sending messages to my brain:
“It’s 2pm. You just threw us that curveball again and FedEx’d us some lettuce, onion and tiny pieces of what we think was chicken…but the DNA testing proved inconclusive. If you don’t send something down here soon, it’s gonna get real up in here…”
(Yes, my stomach is a gentleman until taunted by pieces of iceberg – then he takes it down to street level)
So the 2 hard boiled eggs are deposited, and for an hour my stomach locks itself in a room and counts the calories provided like that lone shark counting a roll of 20’s given to him by some middle aged dude from Bensonhurst after the Jets failed once again to cover the over. At around 3:30pm, my stomach flings the door open and begins to scream about how he just got short-changed. Now he turns in to Joe Pesci from Goodfellas, and my self-discipline is poor Billy Batts. Within minutes, my discipline is rolled up in a table cloth and dumped into a trunk of a ’78 Chevy. It never stood a chance.
Dinner usually results in more hollow calories than I’ll admit in writing here. By the time I’m ready to go to bed, my stomach is sitting back in its easy chair, smoking a tasty Cuban cigar and sipping Macallan 25. Oh he’s thrilled. And my brain – like a movie critic for the New York Post – reviews the day like a movie starring Donny Most. “Well the plot began with sound intent, but the climax was completely predictable. It began with shock and awe, and it ending shockingly awful.”
That was a synopsis of a typical day. Today, however, was different. Today, Billy Batts stayed out of the trunk.
Total calories consumed: 1,330
Workouts completed:
Swim – 2,500yds
Bike – None
Run – None tonight – and that sucks
Strength Training – 45 minutes
Yoga – (I just list this here because it’s funny. I don’t touch my toes – I just wave hello to them)
Total calories burnt for the day: 566
Doing the math: 1,330 calories in – 566 calories out = winner winner chicken dinner.
