As I have mentioned, I have been working out this winter during the week in the small gym in the ground floor of the building where I work.  I suppose I tend to workout at a regular time each day, because I see mostly the same people there each time.  These are not people I work with or know otherwise, so I know them primarily from observation.  Because this is the "regular" crowd as in they exercise regularly, they are mostly in pretty good shape to begin with.  My observation is that  these people are working out regularly and with a good amount of effort to maintain their fitness.  This is something of a revelation to me, because I think my assumption had been that certain people were just lucky to have high metabolism.  While I am sure that is still true of a few, as we get older, it is true for less and less of us.  The good news for me is that when I see them working hard and often to stay in shape, then it all seems more regular to me, and I can see the work that I am doing in that context, as in this is just what you have to do to be healthy.  

Consumption:

Cornflakes and Raisin Bran cereal with skim milk
Banana
Spaghetti and meatballs
Caesar salad
Baked Pita chips
Red Grapes
One chocolate chip cookie
re-stuffed potatoes with asiago cheese
two glasses of wine
Breaded broccoli

Exercise:

None.

I like the scene at the end of the movie Big, where Tom Hanks' character has made his wish to go back to being a kid, his adult girlfriend has driven him home and they have said good-bye.  He starts walking toward the house, she looks down for a second and when she looks back up she sees a boy wearing a man's suit that looks ridiculously large for him.

I know I cannot go back to being a boy, nor do I want to.  But the image of my clothes looking ridiculously large for me holds some appeal.  I have a pair of jeans that were probably on the large side to begin with - a fat man's "trick" to make himself look smaller by wearing clothes too big.  Those pants  look fairly silly on me now if they did not before.  The waist is too big although not obscenely so (that will be my last place to lose).  But the seat and the legs look fairly comical.  I plan to keep the jeans in my closet for when I reach my goal weight so that I can have the classic picture taken of the now slender man holding up a pair of pants that would also make a good tent.

Consumption:

Corn Flakes and Cheerios cereal with skim milk
Chicken Pesto sandwich
Apple
2 pieces of string cheese
2 beers
Crab cake
Steak
Cauliflower
Asparagus
One bite of banana pudding - yum
One bite of creme brulee - yum
Pita chips 

Exercise:
10 minutes of weight lifting and crunches
10 minutes of rowing machine
30 minutes of running on the treadmill at a 10 minute per mile pace

It is hard for me to believe that at the start of this whole venture I had 46 unnecessary lbs.  While no one has ever called me skinny, I did not think of myself as huge either.  In some ways its truly amazing the way the body distributes the extra weight.  It is a miracle of perfect engineering.  As I have noted, if I think of the 17 lbs I have lost so far in terms of barbells, it seems  incomprehensible that I carried around that awkward heaviness.  Yet I have been doing that for years and participating in many activities all the while, playing tennis, hiking mountains.  As I have lost weight, it has been like letting air slowly out of a balloon.  With 29 more lbs to go, I try and imagine where it will come from.  Mathematically, it must break down something like this: 5 lbs from each leg, 3 lbs  from each arm, 12 lbs from the middle/torso, 1 more from my neck and face. It is weird to think of myself this way as components that make up the whole, but that I am.

Consumption:

Corn Flakes and Apple Cinnamon Cheerios with milk
Banana
Breaded chicken pieces
Chicken pesto sandwich 
Carrots
apple
Chicken sausage with portobello mushroom
Spaghetti with meatballs in red sauce
Caesar salad
Apple cider

Exercise:

10 minutes of weights
10 minutes of rowing machine
30 minutes running on treadmill at 10 minute per mile pace
Popcorn

One of my all time favorite actors is Robert Duval and one of my favorite movies is the Apostle.  In the movie Duval's character is an old time minister leading revivals and performing river baptisms.  Although he is a man of God, he is far from perfect which I think is what makes him so fascinating to me. 

Around this issue of health and losing weight, I think I have some evangelical qualities myself.  I have noticed during previous junctures where I have lost weight that I have been eager to share my progress and methods with others - so beware blog readers.  

The same is true this time.  The gym where I work out is a small one located on the ground floor of the building where I work.  Usually, there are other people there who work in other parts of the building who I do not know.  On more than one occasion, I have startled one of them by suddenly announcing that I have lost a few pounds and then proceeding, unsolicited, to describe my newfound methodology to the stunned bystander.  Most nod politely until I am finished before finishing putting on their socks.  If this is what I am like only a third of the way to my weight loss goal, imagine what I will be like when I actually reach it.  I will have to get my own television show and rent out halls.  Can I hear an amen?

Consumption:

Oatmeal, raisins, walnuts and milk
Salad with flank steak
A french margarita

Within one minute of punching in my information:  age, weight, height and lifestyle, the My Fitness Pal program told me that to reach my goal weight at a healthy pace of on average 1 lb per week, I should eat 1900 calories or less per day adjusted for exercise.  That number has been fairly revolutionary for me because prior to taking that step, I really had no idea how much I should be eating.  Perhaps it was willful ignorance, but that is how I rolled for about 45 years.  Some of you could the thinking that it might be dangerous to assign so much power to a computer site that also tries to sell me dating services and you have a valid point.  But the fact is, by trying to be at or below that level for several consecutive weeks I have lost weight.  Perhaps just as important, I have started to trust that I will not starve at that level or even be particularly hungry - it is enough, and for me, that is a big statement.  When I had my recent physical, my doctor told me that the adjustment most people need to make to lose weight is actually quite small, maybe one or two hundred calories per day, the difference of on extra snack or soda each day sustained over time. 

Although I was not recording my eating prior to having my goal, my sense is that  I routinely ate between 300-500 more calories per day with spikes on some days way above that.  Now as my progress has slowed down, the question has come up, is 1900 calories too much?  The answer is that I will have to wait and see.  If so, I will make adjustments at the time.  For now though, I am sticking to my plan and trust that it will work.

Consumption:

Corn Flakes and Bran Chex cereal with skim milk
Large salad with lentils, feta cheese and red onion
Apple
Cup of skim milk
Salmon with spinach and feta topping
Broccoli
Grilled chicken breast in soy sauce
mixed fruit
red grapes
10 ritz crackers with cheddar cheese
1 glass of white wine

Exercise:
10 minutes of yoga/stretching
20 minutes of weight lifting