Fat Guy on a Diet

I was truly worried about this weekend. When I’m sitting at home, working on the computer, playing games, or just watching TV, it’s almost inevitable that I get the constant urge to just munch.  It’s a problem at night that I’ve got to fight, but going through an entire weekend would have been a nightmare.   Thankfully I have some wonderful friends that allowed me to spend part of the weekend with them.  Being away from my cabinets and refrigerator prevents me from wandering over and sneaking a peak at what I can snack on every 30 minutes or so.  Where my willpower would have failed, just being cut off from the supply helped a LOT.   Thanks to both of you for taking me in for a day or two.

Yesterday went a lot better than I had expected actually.  We had a late breakfast (almost brunch).  Before then I’d had two apples, so everything was pretty kosher as far as my hunger goes.  We ended up ordering from Tony’s West (www.tonyswest.com), a great little restaurant in St. Charles.  If you are every in the area, I definitely recommend stopping in.  Tell him Luther from Cajun Solutions sent you!  My one regret is never getting a chance to try one of their slingers before starting the diet.  I’ll definitely partake of this delicacy once I’ve entered my maintenance phase of this journey.   I ended up ordering a medium (5 egg) vegetable omlet with cheese.  It’s a bit overboard from the diet, but it’s almost all protein and veggies.  Along with the 5 eggs and cheese it contained a mixture of spinach, onions, green peppers, tomatoes, mushrooms, olives, turkey and jalapeno peppers.    Usually I’m a little apprehensive about getting spinach in any dish because it tends to have the ability to overpower the rest of the flavors, but I went along with the default selections anyway.   I took my first look at the dish and was absolutely shocked.  The omlet was so large, I wasn’t sure how I was going to eat it.  It was immense, and looked and smelled absolutely fantastic.  I quickly dug in for my first bite.  The kick from the jalapenos quickly filled my palette, and danced magically with the eggs.   One day, when I get to heaven, I’m sure I’ll find them serving this for breakfast nearly every day!   I quickly offered my friend a taste of the heavenly dish, and he was very impressed as well.   All together, including toast, I estimated the total to be somewhere in the 700-800 range.  Very high for a breakfast, but I figured besides the cheese, it was all a large dose of some very healthy items.   It actually kept me satiated well until late in the night.

Just before midnight, the hunger pangs started kicking in.  I’d wanted to get something a little healthier like Subway or St. Louis Bread Company.   Unfortunately, due to the hour, our options were severely limited.  I ended up selecting an old favorite, Taco Bell.  Now, I’m not going to classify Taco Bell as being healthy.  As much as they push their fresco menu and “diet drive-thru” concept – it’s still junk food in disguise.  It IS however much better options than most of what I can get at competing fast food places at that time of night.  During the first round of my diet, I’d become enamored with the fresco crunchy tacos.  They were 50 calories less than their regular versions which technically allowed me to have one more for the same amount of calories.    My friend had told me the wonders of the Taco Salads, and I really wanted to give one a try, if I was going to be having fast food for once.  I ended up ordering a Fiesta Taco Salad Fresco Style with no shell, and two crunchy fresco style tacos.   Once we arrived home, I quickly opened up the taco salad and was suprised at how small it actually looked.  Take away the shell and it looked downright ridiculous!    Still, for the calorie count (approx 300) it was still MUCH more food than my Crunch Fresco Tacos would have provided.   The taste was definitely pretty good, though I really could have passed on the sour cream.  Not a big fan of sour cream overall, and the calories could easily have been recaptured without it’s presence.  The tacos were just as I remembered, and just as tasty!   I was still feeling the burn from brunch earlier in the day, so I opted to stay away from the fire sauce this time.   The tacos were more than perfect without the addition of the heat.

My friend and I stayed up late into the night after that, discussing life and the wonders within.    I knew I had to work at some point this weekend, so I decided to call it a night around 1:30 in the morning.    I finally decided to pull myself out of bed right around 9:30AM, I packed my things and headed into the office.  So, here I am now – one cup of coffee down, and about to get another.  I’ve got work to do, but wanted to make sure I got my thoughts out about the weekend so far before they faded away.   I’ve got to get through the rest of the day, but being at the office should be helpful in keeping away the cravings and urges.   I’ll probably just end up fixing my normal chicken dinner when I eventually get home.  Tomorrow is weigh-in and I want to show some great losses for that.  I know I’ve dropped the 5lbs I want to do each week, but I’m afraid my water intake my skew things a bit.   Oh!  Speaking of which, I did at least 2L of water yesterday, and came to the sad realization that 2L does NOT equal a gallon!  I guess I’m not smarter than a 5th grader afterall.   I’ve read I need to have about 130oz/day – so even my 3L from the other day is still far short of that goal.   I’ll get there, it’ll just take more time than I thought.

Anyway, I’d better get to work.  I’ll post an update to this post later this evening with the progress from today…

UPDATE: Just a quick update about the rest of the evening.  I ended up having a Garlic Chicken Voila when I got home.  The calories are a bit on the high side, about 850, but I figured if that was my main meal of the day, not too bad.  About 7:30 or so, I did start getting hungry again.  I ended up having a bowl of oatmeal with just a dab of brown sugar.  That came out to about 220 calories.   So, over the course of the day, I probably had about 1100 calories in total.  Not bad at all for a weekend!   Tomorrow is the weigh-in, and I hope I show some decent progress.