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Lifehack Monday, August 17, 2009
Having conquered my coffee addiction, I started my quest to clean up my diet last week, and hopefully drop a few pounds. Last Monday, I tipped the scales at 214 pounds. I had regained nine of the twenty pounds that I took off earlier in the year. My tight clothing should have been a dead giveaway. That, and the fact that I can’t see my feet. Here’s my Before picture:
Photo by girolame
Just kidding. I only feel that fat. But I digress; on to the numbers. I weighed in this morning at 212 pounds.
As you can see, I made some slight progress in my goal. I tend to be a slow starter on diets, and don’t make much progress for a couple of weeks. This time was no different. I followed a high-protein, low carbohydrate diet. I wasn’t ready to jump into the full-blown Metabolic Diet just yet. That’s a little too carb-restrictive for me at this point. I’ll have to work my way down to 30 net carbs. I ate fruit instead of cookies, and drank not one beer. Here’s a typical day’s menu from the past week:
Breakfast
- One scoop of Amplify protein powder (from GNC) (120 calories, 20 grams protein, 3 grams net carbs, 2 grams fat)
- 8 ounces of Hood Calorie Countdown chocolate milk - this is the best chocolate milk I’ve ever tasted! (90 calories, 8 grams protein, 4 grams net carbs, 5 grams fat)
Mid-morning Snack
- 1 ounce of walnuts (183 calories, 4 grams protein, 2 net carbs, 18 grams fat)
Lunch
- 4 ounces of Boar’s Head Cajun Turkey (120 calories, 26 grams protein, 2 grams net carbs, 1 grams fat)
- 1/4 of a Damascus Roll Ups Flax wrap (28 calories, 3 grams protein, 2 grams net carbs, 1 gram fat)
- 1 teaspoon Boar’s Head Savory Remoulade mayonnaise (90 calories, 0 gram protein, 2 grams net carbs, 9 grams fat)
Afternoon Snack
- 1 ounce dry roasted peanuts (166 calories, 5 grams protein, 4 grams net carbs, 14 grams fat)
Dinner
- One scoop of Amplify protein powder (120 calories, 20 grams protein, 3 grams net carbs, 2 grams fat)
- 8 ounces of Hood Calorie Countdown chocolate milk (90 calories, 8 grams protein, 4 grams net carbs, 5 grams fat)
After-Dinner Snack #1
- 1 cup arugula (4 calories, 0 grams protein, 1 gram net carbs, o grams fat)
- 2 tablespoons olive oil (238 calories, 0 grams protein, 0 grams net carbs, 14 grams fat)
- 2 tablespoons red wine vinegar (6 calories, 0 grams protein, 1 gram net carbs, 0 grams fat)
- 1 tablespoon grated romano cheese (20 calories, 1 gram protein, 0 grams net carbs, 2 grams fat)
After-Dinner Snack #2
- 1 ounce of pepperoni (138 calories, 6 grams protein, 0 grams net carbs, 12 grams fat)
- 1 ounce of Swiss cheese (106 calories, 8 grams protein, 2 grams net carbs, 8 grams fat)
After-Dinner Snack #3
- 1 pear (86 calories, 1 gram protein, 18 grams net carbs, 0 grams fat)
Totals for a Typical Day
- Calories: 1,605
- Protein: 110 grams
- Net Carbs: 48 grams
- Fat: 93 grams
Note: To figure out net carbs, subtract the amount of dietary fiber from the total carbohydrates.
As you can see, this isn’t a strict adherence to the Metabolic Diet, as I’m over the 30 grams of net carbs per day threshold. After dinner continues to be my Achilles heel. I’m thankful it’s baseball season, as the Yankees keep my mind occupied. My downfall was a barbecue with the family last night. I’ll have to start eating my cheeseburgers without the bun.
Tune in next Monday, where I’ll share my exercise routine with you.
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A Month Without Coffee. Now What?
Photo by Andreanna
I think I’ve kicked my coffee habit. It’s been a whole month since I enjoyed my last cup o’ Joe. Based on the conventional wisdom that it takes three weeks to break a habit, I think I’m good to go. Yippee!
What now?
OK, so I can cross “Stop drinking coffee” off of my list of bad habits to break. I guess it’s time for a new challenge. What should it be this time? I can’t stop watching baseball on TV; after all, the Yankees are in first place. Stop drinking beer? You can have my Sam Adams when you pry it from my cold dead fingers! Actually, I only drink about 4 beers a week, usually on the weekends with friends. How’s that for rationalizing? I’ll have to pick something that’s really doing me harm, a habit that has crept back into my everyday life. That habit is: junk food.
No, not the Entenmann’s cookies!
Yup, time to dump the empty calories. I know this because my clothes are getting tighter, and the number on the scale has gone up. Rather than bite off more than I can chew, I’m going to focus on cookies and chocolate for the initial 3 week period. I’m looking for incremental progress, like the way I approached my coffee addiction. I’m a big believer in the “small bites” philosophy. How come all of my analogies are related to eating?
The Witching Hour
I don’t touch junk food until after dinner. I’m good all day at work, because I only eat the food that I bring from home. No candy machine trips for me. The cravings start after my healthy meal, usually after I settle in for the night. This is my Witching Hour. This is the trigger that starts the junk food grazing. The benefits of this lifehack will be not only a healthier diet, but some serendipitous weight loss.
A matter of substitution
When a ballplayer performs poorly, to the detriment of the team, the team gets rid of him, and puts someone else in his place. This is how I’ll approach this challenge. I’ll be the General Manager of my nutrition. I’ll replace chocolate with salad. Cookies with apples. I’m putting Snickers on waivers, and trading Baskin-Robbins for sugar-free Jello. I hope to be back in the pennant race come September.
Photo by maccanti
Stats don’t lie
Being that I’m starting today, I was brave enough to jump on the scale. Here’s the scary number: 214. I’ve gained back nine pounds from my winter weight loss session. Like Patton said, I hate paying for the same real estate twice. Shame on me.
A new feature
Because of the success of Sun-Tzu Sunday, I’ll post my progress every week. Call it Metabolic Monday. Or not. That sounds stupid. Regardless, I’ll fess up every Monday about my habit. I’ll let you know if I cheated, and what foods that I ate that kept me from going off the rails. I’ll share with you what worked, and what didn’t work. It will be easy to stay on track with everyone watching me.
Photo by L. Marie
Do you have a problem with junk food? Anyone care to join me in this experiment? I don’t want to know what you weigh, just that you’re keeping on track.
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A Week Without Coffee!
There she goes
There she goes again
Racing through my brain
And I just can’t contain
This feeling that remains
- from There She Goes by The Boo Radleys
I first heard that song in the Mike Myers movie So I Married an Axe Murderer. I didn’t know at the time that it was about heroin (naïve little me). I’ve been fighting this coffee addiction for a while now, and I think that the song can be applied to caffeine, too. You can read the rest of the Coffee Chronicles by clicking these links:
The Unthinkable: Giving Up Coffee
Progress Report: Giving Up Coffee, Part 2
I used to get a real pick-me-up from drinking coffee. It fueled my workouts, jump-started my mornings, stirred me up in the afternoon, and kept me company while my newborn son screamed from colic pains all night. It kept me awake on the four-hour drives to and from business meetings at my company’s headquarters.
There she goes
There she goes again
Pulsing through my veins
And I just can’t contain
This feeling that remains
But coffee hard a dark side. It made me cranky. It kept me awake rather than alert. I wasn’t getting enough sleep as it was, and coffee compounded the problem. My fuse grew shorter. I would sweat alot. ALOT. Having a cup of coffee in the afternoon usually justified a trip to the candy machine for some fat pills. I started looking like Tweedledee.
So I decided to try a new lifehack, and to cut coffee out of my life completely. I can happily report that my experiment has been successful. Today marks one week with not even a drop of coffee. I’m satisfied with my progress, and hope to keep the caffeine monkey off of my back for good.
So long, sweet java! It’s been nice knowing you. But your negatives have come to outweigh your positives, and it’s time to say goodbye.
There she goes
There she goes
There she goes
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Ali at Dumb Little Man wants us to mono-task to work more effectively. I’ve always thought multitasking allowed me to do a bunch of things in a mediocre fashion. I’ll leave multitasking to my computer.
Nickel at Five Cent Nickel wants to know how large our emergency funds are. I keep about 10 months worth of expenses in laddered CDs. If you don’t have an emergency fund, please read Nickel’s post.
In a guest post at My Two Dollars, Cameron tells us to create a gold-laying goose. He tells us to create passive income from the “goose” (assets), and then “live on the eggs.”
Tough Money Love wants us to feel wealthy on a middle-class income by paying our bills at the beginning of the month. He makes the case that peace of mind is worth the cost of paying bills before they are due. It’s a strong case.
Kevin at No Debt Plan says anything worth doing requires sacrifice. He lists his goals, and reminds himself why he’s sacrificing now for future rewards.
Jonathan at Awake at the Wheel wonders if gifted and talented is a life sentence. He talks about the differences between a fixed mindset and a growth mindset, how the fixed “gifted and talented” mindset is more limiting than a growth mindset that rewards effort.
David at Simple.Organized.Life gives us 10 ways to simplify your life starting today. There are some great lifehacks in there.
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