Friday, March 25, 2011

Encouragement

It's not always easy to eat healthy, or eat less, or lift pitiful amounts of weights, or run embarrassingly slow in front of strangers... that's why I'm so thankful for the encouragement I get from friends.

Like this gem from my friend Matt:



The ole "offer Dan Los B's before we sit and watch basketball" trick. Nice try, Matt. (his next comment may or may not have been a derogatory joke about my eating habits.) For the record, we had delicious spinach/mozzarella/ricotta filled tortellini in a basil marinara sauce. It was excellent.

And while I might get some temptation from friends (see my frosting fiasco last weekend), it's nothing compared to my local health club. Seriously, this is right outside the men's locker room:



Welcome to HealthTrack... where no matter what we say, we care more about making money than your health!

Not as appealing as Los B's perhaps, but it offers such immediacy, with the added bonus of almost unlimited hypocrisy. Brilliant. Anyway, I will never buy anything from this vending machine (and I never have)... but lest you think I'm strong-willed in regards to my eating habits, I feel compelled to admit the reason is pretty much because I'm cheap. Vending machines are a terrible deal.

My run, directly preceding my vending machine avoidance, was excellent (relatively speaking). Basically, I'm becoming comfortable running 5k, and just keep trying to run it faster. Once I plateau, I think I'll start doing some interval training to build speed (or whatever else Coach Jeff suggests)... but for now, I just want to figure out where that plateau is. This week I ran a 5k Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, and dropped about a minute of time each day. Distance: 5k

Instead of Los B's (yesterday) I had a bowl from Chipotle. Really pretty good & healthy stuff, if you're looking for hot food on the go. Especially if you are a master of avoidance like me and you pass on the (otherwise delicious) chips. Nutrition facts on the Chipotle Chips: 570 calories & 27g of fat. Ouch. Like I said... avoidance. If you stick with just a bowl, avoid the cheese, sour cream, guac, and tortilla, it's just chicken, a little rice, black beans, and some salsa... and still pretty delicious, considering it's really just half of the ingredients for a good burrito at that point. We had a grill-out at work, just grabbed a burger and then mostly fruits and vegetables, trying to keep it healthy-ish... but that will still dock me some points. Food: B+

Weight: 228.6 lbs ... I've been at this for about a month now officially, so I thought I would start posting this chart showing progress. Unfortunately, I don't have a *real* start point... but a couple weeks before my first official weigh it, I think it was around 245. (yikes!) So that first point is just an estimate... and could plausibly be a good bit higher. I'd say decent progress over the first month-ish. Honestly, I'd like the weight loss to be more aggressive, but I'm told this is "healthier"... you don't want to lose much more than 1% of your weight per week... according to people who know more than me.

Anyway, nice to see progress... and having a decent start (both with dropping pounds and gaining speed with running) is encouraging.

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