Day 5

Weight 178
Breakfast: ham Wrapped around cheese, spam on 1 slice of toast.
15 carbs
Lunch: Corned beef and Swiss cheese, celery with peanut butter.
10 carbs
Dinner: 22 oz Michelob Ultra, 1/2 dozen chicken wings.
Snack: celery with peanut butter.

Day 3 - Hmm, lost a couple of pounds.

Weight 181
Breakfast: Chicken salad, shredded cabbage on half a whole wheat tortilla. Rockstar sugarless beveridge.
About 12 carbs
Lunch: Sliced ham rolled around cheddar cheese, crab salad and chicken salad spread on lettuce leaves, California roll sushi.
About 15 carbs
Snack: Chicken salad and crab salad on half a whole wheat tortilla
About 12 carbs
Dinner: Scrambled eggs with onions, bratwurst, and a slice of bread.
Michelob Ultra
About 15 carbs

My research reveals...

I've been actively searching for a diet that made sense. Most of them had two problems: they seemed hard to follow given my lifestyle, and they had flaws in the science explaining how they worked. That second part drove me nuts. There were a couple of things that were clear to me though: refined carbohydrates where going to have to be avoided, and I needed to be able to get my food at a convenience store on occasion.

I have read a lot of studies and theories about diet and exercise. I've even been on a couple of diets over the years. The one and only diet that ever worked for me was a diabetics carb exchange diet I used in the 80s that seems to work marvelously. But for the most part I thought they were all bunk. Usually I preferred to exercise more, and that seemed to work for the first 35 years of life.

Closing in on 55 though, time and commitments prevent me from going out and playing tennis 4 hours a day and jogging every morning. So, a diet seems like the only other option. My original plan to lose weight was simply change my eating habits for breakfast and lunch. These are the two meals I usually eat away from my family. This way I would impact my loved ones the least. I didn't want to impose my diet on them.

For breakfast I was going to eat mostly fruit and stay away from refined carbohydrates. For lunch I was going to try and eat a salad. I'm usually busy enough at work and even if I'm hungry I can kind of make it through till the end of the day without opportunity to snack. It does require some will power though, to avoid stuffing food in my mouth as soon as I get home. Particularly when everyone else is out.

But that all changed one day, when I was listening to NPR and author Gary Taubes was on. He has a book called "Why We Get Fat" and it draws some interesting conclusions. Here's a link to the author's website, but the gist of the thing is skip carbs to lose weight. Complex carbohydrates and refined carbohydrates. I know what a carbohydrate is, I can weed those out. To start with I will cut them down to less than 20 carbs per meal. Other than that though I think I can eat whenever I want, carb free though. Well, let's see how this works.

I won't bore you with all the day to day stuff, but every few days will post the days food, along with other musings and errata. I will post my weight for the day as well.

How do you eat an elephant?

I am a procrastinator. It drives me nuts because I see so many opportunities. How do people do it? How do all the ultra successful people have multiple projects and get them done? What's the secret?

I look at the huge pile of things I want to do and they're just not getting done. It's my fault, I'm forever stuck in research mode.

The secret of course is to do it. You eat an elephant one bite at a time. You start with the first bite.

This is a blog about my self improvement. This is how I'm doing it. Your results may vary.

Day 1 07/07/2012

Weight 184
Breakfast: Turkey, swiss cheese, cabbage, thousand island dressing, on half a whole grain tortilla.
About 10 carbs total.
Snack: two slices of turkey wrapped around string cheese.
Lunch: 4oz of Lloyds barbecue pork on half a whole grain tortilla.
About 12 carbs.
Dinner: Bratwurst, Colby cheese, on one slice of whole wheat toast.
About 13 carbs.