New Year, New Fail

Just for kicks, let's see how long this lasts. As usual, I've been going backward. Eating terribly, way too much, gaining weight in bunches. New Year resolution is to do better. Vague enough for you?

Monday 1/3/11: No breakfast (slept late), McLunch 2 cheeseburgers, sm fries, diet coke (980 cal), dinner a large pizza (total fail), diet Squirt. Okay, yeah, the pizza is a fail, but on the positive side I had no sugar today. I've been drinking a ton of regular soda and that more than anything has to stop. So today wasn't complete fail. I do drink a lot of water too but see no need to track that. I'm well hydrated.

By the way, this isn't a conventional new years resolution - I just decided to make some changes today. It might have gone better with some pre-planning but whatever. Just getting started is enough.

Tuesday 1/4/11: No breakfast (again, slept late), lunch 1 ham steak, diet cherry coke zero (about 300 cal), dinner a junior wet burrito, chips and salsa, water (semi-fail), dessert 1/2 grapefruit. Again, no sugar, no soda. The dinner out was kinda planned as it was while I was doing laundry. Definitely didn't need the chips and salsa and it was definitely carby but still, a bit of progress. I should eat a little something for breakfast and need to eat a bit more at lunch - I was rather hungry come dinner time.

Wednesday 1/5/11: No breakfast. I need to get up a lot earlier. lunch 1 ham steak, cherry coke zero (so about 300 cal), dinner some stew meat (chuck roast) that I slow cooked yesterday with some butter and seasonings, 1/3 of a tub of garlic mashed potatoes, diet Squirt. No idea on calories but about 20g carb from the potatoes. A bit later a chunk of Velveeta sounded like a good idea. It wasn't (blech). I need to clean out the fridge (it was on hand for new years Rotel dip). I think I'm going to have the other half of yesterday's grapefruit too. Some water, not as much as yesterday. Felt pretty good today, not as hungry come dinner time but still somewhat. I do need to eat more for lunch. Going to have to go to the store soon.

Initial comments: I don't usually skip breakfast. In fact I'm well known at the local McDonalds for my extreme affection for their breakfast menu. I go out for breakfast usually at least once a week at a local diner. My schedule is just way way off this week and the dietary changes aren't making it easier. Fortunately it's not too rough at work at the moment and I can sleep in a bit.

Thursday, 1/6/11: I slept super late this morning - I just couldn't get out of bed. When I finally did I felt fine and in fact notably good. I think there's just an adjustment process any time you make a change and considering the extreme nature of the changes this week I'm not at all worried about it. Anyway, since I didn't get up until 10:00, I skipped breakfast again. For lunch, the rest of the leftover stew meat cooked with butter and spices, another serving of leftover garlic mashed potatoes (20g). Can of cherry Coke Zero. Went shopping after work. I was hungry when I got home (finally) so I had a 1.5 oz bag of Jays Hot Sauce Pork Skins. They were pretty decent and definitely took the edge off - I ended up eating dinner almost 2 hours later. Two ~5 oz hamburger patties with a bit of dehydrated onion and jalapeno mustard. 1/2 of a grapefruit for dessert. Lots of water. I had planned on having a green salad with dinner but decided to skip it.

Fun note of the day: I bought the bottle of Woeber's Sandwich Pal Jalapeno Mustard a few weeks ago on a whim but had never opened it. All I can say is WOW. It's fantastic. And there are no mystery ingredients or chemicals.

Friday, 1/7/11: And the first workweek of the new year limps to a conclusion. I was able to get up a little earlier today but I was still late. One of this weekend's projects is going to be to try and fix the schedule. We'll see if that happens. Yeah.

On the food front, I had about 1.5 oz of extra sharp cheddar cheese for breakfast. A cherry Coke Zero for a snack. Lunch was late and was 3 smoked bratwurst (Johnsonville Jalapeno and Cheese) with jalapeno mustard. Dinner was 3 eggs scrambled in a little butter with maybe an ounce of shredded sharp cheddar plus about 5 oz ground beef cooked with a bit of dehydrated onion and cayenne, with jalapeno mustard. And I even took a picture of it! -->

There will most likely be a 1/2 grapefruit for dessert a little later on.

Today will go in the books as a success although the carb total is definitely higher than it needed to be thanks to the ridiculous 3g/link in the brats. I need to find a brand that doesn't have corn syrup. I think Hillshire Farm is even worse. Again I meant to have a green salad, this time with lunch, but since I only 15 minutes to fix and eat the brats I passed. Hopefully this weekend I can get some veggies in.

Also, I don't know how long this fling with the jalapeno mustard will last but for now it's obviously my go-to condiment.

I think starting this weekend these are either going to become individual posts or else I'm going to put the most current day at the top, it seems a little strange to scroll down to get to today.

New feature: Accomplishments! They may be stupid but they matter to me. Tonight I hauled up from the basement my old dining room table and re-assembled it. I've been unhappy with the low height of my inherited "new" table but have been too lazy to do anything about it. Boom. And I might even shop for a new chair.

#declaringvictory

Tonight's experiment was simple - test out the "french" cycle on the bread machine.

Yeah, I'm a creature of habit. I select the same cycle (rapid regular) and use the same recipe pretty much every time.

Results: Pretty good. Fantastic crust. The bread itself is super dense - this might be the smallest 1.5 lb loaf I've ever seen. I'm a little puzzled as why that's the case - I think I deviated from the standard recipe by adding just a hair more oil and yeast, but not enough to make a difference. I think I'll just chalk it up to me winging it - something I do a lot of. I could never write a cookbook.

Looking forward to seeing how the bread holds up on sandwich duty tomorrow. Pending that, I'm declaring victory.

A New Focus

You have to love the fact that Blogger isn't quick to delete inactive blogs. Let's give this one another go, shall we?

There will be a slight change of focus. I still hope to blog for accountability - to myself that is - but I probably won't be posting everything I eat or pictures of every meal. That's too much of a commitment. Instead, I'll just post things as I feel like it. I think that's doable.

The new focus will be on the following:

1. Trying to choose local and sustainable foods.
2. If those aren't available, trying to choose organic over chemical/factory farmed.
3. Making it myself. I spend way too much of my food dollar on drive through and takeout "meals".

In any event, not a tremendous amount has changed in the three years it's been since I used this blog for anything. My eating habits haven't improved much, but I have a new interest in working on them. I read a lot and a couple of my recent reads have been The Omnivore's Dilemma and Barbara Kingsolver's Animal, Vegetable, Miracle -- both highly recommended. Even if you don't agree with every last detail, the overall logic is inescapable: Our current food system is crazy. Crazy in many ways - in its incredible dependence on oil, in the lack of care taken to ensure quality, in its lack of respect for the soil, in the way it diverts money away from the people that actually grow the food.

That won't change overnight, and let's get some things out in the open.

I'm not a revolutionary. I'm focused on improving things for myself.

I'm not a purist. While I will be trying to "do better", I will probably still eat the occasional Big Mac. And I will not be beating myself up for doing so.

I'm not interested in criticizing the food choices other people make. If Kraft Mac n Cheez works for you and your family, great.

I'm not a vegetarian or vegan. It doesn't work for me. See the above points.

With that out of the way, I'm going to try and have some fun with this.