Day 450 Anytime Is A Good Time and Properly Portioned Pasta Is Perfect

Day 450

Anytime Is A Good Time and Properly Portioned Pasta Is Perfect

It's a busy time of year for most everyone I run into these days. I ran into an old friend this morning that congratulated me on my weight loss and added “I'm going to get busy after the first of the year.” My first instinct was to talk to them about why the time is now, and not in three weeks, but there's a time and place for everything...and right now wasn't the time for that conversation. It reminded me of all the times I said that very thing. I was always too busy to care about losing weight. Losing weight was always something I knew I had to do at some point, when it was convenient, when I was ready, when I wasn't so busy, after the holidays, after the busy time of year, after vacation, after my birthday, and the list could go on and on. I could have easily decided that September 15th, 2008 just wasn't good for me. My birthday was a month away and only two months away from the holidays. So why start when I did?

Because the time is now. If our ideal weight loss path is something that we can live with forever, if the changes in our food behaviors are real and well intended, then why wouldn't anytime be a good time to start? You know why? Because I always looked at weight loss as a chore. We've been conditioned our entire lives to believe that losing weight 'is hard work.' I was never successful before, truly successful, because I never focused on the positive mental changes I needed to make in order to ease the “pain.” All I focused on back then was how hard it would be...eat less and exercise more, what a struggle that'll be. It's amazing what a different perspective can do for you. I'm still going to eat and enjoy food, I'm just going to eat responsible portions and perhaps move a little more everyday. I'm going to learn what constitutes a “regular” portion, I'm going to enjoy the journey. I'm going to experience some wonderful changes along the way. I'm going to be happy. All the while---I'm still eating what I love, I'm still being me. I don't have to wait for the stars to align properly, you know? Positive perspective, awesome attitude, super high importance level---add them all together and you get success anytime of year.

I prepared Courtney and me an omelet this morning. I love them, I really do. They're so easy to make and with the egg whites the calorie values are out of this world awesome! I grabbed an apple and a banana on the way out for snacks and I was set. I ran a few errands for lunch and decided I needed something to eat, so I pulled into the McDonald's drive-thru. I ordered the grilled chicken snack wrap without any sauce. We're talking about 210 calories in that thing when you leave off the ranch dressing. I arrived back at the studio, opened my lunch and found a fried chicken snack wrap. It's only a 40 or 50 calorie difference to go with the fried, but I wanted the grilled! I decided to try it anyway, but after one bite I had to throw it away. I didn't taste chicken, just grease. It was horrible! Come on McDonald's, I've lost nearly 230 pounds while occasionally enjoying your food, but this was unacceptable. Oh well, I enjoyed my banana and remembered that we planned on having dinner at home later.

I had a wonderful racquetball workout with Whitney this afternoon. You know, if I schedule it right---I could have a racquetball match almost everyday of the week. My friend Scott Hayes also plays, and it's been awhile for us, I need to call him too. Once again I was soundly defeated in three straight games. But---I had a wonderful workout! And that's all that matters really.

I prepared spaghetti with mushrooms, green pepper, and lean ground beef mixed in the tomato sauce. Oh wow, it was so good. And It was much less of a calorie danger than our spaghetti dinners of old. In the early days of this journey, I wrote about how I was almost afraid of pasta. For the longest time I wouldn't think of preparing a pasta dish. I felt that way because we always over did it with pasta. I always fixed three times too much with way too much meat and grease. Not tonight! I used less than a half pound of super lean 93/7 ground beef instead of a full pound (sometimes two) of the cheap and fatty filled 78/22 ground beef. I used one jar of sauce instead of two and I prepared just enough. We always filled an entire giant salad bowl full of spaghetti, enough to feed ten people easy! But that's not how we do things anymore. A serving of spaghetti shouldn't be a 1400 calorie feast, instead about 320 is normal. Add to that a slice of 150 calorie garlic bread and we're at 470. I can do 470 for dinner any day of the week! Irene was planning on coming over to join us, but something came up, and Courtney was tired and slept instead. I enjoyed the dinner and the quiet alone in the middle of our boxes and bags. I then decided to start doing something about all of the stuff that needed put away or at least sorted---so I did some of that too...then went to bed.

Tomorrow (Wednesday) is weigh day and I'm looking for some kind of loss. I was left staring at 278 last time, just standing there waiting for it to change. Getting off and back on, like it would make a difference somehow. It didn't. But---as many have pointed out, one weigh-in is not a plateau, so we'll see what tomorrow brings. After losing 227 pounds, I was seriously overdue for a weigh-in like that. Wish me luck on the scales tomorrow. I plan on hitting the doctors office late afternoon. My schedule just doesn't allow for a morning weigh-in. I don't own scales and I don't want to own any. Someone once told me that “you weigh more in the late afternoon,” well OK---as long as I weigh in the afternoon consistently, it shouldn't matter right? I do understand what they're saying---and perhaps some weigh-ins would have been better along the way had they happened first thing bright and early, but seriously, I have no complaints---I mean, really...none. Thanks for reading! Goodnight and...

Good Choices,
Sean