I regard Week 1 of my diet as a success, but it wasn't easy. It's obvious that I need every bit of the encouragement and assistance all of you have been offering me. I'll be checking in with all of you every Thursday to give you a diet update.
As Serious Eats I find myself confronted by temptation at every turn. Yesterday, for example, the Serious Eats crew decided to have a mess of Korean fried chicken delivered. You think it's easy eating brown rice and a little lean roast pork while they're snarfing down regular and extra-spicy fried chicken, mac and cheese, and waffle fries? Temptation yesterday also took the form of some BonBonBars, chocolate bars made from serious ingredients, which arrived in a box from California. You will be hearing from me about these seriously good treats, but I managed to just have a bite of each of two bars.
Last night's dinner wasn't any easier. I had a business dinner with someone who loves good food and wine in general, and has a particular thing for pizza. In fact every year this fellow piles into a limousine with six of his friends and they go on a New York pizza tour.
We ended up going to Lucali's in Brooklyn and splitting a sausage pie and a huge calzone. They were both very fine, indeed, and I will report more about them at a later date. But I remained on guard and had two small, almost dainty, slices of the pizza and a tiny piece of the calzone.
So how did I get through the week? Just as important, how did I do when I got on the scale this morning?
I got through the week pretty well just by thinking ahead. I visualized each meal a couple of hours in advance. I had a salad at Chipotle with half barbacoa and half carnitas, light on the cheese, and no sour cream. I did manage to eat my Greek yogurt for breakfast without adding any Splenda. I ate bialys with an ounce of cheddar cheese melted on them. I ate lots of roast vegetables. I even bought a head of cauliflower to roast. A lot of the stuff mentioned above came from suggestions made by the Serious Eats community, so thanks again. The encouragement I get from all of you really helps.
I eat two or three Satsuma Mandarin oranges every day. They're small, but the ones I've been buying from California are so juicy and sweet I don't mind their size. I have also found at least three 100-calorie snack packs I really like: Pepperidge Farm Goldfish Pretzels, which are so small the little package lasts a fairly long time; Ian's Organic Double Chocolate Chip Cookie Buttons; and Snikiddy Organic Banana Nibbles. All three of these tasted like credible versions of what they purported to be. That is, the pretzels tasted like pretzels, the double chocolate chip cookies tasted like chocolate, and the banana cookies tasted like bananas. I limit myself to one savory and one sweet snack pack a day. I'm trying to limit my caloric intake to 2,000 calories a day.
I doubled my exercise regimen, from twice to four times a week. I played squash twice, biked to the office once, and used the elliptical trainer at my gym for 45 minutes. I'm also experimenting with getting off the subway one stop sooner coming to and from work each day, so I get an extra mile in of walking every day.
The bottom line: Well, I'm going to the scale right now. Damn, I only lost one pound this week. Maybe I wasn't as careful with the pizza as I thought I was. Well, one pound lost is better than nothing.
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