Day 15

Well once again I have underperformed. The planned 7 cool projects, then downgraded to 3 cool projects, ended up being about half a project. But lets not dwell on the negative.

Weight loss was not great, but I mostly obeyed the rules I set out.

I have kept the dishes in the sink under control. Big win here and makes me feel better about things. 

Mowed and did a little yard work. Not bad.

Day 10

Yesterday's project went well. We made some dungeon tiles. There was a little grumbling at first about not being on the computer, but in the end they were into it. We only got them half done, still need to paint. Will have to post a pic when they are complete.

Day 8

I have been pretty good about sticking to the diet plan. Not every meal is perfect, in particular lunches have not always been salad. But definitely on the right track.

The boys return to my place Friday, so now is probably a good time to plan out PROJECTS FOR THE WEEK! So of the ideas:

• Work on our Viking Shields - we're making Viking shields out of wood. They look pretty cool, but progress has been glacial.
• Make some sweet dungeon tiles for gaming. Or these
• Wooden cups. Use concentric hole drill bits
• Axe target - have some throwing axes. Great fun. Need a good target
• Anvil holder - We have an anvil. There is some interest in blacksmithing. May build anvil holder
• A carpeted step for the old Yorkie so he can get on the sofa
• Checkerboard and checkers from a tree in the back yard.
• Wooden spoon
• Viking mug

If we can do three next week that would be amazing.

Day 4

Yesterday was not great, but not terrible. Weight stayed flat - ok. Very little yard work. Lots of dishes done though.

Today was good. Slept late. Light lunch, big dinner, but within the "one bowl" parameters. No yard work. Dishes almost done, will finish them before bed.

Tomorrow I will go into maintenance mode with the dishes. Next task is cleaning the dining room table. We do eat there, but over time it goes from empty and clean to 4/5 covered with junk. I want that sucker EMPTY!

After that, the next place to go is the living room sofa. One is empty, that's the dog's perch for 95% of the day. Also sees occasional use as a nap spot for me. The other one is where things get dropped. It was empty not long ago. Now it's... not.

Day 2

The scale rewarded me already for yesterday's restraint. I know that you shouldn't weigh yourself every day, water weight, yadda yadda. But my weight really does reflect good days or bad days even on a daily basis. Perhaps because I weigh so much. At any rate, down two lbs. This is things moving in the right direction after a long stretch of things mostly moving in the wrong direction, and some days of +/- 0. Despite the fact that the older son made a delicious Alfredo sauce for dinner. It like that scientist that ate nothing but Twinkies and vitamins all month. Because he controlled calories he lost weight. Of course my plan is more sustainable and includes lots of veg and salad. I wasn't hungry at all yesterday, though I did identify several times when boredom eating was about to kick in. So, progress!

On other fronts, I did a huge load of dishes. Still plenty more to do, but progress.

This morning I plan on making scones. The boys love them. Will make two batches, and send them off to their mom's with the second one. The first batch should be pretty much gone by the end of the day, but if there is one or two left over for me that's fine.

No yard work. Will get started on that in earnest Saturday.

Day 1

So far so good! Breakfast was two eggs scrambled with sauteed kale scrambled in, cheddar, and two sausage links on toasted homemade bread. This is no hardship. I did have a half dozen toasted almonds. Will try to limit myself on those.

Lunch is a ways off, but there is already leftover salad sitting there waiting so that should be easy. I also have the first zucchini of the season, may saute some zucchini rounds to kick it up a notch.

I made my first entry in myfitnesspal in ages. The good news is I've only gained 1 lb since this time last year. The bad news is I've gained 13 lbs in the past six months. We'll see what we can do about that.

Time for a Change

Feeling very restless. Lot of crap going on in the world right now. COVID, Trump, kids approaching college age amidst uncertainty. Lot of personal problems as well. Starting this blog as a bit of a diary, a bit of motivation, and a bit of accountability.

Things I would like to improve.

1. Need to lose weight. Working from home has made me a lot more sedentary.
2. Need to exercise. Walking 2 miles per day would be enough. 
3. Need to clean the house better. Doing the bare minimum lately. 
4. Need to clean the yard. The front looks crummy. The back is a jungle.
5. Projects. This one is more nebulous. I'm playing on the computer much more. I want to do more crafty kind of things that make me happier - stuff like http://instructables.com

Will start today with weight loss. I think I have two problems with food. Snacking and binging. By snacking I mean all those little things I eat between meals. The plague has made this worse as I sit all day 15 feet from the fridge. Despite getting free food and snacks at work, I was always more responsible about snacking when I was working from work.

Binging is a more serious problem. I make something for dinner that I like and I go to town on it. It seems to turn off the responsible part of my brain that tells me to stop. It's particularly disheartening to be good for like 23.9 hours a day and undo the good I've done in the space of 10 minutes.

So. What to do? I have tried various diets - low-fat, Atkins, Keto, counting calories, vegetarian. Low-fat was miserable and didn't work for me. The low-carb diets have worked to varying degrees, but recently I lose like 10 lbs and plateau. Low-carb is much harder when I can't go to the store regularly due to COVID, too. Counting calories was very hard to stick to. Vegetarian was healthier I guess, but I didn't lose any weight and eventually became concerned about protein deficiency. Not the fault of the diet to be sure, but clearly it wasn't the best for me.

For now I'd like to try portion control along with a couple of rules.

Breakfast

• Bowl of cereal
• Egg sandwich

The key thing here is not power chowing on last night's leftovers. An egg sandwich is not a diet food really, but I do a bit bigger breakfast and a bit lighter lunch. My egg sandwiches usually consist of two eggs, scrambled, often with some veggies mixed in. I'm growing kale in the garden, so that's easy to get nice and fresh. Usually add in some meat and cheese. On some homemade bread, lightly toasted. Again, not starvation rations here, but all told I should be under my daily calorie budget. not that I'm explicitly counting here.

Lunch

• Big Salad

I used to do this at work. It was my main source of healthy veg for the day. I do make it less healthy with generous dressing and things like feta or chopped ham. But I'm convinced that sticking to this regimen overall will still be a solid plan for weight loss. Hey, if not, this is not carved in stone, I can revisit and decide what to modify.

Dinner

• Anything! BUT no more than one bowl. 

Second helpings are literally killing me! The nice thing here is tons of flexibility on what I eat. If I can control the amount, I will be in good shape.

Snacks

• Rice cake
• Yogurt
• Pickle
• Kim chi
• Celery

I'm not too sure about snacks. Might need to stop this altogether if I'm not being responsible. Yogurt might be too high cal. Basic idea here is to keep the calories low low low for any snack outside the three meals.

I need to keep track of weight while I'm trying this. If it's not working, I need to make it more restrictive. Hopefully this blog will keep me accountable.