Day 5

188 pounds

Breakfast - bacon and eggs

Lunch - similar to yesterday - variety of meat, veggies and fruit bites

Dinner - had dinner with friends - they made hamburgers and brought chips. I had a couple hamburgers without the bun and Carol made a salad. I was jonesing for a beer in a big way, since all the guests were drinking. I pounded water like there was no tomorrow. Somehow I managed to make it without cracking a beer open. Discipline!!???

Exercise - just working in the yard again and a mild swim

Day 4

Forgot to weigh myself this morning.

Breakfast was a fruit smoothie

Lunch was a bunch of bite-size pieces of all kinds of good stuff that Emmy made - steak, meat loaf, nuts, celery, carrots, cucumber, grapes, pineapple, craisins. That's all I can remember.

Dinner was chicken, spaghetti squash and zucchini.

Worked a bit in the yard, but no official exercise. Quite sore in general, but my back is feeling ok. Went over to Sheila's with Carol to drop off a gift and loan her a GPS. Had to turn down a beer offer. That was the most difficult part of the day.

Day 3

Weighed in at 190 pounds after breakfast

Breakfast - steak and eggs

Lunch - leftover chicken, fruit salad

Dinner - meat loaf, spaghetti squash, salad, taste of a grilled pepper, taste of avacado

Didn't snack much, since I wasn't all that hungry today. I did have a variety of nuts though. Made an extra cup of coffee at about 12:30.

I'm too out of shape to do even the beginner exercise program, so I'm switching to the 12-day warm-up. So tried to do day 3, which was 4 sets of 10 pushups. I think I did 7 and then switched to knee pushups. Second set, did 5 knee pushups and gave up. I'm still hurting from doing pushups the other day.

Day 2

Weighed in at 191 this morning. Normal fluctuation I suppose.

Breakfast was a fruit smoothie.

Had to leave for an emergency call for a down client after breakfast and missed my chiropractor appointment.

Made an extra cup of coffee after I got back for motivation. Didn't work. Also had a very small piece of leftover steak as a snack.

Lunch was leftover stir fry.

Afternoon snack was 1/2 grapefruit and a few almonds.

Dinner - pork chops, green beans, cucumbers and baked apples.

Did less than 25% of the exercises yesterday evening. I'm seriously out of shape and my back doesn't feel too good these days. I was thoroughly warn out by the end of the exercises, so not all is lost. Gotta start somewhere.

I'm writing the rough draft for this before dinner on day 2. I'm a little hungry, but I'm craving a nice cold beer. Gotta keep myself occupied.

Day 1

Today is the first day of a program I'm trying. I paid too much for it on the Internet, but it's really very simple. My hope is to (1) feel better, (2) lose some belly fat and (3) get rid of this back pain.

The short version is this: no whole grain products (bread, pasta, rice, processed foods), no dairy (milk, yogurt, cheese - oh yea - eggs are NOT dairy!), no sugar (relatively easy for me), and no alcohol (what? no beer for 31 days? that's gonna be tough!)

I can eat meat, vegetables, nuts and fruit. I can drink water, black coffee or unsweet tea. I also have to do some pretty intense exercises, but no direct abdominal crunches or anything like that.

I weighed 188.5 on the scale this morning (I hit 193 about a week ago, but have since cut out most whole grain products). I had breakfast a little late because I had to leave the house to deal with a client's remote server that was not cooperating.

I had about 2 1/2 cups of black coffee and a fruit smoothie for breakfast (fresh banana and peach, frozen strawberries, blueberries, blackberries, mango, raspberries, pears (from the back yard), powdered vitamin C, Spirulina, Chlorella, liquid vitamin D, fish oil and orange juice (possibly against the rules), a little honey too because the program doesn't mention honey - I probably should hold off on that until the 31 days are up). I also took my daily multivitamin. Lunch was some leftover chicken and a very small piece of leftover steak. Snacks included a few different kinds of nuts. Dinner was a stir-fry with chicken, squash, broccoli, celery, carrots and a bunch of other yummy stuff. I really wasn't hungry all day except right before dinner, which is good. Oh yea, I also drank a LOT of water, but that's pretty normal.

I'm about to go do the exercises - I hope to do them in the mornings, but my schedule got whacked today.

Will I update this every day? I intend to! We'll see. I'm hoping that by documenting this, it will force me to be more aware of what's going on.