GUT CHECK TIME: Introduction

Well, since I'm the General Manager of several things, ball team, hockey team, poker league, plus managing work life and home life and everything, I thought I'd add something new to the list: Myself. Let me explain.

I decided early last week that I was gonna take control of my eating habits. I'm not the healthiest eater, and I decided that I wanted to make a habit of getting better, heathier. That was Tuesday, June 2nd. After work, I stopped by Chapters and picked up a book on getting healthy. It looked like an interesting enough read, was actually a book about dads who were previously fit and grew beer guts after their kids were born, as their attention to their own diets goes out the window once there's a kid to take care of. I wasn't in great shape before having a kid anyways, but I thought it might be a funny read at least, and offer lots of insight.

I was right, it had lots of great ideas, the main one being eating lots of testosterone-building types of foods like lean beef, poultry, egg whites, broccoli, etc. Helps build muscle mass and lose fat, thereby toning your body and losing weight too. Sounded plausible, even had some recipes and meal plans you could build. Well, I read the first few chapters, everything food related, but stopped at the exercise chapters. Figured I'd read that part the next day or whatever, for now I'll worry about eating. And I got off to a GREAT start!

I completely cut out Timmies breakfast-sandwiches, which had become a disturbing regular trend for me. Easier than I thought. A bowl of oatmeal and a bowl of branflakes was easy enough. I listened to the book and ate as best I could. Pork chops that night, I only had one, with a small fist-size portion of whole-wheat rice and corn. For a snack later on, some grapes and a bowl of cereal. Next day for lunch was a leftover porkchop I normally woulda eaten the night before. Had an apple for a snack instead of Snickers from the Vending machine, and water instead of Canada Dry. And I was feeling better! This continues all day Thursday as well, eating nothing but good stuff, sliced peaches instead of apples, some steak, green peppers and onion kabobs for dinner. My ballgame that night, I threw the 4 Ks in one inning, and felt like I hadn't thrown that hard in a long time. Everything was going swimmingly!

Then Friday came.

I don't know, maybe I need an intervention or something, but I fell off the wagon hard since Friday. I had the day off, and on the way to Nordik Spa (for my wife's anniversary present) we hit Baton Rouge for lunch. Then it was a weekend of beer and BBQ. By Sunday I could still throw hard and had a pretty good game winning 3-2 and going the distance, but I was not as effective as I felt on Thursday). Monday? Lean Cuisine Panini, but a big supper. Tuesday Stouffer's (non-lean) Panini, then later a 6" Sub cuz I was still hungry. (It was a healthy sub, but I prolly coulda done without it altogether). Today I had a free work-related pizza lunch. Yesterday I had lunch out with a friend, who wanted to hit the Pizza Hut Lunch Buffet. Supper last night? Home made pizza! At least THAT had some veggies on it, but still, a far cry from where I was a week ago.

The free work-related pizza lunch today was the final straw....kind of a bitch-slap to the book I bought last week. 2 slices of Meat Lovers from Gabriel's, a chicken strip, a Coke, oh I know, I know, I know! It was awful. Tasted awesome, but awful. I even had my first breakfast sandwhich in a week this morning! (whole wheat bagel, but STILL).

Which is kinda the point. I figure, my wife will keep tabs if I try to eat better, and it's nice to have a cheerleader in your corner, but I need to be harder on myself, thus I'm going to try to do it publicly. (Well, as publicly as this Blog will let me....now maybe 3-4 people know about my eating habits instead of 1-2).

My plan is to adhere to the book starting when I get home today. I'll finish reading the exercise portion, go back to buying only the healthy food, empty the remaining Cokes in the house down the ol' sink and go healthy. Tomorrow morning, and every weekday morning thereafter, I'm going to post how much I weigh, and what I've eaten since my last blog.

Wish me luck.

M@