I got a new pair of shoes today. Man, do shoes make a difference. I remember when I got my last pair of shoes and how they made me feel like taking off….just go running! Now, they’re beat down and ready to retire. I got my new pair on tonight. While they didn’t give me that “gotta run” feeling, they sure were light years better than my old pair (sorry guys). Did a 1/2 hour on the treadmill and my feet are happy still. Sometimes, new equipment will help shake things up.

I’m going to continue to keep my eye out for some new ones that will give me that “wow” factor that I’m looking to find. If anyone’s interested, the ones I did get were some Asics GT2170. They are comfy and nice sneakers in general.

I had sushi for dinner tonight. I don’t know what I enjoy more about it…the fun flavors and textures to enjoying sushi…or that I feel so hip and trendy while I’m eating it. For some reason, I equate sushi to coolness. I had 9 peices and a spicy tuna roll for dinner tonight. I think my coolness factor was increased +10.

Also, why do I equate raw with being healthier? I don’t believe I’ve read any studies on this concept, but mentally, I can’t help thinking my inner cannibal enjoys the raw factor. I had some raw salmon, tuna, yellowfin, and striped bass (my first) tonight. I also tend to think that if it’s raw, there’s less of a chance of them sneaking hidden calories in there (via coating, oil, etc).

Raw fish and rice. Sounds good to me.

Also…burned another 650 calories tonight…looking forward to my first weigh-in tomorrow. My goal is to be 339 or less.

Another good day.

We celebrated my birthday tonight, even though it’s a couple day’s away (thanks to our family schedule). I am proud to say that I didn’t go crazy. We had ice cream cake as a finale…my favorite treat.

The best part….I planned the whole day’s eating and exercising, including the ice cream cake. My daily calorie intake was about 2,000 and I burned another 600 calories before work this morning. Now that’s a good way to celebrate a birthday.

In times past (even when “dieting”), I would have devoured my dinner, gone back for seconds, then had a monster helping or two of dessert. Not today. We had chicken cheese steaks with sauteed onions and peppers (in lieu of philly cheese-steaks), baked tots (1.5 servings of 12 tots), and a cup of broccoli. Oh, and only one serving of each.

FYI, I will post my daily breakdown of calories at the end of the week (my lose-it! app sends me a report that I can cut & paste here).

Today presented a challenge that I had forgotten I would need to face. Maybe I had known in the back of my mind, but at some point last night, I started remembering that we were going to have a big Easter dinner with family today after church.

On the way to the event, I reminded my wife (which was really a verbal agreement on my part more than a reminder to her) that we needed to be more mindful of the calories consumed. Not to deprive ourselves, but to make smarter choices, especially in the area of portion size/control.

I think I have finished the day with great success. Total calories consumed today are a little over 2,000. No portion that I had was larger than 1/4 cup (or the size of my palm).

Considering in the past I would have easily downed about 4,000-5,000 calories at an event like this, then planted myself on the couch to digest for about 2-3 hours.

Today, I started with a healthy breakfast running around 500 calories, a small snack around lunch time (150 calories) to tide me over till the event, and the rest during the span of the five hours we were enjoying some familial comraderie, which included a round of kickball and a bit of baseball with my son.

This is how a holiday break should be.

Good times.

Update:  Ok…got home and helped offset this with a 30 min, 5 mph run on the treadmill.  For me, that’s a burn of about 650 calories.

I wish I could say I was surprised, but I got on the scale and it balanced at 342.

342

That’s it. That’s the number. That will be my peak.

The journey has begun.

I have made a couple commitments as part of my journey.

• I will weigh myself in weekly.
• I will publish a photo of my weekly progress.
• I will change the quantity of what I eat (do we really need seconds? Or thirds?).
• I will drink an extremely large ratio of water.
• I will make activity a part of my daily routine.