Welcome to Macaroni Land

November 17, 2008

So my dear friend Heather invited me to partake in her blog. Allegedly this is an exercise of accountability.

I really think Heather’s just looking for someone who makes her diet look way more fabulous than it actually is, so why not invite your friend with the worst eating habits ever to blog about it?

Which brings one to the ultimate question? Why do it?

Well, why not? Maybe writing things down will guilt me into having a better diet. I kinda doubt that on the grounds that I eat wayyyyy too much food in general and no vegetables.

(Note: Heather would say no vegetables. I’d say that I eat potatoes. She… and probably the rest of you… would note that potatoes are a starch. Whatever. They grow in the ground which beats my boxes of mac and cheese.)

Now, before we get to the good stuff (um, the food), let me state that if one were to pick a lifestyle as different from Heather’s as possible, we’d pick mine. From a diet perspective, I live for fast and easy (NO that doesn’t apply to my love life as well!) It’s not that I don’t know HOW to cook, purely that I have very little time and when I do, who wants to cook a whole recipe-based dinner for yourself?

And, while we’re being honest with strangers, the reality is that I’ll eat whatever quantity is in front of me. So the notion of cooking something out of a book and using the rest for leftovers? Doesn’t happen. If I’m going to cook XYZ for four, I’ll have the whole thing eaten before Law and Order.

What else? I travel too much. (By some people’s standards anyway… to put this into perspective, I spent 74 days between March and August on the road, but by other people’s standards, I have more than a few friends who’ve joined the 100k Club).

Surprisingly, this is great for keeping your weight down. Vacations wreak havoc on one’s diet. Work trips? Fabulous. The thing is I work events. You leave your hotel room at 7 or so and come back, um, way later. Usually an event will end anywhere between 8 and 11 that night. Breakfast is whatever the refs have in the hospitality room. Lunch may or may not happen as it’s always at a set time and if you’re running around you don’t get fed. Dinner happens at the beginning and end of an event (for long tournaments), but in the middle? Ha. Right. There’s results to be done, which means you wave goodbye to your staff friends and sit to type. And then you have some wine for dinner. Easier than food to get down quickly and it takes the edge off.

And the longer the event, the worse it gets… A weekend tournament is probably a 1-2 pound weight loss. The first two weeks of the Olympics? Probably closer to 10-12. (Of note, what goes down must eventually come back up and while I lost so much weight in Beijing I considered having the Chinese tailors at the Silk Market fix my falling off pants, after I switched sports I had way more time to eat and put about half that back on in the first three days.)

Which brings me to booze. Heather (referred to herein as “The Good One”) doesn’t drink. I do and won’t give it up for the world. Wagons are things on farms and I’m not a fan of living on one.

That said, I don’t drink outside of social situations. This is primarily because I’m smart enough to comprehend that alcohol is a waste of calories. Let’s not make it worse by having a couple glasses of wine every night.

In fact, my only good health habit is I drink a lot of water and don’t touch pop (uh, soda?) ever. Not usually a fan of the taste and why waste hundreds of calories a day on something for nothing?

Hmmm, that’s me in a nutshell, now on to the good stuff...

I’m coming off a weekend of complete food debauchery… Yeah, where else? Vegas. Suffice it to say, ate way too much food, spent way too much loot and need to return to something normal.

Breakfast
Pop Tart (200)

Lunch
Four Cheese Lean Pocket (300)

Workout
56 Minutes on stationary bike (356 calories burned)

Dinner
Three Servings Mac and Cheese (780)
Tuna (50)
Light Mayo (80)

Total: 1410

Water: A lot. Ummmm, three beer mugs (20 oz each) and two smaller ones (16 or so each), plus whatever I drank while working out.

Weight 71.6 kg

Oh yeah, that’s the other thing. I’ve taken to weighing myself in kilos. Occupational hazard. Or it could just be that I like a number that looks smaller. Take your pick. :o)