Catch-19

The sad news is that the Dems no longer have a “super majority”, just a plain ole majority.  Not they were using the super majority anyway. All that power in the hands of people who, by the very fact of their profession can be identified as power hungry, and they have yet to get off the pot and do something game changing. And it really didn’t look like they were going to do so anytime soon, so I really can’t blame the Repubs for saying “Hey, you playing with that? No? Then I’ll just take it.”

What bugs me is that a lot of the criticism of the campaign seems to be spot on. Democrats in MA acted as though they owned that seat for ever more. Martha Coakley couldn’t even keep straight the names of major ball players (I believe it was the Australian Rules Rugby champ she misnamed?). That’s bush league shit, and in Massachusetts? It just really showed a lack of effort.

But I do see a sort of silver lining. The whole debacle points to one thing about the Democrats that I sort of like. Or not ‘like’ but respect, and think is important to preserve. That is that they don’t walk in lock step with the leadership. it doesn’t make them honest, but at least they are a more independent. And I think that’s a good thing, in the long run.

On the other hand: You Blew It!

I was just reading older posts looking for one that described how I measure my weight and got to reading this one: Weigh In.

The bad news is that I went back up to 300 lbs after that. The good news is that it’s been coming down in the last 5 months. And since the 1st of the year I’m down 10 lbs to 275 lbs.

How I did it is the most basic formula for weight loss. Move more, eat less, burn more calories than you eat. I’ve started taking Taekwando classes 3-4 times a week and getting on the recumbent exercise bike for 45 minutes 5-7 times a week. And probably most significantly, I’ve drastically controlled my eating.

The eating is the hardest part. Now I have one slice of bread with a low calorie yogurt based spread for breakfast with a cup of decaf (artificial sweetener, but I’m cutting down on that too) - 165 calories. Lunch is 2.5 oz. of tuna mixed with 2 tsp of salsa (all natural, really good stuff, Green Mountain Gringo) and 4 tortilla chips - 190 calories. Now even if I add some fudge room to those numbers I’m under 400 calories for breakfast and lunch combined. For dinner I have whatever I cooked. I’m cooking fairly healthy, but I know I can do better. The key at dinner is that I use a tiny plate and don’t fill it. And I eat only a tiny portion of ice or potatoes, probably the size of a matchbox, the rest being vegetables and meat. And I have a salad before every dinner with 2 tsp of low fat vinaigrette dressing. I don’t have a good way to gauge the calorie count for dinner, but I don’t think it’s more than 1000. So for the day, I’m under 1500 calories, at least. I really think I’m closer to 1200. But that’s just week days. And I forgot about my treat. In order to curb cravings for candy and chips and chocolate, I get a single piece of See’s Candy chocolate at the end of the day, they run anywhere from 50 - 120 calories. And I usually have a piece of fruit and some carrots, too.  So lets call it an even 1500.

And it’s working. 10 lbs in19 days. I don’t think I can keep that rate up for more than a month or two. It will slow down, but I’m ready for that. I think I can achieve an average weight lose of 2 lbs a week from now until June 1st. If I do that I’ll have dropped an additional 38 lbs, putting me at 237 lbs. Damn near to my goal of 220.

The key for me is not getting off track. I do this regularly where I get something good going, one little bump in the road derails me and I never get back on. The last time it was a cold. I got sick for a week or two and never went back to exercising. Don’t know how I’m going to combat that. I think this time I’ll keep exercising, no matter the circumstances. Even if it’s a feeble slow crawl on the bike, if I stay in the routine of getting on it every day I think that will help.

And back to what started this post, the way I measure my weight: I weigh myself everyday, when I’ve been at or below a particular 5 lb weight range for 7 days, I consider myself to have achieved that weight. So for instance. I got down to 275 on the 1/12 and stayed at or below there until the 1/18, so I now weigh 275.

Wish me luck for today. I believe I’ll be at 270.