Weigh-in Day # 5 : Stuck Again and So What

Official weight for Monday 10/5/09 : 221
Change from last week : 0

I was gonna say something smartsy-sounding involving "Stuck in the Middle with You" by Steeler's Wheel by ever since Reservoir Dogs that song makes my ears itch.

Also I had planned to start the "how I did it" series this week, but decided to wait and see this morning's results first. Initially my gut reaction was "well..." as in how can I manage to say "hey I've done something great" when I haven't lost a single pound in three weeks. But I think I'm going to stick to my plan to start that series, and here's why : it is, in fact, part of how I did this.

If there's one thing that I've learned throughout various phases of my life, it's that positive thinking has a real power to it. Some of you are religious types and like to externalize this with God or prayer or whatever it is you do, and you know what, that's just fine by me because it serves the same ends through different means. The basic principle is that if you can keep reminding yourself of the things you've done right, and that you never doubt that you'll make it to your goals, then you're more likely to do it.

Perfect example - when I was lying in the hospital nearly dead from a burst appendix, I never once truly believed that I might die. Part of that was the indestructible nature of being 25 years old, but part of it was that in my base nature it just never occurred to me to be that negative. The end result was that I surprised my doctors by being able to walk out of treatment several days early due to a great recovery, and I continue to believe that my mindset played an important part in that.

Can you solve everything this way? No, of course not, otherwise we'd all be immortal nymphomaniac swimsuit models with a trust fund. But when things aren't going so well, it's good to look back on your successes, to learn from your failures, and to believe in your heart that you will succeed. So tomorrow I'll start that series with an eye on helping both you AND me out of our respective slumps, aight?

For now :
- things I've done right : lost 46 pounds in 6 months, changed my life
- things I've done wrong : this past week I really didn't get enough sleep at all. I averaged 6 hours a night (with two nights well below that) when I'm supposed to be averaging 7-8, hopefully I can improve on that this week.

Diet for Monday 10/5/09:
Breakfast Part 1 (home)

• Fiber One original w/fat-free milk
• 4 oz orange juice w/vitamins

Breakfast Part 2 (Oakland)

• poppy seed bagel w/butter
• work mug of coffee

Mid-morning

• 2nd cup of coffee

Lunch

• Turkey sandwich from Ratto's
• Sun chips harvest cheddar flavor
• 2 cans Coke Zero

Dinner

• Big Chicken Caesar Salad
• 1 glass red wine

Dessert

• fat-free chocolate frozen yogurt w/Hershey's lite chocolate syrup

Exercise for Monday 10/5/09:

• 30 min walking around Oakland

Sleep for Monday 10/5/09:

• 6 hours