Food Intake, Monday

Breakfast (7:30 a.m.)

12 oz Coffee w/two creamers:
49 calories: 1 g protein: 1 g carbs: 2 g fat

Power Crunch bar
195 calories; 15 g protein; 10 g carbs; 11 g fat

Snack (11 a.m.)

Trail Mix
480 calories; 15 g protein; 36 g carbs; 30 g fat

Lunch (2 p.m.)

12 oz Coffee w/two creamers
49 calories: 1 g protein: 1 g carbs: 2 g fat

Two slices combo pizza
370 calories; 25 protein; 42 g carbs; 11 g fat

Totals so far:

Calories: 1,143
Protein: 57 g
Carbs: 90 g
Fat: 56 g

Food Intake, Sunday

Breakfast (9:30 a.m.)

12 oz Coffee w/two creamers:
49 calories: 1 g protein: 1 g carbs: 2 g fat

Lunch (3 p.m.)

4 slices combo pizza
740 calories; 51 protein; 85 g carbs; 22 g fat

one beer
146 calories; 1 g protein; 13 g carbs; 0 g fat

Dinner (9 p.m.)

Two carne asada burritos (small) w/beans and meat
800 calories; 46 g protein; 46 g carbs; 50 g fat

Corn on the cob
77 calories; 3 g protein; 17 g carbs; 1 g fat

one beer
146 calories; 1 g protein; 13 g carbs; 0 g fat

two mojitos
200 calories; 0 g protein; 14 g carbs; 0 g fat

one Red Bull
155 calories; 0 g protein; 10 g carbs; 0 g fat

***
Totals:
Calories: 2,313
Protein: 102 g
Carbs: 199 g
Fat: 74 g

Terribly boring, I'm sure...

...all these posts about my food intake. But I want to see what happens, and if I'm shamed into eating correctly (or, at least, better) when I write it all down. So far, well, no. But it'll work out eventually, I'm sure.

Not quite sure even why I'm doing this, other than the fact that I have so many other things on my plate, it only makes sense to add one more, totally unnecessarily, task to my day. Ah, life. I certainly do need a bit of code blue to make the days pass.

Food Intake, Saturday

Breakfast (1 p.m.)

One Mozzarella Stick
80 calories; 6 g protein; 0 g carbs; 6 g fat

Two Pieces Bread w/butter & jam
290 calories; 8 g protein; 47 g carbs; 9 g fat

Two eggs w/cheese
240 calories; 18 g protein; 2 g carbs; 17 g fat

Three pieces sausage links
120 calories; 4 g protein; 0 g carbs; 12 g fat

12 oz Coffee w/two creamers:
49 calories: 1 g protein: 1 g carbs: 2 g fat

Snack (3 p.m.)

2 cheese sticks
160 calories; 12 g protein; 0 g carbs; 12 g fat

12 oz Coffee w/two creamers:
49 calories: 1 g protein: 1 g carbs: 2 g fat

Snack (7 p.m.)

one glass red wine
74 calories; o g protein; 2 g carbs; 0 g fat

two peanut butter crackers (large)
350 calories; 14 g protein; 28 g carbs; 20 g fat

Dinner (8:30 p.m.)

One and a half veggie patties
150 calories; 3 g protein; 15 g carbs; 10 g fat

Broccoli
20 calories; 2 g protein; 4 g carbs; 0 g fat

Martini
70 calories: Protein 0g; Carbs 0g; Fat 0g

***
Totals so far
Calories: 1,652
Protein: 69 g
Carbs: 101 g
Fat: 92 g

Calories are down, but still not doing so well with the carb/fat/protein ratios. Looks like I might be getting there... so long as I don't get too hungry later on....

Food Intake, Friday

Weigh-in (7 a.m.): 180 lbs.

Breakfast (7:30 a.m.)

1 bowl of Life cereal w/milk
238 calories: 13 g protein: 39 g carbs: 6 g fat

12 oz Coffee w/two creamers:
49 calories: 1 g protein: 1 g carbs: 2 g fat

Snack (9:30 a.m.)

1 buttermilk bar (donut)
219 calories: 3 g protein: 26 g carbs: 12 g fat

12 oz Coffee w/two creamers:
49 calories: 1 g protein: 1 g carbs: 2 g fat

Lunch (2 p.m.)

One large chicken breast, one small chicken breast
176 calories: 32 g protein: 0 g carbs: 4 g fat

12 'nilla wafers
147 calories: 2 g protein: 22 g carbs: 6g fat

12 wholegrain crackers
60 calories: 1 g protein: 6 g carbs: 3 g fat

Snack (3:30 p.m.)

12 oz Coffee w/two creamers:
49 calories: 1 g protein: 1 g carbs: 2 g fat

Snack (5 p.m.)
Pure Protein Bar
270 calories: 32 g : 26 g protein: 7 g fat

***
Totals prior to dinner:

Calories: 1,277 calories
Protein: 88 g
Carbs: 122 g
Fat: 42 g

OK, doing a bit better. Who knew that a donut would be approx the same nutrition value as life cereal? More vitamins in Life, I'm sure, but still...
***

Dinner (9 p.m.)

Reuben Sandwich w/french fries
Calories: 906: Protein 33 g: Carbs 50 g: Fat 60 g

Two martinis
140 calories: Protein 0g; Carbs 0g; Fat 0g

***
Totals

Calories: 2, 183
Protein: 121
Carbs: 172
Fats: 120
***
Trip out, right? Well, hell. It's hard to eat right, no doubt. Let's keep truckin'

Food Intake, Thursday

Breakfast (8:20 a.m)

Pure Protein Bar:
290 calories
28 g protein
30 g carbs
10 g fat

20 oz Coffee w/three creamers:
78 calories
1.2 g protein
1.8 g carbs
5.1 g fat

Snack (10:10 a.m.)

12 oz Coffee w/two creamers:
49 calories
1 g protein
1.2 g carbs
2.4 g fat

Lunch (12:30 p.m.)

12 oz Coke
155 calories
0 g protein
40 g carbs
0 g fat

1 cup spaghetti w/sauce
284 calories
9 g protein
53 g carbs
4 g fat

1 cup breaded and fried chicken
313 calories
27 g protein
11 g carbs
17 g fat

1 cup mixed veggies
17 calories
1 g protein
4 g carbs
0 g fat

1 dinner roll w/butter
84 calories
2 g protein
14 g carbs
2 g fat

****
Whoa. OK, so my goal is to lose a bit of weight, and supposedly the best way to do this is by keeping the calories down (total intake) and having the protein and the carbs be about the same. Let's see how I'm doing so far today (as of lunch)

Calories: 1,270
Protein: 69 g
Carbs: 155 g
Fat: 40 g

So, if I'm planning on keeping my intake down to about 2,000 calories/day, I can pretty much have a big meat sandwich (minus the bread) for the rest of the day. Lunch is definitely the most difficult meal for me, as it's really the only time I get to leave the office, something that I need to do mostly for the sake of my sanity.
***
Exercise (8 p.m.)

20 minutes on elliptical
20 minutes on stair-stepper
60 sit-ups
***

Calories burned: approx. 450

Dinner (9:10 p.m.)

Swiss cheese, four slices
352 calories
32 g protein
1 g carbs
24 g fat

Sliced turkey, 1/3 lb.
290 calories
50 g protein
12 g carbs
5 g fat

Rice cakes, two
70 calories
2 g protein
14 g carbs
1 g fat

Booze (afterward)

9 oz booze
576 calories
0 g protein
0 g carbs
0 g fat

10 oz light grapefruit juice
198 calories
0 g protein
49 g carbs
0 g fat

***
Huh. This is sort of embarassing. OK, now for the totals:

Calories: 2,756
Protein: 153 g
Carbs: 231 g
Fat: 70 g

So, then, the good news is that I'm keeping quite a bit of fat out of my diet. The bad news is that it probably doesn't much matter for health or weight-loss purposes. Oi. Try again tomorrow...
***

A Food Experiment

I'm going to try to write down my food intake over the course of a week. I'm also going to include how much exercise I do, and my weight. It's just an experiment, so it should be interesting to see how it works. To keep myself honest, I'll post my intake on this blog.

Amazing, but Yes, I am still Alive

So, OK, it's been far too long since I last wrote. That is true. I had an excuse, I suppose, or a series of excuses: I had a bunch of weddings to shoot, city work got extremely (oi) busy, and my own personal wedding planning, happening and aftermath bore down on me like a juiced Giants outfielder (yes, Barry, I'm talking about YOU).

But this is, well, lame. Mostly I think I just had a long bit of malaise. I don't know if the life of a professional writer is again in my future. Actually, dear reader(s), you'll have to suffer though a bit of unedited type, as the my writing engine has become a touch rusty, and some of my phraseology might be a bit weird, stilted or just plain hard to follow.

I've come off my honeymoon. Donna and I spent 10 days in Aruba and Puerto Rico. It was a sublime experience, filled with joy, sex, warm nights and a hell of a lot of rum. I have the deepest tan I can remember since high school (I appear off-white now), and I have several megabytes of photographs of water so blue they look doctored.

But, in the ying and yang of life, there where some issues as well. As perhaps due to my outlook on life, journalistic training, or simply because drama and pain are more easier to write about, this section will be a bit longer. But, again, misquoting Dostoevsky, "all happy moments resemble each other, unhappy moments are there own pain."

Anyhow, the honeymoon started at 4 a.m. on August 7. My mind was restless, and I was unable to sleep. The wedding celebration, less than 36 hours prior, still rang through my mind. I was overwhelmed, tired, maybe a bit drunk (though it's funny how little you can drink at your own wedding). And then I shot awake: our plane leaves today, the Super Shuttle will be arriving at our Burbank abode in an hour! Shit!

Donna and I were well aware that the honeymoon started on Aug. 7, but for some reason both of us thought that it Aug. 7 was a Wednesday. No. Tuesday. Despite the rude awaking, Donna proved herself in rare form and the both of us got packed and ready (including a mad dash to deposit our gift checks) in a bit under an hour. Nice.

We had a connecting flight through Miami, and only 50 minutes to make the transfer... This would have been fine, as we arrived in South Florida right on time, only to sit in on the tarmac for 40 minutes. We jumped off the plane, pleaded with the American Airlines ticket agent to call our connecting flight (they promised they would, but said it would not likely do much good) and proceeded to run.

Now, perhaps many of you know how big the Miami airport is. Perhaps some do not. But rest assured, that fucker is HUGE. Our flight arrived in the B Terminal, our connecting flight was in the D Terminal... more than a mile apart. Donna, who was still recovering from bronchitis, wheezed her way through the gates.

"Go on without me," she said, coughing.

"No one gets left behind! No one!" I shouted, giggling.

We made it with plenty of time to spare, as it turns out... The flight to Aruba sat on the tarmac at its gate for another 20 minutes. Oi. Seems the good people at American could have let us know that, seeing as it was their damn fault we came in 40 minutes late. It seems that airline travel gets more and more difficult as the years progress. Maybe I'm getting crankier.

Anyhow, we got to Aruba in fine shape. Well, I did, anyhow. Poor Donna pretty much coughed her way through the first few days: we spent more on medicine and doctor bills than drinks that first few days. Still, since the whole plan was to drink, sit on the beach and lie in bed, things hardly seemed marred.

And that way they remained. The light, weather and people of that ridiculously small island keep one smiling, that's for sure. Aruba has a few casinos in town, and Donna and I walked away with more than $300 one night and $150 on another trip. Turns out this windfall was fortunate, as on Sunday I lost my wedding band while snorkeling. Fuck.

Seawater tends to make fingers shrink. Oops. My ring slipped right off as I jumped into the sea, dropping down probably 15 feet to the ocean floor. Though the crew on board helped, the ring had been lost.

About this time, I came down with a cold, presumably from the dying strains of Donna's bronchitis. This cold would remain with me for the remainder of the honeymoon, and it would be returned to Donna, who, at this moment, rests uncomfortably in bed.

Still, the cold did not mar things too much. I have no idea what Puerto Rico smells like, nor much of what the food I ate tasted like. But the food felt good, and the drinks still made me loopy. How much more, I suppose, could one want?

My broken hand is still in a brace, I'm out of Vicodin and I'm at yet another professional crossroad. I'm not in the best mood, I'll admit, and bitching about the bad luck on my honeymoon seems to help. How did I break my hand, you ask? I punched a wall in frustration a week before my wedding. This did not exactly endear me to Donna, and was quite embarrassing for me, especially in front of so many relatives that I had never seen before... But then again, I may never see many of them again.

Anyhow, this posting is getting too long, so I'm going to sign off now. Write back.

Love,
Dan