September 22, 2004 Health update

I have been utilizing both my Lifeclinic diaries to measure my blood pressure and calorie intake and exercise since August 29th of 2004. I have also begun to utilize a program called Diet Organizer on my Pocket PC which also allows me to input everything I eat when I am away from the house and it automatically calculates all of my calories and nutrition information.

According to Lifeclinic.com my profile states that in order to STAY or MAINTAIN my current weight I need to eat a minimum of 2771 calories. Well, I certainly DO NOT want to maintain this girth but rather I want to REDUCE it slowly but surely.

So, since August 29th I have begun the process of micro managing my calories and trying to get into the HABIT of walking or riding my elliptical trainer. I have managed to lose 6 whole pounds in the last thirty days by doing this so it IS giving me some encouragement to KEEP DOING IT!!

Baby steps. Tiny baby steps. Making the right choices every day doing what I CAN do and not worrying about the past or what the future holds. If I keep doing that then hopefully I will continue to lose weight.

Am I on a diet per sae? No, not really on a diet. What I am doing is reducing the amount of calories I eat and I am trying to switch high calorie foods to lower calorie foods when I can. An example of this is Coca Cola. My wife and I BOTH love this drink. However, one 12 oz can is 230 calories. Coca Cola just came out with a low carb low calorie substitute called Coke C2. That is ONLY 70 calories and it does not taste bad at all. So, as I rack up those calories every day I am learning what is fattening and loaded down in calories and trying to stay away from those things.

The other day I was at the snack machine at work (horrible idea I know) looking at something to eat. I had plenty of calories left to eat for that day in my calorie bank (always present in my mind now) and I saw an apple fritter that I had to have. I put my money in and off to my desk I went. AFTER I ate this thing I saw that it had a WHOPPING 400 calories. GASP!!!! I will NOT do that again. LOL..

Anyway, I hope that my being transparent here and sharing my struggles in this area will help someone who is reading this and needs a friend who understands how hard it is to shed those unwanted pounds.