Thursday, May 6, 2010

Ugggh

Tough day for the diet. I didn't blow it, but I couldn't get my mind off of food. I was friggin' hungry. I stopped at Dunkin Donuts to get a coffee and get my free coupons. They served me an Egg White Turkey Sausage Flatbread sandwich whose egg was ice cold I think it was Monday. Disgusting. Who wants to eat cold eggs? Maybe hard-boiled eggs or egg-salad sandwich, but not an allegedly hot egg sandwich that isn't - hot.

I didn't make a big deal out of it in my usual terms of making an issue out of something, I had called the number on the receipt and left a message. The lady that called back was totally cool, we hit it off. She said she would be over at that store the next day so give til' Thursday to get some free coupons. I only expected one coupon to replace the sandwich that was bad, she had left 3 of them.

Well, I just went ahead and got another of those sandwiches, having absolutely no idea what kind of caloric content was in it. From the taste of it, not much but I had no idea. OH, and when the manager came out, she was VERY apologetic and said they had had to reprogram the ovens for the amount of time those sandwiches have to cook after I had voiced my complaint about it. So, a good thing came out of it.

I just found out the caloric content of the sandwich, DD has it posted online: 280 calories with 50 calories from fat. No wonder I have been hungry all day. Sodium content is a bit high at 34% of the recommended daily allowance, but otherwise, that sandwich really isn't a diet buster. I had all kinds of opportunities to have more food during the day - doesn't that ALWAYS happen when you are trying not to eat the bad stuff? There were bagels at work - and if you just have a plain bagel you're probably good. You have to be careful of "light spreads". Some of them write that on the packaging but when you check some of the nutrition labels, they are still loaded with fat, calories and sodium. I bypassed all of it, determined to keep on track.

The revelation that I had gone back under 200 pounds is what kept my focused. I weighed myself today, still at 198 pounds, which is hardly discouraging. My weight usually fluctuates a lot, to see it still there, under 200? Totally encouraging, really. Something happened in my head when I saw that 198 number the other day - it was THE motivation I needed to get even stricter on this diet of mine. I'm not sure what I'll have today, but I still have plenty of that frozen Talapia - VERY good. I cook some diced onions, put in the fish, wait til' it cooks a bit, drain out the juice and then dump a can of tomato sauce on it and load it with good spices.

I did that yesterday and also cooked some frozen potatotes with it. I was surprised at how small the calorie number is with certain frozen potatoes. It was less than 100 calories for a decent sized serving. It's when you start adding sauces, cheeses, ketchup - whatever, that's when the calorie value builds to astronomic proportions. I add none of that. Instead, I put on some Louisiana Hot Sauce which is basically zero calories for all intents and purposes and had a very nice meal. In fact, I ended up mixing some of spiced tomato sauce on the fish with the potatoes, very tasty, actually.

Of course, it's amazing what you will call tasty when you're ravenously hungry yet are forcing yourself to watch every single thing you take into your mouth. Still, this is the first time I have ever dieted where I don't feel like I'm dieting. In other words, I don't feel DEPRIVED of anything. That, folks, is what usually makes or breaks a person in that realm and probably why lots of folks take the variety of pills available to make you not feel hungry. I hate taking pills - but I would do it if I had to in this case - so far I don't really need that kind of help.

If you read about my devouring 2 pounds of meat in one setting in the next couple of days, well, no biggie to me. As long as I don't eat a half gallon of ice cream or some other sugary product, I really don't care about a splurge such as that. My biggest downfall are sauces and creams and cheeses added to foods that I prepare. Well, a whole cup of tomato sauce is only 90 calories - so the amount I put in there is about 23 calories with 1 gram of fat. Yeah, that's a sauce I can eat copious amounts of and not have to worry about it.

Anyway, now I can give myself permission to eat something. Spaghetti with meat sauce is 255 calories. I would probably eat about 500-600 calories worth, but it will be the extent of my eating today. I worked quite hard today so definiteley, my caloric output will far exceed any 2 meal intake that totals less than 1,000 calories.

Ponds? I forgot to write that yesterday, when I came home, one pond was down almost 6 inches. Yup. I drained that sucker out, took it out of the ground, half filled it with water and found a leak. I didn't check them before I put them in - my bad totally. My patch is holding in the other pond. Fix the leak today, dig out everything that fell into the hole and hopefully have it back in the ground - today.

Nothing else new going on, still looking for that elusive, temporary roommate, not a lot of inquiries now.

Anway, I have ohter stuff to get done and want to get at it.

Later.
ben

The Cameras Are Coming Down

I'm driving to work this morning and I hear a news blip about an upcoming story. You know, one of those little things they throw in there to get your attention so you'll stay tuned to their channel until they finally give the story. This one was about DPS Photo Radar and how it is being shut off after July 15th of this year.

This is a totally cool development. This is concerning the cameras on the freeways only, not the red light cameras in each individual city. However, there is also a referendum that is attempting to gain enough signatures to force the issue to a vote, pointedly: ALL cameras in the state of Arizona, whether on a freeway or in the city at a light. I'm not really a fan of people running red lights, but I'm also much less a fan of these friggin' cameras being all over the place. I have a ticket that I am going to contest that I got on the freeway for allegedly doing 77 mph.

Meanwhile, the "Reverend" Al Sharpton was in town spewing out his bile all over the place in a 3 mile long protest that had people coming from all of the U.S. to protest the immigration law. The R word - racist - is being thrown around like a ping-pong ball on it's table. I need not go into my opinion of these people making these ridiculous - and stupid - statements, I have already done that many times on this particular blog. But to listen to the rhetoric that was coming out of the mouths of the protestors - they were doing interviews - just awe-inspiring, in a very negative way. These people sounded like recordings of out-spoken individuals who have gained national media attention on this issue. Just press the button and play it back. In other words, they aren't thinking for themselves. Somebody said this law is racist, so by golly, this law MUST be racist.

Again, if you are going to make such aggressive statements about a thing, person or entity, at least READ the content of what the law says to be sure you aren't sticking both of your feet into your mouth.

Today? Well, fix the other pond and put it back into the ground. Fill it back up and then hopefully it will be good to go and I can put plants in both of them this weekend. Not much work in our truck routing system today, bummer. There are some transfers and pickups, but no deliveries. Still attempting to find a temporary renter, not having much luck with that. Lots of inquiries but no takers yet. I CAN live with 2 tenants if they are paying on time - but I have to really watch my p's and q's in terms of financial output. It's a real balancing act, lemme tell ya. My dad sent a check again, a huge help. That entire check will go to power this month as I am already facing $300 per month power bills. AC is running - it almost hit 100 yesterday dunno what the forecast is for today.

With that, I must be outta here.

G'day.

ben

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