The one in which we suffer an anticipated setback

Yep, a setback. I knew, based on what sort of activities I had planned for DAPGF and I, that the whole Valentine's Day weekend would be a veritable minefield of caloric bombs. And I stepped on a few. Last Friday's weigh-in was 281.6 lbs, a weigh-in of which I was justifiably proud. Unfortunately, by Monday morning's weigh-in I had ballooned up to 285.4 lbs. As I've noted previously when discussing such evils as Souplantation, if you eat enough of anything you're going to gain weight. Friday night was happy hour at a local Mexican restaurant (margies and flautas and cheese, oh my!). Saturday lunch was at one of our favorite restaurants overlooking the Pacific in Del Mar, Pacifica Del Mar (clever name, I know). Ahi salad and a bleu cheese steak panini (shared, of course). Dinner was at one of the best sushi joints in San Diego, Shien of Osaka (aka Akai Hana), which is where I took DAPGF on our first date, lo those many years ago. That was followed up with some sort of Death by Chocolate experience at Heaven Sent Desserts, in Normal Heights. I really worked hard to try and work it all off, and Monday and Tuesday helped erase some of the gains. By Wednesday, though, I had a road day and picked up some weight again. Thursday I committed a cardinal sin. I needed to stop at the store to pick up some dinner for myself (DAPGF was teaching), but I was unfortunately very hungry. As I walked past the deli case, I noticed these sandwiches that the deli makes. They're big, and consist of nothing more than bread, lettuce, swiss, and a literal pile of sliced turkey breast. As with the sushi and Souplantation experiences, it was apparently too big, and erased my earlier efforts entirely. End result, Friday morning weigh-in was back up to 285.4 lbs.

So what have we learned? First of all, I can at least predict when things are likely to be problematic. DAPGF's birthday is in the middle of March, so I'm likely going to suffer a similar set of events at that time, but beyond that I see nothing on the agenda that should cause any such repeats. I'm just going to have to knuckle down and get back on track. I've been pretty diligent in making it to the gym, I've been running every morning this past week, and I even made it to the driving range yesterday at lunch (if any of you think that it isn't a decent workout, go ahead and take 125 swings of a golf club and tell me if you're not feeling it and breaking a slight sweat). I just need to be that much more diligent on the eating. I've been better at the snacking thing, but I still occasionally find myself in the BK drive-thru for some cheezy bacon wrap goodness, and I eat more at dinner (even by myself) than I should. I could take the easy way out and say it's due to my getting over my cold and getting my appetite back, and there's probably some truth to that. But in all reality, I'm the one stuffing food down my neck, and I'm the one that has to put a stop to it. It ain't going to be easy, but it has to be done. 20 weeks to drop at least 45 pounds and get back down to 240. That's 2.25 pounds per week. If I want to continue the efforts of the first two weeks of February and shoot for 220 to 230, that's a little over 3 pounds per week. Neither one is going to be easy, but I still want to do it. The idea of being 220 lbs just seems way cool, and should look pretty good at the beach (not to mention my rapidly approaching 20th high school reunion). I want it, and dammit, I'm going to do everything I can to make it happen. Wish me luck!