Tag: Food

Diet, Health

Yum, Fermented Milk

I had a follow up meeting this week with my gastroenterologist to discuss strategies to fix my gut issues. Two things jumped out at me from the discussion. The first was weight loss. The doc is a very fit guy who’s into brazilin jiu-jitsu. We’d been talking about diet, and he laughed and said, “these days I have to be careful about who I say this to, but losing just ten pounds would make a huge difference in how your gut feels”.

What struck me is not that I could lose some weight (I already know that), but that in today’s day and age he has to be careful about telling someone that. It’s sad that we no longer want to hear the truth. We want to be told to take this one pill and it will fix everything. In reality, we’d all be better off if doctors felt like they could freely tell their patients that they’re a disgusting fat-body and it’s time to do something about it. Unfortunately, that would offend our delicate sensibilities and someone would probably sue for damaging their self-esteem.

The second thing he said is that people don’t understand how long it takes to repair the gut microbiome when things go haywire. He felt it was going to take six months to a year to get back to normal. He said he laughs when people say they can remove a particular food or try a diet for a week or two and think it will do anything. Several months is the minimum to see real change. He said the gut is incredibly complex and we still don’t understand much about why it gets out of whack.

My official diagnosis is post-disease IBS. I contracted something at some point, and it threw my gut into a downward spiral. When we originally talked, I’d said Covid was the last time I’d been sick. He didn’t initially think that was the cause. When we met this time, he said he followed up with some research and studies are starting to show that Covid is having an impact on gut health. Interesting.

Anyway, as a part of repairing things we talked about foods and supplements I should be taking. Big amounts of protein, wheat dextrin fiber, yogurt with live cultures, and fermented foods like Kefir. I had to Google kefir. I’d seen it in the store but didn’t know what it actually was. It’s fermented milk. Uhhhh… I don’t know if I can do that.

When I was in my early twenties I worked at a restaurant. During my break I was in the habit of chugging one of those mini cartons of milk. One fateful evening, I grabbed a carton and started drinking it down like I was shot gunning a beer. The carton as almost empty before I realized the milk was… chunky. I ran to a garbage can and vomited up all that spoiled and curdled milk. I haven’t drunk milk since.

So you can see why I’d be a little hesitant to drink fermented milk on purpose. I think I’ll put that on the back burner for now. Besides, it turns out sauerkraut has the same benefits. I like sauerkraut. I like hot dogs. I could do a sauerkraut dog a day. What could go wrong with that?

Health

A Vague Diagnosis

If you’ve been following along at home, you’ll know that I’ve been suffering from some odd stomach issues recently. Bothersome enough that I started down the path of seeing my regular provider who ran a bunch of tests and then referred me to a gastroenterologist. That spawned more consultation and tests. Finally, we recently did the thing with long tubes in multiple orifices and cameras. And the results are… mixed.

The gastroenterologist did find some things, but nothing that clearly explains everything that I’ve been feeling. I hate that vagueness. At least if you blow out your knee or break a bone it’s clear what the problem is, and you can construct a plan to repair things. With this stomach thing it’s a whole lot of you can try this, or this, and sometimes this works. Oh, by the way, this other thing sometimes helps.

I hate that. I want a pill, a surgery, or a specific food to avoid so I can get back to feeling normal. I don’t want a year of experimenting with Himalayan bee extract heated to exactly 98.7 degrees and only eating while reclined on my left side. I don’t have the patience for long term experimentation.

But alas, it’s now clear I’m going to have to become a gut health expert. I’m going to have to be a master of the microbiome. I will know more about poop than any single person should have to know. I promise to do my best not to become that person who chimes in with “helpful advice” anytime food is mentioned.

“I went to the most amazing BBQ place last weekend!”

“Well, you do know that the carcinogens from burning fat are 83% more destructive to your cellular mitochondria than drinking pure ethyl alcohol, right?”

If you ever catch me doing that, you have my permission to whack me upside the head with a 2×4. Meanwhile, excuse me while I go take my latest batch of supplements, medication, and fiber. Sigh…

Daily Life, Health

Things Will Calm Down

Every once in a while, you stumble across something that just makes you feel seen. As in, oh crap that’s me. This morning it was this:

“Adult life is saying to yourself ‘after this week, things will calm down a little’ over and over again until you die.”

This completely sums up my diet and fitness journey.

There are contractors coming to the house this morning. I have a long drive tomorrow. We still need to find a gift for that birthday party. It’s going to rain hard on Thursday. We have that dinner thing on Friday. I need to get the yard done. I can’t put off the oil change any longer. We leave on Monday for two days.

Once I get back, things will calm down and I’ll dive back into the diet and workout.

This is me most weeks. I’ll go two-three days of being consistent, and then something always seems to come up that throws things off.

Unless you live on a deserted island, completely unplugged… life will never “calm down”. I need to stop feeding myself that lie. The problem is that diet and fitness was never a routine in my life. It’s never been a priority.

It needs to be a rule that doesn’t get broken. It needs to be just part of who you are. I wake up, have coffee, and go for a run. Period. I go to the gym on my lunch break. No matter what. It’s just what I do. I play at some sort of sport every weekend. It’s the rule.

Paying attention to what I eat doesn’t feel natural. It’s always something that’s a change. “Starting Monday, I’m eating clean”. It feels forced because it’s not part of what I normally do. Same thing with exercise. Since it’s not part of my normal routine, it’s easy to abandon it when life gets busy.

Like brushing your teeth, it just needs to be a normal part of your daily routine. I wish this had been drilled into me as a kid. Changing your daily routine after twenty years is not easy. It’s no different than if you suddenly had to switch to working the night shift. Nothing about that change would feel normal. But eventually, it would.

The interesting thing about that analogy is that you’d find a way to do it because it was your job. You’d have to. The secret sauce to diet and exercise success is finding a way to tell yourself that this is your new job. Because without it, your long-term prognosis is poor.

It’s part of my new rules. I brush my teeth. I don’t leave dishes in the sink. The dog gets a run. I pay attention to what I eat. I get eight hours of sleep. I exercise. Life will just have to work around that.

Diet, Health

Keto Fixes Everything

A quick update on going back to keto. Ten days ago I wrote about being forced to return to the diet I have a love/hate relationship with. Because I have a medical reason to stay motivated, the transition has been relatively easy. It took two days to get back into ketosis (the body does remember, even after several years). I’ve been maintaining 1.2-1.4 mmol/L every day, with spikes to 1.9 mmol/L following exercise. I’ve dropped 11 pounds. All-in-all, a good start.

So that’s it, keto fixes everything right?

Ah… no. The stomach issues I’m dealing with are slightly better, but certainly not gone. I probably feel better because I’m not binge-eating chips, cheese, bread, and I’ve lost some weight. I’m not convinced food has been the source of my woes.

But, but, you lost weight with keto. Isn’t that reason enough to stay on it? Sorry, but keto didn’t cause my weight loss. You dump a bunch of water weight initially when you first get into ketosis. And… the magic of a caloric deficit. We went out to eat with friends and I had a burger, no bun, a small salad instead of fries, and iced tea instead of a beer. I’ve been eating breakfast and then skiing all day (every day) and not eating again until dinner. I’ve had a huge calorie deficit combined with daily high intensity exercise. It’s not rocket science.

So why bother? Just go back to eating carbs.

A few reasons. I made a commitment to stick with this for a month so I can legitimately tell my doctor if foods are contributing to my symptoms. Second, keto makes maintaining a calorie deficit easy. Independent of my gut issue, I need to drop another 20 pounds. At this point I’ll do what it takes to achieve that. If keto keeps me on track, so be it. The other big reason is that when in ketosis, I don’t have the major hunger pangs if I don’t eat. I can ski all day and not get that bonk feeling I would on a heavy carb-based diet.

But it’s hard, I admit. I turned down going to pizza with friends last night. I honestly didn’t think I’d have the willpower to sit in front of a steaming hot pizza and not indulge. I feel bad because friends and family are offering to change the food they serve to something I can eat. I appreciate it, but I don’t want others to have to change their eating habits for me.

I wish I knew why food discipline is so hard. We have an unopened bag of chips in the pantry, along with pretzels, and popcorn. I probably walked into that pantry ten times last night and stared at those forbidden items. Fortunately, I held out and opted for drinking a crapload of water. If I wasn’t worried about dropping out of ketosis… I guarantee I would have splurged.

So, keto it is. At least for a month. I have no idea what happens after that.

Diet, Health

I Have To Take A Test?

Humans, by nature, are procrastinators. We generally don’t have a good grasp on large-scale time, so it’s easy to put things off. I’ll start my diet on Monday. Yeah, I know I should probably start tracking my blood pressure. I haven’t gone to a doctor in a long time, but I’m just so busy right now. We all do it. Things that aren’t an immediate concern are easy to put off. Next thing you know, months (or years) have gone by. You just don’t think about it, until something bad happens.

Someone we know recently had a family member whose husband suffered a massive heart attack right in front of her. It must have been an awful experience. He was only a few years older than me. I’ll be honest, it sort of freaked me out. To be what I consider still relatively young and have something like that happen. How did he not know he was at risk? The answer is that most of us don’t. My floor at the hospital was neuroscience. A large portion of our patients were stroke victims. And a very large portion of those patients either had no idea they were at risk, or probably knew and chose not to take corrective action. I get it – we’re procrastinators. We can always start tomorrow. I’ve got plenty of time.

There’s a screening test I’d been planning on taking for a while but kept putting off. It’s the coronary artery calcium scan. It shows how much plaque buildup you have in your arteries. The score you get gives you an idea of where you risk factor falls as a percentile based upon your age. Typical numbers range from zero to 400, although it’s not uncommon to see numbers in the 1,000’s. With your score you can make decisions with your doctor about risk factors and medication and lifestyle changes needed to best manage your lifelong risk. This is a pretty good video to describe the test a bit more.

Anyway, I’d been planning on getting the test and actually had a referral set up from my doctor and then virus which shall not be named hit and everything shut down. And I promptly forgot about the test. That is, until I heard about the guy having the heart attack last week. Convinced my arteries were already completely occluded, I called my doctor and got the referral right away.

The test is an easy and non-invasive CT scan (a fancy Xray). 15 minutes. If insurance doesn’t cover it, it’s not expensive – $150 to $300. The odd thing is that very few general practitioners will prescribe it as a general screening tool unless you’re already in a high-risk category. You almost always have to ask for it. It makes no sense. We have a cheap, non-invasive screening tool available, why not use it? I suppose just prescribing statins to everyone based upon cholesterol ratios is easier. Whatever.

Anyway, I got my test done. And by that afternoon I had the results. Perfect. A score of zero. No evidence of plaque buildup. Whew! I can continue to eat bacon. Because I’m older and not exactly a life-long marathon runner, I was convinced for some reason that my results were going to come back and show significant blockage. I don’t know why I was so sure of it. It must be the realization that I am aging. I’m drifting towards that age when bad things start happening to people. Very morbid, I know.

But all is good. I’ve been working hard in the gym and seeing improvement. Ski season started and my fitness is better at this early stage than it’s been in a while. I’m pleased. Except the diet. I just can’t seem to bust through that mental blockage. I blame it on hockey. Our local ECHL team has a deal where if they score 4 goals everyone in the stadium gets a coupon for a free Jumbo Jack. This season we’ve been winning a lot, and by large margins. Let’s just say I have more free Jumbo Jack coupons than I need. And the last thing I need to do is be eating Jumbo Jacks. The struggle is real, people.

Diet, Health

I Figured It Out

I’m not positive, but I think I figured out why I can’t lose weight. Take a look at my food journal and see if you can spot the problem:

06:25 Wake up and make first cup of coffee. Have inner dialog resolving not to eat until after working out.

07:15 Have second cup of coffee. Decide it’s too cold to workout, may as well eat. Make a small breakfast burrito. NARRATOR: The burrito was not small. Two eggs became three (didn’t want to leave an odd number of eggs in the carton), one portion of sausage became two, a small handful of cheese became three, and all topped with avocado. The burrito was, in fact so large it couldn’t be completely rolled up.

11:20 Workout complete, must eat protein. Two hard boiled eggs, avocado, string cheese, and one or possibly four handfuls of crackers.

12:45 Staring at the pantry. Open the fridge. Back to pantry. Leave with more crackers and string cheese.

2:30 Back in front of pantry. Makes bag of popcorn. Resolves not to drink alcohol tonight, and only eat a small dinner portion.

5:30 Find myself with a cocktail in hand, unclear how that happened. Resolve to drink water with dinner.

6:45 Discovers we forgot to take the chicken out of the freezer, so we’ll have to go out for dinner. Resolves to order only a salad. NARRATOR: The actual order was a burger, fries, and a side of ranch. It’s also possible two beers were consumed.

10:45 Standing in front of the pantry again. Nothing looks appetizing, so one last cocktail before bed.

11:50 Laying in bed. Ok, ok, ok. Tomorrow is a new day. We’re eating CLEAN all day. Promise.

Did you spot the problem? Clearly it was the crackers. No more crackers! I’m throwing them all away tomorrow. Crackers raise my blood sugar and cause inflammation. I’m fairly sure that’s why I’m not dropping weight. NARRATOR: He did not, in fact, throw away the crackers.

Daily Life

I Got Scammed

As a registered Contrarian, I tend to be suspicious of everything until I verify it myself. I don’t click on links in emails. I have yet to supply my banking information to a Nigerian prince to share the sum of $3,001,287 dollars US. I don’t believe anything politicians tell me. I don’t use public Wi-Fi. In short, I’m not a very trusting person. And yet, I managed to fall for a scam. The worst part? I went in knowing they were trying to sell me something.

Let me explain. We own a timeshare in Mexico. We bought it thirteen years ago. It’s a long story as to how we ended up with a timeshare, but all-in-all we’ve enjoyed it. Every single time we go, we get the hardcore push to attend a “members update”. There is no update. It’s a play to upsell more points or status level to you. We went a few times to get the free drink tickets they bribe you with, but generally I refuse to attend.

I don’t remember how I got talked into going this time, but somehow I found myself in the hotel lobby with Mrs. Troutdog and the couple who came to Mexico with us. Things did not go well straight out of the gate. The “coordinator” insisted we had to listen to the presentation separately from the other couple. We said no. She insisted. We said no. Off the coordinator went to discuss with someone in another room. She came back and said they’d make a special exception this time. Next, they wanted a credit card from each of us to “verify ID”. We all said no. She insisted. We all said no. She insisted. We all said no. Finally, she reluctantly agreed and took us to meet our sales guys.

It’s at this point a smarter man would have walked out. I am clearly not a smart man. But at the time I was convinced I was far too smart to believe any of the nonsense they were about to dish out. Off we went to get a tour of the penthouse unit. Our sales guys were straight out of used car sales finishing school. One of them was convinced he was Don Johnson from Miami Vice – he wore a silver suit with ridiculous black Vans sneakers and had his hair slicked back. The other guy spent his time telling us he was a very successful real estate developer and builder and was just here as a favor to his friend the VP of sales. Mmmm, right.

We listened to these two goons babble about real estate prices, the shortage of hotel rooms, and room rates for quite a while. At the time I wasn’t clear on why they were telling us this. Then the heavy came in. He had copies of our original contracts along with a few other documents. I’ll spare you the details, but he basically said due to a loophole in the contract he was obligated to offer us the option to purchase a huge number of points at an unheard-of price. The company would be taking a huge hit, but legally he had to give us the option.

This is a one-time deal. Walk out of the room and it won’t be offered again.

The way he presented the contract loophole was so well done… I thought it was real. It was an opportunity to rent out multiple weeks of rooms and make passive income with virtually no effort on our part. After hearing and seeing the going room rates, this really seemed like a way to make some money. I mean, they had contracts and legal looking documents. It had to be legit.

He left us alone in the room to talk amongst ourselves. We went back and forth, unable to decide if it was real or not. It was a lot of money to buy in and none of us wanted to make a snap decision. He came back and said something that was so off-putting, we got up and walked out. His words were, “I’m leaving in twenty minutes because I have to go buy seven Rolex watches for my team. When I leave, the offer is off the table.” Really? Who says something like that?

We spent the remaining vacation days enjoying fruity drinks at the pool and eating too much excellent food. While I was happy we walked away, I was still 60-ish percent convinced it had been a legitimate offer.

Once home, Mrs. Troutdog found an owners group on Facebook. There it was in black and white. A total scam. Multiple other people had received some variation of the same pitch. I was shocked that a large and fairly reputable company would stoop to something so slimy and blatantly deceitful. Because I honestly didn’t believe a corporation would go to those lengths to scam people out of money, I mostly believed the pitch. Sure, I expected some hard sales attempts to get us to upgrade to a bigger unit or something, but not outright deception.

Shame on me. I’ve lost some Contrarian points over this one. I’m shocked I got pulled in by the story. And sadly, I’m now even more distrustful of other humans. How do people like that look at themselves in the mirror? I guess all you can do is hope the karma bus is waiting around the corner for them.

Meanwhile, it turns out a week of drinking, nachos, and extravagant dinners is not good for your diet. Who knew? I guess I better hit the gym. I may go for run on the treadmill for an hour. Or twenty.

Health

The Beatings Will Continue…

The beatings will continue until moral improves

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Ok now I’m really mad. No, not mad – pissed. And frustrated. And depressed. And defeated. And I don’t know what to do.

No, this is not a cry for help or any bullshit drama like that so don’t get your panties all in a bunch. I hurt my back – again. Actually, it’s more than that. I think I’ve hit my physical low point. I’ve clearly got some sort of chronic back issue now. I have some new stomach issues that I’ll spare you the details of. And I’m fat. There’s no point in tip toeing around it – there’s way too much jiggle wiggle when I walk. We’re rapidly approaching sports bra territory (don’t be offended, I’m not misgendering anyone with 13 pronouns in their bio – it’s simply beer and nacho man-boobs) All in all, I just don’t feel good. Haven’t for a while.

I don’t understand how this happened. Well, I do – bad diet, too many calories, inactivity, poor posture, zero mobility training, and lack of strength training. Other than that, Mrs. Lincoln, everything is great! The part I don’t understand is why I can’t snap out of it. Why can’t my brain finally say, “ok you’ve had some fun, now it’s time to get back to work”?

This is approximately the 1,023 time I’ve thrown down the gauntlet and declared, now I’m really serious. Like the old saying about smoking – Quitting smoking is easy. I’ve done it hundreds of times. The irony is that every one of my most liked posts on this blog are related to resolutions and health. I’m going Keto! I’m exercising! Look at my new diet! I did a sit-up! The problem is that my follow up on all those resolutions lasts about three days. It often pains me to think about this blog. For reasons I don’t understand, almost all my followers are health and fitness related folks. And I am not healthy or fit. When someone likes a health-related post or HealthyFitMotivations1443 starts following me, it’s a painful reminder that I’m not actually doing what I write about.

I’m angry at myself and concerned. I’m worried about my ability to reverse this trend. If I feel like this now, what am I going to feel like in 10 years? That scares me. I don’t know what to do about it. Well, I do know what I need to do… I just don’t know how to keep doing it.

At the end of the day, what I need is motivation, routine, and habit. How do I get my ass to walk into my garage gym every damn morning and do the work I need to be doing? It needs to become a non-negotiable part of my daily life. I don’t know how to make that happen.

If anyone has any magic secrets to building motivation and discipline, can you help a brother out? Otherwise, I may have to resort to posting shame pictures of me in a speedo all over the house as a reminder to go to the gym and to stop me from opening the fridge (again). And nobody wants that. An image you can’t unsee.

Hmmm, I think I just found my next business venture. A service you sign up for in which I call you twice a day and demand proof you worked out and ate well. Otherwise, I’ll berate you mercilessly and yell at you that you’re worthless and weak. The next day you’ll get three calls and ten nagging text messages. The abuse will continue until discipline improves.

That could work. I’d sign up for it. Meanwhile, I need to walk down to the gym. Wish me luck.

Daily Life, Health

Why Is Diet So Confusing?

I will confess that I have been known to get sucked into drinking the Kool-Aid from time to time. Beliefs, approaches, or fads that I was convinced was the one true path. I talked ’em up and spoke with authority about them. I even had a bit of condescension towards people who didn’t know, understand, or believe in the new great thing. Fools who still bought into the old school set of beliefs. Here’s a few of the things that I’ve thought were the end-all-be-all in the past. I’m not suggesting any of them are bad – just that as thinking evolves, they’re not the magic bullets I once believed them to be at the time.

  • Barefoot shoes and running.
  • Crossfit.
  • Keto.
  • Intermittent fasting.
  • Primal/caveman
  • Body For Life
  • Zone diet
  • 5/6 small meals per day
  • Foam rolling
  • Apple cider vinegar (I have no idea why I thought this was a magical thing)

And on, and on, and on. Even though I think I’m being a rebel and cutting edge, I realize I’m just as much of a lemming as anyone else following the latest fitness and diet fad. Meanwhile, I was happily making fun of people eating the cabbage soup diet, doing juice cleanses, or the Whole 30 diet. Why is it so damn hard to know what you’re supposed to be doing to lose or maintain weight?

Meanwhile, my trainer wants me eating more calories because my BMR is too low, and I need a massive increase in the amount of protein I consume. Zone 2 is best for aerobic improvements, and carbohydrates are now good.

Sigh. I don’t know what to think anymore. My body fat percentage is getting worse, but my muscle mass is the best it’s been in a very long time. I feel stronger and better balanced now, but I can’t button the waistband on most of my pants. Why is this so hard? I just want someone to give me a weekly menu with exact portion sizes that’s easy to make/prepare. And yes, I’ve Googled that exact thing. A billion results come up, all with conflicting information, or promise to be the perfect diet plan… for $29.99 a month.

Why is diet so difficult? Why can’t I find a way of eating that gives me enough of a routine to keep calories in control, yet lets me eat out from time to time? I clearly don’t have the discipline to eat “strict” all the time or count calories daily. So, does that mean my only choice is to constantly keep up a crazy amount of workout/cardio activity to balance it? At my age, I don’t know that I have that in me anymore.

Our grandparents did not calculate out their daily macros, walk around all day with giant BPA free water flasks, or worry about zone 2 training. Yet on whole, their generation did not have the obesity problem we have today. Maybe that’s the book I should write – “The WWII Generations Guide to Diet and Exercise”. I’ll make a fortune!

But then again, my grandfather’s favorite exercise machine was a vibrating belt you’d put around your waist. I have no idea what its actual purpose was. To jiggle the fat away? To be fair, we have kinesio tape today. Maybe we haven’t evolved as far as we think?

Daily Life, Diet, Health

The Struggle Is Real

 
Who knew that the hardest part of being an adult is figuring out what to cook for dinner every single night for the rest of your life until you die

Today, I stepped on the scale for the first time in a month. Why so long? Because I knew what the number would be. I’ve been going to the gym faithfully and am seeing significant gains. The range of motion in my chronically injured shoulder is hugely improved. Flexibility and proprioception are better than they’ve been in a very long time. Overall, I feel much better. But… I can tell that my waistline hasn’t changed, so I’ve intentionally ignored the scale. Oh, I look at it every morning. I tell myself that tomorrow I’ll step on it for sure. But I don’t really want to know the number because it’ll force me to accept reality. So I put it off for another day. And then another. And another.

I do see some positive physical changes with all the gym work. Shoulders seem a little more defined. I can tell the abs and trunk are stronger. The legs feel stronger from all the squats I’ve been doing. I tell myself that if the number on the scale went up, it’s probably because I’ve added muscle mass. I optimistically told myself that the bodyweight number won’t have changed, but muscle mass will go up and bodyfat will have gone down. So, I took a deep breath and stepped on the scale.

I gained a pound, muscle mass went down and bodyfat went up. Shit. How is that even possible?

I really am tired of thinking about food. The worst part is that my diet isn’t horrible. It’s not like I’m eating at McDonalds and Taco Bell every day. I’m not snacking on chips, doughnuts, or eating pizza every night. I don’t drink soda. I usually eat two meals a day. Mid-day I have a few pieces of cheese or some popcorn. Dinner is a protein and a vegetable. I couldn’t tell you the last time I had a dessert. We eat out maybe once a week.

Now don’t get me wrong, I know exactly why I don’t lose weight. The biggest culprit is the volume of food. I may only eat two meals a day, but they’re 50% bigger than they need to be. I don’t just put a little sauce, dressing, or butter on something, I put a LOT on. There are too many empty calories from alcohol consumed. The snacking, while not bad foods, happens more times during the day than I want to admit.

So, I know exactly how to fix the problem. The issue is that I’m sick of thinking about food. I’m tired of thinking about calories, eating something and then feeling guilty and mad at myself afterwards. I’m tired of having to plug every morsel into a food calculator to see where I am on calories. I hate the feeling of going out to eat and having the internal struggle with the menu. I should order a salad or plain fish, but a burger and fries are what I really want. I restrict and starve, then eat too big a portion, do a bunch of cardio and then have three beers that night. I resolve to eat something really healthy and then make a salad the size of my head and add a full cup of dressing, cheese and bacon. I eat dinner every night like clockwork, even though I ate three chicken pieces a few hours earlier and I’m not really hungry. I’m just tired of agonizing over food.

I wish I understood why food is such a struggle. I resent having to obsess over the almighty calorie. I’m pissed that I’ve basically written some version of this same post probably a dozen times over the last few years and yet, here I am again. I fear I’m starting to sound like a teenage girl with an eating disorder.

Sigh. Ok, end of rant. Back to figuring out some sort of sustainable meal plan. And cardio. Need more cardio. The struggle is real.