Shrimp, two kinds of chicken, green beans, and soup. I’m at a Chinese buffet. This is my second and last plate.

Chicken and dumpling soup. May not be super healthy, but I have a bad cold.

My daily walk to work. I’m in the farthest building.  The one with the skyway leading into it.
It’s a 10-minute round trip. Today that makes 20 minutes of walking, since I’ll go out to lunch later.

Instant oatmeal: 320 calories, 12 grams of fiber.

Today’s snack: sunflower seeds.

What that means for me is eating lots of vegetables and protein.  Not many carbs.  I don’t worry about eating fat.

Breakfast

For today’s breakfast, I had an omelet with mushrooms, sausage, and green onions.  I tried the “fake eggs” this time, which are just egg whites with food coloring.  It was good.

I missed the cheddar cheese though.  For January, I’m giving up all dairy products.  I don’t normally drink milk or eat yogurt, so I don’t miss that.  But I sure miss the cheese!  Cheese in my omelet, cottage cheese and fruit for breakfast, chunks of cheese as a snack.

I don’t think my genetic ancestors let goats or cows live long enough to produce milk and cheese. So I’ll see if I feel any different at the end of a cheeseless January.

Lunch

As a long-time low-carber (when I eat what I should, that is), I often just have the lunchmeat and veggies without the bread.  I always tell myself, “Bread is just the structural part holding the good stuff.  I don’t eat my plate.  Why should I eat bread?”

Then I found some very high-fiber tortillas, and I have been a wrap man ever since.  These amazing tortillas have 26 grams of fiber!  I’m trying to eat 30 grams of fiber every day.  That’s a lot of veggies!  With just one of these wraps a day, I can easily get enough fiber from the other stuff I eat.

I had a turkey wrap, with some lettuce and lite mayo too.  On the side I had a couple homemade pickles my brother gave us for Christmas.  Yum!  Our grandfather always made pickles, and I’m glad my brother is following in his footsteps.

Dinner

If you’re expecting gourmet meals, you came to the wrong place.  I can make fine food if company is coming over, but I prefer it simple, quick, and inexpensive.

For dinner I made ground beef patties with fresh salsa on top. We usually have ground turkey instead of beef. Turkey is healthier and cheaper.  But there was ground beef in the freezer, so I may as well use it.  It tasted a little strange.  Not bad, just something I wasn’t used to.

For a side dish, I stir-fried cabbage with lots of garlic and pepper. Plus rice wine, sesame oil, and soy sauce to make it Chinese.

Good eats!

This time I didn’t reward myself with a beer!  Unlike the eight beers I had last night. What’s good about drinking eight beers on New Year’s Eve and going to bed early?  The midnight fireworks don’t wake you up!

I live in a typical suburb neighborhood built in the 1960’s.  Lots of curves and cul-de-sacs.  A few sidewalks, but not everywhere. You can choose from the level part of the neighborhood, or the part that has steep hills.  I chose level.  My heart and lungs aren’t ready to haul my fat butt up the hills yet.

Today, rather than walking or lifting weights, I raked leaves for exercise.  I burned calories, and my yard looks much better.  It was chilly and clear, perfect weather for yard work.

That’s my back yard in the photo, just before I finished.

I stuffed the 90-gallon container full of damp leaves.  I don’t know how many pounds those leaves weigh, but it was a struggle getting the container back to the front yard!

According to my exercise calculator, I burned 640 calories while raking the yard.

So I rewarded myself with a Kirkland IPA (170 calories).  Damn!  Bad habit, I know.  Food is not a reward.  I’ll come up with a better reward in 2012.

But since it’s New Year’s Eve, I need to remove all the beer in the house. There are seven bottles in the fridge I need to dispose of.  Before midnight!  Any ideas?

I hope the wife doesn’t mind if I’m extra happy when she and the kids get back from their movie.

Raking the yard equals four bottles of beer.  And somehow I missed lunch today, so I’ll count the other three beers as lunch.  Good thing it’s the weekend.

I’m carrying 80 pounds of fat around. Yuck.

That’s why I took the picture after I stepped off the scale.  You don’t want to see my fat feet!

If you look at the bar chart at the bottom of the display, the scale thinks my body fat percentage is high.  According to body fat charts, 33.3% is WAY high.

Obese high.

But not The Biggest Loser obese high yet. J

I’m 46, male, and 5’ 10”.  The healthy body fat percentage for me is 11% – 22%.

2012 is the year I lose the fat!

My goal is to lose at least 1 percentage point of body fat every month.  I also want to lose 5 pounds a month.  But body fat percentage is the more important measurement.  If the 5 pounds is lost muscle or water, that won’t help me get healthy.

Just for the record, the scale measured my body muscle percentage at 31.1%.  My bone mass is 3.2%.  My body water is 51.6%.

I’m not sure what all those numbers mean, but when I find out I’ll tell you!