Reading Cookbooks

Where You Came From

To know where you’re going…

Soldier Field 10 Miler 2008

You got to know where you came from…

Chicago Distance Classic 2006

I know I look ridiculous in that CDC photo. But I think it’s apparent to me that, in addition to running my most recent half marathon nearly 20 minutes faster than my first CDC in 2006, I have obviously lost weight and toned up. We still have a way to go, but progress is being made.

Business Trip Day 2

Breakfast: 4
English muffin
Peanut butter (less than 1 TBSP)

Snack: 3
Go Lean Bar

Lunch: 7
California Tortilla, Veggie Burrito Bowl with Spinach, no cheese, no sour cream

Snack: 2
Cheerios

Dinner: 16
Unagi maki (8 pieces)
Avocado maki (6 pieces)
Spicy scallop (8 pieces)
2 nigiri (one salmon, one tuna)

Total: 32 (23 daily points, 4 activity points, 5 weekly points)

Again, not too bad for being on a business trip. The snacking cost me those five points that I could have used for dinner, but I’d rather have a Go Lean bar and a couple of handfuls of cheerios than grab a cookie at the conference. I found the nutritional information for California Tortilla on their Web site, and I love this mid-Atlantic Chipotle-esque chain. For dinner, I stuck with sushi, mostly because I like the volume and that it takes a long time to actually eat it all!

Tomorrow is my final day in Baltimore. I have a flight home in the evening. Hopefully I can get through one more day so I have a few extra weekly points to have some drinks on Saturday.

Business Trip Day 1

And… we’re back. Here’s how the day’s eating panned out:Breakfast: 3 pts
Go Lean bar

Lunch: 9 pts
Great American Bagel, whole wheat bagel with light chive cream cheese

Dinner: 17 pts
Spicy Tuna Roll (8)
Rainbow Roll (8)
Unagi Maki (8)

Snack: 1 pt
Hard candy, 1 piece

Activity: 4 pts
28 min jog on treadmill
20 min strength training, free weights

Daily Total Consumed: 30 pts (23 daily pts, 4 activity pts, 3 weekly pts)

Overall, not perfect, but not terrible.

Lunch at O’Hare airport wasn’t the best choice, but before I went to the Great American Bagel, I found their nutrition information online at Calorie King (oddly, the Great American Bagel Web site does not post this information). Despite the fact the bagel was pretty hefty in points, I’d rather know all the facts then just randomly choose something from an airport kiosk and guess at what I’m actually eating.

Sushi is a great dinner option for me when I’m on the road. It feels like I’m splurging because I can eat it in mass quantities. And, bonus, it’s one of my favorite foods. I try my best to stick with rolls that are pretty standard. Special rolls tend to vary restaurant to restaurant making them harder to track.

Tomorrow will bring new challenges; first and foremost, avoiding the free breakfast available downstairs. However, I may scope it out to see if fresh fruit is available — good to steal for snacks. Stay tuned for tomorrow’s exciting report!

Old School

Yes, so I’ve neglected Reading Cookbooks for days… no weeks… fine, a month… but, I’ve done some thinking about the “creative direction” of this blog. First of all, I bagged the whole vegan thing, for a variety of reasons, but mostly because I couldn’t experiment and talk about it without certain people (specifically my mom) making a huge deal about what they were going to feed me come the holidays. Seriously. Don’t ask.

So that was fun while it lasted.

But now it’s back to the reality of WeightWatchers, which I seem unable to follow for more than a week. I have decided to challenge myself to update this blog with my daily eating habits, new meal ideas, product finds, recipes, and my progress (numbers!) as much as possible, in the hopes that it will spur me to be a bit more motivated. We’ll see.

We begin this journey today with a big weight loss obstacle… the business trip.

I’m sitting in O’Hare Airport faced with three days of eating in a strange city, in a hotel room, in a convention center — a recipe for disaster.

So let’s get started, shall we?

The back story: I’m going to Baltimore for a marketing convention. This makes a few things a lot easier. First, I won’t know anyone, which means, as long as I keep to myself and don’t do any of that silly networking, I can easily bypass 1) happy hours and 2) group dinners. This makes eating on the WeightWatchers plan a million times easier — no appetizers, no alcohol, and no desserts. From there, it’s planning, planning, and more planning. Here are the business trip strategies I will try to live my next three days by:

1. Workout - WeightWatchers’ point system has a simple rule: If you exercise, you get more points. Meaning… you can eat more. In reality you are supposed to limit yourself to four activity points a day. Running is the simplest way to earn these points, and lord knows I’ll need them on a business trip. Just 28 minutes jogging on the treadmill each day will do the trick.
2. Research, research, research - Since I’m eating alone, I’ve already mapped out the restaurants within a few blocks of my hotel. Two words that will make dinner a snap: Takeout sushi!
3. Breakfast - I brought mine with me. A couple of low point Go Lean bars will help me sidestep massive morning meals, and help me start my day off without blowing it before noon.
4. Gum - Simple, I know. This is an old school strategy that used help curb cravings for sweets. The minute I want ice cream delivered to my hotel room, I know it’s time for a piece of gum.

For the record, I am allotted 23 points a day (27 if I manage to get a short run in). I’ll check in later today a day one report.