Bouncing Off Resistance

Well, since my last post, I've relocated from Charleston, SC to  southern Arizona. While Charleston is often hot and muggy with heat often in the mid-90s, you can still feel the heat in the desert Southwest; I remember my first week here, when I went to my car to go to lunch, my car indicated the outside temperature was averaging about 114. I need to up my exercising but not in this kind of heat.

All things considered (my relocation and a recent extended business trip to Florida), I've been consistently within a 15-lb. range (currently near the bottom). However, I have not broken through my annual targets yet. Part of my recent problem is that I've eaten out a lot (my employer has paid the bill, even though I ate well below reimbursement caps) and a lot more carbs than usual. Interesting observation: I'm finding I can't even eat big meals anymore. Maybe it's a part of the aging process. During my Florida trip, I found I couldn't eat everything on my plate when I ordered a baked potato as one of my sides. Now granted, restaurants often serve huge portions, but when my typical meal might little more than an Atkins frozen meal or one or 2 protein bars, I'm just not used to it.  I remember a local Florida KFC had an all-you-care-to-it buffet in the evening and probably weren't thrilled to see me pull in. They didn't post the buffet price, and I didn't ask. (If anything, I tend to be attracted to salad bars. I ordered a 2-piece dinner (which included a good size breast piece), and my appetite was more than satisfied.) I haven't done an all-you-care-to-eat buffet say at a pizza or Chinese food place or one of those other places (e.g., Golden Corral) in years.

I've made a few visits to a Jack in the Box near my work (there are closer places but parking is limited during the lunch hour; I had to start work in the afternoon but had to get some security paperwork done in the late morning). This may not be new to most people, but they have an interesting soda machine which allows you to mix different flavors via a touch screen (single nozzle); they had variations of standard flavors (e.g., you could select a vanilla-flavored diet root beer). I could even get diet ginger ale. (I'm saying this because it seemed during my recent self-serve soda fountain experiences, I was limited to diet cola, and I tend to prefer more variety.) I almost never drink soda unless I do fast food; in restaurants, particularly in the southern US, I'll usually order iced tea (not sweet).

Still, I was shocked to see I put on about 10 pounds by the time my household goods arrive in mid-August, worked that off, only to see it surge 9 pounds during nearly 2 weeks in Florida. Still, I knew I hadn't been eating 5000 calories a day; it must have been mostly water gain and would quickly drop. In fact, it took about 3-4 days to lose the last 9 pounds and then I continued to drop another 5 lbs to hit my annual low (by a fraction of a pound). I thought the 14-lb. whoosh might continue for another pound or two but found my weight bounce up nearly 3 pounds yesterday and weighed in the same this morning. It's frustrating to see the bounce off the low, especially when you watch what you eat, but it's typical.  It's tough to watch fellow workers on the late shift eat a lot more than my one or 2 protein bars (one of them is overweight, but not as much as me, and he must have brought in like 8 or 9 pieces of leftover pepperoni pizza plus had 2  or 3 lunch-size bags of chips; that's like a month of carbs to me).

I think I'll have to add a lot more exercise to break my current weight range.

One note. In my flagship political blog, I describe in a new journal format post some of my culinary experiences in Florida. A training instructor was high on a burger place founded by some chef who starred on a cooking network (the small chain is named after his dog). They have a classic, no-special-order $10 burger which includes a stack of onion rings on top of the oversized patty. I made a mistake of ordering the burger the way I like my steaks, medium rare. My bad: there were spots in the burger which weren't cooked, and later that day I came down with a bad case of diarrhea. (It could have been something else, but I'm blaming the burger.) I decided to try again a few days later, choosing a $13 variation with a fried egg and several strips of bacon on top, no onion rings. (I call it "brunch on a bun".) Best damn burger I've ever had. Oh, but this time I ordered the burger medium.

I was telling others that I remember when I first started as a UWM faculty member, the senior area professor hosted a dinner party celebration for his student who just defended his dissertation. Among other things, I saw a huge mound of raw ground steak with slices of white bread and onions. I was told it was a local custom they called "scavenger sandwiches". I did try it, no adverse effects, but been there, done that, move on. I tried Googling but really found no confirmation of the custom. Maybe my young stomach could handle raw meat, but I wouldn't dare do it now.