Day 363

Back again.

Spent most of the day working on the book (the first in the trilogy) – polishing it one more time. Getting it to the right length, looking for all the “ly” words (so I can delete them), watching for repetitive words – all that stuff. The grunt work of writing that is necessary to make it as good as it can be.

Weighed this morning and from the first entry made to now it appears I am some eight pounds lighter. Doing a little walking, eating a lot lighter, making a pretty serious effort to be much more aware, and just plain too fat – all helping right now. It’s relatively easy to lose weight when you are a guy and you are a bit larger than you want. Nothing to get excited about, but it’s good to at least have something positive to start with right at first.

The weather here is expected to break records in the next few days, with lows around 15 Fahrenheit or so – the lowest here in many, many years. I’m not a cold weather person, but I can handle a few days of cold now and then, and what the heck – it is January after all. Supposed to be cold this time of year.

As I said earlier, the house is new, although small and very eco-friendly. We haven’t been through a winter with it yet, and I had wanted to see just how low I could get the utility bill before the cold spell surprised us. Once got an apartment I lived in (alone at the time) down to $30 a month, but it was a challenge. Our old house – three times as big as this one and not designed to be energy-efficient – had bills of $250-400 a month (and with us really only living in, and using, about half of it), and our last one here was right at $100. Much better, as the bill includes the guesthouse, main house, and the office. I’m still messing with the way-too-complicated thermostat in the house, and I’m not particularly happy with it, so the temperature isn’t quite as even as I’d like. Yet.

We had to meet a client/contractor with our business earlier at a neat little breakfast place in one of the nearby towns, so I had Migas, an egg dish that is typically traditionally Mexican. I have had much better, but it was nice to eat some breakfast, my wife was there too (we have a new business we run together in addition to what I do for a living), and their way of preparing the Migas was actually healthier than the norm. And the price was right.

We got involved with the book pretty heavily (her doing some last minute proofing, and me making corrections and doing some light rewriting), and we nearly forgot to even eat something for lunch. Because it was so late (around three) we decided to make it really light and simple. Some organic roasted turkey on whole-wheat roll worked for me (and the dog loves anything I eat as I generally share).

Dinner is still an adventure for us as we ate out every meal for so long building the guesthouse and then the house, and because in the past I’ve tended to make it my primary meal. We both cook, and do pretty well cooking together, so we are experimenting with choices and decisions most every night. We have had some organic (as in free range) chicken a couple of days, so we decided to try a low cal alfredo – oh, not a particularly good choice. Chicken a ten. Boxed low cal major restaurant brand alfredo a three or so. Not on the do-it-again list.

Still, all in all, I’m doing okay. Not hungry, no more or less stressed than before, and getting over the cold. I forgot to mention earlier that I gave being a vegetarian for 30 days as an experiment, so I will definitely be giving some strictly veggie meals a go too as a good way to fill up with minimal calories and fat content.

Bread is unfortunately an issue, as any kind of bread is my friend. And just as a hint of things to come, I’ll have to say I agree with a quote by writer Jack London. He once said no matter were he was – even when out at sea on his sailing ship, The Snark – he could always hear the wild calling. I feel the exact same way about M&Ms. I often hear them calling my name.

-Average Joe
Somewhere, USA