Counting Calories

When I was a kid I wasn’t much of an eater. In fact, my parents tell me that they used to routinely find candy bars in the back seat of our car with a single bite taken out of them that I had left behind.

Well, all of that has changed these days because now I really, really, really like food. I’m not quite sure when the transformation happened but it probably had something to do with marrying a great cook. I’ve been a “Good Eater” ever since.

My eating habits aren’t a problem when I’m in full out cycle training mode but we I hit the off season the “reserves” start to build up. Out of curiosity I decided to document what I ate yesterday and I’ve made a couple of conclusions about it. First of all here is my consumption list.

5 am
1 cup of homemade Granola
1 cup of skim milk
Eating pretty darn healthy so far – this could be a great eating day.

9:30am – really hungry but I don’t want to break into my lunch yet so I dig through my wallet to look for money to feed the candy machine. No money in my wallet so I dig through my pockets only to find one penny, seriously, ONE PENNY! I go back to work and count down the minutes until lunch time. I can feel the good eating habits slipping away.

10:45am – I can’t stand it anymore and head to the break room early to heat up my meatloaf sandwich in the microwave. Oh yeah, it was good. That hit the spot but I also remember that my coworkers have a cabinet full of chips that are free for the taking so I grab a bag of Fritos.

3pm - Leave work and drive home. Grab a hand full of Smarties on the way out the door to keep me awake on the way home. That works and I survive the drive.

4pm – walk in the door and have a couple fun size candy bars from the left over Halloween candy jar. Then I eat two pieces of cream cheese frosting covered pumpkin bars. I told you it was dangerous to have a good cook for a wife.

5:30pm – eat two Navajo tacos which if you haven’t had them before they are deep fried yummy goodness. I’m done eating for the day and feeling very satisfied.

I originally started counting calories for the day but by the time I got to the bag of Fritos I decided ignorance was bliss and stopped the counting madness.

Now there are a couple alternatives I could take here to stop the eating madness.

1. If you notice, my vegetable intake was next to nothing unless you count corn chips, pumpkin bars and salsa as a healthy dose of vegetables. Maybe I should replace some of the garbage that I eat with low calorie vegetables. Not really an option unless someone were to stage some kind of vegetable intervention on me.

2. I could eat smaller portions of sensible food more often during the day so I don’t get as hungry. Probably a good idea but I just don’t see that happening.

3. I could kick my cycling training back into gear and burn up most of the junk calories that I eat.

Looks like I’m going to hit the cycling training again real soon. But first I think I’ll have some pie.