This off-season I’ve made it a point to eat healthier and get into the gym on a regular basis. Last off-season I gained fifteen pounds, didn’t lose much of it during the season then turned fifty (thanks to those of you that noticed and celebrated with me by giving me tons of attention & adoration…I eat that sh*t up big time…I really do). This off-season I approached our company dietician and asked how many calories a guy of my height and age should be consuming daily. Her answer….2100. Long story short…my attention to what I’m consuming, how much of it I’m consuming and working at the gym have yielded a six pound weight loss in two and a half weeks. Don’t get me wrong…it hasn’t been easy. I LOVE food (who doesn’t….tell me…I want their name and phone number). There are days when I easily slip under that 2100 calorie limit but more often than not…its a struggle. Being hungry late at night isn’t something that I “do” well, and sometimes find myself in front of the pantry, sizing up what I can eat without making a frenzied Piranha-like assault on a bag of pretzels. I record what I eat and those calories and what I’ve found through these three weeks is that there are NO reasonable substitutes for the following foods:
- Potato chips. Salty. Greasy. Potato chips.
- Chocolate and/or candy.
- Beer/Alcohol (I’m no lush…but ya know…I deal with the public a great deal so yeah….I throw a couple back from time to time.
- BBQ sauce…a former staple in my day to day life.
Oh…I’ve eaten more veggies, and raisins…can’t forget raisins…than ever. I’m now eating apples…RAW. Before I’d only touch an apple if it were sauced or in pie. (MAN O MAN DO I MISS PIE…). Clementines…the oranges little step-brother…I now eat ’em and can’t say that I enjoy them….but they’re filling! (so is sawdust I’d imagine….). I bought some premixed rice (full of four different kinds of rice) then cooked it up with some chicken in it. I quartered up some B sized potatoes and threw in some minced garlic like some sort of Frankenstein-induced frenzy to get the perfect trifecta of: flavor, low calories and lasting me until the next meal. What I got….it didn’t totally suck, though it’s healthy but it didn’t last me very long.
I’ve caught myself trying to rationalize out the craziest stuff like serving sizes. If a serving size of Doritos is 11 chips for 140 calories my question to you is “Since when can you find 11 perfect Doritos in a bag?!” Honestly…unless you have a Brink’s Armored Truck pick up your bag of Doritos directly from the Dorito factory (probably one of the happiest places on Earth I’d think) then lovingly hand deliver it to your kitchen counter I seriously doubt that (like me and millions of others) you can find 11 unbroken Doritos in a bag…so you end up (like me) estimating just how many broken Doritos pieces it’ll take to equal ONE perfect Dorito! Don’t even get me started on Ruffles. Now an educated and rational person (and HUGE RICH RIPLEY fan) like my friend Doctor Matthew Wilding would point out …”why not just forgo the chips altogether? They’re not part of a nutritious diet?” Well….MATTHEW…I’m a weak, non-perfect child of God and honestly…shouldn’t you be designing some sort of Mars-like explorer or delving deep into the wonders of engineering rather than pose such a dark question to me when I’m weak and hungry? (sorry to lash out bro….really) So yeah…not totally rational when I’m hungry.
The upside is that the last time that I weighed myself I was down six pounds in the first two and a half weeks. (I mention this twice since my blood sugar has dipped and I’m literally ready to pass out…) Sadly…as noted our daughters…I still have jowls upon my jaw.
I pick my battles. I’ve had “cheat days” where I eat out, and drink whatever I choose. I’ve noticed that cheeseburgers are now extremely AWESOME, that’ll happen when you’ve only eaten two in three weeks. It’s difficult not to be hungry when you work in a store that has Snickers on sale every twenty feet or so; or when you’re in charge of ordering delicious bakery items like donuts, Danishes, pudding cakes, turnovers, crumb cakes, bars, cookies & so forth. Grabbing a handful of raisins (130 calories) and washing them down with a serving of skim milk (90 calories per 8 ounces) just doesn’t cut it….but it’ll have to do.
I’ve decided to turn my attention to the foods that I can eat, and making them more filling and better tasting, and at making my favorite drink…a rum sidecar. I’ll have one when we’re celebrating something special at a nice restaurant…and I don’t have to drive…they’re powerful when made correctly. Cointreau, gold rum and lemon juice. 159 calories a pop and I just made one. Not too shabby for a novice…and it beats the hell out of a clementine or raisins.
Until next time…when I regale you kids with this upcoming baseball season and my officiating of it….God bless and take care of yourselves. Remember…don’t fret about not being perfect. If you were perfect you wouldn’t be nearly as much fun for the rest of us. True story.
R
RICH RIPLEY 
It’s amazing how your taste buds wake up after you remove some of that stuff — I, too, loved the salty greasy potato chips but am surprised how quickly I stopped craving them after I stopped eating them regularly. Not that I haven’t had any, I have, but I don’t nosh the bag like I used to. And there’s nothing like a bacon cheeseburger with onion, tomato, lettuce and a pickle – I skip the bun and eat with a knife & fork (feel so civilized) and enjoy every juicy morsel. Good for you for taking steps forward to feel better – you’re worth it! 🙂 MJ
Sadly I faltered this week, giving into a four pack of vanilla cake donuts frosted with cherry flavored frosting. I inhaled two (worth every calorie) before giving the girls in the pharmacy the remaining two. I still came in under 2100 calories for the day and felt great all afternoon. LOL.
R