Initial evaluation of the AP setting 6/8/09

I checked out the exercise room.  They have two treadmills, towels at hand, water jug dispenser and some fruits all the time.  I would probably have to wake up at 5, call the front desk to security to let me inside.  Very compatible.

Having Consentino grocery store is a handy thing.  Kayo chan seems to make a daily trip and get a piece of bread for the morning, so I should probably eat breakfast here.  I picked up some plastic plates, plastic storage bags, a jug of water.  These are the tools to carry around the food scale, now my best friend that goes everywhere with me. Cherries from home need to be eaten and I set up some instant fridge for survival.  Fat-free splizer dressing needs to be in the plastic bag with ice for lunch and dinner. Also strawberries and fat-free yogurt are in for tomorrow morning. All Bran cereal is in the room.  However prepared foods, even packed salads at Consentino is not very well labeled.  I wish I had a microwave here.  I could eat pretty well.  But I think the situation is quite compatible.  Now I am not allowed to take Met-Rx, it should be easier on at least protein.

Airport reality 6/8/09

I am finding out that I am going to be acting really weird, especially for food.  While Tony dropped me off early at the airport per my request, I went up and down A-terminal of DFW airport to see what could be my food choice of the day.  The safest thing seems to be what I have done.  I went to Subway and asked to make Vege Delite 6 inch sub into salad. I did this in Austin when I had TFLA conference.  Basically I get vegetable only salad.  And just make sure to ask for right kind of dressing.  For today, I didn’t know, so I just asked for vinegar.  This is probably equivalent to getting salad mix bag from a grocery store and add fat free dressing.  When I don’t know what I am eating rest of the day or one meal a day, I would have to go with this.  I will go to the hotel and weigh it and use the number from salad pack with carrots and radish version.

Even when they have packed salad to sell, they have no adequate label.  Sometimes all they have is the expiration date.  Sometimes they have ingredients listed.  Sometimes they have fat grams and calories.  I am getting the feeling of that the nation is catching up with the idea of counting fat.  A lot of frozen foods are rather low in fat.  Yesterday my roommate, Kayo chan, asked me what I would eat for carbohydrates since I mentioned I no longer usually get to eat rice.  I couldn’t answer because I usually only get to eat a couple of pieces of the healthiest bread.  Cereals need to be picky and probably have to weigh very carefully for breakfast.  I guess my answer to Kayo chan’s question is that you end up eating a lot of fruits and vegetables and that carbohydrates alone is usually good enough. I usually have to watch protein even because of the post-work out powder has 19 grams each time. 

Packed salads are deceiving things.  I have known that from Tom Thumb salad.  While they have rather skimpy green, they usually have some protein and good cheese and very good tasting dressing.  TT Cobb salad has 23 grams of fat and 13 grams of protein.  My daily limit is 45 grams of fat and 103 grams of protein.  Airport packed salads usually have real cheese and fair amount of protein and no labels like from the ones from grocery stores.  Starbucks had pretty good labels on their fruit salad and its carbohydrate was over 40 grams!

Getting ready for AP grading 6/7/09

I think measuring success of weight management with weight is actually a tricky thing.  Because this fitness thing has been pretty much my number one priority, I have weighed myself multiple times a day.  Usually I am the lightest in the morning and gain throughout the day.  Even when I do hard workouts.  The only consistent weight measuring for me is in the morning, before eating, no clothes on (well, panties on) before eating and I record that in the food journal.  My weight is down 15 pounds from 5/6/09!

 

I probably can say that I had a successful first half of Phase I, but second half is going to be more challenging.  Phase II will start my teaching and it will be even more challenging.  Starting fall semester in August will be a SUPER challenge! I am leaving for Kansas City tomorrow to grade AP exam.  I have the same roommate, Kayo chan, see 6/7/08 entry and she is already out there.  She mentioned that we have a grocery store close to the hotel and she is eating picking food from there sometimes rather than provided hotel food.  Although I will not have access to microwave nor fridge, I think this is going to work on my favor.  I am borrowing Tony’s food scale to take, bringing a knife (cutting in small pieces is a strategy) and bunch of soyjoy bars and some slimfast bars.  The hotel exercise room doesn’t open until 6am, but the clerk said if I ask, they could let me in earlier.  I plan to run for an hour starting around 5am because the work needs to start at 8am.  We walk a lot around the Convention Center, so hopefully, I will make my 600 calories burn daily.  If I am successful in keeping 1,650 calories intake, that is still technically “losing” from calculation.  Eventually I need to learn to “maintain” and that should be easier than what I have done in one month, but in different ways, I think it will be more difficult.  The next 9 days will test out my ability to cope with real life.  Let’s see how it goes.