Early start, no breakfast at hotel, mx on originator
Quest bar
Americano from Starbucks
Second breakfast
Croissantwich, no cheese, no croissant
Lunch 2pm
Gladiator drink
Dinner 6pm
Sarku TH
chicken teriyaki, veggies, no rice
This morning I weighed in, even though I wasn't scheduled for it yet. The scale said 146, which is one below my target, but I'm not buying it. Monday was 148 which I do believe, and indicates a one-pound loss for that trip. So numerically seeing 146 was great, but I'm chalking it up to daily fluctuations.
Looking at this past trip, I wasn't able to eat on anything remotely resembling a normal schedule, even considering the chaotic nature of my schedules to begin with. Additionally, I was under-hydrated the whole time, which is of the main reasons in my view the loss was only one pound. Still, one is better than none.
This week's trip is a very easy one in terms of legs flown. I just finished day one, which was three legs plus my commute. I had time to make my own 4HB breakfast this morning, and able to get food (with veggies even!) for lunch and dinner at a nice Thai place near the hotel. The catch is, for the rest of the trip we start between 5am to 5:30am. Hotels start breakfast, if they have one at all, around 6. So best-case scenario, assuming I wait and fly CLT then get breakfast, I'll be looking at 3+ hours from waking up til my first meal, which is definitely counter-productive to losing weight. The other factor is that I typically have difficulty eating that early anyway. I'm groggy, grumpy, and am just not even able to be hungry yet, much less actually get enough food down for a proper breakfast that will jumpstart my metabolism for the day.
I have roughly a week and a half left on this experiment. Reaching my target will be simple as I'm nearly there anyway in terms of the numerical value I was seeking. Now, I need to start including a lot more physical activity, and perhaps I should have started ramping that up earlier, so that I achieve the other part of the prize: being able to take off my shirt at the beach without being self-conscious. I still have a small (noticeably smaller than three weeks ago) pooch and still remnants of the "love handles." This is doable, of course, I just hope it's doable on short notice, since the end is sneaking up on me without my even realizing it.
Onward! The goal is near!
As for the program itself, I've been considering the feasibility of some tweak, such as moving cheat day. It's been on Thursdays so far, mostly due to my work schedule when I impulsively started this project, not because it's an ideal day. For example, this weekend I get home early enough to do stuff with my girlfriend so we plan on seeing The Avengers then dinner, then Sunday breakfast at the beach. So I'm thinking pushing cheat day til the weekend. Do 4HB until I get home Saturday afternoon then let it continue until Sunday afternoon and return to 4HB for dinner.
Breakfast 7am
4 strips turkey bacon
1 egg
Cottage cheese
Coffee
Early and behind, so wasn't hungry or thirsty.
Weigh in 146
Lunch 2pm
CVG Panda Express
Mushroom Chicken, chicken, non-breaded, zucchini, mushrooms in light sauce
Mixed vegetables, broccoli, cabbage, carrots, string beans, zucchini
Snack 330pm
Quest bar
Meant to have this with lunch but ran out of time
Dinner 645pm
Suri West in BHM
Stir fry vegetables: broccoli, cabbage, carrots, celery, green beans, onions, shitake mushrooms with tofu
Diet Coke
Breakfast 9am
4 strips turkey bacon
1 whole egg + egg whites
spinach
coffee
water
Lunch 1pm
Gladiator smoothie 45g protein
Dinner 545pm
Chicken breast with maybe 2 tbsp bbq sauce
mixed vegetables with black beans
couple tablespoons of black lentils for extra protein boost
Boring meals today, but the chicken breast was actually quite good! I got one of those huge bags of frozen breasts last week, and planned ahead today by setting one out on the balcony on a plate to thaw out so it would be ready by the time I'd need it. Planning a meal ahead of time isn't something I'm fond of because by the time dinner rolls around I may not be in the mood for what I'd thought of in the morning. But 4HB isn't meant to be exciting, it's meant to get results.
5/10
This was my second cheat day. I won't bother writing out the meals, suffice to say I made sure I had exactly what I wasn't supposed to, though I noticed this week I was even more boring about it than last week. If anything, I probably didn't eat enough, but I felt fine so... whatever.
What I do want to jot down is whether I want to make sure to go a straight six days like I have been. That is the official 4HB method, but I don't have a normal work week or normal job, so it may work out better if for the next two weeks I slightly adjust things to have my cheat days on something other than Thursdays. The only reason it ended up being a Thursday was due to the day I started 4HB and I did the program by the book.
For example, we plan on seeing The Avengers next weekend, since it's the first time in a couple months I will have had any weekend time at all. For the sake of popcorn (LOL) it may be advantageous to shift my cheat day to whichever day we commit to the movie, which will mean exceeding six days one week and potentially going less than six another. We'll see what I decide and how the effects of that decision affects my progress on this experiment.
My official weigh-in is 149 this week, so only 2 pounds to go to my target number! Yay! Now, I'm actually considering adjusting it down to 145, which is the lowest my better half has given me permission to reach. :) So, while I will still be doing 4HB as best as I can at work -- which was ultimately the point of this experiment, in addition to losing the few pounds -- starting next week I'm going to start adding more physical activity and workouts to the mix. Getting the number on the scale is one thing, but overall health, strength and body shape is the larger part of the equation. I'm realistic enough to know that in the final two weeks before my birthday I'm not going to suddenly look like a male model, but I'm hoping a combination of 4HB plus constant toning will at least give me the confidence to take my shirt off at the beach without being self-conscious for a change.
5/9
Breakfast 830am
4 strips turkey bacon
1 whole egg + egg white
spinach
coffee
water
Lunch 130pm
Gladiator smoothie mix 45g protein
This is the new protein meal replacement drink mix that Smoothie King sells. It's something like $45 for the jug so it's not cheap but it's a low-carb mix that for the most part seems to fit with 4HB. This is my first time trying one at home, and it was really good because I used ice cubes plus a little water in a blender to make it just like the frozen smoothie shakes you'd get from the store. At work, my plan is to put one serving (two scoops of mix) in a sandwich bag for easy transport and just use cold water and ice in my smoothie travel cup. So it'll be pure liquid at work versus the shake I can make at home. We'll see how that goes over in a few days.
Snack 4:30pm
Quest bar
I noticed on the carton it says to microwave for 15 seconds for a warm chewy bar. Yes! It's like a brownie fresh out of the oven, all warm and gooey and easy to eat.
Dinner 7pm
spiced tofu steak
mixed vegetables with navy beans
5/8
Breakfast 9am
3 turkey sausage links 15g
1 whole egg + egg whites
spinach
cottage cheese
coffee
Lunch 130pm
High Protein smoothie, almond mocha flavor (yeah, I know, but this thing is seriously filling and yummy!)
Dinner 6pm
pulled pork, maybe 1 cup worth?
mustard bbq sauce
mixed vegetables with navy beans
Diet Rite
I had issues with the Blogger app so had to re-write these. Will edit them from my PC when I get home to reflect the proper dates posted, in the meantime I'll just stick the date in the body here.
5/7/2012
Breakfast 9am
Buffet at hotel:
Coffee & Water
Scrambled eggs
bacon
summer sausage links?
Lunch 1pm
Burrito bowl, chicken, black beans, tomato, guacamole
Dinner 830pm
Tuna steak, lemon pepper, 36g protein
mixed vegetables
Diet Rite
Breakfast 1030am
Woke up later than planned, but a few nights of being up too late and up too early had caught up to me. Ended up at the hotel breakfast buffet, so values are guesstimates at best.
Scrambled eggs, maybe 2 cups
5 strips bacon
1 sausage link
3/4 cup cottage cheese
Coffee
Water
Estimated total 30 grams protein
Lunch 5pm
Tomato cucumber salad
Quest protein bar 20 grams protein
Water
Dinner 9pm
Burrito bowl, no rice, no tortilla:
Chicken, black beans, lettuce, tomato, pico de gallo, dollop of guacamole
Guesstimate: 30 grams protein, maybe more
Today was whacked in terms of schedule, obviously, and the meals suffered from a lack of time between flights to get anything better.
I wanted to take a minute to talk about the new bar I mentioned, from Quest Nutrition. Ever since getting this job, I've learned to always have some sort of meal replacement or protein bar for emergencies. I've read a few times now that the Quest bars are pretty much the best out there, so i ordered a box. Half their bars are sweetened with sucralose, the other half with stevia extract, which is the column I chose from. Looking over the ingredient list, I can already see why they are so highly thought of. Not only are these bars 100% 4HB-compliant, they're made of quality ingredients period. Last week, I had packed Oh Yeah! and Supreme Protein brands bars, both of which were huge in size, packing 30 grams protein or more per bar. The Quest bars are smaller, roughly the length of an average candy bar like Snickers, but only perhaps 2/3 the thickness of one, and contain 20 grams protein.
Most bars have an artificial chocolate, peanut butter, or vanilla coating, then the insides have a crunchy or caramel-like feel, very reminiscent of a candy bar. This Quest bar (coconut cashew) has no coating at all, in fact the entire bar is identical through and through and reminds me more of a blonde brownie than anything. But it's quite dense, and therefore slower to chew. Think of taking say 3 or 4 Little Debbie brownies and super-compressing them into a Snickers-size bar. They taste great though, and with the ingredient list, I have to say I'm now a huge fan, 4HB or not.
Day 7 (Thursday) was Cheat Day, so I didn't feel the need to blog that. Suffice to say I enjoyed white carbs, fatty foods, fruit and dairy. Didn't get too crazy but I made sure to get enough insulin response, etc. to jump start my body to get things going today. (Actually, I'm writing this on Saturday. Friday got hectic with prepping and traveling to work.)
Breakfast 9am
3 turkey sausage links
1 whole egg supplemented with egg whites
3/4 cup cottage cheese
1 cup (possibly more) spinach
Coffee
PAGG
Total estimated protein: 43 grams
Lunch 1:30pm
Things were going haywire now and getting behind schedule so I didn't get the lunch I wanted, and ended up with a Supreme Protein meal replacement bar, weighing in at 30 grams.
Dinner 6:30pm
Turkey burger patty with mushrooms and tomato slices
black beans
As you can see, today was nearly a complete failure at getting quality vegetable intake other than spinach for breakfast and a couple tomato slices at dinner. Fingers crossed tomorrow works better.
