August 19, 2012: Day 18 of 30

8/19/2012: Day 18 of 30

Morning weight: 179.0

I gained a pound, but we're not going to freak out about it.  Last night was my welcome to Castle Creations dinner with all of the Directors and their spouses.  Dinner started at 7:00 and we did not leave the restaurant until 10:00.  Drinks, then appetizers, then salads, then dinner, then desserts takes a while.  The good news is I was incredibly disciplined and while I am sure everyone else ate and drank at least 2000 calorie meals I kept mine to 550 (best guess).  I did not drink any alcohol, while most of the others were drinking before, during and after dinner.  When appetizers came out I had 2 bites of calamari (44 calories - all calories are my best estimates), a bite of a crab cake (18 calories), a piece of ahi tuna (20 calories) and two bites of bread (23 calories).  The entire appetizer course took about an hour, I was hungry, and the little tastes of a variety things, that were all very tasty, made the hour go by without too much discomfort.  Then came the salad course and that is when the salt hit my plate big time.  The chef at this restaurant was way heavy handed with the salt.  I was counting on the salad course to fill me up a little bit, but there was so much salty dressing and cheese on my salad that I only ate half the Caesar salad.  I counted that as 210 calories.  Then came the dinner course.  I ordered the sea scallops, because I love them and they are amazingly low in calories.  The sides were family style, so that worked out OK.  There were 5 large scallops on my plate, but again, the salt was crazy.  I moved the scallops out of their sauce onto the edge of my plate, and they were a little better.  I counted 155 calories for the scallops.  For sides I had a couple of tablespoons of sweet potato casserole (49 calories), 2 tablespoons of creamed spinach (18 calories) and about a cup of asparagus (Yeah! The hollandaise sauce was on the side! - 14 calories).  I had decaf, black, no sugar or artificial sweeteners, for dessert.

The weight gain, I am sure, was caused by eating so late.  I was still eating dinner an hour after I am usually in bed.  And the salt.  When I woke up this morning my hands were all puffy.  They reminded me of surgical gloves that someone blew up.  All day I have been careful to avoid salt and drink plenty of water.  It will take a couple of days, but this pound from today and 8/10ths of a pound from yesterday will be gone soon. 

I am very, very glad that I have decided to be so disciplined.  That discipline made it very easy to make good choices both Friday and Saturday nights.  I can't imagine how many calories I would have consumed if I had said, "It's a celebration, I can eat whatever I want."  Way too many.  And I'd be looking at a lot more than a 1.8 pound setback from 2 nights of back to back special occasions.

Today's calorie count: 1577 (Ruth and I have decided that with the amount of exercising I am doing - 6 days a week for an hour in the morning and 6 days a week for at least 15 minutes and more often than not 30 minutes in the evening - that a reasonable amount of calories is between 1500 and 1600 calories.  I am being careful not to eat less than 1500 calories so that I have the fuel I need for my workouts.)

Morning exercise: None - day off.  I traded today for Tuesday because Jack and I needed to put together shelves and rearrange all the boxes in the basement, which took several hours.  Since I am off on Tuesday, I am going to go for a two hour bike ride, then.
Evening exercise: 30 minute swim.  This was very, very difficult for me.  From now on my goal will be to swim twice a week in the evenings.

Alcohol consumption: None

Younger Next Year pages read: None - I would normally be reading now instead of blogging, but my eyes are very tired today and I was having trouble focusing on the print.  I hope to finish the book over the next couple of days.

And that's that.