Working Toward My New Year’s Resolution: Week 8 Accountability Report

Let’s talk about food. And weight.

There’s a correlation between the two. I think everybody knows that. But how many people really understand the correlation?

I know that I don’t.

Typically, the more you eat, the more you gain in weight. However, that isn’t always the case. When you eat, how you eat, and what you eat are all very important factors to consider when it comes to maintaining and/or losing weight.

My daily breakfast (The kind of bagel changes from day to day).

I am trying to lose weight this year. Specifically, my goal is to lose 10 kg. If possible, I want to lose weight without thinking too much about changing my diet. At the moment, I don’t have many vices. I don’t eat much snack food throughout the week. I rarely drink alcohol, soda, or juice. I don’t go on ice cream and chocolate binges. And I don’t eat just before going to bed. The only problem that I know I have is overeating during dinnertime.

This may sound like an easy problem to fix, but believe me, it isn’t. And the reason why it isn’t easy to fix is because it involves someone other than myself. It involves my wife, who has an incredible appetite and an unbelievably high metabolism, both of which make it difficult for her to judge what an average portion of food is.

What appears average to her is often three or four times larger than a typical portion of food for many people, including myself.

My typical lunch.

Maybe you are thinking to yourself, this is such an easy problem to solve, just fix your own portions.

I know. And I couldn’t agree with you more. I have even brought this up with my wife before, and every time I do, her answer is this: You don’t have to eat it all. Just tell me when you’re full and I will eat the rest.

That sounds reasonable enough, and really it is. There are two problems with it, though. One, the more food you put in front of someone, the more they are likely to eat. And two, I often feel guilty admitting when I am initially beginning to feel full, so I don’t admit it and eat more than I can. Additionally, I feel that my wife tends to have a negative reaction every time I don’t eat as much as she thinks is reasonable.

A recent dinner.

This is why, if possible, I would really like to lose weight through exercise alone. I don’t want to have this argument with my wife anymore than I already have. This is also one of the reasons why I am recording my weight and the exercises that I do on a daily basis. If I don’t start losing more weight in a month or two, I will be able to show my wife the data I have recorded and that should put me in a better place to negotiate with her.

What do you think? Do these portions seem reasonable to you? From the looks of these pictures, is there anything that you think I should I change?

Another recent dinner. There is a pile of rice under that omelet and sauce.

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This Week’s Accountability Report

Exercise and Weight:

Four out of seven days:
I didn’t manage to work out everyday like I had planned, not even in the light way that I had hoped to. It just didn’t happen this week. Due to a lingering cold, I was more reluctant to get out of bed in the morning than usual, and busier in the evenings than usual as well. That said, my weight did drop as low as 80.2 kg, which is almost 2 kg less than when I started. Today it was back up a little bit to 80.9 kg, but I’m still making some downward progress and I’m happy with that. Looking at the entire month of February, too, I’m very happy to see how many days I did exercise.

Looking Forward/Looking Back:

I have noticed that exercising at night, after I have eaten dinner seems to produce better weight loss results than exercising in the morning. As a result, I would like to incorporate more evening workouts into my daily schedule if possible.

In addition, I wasn’t able to achieve my one simple goal of preparing a gym bag last week, so I will be carrying that goal over to this week. I had planned on finally doing that task last night before bed, but something came up and I wasn’t able to, which has again shown me a lesson that I have learned and forgotten too many times already in my life: Don’t put simple things off until later or tomorrow. Get them done and out of the way as soon as possible.

As always, thanks for joining me. If you have any suggestion to help me achieve my goals, I’m all ears. Similarly, if you’re on a similar journey, please share it with me.