Assessing the damage

Useful definitions for this and future posts:

Wagon Train = being on track, being smart, being healthy… with your diet, spending habits, use of time, etc

Usually I come back from a trip thinking to myself “ok, time to get back on the wagon train” but coming back from almost a week gone I feel pretty good about what I ate & what I spent. Though I went over one day on calories I’m under for the rest of the week so it more than balances out. I also only had one night of “spending” happen when we were out on the town in Austin and I may have had a little too much whiskey.

I will admit that the last couple days of my trip were definitely more difficult with my diet since we had to eat out for almost every meal, meaning I had to very quickly assess the menu and find a tasty, satisfying and calorie conscious option.

Another plus is that even though I just got back in town I was still set up for success by having breakfast ready for me to make at work (oatmeal) and even though I forgot a lunch I just ran up to subway for a 6″ sandwich so I’m still way ahead for the day.

I still have a weekend of some possible celebrating (more on that later) ahead that I need to remain good for…

Tracking what you do

I am by no means an expert but tracking what you do (some might call it journaling, I call it data gathering) can really help put in to perspective exactly how you’re spending your money and what you’re putting in your body.

I don’t make it too complicated, I just created a couple of excel documents to track what I’m eating and what I’m spending every day. Once the data starts to add up it’s pretty easy to go back and see that, wow, I spent $386 on food & drinks in the past 2 weeks. If I wasn’t tracking it I more than likely wouldn’t as easily notice the problem and be more conscious to put that trend to an end.

Here are a couple examples of how I am tracking this stuff (you could do it in a notebook, on a calendar, whatever works best for you)

	Wednesday 11/4	Thursday 11/5	Friday 11/6
Breakfast	Oatmeal	2 hardboiled eggs	PB Toast
Snack	Apple	string cheese	banana
Lunch	Turkey Sandwich	2 slices Pizza	Chicken Salad
Snack	Granola bar	string cheese	apple
Dinner	Chicken & Rice	Spinach Omelette	3 pork ribs & salad
Snack	popcorn	pretzels	pistachios

They say that 5-6 small meals is best and I also will track my exercise/activity so I can see a trend of either being lazy or know that I’m actually not being all that lazy. This doesn’t necessarily reflect what my diet will be over the next few days but could give you a start on tracking what’s going in your body.

I also track my diet through an iPhone app called Lose It that tracks calories and your weight loss goals. I highly recommend it. It’s effective and free.

For spending it’s even simpler…

Date	Item	Cost
11/1	Groceries	$50
11/2	Chipotle	$7
11/3	Jeans	$30
11/4	Happy Hour	$20
11/5	Cleaning Supplies	$12
	Total	$119

Setting it up in any spreadsheet application you can scan through and add up how much you’ve spent on Chipotle or find out that maybe your happy hours have become a little too happy. I’ve found that it’s easy to start ignoring filling this in when you splurge on an impulse buy or have a few donuts for breakfast but I’d encourage you to still track it. Not only will it help you in the short term with making better decisions but it will help you in the long run with analyzing how you spend your money and what you eat affects your life.

You’ll notice that all of the amounts are rounded to an even dollar amount. I’ll get into that in another post…

A tight wallet & a tighter belt

I start this blog/journey after years of up and down failed attempts at getting healthy. I’ve joined a gym a handful of times, changed my diet momentarily a few more times than that and thought “tomorrow I start eating right” more times than I can remember.

Being a guy that lives alone I have little to no accountability with my diet or spending habits. I start this blog, although somewhat anonymously, to give myself the accountability to really plan out and think through what I’m putting in my body and how I’m spending my money. For me those two areas definitely coincide. What’s the difference between a night of bar food and beer and a night of eating at home and drinking water? About 2000 calories and 50+ dollars.

Here’s my my current profile/what I’m up against

• single/live alone – meaning, I’m on my own for most meals and don’t need to report to anyone for the way I spend my money
• web designer by day – meaning, I sit on my ass all day and have delicious places that surround me to eat breakfast and lunch at
• musician by night – meaning, I’m up late and out at bars where beer and tasty bar food constantly haunts me, also taco bell seems to call my name on most drives home at 2am or later

Being that I have no one to report to for how I spend my time/money, what I eat, where I go etc it’s pretty easy to just give in to whatever I feel will make me happiest or most comfortable at the time (regardless of what it means for my health or bank account). I do notice this so I occasionally do catch myself and hold back from making poor decisions but most of the time it doesn’t feel like a bad decision, it feels like I’m just living life like everybody else.

I ordered a cool new scale that will hopefully provide me a little accountability to get myself up and moving around, eating better portions and watching where my money is going.

I’d like to update this site with stats though I’m not sure of the frequency yet so for now I’ll list the 2 different areas I’d like to improve upon (where I started, where I’m at and my goal)

Area	Started at	Currently	Goal
Weight	330	330	200
Savings	200	200	1000

My plan is to share my experiences, tips and tricks I find and my progress.