Hello all. It’s been too long, has it not?

I’m proud to say I haven’t gained anymore weight. Good for me. However, I haven’t lost anymore either. The last several weeks, (no exaggeration) have been filled with doctor’s visits, an inordinate amount of medications and very little relief for this cold/cough/SARS/ear infection/Bird Flu/Plague I have. The last two days, I have finally felt better rather than worse. My lungs and the “productive” cough aren’t really ready for the gym again quite yet, but I have been taking note of my caloric intake and trying to off-set my cough-syrup-induced lethargy.

Still at 140 even, I am just trying to be patient for when I can hit the stepper again. I’ve been sticking to tilapia, baked chicken and the like, and trying to stay away from simple carbs as much as possible. And of course, they suggest drinking a lot of fluids for upper respiratory shenanigans, so I’ve been guzzling water like I’ve been alone in the desert on a horse with no name. For real.

Winter can always bring the common cold and other infections into your household…and unfortunately can derail your gym practices. Just keep in mind that if you’re being less active, maybe there can be a few places you can trim some of your intake. Maybe you can muster up some sit-ups before bed at night. Maybe you just do some simple yoga moves instead of blowing through 30 minutes on the treadmill at full bore. Just know your limits and do what you can to stay in the right mindset. I know it’s tough for all of us, but even just conscientious eating can help keep us on the same path.

It has been one whole week since the inaugural post here at AOF and what have we got to show for it?  What have we learned?

1. Prevention.com has an amazing tracking tool to help you keep track of what you’re doing, what you’re doing wrong and what you’re doing right.
2. We need to eat less carbs and fat…and more protein.
3. Everyone has a different story.
4. This is harder than we thought.

Proud to have started such a personal, and popular blog that so many people can come to fir ideas, advice and support.  Here is to many more weeks.

This prevention.com Health Tracker has been really helpful. Just today I figured out the ration of carbs to protein to fats to alcohol in my diet. Unfortunately, it wasn’t necessarily awesome news. This was the summation of my diet yesterday. Thankfully I made up for some bad decisions making with about two and a half hours at the gym. I ended up, all being said, eating the calories I should (1400-ish), without any exertion to lose weight, and tacking on an extra 1100 calories burned.

I am on a slightly better trajectory today with only 36 grams of fat. I can’t imagine eating another 26 before the end of the day (though I wouldn’t put anything beyond my awesome willpower). Sixty-two grams of fat yesterday. Jeez. But it says so long as I do about 1400 calories a day, I should get to my desired weight of 120 by mine and the SM’s 2 year anniversary, on St. Patrick’s Day, 2009. That’s not bad.

Point being:  Try to integrate more protein into your diet.  Its more filling and takes away time from eating carbs and fat.  Plus if you do have the time to work out, it helps with the building of muscle.  Protein is generally meat…so it makes sense to put more human meat on your bones, instead of fat, you should eat more protein.