Dodging the Work Week Food Traps

This is the third in a series on weight loss effort.


Today marks the third day of working to adjust downward my weight. The past two days were easy to come out ahead because it was the weekend and I was able to run 15 miles between the two days; I had plenty of room to spare and still be under my calorie target. The routine of the workday provides different challenges. To counter the main challenge of ending up hungry at noon and having to seek out the healthiest of nearby bad choices, I brought food from home. I brought a small plastic container of pinto beans and a falafel patty. I ate one pumpkin pancake at home before I left for work and augmented this with a mid-morning snack of nuts, raisins, pistachios, dried fruit, and chocolate morsels which total about 200 calories. The falafel was rather dry and a little hard to get down and I couldn't eat any more before even finishing the beans. I teach high school and I walked three laps on the track with another teacher after eating.


There is a cake shop across the street from the school and it was a bit of a challenge to break the routine of going for a large oatmeal raisin cookie after lunch. The walking helped. The school store is directly across from my room and I had to resist buying a 1 3/4 ounce bag of Ruffles Queso Potato Chips. They are quite addictive. I avoided the traps at work. At least it wasn't Friday when there are often trays of doughnuts for the taking.


Arriving home seems to trigger a desire to eat. My wife wouldn't be home from work until a little late so I decided to make something to eat that would count as dinner. The danger would be to eat twice. I made a chopped veggie-laden tuna salad and ate it as a sandwich and with some wheat thins. My wife just wanted a bowl of cereal when she got home, but I was hungry again so I opted for the vegetable soup that we still had from the weekend. Even with two Indian Pale Ales I was able to end the day at a net loss of 530 calories.