In my continued effort to eat healthy and avoid the pitfalls of the common north American culinary experience (re: fast food) I’ve been doing my best to not get suckered into going to lunch with work folk as it inevitably leads to some brand of unhealthy eating.  Sadly my will power is not always the best and yesterday I was convinced to go to Taco Bell. Upon arriving at the newly remodeled Toxic Hell, I was greeted by a particular brand of evil:  the Bacon Cheesy Potato Burrito.  It was as if someone had ratted out my penchant for bacon to the creative department of TBell and they threw together a ferocious feast just for me.  Alas, I succeeded in avoiding this and stayed on the Fresco menu (yeah, it was SOOOO much more healthy, I know).  Later in the day though, my friend PJ informed me that he had just had a Bacon Cheesy Potato Burrito and that it was essentially orgasmic.  Perhaps I’ll get drunk enough to try one of these beauties before they are lost to the menu.

For the past year, I've been trying to exercise and lose weight pretty consistently.  I've made some pretty good strides during that time including the following:

• Losing 40 pounds.
• Building a good amount of muscle mass.
• Building up my endurance.
• Ran a half marathon.
• Started swimming again.

A lot of this had to do with moving to Kalamazoo where I wasn't quite as distracted by going out and drinking every night.  Now that I've moved back to the Metro Detroit area I'm a bit more distracted (I've got stuff going on the next two nights before going up north for the weekend).  However, I've been able to work out during lunch since work seems to be ok with it.  All in all despite going out more I've been making it to the gym and eating pretty consistently every week (with some notable exceptions).  One thing I find very useful during this time is keeping track of what I do.  I don't really count calories like many people on diets do and insist that I stay beneath a certain number, but getting the numbers for everything really helps you remember what's good for you to eat and what's very bad for you.  One tool I've been using is myfitnesspal.com which makes it very easy to keep track of everything you eat.  You basically go in and add what you eat and drink for each day.  Here's an example of what I ate today:

You'll note that it allows me to split things up into different "meals".  In addition when you click on the "Add Food" link, it remembers the things you've eaten for that meal before.  Also, you can search for previously entered food items (in fact I haven't had to enter a single new thing in their site, everything I've eaten or drank was already there).  While it obviously allows you to keep track and "count" calories, as well as several other things (protein, fat, carbs, sugar, sodium, etc).  Another portion of the site also allows you to enter your work outs.  When you generate your account you basically put in your current weight and what your goal is as well as how often you work out each week.  It will then tell you how much you should eat to achieve your goal in the timeline you've chosen.  So if you're interested in keeping track of what you're eating and really being held accountable, I'd suggest giving it a try.  I'd definitely throw some props to my friend Kevin who pointed out this site to me.  If you're interested in someone's journey to be a bit healthier, Kevin's blog is a good site to read.

Being the awesome boss that he is, my team leader Jona sent me this fantastic link today.  The site offers custom chalkboards with your name in them.  Now if it weren't for my lack of appreciation for chalkboards and a complete lack of knowledge about how these chalkboards actually turn out (the site unintelligently doesn't post any other photos than the stock images) I'd be all about getting one.  That being said, it would be a swell way to let people know what kind of beer is in the kegorator and could come in handy if I ever start brewing my own beer (one day maybe).  For now, please get by with images of my good friend Bastardi's beer sign.