Man... Without cardio, it is impossible for me to maintain a 30% calorie deficit. I've known this was true for a while, but nothing hit it home like Saturday night.

My wife and I joined some friends for dinner. I didn't go "overboard" per-se, but with only 1750 calories to consume per day, I didn't have any wiggle room! I had to figure out how to eat 546 calories while being a sociable party guest.

For better or worse, I opted to take Saturday as a maintenance day instead of eating portions that would make me look like an ungracious guest. When I estimated my calories, dinner came out to about 1300+ calories.

Sociability or Excuses
This is a really tough place for me... Its hard to know if I can be objective about my reasons for choosing not to "stick to the plan".

The little personal trainer in my head is saying, "You have to stick to your guns no matter what the situation is. If you let the situation dictate your eating habits, then you will never get to your goal weight."

But there is a practical side of me that says, you can allow some wiggle room as long as the wiggle is "under control". In this case, I made a conscious decision to aim for my maintenance calorie intake of 2500 calories, and that is what I did. So, as long as I return to my 30% deficit and my regular meals, then I'm just fine. My totals for Saturday came in right at 2500, so I felt okay with my decision.

Okay - But What Was Up With Sunday?
According to the rationalle above, I should have pulled it together on Sunday; but, what did I do? I used up all of my 1750 calories by 1pm. Oops. We took our usual leisurely family drive out to Julian. Julian is a rustic little town that is famous for its selection of pies. In fact, I'd say it is nearly a pie-based economy *laugh*... The town is tiny, but it has half a dozen pie shops. We stopped at an old style barbecue restaurant for lunch and had a reasonably healthy meal (a plate of chicken with very little bbq sauce and some bread + butternut squash soup). Afterward we found "Mom's Pie Shoppe" and I indulged in a slice of Cherry-Apple Crumble with a generous helping of ice cream.

Uh-oh. This is not something that someone who is "in control" does.

I'm not sure why I felt so self-indulgent after our dinner out the night before, but this was the signal that I needed to get a grip.

I went the rest of the day without eating a bite. At 8pm I decided to eat some protein and fat to quiet my stomach and to balance out the volume of simple carbs that I just ate. So - calories were okay for the day, but meal timing was rotten.

Getting a grip
I had a feeling that going back to work on Monday would help me back on track, and it has. I got up and did a whop load of cardio, ate my staple breakfast, and had my morning snack on time.

On Friday last week, I made myself put some time in on the elliptical in spite of my lingering flu symptoms. My body wasn't ready and I paid for it all day (hacking and coughing). By Monday morning, I knew that I was ready to go back to the gym.... so I pushed myself.

According to my Polar F55 watch, I burned 780 calories in 50 minutes on the elliptical! That is nearly double my norm! Woo hoo! I'm not coughing nearly as much today, so I know that I can hit it again tomorrow.

The awesome thing about doing that much cardio (and about the CalorieKing tracking system) is that you see the jump in calories available for the day. The calories in my breakfast and morning snack barely covered the work I did this morning. Its noon and I still have 1700 calories to eat today to hit the 30% deficit mark! Woot! I feel a lot better, too!

Aim for the Weekly Totals
As long as my weekly calorie totals are around 13000. That figure represents a 30% deficit for the week. Since I did so much cardio this morning, maybe I'll try to end the day with an extreme deficit - say 1100 calories, then pick it up to 1750 on Tuesday.

All for now,
B