Bad decisions... I'm looking back at myself last night and really wondering why I made the decision to eat pizza. (We brought home left-over pizza from the weekend outing.)

My wife said it was "refrigerator cafe" tonight... I said, "No problem, we've got lots of stuff". I needed about 1000 calories to reach my 2500 for the day... so in the back of my mind, I thought: Okay - I need some calorie dense food. There were two slices of pizza sitting right up front.

Now here is the stinker: I held them in my hand and said, "You know what's funny... I don't really want this." The morning cardio was working its magic - I didn't have any cravings for "bad foods"...

SO WHY THE HECK AM I EATING IT ANYWAY!? In the past, when I've reached the end of the day and have a lot of calories to consume, I would just make a nice protein shake. So why didn't I do that? After the pizza I treated myself to Amy's homemade brownies for desert.

Rationale
Here are the messages I rememeber:

1) I can afford this right now because I'm so far under budget on calories
2) Amy never eats left-over anything
3) I don't think I can handle two rounds of "Brien's Soup" in one day
4) Everything else in the fridge is pretty lo cal - so I'd have to eat a ton of it.

Reality
1) I didn't calculate the calories or ratios on the food I was about to eat, so I didn't really know whether I'd be on budget or not.
2) True - so I probably should have either left it at the restaurant or made plans to cut it up for my son.
3) Right, but there was some nice tilapia and spinach.
4) A protein shake would have made a nice calorie-dense after dinner treat. (I really do think it tastes good!)

Grips and Decisions
What I said about cardio yesterday still stands. I had a grip... I didn't have any cravings... but I made a bad decision. I even added a brownie on top of it because I was "sure" I had the room. As I total up my calories today, I see that I did not! The good news is that, exercise included, I shouldn't gain any weight from my foods yesterday.

Planning Ahead
I plan 4 of my 5 meals. This bad decision is a perfect example of why I need to plan all of my meals in advance. Normally, my wife will make some healthy 300-500 calorie meal - but yesterday, left to fend for myself, I "winged it" and made some really bad choices. (This is another good reason not to keep problem foods in the house!)

All of my meals are in for the day except dinner. I know we're having steaks tonight (yum!) and veggies. If there is any room left over, it'll be protein powder for me!

Cardio Mornings
On a positive note, I woke up and got to the gym a full half hour earlier than yesterday. Getting an early start makes things SO much easier. I put about 25-27 minutes in on the rowing machine (5500 meters) and 10 or so on the elliptical. I had hoped to get my leg workout going, too, but I need to make it another half hour earlier than today for that.

School starts up again today. This is a senior level class with tons of reading and an assignment due every day for the next 5 weeks. It's going to be tight but I can make it all work.

--B