Weigh-in Wednesday: 1-28-15

“Primum no nocere” is a latin phrase that means “first, do no harm.”  It’s one of the precepts of bioethics.  It’s also how I’ve viewed my diet lately.

My dietary habits tend to be schizophrenic.  When I’m at home, I eat a vegan diet.  I keep track of what I eat, I count calories, and I make sure I’m getting enough of certain nutrients.  When I travel, I’m less strict about what I eat, and I don’t keep track of how much I eat.  That works if I’m home more than I’m traveling.  Lately, that hasn’t been the case.

This past week I had four “on the road” days and only three “at home” days.  The “on the road” days were in New Orleans, where the food is part of the experience.  My hope was to limit the damage.  I think I succeeded.  On Friday, we had a big restaurant dinner, but didn’t have any lunch (unless you count airline snacks).  On Saturday, we had a big lunch, but had hors d’oeuvres in place of dinner.  On Sunday, we had a big dinner, but it was our only real meal of the day.  Monday would have been fairly restrained, but I slipped into my habit of snacking too much in the evening.

This morning, I weighed in at 120.2 pounds.  That’s only a fraction higher than the 119.8 pounds I weighed last week.  Under the circumstances, I'm happy with that.

The last three weeks have included one international trip and two longer trips, where I was away from home for more than two nights.  During that time, I had a net loss of 0.4 pounds.  That’s about the best I could hope for.  For the next two months, I don’t have any more trips that are longer than two nights.  I also don’t have any international trips until April.  I weathered the storm.  Now I have a chance to make progress.

Progress comes at home.  The more healthy, low calorie foods I add to my diet, the less I’m tempted to eat fattening foods.  On that note, I’m making more smoothies.  I like to combine unsweetened coconut milk with frozen bananas or berries and then add chia seeds and/or protein powder.

Deb bought a new blender recently.  It has an attachment for making smoothies.  It also has a smoothie program that automatically pulses and varies the speed.

We also found a new protein powder that I really like.  This was a product that we saw at the expo in New Orleans.  It’s a low-fat peanut butter powder.  I’ve started using it in smoothie recipes that call for peanut butter.  It’s easier to measure, and it has fewer calories.  The smoothies still have the same taste and texture.