Alligatorob's Diary

How are you able to stay focused on your calorie intake?
Hey Shell, I write everything down along with the calorie count as soon as I can after eating. I do a lot of weighing and measuring to get the count as close as I can. It was a pain at first, but now its just second nature. It really helps me with self awareness and understanding what I am eating. I use an excell spreadsheet and just keep adding onto it, I have most of my food for the past 3 months there. The other thing that helps me focus is that I only do goals one day at a time. Eating right today is easier than thinking about tomorrow and the future. So long as I make that one goal all else will be fine.

To keep up with Cate I attached a picture of our house, admittedly not as impressive as Tasmania, but we like it. Our peach trees are in the foreground and the red roof behind them is our house. To the right of our peach trees, not real visible, is the farmer's field we get to pick and pay from. It only really works because he is the same farmer as takes care of our peaches, so we know him pretty well. The big white roof in the background is Walmart........civilization encroaches. The mountains on the horizon are the Promontory mountains, on the far side of a part of the Great Salt Lake. The Promontory mountains are famous for the driving of the Golden Spike joining the transcontinental railroad in 1869, it happened a little to the left of the picture, about 30 miles west of us. Not much out there today, just very dry desert and ghost towns, the railroad was rerouted to the south over 100 years ago leaving the area abandoned.
 

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Wow, you live in such a cool place. Every documentary I watch nowadays is about the importance of urban farming and buying from local markets, so the fact you get fresh fruit from the farm next to you is ideal. You are living the life my friend!
 
It was a good day, had a house full of grandkids and company, about 14 people, it was fun.

Tuesday

breakfast
yogurt 80
cereal 105
honeydew & cantaloupe 100

lunch
grapes 152
honeydew & cantaloupe 30
2 apricots 34

snack
fritos 160

2nd snack
honeydew & cantaloupe 30

dinner
spaghetti noodles 190
meatballs 220
little cheese 70
1/2 piece of bread with butter 100
lettuce & tomatoes 30

I tried to eat an apple off one of our trees as a snack, but it was way too sour. I was only able to get a couple of bites down, its still a month early. Guess I won't count any calories there.

total calories 1,301

In 1301 Dante Alighieri was driven from Florence by Charles, Count of Valois and his invading army, the Black Guelphs. Charles was apparently aligned with the Pope, and Dante with the White Guelphs and the Holy Roman Emperor. Dante was sentenced by the Black Guelphs to perpetual exile but in 2008 the Florence city council generously rescinded his exile. Too late to do Dante much good. He wrote is Divine Comedy while in exile, so perhaps we have the Black Gulphs to thank for that.
 
Hi, Rob. Thanks for sharing your photo of where you live. I have never been near a desert. We have plenty here in Australia, but I haven't travelled there. It is fantastic having that orchard right next door. I hope you don't cop spray from it.
A day with the grandkids & company sounds nice. :)
I have never heard of the Guelfs, black or white.
 
Hi, Rob. Thanks for sharing your photo of where you live. I have never been near a desert. We have plenty here in Australia, but I haven't travelled there.

Cate the best place on earth is the desert at night. Camping in the middle of nowhere with just your 4wd and dog is bliss. If you ever get the chance make sure you check out the Oodnadatta and Birdsville tracks. It’s tough going in a modern 4wd. Certainly makes you respect the early mail run drivers in the Leyland trucks and (I believe) model T’s.
 
It was a really good day, grandkids and stepgrandkids filling the house. Dinner was challenging, we built a fire and roasted hot dogs and s'mores for the kids, nothing I could eat so I had a beer and some cherries. When the kids found out I liked the cherry tomatoes from the garden they seemed to get great fun in picking them for me, I ate all they brought, hard to turn down a vine ripened cherry tomato picked and delivered by a 7 year old. Then we sat around the fire for a while, and I probably drank too much whiskey. I did eat one zucchini biscuit my wife made, she tells me its national zucchini day, so it seemed the patriotic thing to do, and the zucchini came from our garden. Did I eat and drink too much, maybe, but if I did it was worth every calorie!

Wednesday
breakfast yogurt 80
cereal 105
honeydew & cantaloupe 100

snack - the kids made breakfast, not ready until long after mine, but I had to eat a little of it
hash browns 150
sausage 60

lunch
sardines 180
honeydew & cantaloupe 100

snack 1 mandarin orange 46

dinner
beer 150 cherries 86
20, or so, cherry tomatoes 60

snack whiskey 200
zucchini biscuit 130

total calories 1,447

Too late and I'm too tired to figure out what happened in 1147.
 
Rob
I'm enjoying your diary and what a great interest in finding out what happened the same year as your calorie consumed . I had a quick google for 1447 and there was a great fire in Valencia .

Your photo is great. I'm like you and have the same breakfast everyday . Your weight loss is super .
 
It was a good day, kids are still here but things are a bit more settled, more video games than fire circles and running around. No whiskey either.

Thursday
breakfast yogurt 80
cereal 200
grapes 95

lunch
crackers 100
cherries 86

snack
2 mandarin oranges 92

dinner - a big salad
one big tomato and a bunch of cherry tomatoes picked minutes before eating 53
lettuce 25
blue cheese 150
boiled egg 78
2 1/2 ounces of macaroni and cheese 115

total calories 1,074

In 1074 the Normans were pretty active, fighting in Turkey, and Italy, and probably other places. It was also the year the Norman nobleman Robert Guiscard managed to get himself excommunicated by the Pope himself. Later on Robert ingratiated himself with the Pope by rescuing him from some enemy. The Normans were a mixed Viking French group founded by the Viking Rollo, older brother of Ragnar Lothbrok, in the History Channel's Viking show, maybe not in reality.
 
Are you eating earlier as the kids are there, Rob? I'm trying to eat more at lunchtime than at night on my cardio's suggestion, but struggle with it.
 
Rob
enjoying the history lessons . It's amazing I hated history in school but that's because it was taught badly and also in high school our teacher was really bad and scary . Such a shame .
 
Rob —

Congrats on 283!! Well deserved. Isn’t it funny how weight comes off and goes on, all in fits and starts?

Thanks for sharing the pic. That view is amazing, I could almost smell the clean fresh air. The countryside looks idyllic — even the out of place Walmart must be darn convenient at times. Oh, but how you must despise their peaches in the off season!
 
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