187.8

No, it isn't my IQ. It's my weight. 187.8, now is the time to nip this little weight gain in the bud. Of course I just don't want to lose weight, but gain muscle mass and all round look like a million bucks. Right now I look ok I suppose, as long as I'm fully clothed. But once the clothes come off the blubber starts to fly.

I was tempted to start a whole new blog on the topic of my weight, but thought better of it. I'm just not prolific enough to keep two blogs running at the same time so I decided to take some time off from my diatribes against technology and the inevitable demise of humanity and focus of me for a few weeks. Time to suck it up and watch the pounds melt away.

DAY 1

I've got a plan. All I need to do is exercise much, much more, and eat much, much less. I downloaded a free app for my iPhone that will chart my progress, count my calories and even see how many calories I burn while exercising. Say good by to my man-boobs and flabby belly. I'm about to start looking good.

I start off with oatmeal, 120 calories. Excellent, to hit my target weight of 160 by Christmas I'm on a strict 1590 calorie per day diet. Breakfast is already done and I still have 1370 calories left to eat today. Easy as pie.

I decide to eat 5 pecans for a snack. I was only going to eat 4 but I couldn't easily figure out how many calories are in 4 pecan halves. So it's 5 - no problem, its only 50 calories. That small snack has me at 170 for the day at 10:30 in the morning. I'll eat a protein bar and work-out at lunch and come sliding into the afternoon with a thousand calories to spare by suppertime.

11:15 a.m. I get a pop up on my calender at work informing me of a birthday party. Damn.

It's okay, I'll swing by, wish him happy birthday and go on to the gym. Great plan. Unfortunately as soon as I walk in I can see that this clearly isn't a normal birthday. Oh hell.

This is catered - large trays of potato salad, chicken tenders, cakes, pies and so much more that no one person could conceivably sample it all. My eyes go as big as quarters as I fall back to plan B - I'll nibble on some chicken, chit chat with a few co workers and then sneak off.

The toll: 300 calories in chicken, 360 calories in potato salad, and the big kicker... 450 with key-lime pie. Shit. I'm sitting on 1100 calories in one meal! It's only 12:30 and I've got 1270 of my 1590 calories for the day already used up.

Sigh, I skip the gym, go back to my desk and sulk for the rest of the afternoon. I find that by 3:00 I'm so hungry that I'm thinking of swallowing my gum. I remember that I have sugar cookie stashed away at my desk and I consider eating it.

3:02. I ate the cookie. I google the thing and see that it is only 73 calories and I get excited and think of eating another one (I had two).

3:08. I decide not to eat the cookie, I go for the apple instead. Awesome, I resisted the second cookie with all it's sugar and calories and had a healthy apple instead. Take that temptation.

I input the apple into my iPhone and see that it has 90 calories. Apples have more calories than cookies? I check again and see that it also had 19 grams of sugars... about 4 times what was in the cookie. A damned snickers bar would have been better. Stupid apple.

4:00. Determined to not have my day be a total failure, I decide I'll do some exercise. I go to the lobby and decide to walk the stairs. I climb 10 floors before I stop. I'm exhausted and invigorated at the same time. But I did it! Take that fat.

I input my exercise into my new app and anxiously await my results. I envision that I've burned 500 or 600 calories, it sure as hell was hard enough. I'm practically heaving at the effort.

50 calories. Damn, that's about 5 pecan halves.

6:30. I'm home and ready for supper, I calculate that I have about 100 calories to expend. I see a beer in the fridge. I figure it's 125 calories minimum. Close enough.

Then I see the chili my wife made over the weekend tucked away in the fridge behind the beer. How many calories can there be in one little bowl.

6:40. Make that two bowls, er, pretty big ones at that. I decide not to record anymore...

Watch out for tomorrow, I'll take a mulligan for today.