I grabbed a new break­fast cereal on the way to work today. For some rea­son I’ve always been wary of dried fruit in cereal. It’s probaly a hold over from my younger days when I was a lot fussier. After try­ing it, I can say I’m most defi­nately a fan.

I have a the­ory that your body builds up a resis­tance to junk food. It’s why peo­ple can eat McDon­alds for years and not get sick, unless of course they’re Mor­gan Spur­lock.
While I was at din­ner I tried a few chips just to see what would hap­pen con­sid­er­ing I’ve been off deep fried foods for a few weeks now and, if i was right, had lost that resis­tance. Experiement suc­cess­ful: My stom­ach felt nau­seous, my mouth felt like crap and most unsu­ally it felt like every part of my skin was exud­ing grease. Now with that in your head I give you Day 20’s menu:

Day 20
Break­fast
Just Right Berry and Apple with skim milk.
Tea­spoon of LSA.

Lunch*
Chicken and Mush­room Risotto (leftovers).

Din­ner
Chicken Paramgiana with spinach, pesto and hot salami.
Hand­ful of chips.
Salad
Two pots of Carl­ton Draught.

Exer­cise
30 min­utes walking.

*Dur­ing the day I’m also drink­ing at least two litres of water while at work

Thanks to poor plan­ning I ran out of cereal today, so I grabbed the health­i­est thing avail­able at the work deli…

Break­fast
Plain bagel with melted cheese

Lunch*
Chicken, veg­eta­bles and fried rice.

Din­ner
Chicken and mush­room risotto
Two Wagon Wheels

Exer­cise
30 min­utes walk­ing.
*Dur­ing the day I’m also drink­ing at least two litres of water while at work

Crav­ings. It’s some­thing I’m bat­tling every day.
Luck­ily it’s not that hard to find low-fat options that calm that rum­bling sugar beast.

Day 18
Break­fast
Just Right Just Grains with skim milk.
Tea­spoon of LSA.

Lunch*
Four hand rolls. Two chicken, two egg.
Two Weight Watch­ers ras­berry tarts.

Din­ner
Pasta with tomato sauce and meat­balls. (left­over from the pre­vi­ous night)
Serve of Jalna vanilla yoghurt mixed with crum­bled up Kit Kat.

Exer­cise
30 min­utes walk­ing.
15 min­utes on the ellip­ti­cal rider on level 4 of the ‘Hike’ set­ting. Accord­ing to the machine I burnt 161 calo­ries, or 673 kilojoules.

*Dur­ing the day I’m also drink­ing at least two litres of water while at work

After the week­end blowout it’s time to get back into diet mode.

Day 17
Break­fast
Just Right Just Grains with skim milk.
Tea­spoon of LSA.

Lunch*
Pasta with tomato sauce and meat­balls. (left­over from the pre­vi­ous night)
Three Weight Watch­ers ras­berry tarts.

Din­ner
Three beef mince bur­ri­tos with avo­cado, let­tuce and cheese.

Exer­cise
30 min­utes walking.

*Dur­ing the day I’m also drink­ing at least two litres of water while at work

This week­end I headed up to Dayles­ford for a bit of a get­away with Ange. We’d been up that way a few months ear­lier when work had organ­ised a retreat to Hep­burn Springs, so we had a rough idea of what to expect. After a few unplanned stops and wrong turns, we finally made it into Dayles­ford just after 2pm. After being told to wait another hour for the acco­mo­da­tion we resolved to kill time by wan­der­ing the main strip of the small town.

One of the first shops we saw was a satel­lite of the Euro­pean Bier Cafe fran­chise. What piqued my inter­est was the ‘For Sale’ sign perched into the win­dow, the $175,000 price tag tempt­ing me fur­ther. My mind began rac­ing. Could I own and run a bar? Would it be hard to give up this city life for one out in the rural area?

These thoughts would occupy my mind until the sec­ond day we were there. On a sec­ond trip through the town I began to notice quite a few shops with ‘For Sale’ sign on dis­play. Then it hit me: The town that had rein­vented itself twice before: Dur­ing the Gold Rush and again about a decade ago as a spa/relaxation town, was dying. It’s sad in a way, but to sur­vive I believe the entire town will need to find another source of income. One not based on pass­ing fads and non renew­able resources.

My progess in the Biggest Loser game took another leap for­ward on Fri­day morn­ing. I weighed in at 95kg, mean­ing I’ve lost yet another kilo. Although as you can see from the break­down below there’s a good chance I’ve put it back on, so I really can’t get cocky. Exer­cise over the week­end con­sisted of in and around Dayles­ford. Not really enoug hto work off the amount of food I ate.

Day 14
Break­fast
Two pieces of toast, but­tered with vegemite.

Lunch
One sour­dough roll with chicken schnitzel and avo­cado.
2 Weight Watch­ers choco­late chip cook­ies (so awe­some!)
One Sol beer.

Din­ner
Two sausages.
Por­t­house steak.
Two lamb chops.
Salad.
One piece of bread, but­tered.
Half pack of M&Ms.
Bot­tle of red.

Day 15
Break­fast
Scrambed eggs.
Sauteed mush­rooms.
Two pieces of toast, but­tered.
Glass of orange juice.

Lunch
Two Weight Watch­ers choco­late chip cook­ies.
Pep­per steak pie.
Hand­ful of Jaf­fas.
Swig of Coke.

Din­ner
Slice of grilled polenta with spinach.
Quar­tered baby chicken with pancetta and sliced pota­toes.
One glass of white wine.
Blood orange creme brulée.

Day 16
Break­fast
2 sausages.
One fried egg.
Two pieces of toast.
Glass of orange juice.

Lunch
Pasta with tomato sauce and meat­balls.
One VB stubby.

Din­ner
One cheese jaffle.