12/9/11 - Last day of classes

I finished my last day of the first semester of my graduate school career. Felt mostly like just another day, but now that it's over, it feels very completed. Just need study and take my exams.

Breakfast consisted of a single builder bar.
Total calories: 270

For lunch I decided to treat myself. I got a large double cheesburger meal from McDonald's, and had an extra McDouble with it. Lots of carbs in the meal, and in hindsight it might've been a bad idea since there was the all-nighter tonight, but I'm trying not to regret decisions I make about food I eat, and instead just make better decisions in the future.
Total calories: 1330

Midway through the day I was feeling a little sluggish, probably because of the poor quality of my lunch food choices, and decided to have a little pick-me-up in the form of some Oreos and a soda.
Total calories: 270

As part of the end-of-semester events, SPS holds a Study All-Nighter, where we order some pizza and sodas and hang out in the building studying or working on finals. I used the time to finish the take-home component of my particle physics final, which also served as a great review of things for the final that I have on Tuesday.< br />
As part of having free pizza around, I had 5 slices of pepperoni pizza and three slices of cheese pizza, all large and from Papa Johns. Because the people who ordered the food didn't get any diet sodas, I ended up drinking several glasses of real Coca-Cola, which have a bunch of extra calories too.
Total calories: 3080

OVERALL: 4950. This was a pretty bad day. I need to avoid lots of free pizza, or at least figure out a way to be around it without thinking like I need to eat all of it to avoid missing out on the "free value". There's more value in being thin and healthy than in getting cheap calories, and I have enough money to buy quality calories.

12/8/11 - Still no cookie colloquium

Quick day.

Breakfast consisted of a bowl of Marshmallow Mateys and a Builder Bar. I think my milk was spoiled, which sort of ruined the cereal, but it's hard to tell with almond milk.
Total calories: 630

For lunch I had the last of this package of jerky, and a can of chicken corn chowder. Wasn't the best, I wouldn't recommend it. I was invited to go grab lunch at Jimmy John's with a friend after I'd finished eating, so I went and decided to get a loaf of bread to munch on. Apparently, bread has a ton of calories in it; certainly not worth the cost to have eaten it.
Total calories: 1130

I resisted the urge to have any cookies at the colloquium, even though I was planning on running when I got home. Fortunately, I didn't have any, and instead just did weights with a friend that came over. If I had, I'd've certainly run over budget for the day as I tried to find something for dinner.

Since I was running low on calories and did some weightlifting before dinner, I had another builder bar to recoup some protein.
Total calories: 270

OVERALL: 1760 calories

12/7/11 - Blahhh

Blah. I'm feeling really tired today. I woke up late and scarfed down a builder bar amid some stretching before heading off to my first class for the day.
Total calories: 270

I had a rushed lunch in the middle of the day, because I needed to meet with someone for some education research that chewed up about an hour there. I was starving by the time I got back to the lounge and had a chance to eat. So, I had a bowl of potato ham chowder which I really liked, plus some jerky. The chowder was very thick for most of it, until I got to the end and ran out of potatoes to eat, then it felt much thinner.
Total calories: 620

My snack in the middle of the day consisted of a peanut butter builder bar; am I eating too many of these? Hm...
Total calories: 270

Dinner came after I finished doing my E&M homework and a quick run to the gym for a weightlifting session. I had a bowl of New England clam chowder (which I liked less than the potato ham style), some preztels, and a Nutty Bar that Jill was nice enough to gift me a couple weeks ago when she was in town that I've been looking for an opportunity to slip into my meals.
Total calories: 890

OVERALL: 2050

12/6/11 - Drinks with the Grads

Feeling a little blah today, so these entries will be a bit short. I definitely want to make them though.

Today I woke up early enough to prepare a breakfast, so I mde some eggs, bacon, and bread.
Total calories: 295

I had a change of pace for lunch; rather than heading across the street for McDonald's I brought a salad and soup, as well as a bit of jerky and a builder bar. The bar was a snack for later, but the rest was eaten during my lunch break as we worked on Quantum.
Total calories: 488 + 270

After my pedagogy class, the grads went to a local bar, Chumley's to take advantage of free appetizer night. I had some buffalo chicken wings, cheese, celery sticks, and some breaded popcorn chicken bits.
Total calories: 1359

OVERALL: 2412

Progress Report 1

My first week is through, and I managed to stay under my net calories for the week, even if some of the days were over budget. That's a pretty good feeling, and one I want to keep going into the future, even if this first day of the next week is fairly calorie-heavy.

Weight: 177.8, which is approximately 5 pounds down from my starting weight. Some of this is probably water fluctuation, since losing five pounds in a week is not very normal, but oh well. I hope the high weight at the start was a fluctuation up, rather than this being a fluctuation down from dehydration.

12/5/11 - Start of the second week

I woke up 50 minutes after my alarm today, which meant the wonderful breakfast I had planned wasn't going to be. Tomorrow, for sure. Instead, I grabbed a Builder bar and dashed into class, eating it while I listened to lecture.

Total calories: 270

For lunch I went across the street for a couple McDoubles, again because of my rushed morning. I was going to do something better and break this pattern but I didn't have the time to prepare anything else.

Total calories: 780

My friend Scott was good enough to pick me up another box of Builder bars when he was at Sam's Club this weekend restocking the SPS lounge, so I paid him for those and gained another 18, this time a mix of Chocolate and Chocolate Peanut Butter, rather than some Mint Chocolate ones. I had another bar as a midafternoon snack after working on quantum homework for several hours.

Total calories: 270

After several more hours of working on quantum, we took a break and headed to Five Guys for a dinner; a burger and fries from there sounded fantastic.

Between all of us we split two large fries, and each had our own burger. I ended up eating more of one of the bags than the person I was splitting with, and so I ended up with about 3/4s of the serving. In hindsight, it would have been better to just snack on the peanuts that come free than buy a bunch of fries. The burger was fantastic though. As usual, I get it with "Everything" on it.

Total calories: 2159

OVERALL: 3479 net calories. The fries were a definite mistake. I could have gotten through dinner with a Little Cheeseburger and some peanuts, I didn't need the 1100 extra calories from the fries.

12/4/11 - Happy Birthday, Mom

I didn't actually do anything with my mother today, but it's her birthday so I figured I should mention it. No cake for me.

I woke up late and so had a breaklunch, which consisted of two chicken burgers mixed with spinach and asiago, from Sam's Club, topped with a quarter-serving of Fiesta Black Beans in between slices of healthy life Five Grain bread. Unfortunately my next loaf of bread has already spoiled. With the burgers I had a bowl of lettuce with a bit of honey dijon dressing.
Total calories: 607

Midway through the day I had a cup of blueberry Greek yogurt. I'm almost out.
Total calories: 160

For dinner I didn't really feel like making anything, so I measured out four ounces of pistachio nuts and three ounces of teriyaki jerky and ate those while watching archived streams of Starcraft 2 tournaments. The pistachios took a very long time to get through, since I had to shell each one before I ate it.
Total calories: 883

OVERALL: 1650 net calories