Trial by Diet
So a couple of days ago I blogged about my intention, nay, passion to maintain my diet and exercise regime whilst here at the Academic Airlift Conference here in Seattle.
I thought I'd give a little visual representation of just how difficult this is proving to be. Here is my average day, and the food choices on offer:
6am - Wake - In the basket opposite my bed
6:50am - Breakfast - Prior to 7am session
Yep with a 7am start, there was not much time to hit the gym this morning. My first miss this week. I'm going to have to do some calisthnetics in my room later.
So, for breakfast, no protein, or even complex carbohydrates (cereals) in sight. For my 3rd day running, my breakfast looked like this:
11:15am Morning Break -
Please don't think I'm complaining!!
From one perspective, this is catered brilliantly. The quantity and quality of the food is fantastic.
From TechEd, and other conferences, I well know the difficulty of feeding hordes of people at a conference. Not to mention the value of increased sugars to help people concentrate & stay awake when looking down the barrel of 12 hours of concentration.
I am merely diarising quite how difficult it is even by lunchtime, to manage a reduced calorie eating plan here.
But now, heeeeere's lunch....
1pm - Lunch
What's in the boxes?
First...
Then...
So that's the accompaniment and dessert, now the side dish...
And then, coup de grace, my Chicken Caesar Wrap, the main course....
Again a GREAT lunch. i.e. if your objective is quality food, and maximum wakefulness, with plenty of sugars.
Kind've the antithesis of my objectives unfortunately...
So I ate the content of the wraps and the apple, and felt the burden of global citizenship when I threw the rest of the perfectly good food away.... :(
What did we get this afternoon?
3pm - Afternoon break
Yep, you're read that correctly - Vitamin Water. Of course 40g of sugars too...
Power bars - way to go!! No not Protein Bars, just a shot in the arm of quickly absorbed sugars (if you still need one)
For the health conscious :) Seriously though, my digestion is going to turn liquid if I have too much more fruit...
7:45pm Dinner
No, no, that's not my main - it's not even the starter, just a side salad...
No, that's not the meal for the entire table, just a leg of lamb for me!!! Note, I asked for no chips or potatoes, so this is just half the size of the actual dish. It's also why I was given the salad that could feed the population of half the countries in Africa.
I skipped dessert (Vanilla Creme Brulee)
10pm "Drinks on Corp"
So there are only two strategies to make this work:
1) Don't have anything to drink at all. Of course the pressure from building rapport and developing relationships.
2) Ensure that you don't eat while drinking (fatty, carb-rich foods), and keep carb-rich mixers (Colas etc) to a minimum.
Guess which strategy I followed?
Conclusion
So you can see to achieve my mission (5kg loss in 16 days) my work is really cut out for me...
R42
