Day 1 - Triggers and routines

Last night I began the "lifestyle change" in which I am hoping to lose significant amounts of weight. My wrestling team had a match at Haddon Heights High School, so I went home after school to make sure I ate something and to take my dog out. I had a quick salad cleaned myself up and headed out to the match.

Now the first topic for today is triggers - things that lead you to "fall off the wagon" in your goals to quit something - in my case, junk food. During the JV match last night, the wind from outside was blowing into the gym - and carrying with it the wonderous smell of HOT DOGS - I'm not kidding - this is an awesome marketing technique - Every kid on the bench, every coach was walking around saying, "you eating something, where's that smell coming from?" If I owned a hot dog cart I would make sure I was very far downwind - I might even recruit a kid to walk around with a plate of dogs and a fan just to attract customers. ANYWAY - I cracked - I ate one. No biggie, right? One hot dog for "dinner" on my first day of a diet is not that bad. Unfortunately my brain spoke to me in its Homer Simpson voice, "MMMMMM - HOTTT DOOGGGGGSSS.......". I had another - not in a slow enjoyable way either - I crammed the thing down as it burned my tongue and top of my mouth before I ran into the gym for the Varsity match - this is not the picture of healthy eating that I'm shooting for. So - a blanket trigger situation for me is wrestling matches - I need to be prepared to have healthy food on hand while I am at matches, especially all day long tournaments. Other triggers for me include:

1. Oreos - No joke - these are not meant to be eaten one at a time - a "sleeve" is a serving size for me - sometimes an entire package is a serving size. Make them mint oreos with a half gallon of milk and I do a great impression of the Tazmanian Devil.

2. Beer - I like tasty, complex beers. Preferably from Belgium - not the type of liquid that helps you cut calories. To be completely honest - light beer sucks - it has "drinkability" because it's basically WATER. I'd rather just drink water on this diet (Nestle Pure Life Fruit water to be exact - more on this later)- Not to mention the trigger domino effect - with beer comes many other foods - chips, dip, pizza, cheesesteaks....oh boy - Sunday is going to be a difficult day.....

3. Caffeine - this is a tough one - Doctors have actually told me that if I stop having coffee in the morning I will literally drop dead. And considering I tolerate the number of grams of caffeine that would actually restart a dead person's heart you would think that I rarely get the jitters, but occasionally I do - and watch out when that happens - I look like Pac-man eating everything in sight!! This is when candy is a very dangerous thing to have around.

I think the bottom line with "triggers" is just to be prepared. Don't have oreos, candy and other junk around the house; Eat a decent healthy breakfast with the gallon or so of coffee each morning (and maybe try to cut back a little!); Decide on Sunday if I can afford a little beer, a little light beer or just to avoid it all together. A couple other tricks I try to use are to keep a handy supply of chewing gum and water bottles around. If its not time to eat yet but I get that urge or Im just bored and feel like eating something, chewing gum is great for the whole oral fixation thing. Water can really fill you up when you're hungry and it can help reduce the portions of what you consume during meal time. I really can't stand drinking plain water - I love the fruit flavored water made by Nestle - its sweetened with splenda and has no calories. Costco sells it by the case for only about 8 bucks too.

So - what are your triggers? Can you identify them? How are you avoiding them? Try to get rid of anything around the house that you might regret eating - Personally - I'm bringing all of my leftover candy and treats from the holidays into school for the kiddies. Have a good one - and stay strong!