JD and Pam had a conversation last night about The Biggest Loser. At one point JD mentioned to Pam that he eats less when he’s tracking his calories! Of course he does, so do I. To me that’s the point of tracking my calories. Instead of mindlessly filling my mouth whenever I walk by the pantry, I think about what I’m eating. Adding that extra step of thinking about how I’m going to input those calories into fitday sometimes makes me not want to deal with eating the food. It works great most of the time.

I’m really looking motivated to attack my fitness and nutrition plans and to make some downward progress on the scale. But temptation is everywhere! It’s still easy for me to not exercise, though most days I make the right choice. But eating well is still tough for me and I don’t think that it’s something that will magically go away one day. For example, on Monday at my son’s preschool class someone had placed a girl scout cookie order form on the counter for people to fill out. I didn’t order any, but I did look at the form. I was amazed at the propaganda that I encountered there. In a very light shade of grey, in the background behind the order form were some reasons why you should buy girl scout cookies. Standard phrases like, “It’s a great cause” and “Support your neighborhood” were lining the sheet from top to bottom. But the one that caught my eye was this…”Girl Scout Cookies can be a part of a healthy and nutritious diet.” The careful wording of that phrase made me laugh. Sure they CAN be a part of healthy and nutritious diet, but they definitely don’t contribute anything healthy or nutritious. It made me laugh. Even a wholesome organization like GSA has to spin their cookie crack so that we’ll buy more of it.

Now I’ve heard stories about weightlifters advertising on Craigslist for breast milk so that they can bulk up easier but that’s just one individual seeking to consume breast milk.  Even if Ben & Jerry thought this was a good idea, I don’t think too many people would be into breast milk ice cream.  Call it a hunch.

Speaking of weightlifting, I’ve completed 3 weeks of the stronglifts 5X5 program and haven’t stalled yet–nor have I missed an early morning session.  I’ve successfully increased my weights by 5 pounds each and every time I go to the gym.  In addition to the prescribed exercises, I’ve also added some core work to the end of the routine.  I’m already starting to notice changes in my body.  I haven’t lost much weight (only .5 pounds), but I’m definitely firmer around the chest and ab area and my legs are downright hard.  I need to pick it up on the cardio front so that I can burn a little bit more flab.  In general I’m pretty happy with my progress.  But it’s starting to get hard and I’m anticipating my first failure to reach 5X5 next week.  My legs always have that tired and heavy feeling by the time Friday comes around and this morning’s overhead press was really hard for me–that’s supposed to be the first exercise that people run into problems with.  We’ll see how it goes next week.

“I’ve thought many times that I ought to erect a stand-up workstation for my computer,” I told Lauren via e-mail. “I’m not sure of the long-term implications, but it seems to me that standing would be better for me physically than sitting.”

Lauren, who for some reason has better insight into The Way J.D. Works than anyone I know besides Kris, wrote back:

I have thought about the same thing. I have heard that standing burned a large percentage more calories than sitting, and activates the muscles while sitting makes them ‘go all marshmallow’.

I think this stand-up workstation is a great idea. However, take a reminder from old pubs – make a place underneath (pubs use a foot-rail) to rest one foot about 4 inches higher, to take some strain off your back. (They gave us little boxes in art school to do this while standing at our easels). If you go back and forth between standing and sitting (as I may do) this may help you in many ways. You can always just flex your glutes frequently while standing

While killing time this afternoon, I came across Jason Kottke’s aside about walking desks, standing-height desks built over treadmills. Apparently there was a recent New York Times article about these workstations.

Now all of a sudden I’m wondering if it might not be possible to blog from a treadmill. Insane? Perhaps not. Check out this video.

The only drawback? Cost. I don’t own a treadmill, so there’s no chance that I’m going to whip up one of these from scratch. (Though I will begin watching garage sales.) Buying a pre-fab “walkstation” is out of the question. They run $6,500. That’s enough to pay for my gym membership for the next 54 years.

For more on treadmill desks, check out the following:

• Book of Joe: Treadmill workspace
• The Treadmill Desk blog
• Treadmill Workstation
• Office walkers

At a mile an hour (which is a typical pace for people who do this), the average person would burn about an extra 100 calories. If I’d spend just eight hours blogging from the treadmill every week, I’d lose an extra pound a month! Hm. I wonder if Kris would let me put a treadmill in the den…

I try to limit meals out, but especially since I’ve started working from home, it’s difficult. Now a cheap lunch at the local Chinese or Mexican place has become a way for me to actually see people.

When I’m focused, I’m able to make sensible food purchases. For example, there’s a little Mexican place a couple miles away that serves $2 tacos. For two bucks, you get two small corn tortillas topped with meat and veggies.

I’ve always assumed these tacos were relatively low calories, and so have purchased three orders at a time. (For a total of six tortillas and three mounds of meat.) But are they really low calorie?

Yesterday, I re-started the Body for Life program. As part of that, participants are encouraged to eat six small meals a day, consuming one portion of protein and one portion of carbohydrate at each meal. (A portion is between the size of your palm and the size of your closed fist, which seems rather vague.)

Yesterday, I also craved tacos. “Hm,” I thought. “Tortillas are carbohydrates. Meat is a protein. Maybe these are okay on the Body for Life mealplan.” I made a quick trip to the Mexican place to find out. I ordered my food to go, brought it home, and then dissected it.

Turns out each 12-centimeter (4-1/2 inches) tortilla weighs about 20 grams (3/4 of an ounce). Because there are two per taco, that’s 40 grams of carbohydrates. But how many calories are in those 40 grams? I checked our fridge. We had a bag of corn tortillas that contained about 2 calories per gram. This seemed about right.

Each taco also contains about 40 grams of filling, some of which is vegetables, but most of which is meat. An ounce (28g) of lean protein contains 55 calories, which is again about two calories per gram.

As a rough estimate, it seems fair to assume that my tacos each contain about two calories per gram. Since each taco was roughly 80 grams, they each provided about 160 calories.

What does this tell me?

First of all, I can figure out how many calories are in my favorite restaurant foods. That Grandma Jean’s pasta I mentioned last week? If I really want to know how many calories are in it, I could place a to-go order and bring it home. (It’s difficult to account for oils, of course, but I’m mainly after rough approximations.)

Secondly — and most importantly, in this case — I can have these tacos on the Body for Life plan, but I should only be ordering two tacos at a time, not three. A 480-calorie lunch is too high right now, especially if I’m eating six meals a day. Even a 360-calorie lunch might be a bit much, but can be more easily worked into the Body for Life regimen.

Does anyone else ever do geeky stuff like this? Some of the most fun I’ve ever had while dieting has come from being anal-retentive about measuring my portions on a kitchen scale. Strange, but true. I find that knowing the calorie contents of various foods, and knowing portion sizes, helps me to make better choices. (At least when I’m eating mindfully, that is.)

Coffee is very important to me.  I’m not picky about what I drink, how it’s made, or even how it tastes.  But I love a steaming hot cup of coffee in the morning.  So my mother in law did a great job, and she even brought half and half and sugar for us;  like I said, I’m not a coffee purist.

One morning, as I was mixing my coffee, I actually read the label on the half and half.  It read “Fat Free Half and Half!”  How can half and half, which is supposed to be half cream and half milk, be fat free?  I did a little reading and here’s what I came up with.

First I wanted to brush up on my knowledge of the various dairy based creamers:

Whipping Cream–Sometimes we have this laying around the kitchen for various cooking purposes.  When we do, I love to add it to my coffee.  But at 30-36% fat, the calories add up fast and I’m not so sure they’re worth it.

Half and Half–This is the stuff most often used in coffee in the US.  It’s very good in coffee, but obviously not as good as full cream.  At 10-16% fat, it’s a pretty good compromise between total creamy blissfulness and functional coffee drinking

Whole Milk–We always have this stuff in our house because our son is under 2 and still drinks it.  At slightly less than 4% fat, it’s not a very effective creamer, but it’s a lot healthier than any of the above options.

So, what exactly is “fat free” half and half.  Here’s the top 5 on the list of ingredients:

• nonfat milk
• milk
• corn syrup solids
• Artificial color
• Sugar

There was recently a question on Ask Metafilter about this stuff and of all the answers, the one that summed it up best was that it looks like fat free half and half is a mixture of nonfat milk, nondairy coffee creamer, and thickening agents.

While the taste of the stuff is similar to regular half and half, I’m not so sure I want to be adding those extra artificial ingredients to my coffee every morning.  In fact, Pam recently read an article that suggested if you really want to lose weight, you should avoid coffee creamers all together and stick to milk.  Those extra calories really add up over the course of a year.  And since we have whole milk laying around, I think I’ll be switching to that for the little bit of creaminess that I need in my coffee.

Christian and Dennis at 5-in-5 recently spent a day trying to see how well they could do at five Olympic events. When they were finished, they compared their results to those of Olympic athletes. Here’s their video:

I love this on so many levels. First of all, how many people ever actually try this stuff? Like many of you, I’ve found myself wondering, “Yeah, just how hard is that anyhow?” (Well, not about the still rings. Those guys are amazing!) But how many people actually get off the couch to test themselves?

Second, these guys are pretty fit. Admittedly these aren’t events for which they’ve trained, but they’re still in good shape and pretty indicative of the average athlete. That they can’t even come close (spoiler!) to the Olympians is perhaps unsurprising, but humbling nevertheless.

Finally, I like the ingenuity that Christian and Dennis display. I especially like their impromptu hurdles.

In a related story, Kathryn Bertine, a former competitive ice sakter and a professional triathlete, decided to find out just how difficult it is to make the Olympic games.

Does it require a lifetime of training and devotion? Would an average person with an athletic background have any shot at all?

You can read her story in ESPN’s “So You Wanna Be An Olympian?”

Now that I’m nearly 40, I no longer harbor any illusions that I’ll one day be on an Olympic team, but I still find the games just as inspiring as ever. I may never be a world-class athlete, but I hope to one day be a Lee Avenue-class athlete!