I keep waking up in the new house thinking I’m hearing terrorists busting in. My body must be preparing itself for having a baby.

These are the times that try men’s weight loss souls. I could easily give up now … or not give up, but just maintain at this weight. I weigh less than I have since college. I’m still not in the technically “average” range, but I’m just a tad overweight and I look perfectly fine in clothing. Maybe not so great in a swimming suit, but good enough for a dad.

But my thinking has changed when it comes to food, which is a nice side-effect of what I was shooting for. Last night, I really wanted a grilled cheese for dinner. But I opened up the refrigerator, saw some lettuce that didn’t have much more life in it, and decided to mix up a salad instead. I just thought, “ya know, it’s not worth it.” I’ll save my empty calories for awesome meals at good restaurants. The question is whether or not this mindset will continue after I’ve met my goal. I can see how it would be a slippery slope, especially after having a baby … your sleeping & eating schedules are all screwy, so you end up just grabbing whatever quick food you can get instead of taking the time to prepare a real meal. Definitely, the next challenge should be to figure out how to prepare stuff in advance and utilize the freezer. Anyone interested in joining the Cooking Challenge? (By anyone I mean you, Harmon, since you’re the only one still here. And congrats to you, by the way, on the continued diligence.)

Morning weight
184.2

Breakfast
granola w/ fresh berries, 2% milk

Snack
1 peach

Lunch
1 eel & avocado roll
1 spicy tuna roll
a bit of crab salad

Popularity: 1% [?]

Two months into the Weight Loss Challenge, and I’m starting to lose my motivation to post. How did that Julie & Julia chick do it? I don’t care if her writing is terrible (it might be), I admire her just because she was able to post every day for a year. I realize she didn’t have much to do with the movie, but that was a strange movie. It was 1/2 fascinating and 1/2 insufferable. I’ll let you guess which half was which.

Luckily, I still haven’t lost motivation on the weight lossing. The weight lossing continues unabated.

Day 60: Saturday, July 24th

Morning weight
186.4

Breakfast
poached eggs over toast w/ avocado, tomato (fresh from our garden!), and bacon

Lunch
1 piece of bread with butter
1 piece of bread with goat cheese spread

Snack
mango lassi

Dinner
Indian tomato thing
grilled vegetables w/ tofu
paneer

After dinner snack
kettle corn while watching The Beaches of Agnes, an amazing autobiographical documentary about filmmaker Agnes Varda

Day 61: Sunday, July 25th

Morning weight
185.0

Breakfast
toast w/ avocado & horrible rancid butter that we bought from Whole Food for Life, our new favorite little grocery store, which has amazing fresh bread but terrible rancid butter

Lunch
BLT w/ avocado
fries w/ curried ketchup

Dinner
2 slices of pizza
1 smidge of salad

We went over to Rosten & Andrea’s tonight to test his new board game he’s developing for the government. It’s all about city planning, and it’s really fun. Still needs a little work, but I have high hopes.

Day 62

Morning weight
185.6

Breakfast
oatmeal with fresh strawberries, blueberries, & blackberries

Lunch
leftover Indian tomato thing & vegetables with tofu

Dinner
salad w/ feta cheese, egg, berries, pine nuts, & balsamic vinegarette

After dinner debauchery
2 beers at release party for the new McSweeney’s book
1 orange

Popularity: 1% [?]

Morning weight
185.4

Breakfast
granola, fruit, milk

Popularity: 1% [?]

I really gotta get back to doing this everyday. It’s hard to remember in this day and age what I did yesterday, let alone what I ate for lunch on Monday. Time just keeps on slipping into the future.

Monday
Morning weight
185.5

Breakfast
granola w/ milk and berries

Lunch
leftover grilled tofu & potato salad

Dinner
leftover fried rice & some awful Chinese concoction that tasted like dog food

Tuesday
Morning weight
184.4

Breakfast
granola w/ milk and berries (we got a lot of berries at the farmer’s market this weekend)

Lunch
falafal sandwich
pita chips

Dinner
veggie chili from a restaurant in Hollywood
1 piece of corn bread with maple walnut butter
1 Anchor Steam

After-dinner snack
popcorn & Coke at Inception. We left 30 minutes before the end because the woman behind me kept kicking my seat. This was at the Arclight, which is the theater where you pay extra for reserved seats and the ability to complain to the management about anything that interferes with your enjoyment of the film. I was raving mad. She started kicking my seat about 1/2 an hour into the movie. I responded by pushing back on my seat, forcefully. And, admittedly, passive-aggressively. So she kicked it harder. About 2 hours in, I turned around and said, “excuse me. Excuse me.” She stared straight ahead with a really assholey smile on her face. Her friend looked at her. I said, “excuse me, can you hear me? I’m talking to you. Please stop kicking my seat.” She stared straight ahead and said, “I’m not kicking your seat.” I didn’t know what else to say, so I said, “thank you.” Then she started kicking my seat harder. I spent the next 20 minutes trying not to leave, but paying no attention to what was happening on screen because I was so infuriated. Finally, we left and got free passes to come back later. The person at guest services told us that we should have talked to the ushers, because usually they kick the person who’s causing trouble out. Man, it would’ve been awesome to see her kicked out. I hate that person.

Honestly, what is that? What is the impulse to bother another person? And bother that other person even more when they’ve asked you to stop bothering them? It felt like I was being bullied, and that is a terrible, terrible feeling. I hate that I gave her the satisfaction of seeing us leave. I seriously wanted to turn around and chop her feet off at the ankle. Next time, I will come prepared with my piano wire.

And also, do I want to go back to the theater and watch the first 2 hours of Inception again? Not particularly. That woman did not just irritate me during a movie, she took away my ability to be a part of this moment in American culture. I hate her. Do you hear me, irritating woman? I hope you were hit by a train on the way home from the film.

Exercise
45 minutes tennis

Wednesday
Morning weight
186.4

Breakfast
granola w/ yogurt and berries

Lunch
leftover veggie chili
1/2 a corn bread muffin

Dinner
(homemade)
sesame-crusted swordfish
Jamie Oliver’s broccoli w/ deliciousness sauce
1 ear of corn

After-dinner snack
lots of cherries while attempting to watch Tim Burton’s Alice in Wonderland. We got about 45 minutes into it before giving up. It felt like an attempt at shoving something that is by nature anti-formulaic into a formula. I gave up the second Alice made it her mission to rescue the Mad Hatter from the evil queen on the upcoming frabjuous day. If they said “frabjuous” one more time I was going to punch my own face in.

The thing that makes the book Alice in Wonderland funny is the contradiction between extreme logic and total nonsense. It is precisely logical, but it is logical about all the wrong things. Like children. Which is what makes it absurd, which is what makes it delightful and hilarious. At the same time, it is very mean-spirited … like children. None of the characters really care about one another. So when the movie tries to impose a traditional Hollywood structure on this kind of story, it misses the things that make Alice in Wonderland so unique and captivating.

I could go on. I won’t. My dissatisfaction with Tim Burton’s post-Ed Wood work is well known. Back to the diet.

Exercise
7 mile bike ride

Thursday
Morning weight
186.4

Breakfast
1 egg over bread, lettuce, avocado

Lunch
1 slice of pizza
1 peach

Dinner
salad
leftover veggie chili

Exercise
tennis class

Popularity: 1% [?]

Morning weight
I didn’t even check. After the 188 yesterday morning and the beer, I think it’s best we wait this one out until tomorrow.

Breakfast
bibb salad with creme fraiche dressing from Canele – yum
toast w/ gazpacho, tuna, and egg

Lunch
fresh bread with avocado

Dinner
cold tomato soup (it was meant to be cold. Gazpacho style. If gazpacho once in a day spells yuppie, what does it mean when one eats it twice?)
marinated grilled tofu
homemade potato salad

Popularity: 1% [?]

Morning weight
188 – the curse of the Slaw Dog

Breakfast
1/2 bacon, egg, and cheese sandwich from local bakery

Lunch
veggie sub from Subway on new Omega-3 bread – not bad!

Dinner
1/2 tuna sandwich from Revo cafe in Atwater – terrible.

Also:
6 Bud Lights

Sarah was out of town all day and it was scorching hot, so I made the mistake of downing a 6 pack of Bud Lights. Pint-sized Bud Lights, that is. I don’t really care that it says “light” in the name, this one’s gonna hurt.

Popularity: 1% [?]

Once again, I’ve gotten a little behind … between Awkward, the new house, and work, I’ve had a busy few days. I’ll get right into it for all you serious challenge-heads.

Morning weight
186.4

Breakfast
fried rice with egg

Lunch
leftover pasta primavera

Afternoon snack
some fruit or another

Dinner
Man, we blew it out tonight. Sarah and I found ourselves in Altadena with only one option: Slaw Dogs. You’re gonna try and tell me you could resist? You are a liar. You could not.

1 BLT slaw dog with avocado
loads of fries
1 cream soda

Popularity: 1% [?]

Morning weight:
An impressive (if I do say so myself) 185.0 pounds! 15 pounds down, 10 to go! Is biking the new miracle berry?

Breakfast
1 1/2 poached eggs over rye bread
1 banana

Lunch
pan-Asian chicken salad & veggie Sammy from Quiznos*
* Note: there was nothing healthy about this seemingly healthy-sounding meal

Dinner
plum pancakes – man! Plum in pancakes! So delicious! Who knew?

Popularity: 1% [?]

Morning weight
186.6

Breakfast
granola with peach – I know, granola isn’t the best way to start the morning. It pretends to be healthy but really is not. But it’s easy.

Morning snack
2 tiny oranges

Lunch
leftover pasta primavera

Afternoon snack
1 banana

Dinner
Grilled mac & cheese & pulled pork sandwich

Okay, I can explain that one. People in LA are all about food trucks lately for some reason. The food trucks roam around the city, tweeting their locations to customers, who line up around the block to enjoy the trucks’ offerings. Last night, the grilled cheese truck was in my neighborhood. I got there at 6:59, the truck started serving at 7:00. Already the line was 25 people deep. I finally got to the front of the line at 7:30 and ordered the sandwich that was listed on their sign as the house specialty – mac & cheese and pulled pork grilled between two slices of buttery bread. And guess what? It sucked. I mean, it tasted okay on my tongue. But it’s been so long since I’ve eaten cheese that I suffered from an almost immediate stomachache. Let this be a lesson to you, weight loss challengers: IT AIN’T WORTH IT. Food that is disgusting in a delicious way is almost always just disgusting. After the taste goes away … which happens pretty quickly … you are left with nothing but pain and regret.

Exercise
6 miles on bike – to work and back. That was the highlight of the day. Except for the 1/2 mile where I’m fearing for my life on busy city streets w/o bike lanes, that is a damn pleasant ride. And if I can manage to do it regularly, that is an awful lot of free exercise. There is nothing I love more than free exercise: exercise that one gets when doing something one has to do anyway, like get to work. It takes a lot longer to bike to work than to drive, but it sure is a nicer experience.

Popularity: 1% [?]

Nothing much to report this morning. I’m obsessed with Myst on the iPhone. I only fooled around with it a little bit when it first came out, but goddamn, does that game suck you in. I had to read a hint yesterday and was mad at myself when I learned that I was totally on the right track, I just hadn’t thought deeply enough about the answer. That is my life.

Morning weight
186.2

185 tomorrow? Fingers crossed!

Breakfast
granola w/ fresh plum

Lunch
turkey & ham on flatbread from Subway

Afternoon snack
1 banana

Dinner
soy chorizo burrito from Hugo’s Tacos
chips & salsa

I just discovered Hugo’s the other day … it’s a 5 minute walk from our new house and it’s awesome. They have meaty options but I’m down with a little soy sometimes, especially when it’s coated in ooey, gooey delicious honey chipotle salsa.

Popularity: 1% [?]