Over the last couple of years, co-working spaces have popped up in Kingston and another is about to open in less than a month, so I wanted to take a moment to see what is out there and compare them.
I haven’t really needed a co-working space as working from home has suited me well. It provides me with more flexibility that works better for my lifestyle, but I can definitely see the appeal of being able to timebox your life more like a regular company with clearer divisions between work time and home time.
Feb 11 – I woke up with a sore neck to take care of the dog just after six this morning, but thankfully, Annie and I went to bed by around 10:30 PM, so I got a fair amount of sleep. I skipped breakfast today, and I am in the process of having a snack instead of lunch. We will likely have lupper in another hour or two as Annie has an evening class at school.
Feb 12 – It wasn’t a great day for eating and I had way too many carbohydrates and simple sugars, but it was needed. I didn’t sleep enough and needed caloric energy to make my brain go. I hate feeling that way.
Feb 13 – I ate like crap today. I had junk for breakfast and junk for snacks in the evening but we did go see Alita: Battle Angel and that was cool.
Feb 14 – How does a bowl of cereal end up being 700 calories! I know it was pretty big and heaping, but come on. We had my cousin over for the evening and ended up having Thai food again. I really love the local Thai place. Beef, veggies and rice with their sauce tastes so good but uses quite a bit of calories. I was less than 100 calories away from going over today.
Feb 15 – I really tried to be careful with my carbs and calories today and thanks in part to my snack of mini Twix bars, I used up far more than I had intended. I still ended the day with over 400 calories remaining but I can’t help but beat myself up over the 450 calories I used eating chocolate. I was down 1.4 pounds versus last week, and 0.8 pounds since my lowest recorded. If I have a good week this week, I’ll be exiting the 280’s for the first time in a long time.
Feb 4 – staying at my aunt’s this week means that there won’t be as many video clips and my normal patterns are a bit thrown off. I am using up almost all of my calories today and got pretty close yesterday.
Feb 5 – I spent the night giving my food to the toilet through the entry hole after getting a bad migraine. So that was less than fun. It took me until supper time to be able to eat. After dinner, I watched Adam Ruins Everything’s season three premiere episode and found a great stat that lines up with what I have been feeling: processed food is cheaper per calorie. They reference a study in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition 79.1 (2004) that shows that you can get 1200 calories of chips and cookies for a dollar or 250 calories of whole foods like carrots. That’s almost a five times difference.
Jan 28 – Woke up super early. My shoulder has been in pain the last couple of days, but today is the worst by far. I think I pinched something or tweaked something. I don’t know, but it isn’t fun. Just like most things in my life, being in pain affects my eating. I used up almost all of my calories today, but that’s okay, I’m still trending towards banking around 300 – 500 per day.
Jan 29 – Another 5 AM wake-up, but thankfully, I was asleep by 10:30 PM, so I got more than I have been getting. My shoulder is still in a huge amount of pain. I’m not sure what is up with it and I’m getting tired of it hurting. I ate a bag of cheese curds today and used up over 600 calories. It filled me up pretty well, but I can’t really call it a meal.
Jan 30 – As I finish out this first month, I think about all of the people that have already given up on their New Year’s resolutions and how easy it would be for me to give up on this challenge. Tracking food and portions is boring. Remembering to write and vlog can be difficult. Between the company I co-founded, our puppy and spending time with my wife and family, I am a busy person. Do I want to be concerned with everything I eat for a year? Then I look at the scale and see some progress in the right direction. I looked up what the various tools say is the weight of a person of my height and age to match the calories I’ve given myself with a near sedentary lifestyle, and it is someone around 250 to 260 pounds, or around 25 pounds lighter than I am now. I haven’t been in the 250’s for a very long time and the idea that I could, through this challenge get to that point is super exciting to me. But this morning has been rough. My shoulder still hurts, I didn’t get much more than five hours of sleep, and I have a busy day to get through. My willpower is low, and I need caloric energy to make it, so I’m making poor food choices to start my day. It might be the first time that I go over my calories in a day and that feels like a setback. Mixed feelings today.
I didn’t go over my calories! I had less than half an apple’s worth remaining, but I stayed under. I am also over 7 days worth of banked calories at this point. I’m super pumped. I had a day where I went a bit crazy with food, but I stopped just short of my limit. That took a ton of willpower.
Jan 31 – Woke up this morning after almost eight hours of sleep. Amazing how refreshing eight hours is after consistently getting less than six. I am so focused on work stuff this morning, so I’m not really hungry. I’ll probably only end up having lunch and dinner. This afternoon, I go to my mom’s to help her with some tech stuff and to visit. I didn’t eat breakfast, and by the time I realized I was hungry, it was time to help my mom with tech stuff. We ended up going out for dinner at six in the evening, so I didn’t eat from around ten the previous night until six in the evening, so that’s a 20 hour fast I wasn’t planning for. It all worked out though because I got to have a bacon cheeseburger with some amazing french fries. I can’t complain too much.
Feb 1 – I am down again, only 1.2 pounds, but that means I lost 13 whole pounds in January. I have more than 7 and a half days of calories banked at my maximum daily usage. I used, on average 2062 calories per day during the month. If I were to need to burn my banked calories at that rate, I’d have around ten days worth. My lowest calorie usage day was January 1st, and my highest was January 30th. I only ate breakfast thirteen times during the month. I skipped lunch six times, never missed dinner and only had three days with no snacks. I used a total of 63,927 calories over the course of January. According to MyFitnessPal, I only went over 300 grams of carbohydrates eight days over the month. This is pretty huge for me as I’d estimate that I would probably go over 300 grams of carbs twenty to twenty-five days a month before I started this challenge. One of the things I know I need to do is continue to work on cutting back on my carbohydrate intake, especially sugar. Another stat from MyFitnessPal is that I only met my 137-gram protein marker two days out of thirty-one. That’s not great.
I ended up going to bed pretty early as I had a headache and was super tired. It was needed.
Jan 21 – I woke up early this morning after only six and a half hours of sleep. I need eight. I don’t know how much longer I can survive on getting only four to seven hours of sleep per night. I find it stressful knowing that I haven’t been getting enough sleep. I now have about five days of banked calories. I still haven’t gone over my daily allotment on any single day, though I’ve come close a number of times. I weighed myself this morning and weighed about two pounds heavier than three days ago. As much as this whole thing is not about weight loss, I would like to see myself lose some weight over the coming years. I am quickly approaching my forties, and while I don’t know if I’ll ever be within normal weight limits for my height, I’d like to be twenty or thirty pounds lighter than I am now. I ended the day with a bit over 500 calories remaining, and over five days of banked calories now. Even if I only bank five days worth of calories per month, I’ll have around 160,000 calories remaining at the end of this project.
Jan 14 – I woke up early because of the dog, but that’s okay. I have decided to be as calorie restrictive as possible today as last night at my aunt and uncle’s place, I ate more than I should have. I think I ended the 13th with 100 calories left before hitting my cap. I really want to be sub-2,000 calories today. I know that my wife is making a special dinner tonight because her brother-in-law is coming from England, so I have to assume I’ll probably eat around a thousand calories for supper, so that means lunch and snacks have to be less than a thousand calories as well. Knowing this affects my food choices for the day. I’m also feeling heavier today. I was starting to feel lighter before the massive meal and dessert last night. It can be demoralizing to feel like I’ve taken a step back.
Jan 15 – I didn’t sleep well last night, and as usual, not sleeping well makes it harder to eat well. I had a coke this morning and it helped pep me up to be productive at work. I had Glorp for dinner, just like last night. It is basically a beef and vegetable stroganoff that Annie makes as her special dish. The nice thing about it is that it is so filling and not too crazy on the calories. Even if I have a snack later today, I should end the day with over 500 calories left, which is good. I weighed myself this morning and I’m up over a pound from my last weigh-in only four days ago. Again, who knows if this is because of water, food in the digestive system, or what. Weight is such a horrible thing to look at, outside of using it for long term trends.
Jan 16 – I had breakfast this morning. I don’t usually do breakfast, but I woke up feeling hungry and in the mood for mini-wheats. That plus a Vitamin water from Coca-Cola used up almost 600 calories to start my day. For lunch, I gave in and we had Wendy’s. The drive-thru took so long that they gave us a coupon for a free meal next time we go there. We finished with lasagna for dinner. I don’t even want to look at the carbs I used up today, but I did still end with a deficit of almost 600 calories.
Jan 17 – I only had four hours sleep last night, so I’m tired, again. I hate complaining about being tired, but I am one of those people that still need a solid seven and a half hours to recharge otherwise, I find it harder to deal with my depression. This morning I bought more yogurt so I could eat more of my oatmeal and yogurt mixes. I also got some coke and I’m going to try to stick to a maximum of one can per day. Though today that feels really hard. I weighed myself today, one day before my official weigh-in day, and I’m down. That feels nice despite how mentally hard this week has been for me. I am so lucky that I can overindulge in calories. I know that many people aren’t able to, and so I should feel super fortunate that I’m in a position where I have a choice. But sometimes, I feel that thanks to marketing and my struggles with depression and the self-sabotage that comes from it, I am set-up to fail and eat poorly, even as our world tries to market a healthier lifestyle. Tonight, we are likely going to have thin crust pizza at Score, one of my favourite pizza places. Bye bye calories…
Jan 18 – The day got away from me. I didn’t have breakfast or lunch. I just ate dinner and over the course of the day, I had two cokes, something I didn’t really want to do, but I was weak today. My cousin came over for dinner and made us a nice chicken, rice and veggies supper. It was really nice and healthy too. I ended up only using a little under 1200 calories for the day.
Jan 19 – I woke up hungry. Not surprising after having so few calories yesterday. I tried to make good food choices by having yogurt and protein oatmeal for breakfast. I spent too many calories today on drinks! So frustrating. I went over to my Aunt’s place and had two cans of Barq’s root beer, an amazing dinner of pulled pork sandwiches, chips and salad and pie for dessert. I came within 40 calories of my limit today. This was my highest calorie day yet, and I ended it still feeling hungry. How is that fair?
I made it through another week with some successes and some failures, but I continued to bank calories away as most days, I had some left over. I am hopeful that the week ahead will see me do even better, continue to focus on eating healthier, but also forgiving myself when I don’t as long as I keep a strong look at my calorie usage.
Jan 7 – Woke up this morning not feeling hungry at all, despite only having 1,700 calories yesterday. I wonder why some days it is easier than others to eat well, or restrict calories and feel good. Emotionally, I am struggling a bit today. I suffer from depression and anxiety and despite taking medication for depression, I still have bad brain days. I didn’t end up having breakfast again, instead, I had a yogurt and protein granola for lunch. Before bed, I ended up having half a bag of popcorn, but overall, I kept my calories low and was able to use only 1400 calories. At this point, I have banked over two days of calories, and that number is growing. Even if I have some days above my calorie limit, I should be able to maintain this throughout the year.
Jan 8 – I woke up before my alarm again and let the dog out. It is all icy out and I had to be very careful. Even with being careful, my right knee was unhappy. It has been sore since tweaking it a week or so ago. I weighed myself today, and it is unofficial as my weigh in day is on Fridays, but I am currently down over five pounds since starting this challenge a little over a week ago. I love beef jerky. It is amazing how many people are all about avoiding meat and I get it, but the taste makes me feel good and I feel satiated for a long time. It really works for me. We got pizza for dinner which was nice. I feel like it was a smart follow up after going grocery shopping. The last thing I want to do after doing a big chore is make a complex dinner. Usually, I’ll buy something to throw in the oven or make something simple, but the pizza was a nice change. I was able to resist eating half the pizza in a sitting but still ended up using 1,000 calories between my pizza and root beer dinner.
Jan 9 – Who needs sleep? Right? Luna was up most of the night, which we thought she was done doing, but apparently not. That throws off the energy of my day a little. I am going to do something I haven’t done in a while and start my day with a bottle of coke to try to get some caffeine in me since I am not a coffee or tea drinker and it’ll be the full sugar type because I can’t really do aspartame without getting a headache. For dinner, we had steaks and they were good. I used the reverse sear method of cooking them which means heating them in the oven before pan frying them for a minute or two per side. They turned out pretty rare but tasted amazing. I love steak! Today I used the most calories in a single day since starting this challenge as I used almost 2600 calories!
Jan 10 – Got a bit more sleep last night, but still not enough. I definitely ate more yesterday than I would have liked, but still under my 2,739 per day. My hope today is to stay under 2,000 calories. I’m going to achieve that by not having any pop, drinking tons of water, and trying to not eat any candy. At the end of today, I will have three days worth of calories banked for later in the year or left over if I don’t use them. If I can bank an average of 500 calories per day, which is the kind of calorie restriction most diets recommend, I’ll end up with almost 20% of my total remaining at the end of the year with 182,500 calories unused. My wife and I have talked about a little carrot reward of $1 per 200 calories remaining which means I would be able to spend $912.50 on myself in a frivolous manner. In the afternoon, my mood dropped. I suffer from depression and my mind crushed me. I felt like a wave of negative energy smash into me and everything slowed down. It sapped my energy and drained the colour from the world. I couldn’t be bothered to vlog or do some things for work. I ended up taking a nap, something I never do, and still, I felt pretty horrible. I didn’t stay under 2,000 calories today as I went over by nearly 250 calories, but I still think that’s a victory as it is 500 under my daily limit.
Jan 11 – I weighed myself this morning and I was 287.6 pounds. This is down from my starting weight of 295 pounds. That’s a loss of 7.4 pounds in eleven days, which would be scary, except for the fact that I know my body likes to be in the mid-280s. I typically don’t have much trouble getting down to around this weight from the weights I balloon up to. But if each pound is around 3500 calories, then that means I’ve eaten a deficit of 25,900 calories. If my total daily energy expenditure is around 3400 calories per day, then that number almost tracks right. I would have normally consumed 34,000 calories in ten days, but instead only consumed 18,892, or a difference of 15,108. If it was a strict 3500 calories per pound, I should have only lost around 4 pounds in the last ten days. Maybe some of what was on the scale today was based on not drinking enough water today. Maybe there are other factors at play, but I think the whole thing is very interesting. My goal with this challenge was not to actively lose weight, but instead be more mindful of what I eat, and I feel I am accomplishing that.
Jan 12 – I woke up feeling full this morning, and so I was in no rush to eat. I had a small yogurt and the protein oatmeal stuff for breakfast. For lunch, I had more pulled pork in a pulled pork sandwich. It was amazing, but in eating breakfast and lunch, I didn’t leave myself many calories for dinner. For dinner, we had soup because I assumed we would eat appetizers at the sports bar we were going to in the evening. Annie’s friend plays in a band called SweetLeaf and we went to hear them live at the Overtime Sports Bar. Unfortunately, that bar doesn’t do food, just drinks, so I ended up getting us some junk food from the convenience store and using up pretty much all the rest of my calories for that day. It feels a bit like a failure to use all of my calories in a day… Is that weird?
