Day 1 - Checking back in With Salads and our friends at 99 Restaurant.

As so many of you know, a couple of years ago I started a blog called 100 Salads. The idea was that I would, over the course of a year, eat 100 salads, replacing 100 meals that would otherwise have continued to make me fat... Interestingly, it got a lot of traction, with many people following. Well, about a hundred, but for me that's a big deal, and I was excited to write about my experience, but I let it drop off. Honestly, I don't like salads, but I know that I need to try to eat more healthily, and one way to do that is to eat more salads.

I got a lot of heat for some of the salads I would choose - like a Cobb Salad at 99 Restaurant - but I wasn't clear in the original post that the point was to replace something I would have eaten with a salad, so I had to explain about that Cobb Salad. It was simply once I broke it down, and people seemed to really respond to the concept.

It goes like this... The Cobb Salad was something like 800 calories. Many argued it was just as bad as whatever else I would've eaten. No, it was just as bad as whatever else they would've eaten. See, I know this because I know what I chose that salad over: the Chicken and Sausage Al Forno, would clocked in at 1600 calories. I would have eaten the hell out of that dish, and would have eaten every last bite. So, I saved 800 calories by choosing the Cobb Salad. To me it makes perfect sense, and it seems like a way that I can fill up on food - because I like that feeling - but take in less calories. Further, there's no denying that the lettuce, asparagus, and tomatoes, are good for me, and get some fiber into me, so there are upsides as well. Sure, the bacon, egg, and blue cheese dressing I choose are not great, but they're an excellent change from the giant pasta dish I would have had. I get flavor and cut 800 calories.

So, I'm going to try it again, but this time I'm not fucking around. Last time, with the 100 salad concept, I had room to say, "Nah, I'm gonna eat what I want today," and "today" became so many days that I gave up. This time around... EVERY DAY. There's no escape pod... If I don't eat a salad every day I've failed, and my completion of this project will become January 2nd, 2018, rather than the first. That's the way it will go... Always nipping at my heals.

So, why do this at all? Well, because I'm a fat fucker, but I like to eat, and I don't want to stop eating, and I don't want to feel like I can't go to town on a 32 ounce, bone-in, cowboy ribeye, because that's how I fucking roll!

I ate a salad today... For old time's sake I went with the Cobb Salad at 99, but I did something else differently, I had water with my salad, instead of a Coke, which I would have had a refill of as well. Do you have any idea how many calories are in a Coke? A single Coke at 99 has 300 calories in it, and I would have had two. So, now I've saved 1400 calories! Fuck-n-A! That's insanity!

I would have had a 2200 calorie lunch, but instead I had an 800 calorie lunch... So feeling pretty good about that choice I add on a crock of French Onion Soup at 270 calories, and rounded out my meal at 1,070 calories. I didn't eat breakfast - I usually don't - so that's where I'm at here on Day 1.

So what's all of this mean?

I currently weight 300 lbs.!!! That's up from the 256 I got down to a year ago. I used the Weight Calculator at http://www.precisionnutrition.com/weight-loss-calculator and found that in order to reach my goal weight in 365 days, I need to consume 2,019 calories a day. If I wanted to stay 300 lbs. I would need to consume 3,296 calories a day. My goal weight is 225, a weight at which I look very good because I'm 6'4". I told the calculator that I am very sedentary, which I am, but it gave me options to up my activity level, and it would factor that into the calculation. I left those blank, and will revisit exercise when it's not 20 degrees. When it warms up, if I get out on the handy bike my wife got for me last year, I'll lose weight faster. Once I get to 225, the calculator says I can eat more and maintain my weight. How much more? At 225 I'll be able to eat 2,732 calories a day and maintain my weight, and that's without a lick of exercise!

Now, I know a bunch of you fitness nuts are going to get on me about this choice, but I like that. I want to argue with you, and debate the relative merits of the decisions I'm making. That kind of thing will motivate me to prove you wrong, and that's good for me! (Yea, I can be selfish like that.)

You're going to see me eating salads that are covered in meat, creamy dressings, cheeses, and all the things you think are bad for us. At times, you're going to question my very definition of the word salad, but I don't care. I will try to explain my choices, and also lay my choice against the alternative, which will help to clarify what a great choice the salad was, no matter how unhealthy you may think it is.

For example, as I talked about above, I ate a Cobb Salad today. It looked like this:



Damn! That can't be healthy at all, right? Look at that meat, cheese, dressing! That's bad for you. Well, it might be bad for you, but it's good for me. Why? Because...



That's what I would have eaten.

A friend of mine once asked me the very simple question, "How many people do you know who are both 60 years old and 300 pounds?" So wish me luck!








300