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March 21, 2006
Panera outlets
I've been having some regular meetings at Panera Bread lately. They offer free wifi, so it's a nice place to meet. The first time we went, we were looking for an outlet to charge our laptops, but there weren't any to be found. We didn't really think too much of it, until a few meetings later when I looked up and there, on the ceiling was an outlet. The ceilings are at least 10 feet high -- go go gadget arm. You've got to wonder if they intentionally left out easily accessible outlets to deter laptop-squatters. The next time I need to charge my laptop, I'm gonna figure out how to use that outlet just to see if they say anything.
Posted by mark at 7:54 PM | Comments (4)
South Beach Diet - day 1
At the risk of boring the 5 or so readers of my blog. Today marks the first day of my foray into the world of fad dieting. My wife and dad have both had great success with the South Beach Diet (SBD), and I really need to lose about 15-20 lbs. I'm currently 205, and I'd like to reach 185-190 within 2 months. I tried the eat sensibly approach, and didn't lose a pound. Of course, I still consumed a similar amount of beer...
The first two weeks of the SBD are kinda weird. You cut out ALL carbs, including fruit. About the only thing you can eat is meat and some low carb vegetables (no corn or carrots). The goal of this stage is to: 1. Teach you about carbs, so that you're more aware of them in stage two, and 2. break your body's "addiction" to sugar (ie. metabolized carbohydrates.) If stage one works as intended, the craving for carbs should be reduced dramatically. The diet's founder, Arthur Agatston, calls this insulin resistance syndrome. I don't think anyone would say that stage one is "healthy," but it is necessary. Kinda like quitting cold turkey; ironically something I CAN eat during stage one.
Anyway, after stage one, you can add a bunch of things back into your diet. Whole grain breads, wine (I'll probably diverge from the path and allow beer -- beer is considered a major taboo with SBD.) All of this is to be consumed in moderation, and hopefully in much smaller quantities than before the diet. We'll see how it goes.
Here's what I've eaten today so far (a bunch of violations are pointed out).
1. 3 fried eggs (not the best egg choice since it's fried, but I didn't use butter)
2. 2 slices of cheddar cheese (these weren't low fat as required)
3. handful of pistachios (I think I had 25 -- which is too many)
4. chicken sandwich from Chick-Fil-A without the bun, 2 pickle slices (fried, grilled would have been better)
5. Coffee (I'm not cutting this out, but I think decaf is recommended.)
I'm desperate for some fruit, but I really want to see if this whole carb-switch/reduced craving thing works, so I'm going to try my best to avoid carbs entirely during this phase.
Posted by mark at 12:02 PM | Comments (6)