I know I’m not brand name fat, but I’ve definitely got a belly on me. I’d like it to go away so I’ve been tracking my eating and (sigh) drinking on sparkpeople.com for a week or two now. I’ve drawn a few conclusions.

I did pretty well not eating out, but I drink way too often. I need to try to restrict myself to two nights a week, both in interest of cutting calories and lowering expenses.

I’m doing well getting to the gym. Most times I treadmill at 3 to 3 1/2 mph at a 5.0 incline (5% grade? I dunno) for two rounds of 30min each with 5 min cooldowns. I want to do this 5 days a week, regardless of other exercise. Sparkpeople says I need to burn about 1300 calories a week and an hour of treadmill burns at least 600 calories. There have been times I wasn’t watching my intake at all but kept from ballooning as long as I did my hour of treadmilling, so I’ve obviously got something good there. Also a great time to get reading done.

I’m not sure what to do about weights. I know I won’t be able to build much mass while managing calories, but I’d still like to be stronger. I want to lift twice a week, but this is complicated by my Krav Maga classes. Judging from the soreness that’s some strength training right there. Since I can realistically only try to limit lean mass loss during this dieting thing, maybe one weight workout a week is enough.

I need to keep working on meal planning. I really just started so I can’t be too hard on myself for lapses, but I wrote most of this waiting to order at Chipotle before I hit the gym. Not good. Why was I doing that? I didn’t know one critical ingredient had gone fuzzy in my fridge. Oops. I should have my meals worked out a week in advance to minimize oversights like that. This also includes snacks. I forgot to get my trail mix ingredients (peanuts with raisins and M&Ms) my last grocery trip. That’s another way to avoid emergency fast food stops.

I miss living across the street from a grocery store. But I love staying out of my savings account.

There’s only one thing I’m totally failing at: tracking. Sparkpeople has a mobile tracking site, I need to get used to using it. Or at least noting what I’m eating (more importantly drinking) to enter later.

And lastly I needed a new bathroom scale, which I got yesterday. I like to weigh myself in the morning after I’ve, um, shed any easily lost mass and before I eat or drink anything. I figure that’s the best way to get a consistent idea of my ups and downs. A long time ago I freaked myself out by gaining four pounds in two days, then I remembered that I’d worked a Saturday at my last office job and they’d bought lunch from Applebee’s. Chicken & riblets (mmmmm) were still sitting in my stomach.