The Hollando Diet

Bad news from the bathroom scale, I’m afraid. This week’s weigh-in, taken on Monday, put me at 162 pounds. That’s one more than the previous week. The office kitchen hasn’t helped; neither have some ridiculous work-week lunches, pizza-and-movie nights, Manhattans & Martinis, good wine, etc. And I’m not altogether sure I’ve righted the pattern this week. It’s been an enjoyable run, but has brought with it some predictable consequences. So how do I evaluate the trade-offs? I’m leaning toward re-invigorated discipline. After all, I know where this particular road leads — and it goes there in a hurry.

P.S. Besides the 1.4 million residents of The Bronx, am I the only person in America dejected by the Red Sox victory?

While I’d hoped to slip in a post or two from Easter Island itself, it wasn’t to be — Internet connectivity on the island was not nonexistent, but it was rather limited, and there were much better ways to spend the daylight hours.

traveling to Easter Island is not to be undertaken unless you like walking. Fortunately, I do, and it was a very outdoorsy four days. We did a lot of walking, which included a few mountains. They may not have been very large mountains, but they definitely counted. So plenty of exercise, and it was relatively easy to eat well, too–and with enough exercise even an empanada or three can be justified.

So I hopped on the scale this morning, and found myself, a little surprisingly, at 166.4. That’s 3.4 pounds from the twenty pound mark. There’s still a good five or ten to go from that point (and since I haven’t been at the gym enough thanks to all the travel, some of that is muscle that’s turned to fat), but all things considered I think I’m in shape to make it into the 150s by Christmas.

Spurred by the loyal reader Mrs. Lien O’Neill, I must update the world on my dieting progress. Well, there is none. I hover at 180 lbs., after days of floating at 179 lbs. (note my choice of words, selected so as to evoke the image of a man as light as a feather…) Cheese fries have proven a great temptation, though the provider of this culinary indulgence opts for a most curious name… Snuffer’s. Is the food the object of the snuffing? Do they film the food’s demise in the fashion of snuff cinema? I have many reservations about this place.

Marble Slab, a steady supplier for my ice cream habit, has lured me into its fold with a new birthday cake flavor. How can tuna compare with the joy of melting ice cream? Celery may be my last hope, as I give up the gains won in the first few days of the Hollando Diet.

Oh, well. Off I go to the YMCA. The cycle repeats. I wake, eat cheesy potato skins from yesterday, go hours without eating, then head to the gym, only to remember that I am indeed rather hungry. Marble Slab… curse you! I defy your charms! Get thee to a buttery, you vile provider of delictable fat bombs!

Ok, so a slight misquote in the above. Liz and I arrived in sunny Santiago, Chile on Saturday morning, and have spent the last few days exploring the city before departing across the ocean again for Easter Island. So I have the pleasure of writing this entry in a (fairly smoky) hotel bar at the San Cristobal Tower Hotel, with the Red Sox-Yankees debacle on screen in the background. But enough about that. Next year is going to be just great.

The great thing about this kind of vacation is the walking - you really do get a lot of exercise, and we’ve climbed quite a few hills and paced much of the downtown area over the last few days. Today was probably the lightest of the bunch, since we took a bus to the outskirts of town and toured one of the local (although also, apparently, multinational) wineries, the Concha del Toro. Whose products are available at every local supermarket in England, at least, for approximately $8 a bottle. So nothing special there, but the drive out was fun and the tour was charming.

Chile is less expensive than the US, although more so than other South American and Asian countries that I’ve visited. Prices in nice hotels are the same everywhere, and that’s helped me eat fairly well. It also helps that this is an exploration trip rather than an eating-and-drinking trip, so we haven’t been hitting overly elaborate restaurants. There’s no real Chilean cuisine, anyway, although we did have some nice empanadas at the top of one of the hills overlooking the city. US restaurants have accustomed me to a certain empanada size, so I accidentally ordered us enough to feed a family of four.

There’s a scale in the hotel, so once I’ve worked out the kilogram to pound conversion (I’ve got it somewhere) I’ll see where I’ve gotten to. I spent three weeks in the UK shortly before leaving on this trip, and was pleasantly surprised to see that I was still hovering around 169 when I got back, even though I’d been living in a hotel. Exchange rates managed to keep my food impulses in check. That slid up a pound or two when I got back to Cambridge, but that expected.

More to come, including some actual travelogue.

I weigh myself on the ol’ bathroom scale once a week, on Monday. Last week’s reading was 163, this week’s: 161. So close! The next milestone is so near I can taste it. This despite Mom’s visit and all the tasty food & drink that implies, all of which was offset, I guess, by the walking we did up and down the San Francisco hills.

Tune in next week, kids, same Bat-time, same Bat-channel.

Mr. Crawford now cavorts through Easter Island. Yet he must blog! I have a trusted informant, whom we may name “Eiz Lvans” for the sake of anonymity, and she claims this island has dwellings with Internet connectivity. So Mr. Crawford… how about a Diet Blog entry?

Mr. Hughes… I see your comments occasionally appearing without much fanfare. Perhaps you can awaken a bit earlier, if not to view apartments as planned then perhaps to blog? I chastise you!

Mr. Alexander shows the power of discipline by loosing twenty pounds since we last met. I hope to follow suit… eventually… after one more all-you-can-eat Endless Shrimp inhalation at Red Lobster’s in Dallas.

The Gray Lady surveys diet fads. What a shame that I was born too late to behold the spectacle of Fletcherization! Some highlights: lipophobia (1970s anti-red meat scare), carbophobia (the modern Atkins/South Beach scourge), and strategic placement of Bulgarian yogurt (Dr. Kellogg’s contribution). The article offers the standard explanations for Europe’s greater success: smaller portions, no snacking, and the emphasis on meals as a communal experience–not unlike Yale’s residential college dining halls.

What amazes me is that the article consumes four pages online in order to provide about half a page of useful data. Hence my reluctance to trade the online Times for the print version.

Arrrrg! I indulged myself with the “Endless Shrimp” all-you-can-eat menu at Red Lobster. How very wrong! No… how truly perfect! Follow that up with two hot dogs at the movies and leftover Wendy’s food before bed, and now I am up to 180 lbs. I must launch a new weight-loss offensive.

Well, according to my electronic fitness monitoring system, I lifted more than 17,000 pounds yesterday… which is good since my weight-loss has come to a dead halt. Apparently pecan pie and other indulgences undid my working out yesterday. Grrr…

Somebody call Chuck Yeager. Another barrier has been broken, namely the 165-pound barrier. This week’s scale reading, recorded on Monday, was an unprecedented 163. That’s a BMI of 22.1 for those keeping track of this spurious metric.