The Hollando Diet

Technically, a diet consists of what you eat. We had dinner the other night at Degree, which is right on the harbor in Auckland. The specialty of the house is a raw steak, served on an extremely hot rock. The technical term for this is “good.”

Auckland has been great; I have yet to have a bad meal. The low end (sushi and kebabs) are superb, and the medium-tier restaurants are far better than their US pricepoint equivalents. The meal above, including beers and two appetizers, came to about $60 US.

As I detail elsewhere, this month I’m in New Zealand.

I’m also carrying around the effects of a semester of MIT classes. Call it the “First Year Fifteen”, although it wasn’t actually fifteen: more like five to eight, depending on where one measures. Put the 160 mark out of easy reach, though. Good behavior during the holidays kept the situation from careening out of control.

One of the surprising things a year ago when I was spending 80% of my time in England was that I actually lost weight, despite travel, eating in airports, drinking at pubs and being 3,000 miles from the gym. Basically, I just didn’t eat as much, and that was mostly because the food just wasn’t all that good. It’s easy to eat less when there’s very little, outside the Indian restaurants, worth eating. New Zealand definitely shares a culinary heritage with the home islands, and never attracted large numbers of Indian immigrants, either. On the other hand, the general quality of the restaurants is better, and I’ve gotten plenty of exercise so far this weekend, including a hike up Mt. Victoria and some extended walking tours of museums and interesting neighborhoods.

No scale in my hotel room, so we’ll have to wait a bit to see how it all turns out.

Perhaps it’s cheating to get on the scale, get off again, etc. But after four false [sic] reads, I came out at 173 lbs. Ha!

But that leaves 23 lbs. to go. Today, from 4:30pm-6:00pm, I exercised at that steam yoga place. Bottom line: I typically lose two pounds overnight, and right now, I’m 174 lbs. So a possibility exists that I could weigh 172 lbs. in the morning. 22 pounds… the pace needs to quicken. Perhaps soup for dinner, a morning trip to the YMCA… good things are happening, but the goal is 150 lbs. by Feb. 1.

At this point, an observation is in order. JJ, my pal from work (who had a major career moment today!), notes the importance of using tape measures to monitor weight loss. She is concerned about my possible weight changes as fat disappears and muscle develops, i.e. increases signifying healthy changes and not gluttony. That additional measurement strikes me as appropriate… especially if that “muscle develops” concern ever materializes.

Somehow (perhaps by skipping lunch after a hearty late breakfast), I managed to lose two pounds yesterday. Well, in truth, I managed to make the scale agonize between displaying 175 or 174 lbs. The kind, warm, generous scale bestowed upon me the gift of 174 lbs. So I’m probably 174.4 lbs. Tough nuggies. It counts.

All right. I’m now at the point at which I found myself upon graduating law school. So I’ve gained and lost my Merrill Lynch baby fat from the first year on the job. I have to watch what I eat at these wholesaler lunches at work.

Now begins the journey. Blueberries or low-fat yogurt for breakfast, hearty lunches, and ultra-light dinners… soup broth and grapes seem to work well. Can I lose a pound per day? The weight chart is posted on www.hollando.com/diet.

Where are my fellow dieters in their progress? Matt seems to be in the lead, safely ensconced in the 150s at last word. Will has had a short-lived setback, but no doubt now he is toying with the low end of the 160s. (???) David… well, curse David’s metabolism. The man has a fission reactor inside him.

Now off to a half-day’s work, reading about 401(k) plans, followed by a haircut (more weight loss??), a trip to Sprint to insure my new cell phone, a trip to Comp USA to buy a print server, and then… off to Mom and Dad’s to rake leaves. Leaf raking is a great workout, and is likely the source of my 1.6 lbs. loss yesterday.

After several days of dropping, I hit that recent low point of 173 lbs. Then the gradual creep upward to 174 lbs., followed by a pause, then to 175 lbs., followed by a pause. Further weight loss remains unlikely thanks to my inhalation of mass quantities of sushi this afternoon. I have reached a weight loss plateau, and it is sloped ever-so-slightly upward.

Self-starvation (albeit induced by illness) was the most effective remedy. Shockingly light lunches, late afternoon exercise, and early evening dinners of soup broth all ensured a steady pound-per-day loss rate. So this glorified fasting must continue. I have to be 150 lbs. in another month. New suits, Tory Banquet, the coming spring, superfine Texas ladies… I need to chisel out the inner six-pack-o’-abs Hollando in a hurry.

Accursed illness! Somehow I’ve been knocked out for two weeks or more, thanks to this nasty cold/flu/ebola that has me in its grip. Today I felt well enough to try a mode of exercise peculiar to downtown environments: the stairs. Our office building only has thirty-three floors, so scaling up and descending down all of them is not a terrific challenge. But the feeling afterward is wonderful. After being sick, being still, being cooped up in hopes of recovery, nothing compares to exercising at long last.

My weight has dropped to 176 lbs., although I seem to fluctuate up two, down three, etc. Dad speaks of supplementing my wardrobe of suits this January… I need more time to slim down to the (impossible?) target weight of 150 lbs. At least now a little exercise will help get closer.

This week I managed to wear myself down to the point of becoming ill, reaching a crescendo on Saturday morning. I surrendered myself to a day spent within the confines of my bed. I passed into and out of a gray, gloomy day as I lost and regained consciousness.

I may have lost a pound or two! So if I want to lose thirty pounds, then I probably need to contract one of those new, particularly virulent super-viruses. That’s certainly more likely to work than the trips to the YMCA… which never happen.

The Accidental Diet. Could work.

Well, it’s been a quiet two months over here. A sign of dieting vows fulfilled? Or standards (and belts) slackened?

In my rôle as Prime Goader of the Hollando Diet Movement, then, I relish what I consider to be my duty to report on the gastronomic habits of the diet’s illustrious namesake. I called Holland on Saturday night whilst he was on hold with his local Outback Steakhouse. (Why one would eat somewhere other than Peter Luger’s is beyond me, though living 2000 miles from Brooklyn might have something to do with it.) So Holland took my call, excused himself, and spoke on the other phone with Outback whilst your faithful correspondent listened in. The order consisted of, to wit:

1 order cheese fries
Two 12 oz. Outback Steak Specials (one medium, one well done)
Side of sweet potatoes
1 sautéed shrimp
1 Chicken Cesar Salad
1 Sinful Sundae

Now, Holland claims that this extravagance was for dinner with his parents. But how can we be sure? After all, only one sundae was ordered…

As part of my return to school I requested a copy of my college-era medical records from our university’s health office, and they make interesting reading. At one point, I saw an occupational therapist about a persistent knee problem, and he left a very complete note about the encounter in the file. I was described as a “slightly overweight, but pleasant young man.”

I had no idea the two concepts were generally so mutually exclusive. Perhaps, as I am now officially not overweight, I am no longer such a pleasant person?