So far, the $30 challenge hasn't been as difficult as I thought it would be. Sure, I'm a little hungry every now and then, but I've been doing a great job about leaving small snacks available when I know I'm going to get hungry. Even something as small as a single hard boiled egg goes a very long way to curb hunger until my next meal.
Even before this challenge, I've been keeping an "OK" record of my weight progress. You'll notice huge lapses early on, but for the past 3 months or so I've really been able to maintain focus and record. There are quite a few days where I've weighed myself, but it was within less than one pound so I didn't record it. (I need to stop doing that. If I weigh, it needs to get recorded. Period.) The past 3 days, while on this challenge, I've dropped what I think is an incredible amount of weight; almost 8 pounds. I know almost all of that is water, but it's still interesting to see how my body reacts to eating much less.
My weight chart
In a previous
blog entry I mentioned the importance, in my opinion, of keeping a food journal. If you look at
my journal over the past few days, you may notice that my protein number is well below what it should be. For me, the most important number to make sure I hit is protein intake. I'm a very big guy at 6'7 and 381lbs, and I can't afford to lose muscle due to insufficient protein. If I had to do the shopping trip over again, I would definitely add another pound of chicken breast in favor of the iced tea mix. I don't think I'm in any real 'danger' since I'm still getting over 100g, it's just that I'm not very comfortable with less than 80% of my target. The first three days of the challenge, I hit 80.7, 69.7, and and 68% respectively.
There's not much I can do at this point since I've already done my shopping, but if I do this again next week I need to keep this target in mind.