Lick The Lard

Today’s weight: 74.2kg

Last night’s dinner party went very well - the food on offer was salad with salmon, olives, cheese, and French bread. I don’t take dressing on my salad, so no oil there - and the cheese was limited to sprinklings of parmesan and a little Boursin. A good meal. On the way there I even found a little Korean store and could buy some real Korean kimchi and chilli. Lovely.

I’m not exactly sure of my plans for tonight yet. If I stay at home, I have a list of potential dishes that I brainstormed at the weekend. All too often I get home from work and have no idea what to cook, and end up with something either uninspiring, or not as nutricious as I’d like - read: “easy”. By preparing a list of 4 or 5 ideas in advance and having the ingredients ready, I hope to make things really easier for myself.

Today’s weight: 74.2kg
Yesterday’s weight: 74.2kg

Looks like I forgot to update Lick The Lard yesterday - after weighing myself I was so busy with other things, I simply got distracted. Today’s and yesterday’s weights were identical, however, at 74.2kg.

Tonight I’m going to a dinner party at a friend’s house. While I can control the food when I have a dinner party, there’s not a lot I can do when I’m going to someone else’s. You get what you’re given. If it’s fatty, what do I do?

“Don’t you have anything which isn’t deep fried in Lard?”

Hmmm, that may be an emergency approach.

Should I be on an “emergency” lose weight drive, I’d either tell my friend in advance so that I know there are good options there, or I’d prepare myself in advance by eating something light, so that all I need to do is nibble a little to be polite. But I’m not on an “emergency” drive - I’m trying to lead a lifestyle I can maintain, which means, as far as possible, not putting my weight burden onto friends. It’s hardly a maintainable natural lifestyle if I need to tell everyone I visit what kind of foods I can eat in advance.

So I’m handling it myself. From the food provided, I’ll be looking for the foods that I enjoy eating - avoiding, as much as possible, the stodge and the heavy fatty and fried options that I don’t like. Should there be nothing “nice”, I’ll either need to take the hit or eat just enough to be polite and then grab something later.

Today’s weight: 74.4kg

After weighing myself this morning, I spent the entire rest of the day cleaning my apartment “top to bottom” in preparation for my brother coming. If all that graft doesn’t result in my weight dropping tomorrow, I’ll be well miffed!

Today’s weight: 74.8kg

I decided to take the hit last night and go to a bar like my friend wanted. My weight increase today is more due to eating late rather than eating huge amounts of unhealthily food, however - so I still expect to return back to goal in the next couple of days.

Today’s weight: 74.2kg

As I predicted, I’m returning back towards goal as the week progresses. I’m going out with a friend tonight though - a friend who has just returned to Tokyo after 6 months absence. At the moment I’m thinking of good places we can go to - his initial suggestion of “that British bar that we used to go to” being great for nostalgia, but not so great for something healthy to eat.

In the last months my tastes have changed and I no longer feel the desire to go to stodgy eating establishments. In addition, I want to make sure I’m well prepared for next week.

Still, he has been out of the country for 6 months and while I might no longer have cravings for stodgy food, he might. He might have been really looking forward to going back there. I know that if I visited the UK and craved going out for a certain food that I couldn’t get in Japan and the people I was with said “no”, I wouldn’t be amused.

Therefore, while I’d rather avoid that place and I’m trying to think of somewhere else, I might need to give in and take the hit. I’m mentally preparing myself for that now, working out how, should I take a hit tonight, I can still recover before my brother arrives.