Fried on fried (and sugar)

Moving Christmas off the treadmill has not happened yet. Actually, I just need to beat a path through Christmas and find a different place for an eight-foot artificial tree, but even that seems to be a challenge at the moment.

So I'm going to put the treadmill on a back-burner for the moment.

Now before you start ranting that I'm falling off the proverbial wagon by failing at my last two attempts to modify my lifestyle, let me first say that I'm not just pushing it aside, I'm moving something else in to take its place: Fried food.

Or rather, the removal of such from my diet. This has actually been a goal of mine since the start of this whole "Live Healthier" effort, but I wanted to tackle the soda first and then try portion control. Soda's still completely out of my diet after almost 3 months. I miss it, but I'm happy it's not there anymore. Portion control failed miserably. Fried food I can do. Or not do. You know what I mean...

Of course, it's not completely a coincidence that I'm bringing up fried food now. I happened to have a pretty unpleasant day last Thursday after eating too many fried items at lunch. I ended up tasting that lunch for the rest of the day as it sat like a rock in my gut. Determined that this was no way to enjoy a meal, I decided that it would be the perfect time to modify "fried" out of my gastronomic vocabulary.

No more french fries, onion rings, fried chicken, battered cod, corn dogs or anything else that requires submersion in boiling oil to achieve a "cooked" state. Fries are my big one... the rest not so much, but they do creep in from time to time so I thought I'd mention them.

To go along with fried, I'm also excising all items that are overtly sugary like the hot cocoa I sometimes drink at work or the half-and-half tea (half sweet, half unsweet to those living outside the South) I've been ordering at times at restaurants. Seems obvious that I shouldn't be drinking them anyway given the whole "no soda" effort, but I guess they've been a crutch. (Artificial sweeteners don't work for me, don't ask me to explain.) Well, no more.

I've been sticking to these new rules since Saturday morning and so far I've lost 3 pounds. I was actually lighter this evening after dinner than I was when I woke up this morning. And that's eating normal meals, just skipping anything fried, breaded or battered and ordering water in place of tea at restaurants.

Hey, this could work!