TedE

I would suggest the same thing. We spent a week in Umbria last year cooking most of our dinners at a rented villa. While I don't know if I learned anything new about cooking technique-wise it was fun to shop every day for ingredients (and wine).

Voodoo Doughnut was on Tony Bourdain's travel show about the Northwest this week. I have to admit that the maple-glazed with bacon strips on top looked really freakin' good!!

Well, it's not eating more to lose more, it will be eating more to lose less. I could continue what I'm doing now and keep dropping around 1.5-2 lbs/week, but the training efficacy will suffer. If I eat enough to make the workouts beneficial it will be closer to 1 lb/week I'm guessing. Truthfully it's probably a combination of not enough energy to get through morning workouts and lack of adequate sleep. I may try playing with eating more right as I get up for quick energy. The main problem as I see it is that I'm not accounting well for the extra energy I need. Eating what I am now would be enough if I wasn't exercising, but on the heavier training days most calculators put me burning 1,000+ calories on the workouts alone. If I don't make up for that in eating the body goes into some non-beneficial state or another (not burning fat for energy, and in the worst case consuming extra muscle tissue). There is a whole science behind this eating-for-training thing that I'm trying to grasp (poorly). I've stayed away from the calorie counting because it's tedious and I would suck at it; my "eating plan" as it were it mostly guesswork. Like everyone involved in the DR challenge I didn't get into this to stop enjoying food; I'm trying to balance eating less of the things I like with the extra stress that I'm putting on my body. Starting both of those things at roughly the same time has been a shock to the system, as it were. So, after a terrible swim workout yesterday I went ahead and ate more than I normally would have: some peanut butter with apple slices and yogurt/granola combination for breakfast, a big ol' bowl of pho for lunch, snacked on some of those evil peanut butter filled pretzels in the office throughout the day, and then 4 beers and two slices of pizza at happy hour with friends (I can't say no to the Bell's Two Hearted). Oh, and I skipped the run half of the workout. Today is a rest day and I'll eat normally again since there are no workouts. Hey, at least I can justify (to myself) yesterday's intake: I didn't "overeat" I was "replenishing energy stores" for the weekend

2 more down, 13 to go. Things have definitely started leveling off after a pretty good initial drop, but not unexpectedly. I think I actually need to eat more in order to keep up with my training. I was pretty frugal on the food this week and almost totally crashed and burned during my workout yesterday morning. It's a thin line.

Those weren't reservations they were folks who called ahead. Hank's will hold a table for you up to about 30 minutes if you call and say you are coming. It's not well publicized, and I think started out as a nod to the neighborhood folks to make Hank's, well, more of a neighborly joint. They've never had dessert due to the small kitchen.

Got mine yesterday and was surprised. I had forgotten I had ever signed up for it! In fact when reading this thread two days ago I thought to myself, "I really should have jumped on that when I had the chance".

4 more down, 15 to go. I attribute most of this to being sick at the end of last week and some of the weekend, but I'd like to think that cutting out almost all alcohol consumption (maybe 3-4 drinks a week) has something to do with it.

If space is at a premium I can't see how using carboys will be anything but a bigger hassle. In my homebrewing days my friend and I went from plastic buckets to a carboy (gifted to him), and aside from the joy we got out of watching the fermentation behind glass it wasn't much of an improvement. One thing is for sure: you need a really big sink! They are a pain to clean with that small opening compared to the buckets, and we almost lost the whole batch trying to lug a heavy, wet glass container down to the basement.

Good question. You could track fitness goals if people wanted to be included in the Great Nickname Fitness Challenge, say running X number of miles by May. Man, you people would have it good; you'd need to eat more food just to stay at the same weight!

4 more down, 19 to go. It's actually been 8 down since I started training around Thanksgiving. The 10% figure puts my DR.com goal at 199, but I'd like to hit 200 and stay there for now. Why? Triathlons have a "Clydesdale" division for guys 200 and over. I like my odds of placing in a better percentile in that group than with the rest of my age group which typically has some of the fastest racers . For my height and build 200 isn't a bad place to be.

This is exactly right. I'm typically 3-5 pounds heavier in the evening than the morning. I've settled on a weigh-in routine every 3-4 days and it's always in the morning after a workout when my hydration is at an ebb (not dehydrated, just not as hydrated as I normally am) and I haven't had breakfast yet. In fact when I first started this routine and was getting on the scale every day I could count on the mornings after a swim workout to be 1/2 pound or so heavier on average than run or bike days, I'm guessing because you tend to sweat less in the water. Off to out myself and check in ...

Everyone except the parents chauffeuring their drunk high schoolers about town ... Everyone needs to take responsibility for their part in this footnote to the social contract. Don't whine like a grade school kid if you get denied for not having your ID on you. Personal responsibility does not extend beyond your person, a line of thinking that seems to have been thrown out of the window recently. You wouldn't complain to the Metro attendants if you left your MetroCard at home and had to stand behind the tourist hordes to get your paper ticket, would you? Well of course not, you would just walk past the sleeping guard through that little side gate, but the point stands. This can be very serious business depending on the jurisdiction. I couldn't find the cite online, but in the mid/late 90s when I was working in DE a bartender was facing potential jail time because he overserved (strike 1) an underage person (strike 2) who then went on to kill somebody with his car. It was a busy night, he had met other friends who had been previously carded, was being slipped drinks under the table, etc. I believe there are some places in this country where a bartender can be responsible for serving someone who produces a reasonably good fake ID.

This alone is probably responsible for 2-3 pounds a month that I don't have to fight off. Of course it has also made the gravitational pull of Kostas' souvlaki that much stronger. It doesn't help that I can turn my head 20 degrees to the left and check out the Greek Deli line. I've been doing the eat-small-but-often thing, so "lunch" is usually only a reasonably sized salad or sandwich from home or leftovers from the night before. I have a piece of fruit or other small snack a couple hours on either side of that (10:30 and 3:00ish) and it usually gets me to dinner. It's staying away from the damn snack food in the office kitchen that's a killer. Peanut butter filled pretzels + peanut M&Ms are a really dangerous temptation for me.

For me personally this is the critical lynchpin to the whole weight loss enterprise. I know myself well enough that I will never completely cut out alcohol or stop eating every food that I love. I'll cut back (especially the alcohol, however much it pains me to pass by the wine/beer fridge every day) and commit to portion control. I've sat by for years watching the same 5 pounds come on and off, and try as I might to get myself to the gym on a regular basis I hated it. Treadmills hate me, and I them. It's not until I commited to a fitness goal (triathlon) that I actually started looking forward to the workouts. This isn't because actual gym time is minimized in favor of other workouts, but because I have a much stronger motivational impulse: not embarassing myself in an endurance event. The weight loss is secondary now, but it will come naturally if I stick to the plan (there are 2 other dr.com'ers in the same program, but I won't out them publicly ). Now I want the weight to come off because it will help me get faster. (and it will also prevent me from looking ridiculous in one of those skin tight tri racing suits ...)

This place doesn't even pass muster for the lowest of the low bar criteria for any D.C. establishment: a kickballers' bar. If you can't get it together enough to meet the minimum hang-out conditions of a bunch of sweaty, t-shirted 20-somethings looking to do nothing more than get drunk on cheap beer and shots, play flip cup, and hook up with each other you have truly failed. And that's saying something. That being said, wasn't there some big crackdown on carding just before the holidays? I would guess a lot of places got snagged by the undercovers.

Fort Myers Beach Verdict: go for the sun, not for the food. We ate at a few different places. The Beached Whale at the north end of Ft Myers Beach was your typical florida bar. Nice roof deck and bar food. The blackened grouper sandwich was probably the single best food item at a restaurant I had. That is not saying much as the competition was pretty weak, and I've had way better in the keys and Miami. Down at the south end of the island where we were staying we had dinner at Flippers at the Lovers Key Resort. Terribly overpriced, bland food. I can honestly say I don't remember what I had. There was another expensive seafood place on the canal that I can't recall (sense a theme here?) whose only saving grace was that they had stone crabs at $19/pound, the same price we could get them ourselves at the store. Contrast that with another place in Sanibel (Timber's) that was charging $32. In a sports bar. The best food I had was probably the ceviche we prepared from the fresh snapper we caught on Saturday morning. I would have suggested we stay in and cook for ourselves more had the kitchen in the condo been adequately stocked.

Well, at least that would probably put an end to their 200 pull-ups days for awhile ...

I'm in, and have already started with another goal in mind: another 10K on 4/29. Preceded by a 40K bike ride. And a 1.5K swim. St. Anthony's triathlon. Peer pressure is a bitch, only this time it's pressure to not drink. I was doing good prior to 2 weeks ago, but the holidays put back a good percentage of what I had managed to take off post-Thanksgiving.

Dave, what's the source on that quote (presuming that there are more details therein). The "old" Le Pigalle space. Ha!!

Behold: Cool Colt Yup, mentholated malt liquor. Foul beyond words.

It is the Chili Beer. They still make that stuff?!! I had a bottle (it was a different label design) about 12 years ago and was assuming that the market would speak and quickly put it out of its misery. Second worst beer I've ever put in my mouth!

The article is now up online as well.

Nope, not at that price point. The CO2 comment made me think of it, though, since I knew it was on the Dino list.

Grotte Del Sole "Gragnano" (Aglianico & Local Reds ) Campagnia ??? I seriously love this wine. We've got a case of it as our "house" red right now. I find it to be a perfect party red and very versatile come meal time.

I think we're going to try to stay more local than that; we're only there for 3 days and a wedding will take up one of those, but if the food options are dim I'll probably travel. I'll take the lay of the land and report back.