This is EXACTLY why I do it...

There are some things in life that it can be difficult to figure out what the return on investment is. My favorite example: Making the bed; what exactly is the point of this when you're 100% guaranteed to mess it up in about 12-14 hours? Others though, have an obvious and immediate benefit. This blog falls directly under that category.

If you have read yesterdays post, you'll have seen that I did a pretty good job with my training all weekend, but I also did a "great job" of eating too much during at least 2 meals this weekend. The value the blog gave me there is that it let me expose honestly that I ate like crap to more than just my wife who at that singular instance wasn't going to fault me because it was her birthday dinner. One of the regular readers of this site, Edie, responded with the following terrific comment:

It sounds like Benny B is rebelling against Benny A.
To put it bluntly, I also find it a little unsettling that you can even justify that any kind of caloric burn will make up for eating so much crap. It isn't like you over-indulged in anything super healthy.
You know I'm cheering you on Benny, but it sure sounds like you need to find a way to take care of yourself a little more. It would be an awesome present to give your wife.

I have to admit this cut me to the core, and is 100% a correct vision of where I often stand in my weight loss struggle. I didn't see it the comment until after we got back from the Cheesecake Factory, where I had the small victory of eating no cheesecake, even on Rachelle's birthday. Rach and I had a fairly long talk on the subject of portion control and why I have such a problem with it. I don't have an answer yet on how to solve it, but the fact that I don't has lead me to leave all options open at this point on how to resolve it. It's not a problem 100% of the time, but it's clearly what has stopped me from losing weight in accordance with the training I have been doing.

With just about 6 weeks left until the first race of the year, I really need to find a way to solve this problem. I have been successful in the past when I have a single plan for eating. Eating the same thing every day, even to the point of the same meals, makes it easy for me to avoid temptation.

That's a very simple thing to implement when you're single, but less so when you're married, and your spouse really enjoys variety to the point where she often doesnt know what she wants for dinner until literally dinner time, and often not even then. So as at least a first step I'm going to try to find ways to marry our food needs (variety vs healthy, portion controlled foods) without having us have to spend an hour a night in the kitchen. I'm still looking into other items, and I'm looking for a good way to make my food journal public without having to post it in each days blog (because who wants to read what I'm eating each day?)

Lastly, on a far happier note, Rach has blogged about her experience with the NCAA championship game. While she didn't win, it was certainly a memorable experience, and I was just in the stands. It's a good read.