Vacation with Dad -- Remainder of Day Three

After returning from the hike, I showered desert off of myself, and had my first of two meetings with my Nutritionist.  The Nutritionist was all about gathering information about what I eat and how to turn this into a healthy eating lifestyle.

She was actually pretty good.  She had asked if I wanted guidance on numbers of calories, or if I wanted direction on meals instead.  I chose the latter course.  I also said that what I really needed help on was how much I could "fall off the wagon."  I mean, it's all well and good to eat a nice balance of proteins and fruits and carbs and veggies, but I'm going to want that warm chocolate lava cake with ice cream every now and then.  So I asked if that's a once a week thing?  Or every other week?  Or what?

And she basically found a way to put the lava cake into the diet -- her philosophy being that you should incorporate this stuff in, rather than keep it out and add it in as a treat.  Basically, every day, I get 100-200 calories to screw around with -- and that can be a snack of pretzels, or popcorn, or a mini-muffin, or, yes, a small piece of lava cake with a little ice cream on top. 

(After we were done with the plan, she asked if I thought I could live with it.  In all honesty, I admitted I'd probably cheat that up to 300 calories per day.  So she picked up her mouse and replaced the "200" with "300" and told me that this would mean I'd have to, y'know, actually exercise a bit more.  Seemed like a fair trade.)

She also said some stuff which I hadn't known but which made me real happy.  Like bread.  She told me I had to eat "whole grain" bread, which I frowned at because I hate whole wheat and multi-grain and all those other healthy brown breads.  But she said that rye bread also counts, and (to my great surprise and actual glee) sourdough is equally acceptable.  I totally dig sourdough.  This is something I can work with.

So -- very useful meetings with the Nutritionist.

Had lunch with dad (a stir-fried cashew chicken thing which, again, was spicy and, again, I didn't care).  We then went to a lecture together on "Weight Loss Myths" which was pretty interesting.  The guy started off by saying you should "take with a grain of salt" anyone's weight loss advice if the advice ends with them trying to sell you something (read my book!  buy my vitamins!  go to my website!) -- which is, of course, true, but was also funny given the rest of my day.

I had the "complimentary footwear consultation" where a dude looked at my sneakers and told me that they were too small and had insufficient arch support.  Of course, he was trying to sell me new sneakers.  And later, I went to a lecture by a guy who was talking about the myths of joint pain treatment, saying things like how back and knee pain are only correctly diagnosed something like 10 percent of the time.  Of course, he was trying to sell us on this new and exciting way of treating joint pain (allegedly successful a whopping 97% of the time).  So, y'know, using the skepticism from the first lecture, I'm suspecting both of these guys may have been full of poop, considering they were both trying to sell me something.

(I may buy the shoes anyway -- but at least I'm being suitably skeptical about it.)

After a day of hike, two meetings with the Nutritionist, two lectures, and footwear consultation, I treated myself to a massage, and went right to bed.