Literally Throwing Away Money To Lose Weight?- Week 1 Review

If you're just tuning in, I've committed to literally throwing a dollar bill away in March for every time I drink a Coke or sweet tea.  I'm one week in.

WEEK ONE STATS:
Cokes/Sweet Teas Drunk (Drank? Or Drinked? as my 3-year-old would say :). 
Dollar Bills Thrown Away: 0
Feb 28 Weight/Body Fat: 191.2 lbs/ 20.4% Body Fat
March 8 Weight/Body Fat: 189.0 lbs/ 19.8% Body Fat
Weight Loss: 2.2 lbs
Body Fat Loss: 0.6%
March 1- March 7 tri training: 1600m swam/25.03 miles biked/10.62 miles run

So far, so good, even though I inadvertently put myself in some tough situations. Remember how I said the hardest times to not have a Coke would be when I had pizza or Mexican? On Wednesday (Day 2), I called up my friend Jason for lunch, and he said he wanted to eat at his favorite pizza place.  I should have known, because the only time I ever go there is with him.  I told him about my plan, and he said he and his wife went an entire year without Coke.  He's back on, but generally, its maybe one Coke a day instead of 3 Mountain Dews. 

The next day, my wife and I had an impromptu lunch date.  She suggested Chuy's, which, of course, meant we had to go to Chuy's.  Somehow I safely made it through with just an unsweet tea, despite chips with the creamy jalapeno dip and splitting a plate of fajitas with Her Hotness.

The real challenge came on Friday, when I had to go to a government office to work on some of my dad's estate stuff, sit for a while, and then be told (albeit very nicely) that I didn't have the correct paperwork with me and that I'd have track it down and come back later- not to finish up what I needed, but just to be allowed get the information to see what I needed to get done.  To their credit, they were really nice, but it was still very frustrating, and it was all I could do not to pull into a fast food place and get a Coke.

After passing the initial pizza, mexican and frustration tests, Situation #4 was a piece of cake.  I really like to get a Coke when I go to the movies, and even though the movie I went to see started at 9:55PM (or 10:20 after previews), I passed on a beverage all-together.  (By the way, Unknown is very good if you're into the Jason Bourne type of movie.  My old English professor wrote an Esquire cover story on Liam Neeson, which I highly recommend.)





I'm happy about the 2 pound weight loss, but not too excited.  Some days it seems like the scale just likes you.  It could change its mind tomorrow and tell me I'm 192, you never know.  As far as triathlon training, its about average for me- again, not great mileage for a 'serious' triathlete, but good for a human.  I'm intentionally trying to eat what I normally eat just to keep this experiment focused on the effect sweet drinks have.  My mom/nurse/nutritionist made sure to comment that I shouldn't replace those with fruit drinks, as they're just as sugar-filled or more.  In the effort of full disclosure, the only fruit drink I'm having is maybe 2-3 ounces (about half an orange juice glass) of pomegranate juice after I work out, because all these top marathoners do it to fight inflamation.  I haven't upped that at all. I really am trying not to replace Coke with anything.

Actually, for my next blog, you'll get to find out how I learned that lesson the hard way...

Any guesses? (by the way, my wife is a real blogger, and she says its really good if you leave comments. She's gotten like 126,000 hits and everything)