February 28, 2012 7:58 PM HKT

Day 7 and 8

Sunday (Day 7) was a beautiful day here.  I ate well and took the kids to the park where I walker the loop again in 21 minutes, feeling great.  That evening, because I hadn't done the mat exercises on Day 6 due to time constraints I doubled up and did the mat exercises for Day 6 and Day 7.  I felt good at the end of that and on Day 8 I really didn't hurt all that much.  That was a good feeling.

Day 8 weigh in was 104.5 kilos (229 lbs), which is a nice, steady 3lb. loss for the first week.

I had a fairly big breakfast yesterday of 2 scrambled eggs with peppers, yogurt with fruit, a banana and an orange.  Oddly enough, I was starving by the time lunch came around.  I really couldn't figure that one out....I was hoping that a large, protein and fruit-laden breakfast would ease the lunchtime pangs because I don't have a lot of time for lunch when I am in NYC and I often grab bad foods.  I ended up getting a healthy lunch from the "Healthy Living" section of our cafeteria - Lean beef and peppers, whole grain rice and green beans - and a couple of pieces of fruit, but it was still a little bit puzzling.

I made a very odd mistake in the afternoon though.  I was on a series of conference calls, drinking coffee and doing whatever it is one does on conference calls when I noticed an empty candy bar wrapper on my desk.  There it was, just hanging out.  It wasn't there an hour before, but now it was there.  It had been a whole candy bar in a wrapper that had been sitting on my desk for a few weeks just 60 minutes prior.  Long and short, I had eaten a candy bar and didn't even notice I was doing it while I was on the call.  I am not sure that you can create an emptier calorie.  I did feel pretty crappy about that one.

Dinner was definitely an interesting experience.  Half is tough.  I also made the decision that if I cut my "pre-meal snacks" that I eat between walking in the door, putting the kids to bed and then finally eating that I was in the spirit of the rules.  I definitely see where a lot of calories are consumed at the end of the day, that is for sure!  We had a nice ribeye steak (half portion for me) and a salad with goat's cheese and bacon so it wasn't like we were going to the extreme, but it was surprising how my body wanted more.  We'll get there.