A new salad restaurant in town, a scale, and some dedication

It's been a bit of a slow week for me because about this time last week I decided to make some changes in my life. When I was traveling on my "hate-cation" about a month ago I was visiting a friend who was about the same size as me when we met. Now granted, that was 20 years ago so some allowances can be made but when I was visiting him it was impossible to not notice that I am significantly larger than he is. Also, his girlfriend is a pharmacist and at one of her shops they have a triple-beam scale to weigh people. These scales are never wrong and I found out that I weight 97kg now or nearly 215 pounds. Some of this is good weight but well, most of it isn't.

So when I got back from visiting him I decided to make a few changes to my life and re-introduce exercise and some level of diet into my routine.

One thing that was so surprising about the weight for me is that I do not own a scale, so I never weigh myself here. I got on Lazada (our Amazon in Asia) and ordered any reasonably priced scale that they have. I didn't pay much attention to anything else about the scale because a scale is a scale, right? Well, this is what arrived.

I found it quite funny that I didn't specify any sort of image that I wanted and this is just the one they decided to send. I'm not insulted, I think it is cute and perhaps even more motivation to stick with the program that I have established for myself.

I have mostly been trying to eat a lot better because when you basically live off of take away food like I do, it is really easy to fall into a trap of eating garbage food. So a friend of mine recommended a restaurant in town that just opened up called "Mesala" and they specialize in large salads.

_{I'm not even going to rotate that, you get the idea}

These salads are very customizable and they are around $6 each. I realize that this is a lot to pay for a salad or at least it is over here but that is the price you pay for quality. The veggies are all organic and local and I suppose that is important. They also focus heavily on precise amounts of ingredients so you know exactly what you are getting in the form of calories and protein/carbohydrates.

The best part is that they are huge and therefore, unlike most other salads, quite filling. Most times when I have one I can't finish it or am struggling to do so. Nadi of course watches me through every bite as she does little "tippy taps" with her feet waiting for me to drop something on the floor. She always gets some of it, but not very much. She has a bit of a weight problem as well after all.

Some of the salads are mexican themed with sour cream and a bit of spicy sauce and that was pretty good.

The best news is that I actually really look forward to eating them because they are really good and while $6 is more than I would normally spend on a dinner, and that probably sounds crazy to any Americans out there but it is the truth. Just like anywhere else in the world, the worst food is the cheapest here in Vietnam and that will contribute to you getting bigger.

I have also cut out what is likely the largest contributor to my excessive weight overall.

This is a social city and the expat society does it even more. People meet for beers every day and every night and I think this is the major reason for most people's, especially men's, weight gain. I participated in this party almost every day for the past 5 years and well, it is no great mystery where the weight gain is coming from I guess. I would imagine that by simply not going to the pub every day I am skipping about 1000 calories or even more of fatness.

I also don't wake up feeling terrible every day. The only real downside is that my social life is taking a turn for the worse but here is another side of that: I was hanging out so much that I was becoming part of the furniture and it was expected that I would be at bars, daily. I also wasn't really enjoying the conversation anymore with the people that were there because well, we have already said everything that can be said to one another. I have also found that the people who are in the pub every day never have anything interesting to say because the only thing that any of them ever do is go to the pub. I was one of those people as well.

I have stuck with this program pretty religiously for about 10 days and this morning I stepped on my pig scale and discovered that I am down to just below 94kg already. Not a huge loss considering the rather major change I have made to my life, but hell, it's just the beginning.

I am not going to try, I am going to succeed. I am actually quite stubborn and very dedicated to something once I fully decide that I am going to do it. I refer to one of my favorite characters in movies whenever I am in a position like this.

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I don't consider weight loss all that complicated. It's kind of like weight gain: If you go down a certain path as far as what you are putting into your body is concerned, you are going to either go up or down. It isn't rocket science but the person doing it needs to stick with it and if you do have cheat days, then have them (I do!) but I'm not going to allow this new system of mine to become something I just do every now and then. My cheat day is going to be bowling day, and that is it. I suppose I could go to an event here and there as well but my plan - which I will accomplish- is to get down to 87kg. That's a lot of weight for a guy in his late 40's to accomplish.

I'm going to achieve it though, me and my pig scale are going all in on this.