Today is my mother's 90th birthday.  We are having a party at the Garden Plaza for her.  My sister is coming down this weekend.  We used to always meet at the lake house.  A week after last year's birthday party, Mother had a heart attack while playing bridge.  She has had some ups and downs.  Right now things are looking up.  The daytime sitter has succeeded in getting her to meet with a group every day to chat.  It is an informal group that just started sitting down every day after lunch.  They meet in the Atrium.  It is a dramatic high ceiling room at the entrance of the building.  I have been calling the group the Atrium Girls.

Weight is good.  Normal breakfast and lunch, light supper.

Probably no exercise today.  I have to pack for Cleveland this morning.  I will leave work about 11am and will be spending the night.

I checked my waist measurement since the weight has come down some and my 32 in pants are wearable.  I was expecting 34 but I measure 35.25.  Size 32 pants are designed to fit 32-34 so as not to offend.  I must be forcing the issue to wear the smaller pants.  I think gravity over time has worked on my weight distribution.  I need to build up the shoulders and chest and reduce the waist.  Some swimming would help.

I had a good day yesterday on food and exercise.  I ate the standard breakfast and lunch and I ate a lighter than normal supper.  I drank lots of water.  I did morning calisthenics and ran 4 miles slowly.  I weighed 165 when I went to bed.  Still losing 2 overnight is unusual.  I peed at 4 and 6am and pooped before weighing which probably explains it.  I prefer to be explaining why weight is unnaturally low rather than unnaturally high.

I guess I will run today since it will be sunny by lunchtime.  Need to stay in the sweet zone, below the hunger craving that make we want to break the eating pattern and below the injury threshhold on running.  I was awake at 4:20 today.  I should have gotten up and gotten stuff ready to bike to work.  That wouls have been cool.  I felt a bit leaden yesterday running after doing the moring thing. 

There ya go.  Drink a half a bottle of wine and lose 0.8 lb.  We were in Turkey Creek and went to a new restaurant, Cru Bistro and Wine Bar or something like that. Between us, we drank a bottle of chardonnay.   It was a pretty interesting tapas style menu.  There were lots of good choices. We had pork sandwich and  fish tacos, with ginger slaw and asparagus.   Tasty, fairly healthy, and it was not not too much food. Interesting thing, J noticed that I was just about the only guy in the place.  Lots of tables that looked like it was girls night out.   After a while, a lounge lizard guy came in and sat at the bar.  He turned his stool facing away from the bar and scanned the patrons.  He must not have seen anything he liked.  He was gone in 5 minutes. We commented that it had been a year since we had gone out to eat just the two of us.  We used to do that a lot in Atlanta.

I did 20 minutes of calisthenics this morning.  I will run at lunch today.  I will be taking it easy.  I am not sure how my knee is going to hold up.  I need to get my schedule adjusted so that I can leave work early enough to get to the pool some days.  Fewer days running per week would be good.  More days biking and swimming.  I can tell the days are getting longer.  I think it would be ok to ride the bike to work now.

The plastic cover on top of one of the Polar watch buttons came off while I was running today. The watch is only one year old and it was an present from my daughters.  Bummer.

The dreaded Monday rebound effect.  I always weigh a bit higher on Mondays.  But, this weekend I really tried to counter all the things that would make weight go up over the weekend.  I got in a good run on Saturday and a long, if leisurely, bike ride on Sunday.  I had one large festive meal but not a pigfest.  I held back to normal or even a little lighter than normal meals for every other meal.  I only drank wine with the meal on Saturday.  Still the scales took back my Friday drop.  I know that a lot of things besides the calorie deficit affect the weight change.  It's a mantra that I keep telling myself.  I don't count calories in or out.  I just follow a pattern of eating the same size meals and doing the same frequency and intensity of exercise that has always worked over the long haul to give a nice 400-500 cal per day deficit.  I have to believe in that and ignore the fluctuations associated with the weekend.  I guess I can't know and control everything that is causing weight fluctuation.  I am feeling the slight hunger sensation most of the time right now.  It seems about right and tolerable for the 1 lb/week that I have done in the past.

Weights and a short treadmill run at lunch at the fitness center.

Tale of the Scale this morning was up 0.2 which is ok. The goal this weekend is not to have a weekend retreat. It is pretty common for me to have a gain from Friday to Monday. It is mostly fictitious and due to the difference in routine. But the real part is less activity when we are traveling and more food and wine.  Yesterday, I tried to go as long as I could running and walking and hold the line on breakfast and lunch to counteract the dinner at Tierra.  I would say that it worked.  I did feel a sore knee when we were walking arough the High.  I will have to be careful about that.  Today, I will lift weights and ride the exercise bike and eat very lightly.  I am hoping to see the weight back at 163.8 on Monday morning.

I wore 32 waist pants last night.  They fit ok.  Most if my nice pants are 32 except for a few pairs of 34.  I have been wearing the 34s for about a month.  It is a constant reminder that I am over my target. 

Sad restaurant day in Atlanta. We are in Atlanta this weekend mainly to go to our favorite restaurant Tierra for one last time before they close.  Adding to that, I discovered this morning that the Bakeshop on Peachtree has closed.  I liked to walk there and get croissants for breakfast on Saturday.  It was like being in Paris but they spoke English.

Run and weights in the fitness room at the apartment this morning.  Should I log a leisurely stroll through the From Picasso to Warhol exhibit at the High?

Cleaned the apartment instead of going to the weight room.   Then I went on a nice long run for me.  I will need to ride the exercise bike tomorrow instead of running.

Fun sights at the park.  5 young adults trying to hula hoop.  3 girls getting their picture taken dancing.  They had plenty of booty to shake.  No Great Danes, 5 or 6 Yorkies.  An ultimate frisbee game that was being played with complete seriousness.

For those who are interested, the High Museum exhibit on surrealism is lots of fun.  Not much on depth and comparative development, that's not a big seller, but fun and great art.  There are lots of great Picasso's around but there were two really good Picasso's.  Matisse's The Dancers is there.  It is a huge work but not my favorite Matisse.  I love Calder, the mechanical engineer.  The improbability of torque balance. Leger, Brancusi, the Southerners, they were wannabe's.  I really like Mondrian.  He would have been a great wallpaper designer.  That is a compliment.

Tierra presented the same top notch food as when we first went maybe 12 years ago.  I had scallops seared just so.  We took top picks from each section of the menu and shared them.  It was like we were restaurant reviewers--cousins, daughter, wife and me. Rest in peace, great dining of Atlanta.  We have mourned the loss of Joel, Avra, Spice, Silk, Seegers, Cuerno, Waterhaven, Watershed as well as a dozen lesser lights.  We only have memories of great meals now.