Yesterday's Calories...

Breakfast: links 160, yogurt 100
Lunch: tuna 120, salad 20, cashews (9) 80
Afternoon: whiskey 100
Dinner: 1/2 challah roll 80, 1 oz wine 20, salad 25, ribeye steak (7 oz) 450, 1/2 cup peas 60, frozen French fries 150
Snack: 2 sqs dark chocolate 125, medium banana 110

Total: 1600

Exercise: 20 minute walk at a fairly slow pace, calories burned 70

No surprise that I didn't drop any weight between yesterday morning and this morning.    Shabbat dinner is always higher than other nights (unless we are in a restaurant, having company over, or at someone else's house) because there is challah and wine and also usually a "fancier" (read higher calorie) entree.  The rib steak's calories are often the entire calorie count or higher than my usual dinner at home.  So on Fridays, if I KNOW that dinner is higher than the rest of the week, I ought to compensate for that by cutting back elsewhere or exercising more.  Clearly I did not do that yesterday.  1600 is a great number of calories for a maintenance plan, but I'm not on maintenance yet.
 Truthfully, I have NEVER maintained any weight. No matter what my weight ever has been in my life, it was also either going up or going down.  There have been almost no times when I could say I weighed the same for years, or even for months.  Either I was eating as I pleased and gaining, or I was counting calories and losing.  Maintenance?  I have no idea how to do that.

 We are going to the synagogue this morning, and I will eat a slightly smaller breakfast.  I'm having one less sausage link and a different brand of yogurt, making breakfast equal 200 today.  Lunch will be at home so I should be ok with tuna and salad, skip the cashews.  Then we are having company late in the evening.  They are Shomer Shabbos, meaning they won't drive until after Shabbat ends, and they live about 45 minutes away.  Dinner is at 7:30 tonight. 

Dinner menu:
Appetizers: garlic hummus, 2 kinds of crackers, celery and carrot sticks, possibly whiskey
Dinner: salad, farro and vegetable chicken chili (we've had it twice before and it's fantastic), Brussels sprouts, possibly wine
Dessert: Stella D'oro cookies and pareve cream horns

Plenty of calories looming up ahead today.  Since we did not make it to the gym yesterday, we do plan to go work out after lunch today and walk at least 30 minutes.  That would use up about 175 calories.  When you read articles about losing weight, most say make a plan when you are going out or facing a challenge. The plan for tonight must include limiting the hummus and crackers, NOT eating a cream horn AT ALL even though they are delicious, eating only one or two cookies, and limiting the wine.  I don't need to cut anything out entirely except the cream horn in order to have a reasonable calorie count at the end of the day. I also will not eat the chocolate and banana tonight since dinner is so late.  No need for any late night snacks!  It's hard to estimate the calories for dinner tonight because I don't know how much of the appetizer and dessert I will eat. I'll let you know tomorrow, I guess.