Lunch......The Fitbit Zip Way.

Wanda normally....normally? There's truly nothing normal about our household. Wanda usually works Monday through Thursday. Last week was one of those let's work an extra day weeks so she went in last Friday. Having recently returned from vacation the kitchen and pantry were almost as bare as Old Mother Hubbard's. 

We are the type of people that need a plan. It's not enough to say we'll go to the store, we need structure, as in, we'll go to Safeway early Friday morning and Costco after the Farmer's Market Saturday. On one hand you could say we're not spontaneous, on the other we're structured and disciplined.

The truth is I think we're both a little lackadaisical when it comes to things that need doing repeatedly, like buying food. Now I understand why delivery service is becoming big business, especially for people my age.

It's so much easier to go to a web site and study your potential selections. I can imagine spending hours checking prices and ingredients; it gives a whole new meaning to productive time.

Truth be told, At one time I did the majority of the Safeway shopping and almost always went to Costco with Wanda; then I fell into a funk. Other than spending time on a cruise ship I had trouble going out into the world. So I chose to stay at home watching repeats of House Hunters International while she went out alone. Eventually after seeing her struggle with cat litter containers large enough to house small children and multi-year stocks of soap I became overcome with my inherent guilt and got off my ass to help.

So for about the last year or so, like the faithful family dog, I go sit in the car and gaze out the window as we go out food and supply shopping.

I go for muscle, list reading support and bagging. 

As a kid one of my many part time jobs was bag-boy, the p.c. term now is bag-person or even better, clerk. I hate other's hands on my stuff, it's touched enough and I am perfectly capable of placing cans on eggs or bread, thank you. 

I push the cart through most of the store and follow Wanda always watching but maintaining an aloof status. I see but don't really register what she puts in the cart. Then like our hunter gatherer ancestors once we arrive at the produce section we split up and forage for our individual selections. Wanda enjoys persimmons while I prefer a nice ripe pear. Following this short burst of independence collectively we review the lists and the cart and make our way to the check out stand. I help unload then assume my position and get ready to bag. I never look at individual prices. I do however, notice the end result. When I was a bag-person, a $100 total was a reason to call for back-up. It would take two of us to wheel three carts out of the store to the car.

Today anything under $100 is only one trip from the car into the house.

Last Friday I went to Safeway alone and woefully under prepared.

I had no idea hummus was $4 a container or a gallon of milk more expensive than gas. Everything I picked up was several dollars, except the can of diced tomato. I thought a box of thin spaghetti was eighty-nine-cents, not $1.98. You can imagine my sticker shock when I looked at free range skinless boneless chicken. I decided to make a mess of (that's a southern unit of measurement verified and used by a Garry) BBQ sauce covered crock pot cooked thighs. Probably because I'm a man I prefer breasts but over the years for most dishes I agree with Wanda, cooked properly, thighs are substantially better.

I can't remember the last time I prepared a crock pot meal, or for that matter, prepared or ate chicken at home. Buying and eating free range cage free chicken eggs is one thing but the bird itself is not in our budget. After what seemed like an hour I made my selection. Knowing I couldn't afford free range I bought chickens that lived in a nice neighborhood. Since I knew they would eventually reside in individual dinner portions in the freezer I selected the Value Pack six pound package.

I was traumatized by my trip to the store.

What should have been thirty minutes took me almost two hours. I spent fifteen minutes roaming the baking, canned fruit and vegetable aisle searching for special smashed pumpkin. Not for pumpkin pie but for these incredibly delicious iced pumpkin cookies Wanda bakes around this time of year. I found seven varieties of yams and five different brands of mandarin oranges but couldn't locate the needed pumpkin. I asked the baker, the butcher and the kid sweeping the water additive section but no help came. Actually it's probably a blessing in disguise. If Wanda bakes the cookies, I will eat the cookies and I can't do that anymore.

If recently becoming aware of food prices wasn't enough now I'm obsessing over calories, sugar, fat content and portion control. I was always very slim. I was a cigarette smoker, quit in 1993 and for the next fifteen years I ate, a lot. I gained a considerable amount of weight.....see now, here is a perfect example of the guilt oozing its way to the surface of my being like a slimy icky oil spill...I'm concerned one of you readers is a smoker considering your health who will read this and decided not to stop because of my weakness and reported weight gain. Oh well, you're on your own...At my heaviest I weighed 193 pounds. 

This morning I weigh 148.7.

I lost two pounds on the cruise, I won't do that again. A cruise is not a weight loss destination. It should be, at least to me, a break even venture. Hey, I walked seven miles the day we were in San Diego, surley that entitles me to a cronut. Never again will I deprive myself of a special culinary treat because I have a constant weight and exercise reminder clipped on my clothing.

Wanda purchased two Fitbits prior to the cruise.

The night we ate in the dinning room on the ship we sat at an eight top (this is cruise speak for table for eight). Five of us were wearing a type of fit bit item. I spent several minutes describing mine to the person next to me. His lip began to quiver, his eyes glazed and he frantically looked toward his wife with a help please look when I realized he was half my age and needed no lessons in blue tooth technology and he worked for Verizon to boot.

Today everyone is wired.

On a cruise in 2006 I wore a simple pedometer and a fellow passenger told me it looked like a Star Trek device.

I joined the community of on-line exercise and weight loss junkies. I eat sardines, I've always liked sardines. I'm a senior citizen and I can finally eat sardines with impunity. Yesterday I discovered the sardines I eat have two and a half servings in each container. There are four small pieces of fish in the tin and I'm supposed to share with two others? And just who gets the half portion?

I can see three survivors stuck in a raft out on the Pacific Ocean....OK, we have a tin of sardines here, rock, paper, scissors for the full portions?

Who eats less than a tin of sardines at one sitting, an anorexic?

I'm wearing this confounded device and it was fairly expensive so I decided that in addition to the obvious, which is driving me to action through guilt, I will take advantage of all the on line benefits. I can challenge my friends to step up their activities. I can join group food discussions and best of all; I can log my daily intake of food which will give me an overall picture of my exercise requirements for weight loss.

So I went on to my Fitbit dashboard and typed yogurt.

There are forty different choices to sift though under yogurt, even more listed for eggs. Trying to determine the caloric content of the chicken took me longer than the reading of Of Mice and Men when I was seven. After swearing up a blue streak while trying to determine if I ate a healthy lunch it dawned on me, just look at the freaking container. What do you know; Dannon yogurt is 80 calories, one egg 70. It took me a little searching to locate the egg ingredients inside the top cover but that was a little exercise itself. Oh, and after some discussion Wanda and I determined cooking an egg in scalding water does not add calories.

Now I'm invested and involved but torn over putting all my food into a daily on-line log. I know I'll become obsessed and in front of the computer for hours each day which defeats the purpose of the entire endeavor.

I simply need to strike a balance between what I like, what is healthy and what I can afford.

PS: Today is National Potato and American Beer Day.