Sweet mercy but don't that look tempting...

That, my friends, is the double bypass burger from the Vortex in Atlanta. It is, from top to bottom:

grilled cheese sandwich
bacon
three fried eggs with 4 slices of cheese
8 oz. burger
grilled cheese sandwich

and it comes with a side of tots.

Probably 3 days worth of calories there...

Supper...

So, for supper tonight, trying to avoid going out to eat and not wanting to eat scrambled eggs again, i tried to decide what, exactly, I would eat. I finally rested upon the idea of a fried egg sandwich. Is that on my diet? Well, the egg certainly is, as is the whole wheat bread I got from Trader Joe's. What to include as a spread to try to make it a little less dry... hmmmmmm

Duke's light mayonnaise? yeah, that works, but seems unoriginal
Hummus? that works, but do I really want that?
Almond butter from Trader Joe's? that is okay and seems kind of interesting...

so I settled on the almond butter... and I must say it was one of the better fried egg sandwiches I have made for myself consisting of toasted whole wheat bread, almond butter and one fried egg (fried in a frying pan coated with a light spray of Smart Balance so it doesn't stick). It's no peanut butter and banana sandwich fried in butter, but hey, I'm not 1970s Elvis, either.



By the way, having had the grilled peanut butter and banana sandwich, I must say it is enjoyable, at least for the time it passes the taste buds.

I used to think bacon made every food better...

today I learned that was not the case... I give you the bacon chocolate cake...



from http://thisiswhyyourefat.com

this, however, while not looking great... does show promise (if you've ever eaten at Groucho's Deli, or at Andy's Deli who worked at Groucho's long enough to steal his recipes and start his own place, in Columbia (or wherever they are branching out now), you know that a mixture of thousand island dressing can be wonderful in odd places) i give you, from the same website, the In-N-Out Animal Style French Fries (not sure if they only used the name of the cult burger joint from California that gained national fame in the Cohen brothers' master film The Big Lebowski or if this fare is available there)...

this is an order of fries, american cheese (why use real cheese?), grilled onions and thousand island dressing

oh yeah, speaking of unhealthy food... i am at 239 pounds now (total weight loss of 43 pounds for the year) and even more exciting for me... i have returned to my Couch to 5K Running Plan and been doing it for 3 runs now and not experiencing shin splints. i imagine the lower weight coming down on my legs is really helping with this improvement.

Rainy days and Mondays always get me down?

Maybe sometimes is a better word here... I actually like rain, I have a nice raincoat from LL Bean (the Weather Channel line - fancy). And I have grown to love Mondays as that is the day I take off work under our current "reduced" work week. I say reduced but I am still putting in about 40 hours a week, just getting paid for only 32, but I do start later and work from home or other creative places like the park or the Whitewater Center.

Anyway, today is a Monday but I am working because we have a tight deadline for a job and I want to take Friday off to get a 4-5 day weekend (not sure how they are going to handle the "day off" with he Memorial Day holiday next week). However, it is raining and while I wouldn't mind working in the rain (see the above mention of the raincoat), one thing you cannot do is cut sections of roofing off in the rain nor can you repair them adequately. So... here I sit in the hotel lobby watching rain fall outside while it teases me by slowing down and even stopping for a bit only to start back up in a few minutes. Any work I could be doing is sitting back at my office and so I decided to update my blog, which hasn't been done in a while.

I have lost more weight... down a full 40 pounds as of last Saturday and was down another pound this morning, but that was on a different scale at my parents' house so I am not sure how accurate that is. Regardless, my pants feel even looser and I feel that, if nothing else, I have not gained weight, we will see when I can get back home.

Quick update

on the weight loss... dropped another 3 pounds to bring the total to 38 for the year. 14 more to go to reach my goal for 2009.

Also, I highly recommend the sunflower seed butter from Trader Joe's. It is magical.