It's only about five hours since the first weigh-in kicking off the Lighten Up in 2013 contest.  The first part of my first blog entry needs to be a big "Thank You" to all who make it happen, especially Laura Kessel of the News-Herald, and the sponsors including Jamie Brenkus of LEAN Living, Mike Good from Cabanas, plus all the rest.

After leaving the weigh-in (212.6 lbs OUCH), I stopped in at Giant Eagle to stock up my kitchen with REAL food.  I purchased a lot of fruits and veggies, some dairy (milk, cottage cheese, yogurt), black beans, and some eggs.

After dropping off the food at home, I went to the mall to check out running shoes as a treat to myself for joining this program.  On the way, I passed Second Sole, and thought I will patronize them instead, just for being a sponsor.  However, since Mentor Avenue was a traffic mess and Second Sole was still finishing up construction, I will save this for another day.

I still went to the mall and decided to do a brisk walk of about 45 minutes.  I walked pretty fast as I always do, probably at a 4 mph pace, so I did about 3 miles.  This made me break into a sweat.

After my walk, I stopped at Heinen's for some items that I forgot from Giant Eagle: Norwegian salmon (a whole 3 lb piece!) some Honey Crisp apples (my favorite, but only in season a short time), string cheese, and whole wheat wraps.

Now that I'm home, it's time to cook for the week.  Boil up some hard-boiled eggs, grill the salmon and some skinless boneless chicken breasts I had in the freezer.  Since it will be cold tomorrow, I want to get this out of the way, so I have good protein to last me all week for lunches and dinners.  Plus I love my grill.

My strategy is to overcome my worst eating problem first: skipping meals, then eating most of my daily food intake late in the evening.  My weapon: have plenty of low calorie food items, each of about 100 calories and graze all day between a rigid three-meals-a-day schedule.