Twenty pounds down. Fourteen weeks in. And this week I ate tri-tip, steak fajitas, lamb chops, salmon with Brussels sprouts and bacon, red simmered chicken wings, cashew chicken, a Denver omelet with three eggs, cookies, and three-layer gelatin for the 4th of July.
So what’s the catch?
Here’s the distinction that’s made all the difference: I am eating what I like. I am not eating what I want. Those sound the same but they’re not. What I want is unlimited portions of everything on that list plus seconds and a snack after. What I like is a perfectly portioned plate of steak fajitas with guacamole, wheat tortillas, all the peppers and onions — and then I stop. I liked every bite. I wanted more. I stopped anyway.
That’s the whole system in one paragraph.
A few highlights from the week worth calling out. The salmon — dill, lemon juice, garlic powder — comes out beautifully every time. The French-cut lamb chops cooked Chinese-style with cumin and onion were genuinely wonderful, even at just three chops. The cashew chicken was a standout. And the tri-tip alongside the three-layer gelatin for the 4th of July — that’s a tradition in our house and I wasn’t about to modify that one. Some things are sacred, even on a diet. You compensate elsewhere in the day.
Also wanted to share something I figured out this week for anyone who’s been following since the Greek yogurt chicken salad disaster back in Week 11: the fix isn’t to swap mayo entirely. It’s to cut it with Greek yogurt — half and half. You still get the mayo flavor, the richness, the thing that makes a chicken salad taste right. You just use less of it. This is what AI suggested when I went back and asked, and it works. Don’t eliminate. Combine.
One honest note on Happy Healthy Wife’s progress — the food has been the same, but the snacking between meals has been harder to control. A few snacks here and there adds up faster than you’d think and it’s showing in her numbers versus mine. Not a criticism — just a real data point about how the same meal plan can hit differently depending on what happens between meals.
As for where we are in the big picture: 20 pounds down, 80 to go to hit my goal weight of 165. That’s roughly 80 more weeks, which puts me about 20% of the way there. One fifth done. Every pound from here is another percent. I’ll see you at the finish line.
