It’s Week 26 of my journey to better health, and this week was a reminder that it really is a journey.

The Successes

It was a good week for walking. Though certainly warmer than late September should be, it was a dry week and I had plenty of time to get out on my lunch breaks.

I made it out on Monday, Tuesday and Friday for a total of nearly four miles of walking.

The weekend was spent cleaning and building furniture in Baby B.’s room. I finished emptying the room of my collectibles and assorted junk before assembling a new dresser.

It’s hard to quantify the calories that I burned during this time. My Lose It! app has “house cleaning” listed under exercise and values it as 176 calories burned per hour. Using that as the basis, I estimated about 900 calories burned over the course of two days.

Not bad for a weekend of work.

The Challenges

For the most part, it was an easy week, but I did dine out more often than usual.

On Thursday, my coworker Joe and I went to lunch together at Aroma Mediterranean Cafe in King of Prussia.

It has quickly become one of my favorite lunch spots. On this visit, I tried the kebbah kebob, a mix of ground meat (yes, the description is ground meat), cracked wheat and seasonings.

The patties looked like hamburger sliders, but I would say it more closely resembled meatloaf in texture. As for flavor, it was deliciously seasoned, though I couldn’t put my finger on one particular spice.

It was served with a salsa-like dipping sauce on the side that had a kind of sweet and sour profile to it, too strong on its own, but one that worked really well when mixed with the kebbah and the rice.

Every lunch entree at Aroma is served with your choice of hummus or baba ghanouj. I chose the latter, and the beautiful plate came served with four ultra-thin pitas. I may or may not have eaten the whole thing. OK, I ate it. All of it.

Saturday night was another meal that didn’t quite work with my diet. On our way to Bethlehem for a WWE NXT show at the Sands, my buddy Dennis and I stopped at the White Palm Tavern for dinner.

I haven’t been back to the Palm since my review there more than two years ago. Enjoying the unseasonably warm weather, we sat out on the patio for our meal.

I ordered a pepito sandwich. It was described as an authentic Costa Rican dish with peppered pork (I chose this over chicken and beef), sautéed onions, Provolone cheese, Lizano sauce and black bean dressing on a ciabatta roll.

I describe it as one of the best sandwiches in Berks County. The peppered pork was perfect – tender and very juicy – and I’d eat sautéed onions on anything. But what really made the sandwich was the black bean dressing. It gave the dish a distinctly Caribbean flavor, taking it from a pork sandwich to something more.

The side of fries were also very good, but not very good for my diet.

The Results

Current Weight: 161.2
Weekly Weight Loss: +0.4
Total Weight Loss: -28.2

This is the first time since the weight loss plan started that I have gained weight. I’m not discouraged, though. And I’m not going to drop my calorie intake to starve myself just to hit a number. I had two very good weeks in a row.

This week wasn’t a road block, just a very small speed bump on my approach to my goal weight of 160 pounds.

The Week Ahead

It should be an uneventful week. Normally, I would be heading to Dover for this weekend’s NASCAR action, but I’m taking a race off to be home with Julie. Hopefully she and Baby B will let me return to the track in May for the next race.