It’s Week 7 in my journey to better health. Following up an exciting mini-vacation, things return to normal for me and my diet. What did that mean for my weight loss?

The Successes

For blog purposes, it was a short week (my last weigh-in was Monday and I’m writing this on Saturday). I had a couple opportunities for walks, including one evening walk with Julie and a few quick lunch break walks at work.

At my office, there is actually a walking loop marked in the parking lot and along the access roads.

It’s not a trail, just a series of signs that mark each .1 mile around the building. Most of the walk is through the parking lots, but for an office park in King of Prussia, the scenery isn’t bad.

The delivery road that goes behind the building follows a (usually) dry creek bed. It’s one of a few green spots in KOP that hasn’t been touched by development.

My usual walk takes me along the entire .8 mile loop. Some days I have to do a quicker loop and cut it down to 10 minutes. Other days, I can take my time and make a few laps. My lunch break record is two miles.

In addition to the walks, I spent my Tuesday evening mowing the grass. According to my Lose It app, my 1:15 spent mowing burned more than 400 calories.

As much as I hate mowing, I love being able to eat a little bit more on mowing days.

The Challenges

My biggest challenge came Thursday night while attending the Philadelphia Business Journal’s 40 Under 40 awards at the Sugar House Casino (congratulations again to my boss, Ed Harris, for making this year’s list!).

The food at events like this are hit or miss. This was a miss.

For entrees, selection was limited to vegetable pasta, seafood pasta, a carving station and some cheese and crackers.

I hate seafood and I am not a fan of rare meat from carving stations so I settled on the vegetable pasta. My coworker Taylor rated it a 0 out of 5. I’ll be generous and give it a 1 out of 5, only because it stayed down.

So what happens when dinner is no good? You load up on dessert.

The dessert bar was much more appetizing than hot food. The chocolate mousse cake looked exceptional and I couldn’t pass on the miniature crème brûlée.

Dessert had essentially become dinner. While both looked better than they actually tasted (the cake was dry, the crème brûlée was runny), they still tasted better than dinner, but with way more calories.

The Results

Current Weight: 178.0
Weekly Weight Loss: -1.1
Total Weight Loss:  -11.4

Another week, another pound. My weight loss was right in line where it should be based on my net calories on the Lose It app.

The Week Ahead

It should be a fairly routine week ahead. The only major hiccup could come on Monday. That’s when the Valley Forge Tourism & Convention Board (my day job) hosts its annual Montco Golf Classic.

I won’t be playing in the event. Instead, I will be greeting groups on the course, stationed at one of the tees all day. Unfortunately, that tee will also have food samples from Maggiano’s Little Italy. Last year it was meatballs and chocolate truffles. Four hours on a golf course with Maggiano’s an arm’s length away? It’s going to take a lot of will power to get me through the day.