I’ve been overweight most of my life. It’s a constant struggle for me to not gain weight. I went to the doctor earlier this year and I’m the heaviest I’ve ever been in my life. I joined a gym with a personal trainer this Spring to finally try and get myself in shape and so far it’s going much better than I anticipated. I’m getting in three pretty intense workouts per week, mostly staying away from alcohol, and I’m doing surprisingly well on following a nutrition plan.

I say surprisingly well because food has always been my downfall when trying to get in shape. I fucking love food. I plan whole days around it. I reward myself with food when I’ve had a good day. I also reward myself with food when I’ve had a bad day. But, something about the nutrition plan I’m following just works for me.

My trainer loosely refers to it as the Palm, Fist, Thumb method. For breakfast and lunch I eat a palm-sized protein, and a fist-sized portion of both carbohydrates and vegetables. For dinner I have a palm-sized protein, a fist full of veggies, and a thumb-sized portion of healthy fats. I have a list of a dozen or so foods in each category that allows me to assemble easy healthy meals. It’s It’s nothing revolutionary, but it follows a loose system of modular components that let’s me pick and choose how I design my meals. That appeals to my design and systems nerd sensibilities.

Looking back, it’s easy to see how I end up where I am health-wise. Things really got away from me during the pandemic. I developed a lot of bad habits, both physically and socially, and haven’t really been able to recover as of yet. But, today marks a moth since my first workout and Monday will be a month on the nutrition plan. As of my last weigh in I’ve lost a little over 10 pounds, but more importantly, I feel so much better physically and mentally.