I was a little bummed the day I found out, envisioning a future where everybody around me was enjoying hamburgers and fries while I nibbled on a garden salad with no dressing, but then I got realistic and thought about my major daily sources of animal fats and came up with a plan to get those numbers moving in the right direction.  At breakfast, the big things are half-and-half in my coffee, milk on cereal, and pastries at Fourbux.  I tried quitting coffee completely, but as in the past, decaf riceowlguy=zombie riceowlguy.  So, the compromise is a) half as much coffee as I'm normally accustomed to, and b) whole milk instead of H&H.  I compared the numbers at the store last night and even if it takes twice as much milk as H&H to get the coffee to my preferred level of lightness, I'm still way ahead as far as saturated fat and cholesterol go.

(Only some of my readers will get this, but I just had a Butter Battle flashback.  Hard to believe that was almost ten years ago.)

Anyway, if I walk around home in the morning, I can have a nice bowl of adult cereal with skim milk rather than a scone at Starbucks, which is what I usually have after going to the gym.  I can limit that to once a week.  I would like to come up with some kind of breakfast solution that works with going to the gym since I can get a more intense aerobic workout on the elliptical than I can by just walking (jogging is still not on the menu for me, except in short bursts like this morning when I wanted to get across some railroad tracks before a train came).

At lunchtime, I can definitely mix in more salads, and for sandwiches (which are also pretty common dinner fare), the main things would be to keep the cheese slices down to a normal level, and be more careful about mayo use.  These are all things I know about when trying to watch calories in general, but this gives extra motivation.

Dinnerwise there's not much to do other than pay more attention to fat than I'm used to doing.  I always knew that quesadillas were worse for me than a chicken breast and steamed veggies, I just have to decide to do it.  I'm not going to say no to a steak a couple times a month; again, I don't think I have to.  More grilled fish would be a good idea.

The big thing will be to cut out dessert in general and ice cream in particular, and if I can't completely eliminate it, stick to the lowfat variety.  Again, this is something I've known about for years, but not wanted to give up.  Oh well.  If I'm really that hungry before I go to bed, I can have another bowl of cereal, or maybe some bloody FRUIT like a normal person might.

On the exercise side, I want to get back to being very diligent about doing something moderately intense or long duration every day possible.  I should not let "I'm playing tennis tonight" be an excuse for not walking in the morning, since tennis is not really a substitute for sustained aerobic activity - not the way I play it, anyway.

We will see what this plan does for the numbers in three months.  This is a totally livable plan that doesn't involve starvation or denying myself things that I like (well, some things, yes - the fried egg and cheese sandwiches, the quesadillas, the pasta in butter, cheese and cream sauce, and of course the Ben and Jerry's).  I am nervous because historically I have a bad track record of sticking to plans like this, and I really hate myself for not being able to be normal about food.  But I feel good for at least getting back up on the horse again.  We'll see how far I can ride it this time.  I suppose I should take a lesson from other kinds of substance abuse recovery and not worry about the future.  Alcoholics say "I'm not drunk today, that's what I'm focusing on".  I should just focus on the next meal (which happens to be leftover beer can chicken breast on a sourdough roll with lettuce, cheese, and very small amount of mayo - Bob Abooey, eat your heart out).