To make this sandwich more cubano-like, I would have to swap out the Muenster cheese for Swiss, add some roasted pork loin, and toast the sandwich in a skillet (instead of the toaster).  That sounds good!  I’ll look into that.  Roasting meat is undesirable in the summer, so this version will have to do for now.  But I have some very good recipes for roasting pork loin.  There’s one I have been looking forward to making again – it’s an Italian recipe where you cook the loin in milk.  Fantastic!  But I don’t think that would work well in a Cubano.  

Yesterday I was tired and sleep deprived.  I worried I was in danger since I wouldn’t have concentration for my weight control.  Last night, though, was good for sleep.  I plan to keep that up today.  And I revived another successful practice – letting myself eat a little more on my swimming day.  My routine burns about 600 calories, and I allow myself to eat an extra 500, but I actually had about 200 extra today.  It feels like a reward, and I respond well to rewards.  That and the extra sleep helps me get back into balance.  

Balance is a state where maintaining my weight control lifestyle takes very little effort.  When in balance, I’m not letting myself get too hungry, I am eating the right amounts of food at the right times; I have foods that I want on-hand and prepared.  My mental state is good, I have plenty of sleep, and I have enough time to devote to my hobby (weight control).  I want to be in balance and stay there.  It is a lot of trouble to get careless, lose control, and have to struggle back.  Plus, it interferes with my weight loss progress.  It took me eight weeks to go from 265 pounds to 254.  I was hoping to do that in four or five weeks.  

Balance is tricky to maintain.  Sometimes you just aren’t going to make it home in time to eat.  Then I get too hungry, and my body doesn’t respond well to getting too hungry – it wants to EAT and I could easily lose control.  To guard against that, I keep snacks with me (jerky) but I often don’t think of it until too late.  There is no balance when you have gotten sleep deprived.  Sometimes that just happens and one day isn’t so bad.  But I will sometimes let myself stay up late for days in a row, and it gets chronic and saps my reserves.  I have also gotten into a bad place where the food I have in the house isn’t desireable to me – if I have gotten lazy and not prepared or cooked anything.  

Balance takes work!  But it is a good place to be, if you can maintain it.  It’s less work to maintain balance than it is to climb out of diet failure.  Strive for your own balance.  How do you define it?

-The Doctor