This post is the twenty-fifth in a series and the fourth to chronicle diets. In early January I relocated to a hotel in Mascot and, following that, to my new home, this final leg forming the sixth movement since the end of October. As housewarming presents – thanks to Manju and Johnny – I got some food.
2 January
Morning weigh-in had me at 103kg. Later, went – in the rain and on foot – to Coles and bought (see receipt below) porterhouse steak, lamb chops, fillet steak, yoghurt, milk, Gouda cheese, low-carb bread, low-carb snacks, sandwich bags, and toilet paper.
3 January
Went to Mascot IGA and bought (see receipt below) sliced pastrami, sliced ham, sliced cheese, olives, taramosalata, mushrooms, and Greek yoghurt.
My calorie totals for the previous week were, as follows:
My activity chart looked like this:
I ate an average of 45g of carbs daily that week.
4 January
Morning weigh-in had me at 102.8kg. In December I lost five kilos, going from 108kg to 103kg, the weight-loss trend at the end of December and the beginning of January showing a sequence of baby steps and – with persistence – cumulative improvement:
Later, went to Coles in Broadway Shopping Centre and bought (see receipt below) milk, mayonnaise, and blueberries.
In the afternoon after seeing the GP went to the IGA in Botany and bought olive oil spread and soap. The GP told me that a weight of 83.5kg would be my healthy maximum. The GP also said I could leave off taking my new blood pressure medication, but that it’d be a good idea to have a new measurement done in three weeks’ time.
5 January
Morning weigh-in had me at 102.4kg. Later, went to the Fish Market and bought ling fillets, salmon fillets, and swordfish steaks.
6 January
Morning weigh-in had me at 101.9kg. Later, went to Coles in Broadway Shopping Centre and bought accessories for the bathrooms, including bins and toilet brushes. I also bought (see receipt below) milk, fillet steak, marinaded goat’s cheese, d’Affinois cheese, red Leicester cheese, Greek yoghurt, low-carb snacks, sliced pastrami, sliced ham, shortcut bacon, avocadoes, tomatoes, baby spinach, blueberries, apples, nectarines, almonds, and Brazil nuts.
After lunch I walked to the shops and went to Botany IGA and bought toilet paper, then in the afternoon went to Bunnings and bought toilet roll holders.
7 January
Morning weigh-in had me at 102.5kg. Later, went to Botany IGA and bought (see receipt below) eggs, sandwich bags, and hand soap.
11 January
Morning weigh-in had me at 101.3kg. Previous week’s calorie count was, as follows:
The activity chart for the same period of time:
The macronutrient totals for same:
I ate approximately 36.5g of carbs per day during that week.
In the afternoon I went to the Woolworths website and put in an order (see checkout screen grab below) for chicken wings – I promised myself to figure out how to use the stove – as well as fillet steak, pork chops, olives, Havarti cheese, Somerdale “Truffelino” cheddar cheese, pickled gherkins, roasted chillies, English mustard, canned tuna, Dijon mustard, horseradish, cos lettuce, and nectarines.
And two more toilet roll holders. Which cost $8 each, about $20 less than the comparative item at Bunnings, a store that advertises on TV with the tagline that goes something like, “If you find a stocked item at a competitor for less, we’ll beat their price by 10%,” giving the lie to the copy.
In the evening I returned to the website to add some low-carb snacks from The Bar Counter and Aussie Bodies, getting a new total (see below).
12 January
Morning weigh-in saw me at 101kg. I also saw the Woolworths email which’d been sent at around 9pm the night before to acknowledge the update I’d made to my order and reminding me of the delivery time. See below part of what it contained.
Updating an order is fairly easy – it took me a minute or so to find the “Update order” link to click – and the acknowledgement email had improved since a year earlier, when I last used the company’s website. In fact it was on 14 January 2020 – practically a year to the day – that I cancelled my Woolworths subscription due to the lobby of my old building undergoing renovation, a circumstance which made online orders problematic by temporarily erasing the location where a driver could deliver goods. Then rona intervened, making other problems.
At 8.19am I got an SMS from Woolworths notifying me about the delivery. Later, in Pyrmont for an appointment, I popped into Woolworths and bought Blu-Tack. In the afternoon I got another Woolies SMS then in the evening at 6.07pm I got an email reminding me about a special offer the company had which entitled customers to a $20 Discount on orders over $120.
“A bit late,” I thought to myself, “why didn’t they tell me before I put in a big order?” Or at the checkout. It’s hard, in such circumstances, not to feel ripped off. It’s also hard to synch the photo in the promo with the reality of my Woolworths deliveries. The guy shown above is Anglo and handsome. All of the deliverymen (I think) who have brought groceries to my door have been migrants. Some Islander, some Chinese.
The guy who brought me groceries on this day was from the subcontinent. At 7.52pm a third SMS arrived, this time notifying me that the delivery was about to take place, and about five minutes later the doorbell buzzed and I let the driver in. He brought the bags to the top of the stairs and dumped them in the entry, then left to go back to his truck.
13 January
Morning weigh-in had me at 100.7kg and later in the morning I thought about the Woolworths special offer – come the day before by email, as well as (I remembered) a day earlier – deciding that the sting was intentional as, if I indulged the negative feeling – which is always a temptation –, it’d draw me towards considering Woolies’ website for all my grocery needs. If you miss out on a benefit once, you’ll be less likely to miss out on it a second time. One dose of pain can serve to increase the company’s revenue. One dose of pain helps the company realise its goals.
One more thing the company hoped would help it reach its goals is the corporate magazine they included with my order. Titled ‘Fresh Ideas’, the magazine contains recipes, none of which was suitable for someone one a diet and none of which came with nutritional information – something that is essential to know for anyone dieting. To be frank a bit of a let down: five points for trying but the measure lacked forethought in the execution (wonder if it has Boomers on staff).
15 January
On the way home from Wollongong stopped at a servo in Brighton-le-Sands and bought milk and water — the latter to store in the car for use while driving.
16 January
Morning weigh-in had me still at 100.7kg. Later went to Bunnings for hardware and picked up a pack of face masks. In the afternoon I went to the Woolworths website and put in an order for fillet steak, barramundi fillets, salmon fillets, Nile perch fillets, ling fillets, lamb chops, apples, pears, cos lettuce, blueberries, harissa, Moroccan spice, and Greek yoghurt.
A cos lettuce added later, once I changed the order and checked out again, put $3.50 on top of the above total. I felt virtuous – clever, even – as my sneaky Saturday order (delivery due in the morning the next day) had seen me using the promotional offer code the company’d sent 10 days earlier. In actual fact I’d honestly needed to buy protein, as well as fruit and veges, so nothing lay outside requirements.
17 January
Morning weigh-in had me at 100.5kg. Later an SMS arrived from Woolworths notifying me that the delivery’d happen between 10.39am and 11.39am. I was walking downstairs at around 11.55am when I heard a truck in the street, so opened the front door. The driver waved at me and a bit later I heard his voice – he was talking on his phone as he brought the bags across the road – so that he put them down on my stoop while engaged in discussion with someone else. It felt casual and appropriate to have my groceries brought to me this way – just as, in a corner shop people chat companionably with one another as they transact their business.
I brought the bags inside and bagged the protein, putting it away in the freezer.
The calorie count for the past week was:
The activity chart was:
Activity was lower this week, compared to other weeks, partly due to the fact that often, when at home, I left my phone connected to my computer while I did things in the house. Because, due to the NBN being not yet connected, I still used a mobile hotspot to surf the web on my PC.
The week’s macronutrient chart showed:
This week I ate an average of 40.3g of carbs a day.
18 January
Morning weigh-in had me at 100.4kg. Later, driving to Pyrmont to pick up shampoo from the pharmacy, I parked my car at Woolworths. On the way back to the car bought mouthwash, taramosalata, and tartare sauce. Then drove to Broadway Shopping Centre post office to pick up packages, and at Coles bought low-carb bread.
20 January
Morning weight in had me still sitting at 100.4kg. Later, went to the Fish Market and bought tuna steaks and trevalla fillets.
23 January
Morning weigh-in had me at 99.5kg. Later, went to the local IGA but forgot masks so stopped at Chemist Warehouse and bought some. At the supermarket bought (see receipt below) eggs, milk, tomatoes, mushrooms, lettuce, haloumi, gouda cheese, hummus, and bacon.
25 January
Morning weigh-in had me at 99.1kg. Here's the calorie count for the past week:
I ate an average of 43.4g of carbs per day that week.
Later, went to Broadway Shopping Centre and bought at Kmart a toilet brush. Then went down to Coles and bought (see receipt below) low-carb bread, low-carb snacks, blueberries, strawberries, and red Leicester cheese.
28 January
Morning weigh-in had me at 99kg. Later, went to Broadway Shopping Centre and popped into Harris Farm Markets where I bought (see receipt below) a lettuce and an avocado. They charged me for a bunch of parsley – the sales clerk must’ve been having a bad day!
31 January
Morning weigh-in had me at 98.3kg. Later, in the afternoon, I went to the local IGA and bought (see receipt below) milk, an oakleaf lettuce, apricots, an apple, a pear, and strawberries.
Here’s the calorie count for the week past:
And the activity chart:
Lastly, here’s the macronutrient chart:
I ate an average of 44.1g of carbs per day this week.
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