Friday night dinner. Nothing fancy; I am definitely not proclaiming that I made something awesome. However, I did just get my toaster oven, and this is my first non-toast-oriented dish.

It’s just chicken breast + mushroom soup + mushrooms.

In all, it is about 680 calories, and for dinner, I had about half of it with a simple side salad and some mixed veggies. In all, about a 425-calorie dinner followed up by a bowl of Fiber One cereal and some Lactaid milk.

BTW, do I sound like an old man or what?

Oooh, side note: In my current obsession with all-things Jillian Michaels, I saw in a chat she did with the Washington Post that she advises against men consuming soy, presumably soy milk and soy protein powder. I had to check my milk; I drink Lactaid. Also, my protein powder is whey. I think I’m good.

I also calculated my BMR tonight, and it came out to 1997.53 for my starting weight of 211. BTW, 211 isn’t my highest weight. I’d say I have probably inched close to 220 at some point over the past 10 years. However, my recent low was about 198.

The problems there were numerous. I suspect I was working from an “energy deficit” as Jillian might have said. See, you take that 1997.53 BMR and multiply it by 1.375 (for a guy who exercises 1 to 3 times a week, which historically I have) to get my daily caloric intake.

That number is over 2740 calories a day. Working at a deficit of 500-cals a day, I can do up to 2240 theoretically. Last year when I dropped 11 pounds or so, I was eating 1500 to 1700 cals a day. Probably a bit too much of a calorie deficit. See, I dropped the pounds but didn’t have the energy day-to-day to workout.

Tangent city. I feel like I ate a ton today and only took in 2,005 calories.

The downside to this is sodium. Canned soups are terribly high in sodium, which gets stored in the body making one look all puffy. Going to start looking for the reduced sodium labels to see just how much lower they are.