Truth be told, I’ll likely have 3-4 more days off at least this summer before football season kicks off. The reason that football season is relevant is because I work in the media, and we cover a bit o’ sports.

Last week was about resting and rejuvenating, of course. However, I had a big to-do list. Here’s what I got done:

1. Bought a new TV. I was without one. In my line of work, I need a TV.

2. Bought a toaster oven. Reason why forthcoming.

3. Organized the house. (Thanks, Jen)

4. Got my home theater re-established. (Thanks, Frankenstein.)

5. Caught up on all Web correspondence.

6. Decluttered big time.

7. Watched some baseball.

8. Re-established a pretty serious workout routine.

9. Put together a list of food staples from which to establish my diet for the next three months. Notice I didn’t say A diet. I said MY diet. I read, researched, browsed, etc., and came up with a list of food staples that covers the foundation of macro-nutrients, which I *think* are comprised of carbs, fats and proteins.

Anyway, I’ll show off that list later. It’s a good list. Some of these foods required baking, ergo, the toaster oven.

10. Re-established ryanwelton.com. If you’re a member of the Tumblr community or are from Oklahoma, please follow!

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.

Surprisingly good: Brown rice, canned peas, tuna, tbsp. of Miracle Whip.

Now, the problem: It was 735 calories, of which I ate probably 80 percent. However, if I can not “eat the whole thing,” which is always a goal — as in “Ryan, don’t eat the entire bucket of chicken” or “Ryan, they make ice cream in containers smaller than a gallon” — then we have something here.

The takeaway is thus: Only brown rice and whole wheat pasta for awhile. This will require creativity.

Like an dingbat, I hadn’t charged my Cybershot’s Lithium battery in awhile, so no snapshot of the bachelor-food masterpiece. Tried doing it with the Blackberry, but those things just aren’t made for anything but e-mail and light browsing.

Found a cool spreadsheet somebody put together with interval and incline treadmill workouts. You can download the XLS file and take them to the gym.

That’s what I plan to do tomorrow. Thinking I’ll try one of the interval workouts.

For the spreadsheets, go here: http://bit.ly/dhCTOm

Looking for treadmill workouts online for optimal fat burning, but also want to make sure they won’t draw too many strange looks. This might be effective, but I don’t see it being kosher at the Cleveland County Y.

Trying something a bit different today.

Over the past several months, when I have been disciplined enough to work out, I have often not met the standard for consistent cardio. For example, I play basketball. That’s good, and it’s a lot of stop and start, which is again good — but I think I need a base of regular cardio.

I’m not sure that it has to be a lengthy daily routine. Just needs to be challenging.

So, I’m doing this 20-minute workout I found on the website for Fitness magazine. Lots of variation in speed and incline. Read about it here: http://bit.ly/7D8k

I’ll let you know how awesome or underwhelming the workout was after I’m done. Off to the gym.