Yes, I watching calories

I never thought I'd have a need to diet, actually, I'm not going to use that word because that is not what I'm doing.  I'm watching what I eat or counting calories.

Up until I was about 35, I could eat what and when I wanted without having to worry about weight gain. Years ago when Shane was visiting Utah, he told me that turning 35 was bad, but turning 40 was even worse. I thought he was just trying to scare me, but as it turns out, he was pretty close with his predictions (as least with what happens to the Berger men's body at those ages).

My clothes haven't been fitting quite like they used to and I could tell that things had gotten a little out of control (not that three Dr Peppers a day is out of control).  It was finally time to watch what I eat.

Deni and I officially started counting calories on Monday December 28th. We measured ourselves and even did skinfold tests but we couldn't do the weigh in, as our bathroom scale had died a few weeks ago.   However we did buy a new scale on December 29th and did do our weigh ins the morning of December 30th.

I set out to eat 1640 calories a day and exercise daily.  I quickly realized that I was probably eating (and/or drinking) close to twice that amount of calories a day. At the time I didn't feel like I would over eat, and 3 Dr Peppers isn't that much (is it?), but it all adds up quickly, as I would soon find out.
Deni warned me that I'd be hungry when I started counting calories and I have been hungry most days, however she's been amazing at making great low calorie meals and making sure that we had the right things to eat.

Two of my favorite new Low Calorie Breakfast choices:

Eggs w/Ham and Onions - 203 calories
2 egg whites + 1 egg
1/4 cup chopped green onions
1/4 cup of ham

or

Blueberry Oatmeal w/Vanilla Yogurt - 245 calories
2/3 cup blueberries
1/3 cup of quick oats
1 Yoplait Light Vanilla
(all mixed up)

Both are pretty quick and very tasty.

Ice fishing at Scofield

Last year I didn't get out ice fishing. Mainly because we had a warm winter and I'm not sure the ice was ever safe enough to be out on. 

Syd had been wanting to go ice fishing, so what did she do?  She did what any other teenager would do - she texted her Grandpa and asked "Are we going ice fishing tomorrow?"  It turns out we couldn't go "tomorrow", as we had plans but we planned it for a few days later. Who can say NO to a face like this? 

We went and fished on the East side of Scofield. There was between 8 and 10 inches of ice and the water was probably about 10 feet deep. It was very cold (high of 12F) but we were quite warm while we fished. We set up the ice tent, but didn't use it to fish with. Sydney and her cousin, Kennedy did go into the ten to warm up a few times, but other than that we fished out on the ice. 

 Grandpa Berger and Sydney fishing.  

We didn't catch many fish today.  Matter of fact, I caught two small trout, while my dad caught a Chub.  Usually, I like to get a fish on the line and then have Sydney reel it in, however both times I caught the fish Sydney was too far away or they bit my line a few feet from the top and the fish was through the hole before I could hand it over to her. 

We weren't successful at all until dad went to talk to the people next to us and they gave us a Chub fish to use for bait. In years past, the Utah Chub was introduced illegally to Scofield Lake and the DWR have since added more predatory fish that like to eat Chub.  Once we added Chub to our hooks, we started getting more hits. 

It wasn't a great day of fishing, but it was fun to be out on the ice again.