Diet Thoughts at the Half-Way Point

So I'm over a month into the LRB Diet, and I want to record some thoughts here for myself to look back at when I want to start diets in the future.  Some of these may change by the time I'm at the end of this dieting phase, and hopefully I write another one of these then.

The 2 things that seem to make the BIGGEST difference for me in terms of making and maintaining progress on this diet are:  1)  Training frequency and consistency, and 2)  Limiting alcohol consumption.  If I can get my scheduled 3-4 lifting sessions and 1-2 conditioning/steady-state sessions done in a week, and limit frequency and quantity of alcohol intake to 1-3 times a week while trying to order drinks that I drink slowly, then I seem to have significantly more elbow room in the type  of food I'm consuming.  That means that if I end up in a social situation for a meal where I have less control over the food available to me, I can get outside of the diet a little bit without seeing any consequences. 

For example, I got 3 lifting sessions and 2 steady-state sessions in over the last 6 days.  In that time, I kept pretty close to the diet, but on a couple of occasions had to eat meals out because I was away from home with no access to a microwave.  I also had drinks on 2-3 occasions, but managed to limit that to bourbon for the most part.  I tend to sip bourbon and rye, and usually won't have more than 1 in an hour.  The results are that the last two days I feel and look like I'm about as lean as I've been on this diet, and a couple of co-workers have commented about my evident weight-loss.

My schedule should be finally opening up a lot over the next 5 weeks.  My plan is to maximize that opportunity to power through until the big reunion of college friends happening on Columbus Day weekend.  Ideally, I should be able to hit the two points discussed above AND keep a tighter leash on the diet, all because I should be able to spend more time at home eating and preparing my meals.

The only slight hiccup is that I've allowed myself to run out of protein powder, and probably won't receive my shipments of new stuff until next week.  Hopefully this week I can keep the protein up with real food meals to compensate.  I expect eggs to be a big part of that plan.

Another thing I really need to get done this week is to finally buy a scale.  I've just been using the scale at the gym, and calling it good since I work out at the same time of day most sessions.  However, a few times I've had to use some other gym to get a workout in, and the scale there always seems to have a surprising result; usually  lighter than expected.  It's time to start tracking this at home in the AM so that I can have a more consistent result.