DATELINE–New York:

At 8:00 a.m. on Sunday, June 18

Goal: lose one pound per week for 39 weeks
Starting weight on 5/23: 214.6 lbs.
Goal weight: 175 lbs.
This week’s target weight: 210.6 lbs.
Today’s actual weight: 207.5 lbs.
I am 3.1 lbs. ahead of schedule
This week I lost 1.2 lbs.
Weight loss since 5/23: 7.1 lbs.

Resting heart rate 5/23: 65 beats per minute
Today’s resting heart rate 57 beats per minute.*
* This goes down as one gets into better shape. Lance Armstrong is said to be at 32 beats per minute. My lowest was 52 beats per minute many years ago.

I knew it was going to be a challenge keeping to the one pound per week weight loss schedule in New York City. New York is known for its wide variety of good food and I planned to try it all.

My approach to weight loss has been simple. I don’t count calories very well but I can do exercise. So if I plan to eat more, I exercise more. With this in mind, I have upped my daily exercise to 50 minutes at an easy, 70% of max heart rate. And it appears that I am actually losing more weight than I did at home. Now I have a choice: wine or dessert.

Here I look down on Times Square from the treadmill. It’s better than TV.

Yesterday I got elbowed by a guy carrying a baby. I think he was using the baby as cover. My impression of New Yorkers is that they play it pretty close to the ragged edge. Generally, everything is cool. This particular guy was an opportunist, but I don’t think he’s the norm.

We’re walking many blocks just to get the feel of the city, as well as to burn calories since we’re eating all kinds of stuff. We’re now looking for corned beef sandwiches and pastrami sandwiches at a real New York deli. Next: Little Italy and authentic Italian food.

If anybody has deli or restaurant suggestions, please let us know.

Bananas here look great on the outside but are bruised inside. After breaking off all the bruised parts of one, I ended up with only one small bite, and that tasted pretty bad. Modern day banana ripening rooms, with their precise humidity and temperature controls, can make the yellow skin color look so uniform and attractive that it looks almost like plastic fruit. The computer control rooms look like the cockpit of a 747. The technology can actually disguise bruising of the skin. Bruising is the consumer’s early warning signal and disguising it is not a good thing. No wonder per capita banana consumption has been declining for the last few years.

But I can say with a high degree of certainty that local Hawaiian bananas taste absolutely, without a doubt, better.

I’ve been losing weight for nearly a month now and feel comfortable that I won’t wake up one day and discover I’ve gained five pounds without warning. Setting a goal of one pound per week is easy to do. Now I know that if I’m behind on my weight loss schedule I just need to exercise for a longer period of time at a fairly easy 70% of max heart rate.

Piece of cake.