Last week: 384 lbs.

Start (Dec. 17): 470 lbs.

Total lost: 86 lbs.

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A bluegrass festival is no excuse for not eating healthy.

Last week, with the devil on my shoulder, I gave a primer on how to binge. This week, with an angel on my shoulder, I’ll explain how I successfully kept my calorie count to 1,752 on Saturday, Oct. 25, despite having to work more than 10 hours covering the Lake Placid Bluegrass Jam in the Olympic Center’s 1932 Rink.

Faced with a long day in a space that I correctly predicted would not have a single healthy food option for concert goers, I started making plans to eat healthy as soon as I got up in the morning. Planning was the key. I’d have to eat breakfast at home and pack a lunch and dinner in my backpack, which included a camera, two lenses, a computer, an audio recorder for interviews and a bottle of water.

To keep myself honest, I used the MyFitnessPal app on my smartphone to document the calories.

Not only did I want to keep my calories reasonable, I wanted to make sure there was a healthy mix of fruit, vegetables, carbs and protein. By the end of the day, I ended up eating less protein than I should have, and my trainer at Fitness Revolution, Jason McComber, would probably say I didn’t eat enough calories for a person my weight, but I’m satisfied with 1,752, especially when I was faced with the alternative.

The alternative was to not even try to eat healthy, to give up before I started just because it was a work day and it would require a little extra effort. We’re all faced with these decisions every day. Sometimes the devil wins, and sometimes the angel wins. This time the angel was on my side.

The angel will always win if we’re honest about our priorities. To me, health came first on Saturday and then work. In the past, I would have chosen work first, then health, and that’s one of the major reasons I ballooned to 493 pounds in 2011. Those days are over. I’m changing myself for the better, and a bluegrass festival wasn’t going to derail all my accomplishments over the past 10 months. No, sir. I was going to eat healthy no matter what.

On Saturday, I was faced with a 10-hour work day inside the Olympic Center without an opportunity to leave. I was taking photos and interviewing musicians almost the entire time, from noon to about 10 p.m. Food delivery from Green Goddess or the Good Bite wasn’t an option. If I left the building — which I could have — to eat one of the fine salads at the Dancing Bears Restaurant or Lisa G’s, I would have missed photo and interview opportunities. That wasn’t an option. I could have eaten the food the Olympic Center staff was serving — all junk. That was an option, but it wasn’t one I was willing to choose, and it shouldn’t have been one I was forced to choose because of my job situation. After all, Lake Placid is supposed to be helping me lose weight, not preventing me from losing it.

The only choice I had was to eat healthy by brown bagging my meals, no matter the event policy.

ORDA staff will probably cringe when they read this story. After all, the policy sign in the parking lot was very clear on the rules for concert goers:

“NO food, beverages, backpacks, professional cameras and recording equipment,” the poster stated. “Bags subject to search.”

My heart sank for a moment before I reminded myself that I was not an ordinary concert goer; I was a media representative attending the festival as a work assignment. I was on the job, and the backpack I was carrying with the food, water, camera and recording equipment was a work bag, just like it would have been for any ORDA staffer working at the Olympic Center that day.

“If they search my bag and tell me I can’t bring the water and food in the building, I’ll tell them I’m on a special diet,” I told my wife as we walked past the sign.

It’s true. I am on a special diet: the Lake Placid Diet.

Still, I don’t recommend that audience members break food/beverage policy. There’s a reason for it. ORDA wants to make extra money by selling you food and drink. That’s fine. I totally understand it and agree with it. After all, they have to pay the bills. Therefore, a concert goer only had a few choices when it came to eating lunch and dinner: Eat before you arrive and after you leave but nothing while at the concert, eat the junk food available at the venue, or leave the Olympic Center temporarily for a healthy meal at a local restaurant, at home or from a cooler in your vehicle. With the hand stamp, concert goers could come and go throughout the day.

One of my friends, who has been on a special diet, actually did leave the Olympic Center for a dinner break, missing all of the Sleepy Man Banjo Boys and half of the Amy Helm performance. It’s too bad.

There were three food vendor tables at the Olympic Center during the concert.

The Mac & Cheese Stand offered macaroni and cheese, pulled pork with mac and cheese, Buffalo chicken with mac and cheese, chips, soda, water and beer. I did buy some water from this table. My wife got the pulled pork mac and cheese for dinner.

The Nachos & Pretzel Stand offered nachos with cheese and chili, nachos with pulled pork, nachos with Buffalo chicken, a superzised pretzel, potato chips, candy, soda water and draft beer. We didn’t buy anything from this stand.

The Hot Dog & Sausage Stand offered hot dogs with sauerkraut, sausage and peppers, potato chips, soda, water and beer. My wife got a hot dog and bag of chips to go with her dinner.

For the audience, those were the food options. In my opinion, limiting vegetables to onions, peppers and sauerkraut (potatoes if you include the chips) is not a healthy option. My expectations were met, and this is what saddens me. The Lake Placid Bluegrass Jam was typical of what you find in American society, even at most bluegrass festivals, where fried food is king.

I think ORDA can do better, not just for this event but for all of them. Start offering healthier options for your patrons. Even if it is one table, have fruits, vegetables and vegetarian options. If possible, make some choices vegan or gluten-free. Guess what? It’s totally possible.

ORDA knows what healthy food looks like. They were making it for the musicians in their hospitality section backstage, most likely in the same kitchen they were making the mac and cheese and pulled pork. I saw it with my own eyes: raw fruit and vegetables, cubes of cheese, salads and a sandwich bar with fresh rolls. Sure, they had brownies, candy and draft beer, but the options for healthy eating were available. The bluegrass musicians had nothing but compliments about the hospitality, especially the food. While people in the audience were munching on nachos and drinking beer in the 1932 Rink across the hallway, the three Sleepy Man Banjo Boys were rolling oranges across the room to each other in the convention center. Fresh oranges!

The Olympic Authority is a leader when it comes to hosting international sporting competitions, and I look forward to the day when ORDA becomes a leader in healthy food options at its events. People come to Lake Placid, in part, for health and wellness, and that’s the main theme of the Lake Placid Diet. Let’s show the world we can do better than other places, that we’re unique. Let’s make a health-friendly impression.

I’m not saying limit or cut out the junk. Heck, I like to indulge every now and then. Just add some healthy choices, that’s all.

Jesse Brock, the mandolin player for the Gibson Brothers, suggested a local produce table. That’s a great idea. Farm to fork at the Olympic Center. It’s a way to encourage healthy eating while supporting local food and beverage producers.

Here’s is what I ate on Saturday. For breakfast, I drank a cup of coffee and half a cup of milk and ate half a cup (dry) of oatmeal with one teaspoon of local maple syrup and two hard-boiled eggs. Before I left my home in Saranac Lake for Lake Placid, I ate half a cup of plain, nonfat Greek yogurt made by the Green Mountain Creamery in Vermont. I called Green Goddess Natural Foods to preorder a Gobble Gobble (natural turkey breast, veganaise, tomato and greens) on a whole wheat wrap, hold the onions, and picked it up on my way to the Olympic Center. I had that for lunch along with a 1-ounce box of raisins. For dinner, I had a banana, a Teddie unsalted peanut butter sandwich on whole wheat bread and 2 cups of raw broccoli marinated in a plastic bag with a serving of Newman’s Own Lite Ceasar Vinaigrette salad dressing. I?also brought along an apple and 1/4 cup of raw, unsalted almonds, but I didn’t eat them. I drank water all day.

All in all, it was a successful day on the health front. It was also a fun day at work, with all the bluegrass music in the air.

I may have some criticism about the food choices, but overall, this was a top-notch, professionally run event. Thanks, ORDA, for bringing world-class bluegrass to Lake Placid.