Showing posts with label eating plan. Show all posts
Showing posts with label eating plan. Show all posts

Being Slothful Is Not Good, But Sometimes Is Therapy

Sloth is one of my major besetting "deadly" sins. And I've been really slothful this week. No exercise at all. Lots of sleeping. (Medication may need tweaking.) And, weirdly, though I'm menopausal, I've had a crampy "period". I think it's cause I lost 10 pounds in the last couple months and may have a reaction to the estrogen release. Not sure, prolly. At age 50, I'm not thinking I've starting popping out eggs again.

So, I had to scrounge in the back of the linen closet for a box of unused tampons leftover from my last Aunt Flo visit...

But I'm happy to update my ticker and stats with another slow downtick. I weighed in at 256.6 for a total of 42.4 lost.

And I'm very happy to see the slow, consistent progress.

The sloth is not so great. I'm glad I'm seeing the endo in a couple weeks, and I got blood taken out yesterday. It may or may not be the thyroid/med change. It may be the killer heat of August. 97 degrees yesterday with triple-digit heat index.

Whatever.

Appetite is good and NOT binge-y. I still am feeling calm about food, though I certainly could eat plenty if I don't watch it. I'm happy with a 1 to 2 pound loss a week and not feeling at all anxious. Whether that's related to the slothful lethargy, who knows.

I think if I can get past the sleepies and move more, I can up my loss.

Then again, moving more can up my appetite, too, so I worry about that.

I'll be back to Pilates next week (my trainer was on vacation last week), and that should help, too.

I'm eating pretty normal (though lower quantity) meals and less fruit than I was used to eating in a quest to have lower carb--not low, lower carb--meals. I had raspberries with my breakfast of caprese salad with EVOO and teriyaki wings. Yeah, teriyaki has carbs, but my mouth wanted it, so it was nicer to feel satisfied on a small bit of it. I have some pretty peaches I can have with supper. I find if I have my WonderSlim protein stuff between meals, the meals themselves tend to be normal (not my usual pig-out). And if I have something late at night, say 3 hours before bed, I feel a huge reduction in nightly food cravings and wake up feeling less crazy to have breakfast like usual.

So, while I am not a low-carber, I do seem to be a lower-carber (I have pasta, I have bread, I have potatoes, and I like fruit), meaning just cutting back on the quantity of my starch/fruit eating and increasing the protein (and fat) to compensate. This really does seem to be calming me...so far.

Hope your weekend is lovely. Mine has been restful and full of Japanese manga and a comedy flick and smooching hubby so far. Tomorrow is a family event, so I'll have to deal with the "how to face temptation" issue at the birthday party for my brother. I can see myself having to tote some lower-carb options or just saying NO to the rice and YES to the "ropa vieja" and salad. (Though it's really tough for a Cuban-born gal to have "ropa vieja" sans rice, I tell ya.)

Later, y'all....

Evaluating The Holiday and ReSparked

I had gotten pretty busy and didn't spark for a couple days. Holidays sort of make the focus go onto something OTHER than the routine, than journaling, etc.

But, I never had my mind totally off what I needed to do. I didn't exercise Thursday or Friday, so I have my sneakers on and plan to do my alloted cardio before showering for whatever we're gonna do this evening. I've eaten fine today, and I'm not terribly hungry at the moment, either.

So, the holiday and Black Friday:

Thursday: I ate breakfast, cause I knew dinner would be round 4 or 5 pm, depending on the turkey's doneness. We outdid ourselves this year, as the food was especially delicious (and plentiful, of course). My contribution was an organic salad with arugula, watercress, pears, dried cranberries, blue cheese with raspberry vinaigrette and toasted pecans. I thought it was great, the blend of sweet from the fruits and dressing, earthy and peppery from the greens and pecans, and the sour-deep taste of the cheese crumbles. I also took a veggie platter with assorted raw veggies. This way, I knew I'd have lots of F/Vs to select from. Instead of making the low-fat chocolate cake and baked apples, I spazzed and got pumpkin pie and key lime pie at Whole Foods. It worked out. I had about two tablespoons worth of the insides of key lime pie (I hate the crust of those pies, graham crackers are icky to me). And that with a bit of whipped cream did me fine, along with a couple bites of dark Belgian chocolate (60% mini bites, not truffles).

Later that evening, at home from my family's gathering, I got peckish. In order not to totally go into food depravity, I heated up some lentil soup, had a pear, called it a night.

The scale was fine the next day, other than a little salt uptick. Salt has continued to bedevil me, so I have not returned to 266 (I'm at 268 and change). I have been in stasis, not losing, but the salt regain hasn't left cause I've indulged in the salties. My bad.

It's still thrilling to see me in the 60's, but I"m really ready to move on, here, peops!

Black Friday: I had a beef craving (again, what up with dat), so we went to Chipotle. I had part of the Barbacoa Bowl (I asked for very little rice and extra beans to give me fiber-fill-me-up) and had the guac for the good fats and flavor. Hubby let me have one of his beef tacos. That satisfied my beef craving, so I had a very light dinner of leftover turkey breast in light gravy with some organic whole cranberry sauce and sweet potatoes and fruit (papaya, orange).

Today, I've only had one meal--egg white garlic-tomato omelette with Ezequiel toast and St. Dalfour four fruits jam, Trop 50 orange juice lite, coffee.

I have noticed that when I have several 400 to 500 calorie meals in a row, my appetite is a bit quieter. When I have a a couple big meals in a row, my appetite readjusts upward. This makes me want to not binge, I can tell you. I like that I'm feeling calmer in terms of appetite, and I am so afraid to set up a binge by having a huge blow-out.

Anyway, I haven't lost this past week, I have held on except for salt bloat variations, and now it's time to lose a bit before Christmas sets up its obstacle course.

I have done some Sparking today--my breakfast, read some articles, etc--and I want to get my head on straight for a new week. I have my horrible tasting Zinc liquid supplement (since I kept coming consistently way low on that in my nutrition profile from my online food journal), and my B-complex/B12 tabs. I've got my Amazing Grass for an afternoon pick-me-up. I'm ready to tackle the next seven days.

On to my Saturday cardio, ab work, and stretching...

Enjoy your weekend, gals and ladies. And be very healthy in your choices~
I've tried various diets over the last 4 decades. When I was younger, it was out of a magazine or from some book. I think you know what I mean? This time, I'm trying to figure out what to eat myself.

I figure if this is forevver (or however long forever is in a finite/mortal frame about to hit fifty in a couple months), then I better enjoy it or I won't do it. I am not a martyr. I cannot eat a plan that I can't actually get some pleasure from.

So, while Sparking my nutrition and trying to fill voids, I'm trying to gauge how much pleasure I'm getting from what I eat.

I don't like spinach and egg whites as much as I like garlic and tomato and egg whites. One feels virtuous. The other makes me ridiculously happy.

I like swiss or mozzarella or parmesan cheese in omelettes, even reduced fat. I like reduced fat american or cheddar or feta a lot better.

I like strawberries. I love raspberries.

I like dried fruit. I really like freeze-dried fruit.

I like turkey and veggies in a hoagie. I much prefer flatbread. I had been having Subway's turkey and veggies on whole wheat. I switched to flatbread and raised my enjoyment 100%. Today, trying to make it even BETTER, I switched my post-Pilates order (the Subway is one floor below my Pilates studio) to a turkey and veggie salad and, when I got home, I used a low-carb Joseph's Flatbread (shoving the turkey and salad into it). I liked it, too, with 100 fewer calories than Subway's and more fiber. Ya see, experimenting.

I am okay with WW lite bread. I like Nature's Own whole wheat. I much, much prefer Ezekiel bread. It has more flavor and mouth texture.

I like green tea iced to hot. I prefer black tea and coffee, iced or hot.

I like skim milk in my lattes, but I love 2%, and I feel bouncier.

So, today, I nixed the skinny latte at Starbucks and had a sugarfree one in grande (not venti, as I had for two years prior to this month), and went for low-fat. It tastes a lot better, so I can drink a smaller one and feel really satisfied. I might even notch it back to tall and go whole milk. Let's see. :)

I'm gonna work with what to bring Thanksgiving. I want to have big taste and satisfaction with lower calorie/lower-fat/lower-additives and crap/higher health.

I've found in the last two weeks that I'm a bit calmer (for now). This weekend brought a lot of challenges, and each of the three times I was in trouble, I made compromises. I thought it through.

Like at my family's for a birthday party. I asked for the teeniest bit of chocolate birthday cake--cut off the top with the frosting, left myself a 3 in by 1.5 inch rectangle of only the chocolate cake part. Why? Frosting is fine, but it doesn't do it for me like chocolate cake. So, I had the part that gave me smiles and left what only was "okay." And I made it a smaller serving.

Also at the party we had assorted Cuban pastries and appetizers on the table. I only allowed myself to sample one of the savory ones. Avoided the dip and crackers and the sweet pastries. However, part of the lunch included special Puerto Rican meat pies, homemade, stuffed with seasoned ground beef. These are a specialty of my SIL, and she only makes them a couple times a year. They're FRIED. But they're relatively small. So, I weighed it and decided to have one. Context: Just about everyone else had from 3 to a half-dozen. I had one, and made the best of it.

I didn't have the noodles. I had the low-salt, lower-fat chicken breast and rice with creole red bean soup (one of my favoritest things on earth, Puerto Rican or Cuban style red bean soup. I could eat it every day.)

Because the party had been pretty devoid of veggies, I had for supper a big bowl of berries and watermelon, and a bigger bowl of arugula with minimal dressing. :)

I ended up 100 calories over my limit, cake, ham croquette, alcapurria and all.

Today, I'm doing great. Did the egg white-tomato-garlic omelette and was happy. Did the Subway substitution and was fine. And I'm planning to have lots of veggies with some leftover low-carb, high-fiber pasta for supper. My energy is really, really good and got me through Pilates fine. I'm not missing the venti-ness of latte, cause killer yummy grande is perfect.

And for dessert tonight, I'm thinking of leaving calories (60) for a sugar-free vanilla pudding. After decades of sticking mostly to chocolate (with slight deviations to butterscotch now and then), I realized this past month I really love the vanilla one. It makes me happier than the chocolate one.

I know I have to find a way to shove as much food and beverage pleasure into 1700 to 1800 calories. For life. Or I may as well just stay fat, cause I won't be happy settling for "Oh, well, this has few calories, so I'll settle for it." (And some stuff of what I've sampled at Hungry Girl is really "settling". And those Progresso soups suck. And Stevia makes me gag. But Amazing Grass is nice! And some of those WW concoctions you hear about at meetings are icky. But Just Strawberries rule!)

I was reading that people need to find what fits, whether it's low-carb, low-fat, flex, low-cal with splurges, etc. We don't all like brussel sprouts or kiwi or broccoli or tofu. I think forcing ourselves to eat what we hate backfires.

So, in your dieting explorations, what have you discovered you love?

(Oh, and I really love raw cacao powder on bananas. Ooh. Who needs drugstore candy bars!?)

I had lunch for breakfast (went to bed at 7 am and slept until 11:30 am). I woke up with a KFC craving. So, I got dressed and went and bought the white meat tender grilled chicken. I had cole slaw, mashies, and three green bean sides with that. Yeah, 3 green bean sides. I have to admit, I like their grilled chicken better than the fried. I remember when they previously had--years ago--tender roast (which was the one my hubby used to get). That didn't last. Once they stopped carrying the roast chicken, hubby didn't want it, so we avoided KFC. For years, we didn't go to KFC but, maybe, once in a blue moon when I got the urge for some fried chicken and biscuits.

We still don't eat there often. Just got this weird craving. So, there ya go. I'll probably bloat.

To make up for a fast food breakfast, I had a raw lunch. An organic apple with organic peanut butter, an apple-raisin cookie, strawberries. The cookies are sort of a square-shaped, moist melange of sunflower seeds, dates, raisins, bananas, vanilla, agave, walnuts, cinnamon, and, natch, apples. I ordered them fresh-made, delivered Monday by VEGGIEMUNN, a raw food purveyor in South Florida. If you're gonna have cookies, these are wholesome--and whole. And really tasty. Sort of like an apple-banana bread, really, but flatter and chewier. :D

I gotta give kudos to VEGGIEMUNN for killer yummy raw corn and leek chowder. This is one of my fave soups they make (along with the pear watercress and the asparagus). The raw barley and mushroom is okay, and I got several this week for the barley fill-er-up and fiber properties and the earthy mushroom allure, but now I wish I had gotten a half dozen of the corn and leek. Amazing. Beautiful green color, lovely daikon sprouts on top, creamy, delicious. Here are the ingredients: sprouted sunflower seeds, corn, leek, avocado, agave, coriander, parsley, kelp.

I will be having the mushroom/barley raw soup and the raw plantain pie for dinner. (In case you're curious, the plantain pie's ingredients are ripe plantains, nut cheese & tomatoes, Macadamia Nuts, Cashews, Bragg'S, Lemon Juice, Italian seasoning, basil, garlic. The mushroom barley soup has sprouted barley, shiitake mushroom, white mellow miso, fresh herbs, cold pressed olive oil.)

As you can see, I'm not a totally consistent eater. Certainly, I"m not a raw foodie. But I like having regular vegetarian meals and I enjoy the occasional raw meal. I am a particular fan of some vegan raw soups and desserts. Miami is hot most of the time and cool fruity or veggie-ey soups are very delightful when one is prone to perspire when going outdoors.



I started logging my food on SparkPeople today. (My user name there is PrincessDieter, for anyone who is in that community.)

It's a bit of a slow-going pain, but I wanted to see how the calories/fat/protein/carbs added up.

I had written what I ate quickly in my diet journal at home, with a pen,the old-fashioned way, and I had guesstimated that breakfast had been roughly 550 calories.

When I entered the food into the nutrition log at SparkPeople, it told me the calorie count was 535. Good huh?

I remember the very first time I went to a dietitian. Not as a chubbyish kid or zaftigish teen (I was normal on the weight charts, but you could tell by looking at my belly and butt and thighs that I was on the higher side). I went as an overweight 29 year old carrying close to 190 pounds. The dietitian quizzed me on calories in meals, and I nailed every single meal she projected on a screen. The surprised look on her face made me think that didn't happen often, if ever. But hey, I liked to read diet books even then, even if they weren't really sticking.

So, I lost about 20 pounds that time. Regained plus. The usual story.

All that to say that the head knowledge of weight loss isn't correlative to the reality of weight loss, but it's still good to be aware. I can't fool myself when I scarf down pizza or cheese enchilada take-away that I'm eating A reasonable number of calories, cause I know dang well it's more like Z. I've seen caloric underestimation in action (just about everyone I know other than my middle sister underestimates how many calories they have at a meal.)

So, I had a pretty decent, high-fiber, highish protein, veggie/fruit enriched breakfast. I already planned what lunch and my snack will be. The crux always tends to be dinner. That's when my appetite goes nuts. It went a bit nuts last night, when I gave in to seconds/dessert temptation and felt pretty stupid, too.

But, fine. It's another day. I started off well, the middle seems manageable, and if I strategize (drink plenty of fluid, have my whey snack a couple hours prior to dinner, have a fiber supplement, too, to start filling me up) then dinner won't defeat me.

Tomorrow, I plan to return to Pilates after a 4 week absence due to this really hideous, lingering flu. I still have some cough (not much), some plegm (not much), some fatigue (middling). The idea of exercising is daunting, cause I am nowhere near my best energy levels. But I plan to eat lots of fruits and veggies today and get a lots of potassium and rest as much as I can before my session tomorrow. I want to recapture the muscle I lost being ill.

I hope I can continue the logging of food at SparkPeople. I tried this before at WW online and really kind of fizzle away. I always have done better at the pen/paper journal of foods (faster). But I want to see the nutrient breakdown, even if it's just for a few weeks to see where I'm lacking/excessive/etc.

I hope today is a great day for all the fatfighters out there. Write down your calories/points. Eat lots of produce. Drink water. Move some. Do that, you and I, and we're halfway to a good food/fitness Tuesday.

Later,

Getting Proactive and "Fruitful"

Although every bit of me wanted to nap, I got my car keys and went to CVS and treated myself to a lipstick and a lip gloss--both a super-cheery pinkish color-- and a woman's magazine and some sugarless Orbit gum.

Because of my slump, I ate crappy for lunch. I know, no excuse, but there you have it. I went for the full fat comfort food at KFC--original recipe two-piece white meat with mashies and cole slaw and corn and a biscuit. Yikes.

So, after CVS, I headed to Julio's Natural Foods and bought enough for three to four meals. I got lentil soup, a baked sweet potato, a mixed greens salad with olives and mozzarella with a balsamic vinaigrette on the side, brown rice, grilled veggie assortment, and a cucumber/yogurt salad with dill. I also got a quart of carrot juice, a quart of papaya and soymilk (which is nice for breakfast), and a quart of Green Goddess smoothie, which has celery/spinach/romaine/cucumber/cilantro/parsley/lime juice/fresh greeen apple juice all mixed together. I also got a 16 oz one with tropical fruits called Cancun. This way, I don't have to think about cooking. I don't have to vex about going to the grocery store. It's there when I'm hungry or thirsty.

Hubby is out of town, so it's me rattling around in the house, telling myself to buck up.

I'm gonna have some Cancun now.

Thanks for the encouraging comments. :*

5 Diets, 5 Dieters: Diet Face Off

If you're curious about some of the most popular diets around, five dieters are trying them out at LiveStron.com's DIET FACE OFF. Here are the diets/eating plans being used:

Weight Waters
South Beach Supercharged
Flat Belly diet
Mediterranean Diet
Jillian Michaels' Making the Cut

The dieters have posted their starting stats and have been blogging about their experience using these plans. If your eating plan is not working for you, here's your chance to see what results other plans provide for fellow fatfighters.
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WW eTools Points Tracker is Kinda Fun!

My first day using my eTools Points Tracker. There's an activity tracker, but my activities today have pretty much been drinking water, doing nebulizer treatments of albuterol, making healthful meals, and watching tv/reading/peeing from all that water. And blogging. Lots of that.

It's sorta fun. Maybe in a week, it will seem like a drag. But for now...a toy!

I put in all my food, and I've had 19 points so far (which is like 950 cals). I had two moments today when I almost gave in to bad food--a wild 7 minutes of pizza craving, where I finally said NO enough times to mean it; and another wild moment when I almost called to have Chinese food delivered, and I don't mean steamed chicken and veggies, neigther. That "no" stuck, too.

So, I have a grilled balsamic chicken on an endive and watercress salad as the plan for dinner. I have 12 points left according to my tracker; though I will allow myself more, as 31 points can leave me hungry a lot of days, nuts hungry. 31 pts = about 1550 cals. I have no guilt issue with going up to 1800 or 1900. I just don't wanna go over 2000, really. If I can keep it to 1800 (36 pts), I'd be pleased as many fruit punches.

If you don't like doing WW in real life, try the online one. The tools are cool.

Anyway, my meals thus far:

Bkfst: I made my fave Easy Cheesy Eggie Veggies that I mentioned in a post earlier this week, but I put them in sprouted corn tortillas (organic) and added a bit of fire-roasted salsa on top. YUM! And only 7.5 points total, including a half cup of cranberry juice cocktail (those mini containers like in hospitals) that I had leftover from some Diet-To-Go meal from a few months back. Lots of water. Coffee. (I drink it not just for taste, but for the asthma benefits.) I saved part of the eggie veggies for a proteinish snack, but I never got hungry enough for one. Might just heat it up for tomorrow's brekky.

Lunch: A double-Gardenburger on Ezekiel bread sandwich with 2 slices of 2% cheddar. I had half of one of those glorious organic grapefruits I got Sunday at the farmer's market. Man, never had such yummy grapefruit. or at least, it feels that way in my mouth. :D Lots of water. Coffee. An ounce of tart cherry concentrate mixed with water (mmmm, nice and anti-inflammatory).

So far, not feeling ravenous. I am peckish now. It's clearly dinnertime. But I'm waiting on hubby.

Tomorrow, I see my doc (need more meds and an Rx for a mammo, for which I'm a tad overdue). And after my appointment, I plan to zip by the Fresh Market or, if I don't mind driving a bit farther (depending how the breathing goes and I feel) Whole Foods to replenish some of the veggies/fruits I ate up (zucchini, mushrooms, peppers, papaya, berries) and buy some chicken breasts and sliced cheese. Also need some egg whites.

Hope your Wednesday was healthful and happy. Toodles.
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