Dec.7: TMI Tuesday

"Tuesday is a day of the week occurring after Monday and before Wednesday."

I was at a loss for a specific topic today.  I wanted to come up with something catchy, like "Tequila Tuesday", but since I don't drink I figured that would be silly.  When I googled Tuesday, I got the above definition, which I thought was funny in a warped, Daisy-ish kind of way.  Following, if you make it to the end, you will find the TMI portion of this post.

Onward to accountability.

I ate exactly the same thing I had yesterday, minus the thrice-damned tarts.

Calories:  1334
Carbs: 150
Fat: 42
Protein: 97

I love it - pretty close to a perfect breakdown.  Maybe another 15 grams or so of protein, but I'm really pleased.

In case you are wondering what my menu consists of, here it is, good, bad and ugly-ish.

Multigrain toast w/ natural peanut butter, skim milk
Nonfat yogurt with protein powder, blueberries and granola
Chicken breast w/ 1 cup of veggies (today was green beans)
Crock pot beef/veggie soup with a sprinkle of romano cheese
Microwave popcorn, butter flavor

None of it is "diet food".  I'm not getting the smart-pop, light, air-popped dullness that is "diet" popcorn.  I'm using the popcorn to battle my chip habit.  Salty and crunchy is really my biggest downfall but this time-consuming substitute helps a lot.

The other benefit of popcorn is how much it irritates your co-workers with it's smell. 

"Are you having popcorn again?"
"Why don't you make that at home and just bring it with you?"
"Did you know that everyone in the building can smell that?"
"Wow, that popcorn smells really good."

So, not only does it help with the potato chip issues, it provides some cheap entertainment.

On the "Effort to Look Like a Pin-Up Girl" front, today was a wash.  I had a bad hair day.  My bangs looked weird all day long, I got stressed and rubbed off all my makeup by 10 am, and I wore my hideous blue uniform shirt.

I have this problem with wearing colors.  I have a crazy health issue with sweat.  Not a day goes by that I am not soaked with sweat.  Because of this, I wear very dark colors at all times.  It's localized, only an armpit thing, but it's horrible.  I wear a prescription antiperspirant, but I still have horrible sweat rings under my arms constantly.  When I began taking my current anti-anxiety medication, you can imagine my delight when I discovered that profuse sweating was one of the side effects.  Needless to say, this has helped my sanity but not my sweating issue. (This may be TMI - ooh - a title! TMI Tuesday - editing now!)

I told my boss that I had a medical problem that would be an issue with blue shirts, but of course he would not listen to me - who has a medical issue that prevents them from wearing blue?  Well, within an hour and a half of donning the hideous shirt, I had the horribly unattractive sweat rings in my pits.  I walked into his office and showed him, and, will wonders never cease, I don't have to wear the uniform.  But now, tomorrow when I go in, everyone is going to wonder where my uniform shirts are.  How thoroughly embarrassing.  According to my doctor, the only options left for this are undergoing surgery to have the sweat glands in my armpits removed (but I always picture the sweat squirting out some other, equally unappealing pore of my body) or injecting Botox into my pits.  Yay.  Botulism.  I really want to introduce that into my body.  I don't even eat preservatives, for crying out loud!

So perspiration.  That is the "TMI" in TMI Tuesday.  Ahhhh....I knew I'd come up with a topic.  Stay tuned to next week when we discuss some other horribly embarrassing bodily function!

Thank you for all your warm responses, ladies!  You are really helping me toe the line with my plan (tarts aside.)

Sept. 8: If it's not one thing..... and other random thoughts

Well, the food is not perfect, but it's somewhat on track.

Now I can't seem to make it to the gym to save my life!

What's up with that?  It seems like, if it's not one thing, it's the other.  I have a lot of trouble keeping eats on track and getting to the gym at the same time.  The new job is longer hours, first of all.  I have a 1 hour round trip commute until I get moved.  This week has been "back to school" for my little one so we've been running around like maniacs getting school supplies, sneakers, etc.  Sigh.

Now I'm going to ramble about yogurt.  Have you ever tried Source Lemon Meringue Yogurt?  I try not to consume much artificial sweetener but I can't stop eating this stuff.  It's HEAVEN.  If you haven't tried it, you should!

Today's tally:

1,507 calories
157 carbs
45 fat
117 protein

This includes taking R out to dinner to celebrate back to school.  She chose Pizza Pizza and we ordered slices.  I got spicy BBQ pizza and the damage was only 440 calories.

I got a bunch of great packing boxes from my neighbor.  They are perfect - a good size, very sturdy, and they have handles.  She got them for me from her workplace, a nursing home.  So now, my possessions will be moved in a uniform set of adult diaper boxes.  That kept me giggling for a quite a while as I loaded a couple of them today.

Mar. 31: Don't Let Your Results Slip A-Weigh

My new prized possession is my kitchen scale  Mine's not a cool retro one like the one pictured here (how cool is that?)  It's a simple digital scale that I bought at Wal-Mart for $20.  So far, it's been an eye-opening investment.

As I've mentioned on here before, I've had a couple of months of a weight loss stall.  Okay, I didn't just mention it.  I whined, moped and ranted about it.  "Mention" just sounds nicer.

One wise lady on a forum that I journal on recommended several times that I begin to weigh everything.  She pointed out that if my measurement on a highly condensed caloric goodie like peanut butter is off, it could throw off my day by 100 calories.  Then if I guess at the size of my apple, add another 50 calories.  You get the idea.

So over the weekend I wandered around Wal-Mart forever looking for a food scale.  I finally found one hidden on the bottom shelf underneath the Foreman grills.  I brought home my shiny scale and I've been weighing everything that goes in my mouth, aside from the odd fingernail.

Imagine my surprise when I discovered I've been off on pretty much everything.  She was right (but don't tell her I said so.)  However, what I discovered is that I've been undereating, especially with regard to protein sources.  I was off on fruit, guessing lower than the actual calories, and off on veggies, guessing higher than the actual serving sizes.  Like I said, off on everything.  Irritating but true.

So here is how I do it.  I put my plate on the scale and then turn it down, so it sets to "0" and doesn't weigh the plate.  Also be aware that grams are more accurate than ounces, because of the smaller increments.  Then I load the food on, one item at a time.  After I jot down the weight of an item, I hit the button that says "Tare" to reset the scale to "0" again so I can get an accurate weight on the next food item. 

I learned a couple of silly things too.  For example, with the peel, today's banana was 177 grams.  Naked, it was 120 grams.  57 grams of peel!!!  I have photographic evidence of this, just in case you were in doubt.  Apples, to be weighed accurately, need to have the core removed.  You could make yourself crazy with this but it's also kind of fun.

So, my big tip of the day?  If you are calorie counting (and if you are dieting, you should be) buy a scale.  You'll be much more accurate and your weight loss plan will thank you!

And a little shout-out: Thanks, Morgan, for the excellent advice.  We can always count on your kindness and experience. (((hugs)))

Mar. 15: Weekly Check In and a Recipe

Boo! It's that time of month, which has completely skewed my results on my experiment with calories. I was up 4 pounds from yesterday this morning so I have to pitch the whole week's results as inaccurate. I'm going to try to keep my intake similar in the coming week to see whether or not my increased calories are causing an issue or still resulting in a good rate of weight loss.

Weight is NOT being posted - it's just inaccurate. Here are the food stats:

Weekly Average Intake:

Calories: 1489
Carbs: 163.5g
Fat: 51g
Protein: 99g
Sodium: 1728mg
Fiber: 26.5

I'm happy with every thing except the protein. I'll be focusing on raising my protein intake this week. I want to get to 125 g of protein per day, and hopefully, thanks to a reasonable tasting protein powder I found, I'll get there!

(The numbers above factor in off plan meals and snacks for the weekly averages.)

Last week was a success for working out. I did two days of strength training and will do 3 in the coming week. I walked every day except one. This week I'm starting a walk/run program that I found online - very excited to do that!!!

I don't have a picture but I came up with a spectacularly delicious new food concoction I want to share with you! It's hard to believe this is clean!

Black Bean and Sausage Quesadilla

Sausage ( I used an all nat. chicken sausage - no preservatives or nitrates)

Refried Black Beans (I used canned fat free - just beans and seasonings)

Soft goat cheese

Tablespoon of olive oil, divided

Garlic and onion, finely chopped, to taste

Wrap (I used Ezekiel wraps)

Salsa for dipping

1.) Heat half of oil in a skillet. When the skillet is hot, add garlic and onion. Squeeze sausage from its casing and add that in little crumbles to the skillet also.

2.) Brown sausage and veggies until done.

3.) Spread 1/2 of wrap with goat cheese and the other half with refried beans. Top one side with the sausage veggie mixture and fold it over, quesadilla style.

4.) Wipe pan and heat remaining oil in it. When the pan is sizzling hot put the quesadilla in, bean side down.

5.) Flip quesadilla after about two minutes and cook for approximately two minutes on the other side.

6.) Let the quesadilla rest for about 2-3 minutes, then slice with a pizza cutter. Enjoy with salsa for dipping.

343 calories, 36 grams of carbs, 13 grams of fat, 21 grams of protein

Mar. 7: Results and Milestones

I mentioned last week that I had begun counting calories and measuring my food this week to try to break through this darned month long plateau. So drum roll...........................

It worked!!! After one week, I ended up with a loss of two pounds (exactly what I lost in the entire month of February!) Hooray! I'm so happy.

I haven't felt restricted this week. I averaged about 1360 over the course of the entire week, figuring in my off-plan meal as well. This coming week I'm going to bump it up about 100 calories a day. I want to experiment and see what my maximum intake can be while continuing losing at a rate of two pounds per week.

Today marks another milestone!

I've lost 20 pounds!

One more and I have hit the magic 10% that experts say marks a health improvement. I;m darned happy to get over this plateau and hopefully I can go another 20 pounds before hitting another one!

What have I learned from this? Clean eating, while it works, will not necessarily result in consistent weight loss without other checks and balances in place. All by itself, changing my eating habits to clean ones allowed me to lose the first 16 pounds with little real effort. Now, however, I have discovered, consistent results require more than just passively eating clean. I still strongly promote eating clean for all of the health benefits a chemical-free life can provide, and once I am at a maintenance weight, eating clean for the rest of my life will allow me to be fit and healthy with little dietary effort. I believe clean is the only way to eat. But for weight loss, weighing, measuring, and counting calories all seem to be a necessity for me.

Have a great weekend!

March 5: Going well so far!

Well, five days into March it looks as though my plateau is starting to give way to some results. As I posted, I've been counting calories this week, as well as measuring my portions. I'm happy to report I was down one pound this morning! Woohoo!!!!

The beautiful weather has also inspired me to get out and walk with the dog, so I'm sure that is helping also. I am starting every day with some quick calisthenics - crunches and push-ups, and then getting a 20-30 minute walk in. I am horribly out of shape - going 30 minutes is pretty tough, but I will build my endurance and be speed walking for an hour in no time.

I am considering looking for a personal trainer, if I can swing it financially. I really need some advice on how to get going on a workout plan - I haven't a clue. Otherwise I need to join a place that has workout classes. I plan to decide on that next week.

For now, I have a big deadline looming for work, so I have to keep today's post brief.

Have a great weekend, everyone!