Committed

Not much time to write tonight.  We’re about to cozy up and watch a DVD.

Here is a pic of the lunch bag I brought to work…  (Note, I didn’t eat the carrot for the 2nd day in a row.)

Dinner was leftover tuna, grilled veggies, balsamic glaze and brown rice and a green salad.  This was a lot of food and now I’m really stuffed.  I have to say, I’m kind of addicted to grilled veggies with balsamic.

Today’s detailed food journal:

• Breakfast:  TJ’s High Fiber O’s; Oat Milk; DanActive; 2 espressos
• Snacks (throughout the day):  celery, red pepper strips, fruit strip, 3 lifesavers, mini rice and popcorn cakes
• Lunch:  Amy’s brown rice & veggies bowl
• Dinner:  Grilled veggie & tuna wrap with green salad

I continue to struggle with the snacks.  I look at my snack calories and wish I could have “spent” them on something else.  Today in particular I felt really compulsive about eating, so much that I left the office and missed a meeting in order to go get another kind of fix (shopping).

Fitday totals are below (doesn’t include the ~45 cals for the fruit strip, I haven’t entered it as a custom food yet):

Grams Calories %-Cals Calories 1,378 Fat 44.9 401 29 % Saturated 6.9 62 4 % Polyunsaturated 4.0 35 3 % Monounsaturated 12.9 114 8 % Carbohydrate 204.5 804 58 % Dietary Fiber 31.3 Protein 44.4 174 13 % Alcohol 0.0 0 0 %

Fat ( 29 %) Carbs ( 58 %) Protein ( 13 %) Alcohol ( 0 %)

I decided to try again with a green monster.

• 1/2 cup oat milk
• 1 DanActive
• handful spinach
• handful kale
• handful alfalfa sprouts
• 1 banana
• 1/4 cup wheat bran (unprocessed)
• 1/2 scoop protein powder
• 1/2 cup applesauce

Before….

After…..

This one was soooo much better than the last couple I tried.  I really think I’ll have this version again and again.

Here is a pic of what I packed for work…

I didn’t get around to eating the carrot or the pepper strips.  For dinner I grabbed a super high cal salad from safeway.  Funny, the salad with the dressing was 570 cals, without dressing 170 cals.  Thats a little ridiculous.

Detailed food diary:

• Breakfast:  Yummy and beautiful green monster smoothie.
• Snacks:  Cherry tomatoes, celery
• Lunch:  Kashi Tuscan Bake (its good, like lasagna without cheese)
• Dinner:  Safeway salad with 400 calorie dressing.
• Dessert:  Calm tea with honey

Fitday is below…

Grams Calories %-Cals Calories 1,332 Fat 61.8 555 41 % Saturated 6.9 62 5 % Polyunsaturated 0.9 7 1 % Monounsaturated 0.2 2 0 % Carbohydrate 171.5 651 48 % Dietary Fiber 30.0 Protein 40.7 150 11 % Alcohol 0.0 0 0 %

Fat ( 41 %) Carbs ( 48 %) Protein ( 11 %) Alcohol ( 0 %)

I was in such a rush to get out of the house this morning that I did not take a photo of my breakfast, or the contents of my lunch & snack bag.  :-(  It must be because I was hungover from so much medicating yesterday.

Breakfast was light, and lunch was Amy’s Enchiladas.  I didn’t have much of an appetite until about 4pm, and then it came on with a vengeance.  So, I ate both of my snacks (cherry tomatoes and blueberries).  And then I ate some sunflower seeds I had stashed in my desk drawer.

Then came dinner.  I spent more time laboring over what to eat than actually cooking what I decided to eat.

Tuna steak with grilled veggies (all drizzled in balsamic vinegar glaze)…

Finished off with 1/2 carrot cupcake…  Note the slight blurriness of the photo.  My decision making abilities were also slightly blurred at that moment.  I need to get these out of my house!!

Detailed food journal….

• Breakfast:  2 peices toast with earth balance, 2 espressos, DanActive
• Lunch:  Amy’s Enchiladas
• Snacks:  cherry tomatoes, blueberries, sunflower seeds.
• Dinner:  Tuna & veggies
• Dessert:  1/2 cupcake

On a bright note, my weight today was 196.4.  Very surprised and very stoked about that.

Fitday is below….

Grams Calories %-Cals Calories 1,582 Fat 59.1 526 33 % Saturated 10.3 92 6 % Polyunsaturated 10.0 88 5 % Monounsaturated 18.0 159 10 % Carbohydrate 186.3 721 45 % Dietary Fiber 26.2 Protein 87.4 357 22 % Alcohol 0.0 0 0 %

Fat ( 33 %) Carbs ( 45 %) Protein ( 22 %) Alcohol ( 0 %)

I ended up with what I think was close to an 1800 calorie day, but I’m not sure.  I blame the endoscopy and migraine.  My defenses were down and I needed comfort.

After I got home from the endoscopy the first thing I did was take migraine medicine.  The second thing I did was eat breakfast.

I took nap, and then woke up and snacked a bit around 3pm. I had a bowl of cereal with oat milk, and some pretzel slims.

I got a wild hair and wanted to cook a tomato & olive tart from one of my old favorite cookbooks - Weight Watcher’s Simply Delicious (2002).

This was great!  Phyllo dough with tomatos, olives, shallots, cheese and basil.  Yum.  Unfortunately I ate about 300 calories worth! I could easily make this again on flatbread and not have all these leftovers.

I was now in a cooking mood, so I decided to make a “healthy” carrot cupcake recipe from the same cookbook.  It was not until I was done that I realized the recipe was not healthy - the cookbook had calculated the calories based on teeny tiny portions.  Next time I’ll turn to my Ellie Krieger or Clean Eating cookbooks for baked goods.

But anyway, it was delicious nonetheless.

By now I had consumed far more than my fair share of calories for the day, and I looked over and saw that the veggie potstickers the husband had fried up were JUST SITTING THERE.  I asked him if he was going to eat them and he said no, he had changed his mind about eating them.

So I ate all six of them.  (Sorry, no picture - I ate them up too quickly!)

It was not a healthy food choice at all, but it was so tasty.

Grams Calories %-Cals Calories 1,761 Fat 73.3 651 36 % Saturated 16.7 149 8 % Polyunsaturated 12.8 113 6 % Monounsaturated 14.5 125 7 % Carbohydrate 233.0 923 52 % Dietary Fiber 27.5 Protein 54.3 216 12 % Alcohol 0.0 0 0 %

Fat ( 36 %) Carbs ( 52 %) Protein ( 12 %) Alcohol ( 0 %)

Today I had an “upper GI endoscopy”.  Its a procedure where they put a scope with a camera down your throat to look at your esophagus and stomach.  They also usually do a biopsy to see if the cells are healthy.  I have a history of gastrointestinal problems (acid reflux, GERD, ulcers, esophogeal tear), so it was time.

Generally speaking it was not so bad.  Just time consuming and fairly inconvenient.

What made today extra special is that I woke up with a migraine headache and couldn’t take any medicine for it!!

I was sedated for the procedure, but the headache remained.  So my husband raced me home to take my normal headache meds and now I’m better.  Heavily medicated, but better.

More later!

Today I made a green monster for breakfast.  A couple cups each of kale and spinach, blended with pumpkin, chocolate soymilk, frozen blueberries, and a touch of orange juice concentrate.

Before….

After…

It was just ok.  I ended up drinking only about half.  It was so nutritious that I really did try to drink it but it just was such an odd mix of flavors.  I will try again with some different ingredients later this week.

Here’s what I packed up for work…

Dinner was leftover chili (not pictured) with some plain yogurt.  I also had an after dinner snack of Mighty Bites (dry) and some Honey Nut Mini Munchies (rice snacks).  Bad picture of the rice snacks below. 

I have a doctor’s appointment tomorrow for an outpatient procedure.  I’m a little bit nervous because it requires general anesthetic.  I really felt the stress of it all day.

I also have this other medical issue going on that is annoying.  I have plantar fasciitis, which causes foot pain.  Since I’m such a treadmill addict, that sucks pretty bad.  I live for my morning walks.

Today’s food details…

• Breakfast:  Green Monster Smoothie, 2 espressos, DanActive
• Lunch:  Amy’s Tamale Verde (Black Bean)
• Snacks:  Honey Nut mini rice snacks, blueberries, celery, red pepper strips, Mighty Bites cereal
• Dinner:  Leftover chili with greek nonfat yogurt

Fitday….

Grams Calories %-Cals Calories 1,511 Fat 36.0 322 21 % Saturated 5.9 53 3 % Polyunsaturated 2.8 25 2 % Monounsaturated 1.1 10 1 % Carbohydrate 271.5 1,057 68 % Dietary Fiber 47.9 Protein 46.9 176 11 % Alcohol 0.0 0 0 %

Fat ( 21 %) Carbs ( 68 %) Protein ( 11 %) Alcohol ( 0 %)

Today started out great, but now I’m annoyed.  I decided I wanted to cook a new recipe: Black Bean and Espresso Chili, from Bon Appetit circa 2003.  It was a rather gigantic batch.  Scroll way down for the recipe.

Some black beans, sauteed onions, spices, espresso…..

Single serve with a dollop of nonfat greek yogurt.

After I got to sample the stuff (dee-lish!), I needed to calculate the calories and get it into Fitday.  My brilliant plan was to count the calories for each ingredient first, total it, and then divide by the number of cups in the finished product.

I counted the calories three times and came up with drastically different totals each time. Then, I had to actually manually count the number of cups by scooping one cup at a time into a bowl.  First time I counted 28.5 cups.  Better count again to be sure. Second time was 15 cups.  F**K!  Now I’m annoyed.

One bright note, here are some perfectly ripened cherries I grazed on all afternoon / evening…

Here is my food journal for today:

• Breakfast:  DanActive, 2 Espressos, 2 peices whole grain toast with 1 tbl earth balance
• Lunch:  Peanut Butter Pows with Oat Milk
• Snacks:  Butter flavored popcorn snacks; pretzel slims, cherries
• Dinner:  Black Bean & Espresso Chili with plain yogurt

Recipe for the chili is below….

BLACK BEAN AND ESPRESSO CHILI

Ingredients:

• 6 tbsp olive oil (original recipe called for 1/2 cup olive oil)
• 3 large onions - chopped (original recipe called for 5 onions)
• 1/4 cup instant espresso powder
• 1/4 cup ground cumin
• 1/4 cup chili powder
• 1/4 cup dried oregano
• 2 - 28 oz cans crushed tomatoes with added puree
• 1/3 cup honey
• 4 oz tomato paste - canned (not in the original recipe, I added it)
• 6 large garlic cloves - minced
• 7 - 15 oz cans black beans - rinsed and drained
• 2 cups water
• 1 tablespoon salt
• 1/4 teaspoon chipotle powder
• large pinch cinnamon

Assorted optional toppings include sour cream, chopped fresh cilantro, chopped green onions, shredded cheese, sliced jalapenos, and shaved bittersweet chocolate.

Directions:

1. Heat oil in heavy large pot over medium-high heat. Add onions and sautë until tender, about 8 minutes.
2. Mix in espresso powder, 1/4 cup chili powder, cumin, and oregano. Cook 1 minute.
3. Mix in tomatoes, honey, and garlic. Bring to simmer.
4. Reduce heat to medium-low, cover, and simmer 30 minutes.
5. Add beans, 2 cups water, salt, chipotle chili powder, and cinnamon. Bring to boil over high heat.
6. Reduce heat to medium and simmer uncovered until mixture thickens slightly, stirring often, about 30 minutes.
7. Season with salt and serve!

Yields somewhere between 14 and 28 cups.  No idea how many calories. 

Recipe courtesy Bon Appëtit January 2003 Entertaining Made Easy Epicurious.com

Fitday summary below….

Grams Calories %-Cals Calories 1,486 Fat 38.0 342 23 % Saturated 7.1 64 4 % Polyunsaturated 3.1 28 2 % Monounsaturated 2.6 24 2 % Carbohydrate 252.4 994 65 % Dietary Fiber 31.9 Protein 45.9 182 12 % Alcohol 0.0 0 0 %

Fat ( 23 %) Carbs ( 65 %) Protein ( 12 %) Alcohol ( 0 %)

Included in the many changes I’ve been making in my life regarding health are my goals to learn how to cook healthy food.  I read recipes constantly in my spare time.  I rarely cook from them, but its fun anyway!

Sometimes I’ll run across a recipe for a dressing that includes, say, dijon mustard, vinegar, olive oil, dried spices, capers, and sundried tomatoes.  With the recipe there is a footnote that says to use for up to 2-3 days.

So here is my question.  Please tell me how a recipe made up entirely of ingredients that have shelf lives of no less than six months can expire in 2-3 days???

Starting weight (7/5/2009): 212.8

Last week’s weight (8/9/2009): 200.0

This week’s weight (8/16/2009): 199.0

This week’s weight loss / gain: lost 1.0 pounds

Total weight loss: 13.8 pounds

This is good, but I seem to be slowing down.  Earlier this week I dipped down to about 198.8 but I’m not sure why I didn’t lose any weight (even gained 0.2 lbs) throughout the rest of the week.  Will try to drink more water, consume more veggies and eat less dairy to see if that helps.

I also want to do a bit of yoga (in addition to treadmill walks) to help some stiffness in my neck & shoulders.

Weekends are always a little bit interesting.  I never really know how it will go.  Seems like some weekends I barely choke down 900 calories in a day, while others I’ve eaten a week’s worth of food by noon.

Today I had consumed nearly 1000 calories by 1:00pm; but, I turned things around and finished out the day  a tad over 1400.

I tried a new food today!  BTW, I have an unhealthy obsession with buying “new” foods.  My fridge and pantry are busting at the seems, yet I buy more food treasures to try.  This time it was soy yogurt.

The yogurt tasted great, so I decided to make a little fruit, granola, yogurt mix.  It was sooo good!!  I didn’t realize it until later but what started out to be a light snack graduated to meal status at nearly 500 calories.  Here’s a close up to make you jealous.  ;-P

A few hours later I felt like my appetite was insatiable.  Given how much I had eaten, I was feeling like it would be another 2k+ day.  The black bean soup at Panera saved the day.  It doesn’t look so good in the picture, but it really tasted great and was super filling.

Shortly after this the husband and I went for a massage.  Then I had a light dinner of salad and broccoli pancakes (not pictured) at about 8:00.  Such a great day!!

• Breakfast Part 1:  DanActive, 2 peices of whole wheat toast with earth balance butter substitute, soy cappuccino
• Breakfast Part 2:  soy yogurt, granola and berries and large espresso
• Lunch:  Panera Black Bean Soup, whole grain baguette
• Dinner:  2 broccoli pancakes with green salad and raspberry vinaigrette

Fitday is below….

Grams Calories %-Cals Calories 1,408 Fat 45.7 411 28 % Saturated 6.6 59 4 % Polyunsaturated 3.3 30 2 % Monounsaturated 2.6 23 2 % Carbohydrate 217.0 854 59 % Dietary Fiber 28.3 Protein 45.5 179 12 % Alcohol 0.0 0 0 %

Fat ( 28 %) Carbs ( 59 %) Protein ( 12 %) Alcohol ( 0 %)