Birchie, you remember correctly--I do not eat mackerel. But I am fond of smoked salmon, kippered salmon, or lox as part of a meal at any time of day. Cooked trout used to be a favorite family breakfast food from summers in my childhood. We were fisher folk. Sad to say, the trout filets were fried in bacon grease... But that's not a requirement, of course.

I like eggs, too. Eggs are a good food; don't believe anyone who says otherwise! And I mean whole eggs, not egg whites. Yuck.

Another good choice is 2% fat cottage cheese. Nicely balanced food! As good as meat, really. Sometimes we cook scrambled eggs with cottage cheese as a dinner item (or tea, as you might say).

Nuts are often a good choice, as long as you watch the fat amounts in other foods and compensate. I don't mean nut butters, although sometimes those can be OK. I prefer whole nuts. I like hot oatmeal with raw cashews (chopped) added just before serving and stirred in. A little milk added before eating is good, too.

If by Greek yoghurt you mean the 0% fat kind, I prefer some fat. Lowfat organic yoghurt is fine for me. I drink 1% milk--I personally wouldn't bother with skim. I've trained myself to the 1% over time, and now whole milk tastes like cream.

Hope this gives you some ideas.

Mornings I have cottage cheese or yogurt. or a cold slice of leftover pizza which has cheese and chicken usually. Afternoon I have cheese, or hard boiled egg, small can of tuna, sardines, or whatever I find in the fridge or pantry.

Dagmar

I fear that either golfing in frigid temperatures last weekend or driving home with my FIL who has had an off and on again cold caused me to come down with one. Wednesday was a slight cough, increasing Thursday to the point I went home from work early. Friday I took off completely and showed myself to Urgent Care to see what was up (I could barely swallow). Virus, cold, not in my lungs (yay!) so he gave me some steroids to combat the swelling and some codeine cough syrup to help me sleep. I felt better almost immediately after taking both Friday afternoon, but ended up going to bed early as the codeine left me loopy (now I just take it directly before bed and in the middle of the night if needed). Funny thing about the steroid--it has really cut my appetite. I'll be hungry and simply cannot finish what would be a normal portion. Yay, I guess. Yay if it weren't for the fact that my weight isn't budging. I can't complain, though, because I cannot exercise as I can't breathe well enough.

Thanks very much, JayEll and Dagmar. Some good ideas and prompts, and you've made me think around it a bit more.

I love fish of almost all kinds so perhaps I should eat even more! Trout for breakfast does sound good.

Tuna - oh yes, thanks. The bodybuilders' protein of choice in a shake before protein powders became so available. I could eat more of this (neat, I mean, not in a shake). There's also a stack of tinned sardines in the cupboard which I seem to be overlooking at present. They are vg with a bit of paprika.

I only eat whole eggs. Have never understood the egg white thing *at all*. So many lovely nutrients in the yolk and tastes so good. A perfect food. The lads at the farm next door have just started bringing them round on a Sunday so this is a stress-free area for me. About to hard boil half a dozen. Dagmar, do you eat anything with your hb egg in the afternoon?

Cottage cheese - great. Packed with protein. Round here (in the sticks) we now seem to have a choice of 0% fat or full fat. There is no way I am going to eat anything 0% fat and full fat is fine. (0% yoghurt sounds perfectly dreadful and I think it has extra ingredients like stablisers in it.) CC with scrambled eggs sounds interesting. That could be a great lunch for me. Thinking back, I used to have cc on my muesli in the morning so I could have that instead of yog some days.

Nuts? Definitely, although I can easily eat too many if I'm not careful (as in, count them out and put them in a bowl and put the packet away and go and sit down somewhere else with the bowl). Have just had a few extra walnuts and pumpkin seeds with my muesli to boost the protein from milk and yog. Nice idea, JayEll, to have hot oatmeal and cashews. We only have peanut butter as nut butter round here, I think, and I have gone right off it actually. It's good stuff (just peanuts) but nowadays I only eat it in an emergency and they don't come along too often, thank goodness.

The snow has gone here now and the winds have dropped. The schools are open and the buses are running. I am going to venture out.

Saef, I hope your Monday goes better and you and your associate are both feeling more able to handle the situation. Regardless of the work either of you is being asked to do, it sounds like her previous behavior was inappropriate for the office environment.

152.4 for me this morning. I had a meal out Saturday night which put me up a bit above 2000 calories for the day because I was hoping that would kick this plateau as a change from eating 1200/day every day, but no dice. I'm still right where I was last week. This week at work I have two days of all-day training which I assume will have lunch included and snacks available all day. I'm going to have to work hard to avoid eating too much.

DH is stressing out right now because the pipe our sump pump drains into appears to be clogged, so when the sump drains, it just comes back out the top of the pipe onto our lawn. The builders used the wrong kind of pipe when they installed it and apparently lots of people in our neighborhood have had to have it replaced because the pipe isn't strong enough and it either collapses or gets tree roots and things growing into it. From discussing with neighbors, it sounds like the most expensive part of the pipe replacement is just digging the trench to access the pipe, so DH is planning to try to dig it up himself (one neighbor said $2k for the full replacement vs $500 if you dig it up yourself). Personally I'm inclined to just throw money at the problem to make it go away, but

You DH is going to have Hydro and other utilities check where their lines are before he digs right? Up here it's free for the check but it takes time to book them. And how deep is the trench? You DH might have to shore it if it's more than 3 feet deep.

Dagmar

Jessica, how is your DH at backhoe operation? I hope he's not thinking he'll just use a shovel...

In addition to all the good ideas already presented --

Protein for breakfast: egg white frittata or my special protein brownies I make with 20 grams egg protein powder, cocoa powder, etc.
Protein for lunch: I try to keep some cooked chicken breast in the fridge that I can put on salads. Also hard boiled eggs. I also put cooked lean ground beef and beans on salads. I make like a taco salad.

Stir frys are great - lots of veggies and whatever protein you want. Easy to reheat. I'll eat on the same batch for days. If you make a batch of soup you can do the same thing. Simply add more meat and lentils to increase protein.

Popping in to say "hi"!
So busy for awhile that I'm just trying to keep my head above water....

Hope all are well!

Back on track since yesterday. Had a very sad birthday involving a box of very good chocolates that I bought myself but now I'm back to eating properly. Two more days at the dogsit. Almost done.

Dagmar

This cold is really throwing me for a loop. I've finished my steroids thankfully, but the cold is not going away. It's moving to my head/sinuses and that foggy feeling is making everything I do difficult. I don't think I've had a cold this bad for years. I woke up the past two mornings at about 3 AM with my throat so dry I couldn't swallow even a sip of water. Thank goodness for Chloraseptic spray! My alarm went off this morning and I ignored it and here I am an hour late for leaving for work and I don't even want to do that. My exercise has been nil for over a week and I was so proud of my 5 miles a day before! At least my appetite is still not really there so I'm not eating a whole lot, but my weight isn't really budging, either.

Next weekend is my birthday and family is coming for dinner and I have to decide what I want. I told my MIL that I'm making my cake (a lovely lemon, blueberry zucchini cake). I'm considering salmon and a big salad with maybe a rice pilaf or risotto but of course if I do that, I'll have to make the risotto! She can make the rest.

Alinnell, even though someone said it's not the flu, it sure sounds bad to me. Should you really be going to work? I hope it clears up soon.

Dagmar - I'm sorry you had a sad birthday.

Allison - rest and take care of yourself. I'm surrounded by people who keep going about things like normal and wind up sick for weeks.

Dagmar, happy belated birthday. I'm sorry that it was a bit of a downer, but glad you are nearly done with your sit.

I hope everyone in the NE US (Saef?) is safe and warm; it looks like there's extensive power outage.

Dagmar and Jay, yes, he would have utilities mark it first, and from what we hear from the other homeowners it's not actually buried very deep at all so it should be doable with a shovel. We'll see what happens I guess.

Dagmar, happy belated birthday! I'm sorry you didn't have a good day on your birthday. I think we've all had at least one birthday that was pretty sucky.

Finally broke the barrier and made it below 152 today! Hopefully it sticks. I was in training at work yesterday and today and both day I avoided the junk food in the room as "snacks" and avoided the catered lunch, and instead ate my healthy lunch from home and had some tea with cream and sugar to tide me over between meals (not the healthiest option, but far fewer calories and more filling than anything available in the room). I missed my workouts the last couple days because of the training, but should be back on track tomorrow.

I can't believe it snowed again here yesterday and today. I'm ready for spring!