Michele, oh my yes, I do like that apple pie Quest bar. Are there any BAD flavors in that line? They are amazing things, though costly, but one of my grocery stores suddenly carried them at two for $5. I may personally buy out their stock over the next few weeks if the price stays like that.
Saturday, with gray skies and flurries in the forecast, as this winter drags on & on.
Weigh in: 140.9, pre-intake and out-take.
Today's Meals:
Breakfast: Asparagus, red pepper and spinach egg bake; home-made banana & prune muffin; strawberries & yogurt
Lunch: Spring mix salad, cold asparagus, guacamole, salsa, roasted almonds
Snack: Sliced-up Braeburn apple
Dinner: Turkey kielbasa, kale and chickpea soup
Dessert: Quest bar in chocolate chip cookie dough flavor
Today's Exercise:
At the gym: 20 minutes on the recumbent bike, same program, but upping the resistance to 7; then dumbbell routine, same as Thursday; and then a jam-packed Pilates mat class, in which the instructor was utterly merciless.
I buy cases of the quest bars for $24.99, either from Amazon or my gym when they have a deal. I've stuck with the chocolate flavors but I should branch out.
My DD had me try a Quest bar once. I was not impressed. Did I get a bad flavor? Forget which it was, but DD insists you need to put them in the microwave for a couple seconds.
I too buy Quest bars by the "case" (actually a dozen). My favorites are the White Chocolate Raspberry and Choc. Chip Cookie Dough (they both have chunks in them). I like many -though not all- of the flavors though, and agree with Michele that the trick is to buy them online (I use Amazon). Saef, you could also buy your Bare Naked apple chips that way.
Eating has been in better control this week; weight is back down below 127 (phew) and I'm getting over my excessive fatigue, which I think was from a combination of being premenstrual (which I didn't realize, since my periods are extremely irregular) and getting a virus (I came down with a nasty sinus/throat infection the same night I posted the last message). So, no weird autoimmune disease, just random illness. And, oh yes, I went to an orthopedic surgeon about my forearm and he diagnosed "radial tunnel syndrome" (who even knew that was a thing?). I apparently need some steroid iontophoresis and, if that doesn't work, some sort of decompressive surgery.
Yes, Allison, they are better warmed for 10-15 seconds and I do like some flavors better than others. A quest bar and 100 calories of almonds are my favorite snacks on low carb days.
Allison, to me they taste great, almost unbearably sweet. My memory of what the real thing should taste like has faded because I haven't eaten a candy bar in more than seven years, and the last time that I ate apple pie was in October 2013, and the last time I had a cookie was in July 2012. (And what I've learned from my abstention is that I don't need to eat any of those things to gain weight.)
And Andrea, yes, I bought my last batch of Bare Fruit Apple Chips from Amazon -- then found individual bags in the food section at TJ Maxx and Home Goods, priced less per bag, and also got those. But now I'm out, which is okay. I am not craving them so strongly now. I appear to have moved on.
This was Sunday, a day when I felt really tired and sniffly and wanted to eat & eat & eat after lunch through bedtime -- I really fought with myself today.
Today's Meals:
Breakfast: Asparagus, red pepper and spinach egg bake; home-made banana & prune muffin; strawberries & yogurt
Snack: Sliced Braeburn apple
Lunch: Spring mix salad with roasted vegetables, half an avocado, roasted pecans, goat cheese and Craisins
Dinner: Baked tilapia with breadcrumbs & salsa, collard greens, roasted cauliflower
Dessert: Quest bar in chocolate chip cookie dough flavor
Today's Exercise:
At the gym: 30 minutes on the recumbent bike, hill climb program, resistance again raised to 7; 3x12 circuit of calf raises, single leg presses, RDL and bodyweight squat
AndreaThanks for the advice re weighing. I like to keep it simple - no math whenever possible. Rolling average = to me. If I eat the stuff I'm supposed to eat the fluctuations are never more than 3 lbs. and, to me, that's no cause for concern.
Monday, a day of reckoning, with snow flurries skidding around my face as I walked to the gym and sticking to the grass. My manager's back from vacation. Also my weigh-in made it look as though I'd eaten my fool head off all weekend, when on Sunday, I was hanging on with white knuckles, trying not to eat & eat in the long stretch from dinner to bedtime.
Weigh-in: Pre-intake and outtake: 142.6, disappointing. What did I do? Antihistamines? Lots of Diet Cherry Pepsi?
Today's Meals:
Breakfast: Asparagus, red pepper and spinach egg bake; home-made banana & prune muffin; strawberries & yogurt
Snack: Sliced Braeburn apple
Lunch: Spring mix salad with roasted vegetables, half an avocado, goat cheese, roasted almonds, Craisins
Dinner: Lemon-roasted cabbage, quinoa with chickpea, cashew, broccoli & mushroom stew
Dessert: Cookies & cream Quest bar
Today's Exercise:
At the gym: 20 minutes on the recumbent bike, again hill climb program, resistance retained at seven; the same upper body routine except that I increased the dumbbells to 20 lbs each side for alternating shoulder presses and for curls. So I'm curling 20s at last -- but nowhere near back to what I was doing before the accident.
Tuesday: Work is humming along with the usual demands (drafting a presentation for next Monday, interviews, hiring). Mental and physical therapy sessions are in my schedule today, which both seem required at regular intervals to keep this machine functioning.
No weigh-in, but a glance at my stomach in the mirror tells me I'm okay.
Today's Meals:
Breakfast: Asparagus, red pepper and spinach egg bake; home-made banana & prune muffin; strawberries & yogurt
Snack: Sliced Braeburn apple
Lunch: Spring mix salad, roasted vegetables, red pepper hummus, half an avocado, goat cheese, pistachios
Snack: Apple pie Quest bar
Dinner: Turkey kielbasa, kale and chickpea soup
Today's Exercise:
Front leg raise 3x20, Lateral leg raise 3x20, Side clams 3x20, Lateral leg raise 3x20, Bicycle 3x20, Kickback 3x20 and High knee 3x20.
Physical therapy: 12 minutes elliptical; bodyweight lunges & static lunges, mostly failed; 3x14 bodyweight squats alternating with crunches; leg curl and quad raise machine 4x12
Did weight workout this morning - my third. Everything seems to be functioning and I've increased my reps to 20 of 6 different exercises plus a balancing segment at the beginning as a warm up. Will see how everything feels tomorrow.
Good morning from my commuter train! (25min late grumble grumble)
I am back to last Friday's weight, at which point I stopped charting cals and ate like I was 'naturally' thin - error
Andrea, I also realize hormone flux after the fact ... But lately a breast grab (of my own) will alert me to the likelihood.
Back on the wagon, and trying to keep charting through this holiday weekend. Planning a holiday dinner with family and then headed to upstate ny for family time.
Stay strong chicks, in body and mind!! (Far easier said than done, don't we know it)
Dagmar, I'm glad you're back to the weights. You said you'd missed them, or rather, noticed the effects of the lack in your life.
Hey Kitty, what will you face over the weekend with holiday food? Me, I'm dreaming of the Easter dinners from my childhood, with the butter lamb, the huge raisin-studded loaves of paska (or babka, to half of the family), the ham and the kielbasa ring, usually made by an elderly male neighbor. And colored eggs blessed at the church on the previous Palm Sunday. Then I realize half of what I'm missing isn't the food but the ambiance provided by feeling warmly enclosed by family. Most of them now dead, since I'm looking so many decades backward. Easter is a paltry, unpeopled and aesthetically and culturally stingy thing now when I do celebrate it.
So it's Wednesday, and I have my monthly trip to the orthopedic surgeon to get the leg x-rayed, to see how well it's healing, and to get a renewed prescription for physical therapy. And I've got to interview a guy for a job opening later in the afternoon.
Weigh in: Down a bit, pre-intake and pre-outtake, to 141.3
Today's Meals:
Breakfast: Asparagus, red pepper and spinach egg bake; home-made banana & prune muffin; strawberries & yogurt
Snack: A Bartlett pear that could have been a little riper
Lunch: Spring mix salad, roasted vegetables, red pepper hummus, half an avocado, goat cheese, pistachios
Snack: Cookies & cream Quest bar
Dinner: Quinoa with chickpea, cashew, broccoli & mushroom stew
Today's Exercise:
At the gym: 20 minutes on the recumbent bike, again hill climb program, resistance retained at seven, with the same mileage result. And pretty much the same upper body routine. I added 2x12 seated cable rows, trying to counter my kyphotic posture from using a cane. And once again, I increased weights on one exercise -- now 80 lbs on the lat pulldowns.
Easter for us will be spent on a cruise-- or at least that is the day we depart. We've cruised on Easter before-- the ships tend to decorate with some pretty awesome chocolate egg displays.
Still disheartened by my unmoving weight. I really don't want to be above my redline pre-cruise, but there is only so much I can do in the next few days.
Dh is bringing my car in for maintenance and it has had a bunch of recalls so I don't know when/if it will be ready which will likely affect my chances of working out today.
We will see.... hopefully the day will go smoothly.
Thursday, with my head swimming from my having awakened around 3 AM and stayed awake for an hour, hoping to sleep, before giving up and getting out of bed. Typically this means the demands of work and life have reached a crescendo. Also, it makes me want to eat my head off.
The doctor thought the healing of the bone was coming along well. It just takes a lot of time and I'm not even six months out from the accident. He reduced my physical therapy sessions to twice weekly. This makes sense to me. If I use the gym in a thoughtful way, following an appropriate program, I actually have a good idea of what to do to rebuild my leg strength and regain my sense of balance.
No weigh in at that early hour.
Today's Meals:
Breakfast: Asparagus, red pepper and spinach egg bake; home-made banana & prune muffin; blueberries with cinnamon & yogurt
Snack: Another hard Bartlett pear. I need to put those into the basket on the counter.
Lunch: Baby kale salad, roasted vegetables, red pepper hummus, half an avocado, goat cheese, roasted almonds
Dinner: Quinoa with chickpea, cashew, broccoli & mushroom stew
Dessert: Chocolate chip cookie dough Quest bar
Today's Exercise:
Front leg raise 3x20, Lateral leg raise 3x20, Side clams 3x20, Lateral leg raise 3x20, Bicycle 3x20, Kickback 3x20 and High knee 3x20.
At physical therapy:
12 minute warmup on elliptical, hill program; 4x12 weighted step-ups w/ 5-lb dumbbells, alternating with 4x12 crunches; 4x12 leg press, 4x12 calf press; 4x12 balance board for ankle mobility, in two different directions
to me. If I eat the stuff I'm supposed to eat the fluctuations are never more than 3 lbs. and, to me, that's no cause for concern.
