Another good day in the bag

Calories came in at about 370. I may have a bit of yogurt before be. I can cope with anything except going to bed hungry!

Today was rest day from formal exercise, but I mowed the lawn, spread 5 bags of mulch, and painted 1 huge wall in the basement.

Day 8
Mel

Yikes, Mel I'm assuming you meant 1370!

Dinner was great. Your tamale pie was a hit Barbara. Next time I might use mild salsa, as DH thought it a "bit spicy." Had a spinach salad with it, as well as homemade garlic bread (garlic and parmesean in the dough), as well as the lemon poppyseed cake. That cake is leaving my house tomorrow!! I stuck to my plan, but it was waaay too tasty to remain in my kitchen. The others had ice cream with theirs, too. Me, I had a nice cup of tea with mine. And I'm stuffed! Oh and I never did eat my afternoon snack - got too busy.

Have tomorrow's lunch 90% packed. Just need to add another fruit.

B - oatmeal with raisins, nuts, milk; toast;
S - 1/4 c ff yogurt mixed with 1/4 c lf cottage cheese and raspberries
L - homemade veggie soup, small slice of garlic bread
S - apple or orange
D - chicken or pork w broccoli and sweet potato or tamale pie.

I came in well under in calories today too. Here's how it all worked out:

B: 3 slices bacon, Penny's Low-Fat Muffin, FF cream cheese, Meyer Lemon Marmalade, 1/2 cup FF cottage cheese
L: Salad of spinach, celery, cucumbers, beets, chicken, apricots, feta, and pumpkin seeds with dressing of feta, lemon, and FF yogurt. I'm getting tired of this salad, I'm glad I'm almost done with it.
S: Oat bran with FF cream cheese and 1/2 a peach
D: Seared tuna with Orange-Rosemary Sauce, snap peas sauteed with lemon slices, green salad with local dressing and a peach
S: Pumpkin pudding with ginger cookies

It all came in at around 1300 calories.

Exercise: 15 min elliptical, 15 min abs, 22 min intervals on TM

Robin: I know, I'm the opposite of everyone else, but weekends are easy for me because we don't eat breakfast until 11:00 AM or noon. So that pushes lunch back until 3:00 or 4:00 PM (sometimes 5:00 PM if I'm really busy), leaving room for only one afternoon snack before dinner at our usual time. All of which means my calories usually come in low. Also, I'm usually running around or busy with chores, so it's actually sometimes hard to fit food in. During the week, I work from home, so I'm sitting at my computer all day thinking about eating. And my friends always want to go out during the week because they have family stuff on the weekends, so we don't have weekend plans that often.

I divide the pudding into four single-serving containers as soon as I make it--I actually weigh each one to make sure they are all the same amount (within 5 grams). I'm pretty good with stuff that has already been portioned out--it would be really unusual for me to eat more than one container of pudding at a time.

WaterRat: I'm glad you liked the Tamale Pie!

Midwife: I copied my recipes into the recipe thread--it seemed silly to make you do it.

Barbara, thank you for your recipes. Anyone else has any good ones?

Just coming here and reading about everyone's success is so motivating!

OK, here's my week's recap:

I lost exactly one pound. It doesn't sound like much, but mathematically it's about right since my maintenance calories with exercise are around 1600, so even dropping calories down to 1100 - 1200 only gives me a small deficit. How I miss those weeks of 2 - 3 pounds!

Food was better than it's been for months, so hurray for accountability. Knowing that I would have to post about bad choices kept me from making them on many occasions.

Exercise was probably my weak link because of unexpected toe surgery, then we spent the past three days moving DS into his own apartment. Though it was very physical, I don't think it did much in the way of calorie burn. My goal for this week is seven solid days in the gym.

I haven't tried on my tight jeans yet but will. I'm convinced I'm retaining water because I can't even budge my wedding ring.

My commitment for the week: calories around 1200, seven days of cardio, five days of weights.

If anyone would like to do it again, this week's thread is here: No Excuses Week #2 - All Welcome!

But I did manage only about a hundred - 2 hundred calories over at the very most. NO EXCUSES. I planned poorly. Well I planned well, but didn't STICK with the plan. Did a bunch of cooking and spent waaay too much time in the kitchen. Yup, it was those darn BLT's that did me in. I switched up my plan, cut back on my dinner calories (which I don't like doing) and managed to salvage the day. Oh, another thing I didn't do well with yesterday - exercise.

I am still quite pleased with the week. Quite. It was the best 7 day stretch I've had in a while. My jeans were fitting comfortably yesterday, not loose like they had been, but comfortably.

Barbara, yes, I can see how that would make an easier time for you. And again, kudos for not delving into those portioned out puddings - I'm not there yet. Don't know if I'll ever be.

Congratulations to all you who kept it up for 7 days & those of you who came close and improved their weeks from their norm.

I'll head on over to the new thread in a bit.

Yesterday was a planned splurge, definitely no excuses since I'm quite pleased about it, really. It was a delicious picnic of bread, cheese, preserves, and vegetables, and a bottle of wine. Worth every bite. And my total calories came in around 1800, which is maintenance for me.

I'm sitting at the airport, coffee in hand, waiting for my flight to board. I've got yogurt in my purse to avoid the peanut handouts. Then it'll be go, go, go until Thursday evening.

This thread was very helpful to me - definitely improved my average, and stuck to what I had planned (even if what I had planned wasn't 100% at my weight loss level).

Well I did really well through Friday but Saturday the kids decided a picnic would be fun and they had things all prepared by the time we arrive and were literally standing on the sidewalk watching for us at 9:00 am Saturday morning. I didn’t even try to resist, there hearts were so in the right place.

Sunday, again we wanted to take them out to breakfast and then head back to AZ and the restaurant I was recommending (because I knew I could get egg beaters and stick to my guns) turned into a home town style restaurant that offered more choices and I didn’t exercise my well planned control. I didn’t make wise choices other then getting up this morning and dusting myself off and firmly focused on not using the weekend as an excuse to not eat on plan today and fit my workout in. I’ll see you all in the new thread tomorrow and report in.

This thread really was just what I needed just when I needed it. I was really struggling and just the tag line of No Excuses hit home, that is all I’ve been doing is coming up with excuses as to why I didn’t do xy or z.

Thx for giving me one more week to prove I can do this.

Other than bombing on that pizza the other night I am doing pretty good. I am getting my miles in and then some. Mexican tongiht...I.m going easy on the cheese and portions!

I promise!! I have to!

Today I was hungry, cranky, tired, and near vending machines and all manner and variety of food dispensers. I let myself get over-everything.

And still...STILL...I am on plan so far (or at least, as on-plan as one can be with almost no fresh veggies or fruit servings...I'm gonna try to get something veggie-heavy at dinner).

B - Yogurt (150 cals)
S - Zone Bar (210 cals, 14 grams of protein...was trying to prevent the hungries)
L - Grocery store salad w/ chicken, feta, walnuts, dried cranberries and raspberry dressing. (Nutrition label said 290 cals, but I only ate half of the dressing...still, we'll count it at 275)
S - Airport packet of pretzels (note to self - do not depend on healthy options in office vending machine - 50 calories)

I'm off to a business dinner, where I will make a healthy, veggie filled choice and have one glass of wine!

We're on a new thread for Week 2 - join us over there!