:lol: My meal plan reminds me of feeding a baby every 3 hrs or so, too Fran!

Today was much much much better.

2 eggs, english muffin, cheese
pbj sandwich, greek yogurt, blueberries
turkey slices, sliced veggies, laughing cow
greek yogurt mixed with cottage cheese, blueberries, apricot, peanut butter
protein shake after lifting weights
turkey chili, small potatoes, okra

I did a power class at the gym. So fun! I partnered with DD and she kept going heavier with the bench presses (making me go heavier) and I kept going heavier on the deadlifts (making her go heavier!) Strong women rock!!

We did dumbbell snatches, deadlifts, power cleans, chest presses, and squat jumps with a weight vest. With each set we went heavier with fewer reps than the set before. Woohoo!

Yes! Instead of keeping a nursing log I'm keeping a food log. gah!

So, had the BEST breakfast this morning!! 1 egg beater serving on a w/w tortilla. I don't know why this was so exciting but it was delish! I'm thinking I really need a 2 egg serving next time, it was more tortilla than egg. I think BFL calls for one egg per meal, but what the heck, a little more protein can't hurt. I want to try experimenting with some onions and maybe my friend the lf cheese too. I know EB makes a variety with green and red peppers and while I don't like peppers, they might taste pretty good to me after this week, who knows?

Rest of the day will call for

2: lean turkey and yogurt
3: ham/pita melt lunch w/carrots
4: Cottage cheese and cheerios
5: Chicken breasts breaded and stuffed with broccoli with brown rice for dinner. I'll admit the chicken breasts are processed food with a high fat count, but that will be my fat for the day.
6: if needed, probably not looking at the fat in dinner, i will have egg whites and red grapes before bed

2 more days away from Sunday guys - we can make it! Actually it seems really easy now, does it for you guys too? I actually had a sense of panic yesterday when I realized I had only planned thru Weds and now needed to do the rest of the week. Once my food was written out thru Saturday, I felt an amazing sense of calm. Life changing, for sure.

Fran: Preplanning my meals for the whole week really has been calming for me too. It's so nice not to feel stressed at 5:00pm about preparing dinner. I used to plan out a weeks menu for dinner but had gotten out of the habit.

Sometimes it feels easier as the week goes on, sometimes not. This morning as I was getting ready for the gym I had this sinking feeling of "Oh, another day of trying to avoid the kiddie carbs in the pantry." But then I just quickly dismissed it went to the gym and decided to take this hour by hour if need be.

Yesterday was great. I didn't feel hungry. Today, I was a little hungrier after breakfast and lunch wasn't feeling very satisfying either.

I also noticed that I really didn't have much zip in my workout this morning either. It was my intention to do heavy legs today. One set of all of my exercises and I was done. If this continues I may need to boost my carb intake just a little more. It really was pretty low this week.

On a side note, I've gone down two and half pounds this week so there is a lot going on inside.

Food:

M1: ww toast (preworkout) I think we are supposed to fast before that workout but I really needed something.
M2 Protein oatmeal
M3 2 ww toast, 3 oz deli ham, ff cheese slice, 1 tbs hummus, veggies, 1 tbs pbutter
M4 cottage cheese with Fage and berries
M5 Turkey taco salad
M6 2 lf cheese sticks, small apple (if needed)

Fran: How do you make the oatmeal with the egg whites. I might try that for my afternoon snack with the boys today too.

Isn't it interesting how our eating pattern reflects something that babies intuitively know to do. It is one of the reasons I know that this is the most effective ways to fuel ourselves. Not efficient time wise I know but it's seems to be something that we have unlearned only to rediscover once again. :^:

hi guys,

my food for day 5:

M1: yoghurt, OJ, yeast, bran, protein powder
M2; cranberry musli bar
M3: mushroom soup, 1/2 ww cheese sandwich
M4: rest of my sandwich
M5: (starving & stressed out to cook dinner in time to leave for DDs dance class) 2 crackers, ham. olives, artichokes
M6: 3/8 broccoli-cheese-bacon pie

I have not been hungry today except for M5, also the sugar cravings are lessening.

Again, glad to have you all around. i find it interesting and rather wonderfull to be able to compare our experiences. this is really helpfull for me.

have a great day,
Rabbit

I do need to plan my meals for the rest of the week, as well. But today:

1 - oatmeal with walnuts, raisins, flax meal, skim milk (only ate 1/2, saved the rest for another meal); ww toast w/blueberry jam
2 - ff latte
3 - lean cuisine w/added veggies, slice of real - not deli - turkey breast
4 - apple, 3/4 oz cheddar
4A - cc with strawberries (optional)
5 - steak, veggies, spinach salad, brown rice
6 - if needed, rest of the oatmeal

Please note that I have not yet eaten the cc with choc sf jello - I can't face it with the AS taste. :lol:

Wow, I was just telling this to the dd's the other day. When they were home from school, I did notice that we were eating on the same schedule. I read somewhere that it's not until the age of 4 or so that kids turn off their natural sensations and learn to eat for other reasons. Is it any coincidence that age that age they enter structured school programs that eliminate morning snack and make kids wait til lunch to eat? I told them that I am now eating naturally, as are they, and explained to them that artificial demands of a busy life is what causes us to change nature. On that note, I had to send a note to school on day 2 this year bc they had the 4th graders waiting until 12:55 to eat lunch! I sent in a livid note asking how they could expect kids to go for 5 hours without eating - that it wasn't even healthy for adults to do so! And heaven help the before care kids who are eating at 6:30! A note came home in the backpacks that nite announcing they would now get to bring a non-carby snack that they can eat at 10:00!

Very true for me as well. When we do these kind of plans we are often isolated without a support group who knows the challenges of being successful on something like this!

Fran, I know this is part of the problem we have with the middle school kids who come in after school. Some of them have lunch as early as 10:45 am! When I get them at 2:15 they haven't eaten for nearly 4 hours - and unless their parents send them with snacks or $$ - and most don't - they won't eat again until 5 or 6 pm! I'd love to have a vending machine with healthy snacks but I can just envision the problems that would entail!

Glad your kids can now have snacks in school.

I worry about my kids too, whether they eat often enough at school....


My meals for today:
2 eggs, english muffin, cheese
orange
turkey sandwich (ahem, serving of coffee ice cream....I swear I have been off plan more this week than in a long time)
greek yogurt, blueberries
turkey slices, tomatoes, pickles, laughing cow cheese
tilapia, broccoli, marinara sauce (works for me!)

2 miles sprint intervals woven with squats, lunges, step ups, hops, skips, and planks.

Okay, I'll bite - was the marinara sauce on the fish or the broccoli??

My day was reasonably as planned,though since my morning snack morphed into a ff latte, my cottage cheese afternoon snack didn't get eaten (but the apple and cheese did). I had my planned dinner after the gym, and now at 9:20 I'm growling stomach hungry. I think some pb toast with a cup of tea will hit the spot.

DId I tell you how pleased the doc was this morning - both with all my various numbers (BP esp) and the fact I'm down 2 lbs. He really "gets" how hard weight loss/maintenance is.

Fran: overhere kids in elementary school take a mid morning snack and their sandwich lunch with them, as do most middle schoolers. most adults pack sandwiches for lunch as well and only get a soup or milk from the cafetaria at work. My DD especially always packs a lot of food and snacks into her school bag. She knows she has a tendency to migraine if her blood sugar gets too low.

My meal plan for day 6:
m1: yoghurt, OJ, yeast, bran, pp (eaten)
m2: ff cc with cherries from a pot
m3: grilled cheese sandwich, maybe a soup
m4: ff cc with cherries
m5 3/8 of broccoli cheese quiche leftover from yesterday
m6: ???

:lol: I layer it, Pat. Broccoli, then fish, then sauce and eat it all together.

How's it going with that volcano up there?

Morning. The volcano is kinda lurking. It's causing some seismic activity, but still in a "Watch" mode by the Volcano Observatory. What is here again is SNOW! About 5" already and still coming down. MY DH has gone to Anchorage, and I hope the roads are clear. He drives a small Toyota pickup with a shell on the back, but those things have notoriously bad traction.

Meals today, hmmm.

B - rest of yesterday's oatmeal with fixin's; ww toast with Laughing Cow Light
S - cottage cheese with strawberries
L - shrimp salad (i.e. green salad with shrimp on it)
S - pear, cheese
D - spruce grouse; brown rice; broccoli (or other veg)

Exercise: active rest day - square dancing tonight

:crossed: Wishing safe travels for your DH Pat. Wow. Volcanic activity. I really need to plug into current events more.

Midwife: I'm having tilapia tonight too. Sans the layered style though. I like my food to be separate. :lol:

Fran: That is a crazy long time for kids to go without lunch. Fortunately, my DS has scheduled lunch at 11:05. They are also allowed to graze in the classroom if they need to as well. (It's a rather progressive elementary school. I'm so glad he's there.)

Food today: I've been crazy busy a couple of my meals were eaten on the run. Good thing tomorow is my FREE DAY! :woohoo:

M1 Protein Oatmeal
M2 Pure Protein bar :rolleyes: It was post workout (two hours at the gym) and between the grocery and pickup from preschool
M3 4 oz of turkey with taco seasoning over lettuce
M4 Lite cheese stick, 6 almonds
M5 Tilapia, 1/2 c long grain brown rice, broccoli, and fruit
M6 1/2c cottage cheese 1/2c applesauce, warmed

Today:

2 eggs, english muffin, cheese
orange, cottage cheese, blueberries
turkey sandwich
cottage cheese, blueberries
string cheese, tomatoes
greek yogurt, blueberries
1 hr CORE CAMP! Dd is excited, me I'm terrified!!
protein shake
hmmm.....tilapia and spinach. yum!

Today my choices were:

1. 2 Beaters scrambled on ww tortilla wrap. I threw in a slice of lf cheese. This meal did not sit well w/me for some reason - I felt very uncomfortable, full in the chest afterward. Perhaps it was too much food since I doublled the amount of eggs plus added the cheese. Oh well, it had to get me thru volunteering at dd's school this morning.

2. Grocery store salad bar. Which promptly made me sick 1 hr later for about 4 hours. Hmm, fun times. Not. Obviously can't be doing that anymore.

3. Muffin (sshh!) I bought these at the store for my free day on Sunday, but needed something portable to get thru swim team practice tonite (away from home from 5-9, didn't want to drag a lunchbox!)

4. An unmentionable dinner, chosen at 9 pm not at home, that proves the best choices are not made in a lurch. May have to reconsider bestowing my free day to day. :rolleyes: Clearly the salad dressing was too high in fat if it put my stomach on red alert, so the whole day outside of breakfast was a wash - altho pretty much planned it that way.

Fran, do you think you might have a stomach bug? Sounds like you were a little queasy all day.

Today:
granola, small amt skim milk, protein shake
2 eggs, black beans, small potato, red chile, cheese (I am very proud of this as the rest of the family is having breakfast burritos from a local restaurant--DD has been asking for one for several weeks---she works out 3 times a day most days of the week and is a calorie furnace---I chose to NOT have one from the restaurant and prepared a reasonable alternative. :drool: Yeah!!)

The rest of the day will be on plan. I'm going to the store so I don't have specifics but I will be well stocked for the upcoming week.

Exercise was a 4.5 mile run. About 2 miles into it is a set of 3 hills, about 50 yards each, that are steeper than a stairway. At the top of each is a little platform before you turn and go up another hill. That was my HIIT for the run. I would plow up one hill, recover, plow up the next, recover and plowed up the third. Whoo! It's a little neighborhood in the foothills and the street is named Puma Place, or some such. Yea, runners and pumas are the only critters that would even try it on foot.

Hey Lydia, well, they're separate. I eat the egg whites whole. :D Sorry to disappoint you in a fabulous new creation! Hope you had a good weekend nonetheless.

I've decided to repeat my meals starting tomorrow, so I may have nothing new and exciting to post unless I create some super delish combo I want to tell everyone about! My egg wrap on Saturday went much better. Left off the wrap and ate clementines instead. Also added extra protein to my eggs via ham.

I'm really happy with my progress in the first week - hope everyone else is seeing good things too! So happy you all joined me on this journey! :hug: