Summary of Week 4

Doing the daily log is not working so much. So I think resorting to weekly summaries are more my style.

Week 4 was probably my worst week so far. It was my husband's birthday which meant a 2-layer German Chocolate cake in the fridge. Which also meant cake after dinner and the one-time I had cake for breakfast. (Which is something I still enjoy from my youth). I was also lazy because it rained most of the latter part of the week. So no afternoon walks. And it was that cold rain that makes me just want to lay on the couch and read. I also gave in and had a grilled cheese for lunch last Thursday just because it was "that kind of weather".

But I'm determined to get back on track. I got on the scale this morning and saw that I have not gained nor loss anything since Week 3. So it's time to get serious about it. And as I write this, I realize I'm hungry. I swear it's a never-ending battle.

Week 3

Week 3 is starting out good. I'm down 6lbs since the New Year. It's mostly due to how I approach food. Smaller portions and easy on the carbs. For example, I've been eating ice cream out of smaller bowls. (The bowls we usually use for dipping sauces). I've also been more conscious about adding more protein and less carbs. Yogurt at lunch instead of Wheat Thins. I've also been drinking more water.

But there are some days it's extremely hard. I had a horrible chocolate craving a few days back. In the midst of it, I somehow pinned my husband to the ground and demanded that he go to 7-Eleven (across the street) and get me chocolate. It was not pretty and definitely not my finest moment. Or it was depending on how you look at it.

Also the headaches are still coming. Not as frequently as they were before. I think I have a handle on them. But they are painful suckers.

Last week, I also tried my hand at an alternative way to make chocolate mousse. Four ingredients - avocados, vanilla, agave nectar and unsweetened cocoa. I don't like avocados so it was the first thing I tasted and after that, I couldn't eat any more. My co-workers loved it. Especially the gluten-free, dairy-free folks. But I couldn't get over the avocado aftertaste. Oh well, it was worth a shot. There's another recipe I want to try that's similar - Lavender Lemon cookies.

The Second Week

I ended the first week on a high - down 3 lbs. It's a start. But the second week is proving to be more difficult. I'm suffering from more headaches even when I eat something. I'm having a hard time forcing myself to drink water. And I want to snack more at work. My husband says it's my body getting used to the change in diet and I just have to deal with it.

Last night, we went to the Olive Garden. I know, I know - the worst place one could ever go to when dieting. The unlimited bread sticks and a menu completely full of pasta. But part of this project is to make better decisions when it comes to food. So, what better place than the Olive Garden.

I started the night looking over the drink selections. They had two delicious martinis on special - Caramel Brulee and Toasted Marshmallow. I wanted the Toasted Marshmallow because it had Kahlua and Bailey's. But it was 490 calories! I went with the Caramel Brulee, 290 calories, and I have to say it was not a bad choice. It was better than I thought.

Dinner selection was a little tricky. So many good things on the menu. But I went w/ the 510-calorie Lobster Cannelloni. But I did horribly on the bread sticks - 4 at 150 calories a piece. Then, we stopped at Dairy Queen and I got a mini sized Blizzard. The bread sticks & the Blizzard put me over by 500 calories. Which is not bad considering I just ate at Olive Garden.

And here's what I learned last night - quality, not quantity (the Lobster Cannelloni was small but very filling and delicious); you can still have alcoholic beverages as long as you have ones w/o out cream; a smaller size does not mean it taste different from a larger size (mini sized Blizzards are just as good as a regular sized Blizzards).

Thursday - Day 3

Nothing too exciting today....

Breakfast - 2 pieces of white toast, crunchy peanut butter and Simply Orange Juice. About 233 calories.

Early morning snack - 1/4 cup of oatmeal with raisins & brown sugar. (I had to try the work's oatmeal as it's a popular item. Not sure why - it's like unflavored mush).

Lunch - lettuce with diced chicken, cheese, a spoonful of black beans and 1 hard boiled egg.

Lunch hour walk around 1pm. Burned roughly 260 calories.

Snack - pumpkin pie flavored yogurt and one Hershey's nugget.

Dinner - grilled chicken breast w/ cheese, hamburger bun, Diet Pepsi and a Fiber One Cookie Bar.

After dinner exercise - 30 minutes of stretching.

Came in under around 300 calories according to Lose It. Not a bad day.

Wednesday - Day 2

This morning started out good. A small bowl of Special K Chocolate and Skim Milk. I think that's about 180 calories. While getting ready for work, I realized I had 3, maybe 4, cans of weight loss shakes at work. Great! Short week and enough to get me through till the weekend. Then, I'll stop at Target over the weekend & pick up two more cases of their version of Slim Fast. (Target's version is $2.00 cheaper than the actual Slim Fast. Same ingredients and tastes just like the real thing).

Got to work earlier than usually thanks to the light traffic. Logged into my emails - very little due to the holidays. Sweet - it's going to be good day. Went to the kitchen to get water & check on my shakes. Opened the fridge and it was full like I've never seen it before. Fruit trays, veggie trays, packs of sodas, a case of yogurt and energy drinks. But no diet shakes. WTF? My lunch for today and the rest of the week are gone! I asked around and two people saw them last Friday before the holiday break. But all the extra food showed up over the weekend. (The senior staff is trying to wrap up a deal with Comcast so they literally spent last week at the office. I'm told that the deal will take another 2 weeks for it to concluded). My eye-witnesses suspected that they might have been tossed to make room for all the groceries. But when I asked some of the senior staff members about it, none of them admitted to tossing anything. They said they just moved things around to make room. Plus, they all knew that I drink the weight loss shakes. So, what happened to a box with 3 cans of diet shakes? Great - good feelings gone. No lunch for today and I don't think I can get to Target till Friday after work. Damnit. I think there's some left over chicken at home. Maybe I'll bring that for tomorrow. But this sucks. I'm trying to be good and stay on the wagon. But then someone comes along and fucks w/ the axle. **grumble, grumble**

Anyhow, I felt so much better after my lunch hour walk (burned over 345 calories). I was bummed that I would be scrounging around the office for food. But I was over it. On my way back from my walk, I stop at the little cafe in my building & picked up some salad fixings for dinner tonight. As I was leaving, I found a $20 bill on the floor. I almost went back to get some real lunch but then realized all that was there was junk food & carbs. Then, I realized I needed gas more.

Back in the office, a massive headache was brewing. I get them when I haven't eaten or my blood sugar level is low. (Did I mention that I'm a borderline hypoglycemic?). In the back of the work fridge, I found one of my pumpkin pie flavored yogurts. Five days past the expiration date but it tasted just fine. Calories: 90. Then, I found a bag of Cheddar Sun Chips in my drawer that I stashed just before the holidays. Score! Calories: 210. A three hundred calorie lunch isn't ideal but its better than starving.

One thing I did discovered today is that Diet Coke w/ Splenda is gross. I swiped a can from the overstocked work fridge. Wasn't worth it - yuck. Diet Coke is bearable but this stuff is really awful.

Around 5pm, I started to have another headache and I was grateful that my co-worker had a stash of Nature Valley granola bars in her desk. So there was another 190 calories. The worst part about this is that I was not even hungry. I really had to force myself to eat the granola. This low-blood-sugar stuff is a bitch but at least the headache went away 20 minutes later.

The rest of the evening was uneventful. Dinner was a tilipia fillet w/ a salad and 4 Andes mints for dessert. And one glass of Simply Lemonade. Just under 670 calories. Then it was 30 minutes of stretching (which always feels good) and 20 minutes of crunches. It doesn't sound like a lot but it's something I'm building up to.

According to my Lose It app, I was 490 calories under my limit today which includes the exercises. Which feels good given yesterday's indulgence. Day 2 seemed easy. Hopefully Day 3 will be just as easy.

Movie Theaters & Happy Hour specials

I started out yesterday really good. My husband made me 2 eggs and I added one tortilla and some cheese. Plus a glass of Simply Orange Juice. All for a total of 450 calories according to the Lose It app on my IPad.

But then we went to a movie. A really good movie called Django Unchained. It's almost 3 hours long and we went at 1pm. I knew I would want at snack so I checked out the concessions online. I decided on a box of Nestle's Buncha Crunch and a diet soda. Calories: 420. But then I had some of my husband's popcorn. So add another 150 calories. Calories: 570

Not bad but not good either. At this point, I'm up to 1020 calories and I'm only allowed 1558 calories per day.

As we were leaving the theater, I asked my husband if fish was ok for dinner. (As I'm trying to balance out the day). He said it was ok but I could tell he wasn't thrilled about having fish for dinner. We walked by a Mexican restaurant w/ Happy Hour specials near my car. Being half Mexican myself, I said I would have preferred the Mexican happy hour. Well, that was enough for him. And before I knew it, we were ordering margaritas & appetizers. We toasted the New Year, watched a little football and my calorie limit went right out the window.

I now have a love/hate thing for Happy Hour specials. Oh well, try again tomorrow.

I am a food lover

I am a food lover. I see food and I want to try it. If I like it, I might have two or three helpings. Especially if they are in the dessert category. If I don't like it, at least I can say I tried it.

Food is a huge part of our lives. It nourishes us, sustains us and give us strength to continue our day. But food has many other meanings. We eat when we are happy. We eat when we are sad. We eat unknowingly and sometimes, unwillingly. We eat when we are with family and friends. We eat with strangers. We eat in our homes, in our cars and at our desks. I once knew a guy that would eat & shower at the same time to save time in the morning.

The internet says Americans eat & drink, on an average, 75 minutes every day. We spend less time eating than just about anyone else on the planet. But we’re also among the most overweight. However, the more slender French, spends 2+ hours a day eating. To me, this is an interesting piece of what I call "useless knowledge". Obviously Americans are more rushed than our European counterparts. We also don't take the time to enjoy food and those around us when dining. It also says to me that we don't exercise enough.

I'm guilty of all that. Grabbing a quick bite at my desk. Eating in my car while on the freeway. And definitely guilty of putting off the exercise till 'tomorrow'. I'm also guilty of large portions & too many 2nd helpings. And if we are to be honest, I'm guilty of not eating enough vegetables & fruits.

But it's hard as an American, as a married women - who has more hobbies than she can count - to be a better eater and still enjoy food. I'm always running off somewhere and eating healthier is expensive. It's especially hard since I don't like most fruits and vegetables. Also, I have this thing about self-discipline. When it comes to food, I have no restraint. I love all the things that are 'bad' for you. But I do want to change - I just have to find some way to be held accountable and to stop making excuses.

The biggest problem I have with eating healthier and better is that I want to enjoy food. I've always associated eating healthier as food with no flavor. I don't want to sacrifice flavor & be miserable at the same time. Especially when I know there are such delicious foods out there.

As part of my "Healthy in 2013" campaign, I have started this food diary as a way to control my eating habits. My goal for the diary is to write daily about the challenges of what I ate and/or didn't eat, the struggles to be a healthier, thinner version of me (I'll warn you now - there will be some complaining), my exercises and, I hope, the rewards of my efforts (no matter how small they may be).