Good vs. bad

The types of food I'll eat on good days

Breakfast
1/2 cup 0% greek yogurt
1/8 cup oats
1/2 oz raw walnuts
1/4 oz chia seeds
10g raisins
2-3 cups black coffee

Snack
1 cup fresh fruit

Lunch
1/2 head romain lettuce & 1cup spinach
1 or 2 small tomatoes
1/4 to 1/2 avocado
assorted fresh veggies such as carrots, mushrooms
celery, zucchini, peppers, cucumber
1/2 tbsp olive oil with 1 tbsp vinegar
3-4 oz fish or chicken
Water

Snack
3 squares of dark chocolate

Dinner
4 oz protein
2 cups veggies
1/2 cup brown rice with Bragg Aminos
Water

Snack
Sprouted grain toast with 1 TBSP PB

By the end of the day I will have had 8-12 glasses of
water

Good days happen 20-25 days of the month


The types of food I'll eat on a bad day

Breakfast
Bagel with cream cheese
Maybe a donut too

Snack
None because I'm feeling guilty from breakfast
and trying to make up for it

Lunch
By now I'm over the guilt and just crave more junk
so I splurge on something like:
Carl's Jr. Bacon Grilled Cheese Burger
Criss-cut fries
Diet Soda

Snack
An ice cream drumstick from the vending machine

Dinner
Pizza with the boyfriend
3 or 4 beers with a vodka shot (or 2)

Snack
Set off on a guilt/booze-fueled binge I'll snack until
bed on things like:
1 or 2 slices of sprouted wheat toast with butter
An apple with unlimited PB
1/2 a bag of Crunchmaster gluten free crackers
until I'm too full or too mad at myself to eat anymore

By the end of the day I will still have managed
to have my 8 glasses of water

Bad days can go from 1 or 2 days to much longer

downward spiral...i can only go up from here

eating clean was going great for awhile and then i just started a terrible downward spiral into eating poorly. when making my own meals, i did great but often i’d find excuses to eat out. when i say “eat out” i’m not talking healthy choices either…i’m talking: taco bell, carl’s jr., jack in the box, deli food; sandwiches & ice cream from the vending machines at work, snacks from the gas station on the corner, etc…

needless to say i’ve hit 160+ and am extremely displeased with myself. now i’m trying to gain control over my bad habits, yet again.

i look at it this way: at least i’m trying. i may fall off the wagon, i may gain weight, i may be heavier than i’ve ever been but i’m aware of it and i know what i have to do. i have several good influences in my life and i plan to utilize their support. i also rejoined sparkpeople, where i had great success in the past.

today i feel good, i feel positive and i just have to remember to always be present. i can’t just eat mindlessly, i can’t tell myself that one fast food meal won’t ruin me (because 1 meal leads to another and another and another…), i need to be aware of everything i eat and make the right choices. i cannot yo-yo anymore because with each yo-yo cycle i gain more. i can’t take the chance that by falling off again, i’ll gain another 5 pounds, then another, etc…i need to control it now and maintain!

missing out...

i’m going to Vegas tomorrow and i just found out Vegas Uncorked is this weekend AND we’re staying at a hotel that is hosting some of the chef events. the bad news is this: we’re on a VERY LOW budget vacation. we got a KILLER deal Encore BUT we have very little $ to actually spend.

i am so bummed because 50 top chefs will be there doing demos, etc…but we can’t buy tickets. my b.f. and i love great food so this weekend is going to be pure torture…but at least i’ll be away from work and hey, lounging by the pool is free!

case of the hump day blah's

i’m in a funk today. i think it’s partly because i had too much sugar yesterday. i’ve been almost 100% sugar free for quite awhile but yesterday i went on a sugar binger…which carried over in the morning when my friend brought rice krispie treats in to work. they seem so light, airy and innocent but they aren’t!

anyway i’m feeling down…haven’t been losing weight, i have no money yet we’re going to vegas in 6 days and i have to get my mom a b-day gift as well as a mother’s day gift, we’re taking a girl at work out for a b-day lunch where i know that i won’t choose a healthy option and i have no idea where “aunt flow” is. gah, i’m doing NOTHING to boost myself up or think positive here am i? plus my blog has no food relevance today, does it?!?!?

mmm…food. you know what? i’m going to embrace eating “junk” today. i’m going to have something sinful and delicious and i’m not going to feel guilty about it, not one single bit! not only that, i’m going to spend the rest of the day finding positivity in everything and smiling a lot. it makes a world of difference to think positive!!!

HFCS

recently, a past co-worker of mine sent me a video to watch about the evils of high fructose corn syrup. i have yet to watch it but i’m guessing that i’ll agree with a lot of what the video has to say.

last year when i first saw one of those pro-HFCS commercials, i had to laugh. they talk about how HFCS isn’t bad for you when consumed in moderation. if you do your shopping at a standard supermarket, just you TRY to consume hfcs in moderation. it’s in just about everything!!! i mean seriously, when you make mayonnaise at home, do you add sweetener? no! when you make soup at home, do you add sugar? no!

these companies are adding HFCS to just about anything they can. why? well, 2 reasons come to mind: it’s cheap to manufacture and it’s addictive. add something addictive to your product and people will keep coming back for more. pretty smart. i wonder if that’s taco bell’s secret…i could eat that stuff EVERYDAY!! but i digress…

so what’s one to do?

i say, take the extra time to make your meals from scratch. i know it sounds like a hassle but take it from me, it’s do-able!

i was a 100 calorie pack, diet frozen meal, pre-packaged low calorie/low fat food junkie for years. then my boyfriend got a job at whole foods market. all those things i’d learned as a child, being raised by parents who were very focused on natural foods, came flooding back. the foods i was eating were packed with additives and HFCS. i started thinking more about what i was eating and came up with a few things to make eating “clean” easier:

 i buy frozen fish that can be quickly defrosted for dinner.
 i buy dry beans (pinto, navy, garbanzo, black, etc..) that we can then cook & freeze or use for chili, soup, refried beans, etc...
 i buy whole chickens; once we’ve eaten it or used it for make-ahead meals, we cook down the bones for broth.
 we don’t get to the farmers market much but i always try to have fresh veggies on hand. two mainstays are baby spinach and vine tomatoes, i can add them to just about anything! typically we also have carrots, celery and onions.
 i make sure to have natural PB or walnuts and raisins around for a healthy, snack when my tummy feels rumbly.

i’m not very good at following recipes or buying specific ingredients to make a recipe (i always forget a few ingredients!) but i find that i can usually whip up a pretty good meal from what we have on hand. usually it doesn’t take much longer than it would to heat up a frozen meal and i find myself more satisfied.

i think that eating foods with HFCS often left me feeling hungry so quickly because once the sugar burned off, the feeling of being satiated went away. not to mention that once i have food with sugar or HFCS, it sets me off on a snacking binge.

all that being said about eating clean and healthy and avoiding HFCS…i just had a big cheese burger and fries. one of my direct reports had no car and no lunch partner today so i went out with her. i guess occasional junk food won’t kill me. plus, it just reinforced how much i like eating healthy…i feel like a greasy blob right now.

Acceptance and enjoyment

for the last month or so, i’ve been focusing on eating cleaner and more balanced to lose weight. i found that eating more protein, nuts and olive oil helps me stay full longer but despite the lower calorie intake, i’m still not losing. i guess i need to increase my activity level more than i need to lower my calories.

the interesting thing is that for the first time in many, many years, i find that the lack of weight loss doesn’t have me depressed. i think that’s because i feel so good about the foods i’m eating. i haven’t had fast food in at least a month and the few times i did go out to eat, i made choices based what i was in the mood and used portion control rather than just getting the “lightest” thing on the menu and feeling cheated out of something i really wanted

also, i have begun to enjoy creating meals again and i enjoy eating them too! in the past, when i “dieted” i ate a lot of stuff that was low in fat and calories but crammed with fillers and totally over-processed. most of the time these foods and snacks left me feeling empty and wanting to eat more. i still have my snack-y moments now but adding nuts, olive oil and even a little butter now and then has really helped. it’s so great to eat a balanced meal rather than an accumulation of foods that are low in fat and calories and TASTE.

in the past dinner would have been a lean cuisine or a salad with the lowest calorie, zero fat dressing i could find.

dinner now is: a beef or buffalo patty with ½ serving of shredded cheese on a bed of baby spinach and veggies that have been drizzled with 1 tsp of olive oil. or fish baked with a little olive oil, tomatoes, artichoke hearts, capers and olives served on top of sautéed spinach.

i’m not eating a lot of butter, nuts, full fat cheese or oil but i’m incorporating enough to eliminate that empty feeling, that urge to eat more because my meal didn’t satisfy me. it feels good…now i just have to focus on exercise

my new brekkie fav

fage 2% plain greek yogurt, sweetened with ½ packet of truvia; topped with oats, walnuts & raisins. it is simply one of the most delicious flavors combos i’ve come across in a long time!

it almost makes up for not being able to find horizon yogurt in my local stores anymore...almost.

fed up

i’m fed up! fed up with myself.

last night i ate a healthy dinner and decided to have a few ounces of red wine. 3 ounces led to 6, then 9, then 12, then 16. four ounces of red wine a day is considered “drinking in moderation” for a female. if that’s the case, then i had 4 servings of wine, definitely NOT drinking in moderation! but that’s not the issue so much.

the BIG issue is that after i had the wine, i ate. i had four 4” x 3” wheat free crackers, a cheese stick and an apple with way more than a serving of peanut butter.

i realized this morning that losing weight will be just about impossible if i don’t increase my exercise and if i continue to drink.

by drinking, even if it’s just 1 glass, i’m sabotaging myself. losing weight as one gets older is hard enough without self-sabotage.

i’m lazy and i love my booze; this will be a struggle but it’s something i NEED to commit to. if i don’t, i’ll find myself so overweight by my mid 40’s that the possibility of getting healthy will be too overwhelming.

i’m done being angry with myself, i’m done being fed up, i’m done making excuses! today is DAY 1 and i’m going to be healthier and extremely mindful of what i eat. i will focus on creating wholesome and tasty foods but most of all i will increase my activity level, i will limit drinking to 1-2 nights a week and avoid late night binges at all costs!!!

one hike a week does not warrant an eating free-for-all

have you ever overeaten just because you know you’re going to be doing a lot of exercise and then overeat some more because you did do the exercise?

i fall victim to this line of thought each time i do a strenuous workout…heck, it even happens if i do a little workout!

last week was bad because we had a birthday lunch for 2 co-workers, a potluck at work and dinner with the boyfriend’s dad and stepmom. i ate fairly well but not great at the birthday lunch, i ate horribly at the potluck (can you say TWO slices of cheesecake?!?!?) and chowed down on chips & bean dip at dinner with the ‘rents. and let’s not even talk about the alcohol i consumed during the week…

so what rationale did i use? a 6 mile hike with an elevation gain of 1,000 feet. yes, hiking can be tough and it burns a lot of calories but could it possibly burn the 4160 extra calories i consumed during my food-fest? no!! i’d say it burned closer to 800 of those calories. no wonder my weight and body fat % went up when i stepped on the scale today.

this is my life: lose a pound, gain 2; lose 4, gain 6. the activities involved in gaining are so much more pleasurable; eat, drink and be social. no wonder losing is hard, it’s not as fun.

i do try to make being healthier fun. i create interesting meals even though i’m usually the only one eating them (eat), i switched to 1 glass of red wine most evenings (drink) and i’ve started hiking with my friends on saturdays (be social). so i’ve got the eat, drink & be social steps covered; i should be successful, right? wrong. somehow i still fall short of my goals and it is beyond me as to how i fix it. well i do know how to fix it, have a little freakin’ self control!!! and THAT is my biggest area of weakness.

i don’t think anyone is reading this blog but if you are and you have any success stories or good ideas, i would love to hear them. thank you

yesterday i decided i really wanted fish for dinner; the outcome was tilapia baked with tomatoes, capers, marinated artichoke hearts, lemon juice and just a touch of butter. i also made asparagus satueed in a little olive oil.

tilapia baked with tomatoes, capers & artichoke hearts
2 4 oz tilapia fillets
4 small tomaotes
6 - 8 marinated artichoke heart quarters
1 tbsp capers, rinsed
1/2 a lemon for juice
1 or 2 cloves of garlic, flattened/smashed a bit to release flavor
salt & pepper

1. grease or spray a 8" x 8" baking dish
2. season fish on both sides with salt and pepper
3. lay fish in pan, mine overlapped a bit in the middle
4. shave 3 or 4 very thin slivers of butter for each fillet and arrange on fish
5. cut tomatoes in half and then quarter each half; arrange on fish
6. place 3-4 artichoke heart quarters on each fillet
7. sprinkle capers over the fish and drizzle with juice from half a lemon
8. cover with tin foil and baked for about 15 minutes at 425. I was a little negligent about documenting the time it took to cok so check it at 15 minutes. If fish flakes with the fork at thckest part, it's done. If it doesn't just pop it in for a few more minutes at a time until it does flake.

Serve with your favorite vegetable and ENJOY!

Tuna & navy bean salad

I've had the last couple days off and have been in the mood to make healthy stuff. Yesterday I made Tuna & Navy bean salad. It started off as a basic no-mayo tuna salad but then I realized I had navy beans that I'd cooked the night before so I added them and served it all atop a bed of romaine lettuce tossed with olive oil.

This recipe was so easy and can easily be modified to anyones tastes

1 can chunk light tuna (you can use less; I use one can because I need a lot of protein to stay full)
1/4c navy beans (cooked or canned)
6 diced baby carrots
1 stalk diced celery
3 tbsp parsley, chopped
1 tsp olive oil
2 tsp apple cider vinegar
juice of 1/2 lemon
salt
pepper
~~~~~
1/2 romaine heart, chopped
1 tsp olive oil
2 tsp apple cider vinegar

Combine tuna, beans, parsley, carrots, celery, olive oil, vinegar, lemon juice, salt & pepper
Place romaine in a bowl, toss with olive oil & vinegar then top with tuna mixture

A long term solution?

During spring, I start to get desperate about my post holiday weight gain and I begin looking for new and interesting ideas for weight loss. This happened again last week and I stumbled upon “The Diet Solution”. I watched the little video and was “sucked in”.

Try as I might, I couldn’t find any “real” reviews on this diet; just website after website, set up to look like blogs, promoting this plan.

The only thing I had to go on was that the creator of the plan (a nutritionist named Isabel De Los Rios) does everything she can to make you feel comfortable about the privacy policy, not selling your name and about trying her plan with the promise of a money back guarantee. So I decided to give it a shot.

I paid my $47 and downloaded my 9 e-books. I took the metabolic test and what the author had to say really seemed to sum up my eating style. I discovered I’m a “protein type” which would explain why I feel hungry much quicker after a meal consisting mainly of carbohydrates (yes, even healthy ones!) than I do after a meal with more lean protein.

***NOTE: Because I’m a sucker and often believe what I read if I don’t research it, I read the other metabolic type descriptions. Turns out the Carb-type eater has a very different style and it most certainly didn’t describe my eating habits.***

This is by no means a low carb diet (yay!), I still eat healthy carbs but the focus is more on the protein to carb ratio. For example, dinner could be a 1/4 cup of brown rice and a ½ cup of veggies sautéed in olive oil with 5 ounces of protein. Eating like this has really helped with evening snacking. I find that I’m just not hungry after dinner.

After the test, I read through the quick start guide. A major focus of the plan is eating whole, natural, organic foods and avoiding sugar, fake sugar, soda, bad fats, preservatives & processed foods.

I really like this idea and find that when I eat meals that satisfy me, I don’t need to eat so much. What this means is that despite paying a bit more for “clean” foods or specialty foods, I eat less so I’m spending about the same as I was on processed “diet” foods.

There ARE a few things about “The Diet Solution” that I haven’t quite “bought into” yet.
1. Using coconut oil for cooking
2. Eating DARK meat from poultry; or eating fattier birds such as duck
3. Consuming WHOLE milk

Fattier foods do keep me full longer but I also know the dangers of cholesterol in my family. So far I have found that eating lean proteins, snacking on a few raw walnuts between meals or cooking with olive oil has worked at keeping me satisfied.

The diet creator seems to be ok with experimentation of her sample meal plans (created for each metabolic type) and says that paying attention to your body in the beginning is important. She adds that eating for your metabolic type will become second nature & give you an understanding of what your body wants for the long‐term.

“for the LONG-TERM”, I like that!

Now I just have one more problem to solve: I LOVE salads! Salads loaded with tons of fresh veggies but even with protein, I find myself hungry within an hour.

I can’t tell you how often I’ve heard or read “Fill up on veggies” but that only holds me over for a short while and then my stomach starts growling and feeling empty; a feeling that all the water in the world or more veggies can’t take away.

So I’m not sure what I’ll do about the salad situation yet…Maybe olive oil & balsamic dressing with a “heartier” protein and some avocado?

Anyway, gonna give this plan a fair trial and see if it becomes my long term solution.

Yogurt Woes

Until last year, yogurt was yogurt to me; as long as it was nonfat and sugar free, I’d eat it. The lower the calories, the better. Then one day my boyfriend & I were talking about the artificial sweeteners and how small amounts of sugar in your diet have got to be better for you than all the fake junk out there. After that conversation I tried several brands of yogurt that he carries at his store.

I tried lowfat versions of the following: Wallaby Organic fruit at the bottom, Horizon Organic with the fruit mixed in and Stoneyfield Farms Organic with the fruit mixed in. I have to say, I am not a fan of fruit at the bottom so the Wallaby was out. Stoneyfield was good but it was the Horizon that I fell madly and deeply in love with; especially the peach. It was then that I converted to Horizon and strictly Horizon. The consistency was perfect, not runny or soupy, firm but not too dense or thick. The flavor was as close to fresh fruit as you can get and there wasn’t any awful faux sugar aftertaste.

As the months went on and I’d buy my weeks worth of yogurt I noticed a decline in stock at the local stores. First my boyfriend’s store stopped carrying it due to low sales, then the supermarket slashed the prices and eventually stopped carrying it. I checked other grocery stores, my local Whole Foods, no one had it!

This week, when I did my grocery shopping I purchased several varieties to see if I could find one to replace my beloved Horizon. I purchased Stoneyfield Farms with the fruit mixed in again, Wallaby with the fruit mixed in and Fage Greek yogurt with a cherry sidecar.

Stoneyfield was ok but I would have liked it a bit sweeter, thicker and less diluted in flavor. I had the Wallaby this morning and it was runny; almost like kefir (a beverage made from cultured milk) in consistency and I basically drank it out of the container.

I haven’t tried the Fage yet but I’m sure I’ll like it as I love plain Greek yogurt. My concern is this: The density; for yogurt as a snack, I prefer something a little less dense. When I use Greek yogurt, it’s as a sour cream substitute because it’s got the perfect consistency.

If anyone has had Horizon and has found a similar yogurt, I would love to hear it!