Friday - not feeling better but forced to go to work

I still felt like run over dog poo today but my career in insurance beckoned me to sit in misery in my cubicle for the day :)

I didn't think to take any pictures that morning of what I planned to eat in my breakfast and lunch and I don't have one of those fancy phones that takes nice pictures so there wont be any photos for the day.

Breakfast:
Two pieces of toast with peanut butter and a banana that had been sitting on my desk since Tuesday morning.

Snack:
Another banana because that is what I had available.

Snack again:
about 4 pretzel sticks that I dug out of the back of my desk drawer

Lunch:
Chicken noodle soup. Good ole Campbells and some oyster crackers

Snack
An apple. Feeling the need for some vitamin C so that I could maybe not fall asleep driving home

Dinner:
At this point I decided I had no energy to cook, knew my husband was not about to cook after a long work week, snow blowing and having to work again on the weekend. So while I picked up a movie at redbox, I ventured to the dangerous frozen food aisle. I stared into the upright freezers knowing that no matter what I chose, it was going to have nearly 20 grams of fat per serving and the serving size would be so small that I would ultimately eat two servings. After literally 10 minutes of staring into the freezer land and zoning out, I chose Digorno. Garlic bread pepperoni pizza. I didn't flip it over to look at the back because I wasn't going to change my mind.

And then I turned around, in search of light ice cream or even better, fat free frozen yogurt. I just wanted something cold and yummy. So while I scanned the shelves of healthy frozen treats, there it was...one of my favorite ice creams put back in the wrong place. Full fat ice cream in the healthy ice cream section. Why was it there? Staring at me, the girl with pizza already in one hand? Some smart person had grabbed it, then made the healthier choice and put it away in the spot where the healthy ice cream they chose had once sat. I'm sure that they purchased some sort of fat free, 100 calorie per scoop "delight". I did what any tired, sick, ice cream craving girl would do. I bought the creamy triple berry cheesecake ice cream.

So now I'm sure you want to know just how much I ate. Surpisingly, I did not eat two servings of pizza (nevermind the half of a pizza that I would have typically consumed). I ate about one and a half servings and did look at the back of the box which told me that accounted for about 25ish grams of fat. YUCK. Why couldn't they have just made that same pizza with turkey pepperoni? It really would have tasted exactly the same and been so much healthier.

As for the ice cream, I probably had a cup and a half which is 3 servings. However, it turns out that my creamy "non-healthy" ice cream wasn't that unhealthy and thankfully this really wasn't that many calories and fat.

So in conclusion, probably the least healthy day I have had since starting this blog. Did I step on the scale this morning? NO fucking way! I intentionally forgot.

Another sick day

So my last post was on Thursday, which means that was Wednesday's meal. Now it's Saturday and I need to catch up.

Breakfast on Thursday:
2 pieces of toast with a little peanut butter. Fiber plus cinnamon oats with blueberries and half a banana and a glass of OJ


no morning snack, breakfast kept me wicked full

Lunch:
Leftover mac and cheese. I have finally put the other half of the pan in the freezer for another time. I am officially sick of mac and cheese.

Snack:
80 calorie cherry yogurt with about 1/8 cup of kashi cereal sprinkled on top

Dinner:
A piece of bread with ham and rice soup. Only ate about half the bowl. I am officially sick of ham too.

It turns out that leftover meals are great but when you are sick and don't want to cook anything new, you get really friggin sick of eating the same shit for more than 5 days.

You can lose weight while sitting on the couch

Who knew, apparently planting your ass on the sofa and eating soup and leftovers can help you lose weight. Or maybe blowing through two boxes of tissues in 24 hours had something to do with it. Either way, I'll take it! I saw 166 on the scale this morning. A familiar number but one that I haven't seen since before Christmas when I was doing Weight Watchers. I haven't been out of the 160's in years. I actually don't think I have seen any number starting with 15- since my first year of college when I was partying all the time. So I'm not that far away. If I can hang on at this pace, I just might break into that old group of tens. Of course getting rid of this damn cold would help. Working out was starting to become regular but now a workout means making my own soup or getting off the couch to go pee.

I spent the day yesterday on the couch, wallowing in my own mucasy misery. I wanted in the worst way to cave to familiar favorites like scrambled cheesy eggs, pasta covered in butter for lunch and dinner. But I didn't. Why? Because of my BFF's blog. She is going strong and being so good. I hit my weakest point in a week and her blog saved me and the scale this morning was my proof. Thank you Mandie!

Breakfast (on the couch):
Fiber plus cinnamon oats with blueberries and a small banana. Also had two pieces of low calorie toast which I am using up from my freezer before buying the healthy stuff. I put a thin smear of peanut butter on each, added a cup of 50/50 OJ and my multivitamin and a Zinc pill.

Snack - There wasn't one. That healthy, nutritious and balanced breakfast kept me full until like 1:00.

Lunch (also eaten on the couch):
Leftover improved nutrition mac and cheese. I also had what I thought was an orange until I peeled it. It appeared to be some sort of mini grapefruit which much to my liking was delicious and I hate grapefruit...so I go back to thinking perhaps it was a type of orange. I added some apple cider and tried to boost my lunch with some vitamins.


Snack - of course I had one. Pasta did not really hold me over and never does, even if I eat a half a box worth. So I had some fat free/sugar free pudding with a little whipped cream and some chocolate drizzle. It was yummy and looks pretty.





Dinner (again on the couch):
Leftover rice and ham soup made by my caring husband. Instead of crackers I opted for some Food Should Taste Good cheddar tortilla cracker/chip thingies. These things rock. So good for you and wicked yummy. Thanks to my dietitian sister, Katy Magoon for teaching me about these. And as you can see, there is that little cup of milk that I love so much.


I never eat on the couch unless it's Friday night which is our "fun food night". I learned a long time ago that eating in front of the TV in a comfortable place like the couch leads to overeating. You aren't talking to your dinner partner, you are involved in too much other stimulation and you end up overeating. So we eat most of our meals at the kitchen island. It gives us a chance to catch up on our day and talk without the stimulus of technology interrupting. Even when I'm home alone, I usually find myself eating in the kitchen but not when I'm sick. I'm a baby and want my blanket and a doggy to pat.

Sick day #1

Not feeling well so this post will not only be boring to read, but the food was not that interesting either.

Breakfast:
Coffee w/fat free half/half
Low fat vanilla yogurt w/fresh blueberries and some kashi go lean crunch on top

Snack:
Multi-grain goldfish. Probably two servings worth

Lunch:
Campbells chicken and stars soup w/oyster crackers

Dinner:
Bear Creak Wild Rice Soup with Ham and Love (Justin added the love and the ham) and a slice of lightly buttered potato bread. Oh, and a few oyster crackers.


I did have a very healthy day planned, an entire bag of food is sitting at the office filled with fruits and veggies but we went home early due to snow and today I am calling in because I feel like poo that has been run over.

Monday - Day Eight - Out with girls

Had big plans with great friends today for a day of snowshoeing...but first we went out to breakfast. I instantly did the right thing and ordered from the healthy section of the menu.

I had a one egg sandwich with low fat cheese and a tomato on a whole wheat bagel thin. Yes, apparently you can get this type of food at a restaurant. Much to my disappointment...but relief...it did not come with home fries. I was going to split a side of hash with Julie but when the waitress asked, I looked at my healthy friend and said we don't need that. Which was for the best, did I really want to burp up hash while snowshoeing?

After breakfast we went out on the trail in below freezing temps and had an awesome time trailblazing...and blazing off the trail...for three hours.

At this point it was well after lunch time so we went to Cary's house for some low calorie cocoa...which was gross so we added baileys and a scoop of fluff. Cary had beautiful salmon falls mugs and the cocoa and company rocked.

On my way home I had to stop for coffee, milk and a roof rake...and the whole time I had to pee but was still in snow pants and was STARVING!

I got home and got to lunch. I went right for the fast option and had a bowl of Kashi Go Lean Crunch with fresh blueberries.


The cereal did not hold me over to say the least. I mean honestly, I did just hike through the woods all morning. So I had a weight watchers toffee ice cream popsicle that was lingering in my fridge from Weight Watchers (you know, the journey before the blog journey). I then followed that with another cup of cocoa and fluff. While I didn't add any baileys to this cup, since I didn't have any, I did make a huge cup with full sugar/calorie cocoa. Not my best decision but it warmed me up.

The husband came home and asked that I make his lunch while he tried out the new roof rake outdoors. This of course means that I ate one and half pieces of cheese which I would have otherwise not had if he had made his own lunch. Damn it...I don't even like American cheese that much but I popped it right in my mouth like the fatty that I am.

Dinner was leftovers so it was the same thing we had last night: Ham, Mac & Cheese and Green Beans...and my lil' cup-o-milk :) Oh, and one bite of cranberry sauce.

Spent the rest of the night on the couch feeling like shit which made avoiding an after dinner snack easy

I hate food on weekends

I do so good all week. I can only eat what I bring to work so I do really good all day long and usually stick to it when I return home. Then along comes the weekend and I have free range in my fridge and cupboards to find that one unhealthy food in my house. Yesterday didn't go bad but clearly even fat free brownies can catch up with you b/c my weight went right back up over the weekend. So here's the proof to that ticker...

Breakfast:
I had coffee with light cream, not half and half b/c it's the weekend I decided when I managed to step down to fat free half and half that I would still let myself have light cream once a week. I also had egg whites with 1 oz of low fat cheddar and sundried tomatoes with two pieces of low calorie bread/toast and half a banana.

Lunch:
Veggie Lasagna with one piece of bread and a small glass of milk

Snack:
Dove into those damn brownies and not only added some whip cream but also added a drizzle of a chocolate sauce we were given for Christmas by our niece who made it. Didn't feel bad about this as I had just put in 2 miles on the treadmill with a run/walk/hill combo

Dinner:
Started by testing a cranberry muffin (the smallest one the batch made) I had just baked and was worried I had fucked up since I accidentally put in an extra teaspoon of baking soda. Thankfully the muffins are fine since they are my husbands breakfast all week.

Then we had a delicious lean ham. I only ate 2/3 of what you see pictured here, I decided I was full. We had green beans and mac and cheese. I made the common man recipe since it is so delicious. BUT...I altered it to make it a lot healthier. I used fat free half and half, 1% milk, and of the 16 ounces of cheese, only 3 of them were full fat cheddar. The remaining 13 ounces were low fat cheddar. I also used reduced fat parmesean for the top with the bread crumbs. And I used Barilla's protein pasta instead of plain old pasta. So I made an effort to healthy up a delicious recipe so I could still have it. It came out really yummy if you don't know what it could taste like but you could tell it was not full fat ingredients and the cheese flavor wasn't quite what we wanted it to be. However, you can expect many more posts about this mac and cheese b/c I have a 15x9 pan of it to eat.

After dinner Sunday snack:
This is a terrible habit of ours. We used to plan for it and actually buy dessert for Sunday since we always make a nice Sunday dinner. We had nothing in the house. Not a drop of ice cream, cookie...nothing...EXCEPT that one last brownie square. So I did what every girl would do and topped it with cool whip and peanut butter baking morsels. I took a picture but didn't have the card in my camera and am just now realizing that but this blog is my proof that I ate that.

Day Seven - Be Honest...You Are Only Lying to Yourself

Today was my first weekend day of healthy eating...which we all know can be a challenge since everything in the cupboard is within arms reach. Luckily I had my Damsel in Diet Stress with me most of the day to help me along and keep one another in check.

I started the day with groceries, even decided to make two new recipes for this week and cook a ham which is something I have never done. I bought one that clearly read lean to know I was getting a good healthy cut. I'm planning to mimic some of the Common Man Restaurant recipes this week but will be altering them in an effort to keep them healthy. For example, instead of regular half and half, I have bought fat free. I will use low fat cheddar instead of full fat and I bought healthy pasta instead of plain old pasta. My bacon is center cut which has 25% less fat than regular and I will use half the amount called for in the recipe.

Okay, the food. Breakfast was delicious and kept me super full...

Coffee with fat free half and half to start while out doing the groceries and dealing with bullshit at wal-mart (Don't EVER use their Tire and Lube department). Came home and made myself an omelet of sorts in the microwave with less than 1/4 cup of egg whites, 1 oz ,low fat cheddar, about 5 slices of turkey pepperoni, two sundried tomatoes, salt and pepper. Served with two low calorie slices of toast and one apple and a small glass of milk. This was delicious and will be repeated again. I was super pleased with how full it kept me.


Lunch...kinda.

My BFF came over to play and we had plans of eating healthy junk food which meant baking No Pudge Brownies. We got to baking right away and while the brownies cooled, we played Kinect which was tons of fun and we got exercise. Around 2:00 we were hungry for lunch...so we did what any two BFF's would do and decided to call the brownies lunch rather than eating an actual lunch. Now as bad as this sounds, if you saw what we would normally eat, this is a healthy decision. We are in the habit of eating good on our own but we get together and go HOGWILD with appetizers, main courses and desserts when we go out (not to mention the booze). So substituting brownies for lunch was in our minds better than lunch and the brownies. We each had a hearty serving with two dollops of whipped cream. We also had about 2-4 Food Should Taste Good cracker/chips. These were purchased at the suggestion of my dietician sister and were a great find! They were $3 a bag but I am very pleased with the flavor, texture and nutritional value. Not to mention, each cracker/chip is huge so you feel good about only needing to eat like two of them.


Snack: A few hours later...and after steady Kinect play
We of course reached for the brownies again but had a much smaller portion this time around. I calculate that in total we probably each had roughly 1/3 of the pan throughout the day which works out to a total of 480 calories for lunch and snack. Not too bad in reality.

Dinner, a healthier cheap fun food:
Frozen Chinese Food. Believe it or not, these are pretty good. The takeout box styles are yummier but not quite as healthy...unless you get the vegetable one which is scrumptious but gives me a tummy ache every single time. I ate approximately 1/3 of the total box for dinner but then did the right thing and passed out watching a movie which meant no late night snack.


And finally...since it was Saturday and all. I drank 4 beers. They were not light beers and they never will be. I hate light beer unless it's a hot summer day and I plan to drink 15-20 in one day (yes I can do this and have many times, no this is not a lot of beer if you are used to drinking GOOD beer and not beer flavored water in a can). For those that don't know, my husband and I brew our own beer...well...we are learning actually to brew good/drinkable beer. So far only about half of our homebrew has been drinkable. But we are working hard to conquer that and with the help of a new book (yup, we are reading books...shows our age), we will brew the best of the best GOOD beer. So I drank Red Hook Winter Ale which we discovered on Friday night when I had just one beer (after posting). This beer kicks ass and has earned it's way into my top five favorite beers...which for your pleasure I will now list but please note these are subject to change at any time as I am and will always be an avid beer drinker.

1. Gordon Ale (Oskar Blues)
2. Mojo (Boulder Beer Co.)
3. Punk'n (Four + Brewing Co.)
4. Midas Touch (Dogfish Head)
5. Winter Hook (Red Hook)

I'm quite certain that today was not a weight loss day...BUT...normally my BFF and I would have been so much worse. We find comfort in indulging together and are working hard to change that and be a support structure for one another. So I am not disappointed in the day.