Days 20 and 21

I was off of the meal plans this weekend because I had a lot of leftovers to eat.  I was also conducting interviews all weekend, so I was not home for any meal except dinner.

DAY 20

On Friday night I threw all of my "to go" snacks into a big HAPPY BIRTHDAY bag.  It is not my birthday, not even close.  I just needed a good sized bag to carry all my snacks.  The unintended effect of using a happy birthday bag is that I was really happy when I saw it.  Perhaps subconsciously my brain associated birthdays with good things and so my snacks became good things.


For breakfast Saturday morning I had a whole wheat English muffin with natural peanut butter and a gulp of milk.  I would have had more than just a gulp of milk, but that's all that MJ left for me in the gallon.  I sent him out to buy more.  


When I arrived at the office for interviews, I saw that my team had brought a coffee pot, donuts and munchkins.  Sigh.  When they passed around the donuts, I declined and took out my apple.    Throughout the course of the interviews, I ate:
• 1 low-fat cheese stick
• 1 apple
• 10 snap peas with 2 oz hummus
• 1 whole wheat cracker with spreadable cheese
• 1 cup of coffee (half and half, no sugar)
• 1 almond butter cookie
• 1 glass orange juice
• 4 munchkins


I just found the Dunkin Donuts Nutritional Information and discovered that I ate 215 calories of munchkins.  Oh nooooo!  I had no idea they were that bad for you.  But I am SO glad I didn't have a full donut.  Those things are horrible! And delicious.  But horrible.  

For lunch, I made a salad with red leaf lettuce, white beans, 1/2 avocado, 1/2 cup edamame and 1 hard boiled egg.  The salad was actually very filling and I wasn't even able to finish it.   In the future I would add balsamic vinegar and tomatoes.  My coworkers complimented my salad and my snack bag.  The person who brought the donuts indicated that he would bring healthier snacks for me the next day.


When I got back home I made tilapia with sauteed broccoli and part-skim mozzarella cheese.   The meal was really easy and I had a lot of broccoli left over, so I wasn't hungry enough to eat any carbs.  Which is good because I had 4 munchkins.  

DAY 21

Today was another day of interviews.  For breakfast I cooked up 2 egg whites with mushrooms, low-fat cheddar cheese, 1/2 whole wheat English muffin; 6 ounces orange juice.  I still had that half of an English muffin left over from the time the Clean Eating editors only let me eat half of one.  I love mushrooms and wish they were in more of the meals.  


When I arrived at the interviews, my coworker presented me with a container of sliced strawberries he brought for my healthier alternative to donuts.  I was very appreciative.   During the interviews I ate:
• some sliced strawberries
• 1/2 cup granola
• 10 snap peas with 2 oz hummus
• 100 calorie bag of cheese
• 2 cups coffee (with half and half and 1 splenda each) 
• 2 munchkins (95 calories).
I didn't know yet that the munchkins were that bad for me since I just looked them up now, but luckily I picked less than 100 calories worth of fat.  


For lunch, I had a veggie burger with low-fat mozzarella cheese, 1/2 avocado and lettuce on whole wheat bread.  This made one of my coworkers question whether I was a vegetarian.  I'm not, but I really enjoy veggie burgers.  


Now for the bad part of my day.  Superbowl Sunday. 
We went to MJ's friend's house for the game.  I knew there would be a lot of unhealthy choices there, so I made my all-natural guacamole, which was devoured by the group by the end of the 1st quarter.  I personally ate:
• about 15 blue chips and guacamole, with a little bit of a bean dip
• crab dip served on 3 little toasted bread slices
• 2 beef sliders (no buns) with roasted onions and 1 scoop of mashed potatoes
• 2 brownies
• 1/2 piece of funfetti cake
• 1 light beer (No one noticed I only had one beer the entire game, and I didn't even finish it!)


Sigh.  I was doing well till the brownies came out.  I probably should have passed on dessert but I didn't want to.  Maybe I was rewarding myself for 3 weeks of eating healthy.  Or maybe I was celebrating the Packers' victory.  Or I just really, really, really love chocolate.  I felt bad until one of MJ's friend picked up the remaining tray of brownies and ate them like a slice of pizza.  Always good to keep someone around who will eat more than your daily serving of calories in one sitting.

Week 2, Tuesday (Day 16)

Wow.  I have over 500 hits on this blog.  Thank you for reading!  It has definitely encouraged me to continue on this eating adventure.


I did something that you probably thought I wasn't smart enough to do.  Monday night, I cut up all my veggies for the upcoming three days of meal plans.  Everything.  Every pepper and onion was cut up, measured, and placed in a labeled baggie.  I find that when I'm spending time in the morning chopping up stuff for breakfast, I don't get a chance to fully prepare my snacks and lunches, and I feel rushed.  I don't like feel rushed.  I liked preparing.


Breakfast: 4 egg whites scrambled with 1 slice diced canadian bacon, 1 slice diced tomato, 1/4 cup diced onion, 1/4 cup diced green pepper; 1/2 cup low fat milk
I open the bag labeled "Terrific Tuesday" (thanks, MJ) and pour my pre-cut veggies into the pan.  Easy as pie.  Mmmm pie.  That sounds good.  I replace the bacon with cheese because and egg without cheese is like a burger without ketchup.  Mmm burger.  That sounds good.  I am THRILLED that I get to drink milk today.  That is, until I pour out my 1/2 cup and see how much I really get to drink.   Go ahead and try this at home.  Pour a half cup of milk and tell me how many gulps it takes you to finish.  The answer is 2.  


Snack 1: 2 tablespoons hummus, 10 sugar snap peas; 1/2 avocado
When I ate this snack, I was talking with a co-worker who is trying out her own calorie counting to lose weight for her pending nuptials.  She is allowed to eat 1034 calories a day.  How frickin' unrealistic is that?!  That's definitely not a lifestyle change that could last for any long duration of time.  I'll have to keep tabs on her to see how she's doing.  I take out my sugar snap peas with pride and explain to her that I have 1500 - 1800 calories a day and I'm losing weight. I save my avocado for later because I feel obnoxious enough knowing that my co-working is starving.


Lunch: Sautéed Sole Sandwich with Citrus Slaw
How dare you, editors?!  You say I need to eat a warm fish sandwich on a toasted bun?  Seriously?  While at work?  You suck.  You advertise this as a meal plan for busy cooks, but you are seriously mistaken if you think a busy cook can make a fish sandwich at work.  
I'm mad.  I'm actually furious.  But I'm dedicated to the ski pants cause and I go home for lunch.  I replaced the sole with tilapia and it was SO good.  Almost worth leaving work for lunch.  But the Citrus Slaw (cabbage, carrots, orange, and some weird dressing made from lemon juice, greek yogurt and mustard) was horrible.  Absolutely horrible.  I threw it out and ate the other half of my whole wheat bun with almond butter.  Much better.  Back to work!


Snack 2: 1 pear; 1 oz stilton cheese, 4 whole wheat crackers
For whatever reason unknown to me, I can't bring myself to eat this pear.  I like pears, but I haven't wanted to eat this.  
What is stilton cheese?  I looked around the grocery store for 15 minutes and found no stilton cheese.  I replace it with a 100 calorie pack of cheese, which happens to also weigh 1 ounce.  Win.  


Dinner: 1/2 cup basmati brown rice, 1 cup assorted stir fried vegetables, 3 oz shrimp; sauce: 1 tbls balsamic vinegar, 2 tsp whole-grain mustard
I ignored the sauce and used my own spices to make this meal - which actually turned out tasty and very filling.  MJ and I vote this dinner most filling of all dinner's we've made.  I messed up on the shrimp though:  I weighed out 3 ounces before I cooked them, and they cooked down to two ounces.  It's okay though because it was very, very good.  

Dessert: Celebratory Almond Butter Cookie
MJ and I had some more good news to celebrate, so we each had one almond butter cookie.  I froze them last week and we just warmed them up in the microwave.  Mmmm.  Can I eat a second one MJ?  No?  Alright fine.  Jerk.

Day 15

This morning I weighed in and saw that I lost another pound!  I'm down about 4 pounds from where I think I started.  I have about 9 more pounds to go to get to my goal "fit in my ski pants" weight. MJ weighed in too.  He gained one pound.  One stinking pound in 15 days.  I'm obviously better at gaining weight than he is.  
I'm still pleased with my accomplishments.  It's nice to know that pizza and mexican food still can equate to a negative weight on the scale.  


Today is leftovers day!  By that I mean I'm using up all the extra stuff that didn't fit into a meal plan for the past three days.  


For breakfast I have 2 egg whites, sautéed spinach, part-skim mozzarella cheese.  I have nothing exciting to say about this breakfast.  Sorry. 


Snack 1 was a slice of whole wheat bread and 1 tablespoon almond butter. Delicious as always.


For lunch I created my own salad: baby spinach, 1/2 avocado, 1/2 cup white beans, 1/2 cup tomatoes, balsamic vinegar.  This salad was okay.  For whatever reason, I liked it better as a snack yesterday than as a salad today.  Maybe I'm just getting sick of spinach.


My second snack was a 100 calorie pack of cheese; 8 carrots, 2 oz hummus. I decided to go with this snack because it was quick and easy, and the 100 calorie pack of cheese is obviously not going to show up in my meal plan, but I don't want them to sit uneaten in my fridge.


SURPRISE!  My cousin Jamie came to visit.  Jamie is a few years younger and many inches taller.  He was hungry, so I served him chips and salsa and made a little bit of guacamole.  I probably had about 15 chips with salsa and/or guacamole.  It was too tempting.  


Jamie decided to stay for dinner so MJ and I took him to the grocery store.  I can't express how pleasant it is to have two gophers come along for a shopping trip.  I bought food for dinner and another 3 days of the meal plan.  One of the upcoming lunches calls for tofu, and I was having trouble locating the tofu in the store.  I asked an employee for assistance:
"Excuse me, do you know where the tofu is?"
"Toe Food?"
"Tofu."
"Toad Food?"
"No, tofu, like what vegetarians eat instead of meat."
"You mean tofi?"
"What? I mean tofu.  T-O-F-U"
"Oh. Let me go ask."
I found the tofu.  I'm really interested to know what toe food, toad food, and tofi are, and whether any of them are typically sold in a grocery store.


For dinner, I served honey glazed salmon and tuna with spinach, mushrooms, tomatoes, and cauliflower.  I probably got enough food to serve 6 people, which was fitting when I have two hungry  men eating with me.  I helped myself to a little bit of salmon and probably 4 ounces of tuna with a lot of cauliflower.  Jamie and MJ devoured everything else.  I guess it was good.  


I didn't eat anything for dessert, even though I really wanted to.  I gave Jamie some Reese's Peanut butter cups and sent him home.  Jamie doesn't know that I'm doing this crazy meal plan and even after grocery shopping with us I don't think he picked up on it.  It's nice to know that I can cook a healthy meal and it appear to be a normal and fulfilling dinner.  Although Jamie did question why I purchased tofu.  I question that too.

Day 8

I got on the scale today.  I hadn't been weighing myself all week and I think I'm down at least 2 pounds.  I say at least 2 because I didn't really record my starting weight, so I'm trying to remember the last weight that I saw.  I'm please with this success and vow not to weigh myself again until next Monday morning.


Today (and this week really) I'm not following their meal plan because we're traveling and I won't be able to follow their full days until likely this Friday, and it's only Monday.    So I've created my own meal plan...


Breakfast: 2 egg whites, mushrooms, 2 tablespoons low fat cheese
I opted for this breakfast because I wanted to use up the stuff we already had around the house.  I've definitely going to make an effort to use up leftovers from now on - following their food plan to a T will be a waste of food and money.  You don't control me, clean eating editors!  


Snack 1: approximately 1.5 ounces smoked salmon, 2 whole wheat crackers
What better way to use up the remaining smoked salmon that I opened yesterday than to eat the rest of it today?  I cut yesterday's snack in half and left out the avocado.  It was delish and I'm pleased with my selection.


And then we left on our road trip up to see our newly engaged friends.  Estimated time in the car: 12 hours.  
Number of hours away from home: 48
Before we left I packed a huge beach bag full of non-perishable snacks portioned out in the correct "snack" sized bags.  I packed whole wheat crackers, granola, clementines, bananas, apples, whole wheat bread, almond butter, etc. And almond butter cookies (half came with me, half went to the freezer).  I also timed our trip so that I would be eating lunch in the car so I would have something more substantive to eat to prevent me from snacking too much.


Lunch: 2 ounces deli turkey breast, 1 slice tomato, 1/4 avocado on 2 slices of whole wheat bread
Another great use of leftovers - I finished up all the turkey and avocado that we had, and then cut up the rest of the tomato as a bonus snack in the car.  I wrapped each half of the sandwich separately and tried to space out the distance in the car so I had something good and filling waiting for me to eat.


Snack 2: 1 apple, cut up veggies (carrots and peppers) with homemade hummus 
I somehow only snacked on one apple in the car!  6 hours and only 1 apple consumed!  I am thrilled, because I know it's going to be hard to continue eating healthy when we arrive at our friend's house.  


Much to my delight, when we did arrive, my friend made us some homemade hummus and cut up some fresh veggies for us.  This was a nice treat and a great snack to welcome us.  And it was yummy.


Dinner: pizza.
Sigh.  My avoidance of greasy, fattening, unhealthy foods came to a crashing halt tonight.  Our friends insisted on taking us to the best pizza place in town.  When I inquired about healthier options, I was told there really weren't any.  So pizza it is.  Luckily the pizza was thin crust so each piece was smaller than a usual slice of pizza, but probably no healthier.  I'm hoping that I saved enough calories that this dinner didn't totally kill what I've been working for.  But I am trying to live a normal life and normal people eat pizza.  When life hands you lemons, make lemonade.  When life hands you pizza, eat it (in moderation).  

Week 1, Wednesday (Day 2)

Because I only did half my shopping on day 1, I realize I don't have enough ingredients to eat my Tuesday meal, so I make the executive decision to go out of order.  


Breakfast: Breakfast Wrap (egg whites, 2 oz swiss cheese, diced scallion, diced tomatoes in a whole wheat tortilla), 1/2 cup red grapes


Yum!  The breakfast wrap was great and very filling.  I felt really pathetic only eating 10 grapes.  My stupid boyfriend bought grapes with seeds so I had to cut those out too.  Note to self: never let him do the shopping.


Snack 1: 1 slice whole wheat toast, 1 tbl almond butter


Seriously?  How am I supposed to bring toast to work?  I opt not to toast the bread and pre-spread it with the almond butter to make it easier to travel.  I've never had almond butter before and I have to say that I am a huge fan.  No complaints here.


Lunch: Tomato-Tuna Salad (tomato, arugula, red onion, basil, chickpeas, 3 ounces tuna, oil and balsamic vinegar); 1/2 cup sliced strawberries; 3 Ryvita crackers


This was a pretty great salad and much bigger than a salad I would typically make for myself.  I used to only eat tuna if it was swimming in mayo, but it still tasted good with the dressing.  The basil was a nice touch.  Well done, cookbook authors.  Again, I felt silly with my half-cup up fruit that takes up 1/8 of the baggy.  No one seems to notice.  


What is a Ryvita cracker?  Add this to my list of ridiculous foods that I have never heard of.  #1 Kefir, #2 Ryvita crackers.


Snack 2: 8 carrot sticks, 1/4 cup hummus, 4 whole wheat crackers


1/4 of a cup of hummus is actually way more hummus than I thought it would be.  The authors don't specify what kind of hummus, so I go with the pine-nut flavor.  I don't have enough carrots to consume all the hummus so I resort to double dipping.  Good thing I'm not sharing with my coworker today.


I eat some more of those shortbread cookie-like crackers.  I really need to get other ones.


Dinner: Sauteed Halibut with Artichoke Hearts, Cherry Tomatoes and Cannellini Beans; Mixed Berry Crisp with Date Oat Streusel


This is actually the dinner listed for Tuesday but I make up my own rules.  The bean/artichoke/tomato mixture was pretty good.  The grocery store doesn't carry halibut, so we made tilapia instead.  The recipe says I'm supposed to have 4 ounces of fish.  When purchasing the fish, I requested 4 ounce filets from the fishman behind the counter.  He informed me that the fish only come in one size and the scale was only in pounds.  I did the conversion for him and silently cursed stupid people.  


Tonight was supposed to come with dessert, but you can add dried dates to the list of foods I despise.  I was going to make the almond butter chocolate chip cookie recipe from the cookbook, but I got inspired to write this blog instead.  Maybe tomorrow I will finally satisfy my cookie craving.


Today I consumed around 1500 calories.  I went to the gym, so I probably should have eaten more.  I guess if I wake up starving in the middle of the night I can have a grape or two.