Week 1, Monday (Day 1)

I wake up, excited for my new plan and ready to try out these meals.  Each day gives you foods to eat for breakfast, lunch, dinner and two snacks.  Here we go.

Breakfast: Peach Yogurt Smoothie, 4 egg whites, 1 whole-wheat English muffin.

I've never been a smoothie fan, and today was no exception.  I tried to drink half of my smoothie, quit, and elected to go for a Starbucks Vanilla Frappachino instead.  Great, I'm already cheating on my meal plan and it's not even 9am. The egg whites and english muffins are more successful, except I can't possibly finish all my eggs and probably only eat 2 of them.  

My boyfriend gladly finishes my smoothie and eggs.  

I pack up the rest of my day's snacks and head to work.

Snack 1: 1 apple with 1 handful of unsalted almonds, 1/2 cup low-fat Greek Yogurt.

Hard to really go wrong here.  I noisily munch on my apple and hope to not disturb those around me.  I'm pretty shy when it's time for the almonds: I pull out my bag of a measly 12 almonds and hope no one notices.  I almost cry when the girl in the cube next to me takes out a package of almonds that has at least 50 in the bag.  I feel like I'm on candid camera.  I open up my greek yogurt and it's gross.  I cheat and add my afternoon snack (clementine) to the yogurt to mask the taste.  A friend stops by and asks for some clementine.  I kindly oblige, but secretly curse him for eating one of my limited food items for the day.

Lunch: Roasted Red Pepper and Cucumber Tea Sandwich on Pumpernickel Rye, 1 celery stalk, 1 Tbsp natural peanut butter.

I'm embarrassed to eat my sandwich and wait till all my co-workers are away so no one sees me eating an open-face sandwich with cucumbers, roasted red peppers, and spreadable cheese.  I hate celery so I forego that "snack".  Do people really think celery tastes good?  Also, this meal plan was clearly not written for a working woman.  How am I supposed to commute with 1 tablespoon of peanut butter??  Since I don't have any celery as a vehicle for eating the peanut butter, I postpone the peanut butter for my afternoon snack.

Snack 2: 1/2 cup 1% cottage cheese, 1 sliced nectarine, 8 whole-wheat crackers

Ew.  I will not eat cottage cheese.  Since I already ate my clementine, I decide to coat my whole wheat crackers with peanut butter and call that my snack.  I know right away that I probably didn't buy the crackers intended by the meal plan because they actually taste good - kind of like shortbread cookies.  I'll have to remember to buy some yuckier tasting ones that the cookbook authors would approve.

Dinner: 4 oz baked chicken breast, 1 cup steamed cauliflower, 1 medium sweet potato with 1 tbsp whole-grain mustard.

Despite the small quantity of chicken, I was actually pretty happy with this meal. I seasoned the chicken with some of my favorite spices, and used the mustard on everything.  I was only a little sad when my boyfriend had three times as much chicken as I did.  

I'd call this day a success.  The meal plan says I only had 1549 calories, and that was assuming I ate all their yucky cottage cheese.  All I want is a chocolate chip cookie.