Food Log - 12/11

6:00 - decaf coffee at Bible Study
8:15 - 7 grain oatmeal sprinkled with Splenda for a little sweet
1:00 - 3 cheese sticks and marinara sauce from the mall (a quick lunch on the go) and diet mtn dew
7:30 - RNT Christmas party dinner - potatoes, carrots, chicken, and a roll, a small glass of white wine, one small dessert (bite size) and 2 cups diet pepsi.

No vitamins or exercise again today. Blerg.

Felt fine, and even got some cleaning in the craft room and some MK phone calls made.

Weekly Plan Sheet =D

It's not really my weekly plan sheet (though I need to get back to doing those - I've gotten horribly far away!), but it is my plan for the week. =D

Tonight - I'd like to go for a walk. I can't do anything about my day of eating now, but I can choose not to snack and just to drink water instead of pop if I want anything.

Sunday - Dinner: Crock Pot Roast Beef - Exercise: Walk to and from Church, Wii

Monday - Dinner: Spinach Pasta with Tomato Creme Sauce - Exercise: Hike with Ellie (though not with her in the pack! Maybe in the stroller...)

Tuesday - Flying to Dallas!! I'll eat dinner with my family somewhere (probably Whataburger or some other fast food place, but I'll try to pick a healthy option!) - Exercise: I'm calling all the walking around lugging my carry on, Ellie's carry on, my purse, Ellie, Ellie's stroller, and a car seat my exercise for this day. My downfall will be yummy frozen coffee drinks, so I'll need to do my best to order black coffee if I'm tempted.

Wednesday - SEMINAR! Dinner: I really have no control over dinner this week, other than to make wise decisions when they're in front of me! - Exercise: at the hotel

Thursday - SEMINAR! See above

Friday - SEMINAR! See above

Saturday - SEMINAR! I'll have dinner with my brother this night, because he's going to pick me up from the spa. =D I should opt for something healthy, though we usually head to Sonic. This will be another hard one, since I'm deprived of Sonics up here and they are just so darn tempting!

So... that's my game plan for this week. Once I'm at my parents' house in Texas, we'll see what exercise looks like. I might be swimming laps in the pool if it's too hot to walk! Mom said it's been 106 most days, and 102 in the shade. There's not much shade where we would walk! So... it might have to be laps. Maybe I'll get mom to TiVo some aerobics for me. =D

Back on track!

Well, I didn't do much today. I was pretty lazy, as I didn't leave the house until late this afternoon when we went to get our flu shots. I went to dinner at Mackenzie River with a friend and by the time I left the house at 6:15 for that I hadn't done any exercise or anything. We got the thin crust Thai Pie pizza and each had a salad. I love their salad! I was good and only put about 1 T. of dressing on (though I counted it as 2 on SP just in case it was more - kind of hard to judge when you're pouring out of a little cup) even though I absolutely LOVE their dressing. Then I ate two slices of pizza. I counted it as 2 medium slices of Pizza Hut thin crust pepperoni, and I think that's fair. Pepperoni is usually some of the fattiest pizza you can get, especially from Pizza Hut, so that's what I usually count pizza as on SP. It was a great dinner out and time with a friend (without kids!) and it's so nice to be able to do that without eating a ton of calories!

So because I didn't exercise before dinner, I knew I'd have to after dinner. I couldn't go two days in a row without exercise!!! Especially not my first week back to exercising and calorie counting! So I put on a movie from hulu.com (Bring it On - a cheerleading movie with peppy music. Peppy music is always good when you're exercising!) and I got on the treadmill and walked at 3.4 mph and an incline of 3-5 for most of the movie. I walked for 90 minutes and finally got off to watch the last 15 minutes of the movie in a chair. =D I figure that was PLENTY of walking. I ended up burning 675 calories in that time, too, so I guess I got my 350 in for today! Made up for yesterday, too!

I don't know what tomorrow holds. We'll have to see how Ellie is doing with her flu shot. Last year she was pretty miserable the day after. If she's that way tomorrow we'll stay home. Otherwise we'll go to playgroup!!

Pretty sure I went over my calories tonight....

I didn't mean to, but I think I did. By maybe a hundred calories or two. Nothing too terrible, but it's 10:00 and I haven't exercised yet.

We went to Over the Tapas for dinner and split an entree and two sides. Well, we split one side, I ate one side, and Leif ate the entree (the teeny tiny entree!). He wasn't a big fan of the creamy potatoes, which I love, but I was expecting to eat only half of them when I ordered them. Instead I ended up eating a whole bowl of the cream laden potatoes, which is where a lot of my calories for the night went. Ack! I went into dinner having 900 calories or so to spare, and I guess it wasn't enough! Sigh. But it's okay. We had a GREAT night out and I got some MUFA in with my dinner. (Have I posted on MUFA yet? If not, that sentence probably sounded naughtier than it was intended, LOL!) If I haven't written a MUFA post yet, I will. I'm giving it a try. But that's beside the point.

Maybe tomorrow I'll try to get some extra exercise in. If I get myself organized I can put Ellie in the stroller and walk over to Bible study. That will be something, at least.

Oh, we did walk around downtown (we parked at Over the Tapas, ate, then walked down to T. Charbonneau's and back the other direction to the Co-op, then back to our car, so however far that is...) so I think that should count as exercise for the evening. =D Maybe I'll still do some DDR if Leif will play with me, but we're both pretty beat, so I don't know. And it IS 10:30 at night already... maybe I'll just go to bed.

Date Night

Tonight we are going out on a date. I don't know where we're going, so it's hard to plan my calories. But I will be in town for a good portion of the morning and early afternoon, so I'm hoping that will make it easier for me to conserve calories. But I'm going to pack myself a bento and take it with me so I don't have to eat while I'm in town and that should help.

The hard part may be getting exercise (that doesn't use my already sore muscles!!) in today, but I'm going to do my best!

Oh, and I'm down a lb today! Hooooray!! 121 it is!

Really??!

After yesterday's disappointment with the pulled pork sandwich, I decided that today I would get to splurge on the other good things I love at Sweet Pea... cotton candy and kettle corn. I love 'em! And normally we get them, but I was forgoing them this year so that I could have my pulled pork sandwich. And we all know how that turned out.

So I looked up the calorie count on the cotton candy and kettle corn and figured accordingly so that I could have my yummy Sweet Pea treat after all. And boy was I looking forward to it!! We didn't go in as early as we'd planned because Ellie really needed a little nap right after church, but we got there around 2:30 and made a beeline for the concessions. Leif said he'd get me my yummy treats while I took Ellie and went to look at the crafts.

And then I got a phone call.

No one selling kettle corn this year. WHAT??! Seriously? Bozeman is the kettle-corniest town I know! How can there be no kettle corn? But I calmed down my inner comfort food monster and reminded her to drool over the cotton candy that would be coming. Because I had SEEN lots of people eating it all weekend, so I knew it was here!

And it was there. WAS being the operative word. Yes, they had run out of cotton candy shortly before we arrived.

What a disappointment it was! And I had saved up calories so I could really splurge and not feel like I was being restricted, so now we're at the end of the day and I still have calories left. Ergh. I've been trying to eat yummy things to curb the cravings, but I still feel gypped.

The good news is that I was down when I weighed again this morning, so at least I had that to motivate me not to eat everything like a pig a blow all the hard work right before weigh in tomorrow! Because I was tempted to, let me tell you! But I didn't, and now I have calories left today (200 and some!) and I still need to drink some water before I go to bed (I'm convinced if I don't drink my water that I'll gain!) so I just have to figure out what I want. I'm tempted to make s'mores in the microwave. Sad, isn't it? But I am in want of comfort food (thanks to the disappointment over Sweet Pea food AND PMS) and I have the calories to do it, so I think I'm going to. Now... how many calories are s'mores again?

Whose lousy idea was THAT?!!

Really... I want to know! WHO decided that there would be NO PULLED PORK SANDWICHES at Sweet Pea this year??? I have been wanting one, craving one, and saving myself for one! I had 3 eggwhites for breakfast and grapes for lunch in anticipation of the glorious pulled pork sandwich I always get at Sweet Pea. And you know what I got instead? A pork chop sandwich. It's SO not the same. Very disappointing. *sigh*

And I forgot to weigh myself before I ate breakfast and drank tea, but I weighed afterwards, before I hopped into the shower, and I was at 118.8 (a teeny tiny bit lower than yesterday's 119.0) which means I was really lighter since I'd already eaten and had tea!! Maybe not by much, but it's still nice to see 118 on the scale. I hope I can keep it that way through tomorrow so I have a good weigh in on Monday!

I did fine on calories today. I actually had enough calories for a second dinner when I came home from Sweet Pea! I really thought I'd need to snack more during the day than I did, so I had calories to spare. That helped emotionally, though, after I was so sad about my pulled pork sandwich, LOL!

Tomorrow... well, I don't know what the plan for tomorrow is. We'll go to church and then go to Sweet Pea, but I don't have a definite plan for food. Maybe we'll get lunch before we go and then come home and eat dinner. There wasn't that much there (other than cotton candy! Which I love! Ha ha!) that interested me in the way of food, so I won't be tempted, but I will get hungry at some point. We'll have grapes and cherries along to snack on, so maybe that will be enough.

Sweet Pea Day 1

Well, we got there a little late, but we did make it to Sweet Pea with our picnic dinner tonight! We just went to see the ballet, and not so much for us to see it as for Eliana to. We knew she'd enjoy the music and dance along with it, and sure enough, she did! It was pretty funny to watch her imitate the dancers on stage. She did lots of twirling and slow, gliding movements. We enjoyed sitting outside in the shade and Leif got to use his new 500 lens, which was nice since we were sitting back so far!

As for the kebabs... they were yummy! Mine didn't end up really being kebabs after all, since I was supposed to use short wooden skewers. I have long metal ones that I use for kebabs, but this was not a grilled meal, and my long skewers didn't fit in the pan, so I gave up on using them and just pan fried the chicken without them. They turned out just fine that way! I wish I'd had time to make rice with them before we went, or stir fried veggies, or something. I felt like they needed a side dish, but we were running late as is, so we didn't get one. BUT it was one of the recipes from Deceptively Delicious, so there was a serving of sweet potato hidden in the chicken kebabs! Hee hee!
It's the first recipe I've made from this cookbook, so I'm glad it turned out well! I will definitely be making it again, especially since I have the sweet potato puree made up and ready in the freezer this time.

I stayed under for calories, and I did get all my water in, so I splurged and shared a Splenda pop with Leif over dinner! I don't know why I love pop so much, but I do. Now that we have some in the house again, though, I think I will have to work especially hard to make sure to get 2 liters of water in and THEN drink a pop. Water is so important! I got the Jones Cola this time, and I have to say that it's not nearly as good as the Shasta Splenda Cola. I don't know why, but Leif and I agree on that point. It's just not as good.

Well, planning ahead tomorrow and I've already recorded my dinner. Every year I have to get a pulled pork sandwich at Sweet Pea, and tomorrow for dinner is the time!!! So that's already in Spark People and I will plan my day around it. We will eat breakfast here, probably late-ish, and skip the formal lunch, eating Sweet Pea food for dinner. I've packed snacks in the backpack for tomorrow so I'll have something healthy (dried blueberries and apple slices!) to munch on between breakfast and dinner and I'll bring lots of water to keep me hydrated! Hopefully there will be lots of walking in my day and I can count that as exercise. With a little planning this can be a very successful weekend!!

I survived the Bite!!

And I even survived with calories to spare! Hooray! I was moderate and let Leif eat the larger portion of the turkey leg (though I do love those turkey legs! I'll eat more of one next year now that I know they're not nearly as caloric as I thought they were!) and I just had nibbles and bites of the other things we got. It wasn't nearly as fun this year, and I'm blaming it on the fact that I was keeping track of calories and writing things down. I wish I could have just gone and not worried about it at all, but I am BOUND AND DETERMINED not to fall by the wayside this time around! I have a weight loss schedule and I'm going to stick to it! And that means counting my calories.

I also drank my water today, a full 2 liters. That makes such a difference! As does starting my day in the Word, as I mentioned before. Oh, and Taylor and I went for a walk today, which means my morning walk was about 5 miles! It's better than nothing and I'm pretty sure I burned my 200 calories in that time. I hope I did at least!

Well, it's midnight thirty, so I ought to head to bed. The alarm is set for 7 and Ellie will most likely be up around that time, so I should be too. G'night!

Down again

The encouragement continues today as I weigh... I'm down to 119.4 this morning! I am excited to be .at my goal for Monday already, and I hope I don't have a sudden gain to put a bump in my plans! I really, really, really want to reach my goal this time, and I'm really hoping not to stall around 115 lbs like I always seem to do.

I am getting the rest of my life in order, too, and woke up to a shiny clean kitchen this morning, which was wonderful! That makes Eliana's room and the kitchen that are clean and decluttered. I don't know if I did an hour solid of housework last night or not, but I put effort in at least and am seeing results in both areas that are encouraging! My next room to tackle is the living room, which shouldn't be hard, but there is vacuuming to be done, and then I need to mop the kitchen while I'm doing floors. It helps that I'm starting my days with devotions (and recording them at lou52.blogspot.com, which seems to be helping), and even though I missed them on my way to get out the door yesterday morning (though I did start the morning with fellowship, which was wonderful!) I did them last night before I went to bed. What a difference this is making in my attitude! I hate that I forget how powerful the Word is sometimes.

So tonight is the Bite of Bozeman and I am eating turkey leg for dinner. It's the one time of year that I get it and I'm not giving it up!! But I will be sharing it with Leif (and Ellie, who loves them!) so I should be okay not over eating on it, if I make an effort to be moderate. I'll try to eat lots of fruits and vegetables throughout the rest of the day so that I keep my calories down and nutrition up, since I know dinner won't be that nutritious.

Well, I think I'm going to call Taylor and see if she's interested in taking a walk this morning. We are planning on exercising together anyway, and it looks like it's shaping up to be a beautiful morning, so we might as well go outside!

Whew! Busy day...

The last couple days have been pretty busy, with Ellie's doctor appointment yesterday and spending all afternoon in town, then today going into town at 11 for the Children's Museum and staying in town until after dinner (at the RightNow family picnic). I don't know how I did on calories today - ate both lunch and dinner out. But I didn't snack so I'm hoping that will count for me. I didn't get any exercise in either. I really need to sit down and work out a schedule to help me cope with these no-nap days now. I'm pretty sure the exercise and calorie counting will be spotty at best until I get myself back into a routine.

I weighed this morning and the scale read 119.0, so that's down 1.8 lb in the last 2 days. Hooray! I'm sure it's all water weight, but it feels good anyway to see the scale go in the right direction.

That's pretty much my news for today. Tomorrow we're home most of the day and then we're going camping for the first time with Ellie. Not sure how that will go!

Dinner with family

Guess what? SURPRISE! My dad showed up with my mom today! He has a conference in Spokane this week, so we didn't expect to see him at all, and we had only planned for my mom to come visit, but he surprised us by showing up at the airport today! Hooray! He has to drive to Spokane tomorrow, but we're excited that he got to see Ellie anyway!

So to celebrate, we went out to dinner. We ate at Damasco's here in Belgrade (if you haven't eaten there, it is GLORIOUS!). Leif and I split a dish, I drank a Dr. Pepper (full sugar, I know, but no aspartame at least!), and the four of us (five if you include Ellie, and she had her fair share!) split two desserts. It was wonderful! A bit of a splurge, but I didn't have much for lunch, and I didn't have any snacks today, so I think I'm just fine. It was, after all, a celebration!

Tomorrow is Mother's Day and I don't know what Leif has planned, but again, with a little moderation I'm not too worried. Too much to rejoice and be thankful for! =D

So much for splurging!

I fully anticipated to eat a nice big dinner with dessert last night and not even think about the calories. But there were a few problems with the dinner portion of the evening, so I did get a soda, but the rest of my dinner consisted of some salad, 2 tortellinis and about 1/3 of a chicken breast. Not a splurge, I would say! Because we had to forego dessert at the restaurant I did have a cookie (one of the big ones from On the Rise!) once we got to the show. So I'm sure that contributed to my calorie count. But I'm guessing I came in within my 1200-1500 calorie range last night. I haven't weighed myself yet this morning (I haven't even gotten out of bed! LOL! Gotta love laptop computers...) but we'll see where I am when I do. I'm excited for the new program to start on Monday, and I'm especially happy to have worn my little dress (size wise, not modesty wise!) to Protocol last night. I am finally getting to a place where I don't feel too big for my frame! I did have Leif take a picture of me in my dress last night, so I'll put that up here when I get it off the camera. Progress!

In other news, my mom is coming to visit today for a week! I am SO very excited about that! She'll be here in about 4 hours and I can't wait! Hooray!

I'm counting it.... Microchallenge results!

Well, my scale wavered between 115.8 and 116, but did eventually land on 115.8, so I'm counting it! I reached my microgoal!

Tonight is the Protocol dinner, so I'm not going to worry about counting points or calories today. I won't over indulge (after all, it's not polite!) but I am just going to go and enjoy myself. Tomorrow my mom comes, so I will be back to counting calories and points then.

Hooray!

Didn't track yesterday...

... and I didn't eat all that great, either, but I wouldn't say I over ate. Went to NSD at KBD, but I met up with Erika before and we had breakfast. I had a pecan sticky bun (which was oh, so yummy!) and a caramel latte. Mmmm.... then we had chicken salad that Sheila provided for lunch. I had a few snack items (a few chocolate covered pretzels and a couple handfuls chex mix) but again, not too much. I wasn't hungry at all when I came home, so I had a skinny cow in the evening, but no dinner. So... I think I'm probably okay overall as far as calories go, and I'm sure I dipped into the reserve points with all that, but I don't think it was too damaging.

Of course, I've already eaten today and I forgot to weigh, so we won't know until tomorrow I guess.

Today is starting off good... water, egg whites, and whole wheat flax and fiber bread with 100% fruit spread.

It's a record!

I think I set a record for myself today! Despite the discouraging start I had, I ended the day with...

1148 calories
15 grams fat
64 grams protein (I've been having a hard time getting even 45 grams in, so this is great!)
32 grams fiber
well over 2 liters of water
over 5 fruits and veggies
and.... (here's the record part...)

only 17.2 points today! I got enough calories AND stayed under on my points!

My throat has been SO sore today I've been chugging hot tea like there's no tomorrow. I've had 5 cups of tea (most of it caffeine free), 1 liter of water, and 40 ounces of calorie free, sugar free, sodium free soda, because the carbonation helps clear the phlegm out of my throat and make it not so sore. So I've had my fluids today! Now if I could only kick what's making my throat hurt so bad in the first place! I think I'm going to drink a cup of soothing tea before I go to bed in just a bit.

On the plus side, Leif and I got to go on a spontaneous date tonight! The neighbors watched Ellie while we went to hear Kevin Connolly give a talk about his photo series, The Rolling Expedition. Afterwards we went to Walmart (because, as Leif reminded me, no date is complete without a trip to Walmart) and while we were there Leif bought me an ice cream cone to make my throat feel better. =D And it DID! It also tasted very good. And I still had room for it in my diet, since I'd saved a little in case we wanted to get a little something on our date!

And then I was rewarded with the right amount of calories and everything else and only 17 points when I returned home and entered my ice cream. What a sweet way to end the day!

Just for the record...

I have lost 1.4 of my 2 lb weight gain this week. That's encouraging. I have also stuck with my 19 points daily for the last 3 days, and maybe that's what has helped. In any event, I feel empowered because I didn't think I could stick to 19 points and I have. I feel like I could do anything! As of today, day 4 on WW, I still have 300 calories and 3.2 points. And that's AFTER eating at Costco for lunch (half a turkey wrap) and Domino's pizza (one slice) for dinner. I've been doing really well when it comes to eating at home, but I wasn't sure how the points would work out once I started eating out. But now I have twice in one day and it's okay! I'm even still under 25 g. for fat today, though I still need 6 g. of fiber before my day is done. So I'm going to eat some yummy strawberries (that will take me to 5 f/v) and see where I am after that. But I think today I will be fine. And if worst comes to worst (though I doubt it) I have 2.5 exercise points from today because we just got done riding the bike for 45 minutes! It was a 10 mile ride and it felt great! And I still haven't touched the 35 bonus points for the week. I'm hoping I can get away without needing to use them OR the exercise points at all. We'll see. But so far, so good.

HOLY COW!

Today I got a chicken salad wrap from Arby's for lunch at the open house. Whole wheat tortilla, grapes and apples in the all white meat chicken salad, lettuce... I thought I was being good.

Who would have guessed that for the SAME number of calories and LESS fat, I could have eaten TWO (yes, TWO!!) regular roast beef sandwiches!?!

What gives?

Arby's chicken salad sandwiches are good, but for 638 calories and 38 grams of fat, I can do better. I'm so disappointed. Next time I'm getting the roast beef sandwich.

New Costco Favorite

Ever since Costco got rid of their soft pretzels, I've been sort of at a loss for what to eat there. With hot dogs at 500+ calories, and a slice of pizza at 700+ calories, it's been sort of difficult to do dinner there since I started tracking calories again.

But then a couple weeks ago they introduced a new menu item: Turkey Wraps.

They haven't yet released the nutrition information for it yet, but I did some of my own figuring on Spark Recipes, and came up with the following information, which I feel is fairly accurate:

Calories: 527
Fat: 24 g
Carbs: 41
Fiber: 0.5
Protein: 36

Now, 527 calories is a lot, but the wraps are nice and big and a half wrap fills me up. So I end up with a 265 calorie dinner that is filling, and high in protein. They come sliced in half, so the guesswork is eliminated (you know, the "I'm just going to eat about half of this" when you really end up eating about 3/4.) and it's just as good the next day after it's been refrigerated.

So the Turkey Wrap is my new favorite. I will get that every time we eat dinner at Costco now. And at 265 calories, I may even end up with room for dessert.

I've reached a new level...

... of insanity, I think. I actually took my food scale out to eat with me so I could determine how many calories I was consuming. I don't know if I should be proud of that fact or embarrassed, but either way, what's done is done. Here's what I learned:

• My food scale fits in my purse. =D
• A Mackenzie River breadstick weighs 51 grams.
• A piece of mudpie from Mackenzie River weighs 160 grams, and I only ate 60 of those.

I had a bad day today, so Leif came home with flowers and took me out to dinner! I chose to go to Mackenzie River in Belgrade and opted for a house salad and the breadstick that came with Leif's pasta. I drank water to save on calories, too. Then we got a little dessert (after all, I did behave myself and eat salad and drink water!) and I ate less than half of it. It was great! I love their house salads and dressing and knew that if we got a pizza I would over eat on it. I love their pizza too much! So for the first time ever, we did not get pizza from Mackenzie River. Dinner was filling and wonderful and we had a good night out!

I'm sitting here eating a bowl of strawberries right now, and that brings me to 1210 calories for the day, 5 fruits and veggies, and 26 grams of fiber. I've also had well over 64 oz. of water for the day, so I am doing really well! No exercise to speak of, and I've got Zoe tomorrow and then I'm leaving for the women's retreat in the afternoon, so I probably won't get much exercise tomorrow either. Maybe I'll be able to take Ellie and Zoe for a walk. I guess we'll see how the day goes. But we'll take tomorrow as it comes and for now, I'm pleased with today. I didn't eat the ice cream. That in itself is a victory.