This is what I ate for lunch (pictured above): delicious whole wheat fettuccine (with flax seed and omega 3), organic four-cheese sauce, a dash or two of Parmesan cheese, a veggie salad and some Pellegrino. The total calories comes out to around 300. The only veggies in this salad are romaine lettuce, carrots, and red and orange peppers. I think I will have another one of these with my dinner tonight, only add in the missing mushrooms, celery and cucumber. The best thing about this salad is that it takes forever to eat, so by the time you are done, you are satisfied!
Anyway, I blew it big-time last night with my diet. Altogether I probably ingested around 2700 calories yesterday. But I’m not beating myself up… today is a new day and I’m back on track! As a matter of fact, it’s already 3pm and I’ve only had just over 500 calories. I’m going to stick to about 1000 calories today to make up for yesterday’s indiscretion…
I went and bought a citrus fruit juicer yesterday, so I’m going to start adding in some freshly squeezed orange and/or lime juice to my daily regime!
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Just a quick calorie update…
Friday’s total calories ended up being 1560.
Saturday’s were only 1275.
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calories
So, yesterday I ended the day with a total of 1435 calories! Not bad at all… I did change the last meal around a bit and didn’t have the sunflower seeds before going to bed, which explains the slight difference in calories.
So I have today’s meal plan all set up…
Breakfast: Shredded wheat w/skim milk – 260
Lunch: Organic whole wheat pasta w/cheese sauce, small apple – 530
Dinner: 1 1/2 cups low sodium soup (120), 1 tilapia fillet (80), Brussels sprouts (50), large salad w/ff dressing (50) – 300
Snack: 2 ounces cheese (220), 1/2 serving raw sunflower seeds (80) – 300
Other: 1 pack EmergenC (25). coffee creamer (45) = 70
Total: 1460
Exercise: 30 minutes of either power walking or elliptical. It’s gorgeous out so it’ll probably be the former!
Calories and foods are subject to change… I purposely planned a large lunch portion of whole wheat pasta but I doubt I’ll be able to finish it all.
So anyway….. onto non-diet related stuff. I discovered last night that if you stare at a person for long enough without moving your eyes – about 60 seconds, give or take – you can literally see what color their aura is! It sounds new-agey but really works. It’s best if the room is well-lit and they have a white or neutral-colored wall behind them. My boyfriend has a green and yellow aura, and I have a turquoise one. Try it – have someone stand in front of a wall in a well-lit room, and stare at their forehead without moving your eyes. Eventually you will see a color surrounding their head! Friggin awesome. Now I’m going to go read everyone’s aura. 
(Yes, I’m a geek).
Anyway, I will update later tonight or tomorrow morning with my total calorie count!
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So, my “I don’t care about dieting” phase didn’t last very long… Now I’m more determined than ever to lose the rest of this darn weight! However, it’s more for health reasons than anything else.
Since yesterday I have been writing down absolutely everything I eat and am doing four 350-calorie meals per day, with the first two meals of the day focusing on healthy fiber-filled whole grains and fruit, and the last two meals protein and veggies. Here’s today’s menu:
Breakfast- Very small bowl of post shredded wheat, 1 can iced coffee – 300
Lunch- 1 serving of organic whole wheat pasta w/cheese sauce, 1 nondairy ice bar – 300
Meal 3- 5 oz grilled chicken breast (235 cals), low sodium organic tomato soup (110), Brussels sprouts (50) – 395
Meal 4 – Large mixed spinach/romaine salad w/ff dressing, 1 ounce of sharp cheddar, omelet w red peppers/mushrooms – 260
Before bed – one serving of handful of raw sunflower seeds- 160
Total: 1415
Some of the calorie totals might seem incorrect, but I made sure to measure everything out precisely!
Also, I walked along the river for about a half hour today… it was so beautiful out this afternoon.
It has occurred to me that the only way I will ever permanently lose weight is to do it gradually, so my goals are to exercise at least 30 minutes for five days a week, plus stick to 1200-1500 calories per day. 1500 calories with exercise will allow me to lose at least one pound per week (if not more), and although that is such a tiny amount, it will add up over time, and that is what’s important. My “drastic” plans never last more than a few days, and my body always overcompensates by making me extremely hungry, therefore, I usually gain the weight back.
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Boy did I get off track over the holiday weekend. The scale is showing a 1-pound gain (from the 13 total lost) but I don’t know if it’s just water or actual fat. I’m leaning towards the former since I did have quite a bit of salt last night.
So to get back on track despite still having weird pressure in my ears and nasal/sinus problems, I have decided to challenge myself to lots of exercise today. So far I have walked up 9 flights of stairs (a total of 135 steps – I counted!) and back down them. I am also planning to work out on my elliptical throughout the duration of the new episode of Gossip Girl tonight, which will be an hour, give or take. I was talking on the phone to my boyfriend today and we were speculating on what would happen if I started working out 2 hours a day on the elliptical. He knows I want to lose a lot more weight and he is very supportive, but not in a way that makes me think he wants me to lose weight, if that makes sense. He doesn’t mind either way. I want to get back to doing my hour-long walks but it’s been so cold and windy lately.
Anyway, I am going to really push myself on getting back to working out 1 hour per day at least 5 days a week. It’s time to work on losing this next 10 pounds!
Today I’m back to doing my 4 or 5 small meals per day thing, but with a twist: my first 2 meals have healthy, fiber-filled carbs in them; my last 2 or 3 meals are only protein and veggies.
I bought lots of fresh sliced jicama at Whole Foods the other night, and that stuff not only tastes good (if a tiny bit bland), but is SUPER low calorie and packed with fiber! (Click the link to see the fiber/calorie/vitamin content of it). I also had some butternut squash today, which is low calorie and tastes just like potatoes when cubed and cooked for a few minutes on the stove.
I still have my goal of being down 20 pounds total by the end of 2008… let’s see if I can do it!
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Just a quick update because I am on my way out in a bit… today was an extremely busy day and I barely had time to eat much of anything. Breakfast this morning (around 8am) was an English muffin, eggbeaters, turkey bacon and a pear. Then I was out the door around 11am and didn’t get back home until around just now (around 7pm). Earlier around 5pm I had a breve espresso drink (basically just espresso and half and half – mmmmmm). Right now I’m having a grilled boneless skinless chicken breast and some brown rice.
I know I won’t be eating anything else today, so my calorie total is only going to be between 800-900. Very low indeed but at this point I just don’t care. Eventually my full appetite will return which will in turn make me eat more calories. Right now I am taking full advantage of the low appetite!
Oh yes, and it looks like me and the guy I’ve been seeing – whom I’ll call T in this blog – are back on, for now… it seems like I have more feelings for him than I thought I did.
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by Rian on November 1, 2008
in Updates
I had a great Halloween… got to spend some time with family and friends! I remember back to last year’s Halloween… I had gone to the hospital with bad chest pain that turned out to be acid reflux. (I wrote about it actually in this post if you want to read it). I was drinking alcohol somewhat heavily around that time (something I didn’t mention) and I know now that the reflux mainly had to do with that, although I never would have admitted it back then.
Last year around this time I had only begun on my fitness journey. While in New Hampshire for the month of October, I had begun walking 30-45 minutes or so per day while getting foliage pictures, and doing maybe 15-30 minutes on my stationary bike at the time. On an elliptical I was a level 1 because I never got a chance to use one. That 45 minute walk wasn’t a power-walk by any means and some days it really winded me. I mean, I was in BAAAD shape. I was drinking too much and was puffy around the face and body because of it.
Fast-forward to one year later… and things are much better! Now I can power-walk for more than an hour and feel absolutely fabulous (including hills); I am at level 8 on my elliptical but can go up to 12 if needed; (the elliptical downstairs goes up to 16); I don’t drink alcohol anymore (day 29 of sobriety, hoping to never touch another drink but I have to do it one day at a time, because I am an alcoholic despite my recent claim not to be); and these days I rarely get reflux. My blood pressure isn’t quite where I want it to be, but I’m working on that with weight loss. (It’s definitely not as high as it was last year though!)
And speaking of weight loss… I got on the scale this morning and have lost 3 pounds from when I last checked, the same 3 that I had gained back last week. So I’m back at my 10-pound-loss mark.
The last year hasn’t been all good or easy in terms of fitness, but I have made some major changes. I am more physically fit now than I have been in just over 2 years. I have a lot more stamina and have my blood sugar problem mostly under control.
The main thing right now that I still need to work on is… my weight. It’s the thing that is really NOT good right now, still. And that is why I have decided to continue on with my low calorie plan, except instead of trying to stick to 1000, I’ll give myself between 900-1300 on any given day. Every seventh day I will allow myself to go up to 2000 to jog my metabolism.
As for exercise, I am continuing on with it! Yesterday I did an intense 30 minutes on the elliptical at level 8. Today, I did my hour-long power walk which is now officially 55 minutes or so since I was able to up my walking pace even more. I have to admit that I feel really good physically right now! I still have plans to start bicycling as well as swimming… more on that later.
Today’s calorie count is looking to shape up to about 1100. Yesterday’s ended up being 1070.
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by Rian on October 28, 2008
in Updates
Well it’s day 3 of my thousand calorie diet… although yesterday I had about 1125. So I’m not doing too badly. Today is the first day for a while that I didn’t work out and don’t plan to.
I recall promising some calorie counts in a previous post, but haven’t made the time, so here they are for the past several days:
Saturday – 1450
Sunday – 1005
Monday – 1125
Tuesday – only 575 so far… I have a healthy protein/veggie meal planned for when I get home later tonight which will put me just under 1000.
I only have a couple more days left on the antibiotics, thank goodness! Although they don’t seem to have done anything much other than make me feel like crap. I still have some sinus and throat issues right now.
Oh well. Time for some more EmergenC…
On one last note, having a new guy around is really helping distract me from over-eating!
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Since currently I am doing a mini-meal type of eating plan – 4 mini-meals a day – I’ve been working hard to come up with different ideas for meals that taste good, are generally filling AND are healthy.
So far my favorite mid-day mini meal is this:
- 1 cup (container) of whole grain brown rice (170 cals, 2 grams of fiber, 3g of protein)
- 1 small pear (80 calories, 4 grams of fiber)
- 1 container of Breakstone’s 2% low fat cottage cheese (90 calories, 10 grams of protein)
Total: 340 calories, 6 grams of fiber, 13 grams of protein
Dairy, protein, fruit and grain
Since I am also currently keeping track of calories, I am going to start posting my day’s count of calories each night here on this website. It’s a good way to keep me on track and make me accountable, I think…
So far today it’s 3:45pm and I’ve consumed 510 calories (I got up late). I know I’ll be up and out late tonight, so I am saving as many calories as I can for later…
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