My Eats for Week One of the Back to Basics Challenge

I wanted to post daily about what I ate, but it was a busy week. I tend to stick to the same foods most of the week anyway, so it isn't a big deal.

Breakfasts (around 5:30ish): This is one of my two big downfalls this week. I prepped my health Eeg McMuffins, but still craved (and gave into) the real Egg McMuffin as a meal with a Diet Coke. Who needs pop for breakfast? I know most people drink coffee and it is basically the same idea with caffeine to get your day started. Either way, this is one of the things I'll be working on for week two- no McDonald's breakfasts on weekdays before work.

First a.m. snack (7:30ish): I don't have a ton of time once I get to work to get prepped for the day and eat a snack, so I keep it simple and already prepared. Usually some kind of protein or granola bar.

Second a.m. snack (10:00): My staple for this snack is baby carrots and a piece of light string cheese.

Lunch (11:30): This is something that I change week to week, but usually eat the same thing at least all five days of the work week. This week I had a simple chicken recipe (baked chicken breasts with salsa and tortilla chips), rice, and broccoli.

First p.m. snack (2:30-3:00ish): I made some peanut butter protein cookies from a recipe I have on Pinterest. I had them on some days and some days I ate big sugar cookies. I have been craving the frosted cookies that they sell at Family Express. I remember getting them on the drive between college and my parent's house on weekends. The one difference is that now I am overweight and then I was 120 lbs. My goal is to try to avoid the frosted cookies all together, but if the cravings get bad I will get one instead of a six pack to keep around.

Healthy

Not healthy

Dinner (anywhere from 5:00-7:00 depending if I am on my own or my hubby is cooking): My husband made three meals this week and I kept the leftovers for other nights. He made chicken kebabs on the grill, rosemary chicken and broccoli, and campfire chicken packets on the grill.

I can't find my pics of the meals from when I ate them, but these are my leftovers.

Second p.m. snack: (I don't eat this everyday, just when I'm still hungry): Some days I had cookies like I discussed above, some days I had nothing, and some days I had the WW chocolates like I planned.

Since I gained weight back, I haven't bought too much in the way of clothing. I borrowed back some of my old clothes that I gave to my sister and find items on clearance once in a while to help have more choices than the same few outfits. Very little of my clothes make me feel great at the moment, but I don't want to spend a bunch of money on clothes that I hope will be big for me sometime soon. Here are a couple of outfits I wore to work in which I did feel good wearing:

Going Hungry

One of the tricks I've been using this week is dealing with the fact that I will be hungry. My metabolism is sped up when I eat on plan and my body is like an alarm clock that goes off about every two hours. I'm not sure if it is used to the amount of food I should be eating yet though. There are times when I'm hungry within a hour or I just finished eating and would like to eat more. Every time this has happened this week I've said no. I just deal with it, drink some water, and try to distract myself. If I really can't stop thinking about it I've been eating a peppermint (20 calories). I would use gum more often, but it makes my jaw muscles sore. Another thought I had was to eat sugar free jello (I have some pre-made cups that are 5 calories a piece.) or some veggies instead.

I heard about these cookies from a co-worker, and found some on sale at the grocery store. They taste pretty close to an Oreo in my opinion, but I did grow up on generics and not name brands.

As for what has happened with me today, the answer is not much. I took the day off of work since my stomach hurt all day Thursday. I thought a little rest would keep whatever I was fighting off from getting worse. I spent the morning sleeping and doing some paperwork for work. In the afternoon I did more paperwork, did a little blogging, worked out, and made an easy pizza for dinner. I basically sat on my butt all day.

My veggie toppings.

My other ingredients including turkey pepperoni with 70% less fat and 30% less sodium.

The finished product. It was very yummy!

Food for the Day:

Breakfast:

Snack:

Lunch:

Snack:

Dinner:

Snack:

Exercise: Wii Fit and stretches

New Haircut and Old Records

This morning I finally saw some movement on the scale- down one pound! All week I've been staying the same even though most days I was meeting my goals. I hope that it moves down a little more before my Monday weigh-in. I'm about two pounds away from my ten pound goal, so I ordered Singstar Rocks with two microphones for the PS2. I also order Singstar Legends (for only 3.95) for my goal of 185. So no games get opened until goals are met.

This morning I got my hair cut. It is mostly the same as last time, but I did a shorter, more side swept bang. So here are some pictures of me loving my new haircut...

After some grocery shopping (where I found this shirt)

and some lunch, I spent the afternoon working on cleaning and organizing the great room. As of now it isn't finished, but I'm hoping to finish it tonight. I also enjoyed listening to records on my new record player all afternoon. I so far have listened to Imagine by John Lennon (pictured below) and Skeletons in the Closet and In the Dark by The Grateful Dead.

Food for the Day:

Breakfast:

Snack:

I only had the diet pop and the egg mcmuffin- no hash brown.

Lunch:

Snack:

Dinner:

Junk food snack: three raspberry cheesecake cookies from Subway- they are addicting

Exercise: cleaning the great room

Snacking Woes and Snow

Our second real snow of the year happened today. It was clear until 10ish and the snow started and has not stopped at all.

The kids were released from school a few minutes early, but the roads were already pretty bad.

The first thing I did when I got home was shovel off the front steps and make a path for the dogs to go potty. Then I got to snow blow the driveway since my hubby wasn't home.

Me bundled up and covered in snow from snowblowing.

I'm pretty ashamed about not meeting blowing my snacking goal for this week again. I ate my healthy breakfast, but then gave into a craving on the way to work. I stopped to get some of these vanilla flavored cookie wafer sticks. They are so good, but eating as many as I did is not so good. I actually ate a little over half of the tin of them. My stomach was uncomfortably full and I felt funny from all of the sugar. I guess it is a good thing that I can't eat like I used to otherwise I feel sick. It took a couple of hours to feel normal again. Hopefully I can learn my lesson this time! Snack on "junk food" in moderation. I threw the rest of the cookies out as you can see in this picture.

I'm glad that I did meet my other goals for today and got back on track with my eating after my cookie wafer incident. I cooked my healthy breakfast, took my vitamins, did my stretches, and did my routine on the Wii Fit. I also ate a healthy lunch and dinner and passed up the Dunkin' Doughnuts in the lounge.

Food for the Day:

Breakfast:

Snack: the cookie wafers took place of my usual snack

Snack:

Lunch:

I had a light yogurt instead of chips.

Dinner:

Exercise: stretches, Wii Fit

Thursday Blahs

Today was kinda a "blah" day for me. I went to pull out of my driveway for work and saw this.

There were some positives, but there were so not so good choices as well. Today I thought I'd try something a little different for my post. A little list of the positive verses the negatives...

My cute outfit

Positive:                                                                         
cooked a healthy breakfast                                      
took my vitamins                                                            
wore a cute outfit                                                           
did my stretches                                                             
got most of the concert songs selected
ate a healthy lunch
did Wii Fit for 31 minutes

Negative:
ate the rest of those cookies I was talking about yesterday
didn't get everything done at work that I wanted to today
ate some rice crispy treats after lunch
weight went up a bit this morning
feel "blah-ish" from it being that TOM

Well, I'm happy to say at least I found more positive than negative. That is the beauty of this exercise. It usually always ends up with more positive than negative and some the negatives I can't control anyway.

Food for today:

Breakfast:

Snack:

Snack:

Lunch:

Yogurt instead of chips again.

Snack: rice crispy treats


Dinner: chicken tenders and fries

Exercise: Wii Fit, stretches