Thursday 9 December 2010

Breakfast:  Eggs + soy chorizo, usual toast, usual coffee x2

Mid-morning:  I had a hair appointment, so I stopped by 3 Bees again and got a double cappuccino for me and a latte for my stylist.  Yum!  (She bought this time.  I'd buy hers every time, but she insists we alternate.)  Not shown: the ginger chew I ate because I was out of cough drops and started hacking.

Lunch:  Green salad with walnuts and TJ's Tuscan vinaigrette, more walnuts on the side, and an apple.

And for dessert?  14 almonds.

Snack time:  1/4 cup of wasabi dry-roasted edamame.

I was hungry, I had the calories...so why did it feel a little like defeat to eat these?  (Although it's just as well that I did, I ended up needing to stay later at work than I was expecting to observe a test system being set up.)

A crawdad on a Christmas tree....?

...Laissez-les bon temps rouler!  It's a Mardi Gras Christmas!  (The gal at work in charge of keeping things festive-looking around here had a great time with her theme.  Aren't the inflatable alligators a hoot?)

Yes, please!

Dinner:  Forks and spoons at the ready for 4 oz. of tri-tip steak with sauce, 1.5 cups of Brussels sprouts with 1 tsp olive oil and lemon pepper and garlic powder, and a cup of non-fat milk.  Ahhh.  I was so hungry!

Nutri-stats!
Total calories:  1790 (Under my new daily budget of 1798 - the tally I use drops your budget as you drop weight.)  No exercise today, so this was my net calories, too.
Fat: 100.9 grams (18.7 saturated) - 49%
Carbs: 132 grams (32.9 fiber, 66.1 sugars) - 29%
Protein: 102.8 grams - 22%

So, how am I feeling?
Pretty good!  I feel like this is hard but doable during the week, but I'm not sure how the weekend will go.  We have a concert on Saturday night and will probably go out to eat, and I'm taking the kids to a birthday party on Sunday, and we might be making cookies (sugar or gingerbread, which aren't as tempting - chocolate chip cookies need to be off the agenda for awhile).  So we'll see how it all goes.

Weight-wise, I'm back to where I'd been maintaining for quite some time now.  (This morning I was .4 lb from where I ended last year.)  You know, I didn't used to be quite so concerned about weight creeping up, and it's not very fun to have to micromanage.  But that's part of what I had to change to make sure I would at least be able to maintain what I've achieved so far.  It's giving me some confidence to see that I have the ability to reverse a trend.

So...now I have a choice.  The calorie tracker I use has calculated my budget based on a 1 pound per week loss rate.  So do I keep it here and see how long I can go, do I modify it to "lose 1/2 pound per week," or to I set it to "maintain?"  On the one hand, I'm kind of on a roll and am curious to see what happens.  On the other hand, with photos and logging, it's a lot of steps before I actually stick food in my mouth - how long will that be doable?  Not to mention it's kind of demoralizing to see that calorie budget drop.  I think I'll leave things put for now and see what happens.  By observing, I hope to be able to catch when it starts getting crazy-making and avoid feeling a backlash.  The plus side is that I should have a really awesome a1c test result in January! :-)