March 03, 2010
Wednesday March 3 2010
There’s something gratifying about standing on a scale and seeing that I am basically the same weight as yesterday, even after eating a few more calories yesterday than normal, and after eating my breakfast rather than being fasted. I know it’s weird, but I can’t help but feel like I can’t possibly be making progress, but I am! That means there is some truth to the idea of “losing weight” while eating healthier foods and not necessarily caring about how much of that food I am eating. Not that I’m abandoning the notion of calorie tracking: on the contrary I find it to be extremely useful in getting me back in touch with my body’s signals of satiety and overall healthy fullness. I’m just marveling over the fact that I’m on my way to an unconscious competence in terms of my caloric intake and needs. Oh, and by the way, it really is better to only eat half of what you order in restaurants, because most serving sizes (unless it’s a “lunch” portion) are at least 700 calories (thank the restaurant’s nutrition menu for that eye-popping surprise and delight). If you’re a girl like me who is restricting her caloric intake to around 1500 calories per day (or 300 calories per meal), than that’s a whole lot of calories (most of which are empty and not quite nutritious).
That’s another thing that calorie-tracking or food journals are good for: they help me be more conscious of what I put in my body. Because if I have to write down: 20 Samoa Girl Scout cookies=1500 calories and an ungodly amount of fat grams, then I don’t think I’ll be able to look at myself in the mirror. The accountability helps me to prioritize my long-term goals over my short-term wants aka, immediate gratification. (P.S., I didn’t have 20 Samoa cookies, I just had two on Monday, which is why I knew they were 150 calories for two cookies J).
At any rate, yesterday, I had:
Oatmeal, blueberries, with a dash of cinnamon, raw sugar, and ½ tsp of virgin coconut oil (for future, I will just have my oatmeal with just the berries. All the extras made it less appealing)
Two handfuls of spinach (I literally ripped them off from the bunch I bought) and 3 ounces of chicken breast (from dinner the night before); balsamic vinegar and extra virgin olive oil and croutons for the spinach salad.
For work I brought a microwave meal with me. Next time, I’ll just use the money that I purchased on $1 microwave meals to buy another bag of chicken breasts so that I can just take that to work with me. That, and/or tuna packets. The microwave meal was 350 calories of nothingness, and I was hungry and unsatisfied 2 hours later. I also had apple slices to snack on, but they just made me hungrier, so I stopped eating them and just drank a lot of water.
Of course, when I got home, I was starving, and so I slathered some peanut butter on the remaining apple slices, and they were a lot more satisfying that way. I don’t know about you guys, but I have a weird sugar reaction to apples, which is why I don’t eat them all the time, maybe only twice or three times a year do I really crave apples. I can definitely eat them better with peanut butter, or other foods like in the Orchard Harvest salad that Panera Bread offers in the fall. Yum!
While I was eating the apple slices, I put more chicken breast on the pan so that it cooked while I snacked. Mark graciously cooked rice, too. Chicken and rice…always hits the spot!
I felt bad because I didn’t realize that Mark expected to go to the gym. I thought that his back was hurting him too much to want to workout, so I already did my running earlier that day. I have my own personal goal of Monday, Wednesday, Friday, as you know, with Tuesday as a cardio day, and Thursday as a fall back day for Wednesday, either day switching off to be my day off. Saturdays are usually reserved for squats, chin ups, and dead lifts, since there have been more people in my gym on Fridays than have been in the past. Odd.
Well, I will continue to read and write now. I love being able to have days off from work, and only being obligated to follow my own goals of personal growth.
(this was too long to post as a comment to my March 27 Post) :)
There’s something gratifying about standing on a scale and seeing that I am basically the same weight as yesterday, even after eating a few more calories yesterday than normal, and after eating my breakfast rather than being fasted. I know it’s weird, but I can’t help but feel like I can’t possibly be making progress, but I am! That means there is some truth to the idea of “losing weight” while eating healthier foods and not necessarily caring about how much of that food I am eating. Not that I’m abandoning the notion of calorie tracking: on the contrary I find it to be extremely useful in getting me back in touch with my body’s signals of satiety and overall healthy fullness. I’m just marveling over the fact that I’m on my way to an unconscious competence in terms of my caloric intake and needs. Oh, and by the way, it really is better to only eat half of what you order in restaurants, because most serving sizes (unless it’s a “lunch” portion) are at least 700 calories (thank the restaurant’s nutrition menu for that eye-popping surprise and delight). If you’re a girl like me who is restricting her caloric intake to around 1500 calories per day (or 300 calories per meal), than that’s a whole lot of calories (most of which are empty and not quite nutritious).
That’s another thing that calorie-tracking or food journals are good for: they help me be more conscious of what I put in my body. Because if I have to write down: 20 Samoa Girl Scout cookies=1500 calories and an ungodly amount of fat grams, then I don’t think I’ll be able to look at myself in the mirror. The accountability helps me to prioritize my long-term goals over my short-term wants aka, immediate gratification. (P.S., I didn’t have 20 Samoa cookies, I just had two on Monday, which is why I knew they were 150 calories for two cookies J).
At any rate, yesterday, I had:
Oatmeal, blueberries, with a dash of cinnamon, raw sugar, and ½ tsp of virgin coconut oil (for future, I will just have my oatmeal with just the berries. All the extras made it less appealing)
Two handfuls of spinach (I literally ripped them off from the bunch I bought) and 3 ounces of chicken breast (from dinner the night before); balsamic vinegar and extra virgin olive oil and croutons for the spinach salad.
For work I brought a microwave meal with me. Next time, I’ll just use the money that I purchased on $1 microwave meals to buy another bag of chicken breasts so that I can just take that to work with me. That, and/or tuna packets. The microwave meal was 350 calories of nothingness, and I was hungry and unsatisfied 2 hours later. I also had apple slices to snack on, but they just made me hungrier, so I stopped eating them and just drank a lot of water.
Of course, when I got home, I was starving, and so I slathered some peanut butter on the remaining apple slices, and they were a lot more satisfying that way. I don’t know about you guys, but I have a weird sugar reaction to apples, which is why I don’t eat them all the time, maybe only twice or three times a year do I really crave apples. I can definitely eat them better with peanut butter, or other foods like in the Orchard Harvest salad that Panera Bread offers in the fall. Yum!
While I was eating the apple slices, I put more chicken breast on the pan so that it cooked while I snacked. Mark graciously cooked rice, too. Chicken and rice…always hits the spot!
I felt bad because I didn’t realize that Mark expected to go to the gym. I thought that his back was hurting him too much to want to workout, so I already did my running earlier that day. I have my own personal goal of Monday, Wednesday, Friday, as you know, with Tuesday as a cardio day, and Thursday as a fall back day for Wednesday, either day switching off to be my day off. Saturdays are usually reserved for squats, chin ups, and dead lifts, since there have been more people in my gym on Fridays than have been in the past. Odd.
Well, I will continue to read and write now. I love being able to have days off from work, and only being obligated to follow my own goals of personal growth.
(this was too long to post as a comment to my March 27 Post) :)
posted by Liza at
3:32 PM
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