Getting back on the wagon

I'm glad I'm here again!  I was doing so well and then...Hummm...What can I blame?  Stress? Starbucks' 40th anniversary? Mike's Birthday?  No self control?  All of the above?  I had a week of diet breakdown, so you won't see that here much anymore.  I need to, instead, try to figure out the REAL reason why I make the choices I do!  Here's the attempt to analyze my last 3 days.

Stress:  There's no getting away from this one!  It's been BAD.  But because it's been worse so many times before, I feel like I should handle it better.  In my own defense, there were a few times that I really tackled the stress well.  On Thursday afternoon I got home to find a letter in the mailbox that literally sent me through the roof!  This letter meant a huge delay and more money spent before I can get into the program I'm applying for.  I was so mad that I was shaking.  After making a call and getting all the details figured out, my first thought was RUN.  I couldn't get my shoes on fast enough.  I went out on a 5 mile loop that hits some monster hills and really cranked.  Running while you're mad is very rewarding!  I did a 9.20 avg. mile and for the hills I hit, and my usual pace, that's fast!  So Good!!!  I need to do more anger/stress running!

Starbucks:  HAHA...can I really blame their 40 Anniversary?  Can I really blame the petites?  Can I REALLY blame free food??  Ahh, yeah!  Because they were giving away their cute little desserts to celebrate I felt like not going to the party would have been just plain rude!  So we planned, which is what you're supposed to do!  Mike, Hailey and I went to our local store and indulged in the "less than 190 calorie" goodies.  It was worth it!  I registered it on Sparkpeople and was A-OK with it!  BUT, Starbucks is doing this for 3 days....hummm...Do I love Starbucks enough to party with them for three whole days?  Apparently I do!  Yesterday, Mike and I were back.  Trying another petite!  Yum!  Gooood stuff!   Not good for my "healthy" diet!

Birthday:  Mike turns 38 on Monday.  Thursday we went out for a planned extravagance with some good friends.  I knew I was going to throw the diet out the window and just eat whatever.  Boy did I!  Estimating the calories I ate wasn't easy, but I figure I went over the days allotment by, at least, 1,500. calories!  Ouch!  I had a major stomach ache that night and felt like the pain was trying to tell me something.  Celebrations don't have to include rich, fatty, calorie laden food.  This needs to change!  That being said, we're having dinner #2 tonight with another couple and I know dessert will be involved.  Oh boy! 

It's never just one thing!  I need to revisit the fact that this is the rest of my life and I need to adjust constantly.  I'll always have stress, birthdays, anniversaries and the other things life throws at you.  The trick is...adjusting reasonably.  Not easy!

A little guilty!

I didn't blog yesterday...not sure why?  Just wasn't feeling it.  But I regret my decision.  I think this is a really good way to stay in touch and aware of my health.  It's so easy to backslide and I'm just not going there!  Tomorrow we celebrate Mike's 48th birthday at a really nice restaurant here in town.  I'm starting to think now about planning my meal and whether or not to have dessert.  This is a lifestyle, not a diet, so I have to be realistic.  Will I really turn down birthday cake?  Would it be right to?  I don't want to be militaristic about this and make other people feel uncomfortable.
Here's how YESTERDAY went:
Breakfast:
not much different here!
Lunch:
1 portion Veggie stir fry w/tofu and peanut sauce.  This was a tough one.  Tasted so very good, but I knew the peanut sauce was a bad idea.  Next time I'll ask for the sauce on the side.  In fact, I'll ask for all sauce on the side!
1 C. brown rice
Dinner:
1 portion meatloaf (Mike's famous meatloaf!  Could have eaten the WHOLE thing.)
1 sm. salad
1 med. yam - baked
Snack:
1 med. apple
1 short soy latte
I'm starting to be able to eyeball portion sizes.  It really helped to go through Sparkpeople's explanation of what a portion looks like.  Although my calorie count was high today, I was happy with almost all my choices.  I also think the counts may be a bit high because I counted cal's on store bought food instead of homemade.  Not going to be too stringent about it! 
Here's the breakdown:
1,666. cal. consumed
1,677. cal BMR
   381. cal exercise (yoga and a long steep hill walk!)
  -392 differential
All in all it was a GOOD day! 

No time to eat well?

I planned on having a healthy lunch, but after a very long meeting decided to "just grab something quick".  I spent a lot of time wondering what that could possibly be when you factor in health.  It's so difficult to guess what's in prepared food.  I've read that most people grossly underestimate the caloric content of the food they're ordering or even the food they've prepared themselves.  I've become very wary of restaurant food after this week!  My growling stomach won and I bought a medium container of a salad/chicken combo from a deli.  It tasted fantastic, but I don't really know what I ate and that bothers me greatly!  Sparkpeoples recipe calculator can only factor what you enter, and I could only guess...So lunch may be right on, or way off!  But being aware is half the battle. 
I also let myself get too hungry today.  The late night oatmeal put me over my calorie count.  Who would think oatmeal is 150. cal's per 1/2 cup!!  ouch!  It was terribly good tho, and good for my heart!

Here's the count - a bit ugly today as far as health is concerned...
Breakfast:
yep!  the usual
Lunch:
1 C. approx. chicken/veggie deli salad.  flavored with a oil/vinegar type dressing
I estimated 2 T. of dressing (it wasn't drenched)
Dinner:
4 oz. whole wheat pasta
1. c. pasta sauce - veggie
1 skinny slice garlic bread
Snack:
1 med. banana
1 C. oatmeal
Here's the breakdown
1,616. cal consumed
1,677. BMR
     76. cal burned in exercise (yep-it was a tight day for exercise! I'm counting the long trek to my car up a hill into my meeting...honestly, it was a long way!)
-137 differential...whew!  almost didn't make it today.  That's what you get for turning on the hunger monster!  I shouldn't wait so long to eat.  Planning ahead is way more healthy.

Almost the end of week one!

This week was much easier than I imagined.  The problems I struggled with were surprising and didn't involve actually craving food!  Strange.  Maybe the food journal and the blogging were enough of a distraction that the cravings were put on hold.  That being said, I had my first dessert, in a week, this evening.  Homemade Lemon Meringue Pie (deserves capital letters as if it's something very special).  Got to admit, it was a let down.  Don't get me wrong - it tasted good and all...but...I made it out to be much more than it could deliver.  I even debated weather or not I should skip it all together.  hummm!  Good things!

Today was a very active day!  5K run and about an hour of biking!  I had no appetite after breakfast and didn't eat lunch until 2pm...even then, it was a salad.  Not sure why I wasn't hungry, it's kinda unusual for me!

Here's the day:
Breakfast:
snore!  Boring!!
Lunch:
Salad with pecans (tons of pecans!  I left about a CUP of pecans on my plate!), tomatoes and Gorgonzola cheese
Dinner:
1 portion roasted veggie pizza - homemade this time.
Also, found out I could enter RECIPES into Sparkpeople and get the portion breakdown!  cool!
Snack:
1 med. banana

And the breakdown:
1,461. cal. consumed
1,677. BMR
   614. cal burned in exercise
-830 cal differential

This was my second run in new shoes!  The faster you run - the more calories you burn!!!  Yeah!! 

Accidental bad decisions

Having breakfast with a friend turned out to be a lesson in how bad food can look so damn good!  Turns out homemade granola has a TON of calories.  Luckily I wasn't very hungry and didn't eat the whole bowl.  If I had eaten what was set in front of me at the restaurant I would have had well over 1,000. calories in that yummy portion.  Later in the day I had waited too long to eat lunch and ate a whole plate of teriyaki tofu...too much when you're thinking about portion size.  But it's all lessons!  My breakfast friend and I talked about keeping a food journal and she related a story about doing her tallies all by hand!  I'm glad I have the mathematical powers of Sparkpeople! 
Here's the day:
Breakfast:
1.5 slices wheat toast
1 tall soy latte
.25 C. granola
.25 C. fruit
Lunch:
1 serving tofu teriyaki
1 c. brown rice
1 ea. fortune cookie
Dinner:
4 sm. whole wheat pancakes
1 ea. chicken sausage
Snack:
1 med. apple
1 med. banana
Here's the breakdown:
1,655. calories consumed
1,677 BMR
143. exercise
1,820 total burned
-165 differential

For a while I'm going to just eat at home...restaurants are too confusing to my diet and I'll save money!!  I am getting a bit more adjusted to what a good portion looks like.  Sparkpeople had some good "you could eat this or you could eat that for the same amount of calories" pictures.  I'm very visual so this helped.

Dealing with post-stress fallout?

I had a really wonderful day.  All the terrible stress from yesterday was resolved with a couple phone calls.  Everything went our way and the things we were worried about were all put to bed!  I should have been really relaxed and relieved - feeling great.  Instead I was twitchy, nervous, on edge.  I felt terrible.  I took a long run and thought that good old fashioned sweat would take care of how rotten I was feeling.  No such luck.  I was so restless.  I realized almost right away that I was dealing with how terrible yesterday was.  I know a tiny bit about stress hormones and know they can linger...I was pretty sure that was what I was dealing with.  My theory helped me control what I ate.  Actually, talking to Mike late last night about how difficult our grocery shopping trip was (he said it was torture for him too!) made me feel more confident that I could handle the next round.  After all, stress is kinda my middle name!  Progress is being made!

Here's how the day played out:
Breakfast:
the usual!  Boring I know!  But it works!! 
Snack:
1 ea. Ensure Coffee Latte (I was planning on a 10 mile run.  I have Ulcerative Colitis, so use this nutritional supplement on days when I run long.  Regular food doesn't cut it for the energy I need).
Lunch:
1.5 ea. Hebrew National hot dogs...I know, I know!!
.25 C. Baked beans
1    ea. Whole wheat hot dog bun...I peel off most of the bun as I'm eating, so probably not even 1 whole.
1 sm. salad w/tomatoes, avocados & dried cherries
1 med. apple
Dinner:
.25 C. rice & beans
.5  C. refried beans - yes!  Beans have LOTS of fiber - good!
6 ea. shrimp
3. ea. Corn taco skins
1 C. chocolate soy milk

Here's the breakdown:
1,510 calories consumed
1,687 BMR
913 exercise
Total burned 2,600.
I'm almost embarrassed to say the negative differential was:
-1,090.  Ouch!  I should have a big piece of chocolate cake.  It's amazing when you figure calories in/calories out, what a good long run can do!

I've lost 2 pounds.  Again, I'm NOT on a diet!  I'm eating a good amount of good food (okay, okay I know I had hot dogs today!!)  My body really likes good food and exercise.  I'm going to reach my goal of being comfortable again in my jeans in no time.  Best part is, this is NOT painful!!  And I'm learning something each day!!  SCORE!!

Stress eating!

I've known that stress eating was something I really needed to deal with in order to feel good about my diet.  Today was a huge lesson.  I got up early and ate a really good, filling, tasty breakfast.  I had a guitar lesson at 12:30 so lunch was late and I was very hungry!  It felt good to have my stomach growling.  I took the time to make a pretty healthy lunch and enjoyed it greatly!  Then the stress started.  On the Richter scale of stress, this was a 9...maybe that's putting it mildly!  At one point, during this very unpleasant meeting I needed to attend, I literally had to put my finger to my lips in order to NOT say what I wanted to say!!  Yuck!  The fallout from going through this was a emotional grocery shopping trip.  Unfortunately I could not wait to shop and it was painful.  I really felt like everything sugary or unhealthy or greasy or fatty or just plain ol' bad for me was singing my name!  I just wanted to eat it all! 
I didn't! 
I am disappointed in only one thing.  I was going to make homemade pizza with whole wheat crust but opted for an Amy's roasted veggie pizza (it was lovely!).  I just didn't have the time or the emotional state to make the crust and get everything ready.  So I took the easy way out, but it was a healthy easy way!
Here's the day
Breakfast:
2 ea. homemade breakfast taco's with
2 ea. scrambled eggs
2 ea. slices organic turkey bacon
avocado slices and tomatoes
Lunch:
1 ea. gardenburger
1 ea. orowheat sandwich thin - 100% whole wheat
avocado slices and tomatoes
6 sm. strawberries
Dinner:
1 serving Amy's roasted veggie pizza
1 sm. salad w/tomatoes, avocado, dried cherries and sesame seeds (oh sooo good!)
Snack:
1 med. apple
1 med. banana

here's the breakdown:
1,294 cal. consumed
1,687 cal. BMR
0 exercise (yep!  This was another contributor to my stress level.  I had a scheduled run that I had to cancel - not good when you're a running addict!!)
another negative differential
-393

I really learned a lot today and feel good that I resisted all those Ho Ho's, Twinkies and potato chips!! 
I can do this!  I can make healthy choices regardless of what's going on emotionally!  The trick is to keep it going!

Today was tough!

Not fun!  Not because I wanted to eat that which is not allowed (or good and clean).  But because we ate food that I could NOT figure out how to enter into Sparkpeople!  Restaurants really throw a wrench into the plan!  I sat with a good friend and my Mikey at a Thai restaurant and tried to look at the menu in a way that saw past what I WANTED to eat and instead tried to decipher what I SHOULD eat!  Not easy.  I only have a few hard and fast rules for this "diet" and my favorite Thai food (pad see ew) breaks one of them = NO WHITE!!!  No white rice, noodles (ouch), bread and very few white potatoes.  So pad see ew was out! 
Here's what was devoured today:
Breakfast:
2 slices whole wheat toast
2 t. natural peanut butter
(I'll probably cut out listing breakfast after awhile cause I'm such a creature of habit...boring!!)
Lunch:
Mongolian tofu - yes!  I ate the WHOLE serving.  In fact, I just realized I forgot about the...
1 egg roll (oops)
Dinner:
4 oz Pot roast (this beef comes from a totally grass fed organically raised cow.  I like to call him our happy cow)
1 small salad w/avocado, tomato, carrots and a tiny amount of dressing.
Snack:
1 medium banana
1 medium apple

Dinner was tough because I couldn't really zero in on the exact cut of meat we used (chuck steak).  I checked a bunch of entries and gave it my best shot!

So the breakdown today goes like this:
1,687 BMR
1,612 calories consumed
   232 calories burned (yoga)
which leaves me with another negative differential of -307.  Pretty cool seeing that I went over my allowed calories by 62 calories (BAD GIRL!!).

So far so good. Still no sugar Jones!!  I'm relieved that I'm not craving sugar especially because of that time of the month!

Also started yoga up again today.  It's been a loooong time due to a frozen shoulder.  Missed it very much and my stiff inflexible muscles showed it!

Day one. Some good things learned

Day one is almost done and I'm not eating the glue off the back of any envelopes!  Good day!  With the help of an app on my phone called Sparkpeople I've been able to not only keep a food journal, but get a running total of calories eaten and burned throughout the day.
Here's the total for Tuesday:
Breakfast:
2 slices whole wheat toast
2 T. natural peanut butter
2 C. coffee
Lunch:
.5 C. veggie baked beans
1 gardenburger
1 sandwich thin bun
1 small salad that included avocado, cucumber, carrots and just a bit of salad dressing (60 cals/2T)
3 large strawberries
Dinner:
1 small corn muffin (homemade)
2 oz. penne pasta - whole wheat again
2 C. spaghetti sauce - heavy on the mushrooms!
Snack:
.5 L. banana

The cool thing about Sparkpeople is that I get a breakdown of what I've consumed today. 
1,388 calories eaten
1,687 calories burned for BMR
345    calories burned on 3 mile run
so I'm at a -644 cal differential.  LOL to me this means = I CAN EAT MORE!! HA!!

So what did this first day teach me? 
First of all, I really need to pay attention to PORTIONS!!  When I measured out 2 oz of pasta I actually started laughing!  A typical pasta dinner, for me, would COVER a large dinner plate!  But in an attempt to really stay within what I should be doing, I measured and only ate one serving.  What I found was that I wasn't hungry after eating that SMALL amount of food!  I've heard that your brain believes what it sees, so if you give it a small portion and say, "this is right.  This is enough." your brain believes it!  It works! 
Second, I really had a hard time just eating!  Honestly, I'm so used to eating and doing something else that the effort it took to sit at the table and JUST EAT was much harder than I imagined.  In fact, I failed terribly at dinner.  We watched 127 hours while we ate and I really felt bad about it.  Tomorrow!!
Third, sugar was not an issue!  This was a surprise.  I woke up this morning and thought, "okay...here we go.  You just need to get through a week and you'll have a dessert day!"  But I didn't jones at all.  We'll see how tomorrow goes. 

This is helping!  I'll wait a bit longer before I let anyone know I'm blogging about my diet, but just the thought of someone reading it and being accountable...well...it'll keep me going!   So if you're reading this, THANKS!! 

oh, I should also note stress related issues here too.  Seeing that stress and eating kinda go hand in hand for me (unfortunately).  On a scale from 1 - 10 the stress was about a 7.  Not good.  I should have made a phone call, I didn't and that means the stress number will probably be the same tomorrow - not good.  I'll need to work on this too!

Getting ready to be Transparent

So here I am, one day away from making a commitment to post my entire caloric intake for the day. That's every meal, every snack, every jelly bean, cookie, glass of hot chocolate before bed - all of it! )
You may ask yourself why? Why would I do this and why would anyone CARE?? I can hear it now, "is Ruthe really eating peanut butter toast for breakfast AGAIN???" LOL . My goal is to be completely accountable for all the decisions I make regarding my diet...No...not diet. That's not what I'm really getting at, I want to be completely transparently accountable for my HEALTH.

About 4 years ago I had a revelation. I realized I was GETTING OLD!! I was 60 pound overweight and had the lipid profile to go with it. I was tired all the time and was extremely stressed out. My job sucked and my home life wasn't much better (that's a blog in itself!). I looked at my children and realized I really ripped them off as far as having a fun, vibrant, active mother was concern. I became passionate about the thought that, as a grandmother I would be the type of woman my kids deserved. I loved the though that I could have the energy to run circles around my grand kids. I told my husband, "This is it! I'm done! I want to completely change the way I'm living my life. I want my grand kids to say, "SLOW DOWN GRANDMA!!" I want to feel good again!". (Disclaimer=I am NOT a grandma yet! I was looking into the future hoping that one day I can wear that title).

Mike is most likely the most supportive husband alive, so he was 100% behind me. I was not going to try any specific diet because I know they're all crap. Instead I was going to keep a food diary and practice "mind full eating". I have an incredible sweet tooth, so part of my diet was slashing the sugar monster into a manageable little beast. I knew it was unrealistic to cut sugar out completely, after all, what's life without birthday cake?? But chocolate cake for Breakfast, Lunch and Dinner had to go! I didn't take long. I went from a tight size 16 pants down to a size 6 within a year and a half. It seemed like my body really liked good food and exercise. My change of lifestyle didn't, at first, include any cardio. But then I reached a bit of a plateau and knew I needed to get my heart pumping. This was especially critical because I knew my LDL's and HDL's and all those other creepy acronyms needed rearranging with their values. I watched my father's life become confined to the house and backyard because of heart disease and was damned well sure that would not be me. THAT was the start of my love of running. I can't say enough good about running! It's saved my life over and over again!

So here I am...47 years old and I'm back in a rut. I haven't gained the weight back. I'm 150 right now and I'm fine with that number. So you may say, "Why this transparent diet thing then?". Well here's the thing...I'm not practicing what I'm preaching! My body seems to like this weight and the amount of running I'm doing is keeping it on the level. BUT what was once clean and healthy has now gotten dirty and sick...again! Ahhh it's so easy to backslide. I know stress has won this battle - I eat badly when I'm under a great amount of stress. But it's time to get back on track.

Here's what you'll see in this blog.
1. Daily food journal
2. Complete honesty
3. An attempt to explain what's going wrong - and what's going right in my attempt to start eating clean and healthy again.

It's February 28. Tomorrow starts a new month and a new me. I'll test this out privately for a week and If I'm not too chicken you'll see it on facebook.

Ruthe