It’s an “unofficial” number, but yesterday the morning scale put me at exactly ten pounds down from my starting weight! Woohoo! That puts me over halfway to goal!

Food wise, yesterday was a pretty good day. I had a pretty hearty breakfast and dinner, but all of my food was healthy and I was really eating to satisfy hunger…not just because I was bored or strssed. Furthermore, I really liked everything that I ate.

Food:
–1/2 cup peanut butter oatmeal with nonfat milk and sliced banana and strawberries
–Coffee with cream

–Two high fiber wasa crackers with 1 wedge of laughing cow light cheese

–Tofu vegetable stir-fry
–1 small cara cara orange
–1 light string cheese

–1/4 cup nonfat plain yogurt topped with Kashi cereal

–1 rib of celery stuffed with peanut butter

–2 chicken tenders with tomato sauce and part skim mozzarella
–1 oz. 100% whole wheat spaghetti in tomato sauce
–Wilted baby spinach

–Diced mango

Steps:10463

I just finished a six week challenge at America on the Move. Over six weeks, I logged a total of 413,074 steps! That’s an average of 9,835 steps per day. I’m pretty proud of that number…I traveled a lot over the holidays, and I still managed to come so close to my goal of 10,000 steps per day! My goal is to get my average over 10,000 steps per day over the next six weeks.

I had a pretty good food day today. I was prepared for my meals, I ate lots of veggies, and I didn’t overload on carbs. I love my tofu veggie stirfry! It is a family recipe that tastes amazingly good room temperature. I ate a pretty light dinner, so I finished off my batch of pumpkin ricotta for dessert. It was yummy and satisfied my cravings, and I didn’t spend all night being hungry.

Food
–1/2 omelet (mozzarella, turkey bacon, parsley)
–1 small cara cara orange
–Coffee with cream

–Small nonfat latte
–Two high fiber wasa crackers with one wedge of laughing cow light cheese

–Tofu vegetable stir-fry
–1 light string cheese
–1 small cara cara orange
–1 small carton of nonfat milk

–1 small can v-8 juice

–1/2 whole grain mini pita stuffed with tomato sauce, spinach, part skim mozzarella, and leftover steak

–1/2 cup pumpkin ricotta with 1 tbsp. dark chocolate chips

steps: 16113

Pumpkin ricotta something that I invented a few months ago. I saw a can of pumpkin and was suddenly struck with a terrible craving for pumpkin pie. So I just started throwing things together and came up with a surprisingly yummy concoction that satisfied my craving. The amounts below are approximate…I tend to eyeball the measurements and adjust the quantities until I’m happy with the taste and texture. The result is surprisingly good and quite low calories. You also get a good dose of protein, fiber, and vitamins.

Note about the cream cheese: I love the way the texture turns out with a little bit of cream cheese mixed in. I use the regular stuff, but I’m sure you could use a reduced fat cream cheese. It even works to omit it.

Mix together the following ingredients:

1 can of pumpkin
1/2 to 3/4 cup nonfat ricotta cheese
~3 tablespoons of cream cheese (optional)
cinnamon to taste
nutmeg to taste
artificial sweetener to taste

Serve cold or room temperature. Garnish with cinnamon or, if you are feeling decadent, with a little bit of whipped cream or dark chocolate chips. For me, this makes about 5-7 servings.

Have you guys ever seen a pink orange before? I just discovered them. I bought a bunch of navel oranges that looked perfectly normal on the outside. Then when I opened one, I discovered that it was a shocking salmon color on the inside, almost like a grapefruit. Apparently there is a pink variety of navel oranges called cara caras. You learn something new every day. They actually tasted really good!

Today was a somewhat better day. My huband made me breakfast today, and it really got my day off to a good start. I didn’t end up eating any bread all day, and it wasn’t bad at all. I did have some whole grain crackers with my lunch. Those are a great option for me because they are filling and pack well and I don’t get the urge to eat too many when I’m stressed.

Overall, I’m very happy with today. I ate good food, I ate lots of veggies, and I didn’t feel out of control. I also got my 10,000 steps in.

In the interests of full disclosure…note the cookie. I have something resembling an excuse. I went to an extremely underattended lecture today. The event hosts had been expecting many more people and brought boxes of cookies from a famous local bakery. Since there were so few of us there, they were pushing cookies on us like you wouldn’t believe. I did cave in and eat one. Despite the fact that it was delicious, I resisted the temptation to take a second or third one (or to take five of them home with me!). That part of my day could have been more virtuous, but it probably could have been a lot worse!

food
–1 small can v-8 juice
–Small omelet (1 1/2 eggs, turkey bacon, garlic laughing cow light cheese, fresh chopped parsley)
–Coffee with cream

–Two high fiber wasa crackers with 1 wedge of laughing cow light cheese
–Stir fried tofu and vegetables
–Sugar snap peas

–Medium peanut butter cookie

–1 rib of celery stuffed with 1 tbsp. peanut butter

–Spicy flank steak
–Seared baby spinach
–Black beans

–Diced mango

Steps: 10341

Let the record note that I LOVE bread. I do not ever intend to live without the stuff. I’m happy to eat stone ground whole grain bread instead of the white stuff, but good bread is one of life’s great joys and I do not intend to give it up.

That said, I abuse bread. For me, it isn’t about how often I eat bread…I’ve lost weight eating whole wheat bread multiple times a day. But for me, it is a warning sign if I start eating more than one serving of bread or pasta in a sitting. At first, I usually cut back on calories somewhere else so I can justify my bread habit. But it always comes back to bite me.

Everyone is different, but I know that I personally have no business eating more than one slice of bread or half of a large english muffin in one sitting, at least not on a regular basis.

I have noticed that my bread consumption has started going up too much. All too often I end up eating both halfs of my English muffin or wanting a second slice of toast. And for me, that just isn’t going to fly. So far my total caloric intake hasn’t really shifted, but I am nipping this in the bud before it gets out of hand.

This is really, really hard for me to admit. But this is just the sort of denial that always gets me into trouble. All of those seductive voices in my head saying, “Bread is good for you, one more slice won’t hurt. Don’t think about the calories or carbohydrates, you can make good decisions without reading labels! In fact, you can eat all the bread you want!” I want to believe them. But I am doing my very best to be honest with myself this time around, even if it’s unpleasant.

I’m not freaking out, I’m not freaking out…

The scale jumped up 1.6 pounds today for no reason that I can think of! I know that this is probably just water weight, but ack!

I promised myself that I wouldn’t let scale fluctuations completely freak me out, and I am doing my best to keep perspective here…

Wow, I racked up a lot of steps today. I was pretty hungry today, but I think that the extra exercise is part of why.

food
–1 whole grain English muffin with peanut butter
–1 small can v-8

–1 medium iced nonfat latte

–Spinach salad with pine nuts and homemade Dijon dressing
–Leftover black bean chili

–Pumpkin ricotta

–1 small glass of milk

–Lamb and white bean soup
–Sugar snap peas
–1 small glass white wine

–2 wasa crackers w/laughing cow light cheese

steps: 16778

So, it looks like yesterday’s mini-binge didn’t hurt me too badly…my morning scale reading was actually down .2 lbs. I was determined to get back on track today, and I think I’ve gotten off to a good start. I ate a healthy breakfast and I walked 10,000 steps before lunch! This morning I walked the long way to my neighborhood coffeehouse and got myself an iced nonfat latte. I came home to find the huband blasting rock music and cleaning the kitchen. I decided to join in. So we got some good progress made on cleaning the house, and I got some sun and exercise. I feel great.

Argh! First really stupid move with food today since I’ve started blogging. I came home from school stressed out and starving. There were Kashi protein bars in the vending machine, and I had the bright idea to buy myself one. From what I’d heard, they were whole grain and low in calories and sugar. So I buy one. I look at the label and realize that these are a different type of Kashi bar. They have waaay more calories and sugar than the ones I’d seen previously. I should have just thrown it out, but after spending money on it, I felt somehow obligated to eat it. “I’ll just eat a little,” I thought. I take a bite. It’s okay, but not great, and tastes too sweet. I should realize at this point that it’s not worth it , but do I? No. I keep eating. When I’m halfway done I manage to summon the willpower to throw the thing in the trash can before I eat any more.

The rest of my day was off. I just kept eating and eating. In the end, it wasn’t even that my food choices were so horrible…it was the out of control feeling of it all. I wasn’t eating to satisfy my hunger or even because what was in front of me was particularly delicious. I was just eating because I was tired and stressed and things were there.

On the positive side…I did not just grab the bag of chocolate chips and start eating handfuls (though I was tempted!). I have also taken over 12,000 steps so far today!

Food:
–Coffee with cream
–Open faced scrambled egg sandwich (1 egg, 1 slice whole grain bread, one wedge garlic herb laughing cow light)
–Cherry tomatoes

–1 cup white beans with tomatoes, parsley and tahini sauce
–1 small can v-8

–Light string cheese

–1/2 cup nonfat yogurt

–1/2 protein bar (bad idea)
–1/4 cup pumpkin ricotta with chocolate chips

–1 light string cheese
–1 sugar-free jello
–Pine nuts (munched while making the salad)

–Spinach salad with chicken and pine nuts, dressed in homemade Dijon vinaigrette
–A couple bites of chickpea soup