tracking calories

Yesterday went well.
I planned ahead for the whole week, so I'm excited about what's coming up - I think Diet Girl wrote a post about this recently...or maybe it was in her book....I don't know, but either way, she's right on. I can definitely see how having a planned, nutritious, yummy meal to look forward to would curb cravings.
I felt satisfied and happy with everything I ate yesterday, it was all good for me, and the calories were evenly spaced out so my energy stayed up. I'm so glad I have the time while I'm on spring break to track nutritional info. I'm starting to record that info for foods I eat frequently so that I won't have to spend so much time looking it up and so I'll have a better sense of how to plan my days when I'm not on break.

Yesterday I walked for 40+ minutes for exercise.
Food Journal -
Breakfast: 6 oz. plain, nonfat, Chobani Greek yogurt with 1/4 c. Ezekiel flax cereal, 1 banana and 7 almonds (347 cal., 6 g. fat, 55 carbs, 25 g. protein)
Lunch: Romaine salad with peas, carrots, red pepper, red cabbage, 2 tbsp. sunflower seeds, 2 oz. peanut ginger tofu and dressing with 2 tbsp. balsamic vinegar, 1 tsp. flaxseed oil and 1 tsp. olive oil with seasonings (345 cal., 22 g. fat, 25 carbs, 14 g. protein)
Snack: 1 oz. cheddar cheese, 9 rice crackers, 1 flax multigrain flatbread cracker (220 cal., 11 g. fat, 20 g. carbs, 9 g. protein)
Dinner: Split pea soup with potatoes, celery, parsley, and tempeh baked with olive oil; also split the rest of the cornbread from Greenlife with Ryan (368 cal., 11 g. fat, 53 g. carbs, 9 g. protein)
Dessert: apple with 1 tbsp. almond butter (183 cal., 10 g. fat, 24 g. carbs, 3 g. protein)

Totals: 1,462 calores, 60 g. fat (36.5%), 177 g. carbs (47.4%), 60 g. protein (16.1%), 30 g. fiber

So - pretty good except a little high on the fat - that's always where I'm off. I am going to try to watch that, but I'm not stressing too much because it's all 'good fat' except from the cheese.

Printable Nutrition Report

Today I'd planned to clean all day and watch some of my recorded shows from Monday, but Ryan's home sick, so I'll just clean up and then see what he feels up to. He almost fell asleep in the shower and was so dizzy he could barely stand. He's sleeping now. I think he's just exhausted, so it's a good thing we have nutritious meals planned and I'm home to take care of chores. His eating has been pretty bad lately, he hasn't had time for exercise and he has an hour and 15 min. commute to and from work everyday - I think all that's catching up with him. He was always super skinny, so never had to think about calories or 'diet'. I've always been heavier than I wanted to be (although now I'm kicking myself for hating my 135 pound body all those years and 30 pounds ago), but at least all that obsessing and worrying about my health and weight translates to a good understanding of nutrition now. I guess that's a benefit for all us serial dieters if we can channel it for good.

I'm so glad we have DVR now. I love my tv but can't justify all the time I'd spend watching it if I couldn't do chores at the same time and fast forward through commercials. (I probably still can't justify it, but that's not changing today)

I watch House, 24 and Medium and they're all on the same night, so I record them. I also watch CSI and usually record 18 Kids and Counting, Ace of Cakes, and sometimes watch other cooking shows like Iron Chef. I also sometimes watch Jon & Kate + 8, but I don't know what happened to that show - Jon and Kate seem different now - always angry and really short with the kids - and the kids are picking up on the adults' conflict resolution 'techniques', so it gets on my nerves. I know that's judgmental and they're probably great parents who are tired of having cameras around, but it just seems like the show was more fun to watch before Kate, especially, became a different person because of the success of the show. Hmmm...maybe I should stop watching if I'm going to be negative :)

Okay - I get a smoothie this morning :) Mmmmmm

Let's try some accountability

Yesterday was a good day eating-wise.
I needed it.
I've been getting sick ALL THE TIME this year and I need to get healthy. Eating buckets of sugar isn't going to help that.
My throat is actually worse this morning, but that obviously has nothing to do with eating healthy yesterday.
So...

I estimated on calories for a few things (just veggies - wasn't positive about portions), and I think the calories I looked up for my falafel patties are wrong because they were big and fried, not small and homemade....So I added an extra 150 calories to what SparkPeople says I ate and it came in at 950 for the day.
I felt full and I felt like I was eating constantly, so I don't know how I came out so low.
I guess feeling under the weather and eating lots of raw veggies explains that.

Here's what I consumed

Breakfast: banana
Lunch: lentil soup with raw veggies (cabbage, carrots, celery)
Snacks: apple, 13 Mary's Gone crackers, 10 almonds, 10 cashews
Dinner: Huge salad with 2 falafel patties, lots of veggies and ~2 tbsp. tzatziki sauce

I did remember my multi and I drank ~9 cups of water.

Didn't count points - sure it was within range.
I know it makes no sense to count calories and points, but I'm wishy-washy and can't decide what I want to do, so for now I'm paying attention to both.

Off to Chicago

I haven't been tracking my food the past two days. Saturday I watched what I ate, but I didn't count points because I had so many left over from the week I knew I'd be fine. Saturdays are the last day of my WW week. And Yesterday I got involved in a wrapping project and didn't even think of tracking points. I had 2 slices (small) of leftover pizza for breakfast, potato latkes at lunch and then again later (total of 5 with apple sauce and sour cream). I had sherbet with a square of dark chocolate, a funsize mint 3 musketeers bar and...I can't remember what else. I didn't have much else to eat (latkes are filling!) but I want to track it. Darn it! This is why I need to write everything down the same day.

Anyway, yesterday I got up at 6:30 and spent 2 hours in Walmart trying to figure out what options I had for wrapping presents. I have guilt about throwing away HUGE quantities of paper (I read that this is mostly responsible for a 25% increase in trash around the holidays) and wanted the most recycled, recyclable and reusable materials I could find - but I still wanted it to be fun and cute. I decided to use just plain 100% recycled brown shipping paper and to decorate it with pretty satin and wired ribbon (potentially reusable). Then I came across these Martha Stewart pom pom animal kits and that's where my day went. I made 16 animals out of felt and pom poms - farm animals, forest animals, birds and bugs (cute ones). So I'm going to incorporate those, my family will think I'm crazy and they'll probably be right, but it'll be fun for me.

Right now we're getting ready to leave for Chicago for a week. It'll be cold today and there's snow on the ground with more coming tomorrow. So Ryan will get to see Chicago snow, which I'm happy about. But it looks like it's going to warm up and rain before Christmas, so - no white Christmas :( Too bad.

We're hoping to get out of town by 9 and that should get us to Chicago by 7 tonight. I'll bring my notebook journal and track food and exercise. I'm hoping to get on my mom's treadmill tonight. And on that note, I'm going to put a few of my new workout song selections on a cd and get in the shower.
Oh! By the way - I took 3 classes and got 2 As and one pass (in a pass/fail class) this semester. Yay! I'm still hoping to receive feedback on my final papers, but I'm happy for now.