Dieting Progress Report

First of all I haven’t eaten ANY of my trigger foods; cake, donuts, pie

However I am still eating over my caloric goal, but not as much as I was before. For the past 7 days I’ve eaten 200 – 500 calories over as opposed to over 1000 calories over my goal.

I’m really not sure what I need to do. Well ok I do know what I need to do. For the past 2 days I ate dinner at the movie theatre which consisted of pizza and margaritas. So yes that put me over my calories. I did choose salad yesterday at the theatre instead of pizza BUT I had it with bleu cheese dressing. It was so good. OMG!! Also, I am NOT willing to give up alcohol. I am not ready for that yet.

I’m not sure how to get my overage down to zero, but cutting it in half should at least stop me from gaining weight.

My goal is to lose 1 pound a week and to do that I have to eat 2000 calories or less every day. I try to focus on eating 500 calories per meal. I eat 4 meals a day; Breakfast, Lunch, Dinner, Snack

It’s really hard to stick to 2000 calories a day. It’s almost impossible for me to do when I eat outside of the house.

Today I only ate at home and my calories look on track to be perfect. I have no trigger foods here. No alcohol here. Maybe today will be a good day.

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Dieting

I’ve been writing in this blog since 2012 I think. 2012 is the last time I went on a restrictive diet.

I’m ready to try again with the restrictive dieting. My goal is to eat way less sugar products. Abstain from donuts and cake and candy.

Tuesday at my support group they had mini Twix, I grabbed a handful and ate 1 (50 calories), then I just decided “I’m not doing this anymore” and I put the rest back. Small victories. Tuesday I ate UNDER my caloric goal. I was so happy.

It’s about choices.

Wednesday I didn’t do as well. Part of the problem was that I was on the road for about 5 hours driving my mom and sister to Houston to catch a flight. I did make better choices but my calories were still way over. For breakfast yesterday I had yogurt alternative, mixed fruit, 100-calorie pack of almonds, fruit salad

that was fine

then it started raining really bad while I was trying to drive and it got scary AND i was hungry so me and my other sister went to Ihop to get off the road and wait out the rain. At Ihop I got the lowest calorie pancakes that I could find which was the Rooty Tooty Fresh n Fruity pancakes with peach topping , it had only 560 calories plus syrup and I ate that with a tiny bowl of grits, so that was not great then I went out for dinner with my Ladies meetup group, we went to a BBQ place, I ordered a veggie plate. So I had cabbage, potato salad, creamed corn and a red potato plus a tiny bowl of peach cobbler for dessert and dinner was about 810 calories

Then for my 4th meal which is usually my late night meal I ate white bean and feta power bowl and some protein granola – that meal is what put me OVER my caloric goal

So Wednesday I didn’t do too well, I could have made even better choices

I’m accustomed to eating whatever the hell I want when I want it. I need to #1 – get accustomed to being a little hungry and #2 – consistently make better choices, #3 – abstain from my trigger foods which is donuts, cake, pie, candy. I don’t think I can even have them in moderation.

So far today I’ve done well. I wanted to go to Starbucks to get a frappucino but I stopped myself. I came home and ate a banana instead.

Today for breakfast I had pineapples in coconut milk and a breakfast sandwich, it did have eggs and a veggie meat in it. I bought these breakfast sandwiches, they were in the vegetarian section of Kroger, it said harmless ham (meatless) and I was excited about that, I forgot that I don’t eat eggs. The reason I don’t eat eggs is because the egg industry grinds of the male baby chicks alive and I want to minimize my contribution to that.

For lunch I had Amy Mexican Casserole and fruit salad

For snack right now I am eating a zucchini chocolate chip muffin, it’s really good, I found it in the vegetarian section of Kroger. Only has 120 calories. It’s really small.

I’m going to try to make good choices the rest of the day so I don’t go over my calories.

I have to stay vigilant and remind myself that I am trying to do a lot better with my eating and restricting my refined sugar intake. If I didn’t eat sugary items , my calories would be good every day.

One day at a time.

 

 

Overeaters Anonymous

About 4 weeks ago I joined Overeaters Anonymous (OA) and got a sponsor. I am skeptical  about OA because a large portion of it depends upon having a higher power. I am Agnostic, I don’t believe in God, prayer, faith and depending on and doing those things are irritating to me. OA says you can make anything your higher power, someone suggested I make “Reality” my higher power. You are supposed to give your will over to a higher power. So I guess I am supposed to give my will over to “reality”? It just doesn’t make sense to me and I’m not making the connection.

I’ve been attending the OA meetings every week, they suggest you attend six meetings. I’ve done four, and I bought the book called “12 Steps and 12 traditions”.

I had a sponsor for about 2 weeks but she dropped me cause she said I wasn’t ready. There was some things she wanted me to do that I didn’t feel like doing. I guess I need to be more open to those things. She just wanted me to plan out my food the night before and send it to her every night. She also wanted to talk on the phone to me every day. I thought both of those things were overkill. It’s probably what I need though. I need someone for accountability.

I need to do something different. I can’t do the same thing I’ve always done. I have a problem. I eat way over my recommended daily calories every single day. sometimes over 1000 calories over.

Being vegetarian has been pretty much fine. I don’t miss meat. In fact meat grosses me out now. I went to dinner with my mom and her friends and her one friend ordered ribs and sausage and I was disgusted, I couldn’t even look at her while she was eating that cause I felt nauseous.

I have eaten some fish, but I’m trying to eliminate that. I don’t eat much dairy unless it’s a special occasion. Like my birthday was last Saturday and I ate cheesecake and ice-cream and key lime pie. All full of dairy. Tonight I drank a milkshake. But it was because my weekly Ladies Dinner group went to this restaurant that makes Spiked Shakes and we eat there like two times a year so I just wanted one. But I don’t stop at McDonalds or Jack in the Box for shakes anymore. I use almond or soy milk at Starbucks. I don’t buy ice-cream I’ve been eating that So Delicious dairy -free dessert and it actually tastes better than ice-cream. Me and my mom LOVE that stuff. The only dairy I eat regularly is cheese because it’s in a lot of the microwave vegetables and meals that I buy. Like all the Indian food I buy has some kind of cheese in it, the broccoli has cheese in it, the Healthy Choice Power Bowl I love the most is called “white bean and feta”. So I do eat cheese regularly but I’ve cut all other dairy out and I do notice a slight difference in my sinuses. I still take Benadryl but not as much.

I bought some liquid B-12 because a lot of vegans and vegetarians have trouble with their b-12 levels. I’ve only taken it once. I don’t even know if I need it yet. I’m looking for a liquid vitamin D and a liquid Iron. I won’t take pills/capsules/tablets, but liquid is so easy.

My energy has been pretty good but I am sleeping a little longer than I was before. Maybe two hours longer, and I’m really tired when I wake up for the day. I’ve been drinking coffee lately and that is not normal for me.

As I said I eat way over my calories; Here’s what I ate today:

Breakfast: Banana, strawberry yogurt alternative (yeck was nasty!) – 210 calories

Lunch: chocolate croissant, venti iced caramel macchiato with almond milk – 600 calories

Dinner – Veggie burger with guacamole, skinny fries with ketchup, Spiked shake, Patron margarita – 1,919 calories

My total calories so far is 2,729 calories, that’s 686 calories OVER my recommended daily amount AND I am not done eating for the day. I have to eat with my medication so I will probably have some fruit later and maybe 100 calorie pack of almonds

Vegan ice cream

Usually when I go to the movies I order a ice cream cone – pecan praline to be specific, to eat while watching the movie

well I’m trying to eliminate dairy from my diet so I can’t do that anymore, so I decided to purchase some vegan ice cream to eat before the movie (Avengers: Infinity War) to take away my craving.

I purchased : Halo top sea salt caramel and so Delicious Salted Caramel

The Halo Top is awful, it’s made with coconut milk, it has a chalky after taste and the taste is terrible, like a coconut with salt and caramel flavoring. It was a huge dissapointment.

The So Delicious was AMAZING! so good, does have a little nutty taste but if you’re searching for something to compare to pecan praline, this is it! Uh it was so good I ate the whole box. I gave my mom 1 and I ate 3. Only has 180 calories per bars wasn’t too big a hit on my calories.

I’m going back to purchase more of the So Delicious Dipped Salted Caramel bars, it was only $3.99 at my local Krogers. They were pretty much out of stock though, so these are popular, hopefully they have some when I go back.

Protein for Vegetarians

I thought I was doing pretty good eating Vegetarian the past week, then my accountability coach said I’m not eating enough protein at every meal.

According to MyFitnessPal my goal is to eat 99 grams of protein each day for weight loss, I’ve been eating 40 – 50 grams per day.

I’m not undereating, in fact my calories are usually way over. My carbs , sugar, and fat grams are really high.

I’m trying to find a way to add about 10 additional grams of protein to every meal. I eat 4 meals a day. I added almonds, roasted edamame, peanut butter, chocolate soy milk and protein granola to my grocery list for this upcoming week.

What else can I add that does not require meal prep or cooking?

You can figure out your protein requirements by going to this link:

https://fnic.nal.usda.gov/fnic/dri-calculator/

What I ate again

Yesterday was the first time in about 2 months that I ate under my allotted calories for the day.

Breakfast : Starbucks banana bread, Iced caramel macchiato with almond milk – 670 calories

Lunch: White bean and feta salad, banana – 560 calories

Dinner: potatoes, brussels sprouts, fruit bar – 390 calories

Snack: Lean Cuisine Parmesan Crusted Fish, fudgescicle – 380 calories

Total calories ate for the day: 2000

What I ate

What I ate today as someone new to the Vegetarian eating plan.

Breakfast: Almond dairy-free peach yogurt, 1 banana, oatmeal – 700 calories

Lunch: Couscous curried with almonds and cranberries, broccoli and cheese Steamers, Simply Nature Mango Fruit bar – 320 calories

Dinner: Seasonal mixed fruit, Amy’s Mattar Paneer, fudgecicle – 510 calories

Snacks: Veggie Snack Tray (tomatoes, snap peas, carrots), roasted garlic hummus, Roasted Garlic and Herb Baked Pita Chips, dried fruit – 925 calories

Notes: that yogurt alternative was not very good, it didn’t taste anything like greek yogurt which is what I am accustomed to eating, I have 3 more cups of that stuff, I hope the other flavors are better.