more about food

Are you sick of hearing me talk about food? I started journaling to be able to keep up with what I ate... so I'm getting closer to my roots here, less whining and more celebration. Get used to it.

Last night’s dinner ended up being stir fry chicken with red and green peppers, onion and celery. I had mine over a brown rice/bulgur combination and Austin had his in a fat free tortilla. Good stuff.

My colorful food for yesterday – banana, butternut squash, pear, red peppers, green peppers, onion, celery, honeydew melon and cantaloupe.
My proteins for yesterday – almonds, almond butter, yogurt and chicken
My grains for yesterday – whole grain bread, brown rice, bulgur
I had sugar in my coffee in the morning… other than that… no junk!

Today my menu looks like this:
Colors- collard greens (breakfast), orange (snack), carrots, zucchini and green beans (frozen mix for lunch), mixed frozen fruit – red grapes, honeydew, strawberries (for snack)… I’m thinking for dinner I’ll finish off the butternut squash.
Proteins – almonds for snack this morning, yogurt for snack this afternoon. I meant to bring the leftover rice/bulgur mixture to go with my veggies and forgot so I’ll have to pick up a grilled chicken sandwich somewhere.

I’m thinking for dinner tonight I’ll have some oatmeal with the butternut squash.
My strategy today is to eat every 2-3 hours and increase my water.
As the weather warms up, I’ll be able to add more activity. My goal is to be healthy enough by the time changes to be able to take advantage of that extra daylight hour by walking in the evening. There are some really scenic areas around here – even if I just went to Jim and Angie’s and walked down the “bumpity bump road” with the girls… Or stopped in Helen to walk with Stasha after work… I want to be on track to walk ½ hour to an hour a day by spring. Walking works.
I haven’t been hungry yet. Not once. In fact – I’ve been enjoying food more. I had a huge bowl of collard greens for breakfast where I might normally have a biscuit or a piece of toast… so I’m fuller and I’m full of good stuff, not junk. The good stuff stays with you longer.
I slept 6 really awesome hours last night – really deep sleep. I woke up, went to the potty and went right back to sleep for another hour. Seven hours of unassisted sleep… it’s quite an accomplishment!

My computer is working but still has a virus. I need to get it to Geek Squad or someone who can remove it before it does any damage. I put a new virus protection thingy on it but it’s still not right. It’s so aggravating. I should never have let Austin use it.

The big news for today is that I measured… and out of the three basic measurements (which is all that I can do consistently) I have lost a total of four inches! Four pounds and four inches! I think that’s awesome. I wish there was a way to calculate money saved as well… I know that the ambien alone was costing over $200 a month…. Lunch out at work every day was $5-7 – so that’s more than a hundred a month! Increasing my health insurance deductible is saving $200 a month… so the savings in being healthy is huge. We haven’t even factored in not missing time from work… and just being more productive at work since my salary is partially based on commission. There are some benefits that will come further down the road but every victory deserves celebration. Lost inches and gained money is the payoff today! That plus just feeling better… that’s worth so much too… quality of life. There’s a spring in my step… I like having that energy back.