Beginnings part 25434 squared

Yesterday was out with the old and in with the new. The start of a new eating plan, new organizational plan, and hopefully the start of a new (or renewed) weight loss plan. I had decided to do this about a week ago but determined that it would need to begin on this Tuesday. Biggest reason was that over the weekend we celebrated our 28th wedding anniversary and we could not come up with a definite way to celebrate it because of several constantly changing factors. And then Nick and I got sick and it added a new wrinkle. Monday was a planned field trip and so that brought Day One to Tuesday. I am taking my weigh in weight on Saturday for the starting point- 244.8. I am SO tired of being stuck in a 10 pound cycle of lose and gain, and hopefully this new plan of counting calories and exchanges-not points- will kick things into gear. It may interest some of you to know that this is Weight Watchers Old School- before the trademark name was sold to a food company and all kinds of new programs became developed every other year.

Began the day with a veggie scrambled egg 9onions, mushrooms, swiss chard) and a slice of turkey ham. accompanied by 2 little clementine oranges. Coffee and water accompanied, along with a round of supplements. 299 calories and very satisfying ! Held us very well until lunch

Today was a hot ham and cheese sandwich on Arnolds Thins wih a salad made of romaine, red peppers and cauliflower, and Wishbone salad spritzer dressing( have to use up our stash). Aldi's diet soda to accompany. I was asking myself what was I thinking planning ham two meals in a row, but the plan is not perfect right now. Lots of water throughout the day, and around lunch I began to notice that my body seems to be responding differently. Could it be the return of weight loss at long last ???

We have a planned snacktime in the afternoon, and when it rolled around we were both very hungry ! The plan we are following is a 1400 calorie high protien exchange plan which limits bread servings to 3 but allows 9 servings of protien and a minimum of 4 non starchy vegetable servings. So our snacks will feature veggies and some kind of protien, for a more satisfying nosh. Today was a container of non fat probiotic yogert( probiotics are very benificial to your overal health), celery, carrot sticks, broccoli and 17 almonds, half chocolate coated and half with sea salt.A diet soda washed it down, simply because at this point I had drank 10 glasses of water and my mouth really wanted a different liquid.

Dinner was an Angus beef burger on an Arnolds Thim with mustard, home made sweet potato fries and homemade buttermilk coleslaw. The burgers had been sitting in the freezer for a while and they needed to get used. I no longer had the package for the NI, so I am not totally sure on the calorie count of the patties, but I remeber it was pretty high ! The homemade coleslaw came in very low, as the dressing was a small amount of buttermilk with various seasonings. I like these kind of dinners- fast and non fussy ! If it is a salad I can make ahead of time, it's a winner !

In the evening I had a snack, but more out of force of habit than anything else. I never used to snack in the evening, but when we started following Weight Watchers , there entered in the pressure to use those points every day ! Evening snacks became a requirement because we could not eat all the points during the day. I noticed I was short on a bread and a protien exchange, so I had a wedge of laughing cow lite, a Fiber Plus bar( I have a love/hate relationship with these), and a cucumber. One weird thing about me- if given my absolute food choice out of everything in the world, I would opt for a tomato or cucumber sandwich on really grainy bread spread with butter, and it is something I rarely eat for a lot of reasons. A sliced cucumber or tomato all on it's own is second best and third best would be a sandwich of sliced radishes on a buttered baguette. It's been a lifelong favorite, and I think I got it from my grandmother !

So day one, ,if I calculated right , came in at 1375 calories. Not too bad- and tomorrow is going to be another good one !