I was really upset about this overall gain, and put that anger into a serious house cleaning session. The house really needed it , and we had planned to tackle it as a family on this day. Life has been pretty chaotic the last couple of weeks for many different reasons, and the simple daily chores like sweeping had gotten pushed aside. While some people are stress eaters, I am a person who gets very stressed in a jumbled environment. Hubby and son are the same way. Things like dust or things that are misplaced make us all absolutely crazy ! So as I cleaned ( which works like therapy for me ) I contemplated , analyzed and and came to a conclusion. Perhaps the thing that was sabotaging us was stress ? No one has been sleeping well here all week, and life has become a long to do list with little opportunities for joy of late. Joy is the ultimate foe of the negative forces of stress. If you love what you are doing and your body becomes stressed, the hormonal activites of adrenaline and cortizol begin to work in a positive way . If there is no joy, these two hormones wreak havoc. We needed to find more joy. More Bliss ! It is accomplished through an attitude, which is brought on through doing activities that remind you that life as you see it is worth living. Chemically this can be acchived through exercise ( the feel good endorphins get pumped into our system) , but for some people you need more. For some it means the need for hobbies, the arts , connections with friends or other such things. We have the desire, we have the physical tools, not it's time to work on the emotionally based ones.
So the goal this week is to increase our levels of joy on this journey.Cleaning the house helped to be a big destresser for us all. The guys will have to find their own paths to joy because only they know what that will truely be. For me it will be a daily dose of laughter , playing my guitar for 30 minutes 2 times a week ( or there about) , and doing something artistically creative. With Halloween coming up, this will be easy to figure out. I will let you know what develops.
Food was on track with calories for the day-1435 calories for the day. Instead of posting a picture of every single meal here ( I will be doing that on Facebook) , I am only going to post the new discoveries we have tried.
Lunch was a peanut butter waldorf spread on Arnolds Thin with celery, carrots, pudding and a 100 calorie pack. To make the spread for two people you need 1 T chopped carrots, 2 T chopped celery, 1 tsp raisins , chopped, 1 small apple chopped and 1 T peanut butter. Mix well and use as a spread. The spread comes to 30 calories per serving ( recipe makes 2) and is pretty tasty !
For dinner we tried Portabello pizzas with a tossed salad. Take a red pepper, an onion and the stems from 3 portabellos , chop and saute in a tsp olive oil. Then pile into the caps of 3 portabello mushrooms, top each with 1 T pizza sauce and 1/4 cup shredded mozzarella. Sprinkle with oregano and bake at 350 for 30 minutes. 139 calories each.Let's make it a good day , gang !
6 comments:
When I was watching 60 Minutes the other night, I was surprised to hear - Lt. Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, the American commander in Afghanistan, usually eats just one meal a day, in the evening, to avoid sluggishness during the day.
One meal a day is a very bad move for your blood sugar levels.
I don't see how your PB spread could be 30 calories a serving when 1 TB peanut butter (95 calories) serves two? Add the apple and the raisins and you have to be at at least 100 calories per serving.
Calorie count for the PB spread is from Sparkspeople.
Here are my thoughts on why the weight is not coming off and this has been weighing on my mind since I found your blog awhile back. Prior to now, I have not interjected because I know different people do things different ways and sometimes they work and sometimes they don't. Anyway, having said that.....
If I were to eat the way you do, I would definitely GAIN weight, even if I scaled the calorie count down to my weight using the calculations you have described on occasion.
In my opinion, although you are eating what would traditionally be considered "healthy" there are too many carbs. Wait, wait, wait!!! Before you get scared and think I'm one of those anti-carb people, let me just say that I am not.
However, I see your meals contain a lot of grains (oatmeal) and higher carb-count veggies (i.e. carrots, potatoes). And although these are natural carbs, they are carbs nonetheless. I also really think you need to cut out some of the bread - whole grain or not, it is high in carbs. If you are eating it for the fiber, vegetables are a much better option for obtaining fiber. The diet soda has got to go too. Artificial sweeteners can wreak havoc not only on our blood sugar levels, making us feel hungry when we're not, but they are just plain not good for us either.
If I were to do a diet makeover for myself with the meals you eat, the meals would be very similar but would be less carbs. Here is an example day and what I would do to change it:
Your menu, October 22nd -
Breakfast: Eggs, cheese, bacon - keep. Ditch the english muffin and throw in some strawberries
Lunch: Keep the celery and possibly the apple. Apples are kinda high in sugars though. Definitely ditch the carrots and switch out for maybe some broccoli? Get rid of the Arnold's thin and if you have to have bread, have you tried the "Flat Out" brand of flatbreads in the lo-carb, high fiber version? The ones I have in my frige are the Sun-dried tomato variety. They only have 17 carbs total with 9 of those carbs being fiber! That's almost 40% of the RDA for fiber...but you probably know that.
Ditch the diet soda and drink water.
Snack: The nuts are good. I'd get rid of the yogurt though. Although it has fiber, dairy tends to bloat people. If the wasa cracker is the kind I'm thinking, there aren't very many carbs in it. Even though I don't advocate artificial sweeteners, maybe trade out the yogurt for diet jello?
Dinner: chicken and spinach, awesome!!! creamed soup, okay, but not the greatest. Roasted root veggies - WAAAAAY too many carbs. How about roasted peppers with balsamic?
Evening snack: One of those things has got to go. These snacks are just too large. Although the calorie counts may be where you want them, they are loaded with carbs and are technically, small meals.
I really hope you don't take offense to this. I have been very overweight myself in the past. I lost 67 pounds by eating healthier lower carb meals. Here would be an average day for me:
Breakfast: eggs with baby spinach and sun-dried tomatoes. Coffee with coconut cream and stevia.
Snack: Some sort of low-carb bar like EAS brand or I also like the Fiber One bars that you like.
Lunch: A big ole salad made with baby spinach, leftover fried chicken breast or chicken nuggets, tomatoes, and cucumber.
Snack: A big handful of pecans, almonds, or macadamias.
Dinner: Chicken of some sort, roasted asparagus or steamed broccoli. No one says we have to eat starch but if I were to crave it, I would probably eat some Dreamfield's (low carb but does not taste like it) pasta with some butter and salt and pepper on it.
Snack: a pear or some strawberries. Or maybe some celery with peanut butter.
Continued.....
Since my family is now gluten and dairy free, some of the options I mentioned are now no longer available to us but the things I mentioned are what helped me lose so much weight.
I'm not telling you how to eat and I truly do not mean to offend. It is my hope that you will see my sincerity. Having been overweight myself and lost the weight, I would really like to be able to help others. I can only hope that is how you will receive this message but I more than understand if you choose to delete it.
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