Lunch

looks like a lot of food but only 400 cal (combined morning snack into lunch) Not pictured: spicy brown mustard 5 calories a serving!

Snack

Breakfast

The goreous orange flowers are there to brighten up breakfast!

Uhggg

So I have been quite self destructive on the diet standpoint lately. I must stop. All the cookies and bread I ate lately triggered some painful gas in Ellie. We were doing so great, I feel bad that my slacking is causing her discomfort. Today is a new day though. I'm not going to worry about anything but calorie count, consuming NO milk at all and taking vitamins today. Tomorrow is an all day BBQ at my moms. I think I'll get some shrimp to grill, if not, my mom usually does chicken. I'm bringing pasta salad, which I already calculated at 150 calories per 1/2 cup. I'll share the recipe after I make it tonight.

Starting over.

And this time I mean it!

This weekend (& yesterday) was no good. Well actually it was petty great. But no good for my diet.
Before i make breakfast, I'm gonna go weigh...
Ok
Not as bad as I thought

231.8

Wet sweet fluffy snack

So I bought Kozy Shack Smart Gels and they're gross, I don't recommend them at all. But I didn't want them to go to waste so here is how I used one up:

1 Jell-O cup + 1 Kozy cup (both cut up a bit) +

2 1/2 servings lite whipped topping (1 or 2 servings would have been enough) =

70 Calorie refreshing snack.

Lunch

Breakfast

hypothyroidism

i got some blood work done, apparently my thyroid levels are high, which means its underactive. this could explain why i havent really lost weight in the last 3 weeks. its supposedly normal with pregnancy for the thyroid to get messed up. the numbers were high on a previous check up a couple years back, but then normal after that, so i dont know, not sure if its the kind of thing that comes and goes or if it is just thanks to pregnancy hormones this time. my dr wants to start meds, I need to do some research on this, but i think i will likely go with the meds, because it could help me lose weight, and lower my cholesterol which is also high.

weekend at the coast, plan for this week.

We were on vacation this weekend. I told myself i wouldnt worry too much, but not forget that i need to eat healthier.

I didnt order anything but water to drink and we only went out to eat for 2 meals each day.

Friday, before we left was my grandma's funeral, there was food there and i couldnt eat the salad because it was covered in cheese and creamy dressing, I had 2 mini sandwiches which had ham and mayo,since i removed the cheese. I had a little potato salad a few carrot sticks. I did have like 6 little cookies. ugh. and punch instead of water. it wasnt even good punch.
for dinner, we went to a seafood buffet, i had a big salad and fruit and a few peices of each fish. many of it was fried though. luckily i couldnt have the pasta, chowder, or mashed potatoes/gravy.
Saturday morning I had eggs benedict, with buckwheat pancakes and fruit. I shouldnt have had the hollendaise sauce, it ended up bugging Ellie that night. and hollendais sauce is butter and egg yolk. one of the worst sauces i am sure. i didnt finish my pancakes because i was full.
for dinner, I ordered prime rib. I did carefully cut the meat away from the fat. I had salad instead of chowder, but i should have had veggies instead of fries, I thought the fries would be easier to eat one handed if i had to hold Ellie. That logic didnt make sense with the prime rib. Just try cutting meat 1 handed. I had salad with dinner too.
Sunday Morning, I had a couple strawberries and some trail mix to hold me over until lunch. I ordered a trio of cold seafood sliders and a side salad, instead of chowder. do not praise me for the healthy subsititute, i cant have chowder. The sandwiches were really yummy.
when we got home, i was tired and worn out. i had peanut butter on a whole wheat tortilla and a little handful of chocolate chips. for dinner, we had chicken meatballs and tator tots. because it was easy. then i had an apple.

We didnt stop by the candy store as we usually do. We didnt stop an stock up on pepperoni sticks from the factory store as i had planned, they have been a really common snack for me, easy and yummy and portion controlled, but theyre fatty and i was thinking of the high cholersterol thing. The only convience store food I got was a bag of trail mix and 1 pepperoni stick, which i shared about 1/3 of with Annie, our bull dog. I tried to drink more water and took my vitamins most of the time i was supposed to. I ended up with a pretty nasty migraine headache on saturday so I did get a pepsi from the vending machine for the caffeine but didnt even drink it all.

tomorrow, I will eat healthy and plan out some healthy meals with what we have on hand. which isnt much, we havent been grocery shopping lately. actually we have plenty of food, in the freezer, stuff that take energy to make. which is a stupid excuse because the easy dinner we had tonight was from the freezer and i chose it because it was easy.

I have grilled chicken strips, fully cooked beef strips, salmon burgers, chicken and turkey meatballs, all kinds of veggies to steam, frozen fruit for smoothies (which i have been meaning to try with rice milk) I have some whole wheat pasta and tortillas and brown rice.

as for exercise, Ellie was in her car seat and stroller a lot more than usual this weekend, she was in the Moby part of the time, but not as much as usual, so tomorrow, we go for a moby walk.

High Cholesterol

I came across a letter from my dr from like 2009 sometime and it'd said my cholesterol was high and blah blah blah. My dr didn't want to put me on meds while I was in my childbearing years. So just suggested diet and exercise.

Since then I beared a child and lost a little weight, thanks Ellie.

I thought I aughta get checked again. Especially seeing is how my medical coverage was approved past the 2 months postpartum. thank you insurance gods and tax payers!

Well, as suspected, my cholesterol is high. Dr wants me on meds. The same dr as the letter. I'm still in my childbearing years though??. I also have an underactive thyroid apparently. More on that later.

The meds she rxs that are supposedly safe for breastfeeding, aren't covered by my insurance. Another one is safe for BFing but not for pregnancy. I'm not concerned with pregnancy as I'm on reliable bc but I'm thinking, how safe can it be for BFing if not safe for pregnancy?

I open up google.

Apparently Fenugreek, an herb used to help with milk production, has been studied to help with high cholesterol. Hmm. It can result in baby being misdiagnosed with Maple Syrup Urine Disease though... no joke...

Further research teaches me that it's common for pregnant and lactating moms to see an increase in cholesterol. Cholesterol is pretty important for babies. One article actually suggest not even testing cholesterol while lactating.

Some drs are dumb. Some suggest weaning so mom can start meds. I haven't told my dr yet that im not going to take the cholesterol meds. I'm young, dont drink or smoke, I'm overweight but working on it. I have family hustory though. Breastfeeding has been shown to lower mom and baby's risk of so many ailments including heart disease. I'll call her tomorrow.

A friend of mine is TTC and has high cholesterol. She told me her Dr RXed fish oil. Studies show fish oil + diet and exercise lower cholesterol better than meds alone.

Sounds like a good plan to me. Fish oil is recommended for nursing moms for the omega-3 fats anyway.

I already take fish oil supplements, but I'm going to research further on how much I should/could take.

Fixing my thyroid might help lower the cholesterol too, even if by helping me lower my weight which in turn will lower cholesterol.

I might take the fenugreek too, and pump more often. I have a slight fear of being unable to nurse and not being able to pump. I want to have a decent supply in the freezer for if and when Ellie will need a bottle.

Hasn't happened yet, but it might.

When my father-in-law had a triple bypass, we tiook a mini nutrition class on a heart healthy Mediterranean diet. Mostly veggies. Fruit. Fish and other lean meats, whole grains occasionally. I'll be getting the hand-out out of the file box and taking it shopping with us.

I like healthy foods. I just like the unhealthy stuff too.

getting back in gear

so i totally started slacking on over Easter weekend. havent really gotten back into bein strict about writing everything down in the fatsecret app.

what mikey is doing is eating 4 400-450 cal meals and not eating wheat. he lost 10 lbs then got sick with a cold so has been kinda lazy. i dont like that idea for me because i tend to snack more, and sometimes i dont feel like eating much or feel like eating a bunch. overall throughout the day is a plan i can work with, although his math is easier.

today i had 2 96 calorie muffins, 3oz ham, 3 oz strawberries. lunch was "pizza" turkey pepperoni, jimmydean sausage crumbles, veggie cheese and pasta sauce on a whole wheat tortilla. a big drink of grapefruit juice from the jug.
i had 2 pepperoni sticks and a giant chewy sweetart for snacks.
dinner was a turkey burger patty, small baked potato with ICBINB, peas, green beans, a salad with a small amount of dressing and 2 bottles of water with sugar free flavor in them.
dessert was a bowl of coconut milk ice cream with some nuts, banana chocolate spread and fake whipped cream. I weighed everything out and adding calories in my head it was like 300.

i have taken Ellie walking around the property a few times this week, it helps her fall asleep in either her stroller or the Moby. If the weather gets better ill continue doing that.

tomorrow, im going to get laundry going and keep it up until we have to go into town. this counts as excersise because i have to lug the clothes down the steps across the lawn and into the house. with Ellie in the Moby, its even more of a work out.

im really going to focus on getting 1800 calories a day minumum with 2000 on some days. the empty calories (candy, the easter bunny went nuts in the jellybean aisle) will be limited to 20o or less per day. after a while i will cut that back even more.

tomorrow, cereal for breakfast, snack, late lunch before going into town (so were not tempted to stop somewhere) snack after running errand and dinner by 7, another snack if i have calories left.

235.5

Nice

Stupid frosting.

Forgot to take pics but heres one from breakfast, a little motivation.

Today went pretty good. Breakfast at IHOP, did you know 4 buckwheat pancakes are just 110 calories? They also have a Simple and fit menu. I had the spinach mushroom tomato omelet with egg beaters and no cheese. I substituted the fresh fruit for 2 pancakes, because it's IHOP, not IHOF. i also had them leave out the cheese since Ellie is allergic. They messed up the order and left the inside cheese out of my MIL's and the topping cheese off of mine, easy mistake. The omelet was pretty tasty. Omelets are like the only way I eat vegetables at breakfast. I need to find more normal vegetables for breakfast, or just make it normal.
I had a salad for lunch with beef strips, mandarin oranges and walnuts. Pretty tasty.

Then I went to put away a few Costco groceries, cleaning out the fridge, I enjoyed a big scoop of cream cheese frosting from the can when I pulled it out to toss it. I set it on the counter to cut the box top for education off. After organizing the fridge I had another scoop of frosting! Im not beating myself up about it. Just moving on.

Dinner was a big salad, 1/2 serving of super low fat vegetarian chili with a fancy hotdog in it.
Costco had some incredible strawberries so I had a bunch of those too.

Good day.

Breakfast 2 banana nut muffins
Also had a handful of green grapes.
Lunch: 2 servings Andersons split pea soup with 1/2 serving bacon bits. Grilled ham and "cheese" sammy made with Pam. Carrots.
I remembered to take a pic of dinner when I was down to like 2 bites.
I measured 4oz chicken marinated in FF Italian dressing and reg tomato bacon dressing, measured 1 serving of stovetop stuffing (I used to eat the entire box myself)
1/2 cup green beans roasted with 1/4 TBSP bacos and 5 almonds chopped. (probably less of both these because they didn't stick to the beans well and lots were left in the bowl.

Because breakfast was so small and I napped through afternoon snack, I had a meal after dinner.

1 small whole wheat tortilla with half serving pb and jelly. 6 big strawberries, 3 oz grapes, 2 servings dairyless whipped topping. For dessert, 1 chocolate Graham cracker with 1/4 serving cream cheese frosting. Also had 10 jelly bellies.

I also snacked on 1oz jerky and 1/8 of a cantaloupe.

Everything I ate today was weighed or measured.

The weather was a little nuts today and Ellie was really needy after getting her 2 month shots so we didn't go for a walk or anything. Hopefully tomorrow.

Good day.

breakfast was good even though I didn't take a pic. Scrambled egg patty, 1/2 serving of ham lunch meat and soy "cheese" a banana nut fiber one muffin

Healthy lunch: lean ham and turkey sandwich with soy cheese, Dijon mustard and tomato on whole wheat . Baby carrots with ff Italian dressing and sf jello.

Healthy dinner: white meat roasted chicken, salad with salad shrimp and free thousand dressing. No salt added green beans, carrots and radishes. Small baked potato with lite ICBINB

96 Calorie Muffin

I'm sharing a "recipe" (I use that term loosely) for high fiber, 0 cholesterol, muffins from a box

The box says to use vegetable oil and eggs.

I used prunes

and apple sauce

I googled "alternative to egg in baking" and someone said 3 tablespoons apple sauce per egg.

then I googled "alternative to vegetable oil in baking" and found apple sauce, and prunes amongst other things. I had a can of prunes on my counter. I love the little individually wrapped prunes, so tasty and good for you!

I found that 6 TBSP of apple sauce wasn't quite 138grams, so I just added more until It was about that(to make math easier), then unwrapped, chopped and smashed 3 prunes. I was just estimating that would be about the equivalent, with the extra apple sauce, to the oil.

I did the math, using the "as packaged" column of the nutrition info and decided to make 18 muffins instead of 12, so they would be about 100 calories each.

I divided the batter amongst 18 muffin cups and baked them for like 17 minutes at 425 as the box suggests

They turned out very very moist, almost too moist, next time, I would cut the water back a bit.

also they stuck to the papers some, so spraying them with Pam isn't a bad idea, I'm sure using some or all of the oil would have helped.

NUTRITION FACTS:

Calories: in mix 130X12= 1560 1/2 cup apple sauce =90 3/4 serving prunes= 75 = 1725 / 18 muffins= 95.83 Calories each

Fat: in mix 3X12= 36 none in applesauce or prunes 36/18= 2g each muffin

Carbs: in the mix: 27x12=324 in applesauce 23 in prunes 18 = 365/18 = 20g each muffin

Fiber: in the mix: 5x12=60 in applesauce 1g in prunes 1 g 62/18= 3.4g per muffin

My BFF The Scale...

... The food scale that is, I'm not quite loving the bathroom scale yet.

as you can see mine has been well used and could stand a bit of cleaning love...

So I've been weighing and measuring my food and it's a huge help to really be in control and avoid buying higher priced, convienece portion controlled foods.

My tip, use the scale. I have a scale with a tare function and grams and oz. I paid $10 or $20 for it. I forget.

Instead of using measuring cups and spoons, I weigh most everything, it's much easier and no extra dishes to wash. For example, building a salad, looking at portion sizes, (most items are listed in grams), I start with a zeroed out scale with a bowl on it. Add the lettuce, log the amount, hit the tare button, add each veggie, topping, and dressing doing this after each. It's easy to get half a serving, or see exactly how much a serving is. No oily TBLSP spoon to wash. sometimes I don't weigh the veggies, since they're so low cal and easy to just count, but definitly the dressing and other toppings. I also weigh chips, fruit, Mayo or pb on my bread, shredded cheese, cereal and milk. I love not having to wash a bunch of measuring tools, especially pb and mayo, you cantvget all the pb off the spoon!

It's so easy, I have no reason not to. It's not more work to sprinkle raisin bran into a bowl on top of a scale than it is to pour the cereal blindly into the bowl on the counter. Then drizzle in the right amount of grams of milk, grab a spoon and go.

Some things aren't easy to measure using cups and spoons. Are you supposed to smash the shredded cheese into the 1/4 cup? Or measure loosely? And then you have to un-squish it to sprinkle on your quesadilla, I just shred it directly onto the tortilla on the scale. Easy peasy.

No serving up dinner with a measuring cup, just use the same serving spoon you use to stir it while it was cooking. Just put the plate on the scale and scoop away.

The scale is a great time saver, I used to count out the 14 potato chips into a serving and who knows how many broken ones I had to estimate and how annoying that was.

I've found that some things in the fatsecret.com food log don't give the option to enter by oz or gram, for them, I check serving sizes to figure it out or just count out or grab a spoon or cup for it.

Dishing my plate on top of the scale is a habit I can keep forever. I am sure I will get pretty good at eye-balling portion sizes, but it's so easy, I'll stick with it for awhile.

239.0

and moving on down!

Rules

I am often tempted to do one of 2 things. Diet in the past or the future.

I'm not allowed to: pig out today because I did good lately, or slack off today exercising because I worked hard yesterday. OR starve myself today because I feel like I failed yesterday or because I'll want to pig out tomorrow.

Each day is it's own day. I cannot play diet catch up.

Uhg

I'm in a bad mood. I have a hard time, no patience when I can't get something to print right. Im a tech savvy enough to know what I'm doing and I just get more and more upset. Irrationally upset and pissed off when things don't go my way, with the printer, its just a stupid printer for crying out loud why am i so upset?!?. I'm generally a very patient person. I took a break from printing envelopes for dinner then when I thought of something to try and it failed I stopped being mad and for some dumb reason got sad, like a failure. I decided to give up for now and go do laundry, at least I can do that successfully. I fell down the effing deck stairs. I was so upset, mad at myself really because like a year ago, I slipped in a parking lot and at the grocery store wearing these stupid shoes, I shoulda known better. I got doubly upset with myself when I realized I could have been carrying Ellie. Although I am much more careful with her. I attempted to focus my upset on being grateful it happened when I WASN'T carrying her, as a reminder that I can't wear those shoes when it's wet outside.

Ok cleansing breath. Mmmmm Aaaahhhh

I am also in a bad mood because I did not make all healthy choices.

Fiber one bar for a late breakfast. Taco Del Mar for lunch. Hubby dislikes Subway. Next time, we will get two different foods because I really to like it and it's easy for me to make a good choice. I ate a bunch of candybar minis and small amounts of various other snacks.

I rarely get in a bad mood like this but seriously Im just uuuhhhhgggg. Gotta let it out sometimes. I generally have a very positive attitude.

3 good things about today: Enjoyed shopping by myself (with only Ellie I mean) this afternoon. Saw a couple old friends who gushed over Ellie. Got some laundry done this evening.

Tomorrow is a new day.

Sunday=freeday

Today didn't count. 1.5 big waffles with butter, chocolate banana spread and jelly. 2 sausage patties, big pile of eggs. 2 servings of gener Taos chicken tots, buffalo sauce, corn and carrots. A bunch (like 10) candybar minis. 2 full chocolate graham crackers with cream cheese frosting. 3 brownie cookies.

No excersise.

Tomorrow is Monday.

Cereal for breakfast, and if we go to town with Mikey for his appointment, subway for lunch. Dinner will be portion controlled and include a big salad.

Brownies

I did end up savoring just one of those cookies, although at one moment the entire bag was on it's way to go to bed with Ellie and I. I resisted, took 1 out and left the rest in the kitchen.

I allowed myself to have two small brownies at the baby shower, in the past, I would have taken several goodies even if they weren't my favorite. Brownies really are my favorite and it's good to practice moderation.

Today I was hungry. My stomach was growling when I woke up to feed Ellie at like 4am so I had a breakfast trail mix pack. When we got up at around 10, I made eggs and toast and fruit. I was honestly still hungry awhile later so I snacked more. Each time I got food, I looked at the nutrition label and serving size before eating. They weren't empty calories. I could have logged everything but didn't.

We had a late dinner because Mikey had been out of town and came in late. Whole wheat pasta, turkey meatballs and red sauce for me, white sauce for Mikey. Salad with ff dressing and corn on the side. I did measure portions but didn't enter it in.

Tomorrow is sunday. We will have dinner with the in laws. The plan is cereal for breakfast, sandwich and soup for lunch and portion controlled dinner. If the weather is nice, hopefully we can go for a walk as a family.

Doing well last 2 days

When I wrote out my plan for Tuesday, I didn't think about being out of the house most of the day. I did follow the plan for breakfast but we had late lunch early dinner, as much as I wanted McDs, I chose sandwich express instead. Ham and turkey on whole wheat, no cheese. I don't remember how I did later that night but I seem to remember funyuns and BBQ potato chips.

Wednesday was much better I entered most of what I ate, The only thing remember eating that was missing from the log wad some peach rings chewy candy. Might have been something else but I don't think so I clocked in at about 1300 calories. Then I decided to get some of the chocolate outta the house since Mikey can't eat it, even in moderation and moderation is hard when it's an entire cake or brownie mix. I turned a devils food cake mix into cookies, adding peanut butter chips to half of them. I was making them for Mikeys friends he camps with up at the Portland swap meet. He left Wednesday morning but his dad was going up Thursday morning. The 1 cake mix didn't make many cookies, so I googled "brownie mix cookies" and made another couple dozen cookies. I also made Carmel Rice Krispies for Mikey. He will be ignoring his diet while he is at the swap meet for 4 days.
So wednesday night I did indulge in some cookie dough and 2 fresh baked cookies.

Thursday morning, I packed up all of the goodies save 6 cookies, Ariel was coming over and I figured we could have one with lunch and I'd have a few to enjoy in moderation.
I had 2 for breakfast shortly after I sent the package up.

Ariel came over later on and she tells me they've been trying to get pregnant for 16 months now. Also she found out she is diabetic and has high cholesterol. I made us a healthy lunch and bagged up all the cookies.

Hearing of her medical woes, and looking at the beautiful face of my 6.5 week old, I was again motivated to get healthy. I took Ellie for her first stroller ride. 5 laps around the property took about 20 minutes. Connie got home at that point and I drank 16oz of water before making us a healthy dinner and drinking more water. After dinner I bundled Ellie up again and we walked for another 40 minutes and we both felt great enjoying the sunshine.

After our walk I refilled my water cup and made a portion controlled snack.

This morning, as much as cookies sounded like a great breakfast, I resisted and ate a grapefruit and fell back to sleep for a while. Not a real breakfast but it wasn't cookies. I enjoyed a healthy portion controlled lunch and snack. I stayed active much of the day, I moved a few boxes from storage up the stairs to the loft. I also went up and down the stairs more carrying Ellie and laundry. It was another beautiful day so we decided to hang up a load of laundry to dry.

We went on another walk, 5 laps/20 minutes pushing Ellie in the stroller.

More laundry and a healthy dinner and im feeling proud of myself. That bag of cookies has been calling my name all day but I've resisted, since breakfast wasn't a real meal today, I'm going to have another meal and probably savor every morsel of 1 cookie.

I'm back

I've been doing it again. Deciding to get serious about improving my health and starting my day doing as planned and then ending my day having pigged out on something and trying not to feel bad.

That's ok, realizing I need to change and starting the day well is better than I've done before.

Tomorrow is a new day.

Here's the tentative plan.

Take morning vitamins. Fill nighttime water cup.
Bfast Raisin bran with rice milk and almonds to make 350 calories.

Snack, empty water cup and refill 150 cals

Lunch. Take noon vitamins Tuna salad with lite mw on double fiber whole wheat English muffin, garden salad with sugar snap peas, carrots and raisins, lemon juice and a tiny bit of dressing. Finish water cup, refill 350 calories

Turkey meatballs, whole grain pasta and Red sauce. Garden salad with evoo and Italian seasonings. 16oz ice water with 4oz some grapefruit juice. Calculate calories and add whole grain to make 700 cal Snack ideas: plums and cashews to make 150 calories.
Applesauce and chocolate Graham crackers with pb to make 150
Hard boiled ew with lemon pepper, 6 slices lunch meat, fruit crisps. 150 cal

take bedtime vitamins, refill water cup.
also might, actually probably since Mikey will be outta town wed-sat, have dinner with the in-laws which is great because Connie always makes a balanced meal.

Tomorrow afternoon I'll take Ellie for a walk in moby around the property for 20 mins, upset or not.