Day 312

Breakfast (800): Ham, Cheese, Apple Muffin (250)

Got a little hungry for a snack, but decided to just eat lunch early... however lunch took longer to prep than anticipated.  But I easily made it to 1230 without dying or overeating at lunch.  Good lesson, slight hunger usually goes away, especially if I drink some water!

Lunch (1230PM):  Cooked up a London Broil top round steak.  Just marinated and broiled in the oven -- looked up calories to be 150cal for a 3oz serving (totally trimmed and no extra fat in marinade).  Served with a Trader Joe's Vegetable Couscous (250) and extra broccoli, spinach and 3 cherry tomatoes.  I suppose with the extra veg it totals about 425cal.  And verrrry filling.

Cooking notes:  The London Broil steak weighed 14.25oz raw and 9.7oz after it had been broiled to medium.  I portioned out 3.1oz servings, some weight was lost with the juices.  Internet indicates 3oz of top round is about 150cal.  The TJ's couscous was pretty good -- convenient, but couscous with veggies wouldn't be that hard to make ahead and freeze.  With 28% of RDA sodium, it won't be a staple for me.  Also, by the time I added extra veg (and could have added more, like artichoke hearts and mushrooms), it could have been two servings.  At any rate, it was tasty, but probably not worth the extra $.

Tasted better than it looked, but still scary...

Snack (330) - Slice of bread with some artichoke dip (200)

DInner (645) - Chinese Food, tried to keep it light today to compensate.  However, there's no compensating for the sodium which I could reeeeeallllly taste now!  It was almost offensively salty to me (though I got used to it) and everyone else thought I was crazy!  Ordered to share laughing buns, a stirfried chicken dish with veggies and eggplant in black bean sauce (which was breaded and fried, like tempura)  Anyways, no idea on calories -- ate 3 slices of eggplant, about 2/3 cup of chicken mix, one laughing bun and 1/4cup of rice.  Doing a little internet research, I'd guess eggplant was 300cal, chicken was 200, 150 for the bun, and 60 cal for the rice.

Forgot to take a pic of the eggplant... here's an approximation.



Late - Cooked a strata recipe and taste tested right through most of a serving (200)

Daily Total: 875 Chinese .... with estimates I'd guess 1785 for the day, but estimates might be off.

Day 307

Breakfast (800):  2 "Cheese" Blitzes (280) from Trader Joes.  These are an attempt to recreate the BMD Berry Crepe meal.  I added some frozen fruit (20) (no sweetner) and a veggie sausage (80).  The blitzes are made entirely with Tofutti cream cheese.  They are pretty good, but definitely miss the tang of the cheese crepes.  The crepe itself it very good and the filling is decent but slightly bland.  Overall reasonably successful and certainly easy.  Total 380.  A bit high for a meal that's not super filling, but not bad.

Pic of the crepe itself next time!

Snack (1100) - yogurt with almonds (200)

Snack (1145) - small piece of moms coffee cake (100)

Snack (1245) - 1 Reese's PB CUp (80)

Lunch (245-300) - My chicken with lentils and green beans (340)

Snack - 2nd PB cup (80)

Dinner (500) - 2 Lean Cuisine Spring Rolls (160) in a salad with lettuce, 1/3 of a tomato, pea sprouts, FF sour cream, 40 cal of avocado

(600) - Ice Cream (135)

(630) - Tortilla Chips (180)

I realized that the "snacks" were going to become my dinner when I kept eating, grawr!  Meeting from 7-9 and gym from 930 - 1015 kept me from snacking more. 

1030 - Hummus taco with tortilla, lettuce, cuke, tomato, pea sprouts. (100)
Daily TOtal - 1715
930 - Did circuit on weight machines and jog/walked 2.75mi in around 35 minutes.  Rougher today since I haven't been jogging for the last 10 days,especially on the shins/calves, but I did get to a good place at the 20 minute mark and I jogged @ 5.5mph for 7 minutes straight without walking.  That's a new PR, previous best was 5 minutes!

Day 306

Breakfast (800) - Cinnamon sweet potato pancakes with turkey sausage and frozen berries instead of syrup (330)

Snack - 200cal = a few tortilla chips and a small handful of low-sodium pumpkin seeds (finally found some a Trader Joes!)

Lunch (1215) - Trader Joes - Mango Grilled Chicken pasta salad, but hacked.  As packaged, it's 340 w/o dressing and 380 with.  I used half the salad and half the dressing.  I added a bunch of lettuce, some pea sprouts, 50 cal of almonds, a mushroom, lime juice, fresh basil, mint and red pepper flakes.  Totals about 250, it was super yummy and filling.

Snack - Cherries (100) and tortilla chips (250)

DinnerI - Burrito (250) with tomato and avocado (40)

Ice Cream (135)

DinnerII - Trader Joes Veggie Pizza (250 for the whole pie).  Added red pepper, artichoke hearts and a mushroom.  Also a bit of parmesean cheese.  Totaled 300ish  Very good and filling for the calorie count.  Be aware that it doesn't have a lot of cheese, which is good, but might but unexpected.  Will definitely buy this again.

A few pumpkin seeds (50)  Did NOT eat any ice cream or yogurt, though I realllly wanted to.

Daily Total: 1905

Chips?



from product website



Under my new eating habits, I find myself picking up new products that I never would have tried before.  Some are successful, others are not.  Here's what I brought home from the grocery store today...





1) Baked Lentil Chips -- I know you're asking "Why on earth would you buy those?"  Let me tell you -- they promised to be gluten-free, a good source of fiber, 70% less fat than potato chips, and "the first snack to deliver the great taste and healthy benefits of lentils, adzuki, and garbanzo beans."  I love lentils and garbanzo beans.  I do not love these chips.  The texture is great, but they don't taste like anything.  I was going to compare them to cardboard, but i think cardboard has a more distinctive flavor than these chips.  I even got the dill flavor and I can't taste any dill at all.  Serious disappointment.





2)  Pop Chips - I got a bag of BBQ PopChips awhile back and they were pretty good.  Unfortunately, I didn't eat them quick enough (it was a giant bag from CostCo) and they got stale -- not so "pop" like.  They were on sale at the store today, so I got the Cheddar flavor and the SOurCreamandOnion flavor.  First off, they are both much thinner and flatter than the bag from CostCO.  As to the flavor, the cheddar flavor is odd - sorta chemically.  The Sourcream/Onion flavor is decent, but not as good as the BBQ.  I would buy the BBQ again, I don't think I'd buy these flavors again.