What I eat, more or less, or whatever

Share your daily McDougall menus and/or keep a journal describing your personal progress.

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What I eat, more or less, or whatever

Postby MakePeasNotWar » Mon Feb 13, 2017 5:00 pm

I can't count how many years I've vacillated between assiduously counting every calorie, every gram of fat or carbohydrate, and every IU of every vitamin I can measure; and giving up and eating whatever I want, in whatever quantity I want it, consequences be damned.

Recently I have started trying different strategies make healthy living easier and more natural, so since I still do want some record of what I eat, I have decided to switch from my usual Cron-o-meter food log to keeping a more relaxed, less detailed record of my daily menus. I won't be recording measurements (I'm done weighing my food), and I won't be counting every condiment, addition, and ingredient, unless it changes the dish noticeably. I also probably won't log every day.

Today:

Breakfast - oatmeal with pumpkin pie spice and a bit of syrup, coffee

Lunch - leftover black bean sweet potato chili and whole wheat toast

Dinner - Jeff N's original fast food burger recipe on a whole wheat thin bun, oven fries (edit no fries because I had a gallbladder attack and had to leave the table to go lie down)

Snacks - 2 mandarin oranges (edit 1 mandarin, 2 Brazil nuts, 3 pecans)

Total Calories - don't know, don't care :)

Edit: I wrote this before dinner, and I ended up having to to skip most of the potatoes because of stomach pain. I try to eat a couple of Brazil nuts a week, so I had those before dinner, then added 3 pecans (no idea why, I guess because they were there) Normally this amount of fat does not trigger my gallbladder, but yesterday it definitely did. I had to leave most of my dinner because the pain was too severe and I had to lie down.

Lesson learned.
Last edited by MakePeasNotWar on Tue Feb 14, 2017 11:17 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: What I eat, more or less, or whatever

Postby landog » Mon Feb 13, 2017 7:52 pm

Looks great, and you get some Peas of mind!
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Re: What I eat, more or less, or whatever

Postby MakePeasNotWar » Tue Feb 14, 2017 4:05 pm

I decided to try eating some nuts with other food today, just to see what happened. It seemed to go ok. I know I probably don't need nuts anyway, but I guess the nut marketers have done their job well with me . I also have decided to keep rough track of my exercise as well, just for future reference so I can troubleshoot if needed.

Breakfast: Steel cut oats with maple syrup and a sprinkling of raisins and pecans, coffee

Snack: Mandarin orange

Lunch: Italian bean and rice burger on a thin bun, yesterday's potatoes

Snack (planned): 2 fruit cups, thin bun

Dinner: (planned) Whole wheat spaghetti with marinara sauce, peas and carrots, fruit cup

Exercise: 30 minutes yoga, 45 minutes recumbent bike, 40-50 minute walk to the library

Total calorie intake: some
Total calorie expenditure: more than zero, less than all of them

Tuesday night has been pasta night for a while now, because I volunteer until 8 at the library, and by the time I get home, I'm hungry, too tired to cook anything difficult, and craving comfort food. Traditionally it has been just marinara sauce, or marinara with soy crumbles, but now I'm trying to skip the processed soy and add some veggies. One day those veggies will be broccoli and kale, but I'm probably going to have to work up to that.
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Re: What I eat, more or less, or whatever

Postby MakePeasNotWar » Fri Feb 17, 2017 9:46 am

Yesterday wasn't great, as I was feeling sick and my husband did the cooking. I had my regular oatmeal for breakfast, canned lentil soup for lunch and 1/2 a vegan single serve pizza for dinner. I'm feeling better today, and just scrubbed some potatoes and took some bean burgers and chili out of the freezer to thaw.
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Re: What I eat, more or less, or whatever

Postby MakePeasNotWar » Sun Mar 05, 2017 1:48 pm

So I guess I haven't exactly been diligent with this food diary, which in a weird way is kind of good, because it means I'm not obsessing.


Yesterday:
Breakfast: protein supplement (NOT McDougall approved for any newbies reading this - I suffered three years of muscle wasting due to illness and am trying to rebuild)

Lunch: JeffN burger on a thin bun with vegan mayo (also not approved and this time no excuse - I just screwed up) and oven fries

Dinner: bean burger patty and Trader Joe's "soycutash" (ingredients: sweet corn, shelled soybeans, red bell pepper)

Very little exercise. Brief yoga session, mostly stretching, and about 6k steps for the day

Today:

Breakfast: leftover soycutash (does corn count as a starch?)

Snack: sourdough toast with natural peanut butter (probably not a good choice) and strawberry jam

Lunch plan: Jeff N burger on a thin bun and oven fries

Dinner plan: tofu stir-fry over brown rice

Dessert plan: Frozen banana and cherry "ice cream"

I will probably have my supplement at some point as well.

Exercise today so far has been 5 miles each biking and walking.


Hmm... glad I decided to come back and record today. I had thought I was "doing everything right", but now that it's all there in writing I see lots of room for improvement. Maybe I won't have to switch to MWL after all :)
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Re: What I eat, more or less, or whatever

Postby MakePeasNotWar » Fri Mar 17, 2017 8:10 am

gained some weight on my trip to Canada, so I'm going to try pre-planning for a few days to get back on track. If I deviate from my plan, I will edit my post later.

Today's plan:
Steel cut oats with cinnamon

Bean burger with oven fries and green beans

Oil free lentil soup and leftover oven fries

Steamed potatoes with fat free marinara sauce
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Re: What I eat, more or less, or whatever

Postby MakePeasNotWar » Sun Mar 19, 2017 10:30 am

March 19
Weight 148.2

Breakfast: oil free hash brown potatoes and black beans with salsa and peppers

Lunch: bean burger and oven fries with mixed veggies

Dinner: mashed yukon gold potatoes topped with split pea soup

3AM big bowl of corn flakes with maple syrup and cashew milk. :oops: I woke up feeling ravenously hungry and ate it half asleep. In future I am going to try to eat more during the day, and to have easily reheated leftovers in case I wake up hungry anyway.
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Re: What I eat, more or less, or whatever

Postby MakePeasNotWar » Mon Mar 20, 2017 9:15 am

March 20
149.1

Breakfast: steel cut oats with maple syrup and cashew milk
unsweetened applesauce

Lunch: bean burger and oven fries with salt and ketchup

Snack: canned mandarin oranges in water

Dinner: brown rice with tamari

I need to start eating more green and yellow veggies. I often go through entire days where my only veggies are starchy ones. I'm also going to start eating fruit with breakfast; I didn't have anything fresh in the house today, so I had applesauce, but I will be grocery shopping this morning and I'll get some fruit, veggies, and bagged salad. * edited because I never made it to the store; too sick still.
Last edited by MakePeasNotWar on Tue Mar 21, 2017 11:02 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: What I eat, more or less, or whatever

Postby MakePeasNotWar » Tue Mar 21, 2017 11:01 am

I ended up too sick to make dinner last night, so I just ate two bowls of brown rice with tamari. This cold keeps coming back, even when I think it's finally passed. So much for eating more veggies :|

For breakfast today I made a blend of oats, barley and farro, and it is really good. This might become my go-to for hot cereal, if I can figure out how to make it in the instant pot :-D It is really creamy, like a rice pudding or tapioca. I used extra thick rolled oats and quick cooking barley and faro from Trader Joe's

March 21, 2017
149.5 (more likely cycle related than food related)

Breakfast: Oats, farro, and barley hot cereal with cinnamon and sweetener

Lunch: Mexican bean burger with oven fries and frozen corn

Dinner: whole wheat spaghetti with tomato sauce and frozen mixed veggies

I still haven't made it out to the grocery store with this stupid cold. Seriously considering grocery delivery at this point since I have no fresh food left in the house and the freezer is starting to get low now, too.
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Re: What I eat, more or less, or whatever

Postby shell-belle » Sun Jun 03, 2018 3:00 pm

Mostly I eat simple foods now. SOME of the recipes I make are not 100% simple but mostly the way I eat is
VERY simple. But it's varied too! How about simple variety-?!! 2-3 starches, like potatoes, sweet potatoes, rice, or grains. For veggies, there are a ton of frozen veggie mixes that provide different veggies already chopped up and ready to heat (green and yellow veggies, leafy greens, less dense starches, etc...)
Or fresh veggies cut & steamed in the basket with the rice/grains and perhaps some beans as well. Soups are simple and I have soup almost every day. Oatmeal is so simple --the way I make it-- and it's fabulously good & healthy. A salad and an oil free dressing is not much trouble.

And of course a few different fruits is nice - you can simply eat them as they are.

So that's it--potatoes, rice, other grains, oats, veggies, beans soups & salads & fruits & a few nuts. Nothing simpler.

Simple and a variety too Simple to prepare and to eat, a variety of real food goodness.
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