Midnight's journal

[midnight87]

So I'm up 3.2 lbs. I went to visit family last weekend and I always get off track when that happens. I would say I did better last weekend than normal, but obviously there's a lot of room for improvement. Reflecting on how I did, I neglected to bring my food home with me and I didn't have enough time to get to the store so I had to make do. I ate some stuff with oil in it and drank some alcohol which is all empty calories. I'm going to be visiting them again in a few weeks and I'd really like to nail down a routine with this.

Some ideas:
- Definitely bring "backup food" home lol
- If we're going to a coffee shop, pre-eat and then just order a tea or black coffee
- avoid purchasing stuff in gas stations, there's just too much temptation for me
- try to make the best decision possible when eating out

I think the key is to bring my food home, but I also need to be better about speaking up for what I want in restaurants and at home. I'm not a very disagreeable person and tend to go along with the flow which gets me in trouble.

On a positive note, I am doing better with traveling and having to walk through convenience stores when I have to use the restroom. I used to purchase things like pretzels, chips, candy, soda, etc depending on what I felt like. Bringing my own food helps me avoid that. I did feel more in tune with my hunger cues as well when I was home and didn't feel the need to cram in dessert which was also good.

Will post what I ate today later Any advice on this would be appreciated.

Breakfast:
Blueberry pancakes
maple syrup
banana
coffee with soy creamer

Lunch:
Pasta
Veggies
Marinara sauce
4 dates

Snack:
Banana

Dinner:
Tofu
Yellow pepper
Zucchini
Bagel
Raspberry jam
banana nice cream

[midnight87]

I would say I had a very productive day yesterday. I went for a run/walk and did a bunch of house work. I downloaded an app last week called "clean my house" for android. So far I really like it, it's getting me to actually clean lol. I was one of those people that would only clean up either when people were coming over or when things were getting out of hand. I generally set about 3-4 tasks for myself each day, I declutter and do my dishes each day and then I have 1-2 other tasks that I do like cleaning the bathroom or vacuuming. The app shows me a history of when I've done each task and let's me know what's due that day. This is really handy, I think part of my problem was I couldn't keep track of when I last did something. I've only been using it for about a week and already my place is looking better

Anyways, I'm watching a video by Dr. Garth Davis on Youtube this morning to help motivate myself. He talked about how having a cheat day is not good because you end up obsessing over the junk food and it gets elevated in your mind. This sounds like me lol. When I visit my family that's my cheat day or days depending on how long I'm with them. On the weekends too I generally don't eat quite as good (hence then pancakes). Sometimes I kinda bash oatmeal in my mind, "oatmeal is boring...I'd rather have a bagel" that sort of thing. Attitude is everything and if I think I wont enjoy my oatmeal, then I probably wont. Anyways, I highly recommend searching Dr. Davis on youtube if you haven't seen his videos, he's a good speaker.

Today's eats so far:
Leftover blueberry pancakes
maple syrup
banana
Coffee with soy creamer

[midnight87]

I need to remember to update on here more.

Yesterday
Breakfast:
Steel cut oats
flaxseed
berries
banana
brown sugar
coffee with soy creamer

Lunch:
brown rice
kale
red lentil dal
larabar

Dinner:
Sweet potato
red beans
romaine
cherries
4 dates

Today's food:

Breakfast:
Steel cut oats
cocoa powder
brown sugar
flaxseed
almond butter
banana

Lunch:
brown rice
red lentil dal
kale
banana

Dinner:
Black bean and beet burger
whole wheat bun
ketchup and bbq sauce
oven fries
broccoli

I think this is bar far the best I've done Just gotta get rid of the bit of nut butter that snuck in there and I'm good. Preparation is such a key for me, so much easier to make good decisions when you have most everything prepared for the week

[midnight87]

Another fairly good day for me.

Breakfast:
- Steel cut oats
- cocoa powder
- brown sugar
- cashew milk
- flax seed
- almond butter
- banana

Lunch:
- Red lentil dal
- brown rice
- banana
- kale

Dinner:
- Red beans
- 2 Sweet potatos
- broccoli

I'm absolutely loving beans from my instant pot, I find I'm eating beans a lot more often now Still gotta do some work with breakfast, but steel cut oats are a step in the right direction. I need to get back in the habit of just sweetening it with fruit.

Anyways, I'm kinda excited about taking a half day off work tomorrow. It's so I can run my cat back and forth from the vet, he needs his teeth cleaned. I'm hoping they don't tell me he needs a tooth pulled. It's expensive and I don't like seeing my kitty in pain. Hopefully he'll do well, I haven't had his teeth cleaned yet so hopefully all is good. It'll be nice to take it easy tomorrow morning before I have to drop him off

[bunsofaluminum]

I would say I had a very productive day yesterday. I went for a run/walk and did a bunch of house work. I downloaded an app last week called "clean my house" for android. So far I really like it, it's getting me to actually clean lol. I was one of those people that would only clean up either when people were coming over or when things were getting out of hand. I generally set about 3-4 tasks for myself each day, I declutter and do my dishes each day and then I have 1-2 other tasks that I do like cleaning the bathroom or vacuuming. The app shows me a history of when I've done each task and let's me know what's due that day. This is really handy, I think part of my problem was I couldn't keep track of when I last did something. I've only been using it for about a week and already my place is looking better

Anyways, I'm watching a video by Dr. Garth Davis on Youtube this morning to help motivate myself. He talked about how having a cheat day is not good because you end up obsessing over the junk food and it gets elevated in your mind. This sounds like me lol. When I visit my family that's my cheat day or days depending on how long I'm with them. On the weekends too I generally don't eat quite as good (hence then pancakes). Sometimes I kinda bash oatmeal in my mind, "oatmeal is boring...I'd rather have a bagel" that sort of thing. Attitude is everything and if I think I wont enjoy my oatmeal, then I probably wont. Anyways, I highly recommend searching Dr. Davis on youtube if you haven't seen his videos, he's a good speaker.

Today's eats so far:
Leftover blueberry pancakes
maple syrup
banana
Coffee with soy creamer

I'll look for this guy on youtube. Work is slow right now and I'm looking for lectures. But I'm the same on weekends...I tend to go off the rails on Saturdays and Sundays. It helped me a lot to keep track of my meals on the Menu forum, and recently started tracking my calories. WOW did that help! I've been able to pull away from the overindulgent weekends a LOT since I found out how many calories are in this, that, or the other. As for seeing oatmeal as boring...heh...I've been feeling that way about food in general lately. But oatmeal is sort of treatish for me. It's sweet, you know? Still yeah, isn't French Toast OH so much more delicious!

Your meals look pretty good though. Keep it up!

[midnight87]

Hi guys, I just got back from vacation yesterday. I know I've been MIA for July and I thought that was for the best, I had lots of time with family this month which was great, but that also means I was surrounded by junk food quite a bit. Last week here I was on vacation with family up north at the cabin. I did plan ahead and I brought a lot of food with me. Still, I was surrounded by alcohol, chips, candy and other junk. I did indulge, but I made sure I was still eating my food each day too so I believe I crowded out some of the junk. I'm glad I brought the food with me, over Christmas I was in a similar situation and didn't have my food and I actually ended up catching a really bad cold to go along with it.

I've been doing some thinking and I want to see if I can do 3 months, eating on plan. Then on Oct 31st, eat whatever I want lol. I figure if I tell myself that I can tough it out. I also just want to see that it'll work for me. I haven't given my best effort on this so I need to actually give this a chance.

I weighed myself today I'm a 223.2. Not as bad as I thought, but still, I'm ready to make more changes.

My basic plan:
- Focus on eating potatoes, not a Mary's Mini, but definitely more potatoes.
- Eat either oatmeal, sweet potatoes or hash browns in the morning
- Eat my usual lunch (usually some sort of rice dish or pasta)
- Eat mashed potatoes or oven fries most nights
- No nut butters for the next 3 months, not even for salad dressings
- No avocados, I don't like them that much anyways, why do I keep buying them lol?
- I can eat fruit but I'm going to avoid making nice cream and smoothies for the next 3 months. I know eating those is not helping. I'm not going to worry too much about how much fruit I'm eating otherwise

Other items I will experiment with:
- I've got some leftover coffee creamer from vacation in my fridge yet. I'm going to keep using it this week and see if I lose weight, next week I want to switch regular soy milk or cashew milk and then we can compare
- I want to try out more savory breakfasts, I think that'll help with my sugar cravings, I'm going to start with hashbrowns on the weekends since I have more time to actually cook them. If you have any suggestions for savory breakfasts let me know.
- I want to get more use out of my gym membership, haven't been using it since the weather improved here. I think what I wanna do is go in the early morning before work, hopefully there's less people there. I still get anxious about going. I really wanna work on doing some more incline on the tread mill and using the stair stepper as I'm going to be doing some hiking in Utah in October, last time I did that I found it pretty tough.
- I want to plan out my meals on here the day before so I have it in my head what I'm doing. I'm going to include calories and quantities as best I can.

[Idgie]

You can do it! I gave myself a year to be 100% on-plan, but I have already planned days off on my birthday and the birthdays of immediate family. My partner's birthday was a week or so ago, and I ended up being mostly on-plan anyway, I think because there was no guilt rebound eating.

I'm cheering you on!

[midnight87]

Today's food (quantities are estimates, I plan on measuring tomorrow):

Breakfast:
Steel cut oats-about 2 cups cooked- 404 cal
Brown sugar- 1 tbsp- 34
cocoa powder- 2 tbsp- 24
pb2 powder- 2 tbsp- 50
soy creamer- 2 tbsp- 120 cal
Cherries- 1 cup- 97 cal

Lunch:
Leftover pasta- 2 cups- 442 cal
Marinara sauce- 1/2 cup- 79 cal
Broccoli- 1 lb- 159 cal
Trader joes mango (left over from vacation, just trying to finish the last bit)- 1/4 cup- 120 cal

Snack:
Random munching while doing some batch cooking, I always taste what I'm cooking to make sure I like it , guessing this was around 100 calories

Dinner:
Brown rice- 1.5 cups- 320 cals
Red Kidney beans 1/2 cup- 120 cals
Cheezy sauce (mostly starch, made with oats, corn starch, nutritional yeast and spices)- guessing around 100 cal worth?
Trader joes mango (done with this!)- 1/4 cup- 120cal

Total today: 2189

Not a terrible day, trying to go easy after vacation. I did eat quite a bit of junk unfortunately. I don't normally eat dried mango like that, that was a leftover from vacation. I definitely want to keep the calorie density of my fruit down. I also forgot how many calories are in coffee creamer. 120 cals for 2 tbsp? Also, I might have used more than that, I need to measure that tomorrow. We'll see what the next couple of weeks look like

[midnight87]

7/30 food:

Breakfast:
Sweet potato large, around 324 cals
Coffee creamer: 120 cals

Lunch (measurements are estimates here):
Whole wheat pasta: 1.5 cups, 313 cals
Mixed veggies: about a cup, 110 cals
Cheezy sauce: about a half cup, guessing it's around 100 cal?
Banana: 110

Dinner:
Mashed potatoes: 1.5 lbs 432 cal
nutritional yeast 2 tbsp: 40 cal
Salad with hummus dressing, around 200 cal?
1 medjool date: 66 cal

Total: 1815

[midnight87]

Today's food:
- Steel cut oats 404 cal
- Cocoa powder 25 cal
- PB 2 powder 40 cal
- Brown sugar 69 cal
- flaxseed 30 cal
- Coffee creamer 120 cal

Lunch:
We had a company picnic today
Boca burger 110 cal
bun: 200 cal
ketchup 15 cal?
Watermelon chunk- 10 cal

And...that's wasn't enough food, thanks work...
Banana: 110 cal

At least they got me a veggie burger lol. Sometimes I wonder what people have against fruit and veggies. Oh well

Dinner:
Mashed potatoes: 1.5 lbs 432 cal
nutritional yeast 2 tbsp: 40 cal
Steamed veggies and hummus 200 cal
1 medjool date: 66 cal

Total: 1871

[midnight87]

This week went ok, I had a couple minor slips. I got into some nut butter the other night (leftover from vacation, I don't really want to toss it because it was expensive) and this morning I made some banana pancakes. I want to try to limit flour products so that was out of my plan. Still, could have been worse. It's that time of the month, so I'm craving chocolate like crazy, glad I didn't cave when I went grocery shopping yesterday. I know I haven't been posting everyday, but I feel like I've been pretty consistent each day.

Last I looked at my weight I think I was around 224, I'm not worried though, this is just water weight and bloating from that time of the month. We'll see where I'm at next week.

I'm almost out of coffee creamer, I bought some soy milk for my coffee so we'll see if that has any effect. I also want to eliminate some more refined sweetener. In the morning I've been putting either sugar or maple syrup on my oatmeal, or when I have sweet potatoes I put maple syrup on them too typically. For the oatmeal I stocked up on frozen fruit and dates and for the sweet potatoes I have cinnamon and I bake the sweet potatoes in the oven so they are already pretty sweet. I'm also going to quit making that cheeze sauce for awhile, it's vegan, and very low fat (no nuts), but it is blended and I'm probably eating it too much.

We'll see how this plan goes next week

[midnight87]

So far, I think I'm on the right track. The scale said 220 today. That is amazing! I'm still not 100% compliant yet, I got into some nut butter last week yet. Next week I'm determined not to let that get to me again. I did a couple things different last week, I ran out of coffee creamer finally so I switched back to soy milk. I also ate a ton of starch, I think that really helped with the sugar cravings. I also limited nut butter, I did have some a couple nights, but it could have been worse. I think I'm ready to toss the rest of it finally Letting myself have pb2 has been really helpful for this. I don't like it so much as a spread, but it's really good in oatmeal.

Next week, I wanna see how I do without any nut butter I'm so excited, maybe I can FINALLY get past this dang plateau I've been at for well, over a year....

[Idgie]

You're doing so great! You are stronger than the nuts.

[VegSeekingFit]

I also limited nut butter, I did have some a couple nights, but it could have been worse. I think I'm ready to toss the rest of it finally Letting myself have pb2 has been really helpful for this. I don't like it so much as a spread, but it's really good in oatmeal.

Next week, I wanna see how I do without any nut butter I'm so excited, maybe I can FINALLY get past this dang plateau I've been at for well, over a year....

Hi Midnight!

Good for you!!! Wishing you well in getting rid of the nut butter!!! This was one of my most calorie dense foods - that I used to eat every day -- but haven't had it in 2018 -- and life goes on...

Cheers,
Stephanie

[midnight87]

Scale is back up again...222. I need to be more consistent when I weigh myself I think. I tend to weigh myself in the afternoon most often after I've depleted my glycogen a bit. Maybe that's not the greatest idea, it might be better to weigh myself first thing in the morning, less variables. That's what I weighed this morning.

Last week, I had one slip with the nut butter, that was it. All I have right now is just tahini for salad dressing. I don't like it as a spread, it's too bitter, so I feel that is ok. I don't eat salad every day, and I bought some other stuff for different dressings. I'm planning on making italian dressing and a balsamic mustard dressing, both are without oil. I made a big chopped salad for lunch yesterday, I forgot how much work it takes to eat a salad lol. I have TMJ, and I could really feel my jaw after eating that thing lol. I guess that's part of the reason why I prefer steamed veggies. I'll make more salad for sure, but I think it's going to be used as a side dish, not the meal itself.

On the plus side, a random lady asked me about my weight loss on Friday as I was leaving work. That made me sooo happy! Especially since I've been stuck around this weight for a long time. I was up around 245 about 2 years ago when I started at my current company, so that's still a significant loss. And my heaviest was actually 255 about 3 years ago, yikes! Anyways, she said she noticed I lost a lot of weight and asked me how I was doing it, I told her I was eating mostly vegan I don't think she was expecting that lol. She kinda gave me a weird look, but that's okay. That's the truth, although I'd say there's a lot of behavioral issues I've been working through too.

This weeks goals:

- Continue the no nut butter
- Go to the gym in the morning at least 3x (still haven't started this...I'm shooting for a half hour per session that's it lol)
- Cut down and try to eliminate night time eating.

On the night time eating, I think cutting nut butter is going to help, I tend to go for oats, nut butter and/or pb2 and maple syrup as a dessert, kind of a cookie dough. It's really good, but obviously calorie dense. So we'll see what happens. When I made that stuff I made too much, I think calorie-wise, I was eating a 4th meal. So, I'm curious what this week will look like in terms of weight loss without that. I do have pb2 and rolled oats in the apartment yet, hopefully that doesn't cause me problems too. I was actually thinking about possibly going without those 2 items for awhile. But, rolled oats work great for breakfast if I don't have steel cut oats already made. So, I'd like to keep them around if possible.

Besides that, I remember last week I ate a bagel after dinner one night with pb2, and another night I ate some chocolate. This is why I'm not losing weight I'm pretty sure. Gotta work on the refined junk I'm eating. Again, eliminating night time eating should get rid of this issue.