MmmCarb's Good Food Journal

[MmmCarbs]

Just ate 2 mashed russets. Wow I'm full right now! I normally use the white potatoes which are a bit smaller, but they had some nice mid sized russets with actual dirt still on them! It seemed like a treat to find potatoes with a bit of dirt. Normally the russets at my store are enormous, scrubbed clean, and just on the verge of sprouting, so I choose the white potatoes which are smaller & fresher (yet still scrubbed super-clean).

Heck, maybe it's potato season? Prior to this I never bought potatoes regularly enough to even notice potato season.

[MmmCarbs]

I tried a dinner inspired by the "World's fastest meal with no fresh ingredients" thread:
Success rice, big pile of collards, corn, curry power

Yum! I think it's the first time I've used curry power straight on veggies without a can of tomatoes in the mix.

There's something so oddly comforting about greens. I mean, they're not comfort food like potatoes or heavy food, but it just feels good to eat a pile of them. Makes me feel alive.

I made a good choice tonight. So grabbing a bag of salty treats on the way out of work had gone from a real pleasure in the "desert" of lighter, plainer food to a less pleasurable habit, to a barely pleasurable habit, yet still a habit. So today I flexed a small willpower muscle and decided to skip it! I felt deprived for about 2 minutes-- the time it took me to walk from my office to my car. Now I may have to flex that small willpower muscle a few more nights until I lose the habit. It helped to have eaten a nuked tater an hour prior, and to remember I'd planned to try the rice/greens/beans dinner tonight. I was looking forward to that dinner and didn't want to be under-hungry when I ate it.

[MmmCarbs]

Well, I guess today was Revenge of the Nacho Cheese Doritos. It was not a Good Food day. Today I had

oatmeal with cherries
bag Nacho Cheese Doritos, can of Snapple (with sugar)
office cake + cheesecake (3 big chunks)
veggies with dip (some fatty dressing)
more office cake + cheesecake (2 medium chunks)
potato + apple
more office cake + cheesecake (2-3 medium chunks)
handful of Goldfish crackers
oatmeal with cherries
rice + greeens + veggies

Sigh. It's like the very notion that I was not getting Doritos any more triggered this off the rails day of eating all office junk food possible.

Oh well, it's obvious I need a period of abstinence. I'm going to miss my salty crunchy cheesy treats. My cravings never did entirely abate when I was off them before.

It doesn't help that there's been all kinds of salty junk in an open bowl at the office lately. There used to be candy. I was able to avoid that pretty well. Then some idiot decided there should be no more candy, they should only have "healthy" food. So it became salted nuts, trail mix, then lately this pub mix stuff. I have a much harder time walking past without grabbing a couple pieces of salty stuff.

Harrumph!

[MmmCarbs]

Checked my weight this AM and found I'm at 117.8. I thought I'd noticed fat loss on my thighs lately. Considering this is after the big sugar/fat bomb of yesterday, I think I trully have dropped to 117-118 range. I would guess the continued loss is due to using somewhat more potatoes and somewhat less rice and ww pasta as my starch staples.

Speaking of potatoes, I've run out! I was buying one bag of Ore Ida hash browns per week, but that's only lasting me 3 servings. I need to start buying 2 bags at a time.

I was googling "nacho cheese doritos addiction" and found some funny stories. Apparently I'm not alone in being challenged by those awful neon orange triangles. Ah well, without the office vending machine access it's not such an issue on weekends. The boyfriend has various bags of chips at his place but I'm usually able to resist.

====
Day ended up being a Good Food day, and a good exercise day as well. I did a good 10-15 minutes of movement, weights, stair stepping. I'm making it up as I go. All movement is good, right?

I burned my sweet potato hash browns a bit, but ate them anyway.

[MmmCarbs]

More good food today, and a little bit of a walk. I'm pleasantly sore from the weight lifting stuff yesterday, but not so sore I *had* to take a day off.

I bought a jar of olives to help wean myself off the salty crunchies. I figure, they're salty, fatty, and intensely flavored, like the stuff I'm craving, but I can't see myself eating them to excess like I can with the snack chips, flavored rice cakes, or salted nuts. I'm kind of shocked by the sodium content-- it's way higher per calorie than salty snack chips! But I'm going to trust that my desire for salty will lessen over time, like what happened for me with the sweet fruit. And heck, even if it doesn't, I'd rather be eating olives than salty fake cheese products!

[MmmCarbs]

I survived a work day with no salty crunchies from the machine. The halloween candy is sitting out in abundance at the office now and I skipped that too.

I took 4 olives in a little tiny tupperware container and set that on my desk first thing, as a reminder that those were my salty treats for the day. One of my coworkers came in and did a double take over the odd little container and I told him of my effort to unhook myself from the office vending machine. It was nice to be able to talk about that one thing without explaining my whole food story.

Otherwise I didn't do super well with meal structure today. Had my usual breakfast, ended up with brown rice sushi (take out) for lunch, and 1 nuked tater plus southwest mix veggies for a late snack. There just wasn't a really satisfying meal in there, and it's now too late to make dinner. I need to do a big plate of taters and veggies and flavorful spices soon.

Well I've been reluctant to set abstinence goals lately, but I really think I want to aim for this whole week without any office vending machine or candy/snack bowl junk.

[MmmCarbs]

Crazy work day today. Let's just say it was not a Good Food day and move on. Tomorrow is another day.

I did enjoy some different hash browns for dinner. I got the shoestring cut instead of the cubed. They're so tasty it's hard for me to believe there's no oil, but I double-checked the package. They cook much faster than the cubed kind.

The day is not lost-- I can still spend 5-10 minutes on some strength training.

[eri]

Tomorrow really is a new day. You can do this!!

[MmmCarbs]

Thanks eri! I survived a day without the evil orange triangles. It helped that I had to leave the office early.

Stocked up on groceries-- the usual taters (sweet and white), frozen hash browns, collards and cherries, bananas, bubbly water. I'm still well set with canned stuff, oatmeal, rice, and other frozen veggies.

[MmmCarbs]

Had my 6 mo. dental checkup today and all is well-- no new cavities or gum problems. One tooth that has 3 fillings already may need work soon, but it wasn't critical yet. This is good for me. I normally have one cavity per visit, or multiple spots they say are just about to decay.

Another day without any horrid fried snack chips!

I crave some veggies and greens, but it's too late for dinner again. Had just nuked taters and fruit all day (except for my usual oatmeal at breakfast).

[MmmCarbs]

I ate a lot already today. Breakfast, lunch, a big dish of rice and veggies (whole success rice bag plus nearly an entire 1 lb bag veggies), a couple bananas, and several rice cakes. This was all before evening. I was just ravenous from having skipped dinner last night. Once again... no vending machine junk today!

I think my salt problem is waning. The rice cakes now taste kind of unpleasantly salty to me. It's the same kind I'd bought before-- I could have sworn I got a bad bag or something. And the olives are just not appealing either. I think I'll step down to "lightly salted" rice cakes next.

I'm still craving veggies after eating so heavy on potatoes all week.

Weight was 117.2 this morning, which is another new low. I don't feel thin right now though because my tummy is really bloated. Should be better this weekend when I stick with my familiar staple foods.

[MmmCarbs]

It was a hard weekend emotionally. I'm having a bumpy patch in the relationship with the DF right now. I tend to want to eat more junk in response to stress up to a point, then I start losing my appetite when the stress level reaches overwhelm. So I under-ate this weekend. I did manage to make a new veggie stew and a big pot of brown basmati rice. I have only a small amount of that left now after taking a big dish of it in for lunch.

I saw a recommendation in one of the McDougall newsletters to try cooking rice like pasta (in a large amount of boiling water then drain it). I'm interested to try that. Surely it would be quicker than my rice cooker, which has a soak period programmed in.

Still really enjoying the shoestring cut hash browns. I wish I had a bigger skillet. I fill mine up but then the taters shrink during cooking so that it doesn't end up being a whole plateful.

Did some squats (rather gross word but a great exercise) with 16 pounds of hand weights and wow, that took my legs to the point of rubbery exhaustion quickly. The next day I just used bodyweight.

I'm really enjoying this "few minutes here and there" approach to exercise. It really lowers the barrier to me, to where my motivation can overcome my resistance, and I'll actually do it.

Besides the squats I discovered a wall pushup method where you position your hands well up above your shoulders. It ends up working very different muscles (including abs) compared to the usual pushup position.

For fun I tried a wall handstand (easy method where you face the wall and work your legs up it, rather than facing away from the wall and kicking your legs up over your body). Nope, I have nowhere near enough strength for that right now. I lost a lot of strength on the left side from having frozen shoulder last year. I've finally regained enough flexibility to even attempt such maneuvers.

[MmmCarbs]

Pretty good day for a Tuesday. Had a Chipotle bol for lunch, guac on the side. Took me a long time to learn that guac comes free with the veggie bowl, and they can serve it on the side. I'd been skipping it, since they normally give a huuuuuge portion and/or charge like $1.65 or something ridiculous for it. Now I can enjoy a bit of it with the bowl.

So I skip the meats, the grilled veggies (oily!), the cheese, and the sour cream and load up on beans, rice, the fresh salsas, and lettuce. The person behind me was having just lettuce and meat. Must be a low-carber, huh?

[MmmCarbs]

Haven't had much to report here lately. Still eating the same and adding on more and more bits of exercise with weights. The scales were up a couple pounds this week.

I went clothes shopping and was utterly mystified by what size to look at. Couple my weight loss with the crazy vanity sizing of the past few years and it's totally unpredictable. I ended up with one pair of Levi's from JC Penny. That was after trying on a whole pile of dresses, skirts, pants. I was ready to splurge since I haven't bought clothes in ages, but just really didn't find anything I liked that fit properly. I get so frustrated with it. It's so difficult to find anything I even remotely like, then when I do, the fit is wrong and the clothes don't seem alteration friendly.

I came home and decided to try altering some skirts. Not sure how wearable the results will be, but I added darts and box pleats to a couple to take in the waist. I really wish I had skills to make my own dresses, jackets, and pants.

[MmmCarbs]

Tried cooking brown rice like pasta, as I'd read in one of the newsletters. I wasn't thrilled with the result, but it was certainly faster than the usual slow simmer. The taste was on a par with Success rice to me-- not as good as "real" cooked rice but certainly edible. I'm just not much enjoying rice lately. Still eating loads of hash browns and more oats.

I used my 12 lb barbell today on my shoulders, I think you'd call it a "clean and press" move. That's really heavy for me, especially on the weak side. I could barely do 10 reps, and had sore muscles a couple hours later. I was trying that weight to see if it makes sense to buy a 15 lb or 20 lb kettlebell. Guess I'd better start with the 15 if I get one. I try to avoid collecting equipment when I've just started something, but if I had some extras then I could leave weights at the DF's house (and perhaps he might lift one of them himself some day.)

I ate a donut today! Met a friend for lunch at a coffee shop. I'd planned to have just espresso and fruit cut (my usual) and she'd brought me a creme filled chocolate iced glazed donut. I ate most of it, leaving off some of the icing. Wow, it was sweet. It felt good to eat a big plate of real food later.