February 24, 2010 - Day 52

So I had every intention of making spinach lasagna today but got side-tracked by going to a movie with Cam in the middle of the day. And depending on how you look at it, this was either a good or a bad thing. Diet-wise: bad; Everything-else-wise: good! The movie theater we went to serves food (pizzas/salads/burgers/etc) directly to you at your seat. Totally amazing. We've done this before at a different theater in town, but this place just opened last fall and is mere minutes away from the university. So, we had to go. Plus it was our Valentine's day gift to each other, since we didn't do anything on the actual day.

So, I ate some food at the movie theater and enjoyed myself immensely! Then I went to the gym and did about 30 minutes on an elliptical machine and some crunches. This wouldn't have been so tiring if I hadn't already done an hour Zumba class before going to the movies. :)

Oh, on a positive note, I weighed myself at the gym. I'm now at 134.7 lbs. Do you know what that means? Less than 10 pounds to go!! Woot!

For breakfast

1 multi-grain english muffin w/peanut butter (200 calories; 3 points)

1/2 cup of coffee w/vanilla creamer (35 calories; 1 point)

For lunch

1/4 of chicken ceasar salad (265 calories; 7 points)

1 slice of "Cleopatra" pizza (300 calories; 7 points)
* It was a thin-crust pizza with ceasar salad dressing, red onions, and chicken on it. I actually have no idea how many calories this slice is, so I looked around at other thin crusts pizzas and tried to make a best guess. Who knows how off I am.

Water

For dinner

1 bowl of cheerios in skim milk (140 calories; 3 points)
* My "lunch" (which really was around 2:30pm) was so filling that I couldn't have eaten a big meal if I tried.

Snacks

1 Kashi trail mix bar (140 calories; 2 points)

French Vanilla hot chocolate (80 calories; 1.5 points)

So for today it's roughly:

Total Calories: 1160

Total WW Points: 24.5

Total flex points left for week: 28.5 of 35

Days left in flex points week (after today) : 5

Exercise

Zumba!

100 ab crunches

A little over 30 minutes on an elliptical machine

February 4, 2010 - Day 32

I was so proud of myself today. I went in to the office since I had to teach, and I was a little nervous about keeping up my diet. I usually forget to bring lunch and thus need to go out somewhere. There's this awesome place where they sell varenikis (they're like pierogis, but smaller) and they are amazingly delicious. This summer I must have gone there about twice a week. In fact, when I walk in, the lady that runs the place knows exactly what I'm going to get and starts prepping my food even before I order! :) However, after do a rough calculation on the calories and fat, I found that the meal is about 1300 calories and about 70 grams of fat! Yikes! No wonder I put on weight! Now, I'm not saying I'll never go there again before I leave Salem. That'd be crazy! But I figure I'd like to continue losing weight a little longer before I indulge myself. So instead, as you'll see, I brought in my lunch today. Go me! (As a bonus, it saves money...)

I also did NOT give in to temptation and eat the chocolate that was offered up to passerbys on the secretary's desk. Phew!

For breakfast

1 high fiber banana nut muffin (170 calories; 3 points)

1/2 cup of coffee w/vanilla creamer (35 calories; 1 point)

For lunch

1 tuna and mayo sandwich with american cheese on multi-grain bread (230 calories; 3 points)

1 strawberry fruit and grain cereal bar (130 calories; 2 points)

Water

For dinner

1 piece of homemade white sauce pizza w/sausage and red peppers on garlic and herb dough (373 calories; 9 points)
* Wow, we sure are eating a lot of pizza lately! I do have to say that I'm liking the pizza a lot more now that we are making it ourselves. Maybe that's why we're eating it more!
* We're also eating a lot of peppers recently too. At least they're healthy, unlike the pizza they're sitting on. :)

Water

Snacks

1 clementine (40 calories; 0 points)

2 bites of WW boston creme yoguret (10 calories; 0 points)
* I didn't like this. I've had boston creme flavored yogurt before and liked it. But this wasn't good.

Total Calories (roughly): 988

Total WW Points: 18

Total "Flex Points" left for week: 33

Days left in flex points week (after today) : 4

Exercise

A little over 30 minutes on an elliptical machine

January 31, 2010 - Day 28

Here's the justification for today's breakfast (via one of my friend's FB status): "Weekends were made for excessive carb consumption."

For breakfast

1 everything bagel with as minimal cream cheese and butter as possible (530 calories; 11 points)

1 cup of coffee w/vanilla creamer (70 calories; 2 points)

No lunch today... too busy shopping.

For dinner

2 servings of Papa Murphy's Chicken, Bacon, Artichoke De-Lite pizza (450 calories; 10 points)

Water

Snacks

1 slice of apple (20 calories; 0 points)

1 diet hot chocolate (25 calories; 0 points)

Total Calories (roughly): 1095

Total WW Points: 23

Total "Flex Points" left for week: 18

Days left in flex points week (after today) : 1

Exercise
100 crunches

January 20, 2010 - Day 17

Yay! I did some exercise today. Good thing too, since I had a most delicious, but fattening, dinner. :)

For breakfast

Before working out:

1 serving of high-fiber, maple and brown sugar oatmeal (160 calories; 3 points)

1/2 cup of coffee w/vanilla creamer (35 calories; 1 point)

After working out:

1 english muffin with peanut butter (220 calories; 5 points)

1 cup of cantaloupe (90 calories; 1 point)

Water

For lunch

A bowl of cheerios with skim milk (140 calories; 2 points)

Water

For dinner

1 slice of homemade white pizza with sausage and red pepper (??? points, ??? points)
* This was bad, but oh so good.

Water

Snacks

1/2 cup of coffee w/vanilla creamer (35 calories; 1 point)

Total Calories (roughly): 685 + x

Total WW Points: Really 12 + y, but since I only had one slice, I am going to count this as 24 total points. I know 12 points for a slice of pizza is a lot, but I did have sausage on it, plus it was a thicker crust, and I made white sauce. (IT was pretty yummy, thanks for asking!) I just figured that if 2 slices of the Papa Murphy's light pizza was 10 points, then 1 slice of mine would be about the same, maybe a little more. This also puts me at the max points that I want to eat a day.

Flex points left: 30

Exercise

A little over 30 minutes on an elliptical machine
* Man, was this hard. I did the weight training program today on the machine, so it went from level 1 to level 8 every 4 minutes. Sucky!

100 ab crunches

January 8, 2010 - Day 5

So, today was a MUCH better day than yesterday. One reason that it was easier is that my husband has decided to count the calories with me as well as track Weight Watchers (WW) points. I've looked into the points, and I think I like them b/c they take into account the fat you are intaking as well as the fiber. I mean, I can consume under my daily allotted calories for the day but if all of those calories are made up of fat and thus I am at like 300% of my daily fat intake, that's not good.

I also like the points because then I don't feel bad about having 2 pieces of amazingly delicious pizza like I did tonight. :D Just like I realized yesterday, moderation, moderation, moderation.

Looking up my points I should be at like 19, BUT you get an extra 35 points a week. So, to account for those, I decided to make my daily max points be 19 + 5. I wrote it like that because the 5 is the extra points shared over a week. By doing it this way I won't feel bad if I go over my 19; it'll make me feel like I have some control over my diet which I need. If I go over my 19 but under my 5, I can add it to the next day if I wish. So that makes me feel good, although I'm going to want to keep it under the 24 each day if possible.

Here's my day:

For breakfast

1 bowl of shredded wheat in skim milk (210 calories; 3 points)
* This wasn't good, but I'll probably eat it again

1/2 cup of coffee w/vanilla creamer (20 calories; 1/2 point)
* I'm not sure there are actually 1/2 points, but since 1 cup of coffee is 1 point, I decided to make a half-cup be a 1/2 point.

For lunch

1 bbq beef burrito (290 calories; 6 points)

Water

For dinner

2 servings of Papa Murphy's Chicken, Bacon, Artichoke De-Lite pizza (450 calories; 10 points)
* This pizza is fantastic! This is up there as one my favorite pizzas. Who would of guessed, especially considering it has both artichokes and spinach on it.

Water

Snacks

1/2 cup of coffee (20 calories; 1/2 point)

1 serving of Smarties (50 calories; 1 point)
* Not the sugar candy - I hate those. These are the Canadian candies that are like (& better-tasting, IMO) than M & Ms

1 rice cake with peanut butter (130 calories; 2 points)
* This is an AWESOME snack! So tasty! I just have to make sure that I'm super careful because of Cam.

Total Calories (roughly): 1170!!! An awesome day calorie-wise! And I'm not hungry.

Total WW Points: 23. So, my fat to calorie to fiber ratio wasn't the greatest apparently. But, I'm still under my target! Woo-hoo!

Exercise
Nada. Zilch. Zero. I was going to do my ab-crunches and then didn't. All in all, a really lazy day exercise-wise as I just watched episodes of Friday Night Lights all day. I feel like I deserve it though after that marathon semester of teaching and then grading for weeks on end!