My Weekly Food Routine

Anyone reading is welcomed and encouraged to send me their weekly weight so we can track together and motivate each other to lose weight. "Alex - Projected" would be my weight loss of 40 pounds by my birthday on 6/12/11, at a steady 1.9 pounds per week. "Alex - Actual" is my actual weight loss. I can also post your weight anonymously, such as my good friend "Benny Platinum", whose true identity will remain secret! Also you may have noticed that "Judy" doesn't actually weight 0 pounds. She's opted to only send her weight changes, so we'll track from a starting point of zero pounds. You're al welcome to pursue this option as well if you don't want to give your actual weight. We'll make a nice colored line on the graph for you too!


My Weekly Food Routine

I realized while trying to figure out what I was writing about today, that the last few weeks I've been focusing more on the high calorie food I've been eating (Snackadium, Restaurant Week, etc...) and not so much on all the healthy food I've been eating. In light of this not so surprising realization, I'm focusing this post on what I've been doing that's working, since I'm now 5 pounds lighter than when I started 5 weeks ago! I've notched in my belt not one, but two holes, and shirts are definitely fitting me better. It's nice to see results, though I still feel like 5 pounds is a small chunk of what I need to lose to really look great and feel healthier, but I'm getting there!

The most important thing I do that keeps me on track for the week is order groceries. I've mentioned it in posts before, but I'll look at my calendar, see how many dinners I'll be eating at home that week, and then order food accordingly. Apparently I don't get tired of eating the same thing as much as most people, so my grocery order every week generally looks like some combination of this:

Breakfast:
Raisin Bran Crunch
Eggs
Cheese (Gruyere or a stinky cheese, looovvvee me some stinky cheese)
Sausage (usually gets cut up and put into an egg white omelette when I have time on the weekends)
Tropicana Pure Premium Orange Juice (Lots of Pulp. I hate people who drink No Pulp OJ. Seriously, I will fight you)
White Fish Salad (mmmm, Jew food so gooood)

Lunch:
Mediterranean Tuna Salad
Low Sodium Boar's Head Ham
Boar's Head Turkey
Guacamole
Endives
Chicken Curry Salad
Chicken Salad w/ Feta & Artichokes
Seaweed & Cucumber Salad
Stuffed Grape Leaves

Dinner:
Kashi Lemongrass Coconut Chicken (freezer meal)
Brussel Sprouts (this is a VERY recent addition, didn't know you could just boil them with salt until a couple weeks ago)
Romaine Lettuce
Avocado
Cherry/On-the-vine tomatoes
Chicken Breast
Wasabi Pea Crusted Salmon

Snacks:
Hummus
Baby Carrots
Diet Coke (yes, I have a diet coke habit)
BabyBel Cheese

Literally every item on this list has been ordered at least twice in the last month. All the lunch and snack food I'll put in a bag on Monday morning and bring to the office, leaving it in the fridge there for the week. The benefits of this are:

1. I don't have to make lunch in the AM when I'm probably already running late for work.
2. I get to have some choice in my meal at lunchtime, and not be forced to eat what I packed that morning.
3. I have a good excuse to be off my desk for 15 minutes to put my lunch together!

In an ideal world, I would have food delivered Sunday morning and spend the day cooking stews/frozen meals for the week that I could bring to work and eat at my leisure (since they're frozen and don't have to be eaten that day), but somehow my Sundays never head in that direction.

The other benefit or having many of the same foods over and over is that I know exactly how many WeightWatchers points are in a serving. If I'm going out for a big dinner, maybe I'll skip the 7 point Chicken Curry and have the 4 point Mediterranean Tuna Salad. Also I can eat a smaller portion around noon, knowing that when I get hungry again at 3 or 4pm, I still have something else interesting to eat in the fridge. This keeps me from going to the vending machine or the deli downstairs in the afternoon.

When I'm working late and order dinner at the office, I'll usually look up points values of a meal before I order. Sometimes I'm surprised that what I thought was a healthy dish (especially certain restaurant salads) actually is very high in points.

Generally I'm not a big fan of routine, but when it comes to food, having a good routine can ensure you always have healthy food available when you're hungry!

The Weekend War...

Anyone reading is welcomed (and encouraged) to send me their weekly weight so we can track together and motivate each other to lose weight. "Alex - Projected" would be my weight loss of 40 pounds by my birthday on 6/12/11, at a steady 1.9 pounds per week. "Alex - Actual" is my actual weight loss. I can also post your weight anonymously if you prefere, such as my good friends "Benny Platinum", whose true identity will remain a secret! Alo, you may have noticed that "Judy" doesn't actually weight 0 pounds. She's opted to only send her weight changes, so we'll track from a starting point of zero pounds. You're all welcome to pursue this option as well if you don't want to give your actual weight. We'll make a nice colored line on the graph for you too!




The Weekend War...


Every weekend, I go to war with my diet. The thought process usually goes something like this: Wow Alex, you lost 2 pounds this week, good job! You must totally have this weight loss thing under control, since you lost weight this week. Well as long as it's under control, I can have some cookies and not count the points, or maybe a couple scoops of ice cream, or maybe I can eat...

SNACKADIUM!!!!!!!!

The Raw Ingredients

Construction Begins - Yes that's a floorplan you see in the corner

SNACKADIUM!!!!!!!! (A Kelty Production)

20 People, 3 Hours, Destroyed!

Because instead of some extra snacks here and there, I clearly have the control to put the following in front of me and not eat IT ALL (ssaaaarrrrrccasm):

Rice Crispy Treats, Vanilla Frosting, Sprinkles, Guacamole, Hummus, Slasa, Sour Cream, String Cheese, Chocolate Chip Cookies, BBQ Chips, Black & White Cookies, Chitos, Peanut Butter M&Ms, Beef Jerky, Gummy Bears, Pickles, Homemade Chili and Biscuits.

We clearly know what I was paying attention to during the Super Bowl, and it wasn't the game.

Another good explanation of my thought process the week after I've lost weight goes something like this:

So basically, losing weight is great, but I seem to do this flip flop from week to week where I feel great about losing weight, so I let myself eat more, which causes me to gain the weight back, which makes me feel crappy, and motivates me to lose weight, then I feel great about losing weight, so I let myself eat more... (This is the song that never ends...) You get the picture. And every week, my "Actual" weight seems to drift further from my "Projected" weight, and what I'm starting to realize is that every week that goes by, it's going to be harder to make up that difference.

So what am I going to do?

• TRACK MY POINTS!!! I'm blaming Snackadium for this, because once I eat as much junk food as I did in one sitting, it kind of feels pointless to track points for the week, considering I'm sooo far over my weekly points. So a gentle reminder to myself that even if I have one absurd day of eating, I should track my points on all other days and make sure I limit the damage to a day, not a week, of absurd eating.
• BUY GROCERIES!!! I didn't order FreshDirect this week (for anyone not in NYC check out FreshDirect.com, and be very jealous), which means all my meals were takeout. Aside from this being expensive, it's also very difficult to have a healthy takeout meal. A lot of this has to do with portion control, as takeout meals are HUGE compared to what I actually need to eat to feel full. It's much easier to pull a pound of tuna salad out of my office fridge, but some in a bowl and feel full. So moral of the story, order groceries every weekend so I have food for that week.

It's already Wednesday (sry for the delayed post!) and I can already tell this week is going to be a gainer, not a loser. My goal for the next two days is to gain as little as possible!