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!