Day 3- FOOD


I think I'm getting the hang of this.  The biggest perk is that I don't feel tempted to eat sweets or processed carbs because I have accountability through this blog, my friends who are doing something similar, and mostly my own determination.  Another great thing is that I have no guilt at the end of the day that comes with eating things (or too much of things) that I know aren't the best for me, or aren't going to help me  reach my goals.  I am also enjoying my "treats" like half and half in coffee, butter on my bread, goat cheese on my dates and a small bar of dark chocolate much more because they are delicious and not in excess.  Also, I'm not eating them on TOP of the cookies, crackers, sugar, etc, etc that I usually eat in a day.

Here's what I ate today:

Breakfast: pre-run: small bowl Grapenuts with milk
                 post-run: plain greek yogurt, honey, blackberries and mango

Snack: coffee with cream and 2 dates with goat cheese

Lunch: PANERA!  Garden Vegetable soup with pesto, 1/2 order Greek Salad, apple, water

Snack: small bowl Great Grains cereal with 2% milk, dark chocolate

Supper:  bake fish, broccoli, fresh pineapple and homemade whole wheat bread with butter and homemade apple butter.  I love this bread recipe.  I used the liquid whey I strained off of the yogurt I made yesterday in place of the water.  I think it makes it more tender.  There was a little brown sugar in the bread recipe but I decided to just go with it instead of substitute honey.

Snack: 3 dates with goat cheese (yes, I'm addicted- they are sooooo good).

I did another nutrition analysis to compare to yesterday and this is what I found

Calories: 1869 (over 300 less than yesterday), Carbs: 282g (good), Protein: 76g (good), Fat: 58g (good- and half of what I ate yesterday!), fiber: 41g (good)

This was much better than yesterday and I felt equally satisfied.  I had a few more carbs (60g) but this seemed to make me feel a little better later in the day.  I had a much lower-fat lunch and supper than I did yesterday too.

Answers to questions:
1) The reason why we can't get away with eating like we used to in our younger days is that our metabolism slows down over time, resulting in fewer calories burned :(

2) My grocery bill:  I shopped at ALDI this weekend while visiting my parents.  This is a great place to stock up on healthy staples like almonds, walnuts, olive oil, cheeses, hummus, olives, baby carrots (59 cents/bag!).  I also made an extra grocery trip to our local food coop, where healthy grains like steel cut oats, wheat berries, quinoa are much more reasonable when bought in bulk.  I bought fresh and frozen fruit that was on sale, and bought bulk spinach and carrots (not the bagged kind) because it was cheaper.  I don't think my groceries were much more this week at all- but I'm not sure.  I think being healthy on a budget just takes forethought, and if you aren't buying things like crackers, cookies, pop, white bread, ice cream, etc, etc there is more left for other things.  AND eating less= saving money.  Another thing I've realized is that if I don't eat all of my food, (or finish my children's food) I can put it away as leftovers for the next day= less calories eaten= "free" food for tomorrow.

Tomorrow:  I'm going to make wheat berry salad!  I am also going to pick up my baby who's been at Grandma's so supper will be beef stew in the crockpot.

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