amalthea1892

Absolutely!!! I like your part about remembering people and wishing they were here - I think I'll add that to mine

amalthea1892

Goals
Lots of H2O: Y
Focus on whole foods: Mostly
Focus on fruits and veggies: Y (big veggie soup for dinner)
Focus on exercise: N
Lose 1lb: TBD
Post to FD even at the end of the week when I get lazy: Y
Don’t stress over Christmas (I manage to pull it off every year and this will be no different): Y - I am debating skipping cards all together

Food Plan - Tuesday
Coffee x 2 (coffee machine at work is tempermental so may be just 1)
PB&J for breakfast
Office food at lunch meeting (a mystery... but I'll try to keep portions small)
Veggie soup re-runs
Rice
1 Drink with dinner
Chocolate piece for dessert

I need a low cal, highly satisfying snack for afternoons and after dinner. I turn toward bread and cereal at night if I am hungry... ug! Need to stock up on walnuts or something like that to help out...

Ama

bojibridge

Ama, nuts are loaded with good fats, but they're pretty high calorie - a few handfuls can get you up to 500 calories, easily. I really like bread too, so I buy the 35 calorie/slice stuff, and if I have 2 slices of toast with whipped cream cheese (more airy so spreads out easily, 70 cals/2 tbsp) and low sugar jam (25 cals/tbsp), I can indulge for only... 70+70+25=165 calories. Not extremely low calorie, but it's sure good, and I can usually fit it in.

Or Rycrisp crackers (60 cals/2 big crackers) and Laughing Cow cheese (35 cals/wedge) is 95 calories.

Of course, there's always fruits and veggies, but I don't find those particularly motivating

amalthea1892

Joanna - That's right... nuts are so high in cals..! For some reason I don't really enjoy fruit/veggies after dinner, but I definately have veggies with dinner. Fruit is more of a breakfast/lunch food for me. I bet a low-cal slice of toast with a little cinnamon and very little bit of sugar would help the after dinner cravings. Or popcorn... not the bagged stuff, but the popped in the pan over the stove-top kind. A sprinkle of salt and that should help out!

canary52

Thanks, Jenn! It is a struggle for me too. I have to make a conscious effort to drink more. I take tiny sips; my family laughs at me about it so I have to take "big swigs" lol. Whatever works!

canary52

So sorry to hear you've gone through this! 5+ times a day, man, that sucks. But gad you found that diet helps. Not one! Whoo hoo. Thank you for sharing: I know diet affects them a lot for me, especially sugar, caffeine and alcohol, you know, all the fun stuff. And stress, the not fun stuff. Let me know if you ever need to "tawk."

canary52

I think this is a goal so many of us could probably use. To try to be kind, compassionate and loving to ourselves. For me, chronic illness and a long flare of it has done something negative to my psyche in this regard. So I am trying to be positive towards and about myself, for example, to stop putting myself down, apologizing for who I am (too talkative, no energy, etc.) To love oneself unconditionally is not selfishness; rather it is the opposite. It is the kindness we can also extend to others when we don't feel so bad about ourselves. Some Buddhists call this "radical self acceptance" (Tara Brach wrote a book with that title.) For some of us in this society self acceptance IS a radical idea. We think we will love ourselves more if we lose ten pounds, get that job, feel better etc but the truth is we can start now just from where we are with all our messy "stuff." (BTW these ideas are from Pema Chodron, a teacher I admire.) Not saying I do this so well just that I want to try. So sorry you are going through this challlenge. [[[HUG]]]] Please tell yourself "I am loveable and totally worthy of love." Because, honey, you are.

Which is not to say that we cannot try to improve. So Joanna, I love that you and your family ar motivating each other and that you did not take what your mom said personally in a negative way but made something positive of it.

Mern, my dear, you are back with us now and we will motivate you to take care of yourself. DO NOT make Mike take out that whip!! Or was it you with the whip?

I feel so grateful to you all. Being sick is isolating and with you guys, I feel like we're in this soup together!!! (Though some of us have bigger trees than others...oh, I went there.) :P

dmartz

Mern,

I read this earlier and googled 'metabolism boosting foods.' The half dozen lists I looked at seemed to have very little in common. What are your favorite metabolic boost foods?

Ooooh, I don't think I could do that one. I very rarely get to 100 grams of protein.

P.S. Thanks for the second on the thread issue. We must be on the same wavelength today, because I was thinking about what you wrote quite a bit this am, well before I saw you quoted me.

- Donna

canary52

Ama, I buy 100 calorie packs of Emerald brand cocoa or cinnamon almonds; they also have almond/walnut packs. So that is protion control. Cheese sticks or small squares (Cabot used to have some, can't find them where I am anymore so I cut my own.) I don't know if youeat meat, I am trying to stay low carb so I buy organic cold cuts, Applegate Farms ham or turkey or turkey bologna and snack on that or roll them with lower fat cheese slices. Since I am low carb, I also snack on smoked salmon, leftover fish or chicken. I also like Vitamuffins; 100 cal or less, regular or (for me) sugar free, variety of flavors. I also like to have broth soups around, very filling! Also pb on an apple, sometimes with raisins. Hummus and carrot sticks. Just some ideas!!!

lcriswell0421

I'm late, but better late than not at all. I've had a pretty rough week personally speaking (Thanksgiving Day in particular was pretty dramatic and traumatic for me), and my waistline has paid the price from all the stress- and emotional-eating. As you can see from my updated signature, I am now 13 lbs over my lower weight a few months ago. Being bipolar really has a whole set of challenges that not everyone has to deal with, and I was telling my nutritionist yesterday that I just wish I was normal. And she put it to me ever so bluntly, "This is your normal. You have to learn to adjust." So here I am, back for another go.

I'm going to keep my goals simple:

1. Try to average 1650/day for the week.
2. Get back to logging everything every day, even the bad stuff.
3. Take my meds 2x/day.
4. When I start to grab a high calorie, high sugar snack, make a better choice.

Ama, I know most nuts are very high calories, but you can have quite a few pistachios for a lot lower calories than most nuts.