New Way

On September 12, 2010, I made a decision to start eating better. I don't really eat horribly, but don't always make the best choices, and, I love to snack and graze on random food while hanging around the house. Also, we love to leave the office for lunch, and do not generally eat overly healthy while eating out anywhere.

Enter The Daily Plate. Rebecca was talking about it a while back, and at that time, I did not look at it because it sounded like a lot of work. Opened the program and discovered how kewl it is. You can pretty much record ANYTHING you eat, and it will pop up how many calories are in that, fat, sodium, carbs, protein, etc. Also, you can put in how much you weigh, how tall you are, how much weight you want to gain, lose, or if you want to maintain, and it tells you how many calories you should eat per week in order to make that happen. You can also record your workouts, which are subtracted from your calories. I am not using the workout feature since I have no idea how many calories i burn while working out. Am thinking of investing in a heart rate monitor to start tracking that as well, but have not had time. Any suggestions on one to get that is simple, easy to use, but accurate?

Anyway, the site ROCKS. You really don't realize how many pointless calories you put in your mouth until you record them on a site like this. I have started shopping for food entirely differently, and even though I have always loved food in the past, I am trying to change my relationship with it, and look at it as a necessity, and not as a want. This will be a slow process, but I think I am doing really well so far. I am actually pretty good at something when I am held accountable (this time, by a computer program, haha). I am loridz on the program to anyone that would like to be friends on there!

In this almost two week journey thus far, I have discovered some new recipes and new food at the store that I love. I plan on posting those things as they become known to me.

Here's some to start off with:

Snacks. I still crave a snack at night, but am making better choices, other than grabbing a bag of chips and eating them:

Quaker Rice Snacks Cheddar Cheese Quakes. SOOOO good.

Any of the Weight Watchers frozen snacks. Every one I tried is good.

Stacey's Simply Naked Pita Chips (these are amazing with hummus).

Special K Blueberry Flavored Bar (these are awesome). Also bought Nature's Valley Peanut Butter bars, an old Lori fav that I have not had in forever.

Any of the Skinny Cow frozen treats. All good as well.

Now that we have a breakroom at the office with a full size freezer and frig, eating healthy at the office and being able to get away from my desk is EASY. I have been bringing all sorts of options to the office.

I am loving all of the Smart Ones meals I eat. My fav is the Fiesta Quesadilla. But, I have had a couple of their pizzas, a tuna casserole, a five cheese ziti. All good.

Have also been snacking on baby carrots, apples and bananas. I am realizing that having healthy snacks around makes thing really easy as well.

Another goal of mine has to been to work more veggies into my diet. Not perfect yet, but am eating way more than I did previously. Green beans and corn mostly with dinner. Have eaten some form of fish for protein each night since this started as well.

Been looking thru my vegetarian times magazines for recipes and have made two thus far. First was a Tex Mex Quinoa with Black Beans and Corn. Had never had quinoa before, but the meal was super good! I added cheese to Kurt's, he thinks everything is better with cheese. :). Then, I attempted hummus for the first time and it came out pretty good for a first attempt. The only issue I had with it was it's consistency, but I have some ideas for next time. It's still super tasty, I made a spicy version. I would love to find a low fat version since I think hummus has too much fat in the normal versions. With this recipe, I did add two TBSP of water and used one cup of tahini (slightly diff from recipe, from suggested by recipe).

Also, weighed myself one week in and I had lost 7 pounds, which is insane to me! Hopefully, I can continue at this rate! :).

I have bought some new shoes, and totally owe you a shoe post, however, gotta get to bed. Going to fight my own speeding ticket in the morning, LOL. Fingers crossed.