Weekly Food Summary (and Friday and Saturday May 30 & 31)

As a weekly summary, I ended up at approximately 600 calories over my target for the week (which could result, mathematically, in a .18 pound slower weight loss). That said, I still should have lost some weight this week, and yet am back up to 0 total weight loss, as of this morning. I do cheat a bit and will take the lowest weight on either Saturday or Sunday for my weekly total loss/gain, so will let you know if tomorrow I am down some in weight. Would suck if I actually regained 1.5 pounds compared to last week, but I actually do feel fitter and have much more defined and thinner arms (at least they look and feel that way!).


Dietary Review:
I have a few goals for the next two weeks, looking across my food intake over the past two weeks:

1. Eat less salt (too many pickles and pickled items)
   
2. Eat less sugary stuff (even fruits... too high in sweet and sometimes useless carbs across my days)
   
3. Eat more vegetables (was definitely not getting in my 7 servings a day)
   
4. Try to better balance calories across the week
   
5. No more than 2 cups of coffee a day. Maybe (big maybe) just 1.5 cups per day this week.

So, this is probably a list that could benefit the general US population. I will try to more proactively eat my veggies this week.

Friday Food Summary: 2 cups coffee with agave nectar
Oats with rice milk
1 mango
BBQ Beef
Cocoa Loco Snack Bar
5 rice crackers, 1/3 serving of potato chips
Oat snack
Potato salad
3 oz wine

Saturday Food Summary: 2 cups coffee with agave nectar
banana
5 cherries
3 rice crackers
2 breakfast turkey sausages
1 fried tomato
Pizza (Chickpea crust free of gluten, soy, and corn, fontina cheese, diced garlic tomatoes, gulf shrimp, terragon butter)
1 New Grist Beer
1/2 flourless chocolate cake

Exercise: I did well on exercise yesterday, getting in my 6 miles, as planned. I was slower at 9 minutes 44 seconds per mile, but didn't do speed training and felt a bit slow anyway. The slowness may have been due to the fact that I played 9 holes of golf earlier in the day for a work event. I didn't do a whole lot of walking on the course, but definitely got some in. No exercise today as planned.

Favorite Food (Beverage) Find of the Week: Tonight, I was able to have an entirely gluten and soy free meal at a local restaurant. It was awesome. They had gluten-free pizza and even flourless chocolate cake (yeah, shouldn't have had it, but still think it might have been worth it... I only had half thanks to the hubby). Even better, they had gluten-free beer that was pretty tasty!

Lakefront New Grist Beer (made with sorghum and rice).

Shoutout: My good friend, Miss Piggy, went to the gym for the first time in over a month! Props to her!

Daily Food Summary (Success! A Close One!)

I officially declare today a success. My resolve was sorely tempted because my hubby really wanted some Boston Creme Pie custard from our local custard shop, so I went with him. I managed to go into and out of the custard shop without having had ANY custard or other things that would not have been good for my calorie count today.

It was tough. I almost...sooo clooossee... ordered a cup of custard, but I remembered that I only have a finite time to meet my goal. I also remembered that I will be able to have custard at another time, when I have the calories budgeted. Just not today.

Food & Drink Ingested:

Breakfast:

2 cups coffee with agave nectar

Oats with rice milk

Lunch:

Salad (greenery, 1/4 chicken boob from Wednesday, tomato, 2.5 tbl. spoons of salad olives, blue cheese dressing)

Snacks:

4 cups fruit salad (2 for morning and 2 for afternoon snacking)
5 rice crackers

Dinner:
Gluten-free Whole Foods bread slice, buttered (posing as a hot dog bun for my turkey sausage)
1 hot Italian turkey sausage
Heinz Organic Ketchup (contains no wheat, soy, or corn products! Does contain sugar though...)
1/4 cup giardiniera
1 can Hanson's Ginger Calorie Free Soda

Exercise: Today was another good exercise day, much to my surprise. I was not sure how well I would run 6 miles after having run 8 yesterday. I ran 6 miles, with speed training the last two miles, for an average of 9 minutes and 2 seconds per mile. I also did 35 minutes of power yoga in place of strength training today. If I run another 6 miles tomorrow, I will be able to have Saturday off to do nothing.

Unpleasant Food Surprise of the Day:
Briannas Homestyle True Blue Cheese Dressing = Gross. I bought this dressing because I was at a store without the best selection of dressings and because it was the only one without soybean oil, wheat, and corn ingredients in the refrigerated section.

The unpleasant surprise: The Blue Cheese Dressing was SWEET!!! YUCK!!! I saw that the ingredients had sugar, but did not expect the dressing to be sweet. It was. Blue Cheese mixed with sugar. Yuck. I am tempted to throw the bottle away. The only thing it might mix well with is a battered, fried onion that my hubby tells me he has been craving for months. We'll see if he would use the dressing. If not... to the trash it is (well the recycle bin once emptied).

Tongue Defying Fruit

The hubby passed on an article in the New York Times about a fruit that messes with how you taste other foods for an hour after you eat it.

The Miracle Fruit, a Tease for the Taste Buds

The fruit can make hot and sour things taste sweet. Maybe it can trick my hubby's tongue and help me sneak fruits and veggies into his diet. (I am constantly worried he is going to get gout.)

For more info on the Miracle Fruit, check out the writeup on Wikipedia: Miracle Fruit.

Death of an Ugly Pair of Sweatpants

I was very pleased today to find out that I had two holes in an ugly pair of sweat pants that I have had since grad school. My first thought was "It is about time these things died," and my second thought was "Hope I didn't do any stretches outside with these holes in the thighs."

They were a pair of sweat pants that I purchased, because they fit and would do... not because I particularly liked them. Have any of those clothing items? The ones that you get, just because you need something, but haven't found something you really like?

This goes back to my earlier post on petite workout pants. I used to buy whatever would fit my length that I wouldn't need to alter. I bought the now dead sweatpants (a size too small) because they actually ran short... especially after being washed. I would only wear them as often as I had to, until I lost the 25-32 pounds a couple of years ago (i.e. when the muffin tops shrank a bit). I started to wear them more often, and now they are dead.

I am very pleased to be able to replace the dead pants, especially since there are a couple of decent options out there for petite workout pants. They will be replaced with the "Short" Nike Modern Workout Pants that were in stock in my size recently . (I just checked online to get the link above, and they again do not have my size. Glad I got them when I did!)

I have found that the cheap sweatpants cannot handle my running schedule. When I actually started running for the first time three years ago, I started to notice that there really can be a difference between poor and higher quality fitness clothing. I also found that I am more comfortable in material that breathes better, does not move into the nether regions when running (or during yoga), and can withstand logging a good number of miles each week.

So, I am excited that my sweat pants have died! I am slowly replacing my yucky work out clothes with better quality and better fitting workout clothes as I go along.

Now, next to help my blue running shorts retire... I am sure that my sister and mother are hoping that my ugly running shorts from high school will kick the bucket next. (They are the old school kind... with the big slit up the side and large white built in cotton underwear.) My mother and sister made more than a remark or two about my bringing the old blue running shorts with me on vacation several weeks ago.


(Ps. for those of you with green tendencies, you will be happy to note that the dead sweatpants will become newly minted cleaning rags. Less paper towels and less trees cut down.)

Daily Food Summary

Success! In great contrast to yesterday's dietary disaster, today was a good day. I made up for some calories lost and survived it.

Food Ingested:
3 cups of coffee
Oatmeal with rice milk
Open face toasted sandwich (One slice gluten-free Whole Foods bread, once slice all natural Swiss cheese, 2 natural smoked chicken slices)
1 pickle
3 cups fruit salad (cherries, watermelon, cantaloupe)
1 cup pickled veggie salad

Today's Calorie Savers: Fresh fruit and pickled veggies (often called giardiniera, see image below) were my two calorie savers of the day. They helped me make it through with their bulk and relatively low calories for volume. Giardiniera can be fabulous on top of hot sandwiches and sausages. Mmm. Perhaps that pair will make itself present in tomorrow's menu.

I love seasonal fruits and veggies. Watermelon is my favorite seasonal fruit, followed closely by various berries, mangoes, and other melons. A book by Mireille Guiliano (in addition to French Women Don't Get Fat), French Women for All Seasons, is another favorite of mine. The book discusses ideas for how to enjoy seasonal foods in great depth by season. If you feel like you are missing out on the enjoyment possible in any season, as I sometimes feel, this book provides great fodder for your seasonal enjoyment.

Calories In - Calories Out = Weight Loss or Gain

The simple formula above is the driver to my current fitness activities. My weight loss without running or other exercise would be too slow for me to hit my "skinny by December" goal. Consequently, I am running, strength training, walking, and stepping up my chore schedule now to help keep me on track to meet my weight loss goal.

I will burn only .8-1.2 lbs per week on my current diet and fitness schedule. That is even with running approximately 30 miles per week.

• Each mile run equals approximately 100 calories burned.


• Each pound of fat to shed equals 3,500 calories.


• Running 30 miles per week, burns 3,000 calories, so not quite 1 pound.

A couple of online calculators (such as the ones I have on my favorite links) have said that even keeping to a 1200 calorie/day diet and running 1 hour per day, I will only lose .8-.9lbs per week. The total lost will decline as I lose weight (as I will burn less calories hauling less weight around). My own calculations result in a slightly higher loss of 1.2lbs per week, so we will see how it goes.

Today's Exercise: The calculations above and my determination to meet my skinny goal (Motivation1) are what helped keep me going for today's (and each day's) run. I ran 8 miles, averaging 9 minutes and 22 seconds per mile. I am quite pleased with that time for such a long run. I will try to add some speed training into the rest of my running this week to see if I can decrease my time further as I go along.

Motivation 2: One thing that helped keep me going today was that I found an outlet to a local trail along the water than I can actually run to from my home. It is a mile from my home, but it made the long run so much nicer, not having to drive to some place where I could run four miles consecutively with minimal street crossings. (My shorter runs are all done in my neighborhood on streets that are not too busy.)

Motivation 3: A large study of people who lost and kept off 30 pounds or more found that they walk/run an average of four miles a day. The study done by the National Weight Control Registry is discussed in an article in Psychology Today:

"Fit for Life - Keeping the Weight Off"

HFCS = Pure Evil

HFCS (otherwise known as high fructose corn syrup) is one of my enemies. Not only can it be pretty bad for one's health, I also happen to be allergic to it. It does bad things to me. Messes up my digestive system within minutes, gives me hay fever-like symptoms within hours, and leaves me bloated and mentally foggy for a couple of days.

HFCS is in everything. When you have an allergy to corn derived items, you will be disheartened to find that it appears in items such as sodas, candies (even decent chocolates), and condiments. Yes, even ketchup contains HFCS. Funny enough, the hubby passed along an article on a blog that mentions how Heinz is working on developing a sweeter tomato, so that it doesn't need to use HFCS:

Catch Up Lady: Heinz to Save Me from Death by HFC