June 16

Day 34 of my "diet."    Here are my food log, weight, exercise, and thoughts.

Today I was focussed on writing an essay so didn't want to concern myself much with food prep.  

Breakfast, 7:30 am:  0.15 housemate's smoothie;  smallish bowl of grains and blueberries topped with a few spoonfuls of soy yogurt.  

second breakfast?  10:30 am:  a treat!  a bowl of oil-free granola with soy milk.  see below for a discussion on this.

snack:  ate some of the fruit while prepping housemate's smoothie fruit for the week (freezing into 7 portions).  less than a cup.

lunch, 1 pm:  I grabbed some stuff from the fridge.  small baked sweet potato (baked last night);  few handfuls of sugar snap peas, 1 raw carrot, some beans on a sprouted corn tortilla.

dinner, 7:30 pm:  some orange remainders while making housemate's OJ.  a salad from lettuce, tomato, mushrooms, apple balsamic vinegar.  steamed veggies (carrots, broccoli, cauliflower), added some beans, topped with a salt-free seasoning (penzey's mural of flavor).  

Housemate had some salad and veggies too (hers had peas instead of beans).  and some leftover meatloaf.

Weight:  125.4

Exercise:  swim 1 mile, walked 1/2 mile.

Thoughts/notes:

• The ingredients of the granola are:  Organic rolled oats, organic dates, organic barley flakes, maple syrup, barley malt syrup, water, walnuts & cinnamon. The nutritional info is here.  I was wondering, how much sugar am I getting (I haven't had sugar in a long time and don't want to go overboard).  I got the granola from a bulk bin so my receipt told me how much I got, which was 1.5 servings.  so I had 18 g of sugar.  That's a fair amount, equivalent to 1.5 T of maple syrup or 1.1 medjool date.  As a fraction of total calories the sugar was 20%.   So I'd have to say that wasn't that healthy.  As a fraction of total calories today, it was 5% (assuming 1400 calories, maybe I had more).  Interesting.  That's acceptable but it shows that this is definitely should be considered a treat.  Next time I could get a smaller amount, just 1 serving.  I've set 5% as a reasonable amount of play calories to have in my diet, to allow for restaurant foods and various treats.  Maybe I'll look into making my own version of this with less sweetener.
• I ate a lot this morning and lunch, so wasn't hungry for dinner until after 7 pm.  But swimming built up my appetite.
• I'm thinking I'm probably at or close to my ideal weight.  Maybe it's time to go into maintenance mode.  I'm not sure what will change except that I don't want to lose too much weight.  I'm very happy with what I'm eating.  I've enjoyed re-incorporating the starches and grains into my diet.  It makes food prep much easier, it tastes good, it's satisfying.  

June 15

Day 33 of my "diet."    Here are my food log, weight, exercise, and thoughts.

Today is pretty similar to yesterday.

Breakfast, 7:30 am:  some spinach and greens while making housemate's smoothie; 0.15 housemate smoothie; bowl of grains and fresh local strawberries topped with a few spoonfuls of soy yogurt

lunch, noon:  I dry-fried an onion, added a small diced potato, fried that for a bit, added water, then added chopped kale and bok choy, some no-salt seasoned, let this simmer while I showered, then added some frozen corn to thaw that and cool the dish a bit.  This was really good.  Both the onions and corn added a nice sweet taste.  The dry-frying of the onions gives it a great flavor.   Same salad as yesterday:  lettuce, flaxseed, strawberries, d'angou pear vinegar.

snack, 3 pm:  sugar snap peas.

snack, 5 pm:   small bowl of grains, beans and soy yogurt.

snack, 7 pm:   2 carrots (on bike ride home)

dinner, 7:30 pm:  some orange remainders; same salad as lunch;  sliced jicama.  Dessert was a small bowl of sweet corn and jicama with a dash of d'angou pear vinegar.  

Weight:  125.6

Exercise:  mountain biked 1 hour, walked 2 miles, bike commute 7 miles.

Thoughts/notes:

• lunch food prep, shower, eating, and cleanup took only 50 minutes! 

June 14

Day 32 of my "diet."    Here are my food log, weight, exercise, and thoughts.

Breakfast after jogging, 8 am:  bowl of spinach and greens while making housemate's smoothie; 0.1 housemate smoothie; bowl of grains and fresh local strawberries topped with a few spoonfuls of soy yogurt:

lunch, noon:  I made Rosemary, Mushrooms, Kale, and Sweet Potato, from the Straightup Food blog.   It was easy to make, though I think I would have preferred baking the sweet potato and frying up the kale and mushrooms with some onions and spices; but this was pretty good.  I also made a salad with lettuce, ground flaxseed, d'angou pear vinegar and strawberries.  Here's the kale recipe cooked up:

Here's the lunch served up with some fresh garden herbs to add as desired:

snack, 3 pm:  sugar snap peas.
snack, 5 pm:   small bowl of grains, beans and soy yogurt.
snack, 6:30 pm:  4 carrots (on the bike ride home)

dinner, 7:30 pm:  some orange remainders; same salad as lunch;  a bowl of jicama.  I added some herbs and d'angou pear vinegar to the jicama, then decided I didn't like the herbs so rinsed them off.  I real like jicama but it's easily overwhelmed by stronger flavors.  So I tend to prefer it all by itself.   Here's dinner:

snack, 9:45 pm: small bowl of peas and corn with a dash of d'angou pear vinegar.  I confess I wasn't hungry, but, it was good.

Weight:  125.6

Exercise:  ran 3 miles  bike commute 14 miles.

Thoughts/notes:

• the local strawberries don't last long so I used them as a salad topping at lunch and dinner, in addition to breakfast.  
• yummy food, easy to prep.  dinner prep, eating and cleanup took only 35 minutes!

June 13

Day 31 of my "diet."   ooh, it's been a month!  Well, I've lost about 7 lbs so I can't complain.  Here are my food log, weight, exercise, and thoughts.

mini-breakfast, 7:30 am:  small salad, leftover from last night:  lettuce, tomato, mushrooms, topped with ground flaxseed, d'angou pear vinegar, herbs from the garden (mint, cilantro, dill).

after yoga main breakfast, 10:15 am, the usual multi-grains, strawberries (1/2 lb) and a few spoonfuls of soy yogurt.  a few carrots.

lunch, 12:30 pm, sugar snap peas; medium salad topped with jicama, garden herbs, d'angou pear vinegar; baked sweet potato.

dinner, 6 pm:  beans and grains.  

more dinner, 7:30 pm, a few carrots, a handful of cherries, a handful of snow peas, a few romaine lettuce leaves, some orange remainders, a few strawberries.

snack, 10 pm:  small bowl of sweet corn with d'angou pear vinegar.

Weight:  125.8

Exercise:  yoga class.  bike commute 14 miles.

Thoughts/notes:

• I thought I was going to be home late so brought some dinner materials but I mis-remembered a meeting.  so I ate my beans and grains at the office, which was nice because I wasn't hungry on the ride home.  then I just nibbled on some stuff because I really needed to finish a book on which the essay I need to write by Sunday is based.
• I bought my first container of local strawberries and boy are they good!  tomorrow's breakfast will be yummy
• I woke up early the past two days because I was hungry, so decided a bedtime snack is okay and fun too.

June 12

Day 30 of my "diet."   Here are my food log, weight, exercise, and thoughts.

Today's meals were haphazard due to squeezing in exercise, work, and family visit.  Therefore I am dubbing today, "Haphazard but healthy Tuesday".   It was a very easy food prep day.

pre-exercise snack, 8 am: 0.15 serving of housemate's smoothie, several handfuls of spinach and lettuce greens.

post-exercise snack, 11 am:  3 carrots, 2 handfuls of sugar snap peas

Lunch (breakfast?), 12:30 pm, my usual breakfast,  with the combo grains I mentioned yesterday, 1/2 lb strawberries, and a few spoonfuls of yogurt.   

snack, 3 pm:  some raw cabbage and celery.

Dinner, 5 pm:  I ate what housemate cooked for her the family visit, without the meatloaf and with my condiments.  That was: a small baked potato to which I added some beans, a few spoonfuls of soy yogurt and some fresh garden herbs (chives, cilantro, mint); some peas and corn, a salad of lettuce, tomato, mushroom, which I topped with ground flaxseed, chopped garden herbs, and d'angou pear vinegar.  I also ate a small portion of asparagus but saved most of it for the family.  Dessert was a small container of blackberries (6 oz) topped the rest of my soy yogurt (about 4.5 oz total) while the others ate cake and ice cream.  This meal was quite enjoyable and filling.

Snack, 9 pm:  some jicama, some more of the salad from dinner with the same toppings.

Weight:  126.2

Exercise:  26 mile bike ride.  I saw a deer and 2 does, who I chased for quite a while (not intentionally) because the grass by the bike path was tall; 3 wild turkeys; a big sea turtle; ducks and ducklings.  And this is a mostly-city ride.  It was a glorious day for riding.

Thoughts/notes:

• great day, enjoyed all my meals, didn't spend much time in the kitchen except to do dishes after dinner.  
• I had a 9 pm snack for 2 reasons:  I was hungry; and I won't be eating breakfast until 10:30 am tomorrow.
• I asked housemate how to spell "doe" (above) and now we've been singing do-ray-me...haha, that's fun!
• here's a preview of tomorrow's food:
• 
• best of all, this only took 10 minutes to prepare!  I'll be gone from 8 am until 9 pm and will get a few things to add to this at the co-op.  and it's all gonna be yummy!  stay tuned...

June 11

Day 29 of my "diet."   Here are my food log, weight, exercise, and thoughts.

breakfast, 8 am: 0.1 serving of housemate's smoothie; buckwheat berry breakfast. I had the same breakfast as yesterday except I cooked up a combination of grains that I can eat over the next few days:  forbidden rice, red quinoa, buckwheat and oat groats.   It was festive looking and yummy:

Forbidden rice is neat:  it's velvety black and smallish grains, very pretty.  It has a nice flavor.  I used 1/2 cup of the cooked grains, 8 oz of strawberries, 3 oz of blackberries, a couple spoonfuls of soy yogurt (about 1 oz).  I think I'll start putting flaxseed on this to make sure I get it on a regular basis.  I usually put seeds on my salads too but maybe I won't have a  salad every day.

snack while preparing lunch:  2 carrots, handful of sugar snap peas.

lunch, noon:  big pile of veggies:  fried onions, mushrooms, celery, fennel; added spices (cumin, cinnamon, graram masala, sweet curry), stirred; added cabbage, cauliflower, bok choy; cooked until reasonably tender; turned off the heat, added 1/2 cup beans, fresh herbs (cilantro, dill, a little mint) and the rest of my soy yogurt (about 4 oz).  A little soy or nut milk could replace the soy yogurt.  This was very good.

snack, 4 pm:  the rest of my lunch veggies, half a baked sweet potato

snack, 7 pm:  3 carrots, handful of sugar snap peas, handful of cherries

dinner, 9 pm:  big salad made from romaine lettuce, jicama, fresh herbs (cilantro, dill, mint), ground flaxseed, and d'angou pear vinegar.    some orange remainders.  dessert:  a big bowl of frozen peas and corn with d'angou pear vinegar.  may not sound like dessert but it's really good.

Weight:  126.2

Exercise:  too tired to exercise this morning.   bike commuted 14 miles.

Thoughts/notes:

• I slept poorly last night.  I woke up hungry at 2:30 am.  I suspect it was the lack of seeds yesterday.   
• I'm trying to add a little bit of starchy veggies and grains to my diet, to increase my calorie density and decrease my volume of veggies.  Today I did part 1, but habitually cooked up too many veggies for lunch and made too big a salad for dinner.  So I overate today.   Tomorrow and Wednesday I'll be too busy to do much food prep so that will be a good opportunity to teach myself to scale back on the veggie portions.
• I didn't monitor calories.  I'm tired of doing that.