every little bit counts

Very proud of myself today.

I had a doctors appointment this morning. So my plan was to do my first thing in the morning hike afterwords, but when I was headed to the appointment the weather was blazing. I've been going really hard with my exercise for a week and a half and I'm due for a muscle recovery day. So I decided today would be that day. But a break day for me still means walking. No bumming it on the couch for me. So, I added in 45 minutes of walking on top of what I do around town anyway.

Also, I'm going out to dinner with friends tonight, which means today will also be my indulgence day for the week. But for me, indulgence day means I still have to eat reasonably that day even if I'm not maintaining my usual calorie count. So I planned an even smaller than usual breakfast and lunch. And I stuck to it. EVEN though we went to my favorite cafe for lunch, and I REALLY wanted that waffle, I chose something within my calorie plan in anticipation of a larger than usual dinner tonight.

I rock. Go me. Onward to skinny.

balsamic mushroom heaven

Lunch last week. I got it at a restaurant in Seoul, but it would be so easy to do at home, and you could alter it to be less greasy. It's mushrooms stuffed with balsamic vinegar and garlic, broiled in the oven, topped with greens, lettuce, tomatoes, Parmesan and a little olive oil. (I would have gone easier on the olive oil...)

Mushrooms are very filling to me, so I could eat just this for lunch and be satisfied.

Mushrooms: 30
Balsamic: 10
Garlic: 10
Lettuce: It's freaking lettuce! It's got like 2 calories! Don't count it!
Tomatoes: 10
Parmesan: 25
1/2 tablespoon olive oil: 60
Total: 145 cal

pic of the week: best idea eva!

How have I not thought of this idea yet? Let me do a quick calorie total.

Rice cakes: 70
Peanut butter: 95
Banana slices: 70
Strawberry jam: 40

= Awesome 275 cal lunch!

For more healthy food ideas and inspiring pics check out my wehearit. Stay skinny!

semi-daily menu 5-26-2012

To continue with my not-daily menu posts:

Breakfast: 400 cal
breakfast beans with cheese
veggie omelet (2 egg whites, one yolk, leftover Mexican veggies from dinner last night)
1/3 cup pineapple
coffee with milk

Post-hike lunch: 165 cal
small slice of barley crust veggie pizza
a nap

Post-nap snack: 35 cal
Reese's Peanut  Butter Cup miniature
green tea

Dinner: 500 cal
1 cup Mushroom Muttar Masala curry
1/2 cup basmati rice
a blissful Corona with lime

Total: 1100 cal*

*As careful as I try to be, I'm sure I underestimate. Plus, there are calories I don't count, like my omega 3 pill, and the orange juice I have to take my iron supplement with. (hemoglobin before vanity unfortunately) I consider these to be non-negotiable, so I don't even include them in my count. So I try to aim low, knowing if I really end up eating more, it will still work out in the end.

make your grocery bag look like this

I know this video has already been going around for a few weeks, but it's so greatI had to share it just in case someone hasn't seen it yet.

Besides having an awesome job, awesome house, an awesome adorable cutie of a boyfriend, and awesome clothes, this chick totally eats in an awesome way. I love the scene where she's shopping at the farmer's market. She fills her bag with fruits and veggies and nothing else. (Which kind of makes sense, being that they usually don't sell slabs of margarine at the farmer's market, but still.) I know it's just a promo video for Zara, but it's still well made and great inspiration. I think about it whenever I'm shopping at the supermarket. What does your grocery bag look like?

Keep it skinny!

the decision to put down the spoon

Check out this clip from the Triplets of Belleville. I know what you're thinking, either, "WTF is that?" or "How can a weirdo French cartoon help me with weight loss?" But trust me, this scene has a great moment that always occurs to me when I'm thinking about having a second helping at dinner. This character is a Tour de France cyclist, so he has to control his weight. His granny helps him rig up a system that lets him know when he's had enough food for one meal, but after the bell goes off, it's his decision to put down the spoon. You can see it in his face and in the reluctant but determined way he sets it next to the plate. He doesn't want to, but he has a goal and he's committed to achieving it. Trust me, it's worth two and a half minutes of your time.

actually, if my food looked like that, not eating would be no problem

When you decide to put down the spoon, do it like that. It feels so final, like you've made that choice, you're strong and in control, and you can do this.

Remember, YOU can make that choice
you ARE in control
you CAN do this.

(BTW, if you've never seen the movie, you should watch the whole thing sometime. It's pretty freaking fantastic.)

heart it

I have recently fallen in love with weheartit and started my own page skinnydancing. It's a service that let's you grab any image you like from the web, categorize it and it maintains the link back to the original page. So in theory, ownership and photo credit are maintained. It's stupid easy to use. Check it out if you like to collect and share images. I use it to share images that inspire me in my weight loss, and just images that inspire me. My current sets are:

thin inspiration
ballet (yeah, I know I have a thing about legwarmers)
photography (just stuff that inspires me in general)
food (great low-cal food photos that link back to the recipes)

and my personal favorite, goal, which is a set of photos that represent where I personally want to be body and fashion-wise in a year. Except this, which is exactly where I want to be and what I want to be doing and what I want to look like this summer:

Look ma, no tan lines!

Check it out, let me know what you think, and start sharing images that inspire you. Stay skinny!

calorie counting help

Counting calories is LAME, but it's what I've had to start doing in order to reach my goal. I'm always on the lookout for anything to make it easier, and the computer program, Calorie Balance, makes it way easier. 

It's freeware, so it's not perfect, but on the whole it works fine for my needs. You type in the foods you eat, and the amounts and it looks in its massive food database and spits out your calories, fats, carbs and other nutrients consumed for the day. You still have to measure your food yourself, ugh, but it's about as easy as it gets. If you have some restaurant entree or exotic new food it hasn't heard of, you can look up the nutritional info on the web and add it to the database. There is supposed to be a feature where it goes looking for you, but it doesn't work. (There are some internet-based calorie tracking programs that do this very well, but you have to live with the fact that your personal information, plus what you eat every day is being stored on someone else's server. Creepy.) The main food chart screen totals all your calories, carbs, fats, sugars, fiber, and protein in an easy-to-understand graph at the bottom. That works very well. There is also a feature where you can choose other nutrients (iron, calcium, etc.) to be tracked on the same graph, but it's pretty buggy. It does track that kind of thing for you, but you kind of have to total it yourself. 

It also has an exercise tracker, which I love. It tracks the calories you burn in different workouts. All you have to enter is the kind of activity ant the time spent, and since it's already keeping track of your weight, it does that calculation for you. Then it takes the calories burned and subtracts it from your total calories consumed, giving you the net figure. (Keep in mind, if you eat 1500 calories, you don't have to do 1500 calories worth of exercise. Your base metabolism rate will take care of a lot of that for you.)

I am a huge geek, so it's been a boon for me. It helps me compare foods, plan out my exercise and know every little thing I am consuming and burning.

Anyway, for absolutely free it's a great tool to try. Read cnet's review and download the program here. The download does ask you if it can install a web toolbar. It's just an ad (everyone's gotta make money right?) you can decline it.

I hope this helps you on your way to awesome!

you do not need 2,200 calories a day

Whenever you look at the dietary intake recommendations from the USDA (the people behind the food pyramid, and MyPlate), keep in mind this organization is run by farmers, people who make money when you overeat. While they are wising up to the idea that too many starches are bad and more vegetables are good, their guides are still more about keeping big agriculture in business and less about keeping you healthy. (Have you ever looked up the ridiculous amount they tell you to eat? Unless you're a bodybuilder, you do not need 2,200 calories day.) I am not the only one saying this. Harvard agrees with me.

“Unfortunately, like the earlier U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) pyramids, MyPlate mixes science with the influence of powerful agricultural interests, which is not the recipe for healthy eating,” said Walter Willett, professor of epidemiology and nutrition and chair of the Department of Nutrition. 

Harvard's redesign of MyPlate actually looks like what I try to eat every day, on a lower-calorie basis of course.

This makes way more sense than any of the USDA's current or past recommendations. And it's the way I will continue to eat in the future, to maintain my awesomeness. Check out the article here.

vegetarian Samgyupsal and the liver diet

I'm still beaming about my progress last week. I was actually pretty surprised by the result. My calorie count was actually not as low as I wanted. I had a dinner party with some friends and an obligatory drink-and-bitch session with a friend who is going through a rough time.

The dinner may have not actually affected my calorie count that much though. It was Korean Samgyupsal, which is basically fatback thrown on a grill served with side dishes. Since I'm a vegetarian, I got to let the boyfriend go to town on the pork, and I was stuck with the side dishes. Since I'm trying not to be a total food-measuring weirdo in front of my friends, and not stuffing yourself is SO not done in Korea, I thought I'd play it smart and stick to the things I know to be low cal. So I gorged on grilled mushrooms and garlic wrapped in lettuce and cucumber salad, and took it easy on the potatoes, rice and bean paste. So it was impossible to really track, but I don't think I did badly.

As far as the drinking session, I don't think the alcohol calories did me any favors. However, my crazy teacher friend admitted to me the reason she's lost so much weight lately is because she has been on a "I don't eat anything anymore, I just drink." diet. So I didn't have to worry about her wanting to order food, but I am trying to talk her into changing up her diet before her liver falls out of her body. (I have to admit though, she does look great.)

Stay strong  out there! (...and watch those alcohol calories.)

semi-daily menu

I'm so stoked! Some days I do better than others with my calorie count, but yesterday's menu was well within my limit, full of a variety of foods and nutrients, and even had enough calories leftover for an after-dinner beer, woo-hoo! It's so easy to fall into a routine and just eat the same things everyday. It's a bad idea in general, and a super bad idea when you're restricting your calories. You need variety to make sure you're getting everything you need. Always be on the look out for new recipes and foods. I thought I'd post an occasional day's menu when I think it would be inspiring and useful, so without further ado:

Breakfast

1 scrambled egg with garlic

breakfast beans with cheese

1 tangerine

coffee with milk

Lunch

½ cup muesli with blueberries

¼ cup milk

1 small banana

Dinner

Awesome stir-fry:

   bok choy

   mushrooms

   green pepper

   spring onions

   fresh garlic and ginger

   tofu

   soy sauce

1 well-enjoyed Suntory Premium Malts

I found the trick to a low-oil stir-fry is to put the oil in a cold pan, turn on the heat, add the garlic and ginger. As soon as the spices start to sizzle, add the veggies. When the pan gets really heated and things just start to stick, then add a little water, soy sauce, and THEN the tofu. (The tofu likes to stick to the pan if you add it too soon.) Cover, and let it steam the rest of the way. That way you really can get away with an honest-to-God teaspoon of oil.

So, there you go. All the food groups represented, all nutrients accounted for, just low on the fat and starch. (Though, the occasional high-carb comfort food isn't bad, as long as it's in your calorie limits.) The stir-fry actually ended up being a filling meal. The veggies go a long way, calorie-wise, so you can really load up on them. It lead to a bulkier portion than what I've been eating for dinner lately, so it even felt like a kind of indulgence.

I'm debating whether or not to post my daily calorie goal and actual count. I certainly don't want to encourage anyone with, shall we say, a “psychological eating illness”. I don't even want to write the proper term for fear my blog would show up in a search for it. My limit is not far out of the boundaries for safe weight loss outlined by the USDA, and it certainly isn't going to land me in the hospital if I just do it for a few months. Still, some people might not consider it healthy. So, I'm not sure. Any thoughts?

What I'm definitely NOT going to do is ever go back to the crazy amount I was eating before. Now, when I think about how much I used to consume daily, I can't believe it. I plan to eventually up my intake to a maintenance program of 1800-2000 calories a day, but that won't be until I've truly reached a body I'm happy with.  

it's all about the little things

Counting calories is LAME, precisely measuring out every little bit of food is LAME, but it's what I'm having to do right now. And, it's what I'm going to continue to do until I reach my goal. Mostly it's depressing, (like finding out how small a real portion is), but sometimes it's great, (like finding out there are only 4 calories in a strawberry, holla!)

And sometimes, it's freaking fantastic! Like finding out I eat less that I eat less than a standard portion of grits. A real, satisfying breakfast that I can have with CHEESE, and that I already love, for less than 200 cal? You rock, world!