Clinging to the Wagon

So far we've managed to avoid falling off the eat-better-and-exercise wagon - it's been about two weeks. I have no idea how it's going (at least not in a quantifiable sense) because I refuse to weigh myself that often. It's downright demoralizing. Finding out that I haven't lost any weight despite my efforts tends to very quickly evolve into an excuse for me to do a tuck-and-roll off the moving wagon, directly into a pile of oreo cookies.

We've both been counting calories. I can't tell you what Ben's limit has been, except that he told me he tries to keep it around 1500 for the day. Which I've told him, time and again, is ludicrous for any man (much less a 6'3" man), but he doesn't listen to me so I guess he'll just starve and lose copious amounts of weight. And pass out on the treadmill at some point and make a scene at the gym. And I'll be there standing over him when he comes to with "I told you so" written all over my face. And I'll help him up, of course.

1500 is my absolute upper limit for the day, but I try to keep it around 1300. Yes, it sucks. Yes, I'm hungry all the time. It helps that I'm still at work during the day (for now... and tomorrow... and that's it) because that means I only have access to the food that I brought for lunch. I can control that in the morning when I pack my lunch and am not yet crazed with hunger. I haven't really been eating breakfast (I know it's bad, but anything substantial adds too many calories and makes my life more difficult. I'd rather be hungry), I just drink my coffee with a measured amount of skinny caramel macchiato creamer (International Delight). It only has 30 calories per serving :] AND it's very good. SCORE! Then I don't eat anything til lunch, at which point I usually eat 300-350 calories. Here are some of my lunchtime/snack time staples:

• Healthy Choice Cafe Steamers. SO good, very modest on the calories, lots of protein to keep you (reasonably) full, and NOT full of sodium like most frozen meals.
• Morning Star Black Bean Burgers. Don't knock a black bean burger til you've tried one, folks. It DOES NOT taste like a hamburger, so don't don't go into it with that expectation - it's just good in it's own right. I add a little onion, shredded fat free cheddar and BBQ sauce and eat it on Arnold's Sandwich Thins bread (100 calories for both slices, and perfect sandwich size) - it's about a 300 calorie sandwich but it's chock full of protein and keeps me feeling full all afternoon. It's actually quite impressive.
• Sargento reduced fat colby jack cheese sticks. These DO NOT taste like reduced fat cheese - seriously. They aren't cheap either, but it's worth it not to have to sacrifice taste. 60 calories a stick.
• Fruit snacks. Like a small child, I too enjoy their gummy goodness. 80 calories a pack (the Target brand tropical fruit kind), and made with real fruit juice and vitamin C. These are just to satisfy my need for sugar, from time to time.
• 100-calorie pack snacks. Cheez-its, Goldfish, Craisins... whatever you like.
• Motts Healthy Harvest applesauce, no sugar added. No sugar added means fewer calories - 50 calories per pack. And deeeelish! I like the granny smith apple kind, but they make other fruit-flavored varieties as well (peach, strawberry, etc).
• Edamame (soy bean pods). Pop a steam-friendly bag of frozen edamame in the microwave for 5 minutes, drain, add lots of sea salt, and you've got yourself and healthy and protein-full snack my friend. I LOVE these. 110 calories per serving, which is just right for a snack between lunch and dinner.
• Baked Tostitos Scoops (120 calories/serving) and Salsa. The bulk of the calories comes from the chips, so limiting those is key. Put one serving's worth in a bowl, close up the bag and PUT IT AWAY. DO NOT, under any circumstances, take the bag with you out of the kitchen. Most salsas are pretty low-cal, so you can safely enjoy a good bit of salsa with your finite number of chips and keep this snack around 150-160 calories.
• Fruit. Never underestimate the power of fruit. It's a tasty treat when you're trying not to eat anything too delicious - it makes you feel like you're getting away with something ;] A medium-sized peach? 38 calories. Medium-sized apple? 72 calories. A cup of raspberries? 64 calories. Sometimes I'm REALLY bad and I put peanut butter on my apple slices. That about covers my snack calorie allowance for the day!
• SMOOTHIES. Pure joy in a glass. And a straw is a must, for the complete experience. I make them using frozen strawberries and blueberries, a banana, low fat french vanilla yogurt, Silk Light soymilk (Vanilla flavor) and Splenda. And you honestly wouldn't know there was anything low-calorie about it. I can't give you an exact recipe because I've never measured it out, but by my estimation a 10 oz smoothie comes out to about 135 calories. Perfect after the gym!

Anyway, those are just a few low-calorie suggestions that I've enjoyed, for anyone who's looking for some healthier lunches and snacks. I try not to eat anything between lunch and dinner, but sometimes I'm just starving, at which point I turn to one of the aforementioned go-to low-cal snacks. For dinner, I usually make a lean meat (boneless skinless chicken breast, salmon or tilapia - we basically cycle through them with some ground chicken tacos thrown in every so often for variety!), a whole grain starch, and a vegetable. Rice-a-roni and Uncle Ben's Ready Rice (the microwaveable pouches - ready in 90 seconds!) make a few whole grain varieties, and there's always whole grain pasta. And StoveTop actually isn't too bad on calories, surprisingly enough! Anyway, if I make pasta it's because I have a sauce to go with it, or I toss it with some olive oil and briefly simmered garlic and onions or something for flavor. Speaking of sauces, Ragu makes a Healthy Heart version of their tomato & basil spaghetti sauce that's 50 calories per serving and tastes just like any other spaghetti sauce if you ask me. You can add ground chicken or meatless "ground beef" (Boca's meatless crumbles are better than Morning Star's, IMHO) to bulk it up as well. If you don't tell the hubs, he most likely won't notice. The texture may give it away, but if your hubby eats fast, he won't notice any difference in taste!

Sometimes I make my own garlic bread to go with a pasta dinner too. It only takes an extra 5 minutes. The bread is the key - Arnold's Sandwich Thins again (I use the regular whole wheat kind but there's a multi-grain, a honey wheat... whatever you want). I chop the garlic and microwave it with some butter for 30 seconds (I use Smart Balance), then spoon the garlic-butter combo over the bread and top it with parsley and toast it in the toaster oven for a few minutes. Ben LOVES it. Pepperidge Farm Texas Toast (which I used to get) has 150 calories per slice - mine has about 90 and is BETTER. So there.

Back to the tacos I mentioned before... I really love ground chicken tacos. I tried ground turkey for a while, but the chicken is much tastier I must say. I use reduced fat shredded mexican cheese (you'll never notice a difference when it's mixed into a taco, I promise you), light sour cream (again, you won't notice) and whole wheat tortillas. And of course your standard chopped tomatoes and shredded lettuce. I've never tallied it up and it probably still isn't all that low-cal, but it's an attempt at healthier tacos so I'm all for it. I love mexican food, calories be damned. I just haven't made them since I've been counting calories so I have yet to be forced to total it up and face the music. We also discovered making our own lower calorie pizza and while ago. We make it at home - takes all of 15 minutes - and split it for dinner. Whole wheat crust, a mixture of reduced fat and fat free mozzarella (straight fat free won't melt right), that healthy heart ragu sauce I mentioned earlier, and turkey pepperoni. Plus you can load it up with whatever veggies you like. With the particular ingredients I used, half of a 12" pizza came out to about 450 calories. Not bad for a dinner! Half of a Domino's 12" pepperoni pizza is 860 calories! Madness.

So that's how the calorie counting is going. It's often an imperfect science, but the overall impact is the same whether you're spot-on in your estimations or not. You can't help but limit your eating and make healthier choices, and that can't hurt, right? We shall see, I suppose. We shall see.