REVAMP.

AAAAAARRRRGH! It's been months since I posted. I sort of gave up on eating habits for a while. And blogging. Sometimes it is hard to be consistent. Especially since I spent the whole month of July alternating with eating and being at the beach, and eating at the beach. Needless to say, I gained weight.

Fact: Last Monday August 20 I dragged my mom and I's sorry butts to weight watchers. It is time to start again. My life has experienced major upheaval in the last week. I went down to college, decided I had made a horrible choice, and came home to explore other options.

Of course, that whole weekend, I was amazingly stressed. Beyond normal stress -- the kind of stress where you cannot eat. I barely ate a whole meal without losing it (not throwing up...). I was miserable. I really only was eating *and barely so* one meal a day. That was Wednesday 8/15 to Saturday 8/18.

So of course when I went to WW, I had lost 2.6 pounds! Of course, I completely understand that I did it the wrong way, and I was miserable the whole weekend and felt sick. Of course, the other way to look at it is as a jump start to healthy eating & dieting/exercising.

This is the eating out that I remember this week:

Not my actual burger - it didn't have those yummy onions on top

Tuesday night (I think): Cheeseburger, baked potato and salad from Outback. Ate everything.

Wednesday lunch: Cheesecake Factory with my family. Had from the Skinnylicious menu - Chicken Enchiladas. They came covered with red chile sauce, melted cheese, and Escabeche vegetable salad.
*I asked for the red chile sauce on the side, because um, hello. "Covered" is a good way of saying "smothered in an amount of sauce that is super unhealthy to eat". So the enchiladas were delicious, it came with three and I ate all of them. I probably should've taken some of them home, but it kept me full for the rest of the day. The EScabeche vegetable salad was really interesting. It came with cucumber/pickles - I'm frankly not sure what they were, but they were nommy - carrots and cauliflower. I nibbled at the carrots/cauliflower but I ate most of the cucumberpickles.

Friday lunch: Ate at Cafe Ima with my mom. I was really hungry. I ate fried rice, corn, salad, dumplings, egg roll halves, meatballs, stir fried sweet potato and lots of different sushi. I probably ate TOO much of everything, particularly the fried foods.

Friday dinner: Because we always eat out after cat rescue, this is why I ate out for two meals today. We went to the Silver Diner (not my favorite) and I had two chocolate chip pancakes, with scrambled eggs & two sausages. I ate the whole meal. And let me tell you, I felt crappy after. Not, oh my gosh that was such a yummy meal, I feel full and happy! No, I felt sluggish and gross. I hate eating at SD because it always makes me feel gross afterwards. And to think, I wanted to have a milkshake with all of that....

And restaurants like Cheesecake Factory and Silver Diner don't have their nutritional information on the website. Probably because you'd want to sue them when you saw there was like a days worth of fat in one meal. I can only imagine the calories and fat from the two meals I ate.

Post 7 - Popcorn

I ate a whole bag of popcorn today. Was doing okay on my weight watchers points until then.

I'm so mad. It was good popcorn. Just can't eat it when I am home alone I guess.

I want that dress to fit and doing a stunt like this, particularly since I was watching TV was bad.

I was having a terrible day, yet I know that doesn't give me a free pass.

Need to try harder tomorrow.

Post 6 - Working from Mission Control

I got lost in space the last couple of days. AKA restaurant coma.

Friday night: Silver Diner (chicken tenders).
Saturday: Jason's (salad), Potbelly's (sandwich, soup, coleslaw).
Sunday: IHOP, Todai.

Basically it was the weekend of high sodium.

Tonight I went to weight watchers. Surprisingly, I only gained 3 pounds since January! So I'm motivated to get rid of them.

Also, I'm getting this dress this weekend and need to lose weight to fit into it.

Post 5 - Glad You Came

So Saturday's eating was pretty good. I woke up late, so I skipped breakfast and went right to lunch. I had macaroni and cheese and peas. Of course, I overcooked the peas & they tasted so bad I had to spit them right out. I just ate the macaroni.

Had a pudding for a snack later in the day. Then we had Japanese Seafood and Sushi Buffet at Todai. It was so yummy. I ate pretty well. Probably not super health conscious because I didn't have many veggies and I ate a lot of fried stuff.

But it was not a bad day.

Post 4 - Rotten bananas!

So I am trying to eat healthier. Today's meals have been excellent so far.

Breakfast:
A mini banana chocolate chip muffin (made with wheat flour).

Lunch:
Diet Coke
Stacey Pita Chips and 3 layer dip (I think it was an appropriate amount)
Mandarin Oranges (I'm not a huge fan, but suffered through the cup).
1 small Recee's Peanut Butter Egg
1 NASTY  bite of banana - turns out it was rotten.

That's all I've eaten today. I am at school staying after for newspaper. Then I need to go home and find a healthy snack, since we will probably be eating at the Silver Diner tonight.

Healthy Choices (though some are fattening):

-Well there was an omelet that is supposed to be a "heart healthy choice." Somehow 20 grams of fat doesn't seem like healthy!

-Black Bean Quesadilla (Multigrain tortilla, mixed peppers, low fat cheddar, scallions,

jalapenos, cilantro sour cream, baja black bean salsa.

• Cal 455, Fat 15g, Sat. Fat 7g, Chol. 45mg, Fiber 10g).

-Mango Vegetarian Stir Fry (Mushrooms, carrots, mixed peppers, edamame beans,

cilantro, napa cabbage, reduced sodium teriyaki, scallions, black sesame seeds, whole wheat angel hair).

• Cal 599, Fat 5g, Sat. Fat 0g, Chol. 0mg, Fiber 15g

-Summer Citrus Salad (Baby spinach, mangos, strawberries, dried cranberries, pecans,• Cal 494, Fat 21g, Sat. Fat 2g, Chol. 0mg, Fiber 12g

carrots, tossed with fat free citrus vinaigrette).

I don't like any of these choices. I might just get pancakes and take half home.

Post 3 - I'm hungry

This is my dinner from Wednesday night. It was exactly what I had discussed having in my blog post. I think that it was an excellent choice.  A small salad with chicken, a small amount of cheese, corn and dressing on the side. Then I had the tortilla soup with tortilla strips on top. It was spicy and delicious.

And overall, this was a much healthier choice than I had been eating at Qdoba. I didn't even think about it until I found out the nutrition for the chicken tacos. I also shared chips and guacamole with my friends (4 other girls), so it was an appropriate amount.

Of course, we went out for frozen yogurt after at this new place in the city, called Sweetchills. Despite the idea that froyo is super healthy, it's not always. Their yogurt was full fat. I did have some of the fat free cheesecake and that was great. I also mixed it with the red velvet cupcake froyo and some chocolate toppings and kiwi toppings (see, fruit!) I had more than a fair amount, so it was not a healthy choice. Clearly if I go back, I'll just get an appropriate portion of the fat free froyo and stick to fruit toppings.

Today wasn't a great eating day either. I was meeting someone at a bakery and I brought home a box of cookies. Not that I ate them all, but I ate more than my health conscious brain should have let me. Despite wanting to eat healthy all the time, it's started to be a rough start.

This photo was in the Shape magazine I was just reading. I was complaining in my last post that my genetics are why I'm fat. Turns out I was wrong.

Tomorrow (Friday), I always go out for dinner after volunteering at my cat rescue. Typically, we go to Silver Diner or the Amphora diner. I will have to research healthy choices for both. I usually have pancakes, eggs and sausage. And I eat the whole dinner, which is just utterly awful. The last few times we've gone to Silver Diner I've had the chicken tenders and french fries. Fat, greasy and fried. None of which is good for me. Sigh, why does it have to taste so good but be so bad?

Will have to figure out good options. At least I know that there are always salads.

Post 2 - Angry at the World

Some days I blame the world for my weight. But I know that it is genetics and poor eating habits that have led me here.

Obesity and diabetes are common in my family. High blood pressure & cholesterol as well. I get reminded that I'm at risk for these, when I visit the doctor. I'd like to tell them, "Yeah, well, your scale adds ten pounds to my real weight!" - it's true, I weigh more at the doctor.

I think that WW hasn't worked for me, because I felt guilty eating the simplest things. A cheese stick? Minus one point. A bagel with cream cheese? Minus at least ten points. It's not like it's a freakin' jelly donut. I should be allowed to eat a bagel and not feel guilty. I always have sesame bagels with light cream cheese. Nothing wrong with that.






Tonight I'm going to Qdoba (a Mexican restaurant) with my friends. My typical meal there is 3 chicken tacos (flour tortilla), with lettuce, cheese, and corn. I'll have a diet soft drink and chips with guacamole. I used their nutrition calculator. Those 3 tacos are 690 calories total. Chips w/guac add another 450 calories. A dinner of 1140 calories is too much for me.

Because of my sedimentary lifestyle, where I rarely ever exercise (other than walking to/from my car) I should consume 1800 calories a day (as told to me by nutritionists) or 31 WW points a day. Now, if I were just to have the tacos for dinner, that would be ok - but I would have to have a relatively healthy eating day.

If I just had the salad (no tortilla) with the same toppings as the tacos I like, that would be 680 calories. I feel conflicted because neither of these seem like a good choice because of their high calories. Though, without cheese the salad becomes 510 calories, a little more reasonable. But, I would probably ask for a small amount of cheese because I don't think I would be happy with none.

But wait! There is another option. Tortilla soup with chicken, cheese and corn is only 310 calories.

But even better? Qdoba's craft two option. I can have a Naked mini taco salad and the tortilla soup for the combined total of 455 calories. I'm thinking that this is the better option.

I'll let you know my choice in another post.