A Typical Day's Meals

As June gets underway, I realized that it's been a year since I started my journey to better health.  I'm feeling better than I have felt in years, much more fit, and there's definitely a lot less of me - 78 lbs less as of this writing.  I've posted a lot about the journey on my Facebook page, but not so much here.  Several people have suggested that I share what my meals look like so here goes.

This is what I ate last last Wednesday:


For breakfast I had a Joseph's Flax and Oat Bran pita spread with 1 tablespoon of peanut butter and then rolled up.  It had 142 calories, 9 grams of protein, 12 grams of carbs, 5 grams of fiber, 1 gram of sugar, and 9 grams of fat.  Sometimes I spread the peanut butter on a slice of whole grain bread which adds another 50 calories and lowers the amount of fiber and protein by a gram, adds 7 carbs and 3 gr of sugar.

I also drank a cup of black, unsweetened coffee.

I went out to lunch with a friend at Sunflowers, one of my favorite restaurants and enjoyed a Greek salad with a grilled chicken breast. 

The salad had lots of baby spinach, about an ounce of goat cheese, a couple of sliced olives, red onion, and tomato.

I had to estimate the nutrition part of this, since I hadn't made it myself, but it was just under 350 calories with about 4 carbs.  I had a vinaigrette dressing which was on the side.  I left more than half of the dressing in the cup.  I had unsweetened ice tea with lemon, and water to drink.

For dinner, we had grilled lamb, a quinoa and pineapple salad, and steamed green beans.  My serving was 4 oz of lamb and 1 serving of the quinoa salad. (Recipe follows)  Total nutrition was 457 calories, 44 carbs, 16 gr fat, 33 protein, 9 fiber, and 18 sugar.  I had ice water with lemon to drink, and an apple a bit later for dessert.

Most days I eat 1250-1300 calories, and while I'm ready to eat at meal time, I rarely am "starving."  When I do need a snack, I munch on cucumbers, celery, pickles, or fruit. Or I have a second coffee, or an iced coffee, or tea.  I also allow myself a tablespoon of half and half in my iced coffee or in a second cup of coffee, but no sugar.   I think I've been successful because in addition to recording everything that I put into my mouth, even the "naughty" food, I am getting lots of exercise.  I try to get a minimum of 30 minutes of cardio-type exercise most days of the week.  Lots of time it's a pretty intense water aerobics class or a really brisk walk, but sometimes it's just 10 minutes here and there over the course of the day vacuuming with gusto, or shoveling walks, or sweeping the deck.  I try not to deprive myself of treats, but I do PLAN for them, so that is another tool that's helped.  

So if that helps anyone, I'm glad.

Here's the Pineapple Quinoa Salad which my anti-quinoa husband liked.

This serves 4 at 220 calories per serving.

Combine the following:

1 cup cooked quinoa

1/2 cup chopped pecans

1 cup baby spinach, lightly chopped

1 medium cucumber, diced

2 cups fresh pineapple chunks

1/2 cup green onions (scallions), chopped

1/2 cup cilantro, chopped

Dressing:

1 oz (about 2 tbs) lowfat Greek pineapple yogurt (I used Chobani)

juice from a small lime, about 2 tbs lime juice

1 garlic clove, minced

honey to taste (I used about 1 tbs)

Mix dressing ingredients, either with a whisk or by shaking in a jar.  Pour over quinoa mixture and mix gently.  Chill salad for a couple of hours.