8/11/09 - A Bad Day

One of the challenges of this eating plan is taking enough food to work to keep myself from getting hungry, going down to the gift shop, and getting potato chips. I go in every day with my messenger bag bulging with tupperware containers, and, frankly, it gets annoying. I feel so bulky. It'd be fine if I drove to work and parked right by the building, but I'm a good environmentalist and I take the bus, doing my best not to take more than one person's space.

I keep experimenting with how to time lunch to minimize the need to snack. Lately I've been pushing it later and later, around 1:00 or 1:30, hoping that'll keep me from getting hungry around 3:00, like I usually do. Problem is, it's not working. Apparently I'm just wired to get hungry then no matter what or when I ate earlier. And now that I'm eating a smaller, less fatty breakfast, I can't go till 1:00 or 1:30 without getting hungry. So I eat the snack I'd planned to eat in the afternoon around 11:00 or 11:30, and then try to do without an afternoon snack, or just eat fruit. And it doesn't work, and I end up with potato chips. Ugh.

So, just to keep myself honest, here's what I ate today, plus my probable dinner:

Breakfast
Muesli with almond milk
Dr Pepper

Snack
peanut butter crackers

Lunch
Leftover pasta
Cucumber slices
Coke (I meant to get a Diet Coke, but none of them were cold, and nothing tastes more disgusting than warm diet soda. And yes, I could and should have just drunk water from the office cooler.)

Snack
Blueberries (which didn't cut into my hunger AT ALL)
potato chips
Butterfinger Bar

Sigh. Fail. They didn't even taste that good

Dinner
Macaroni & cheese
Banana

August 10

So I've decided to get back to this blog. I'm due for my annual physical in about two months, so I'm going to track what I'm eating to keep myself on the plan. I want to see if two months of improved eating is enough to make at least a tiny dent in my triglyceride and cholesterol numbers.

Don't know how much I'll comment beyond listing what I eat, because that's why this blog grew cobwebs in the first place--when I'm already spending more time preparing food and cleaning up, blogging in detail was too much of an added burden. But maybe I'll list good quick recipes as I discover them. That could be useful to someone other than me.

Breakfast
- Bowl of homemade muesli with almond milk
- Dr Pepper

Morning snack
- Peanut butter sandwich on whole wheat

Lunch
- Pasta w/ salami and cherry tomatoes
- Carrots
- Banana
- Diet Coke

Afternoon snack
- Brown bag popcorn with a little butter and salt

Dinner
- Salad with Italian sausage, red onion, and bell peppers
- Bread

Starbucks
- Tall Earl Grey Tea Latte
- Coffee Cake