My Apologies

My apologies for this lackluster post. I am feeling a bit under the weather; I think I'm coming down with a cold, but I'm fighting it's onset hard with mega Vitamin C, B-12, neti pot and basically lying around doing nothing. Dust and dishes are piling up, but I'm just not in the mood to do anything about it! Hopefully, tomorrow I'll be A-O.k. So, here's a quick synopsis of what I ate today...



Breakfast was a little something different: 1/2 c. fat free ricotta cheese with a bit of Splenda mixed in and topped with 3 oz. sliced strawberries and a tbsp. homemade cinnamon granola...







For the record, this kind of breakfast, although packed with 12 g. protein, does not hold me over very long. I was pacing around "waiting" for lunchtime to roll around. Isn't that ridiculous? It's like, if you're hungry just eat already! But, nooooooo. I didn't want to spend any extra POINTS before their time! Note to self : get a new strategy - this does not work! (read on - you will see why). So, finally I decided it was time to eat lunch and I wanted to try these Spinach, Fontina and Roasted Garlic Chicken Sausages...

Yes, I said FONTINA !!!! I never met a cheese I didn't like, but Fontina is my number one favorite! One of these sausages is 140 cal. and 8 gr. fat which comes to 3 POINTS. They are fully cooked and just need a little pan fry for about 12 min. I did this in a dry nonstick skillet which worked great. But, 12 minutes seemed like an eternity, so I began to snack on the last bit of homemade hummus and a few carrots...

I couldn't really come up with a creative condiment for the sausage, so I decided to let it stand alone on a light hot dog bun. Heck, it's got Fontina; what else could it possibly need??!! To go alongside, I had 1 c. Trader Joe's Creamy Tomato Soup with a few New York Style 96% fat free mini bagel chips...

So, here's where my "note to self" comes in. This lunch, although filling, came and went too fast. I powered it all down without really "tasting" everything. Therefore, I was not full "mentally". I started digging into all kinds of snacks such as, baked potato chips, cheese, some pieces of chocolate, crackers, etc. I kept switching from salty to sweet, sweet to salty. Ugh! Here's where the lesson learned comes in: if I had just eaten earlier, when I was hungry, regardless of the "time", I might have headed this all off. I may not have been in that mode of "urgency to eat" and could have been able to eat more mindfully. Lessons, lessons, lessons. Everyday is an opportunity to know myself better and help manage these bad eating habits. I'm not thrilled about wasting all those POINTS on mindless eating, but I'm not gonna beat myself up as I usually do. Time to move on...

NEXT!

Yes, my next meal was back on track. Dinner was Turkey Meatloaf and roasted sweet potatoes. You may be thinking what happened to pizza night - it IS Friday night, right???? Yeah, the husband and daughters were thinking that, too. But hey, sometimes you just gotta mess with them, you know???!!!! Along with the meatloaf and sweet potatoes, I had a Sundried Tomato and Garlic Roll. A healthy 7 POINT dinner...

No dessert tonight. You KNOW I must be sick. Gonna cozy up in bed and dream of wellness. Happy Friday =0)

Sequestered

I am sequestered in my room right now, away from my family members. Not because they are annoying, (well at least not so far tonight) but because if I stay downstairs with them, I will continue to eat. I am in a snacky mood tonight and I already overate a little, so I'm trying to nip any further damage in the bud!

Let me backtrack to lunch when things were looking a little better...
For lunch, I popped one of these guys in the micro...



I think I have posted about these before; they are so good! I find them in the natural foods section of my local Giant. They "taste like chicken"!! Imagine that. A good buy for only 2 Points. I had it on an Arnold Sandwich Thin (I can never be without these now!) with some lettuce and 2% cheese. A sliced apple and (you know I gotta have 'em )Kettle Baked Potato Chips filled up the rest of the plate...


For my afternoon nosh, I had 2/3 c. plain yogurt, 4 sliced strawberries and a scant 1/4 c. of my Cinnamon Granola...

Alright, here's where things started going a little awry. I made it a point to watch Oprah today because she was going to announce to the world for the zillionth time why she has regained her weight. I watched her tell her story and I really felt for her; really connected with her tales of woe. Then, I felt instantly depressed because if Oprah can't get this flippin weigh loss thing down, with all of her personal chefs, spiritual gurus and personal trainers then how the heck am I gonna do this???!!!! Ugh! I don't know why it bothered me, but it did. I got too caught up in it and I shouldn't let Oprah mess me UP! I'm not blaming her really, it's not her fault that I can't control myself. Anyhow, while watching the show, I was in the process of preparing this very healthy dinner of baked chicken drumsticks with roasted fennel and carrots. I also pulled out a Sundried Tomato and Garlic Roll from the freezer to go with it...

While I was roasting this lovely, healthy dinner (hear that, Oprah!!), I shoveled a large handful of pretzel sticks, a small string cheese and 4 real potato chips. Greaaaat :l Then, I sat down to eat the nice healthy dinner in a 'scarf it down to just get it over with' way. Not an example of mindful eating. At this point, I am still a bit depressed and have now added stressed because I just ate crap I didn't need/want and I have signed myself up for the BLBE 2 and now I fear that I will suck royally at this and totally let my team down:( In an effort to bring myself out of this depressed eating state, I made cookies! WHAT??? I know. I believe it has already been established that I need counseling in this area:P Thankfully, I made a healthy -ish cookie. I came up with a pumpkin choco-chip cookie to use up the rest of my leftover canned pumpkin (yeah, that's why I did it). I ate two of these for 2 Points...

Which brings me back to my room where I have fled from the clutches of cookies and chips. I made some tea and decided to post early to signify the end of the eating. Now I can get to bed early and spend some quality time with the husband where he can breathe all over me and spread his bubonic plague. Ooooh, can't wait :P

Long List

I made a long to-do list for today. I'm trying to get organized and part of my agenda today includes finishing up Christmas cards and taking inventory of the daughters' unwanted/unplayed with toys so that I can give them to Goodwill. We'll see how that goes!



A low key breakfast was in order this morning. I don't know why I haven't had much appetite in the morning. I need that to be the case in the afternoon when I really like to munch! Anyway, I decided to get in my dairy requirement with 1 cup of plain nonfat yogurt (I do use a little Splenda in this, I can't stomach it plain), some sliced banana and 1/4 c. of my cinnamon granola...



The banana was nice and sweet. A tasty combo.

Time to "organize"; be back later...

Party Recap & The Morning After

The Christmas Party was lots of fun last night. Our family has a wonderful aunt that throws a fun girls night Christmas party every year(for the past 27!!). There's always lots of laughing and good food, "bad food" and "bad cookies"! I had a bit of a light eating day, so I had some room to play. The food was laid out buffett style and guess what was there -PIZZA!! Well, it IS Friday night! I can never get away from it; it follows me everywhere!!! But, knowing that I had some free flowing Points and that I wouldn't make a complete pig of myself at a party, I decided this was a perfect time to try out some Friday night pizza, again. I took a small corner slice and chose a yummy tomato mozzarella salad and some carrot cranberry salad that I made...



Mission accomplished. I was able to eat A piece of pizza! Whoo hoo! I can't give myself all the credit, though. I think the main reason I was able to accomplish this major task of not waffling down tons of pizza is because I spent much of my time talking with cousin Katie about diet, exercise and running. We both want to try to run a race/marathon and we spent time discussing our trials and tribulations with running outdoors. So, THANK YOU KATIE for keeping me from shoveling massive quantities of pizza in my mouth!!!

I stayed away from the vast array of candy and chocolate that was lurking at every turn, but I did finally make my way to the dessert table to "just see" what was there. And what did I see...BROWNIES a.k.a. my kryptonite!! I ran to find some duct tape to put over my mouth, but decided it wasn't conducive to being social at a holiday gathering. Ugh. But, I did bring some lowfat Caramel Kiss Cookies, remember?? Oh, yeah. So, I had two of those. Then I sequestered myself to the other side of the room, far.. far... away from the brownies with horns:)

I didn't get home til 1 a.m. Whew, way too late for me. The husband insists I will be cranky all day today, but I am determined to prove him wrong . Happy, happy, that's me :) :) :)

I wasn't so hungry this morning, either. Nothing seemed too appetizing. I decided on some yogurt with a few really lame strawberries (they were deceased) and 1/4 c. of my Cinnamon Granola. I think my eyes were definitely bigger than my stomach, but after I started eating it, I felt like I wanted it (that's so weird, isn't it?) so I did eat it all...


A good healthy 3 Point start to the uncranky day I am going to have :)