Day 4 Diary

Today I ate snacks I did not plan on eating and were a bit much. I was so hungry this afternoon so I dug into the toast. Atleast my new bread, Burgen Rye, is half the size and 1/3 the calories of my old bread, Tip Top 9 grain.

Breakfast: 1 egg on Rye with spinach, mushroom, tomotoe & 2 pc's bacon

Snack: 2 fruit cups leftover from my work snack box. 

Lunch: chicken stir fry leftovers from the freezer with sesame seeds

Snack PB & honey on rye

Dinner: 2 chicken & corn patties, 1 pc of rye with mayo & a heap of lettuce

I don't have time to enter this into Calorie King so will do so later. Must.actually.do.study.(said with gritted teeth)


I am doing Spunkysuzi blog challenge to eat 7 serves of f&v each day, as I think this is a confidence booster as it is something I can acheive. Today I just scraped in on 7 serves.

Day 3 Diary and Food-Porn

I started my day with a walk to the beach and back. While at the beach I performed a series of stretches. By the time I was walking back it was about 8:30am and very hot. I was pouring with sweat. It was an hour of walking and I burnt approximately 450 calories.

After I cooled down I was very hungry so made my favourite breakfast. I shared my newly acquired brunch obsession on facebook a while aback and got some comments on how bad it is for me. I really don't get it?

Breakky: Burgen Rye, 1 farm egg, 2 shortcut bacon slices, 1 tomato, 1 mushroom, parsley

•  According to Calorie King this breakfast was 340 calories.
•  It contains 2 servings of protein, 1 serving of complex carbs and 1-2 servings of veges ( I have been including spinach as well so it would be 2 serves).
• I do not use any oil. Half the time I don't include the bacon. When I do, the bacon is short-cut rindless and has a bit of fat. The bacon and mushroom come from my freezer and a fair bit of water comes out of them as they cook and this is just enough for it to 'fry'.
• It has far superior nutrition, enzymes, vitamins, minerals then a bowl of sugary cereal or a powdered high sugar/chemical protein shake. 

So I am happy with my brunch. Although I was very tempted to make it again for about and hour afterwards as I am not used to making reasonable sized portions. I quickly loaded the photo and kept looking at it all morning, admiring it's yumminess and remembering the sensation. Then I realised it was "food porn". Yes, this blog is creating food porn just for me. But hey if admiring a photograph stops me from getting up and making more, job done. 

My darling cat can't stand how much attention my computer gets and must interfere.

Lunch: Half a sandwich, cheese, salad, balsamic vinegar... followed by scoffing 2 candy canes

Snack: Gouda cheese and a nectarine

The ingredients to make chicken and corn patties

Dinner: 3 Chicken & corn patties, fried zucchini & lettuce

Calorie King take your exercise calories off your food calories so I ate more than this. Whoops on the 59% fat intake. It was the full-fat Gouda cheese and I put in 3 tablespoons of oil as dinner was fried.

Calories		Set Nutritional Targets
You have used 1303 out of your net daily budget of 1740 calories and have 437 calories remaining. 59% of the calories are from fat, 20% from protein, 20% from carbs and 0% from alcohol.

Day 2 Diary

Shock of the day- my pancakes were 728 calories!!!! Why? A cup of flour is 497 cals!! Lesson learnt. I ate them before I could photograph them so here is the photo of the mess left.

Breakky: 4 pancakes and passionfruit

Lunch: garden salad with a slice of Gouda cheese & balsamic vinegar

Dinner: Jasmine rice and the last of the sweet potato & chickpea curry

Snack: Plain smoothie with frozen banana and glass of milk

Other snacks: Afternoon 100g organic milk chocolate, pepsi max drinks (yes it was a mini binge)

Calories		Set Nutritional Targets
You have used 2018 out of your net daily budget of 1740 calories and have -278 calories remaining. 31% of the calories are from fat, 13% from protein, 56% from carbs and 0% from alcohol.

Activities: 90 minutess of gardening and 45 minutes brisk evening walk - approx 300 cals burnt


Went shopping allover town this morning to get bits and pieces of vegetables at decent prices. Gosh all the Aussie floods have made fresh food pricey. I am planning a fair few dishes using chicken mince as last week I picked up discounted free-range meat and froze it in my chest freezer. Eating fresh food and cheaply is like a game. I plan to document more of my saving strategies.

Day 1 Diary

Consider this day 1 of my year of investing in myself, as I have now finished up at work.
I ate very well today, as shown in the following photos. I concentrated on normal portion sizes. I would usually eat bigger portions and feel very full at the end of each meal. I did not feel full after any meal today, it will take some work to shrink my stomach size and get used to eating less. I was so hungry all afternoon!

Breakky #1 Pineapple and passionfruit

Breakky #2 Egg on Rye with spinach, mushroom, zucchini & green chilli

Lunch: Peri Peri Chicken thigh, lettuce & onion

Dinner: Sweet potato and chickpea curry with Jasmine rice

Dinner was put together from the freezer. Click here to see the making of the curry.

Snacks: 6 almonds, pepitas, fresh pineapple,1 candycane and still hungry so will have a bananna smoothie with LSA.

Everything was entered into Calorie King in reasonably exact measures. The lowest calorie meal was lunch at 162 cals and the danger item is the banana smoothie at 360 cals.

Calories		Set Nutritional Targets
You have used 1549 out of your net daily budget of 1740 calories and have 191 calories remaining. 33% of the calories are from fat, 18% from protein, 50% from carbs and 0% from alcohol.

I enjoy Cooking and Freezing Food

Well its the weekend and it has been a full-on week. As expected. The QLD floods are just terrible, we are used to some other place in the world having such tragedies. No point whining as the point of this diary is to be "brighter" about things as well as losing weight and living cheaply. Brighter side is 1 more week of hellish work left. Brighter side is though I am behind in my study and haven't done a big essay that is nearly due, I can empower myself and just start it and stop robbing myself of success. Also I am happy because I realised I can apply for a one week extension.

I bought approximately 70 bananas at 99c/kg because apparently they will skyrocket in price because of the floods. I froze them for my smoothies by peeling them and stacking in 4 big containers and put in the bottom of my chest freezer. I then donated $30 to the flood victims which is the minimum I will save on bananas. Measly amount of money to donate, I know!!

Freezing bananas

Did a bit of cooking therapy on Saturday. I wanted carbs so I made spicy spaghetti.

The ingredients. The green chilli, red chilli and garlic is what makes it spicy

Fry it up

Added tomato paste and ricotta

The avocado makes it taste so creamy and luxurious

There was 3-4 serves so into the freezer for weeknight dinners. When you freeze alot like I do you can line a container with a bag and once it has started to freeze, remove the container.

Now the container can be used again and again instead and the food is less bulky in the freezer,

I have really been enjoying mineral water with three ice-cubes of frozen fruit blend that I made
 as seen in this post 
very sweet and delicious

That's about it. Eaten a fair bit of junk food at work and on the way home so not weighing myself!!

Not brighter or Lighter

Well I'm been back at work for my last 2 weeks and it's like pulling fingernails. My eczma is back in full force, I pulled my back just like I did last year when I was really under the pressure (I hold myself tense all the time then when I twist or bend it cracks. I go the chiro and get it put back in place and 2 weeks later its fine.) It hurts.

Can't be brighter or lighter so I am checking out of reality and will come alive again in 2 weeks!

Saturday 8th December 2011 Diary

I'll start with the good..

*Excercise*

90 minute walk to beach, 11471 steps, 6.3km, 680 calories burnt

Avert your eyes if you can't take reading about people who fall off the wagon...

*Food*

Morning: Nothing.Woke up late, like to walk on empty stomach, wasn't hungry when I got back

12:30 3 shortcut bacon rashers, 2 eggs, tomato, mushroom, Rye toast and a smoothie with 2/3 milk, 1/3 water, 1/2 frozen banana and 4 frozen strawberries.

5:00  Went down the street to the little market and came home and ate: 2 and 1/2 hot dogs with cheese, mustard and tomato sauce, 5 glasses of Pepsi Max and 3/4 box of Indulge chocolate fudge filled  chocolate chip cookies.

No worries tomorrow is another day, one day at a time, each day without a binge is a success. So today is not a success, yesterday was and tomorrow will be. I am this size for a reason, I have been doing this atleast 5 times a week.

Now I have whole packets of hot dogs and hot dog buns. Damn hot dogs are disgusting. Even my cat wont eat a hot dog.

Lunch: Bacon and eggs

If anyone is reading this can you please let me know if you see my name or anything personally identifying show up... this blog definitely needs to stay on low down :)

Friday 7th January 2011 Diary

*Food*  Fresh food oh yeah!!
8:00   Green Smoothie with water, 1/2 frozen banana, nectarine, lettuce and mint
12.30 Sandwich (Burgen Rye bread, cheese, mayo, lettuce, tomato, cucumber) and celery sticks
3:20   Air popped pop-corn with a smidge of butter and salt, home-made fruit ice-block
7:00   Stir-fry tofu, Chinese broccoli, carrot and rice noodles with 1 spoon of hoisin sauce, sesame oil

Old nectarines, a pear, mint from the garden & canned pineapple to make ice-blocks

Added a bit of water and blended with a stick-mixer

Freeze ice blocks, 4 hours later you have sweet, pulpy, ice blocks

Lunch: Sandwich and celery

Snack Attack: popcorn

Ingredients used to make stir-fry dinner

Dinner: Stir Fry

*Exercise*
None

Really did not do much today and was quite lazy apart from making good food.

Thursday 6th January 2011 Diary

*Food*
Morning: Banana and strawberry smoothie with milk
Lunch: Pork marinated in lime and coriander sauce and some frozen stirfry veges, dash of olive oil
Dinner: At a restaurant - Baked mushroom with fetta and almonds, shared hot chips, shared lamb souvlaki, shared rocket salad, no drinks
Desert: a mini mint slice at McCafe, it was a teeny thing, just 1 mouthful

Interestingly, this is the first meat I have eaten in 7 days, apart from 1 slice of ham. I want to minimise meat ( not including fish) but still eat it sometimes as I am trying to hedge my bets by not being vegetarian but still eating meat.

Yuk, frozen veges from the bottom of my freezer and marinated  pork

Yukky lunch: Coriander and lime pork and veges stir-fry

*Excercise*

Light walking by the river in town

The single saving girl and the diet

I am so excited. I have to go into town tonight for social reasons and am going to do my grocery shopping afterwards. Yay fresh food!!! I have avoided any shopping for 10 days now, as I am being frugal and using what I have on hand.

I am going to have to give some real thought to how I combine fresh food, bulk cooking, single serves, saving money and losing weight through eating natural foods (not commercial processed diet foods).

Wednesday 5th January 2010 Diary

*Food*
9:00 Banana and strawberry smoothie with LSA mixed in
11:30 4 Corn thins with butter and Vegemite
1:30 Flapjacks made with carrot, potato, broccoli stalks, onion, garlic and chilli, eggs, olive oil, lemon dressing
7:00 Was full from big lunch so had home made Rocky Road muffins and a glass of milk (yes, I am deliberately vague about the portion size)

So, I entered exactly what I ate, portions etc in Calorie King (thanks Twisted Soul for the reminder about this site) and nearly fell-over. I went way over the calories. I am not eating like I am on a diet though as I am just trying to get some nutrition into my body and stop the daily junk food super-binge at this point, but it really is far too many calories. Calorie King also tells me that 51% of my calories are from fat?!?!!! On the one hand I think it overstated the muffins as I put in some commercial brand and mine would have had far less fat and sugar. However I have learnt:

• My smoothie is 482 calories! I will now use half a banana as a whole banana is 200 calories, replace 1/3 of the milk with half a cup of water
• I will live with the fact that LSA is very high calorie. Its about getting the right nutrition not just losing fat so I'm keeping the Linseed, Sunflower Seed, Almond mix!
• I ate too many flapjacks. Vegetables still have calories.

This was grated and fried into flapjacks, minus the corn as it wasn't needed. I ate the flapjacks too quick to photograph.

*Exercise*

20 mins walk, intended to do more but it rained alot.

I am going to stay motivated and do more. I might have thought I was doing OK if I didn't lay it out on this blog and see that I need to do better. Its so funny how the mind plays little tricks and you just cruise along thinking all is well.

I am returning to work for my last 2 weeks, in a few days, and am REALLY feeling the anxiety.

Tuesday 3rd January 2011 Diary

*Food*
Morning: Nothing
12:30 Bean Burrito with cheese, sweet chilli sauce and a large tomato
4:00   2 mini Rocky Road homemade muffins, cup of Lavender tea with milk
8:30   Sweet potato and Chicpea curry
My food is not including enough leafy greens or raw food but I am trying to use up items I have without doing much shopping. Definitely think I will have to drive into town and get some salad ingredients though as my potted vege garden is a bit bare.

*Exercise*
30 minute walk
Hard yakka mowing the lawn, whipper snipping the edges (I have avoided this for over a year, boy do my arms hurt now), sweeping the concrete and raking the cut grass.

Rocky Road muffins, not healthy but I put in very little sugar as the frozen berries would provide the sweet and only a bit of oil, they turned out a bit hard because of that. 

Made Rocky Road muffins for guests that never came 

Sweet potato and chickpea curry ingredients, had to use up a kg of sweet potato!

Fried off the onion etc, then threw everything in and covered with water

Will blend the rest and freeze in portions. Would be good with rice but I didn't have any and figured I would live without the carbs after the muffins.

Monday 3rd January 2011 Diary

*Food*
10:00 1 egg
1:00  2 grain roles with ham, lettuce, tomatoes, mixed herbs and 2 spoons tabbouleh
4:00 Leftover tabbouleh (very healthy and yum)
8:00 Pasta with carrot, broccolini, mushroom, garlic and chilli in a ricotta tomoto sauce

Cooking Dinner

Veges and pasta

A lake where we sat and read while my brother kayaked

Pretty plants in the sand and the ocean and mountains in the distance

This sand wall was very tough to climb

But the view from the top was excellent

*Excercise*

I spent the day on a family picnic that invoved a fair bit of activity. Lots of little walks around different venues. I climbed up a sand wall which was pretty hard going! 

*Brighter Moment*

It was a lovely day. I live in a truly beautiful part of the world.