Back (and better than ever)?

Yep.  This again.

I think it's time to start up the old blog again.  #1 It helped me stay accountable and lose weight before, which is something I need to do again so any tool I have that works I'm going to use!  #2 I like having a record of my life and the girls' lives and #3 It forces me to use my camera every day and the practice is good for me.  So here we go again!

My plan for now is to follow the Clean Eating Magazine 2-week menu plans while tracking the food at MyFitnessPal and also blogging about it.  The menu plans give you breakfast, lunch, dinner and 2 snacks every day for 2 weeks that are balanced plus you get a shopping list and the girls seem to like the recipes I've made so far so it's easy and it takes away the "Ugh, what on earth am I going to make for dinner" annoyingness that plagues me around 3:45 every day.  The menus tend to be about 1300 calories, so I figure I can add in a beer or an extra snack here and there and still be in a good weight-loss calorie zone.

I have been walking Emily home from school as often as the weather permits and according to my heartrate monitor I burn almost 300 calories doing just that (plus the girls love it) so that's a nice add-in.  I am also going to attempt to do some HIIT (high-intensity interval training) several times a week since everyone says that's the best way to go to keep your metabolism revved.  That is, I will do some HIIT once my stupid little tweaked back muscle starts feeling better.  And hey, as long as I'm laying out my perfect workout plan and setting my goals high why not throw in some yoga since working on my flexibility would be a very good thing.

I'm also fairly desperate to get everything else in my life in order too, so there might be a bit of gardening and organizing and such.

So back to my day:

Ezekiel sprouted english muffin, steamed spinach and 2 eggs (1 chicken, 1 duck) sprinkled with salt, pepper and chives because I had some hanging around.  Also coffee.  Always coffee.

I really like drinking my water out of stainless steel (it just tastes better), so I'm using my thinksport water bottle.  I might get myself a Kleen Kanteen or something though because the top of this is a pain to use.  Today I'm drinking my water with a squeeze of LOCALLY GROWN lime!

A few years ago we gave my Father-in-law a lime tree for his birthday (or possibly Christmas) and because he is awesome at keeping plants alive the lime tree is happy and thriving and producing real honest-to-goodness limes now.  I find that very exciting and really wish I could keep houseplants alive so that I could have my own limes.

So having committed to this Clean Eating menu plan thing, I set off for Common Market to stock up on the groceries I needed for the week.  Luckily the "car cart" in Charlotte's favorite color was available, so she was happy to pretend to be a tiger driving a car all throughout my longer-than-usual shopping trip.  Those car carts really don't have much room for groceries:

but they entertain Charlotte and it's much better than having her push her own mini cart for half of our shopping trip and then decide she didn't want to anymore causing me to have to unload it and take it back so I was willing to balance things precariously.

It occurred to me as I shopped that #1 This kind of diet is difficult to do when you're just cooking for yourself because for the sake of variety you end up having things go bad (in which case it's good to have a family around to eat the rest of my food) and #2 Having a family around can also complicate this kind of diet because I have to buy extra of some things so that I have enough oranges (or whatever) for everyone.  Plus it's expensive!  I did my best to look through it and get more of the things I would, well, need more of and it wasn't TOO terrible price-wise provided that this is my only shopping trip for the week so I'll give this approach a shot and see how it goes.

What with all the blogging and tracking and shopping this morning I missed my snack, though I did have a ginger ale Zevia and some green tea with a tablespoon of gelatin in it (something I picked up in my GAPS diet days that I still like to do for extra protein and the digestive and nail growth benefits) which kept me full enough until lunch.  Which was...

Sprouted corn tortillas with mustard, romaine and turkey lunchmeat, Amy's Black Bean Vegetable soup

 In the afternoon I visited with my mom who had stopped by, then I had my snack of oranges and almonds before heading out to get Emily.

After a brisk walk to and from the school I had my second snack (the one I was supposed to eat in the morning).

Cottage cheese with blueberries, pecans (it was supposed to be walnuts) and cinnamon

I wasn't sure about dinner...and after eating it I'm still not.  It was ok, I guess.  Not really what I was in the mood for, and though I munched on it over a long period of time I am still left feeling snacky this evening.

Tuna brazil nut burgers with garlic yogurt sauce, Ezekiel pita and greens

 I had a Jamberry-related housecall to make tonight, so I got myself all ready to go, then I dropped my iPhone in the toilet.  A hazard of carrying your phone in your back pocket :-(  It is now chillin' with some silica gel packets I've saved for just such an occasion from all the seaweed packets we eat.

Think dry thoughts

This didn't help with the me feeling stressed and snacky problem.  

I'm also a bit irritated because I plugged all my food into MyFitnessPal and it's telling me I ate 1775 calories, whereas Clean Eating says I have eaten 1366 calories which is a BIG discrepancy.  It makes the difference between allowing myself a glass of wine or a bottle of beer in the evening and not.  Right now I'm feeling like I'd REALLY like to eat something else and that I'm only through one day of what's going to be a very long journey.

But, at least I've made it through one day.