SCBR Week 6/ Day 6 Food/Exercise Journal

8:00 am – Coffee + PB Toast – First Signs of Feeling Full (6)

I had PB Toast with GH Oat Bran and TJ’s Valencia Flaxseed PB with a brew of 1/2 Breakfast Blend and 1/2 Almond Amaretto.

I learned earlier today, according to the article I linked to earlier, that my frequent breakfast eats of PB and whole wheat is a great combo! Apparently, the nutrition of each of these two are enhanced by one another.

I think the flavor of the PB Toast is enhanced nicely by a nice, hot mug of coffee!

12:30 pm – McAlister’s Deli – First Signs of Feeling Full (6)

I went with a couple co-workers to grab McAlister’s Deli for lunch. I, of course, had to get one of their delicious sweet teas – they are the best! Like I’ve mentioned here on TCL before, I have certain drinks that I just have to have with certain meals or at certain restaurants – this is one of those places. The McAlister’s tea is a must for me. I only wish I could get a smaller size (or better yet a kid’s size) because I simply cannot drink this much tea in one sitting – the cup is 32 fl oz! I only had 1/2 of this today.

I vegged it out today since it’s Lent and got the Taco salad with veggie chili. The flavor combo was quite good, but I think I prefer my lettuce cool and crisp. The lettuce got kinda wilted down by the hot chili.

I did what I could but only ate about half…or possibly even only 1/3.

My dessert stomach was still hungry and I find McAlister’s chocolate chip cookies extra-irresistible, so I couldn’t help but get one. If I ate at McAlister’s more often, I’d have an easier time resisting…I don’t think I’ve been to a McAlister’s in about 2 months.

2:30 pm – Clementine + Prune – Content (5)

I was feeling snacky later on after lunch and my boss was kind enough to let me have another clementine. It was so sweet and juicy – just delicious!

I tried to eat some prunes, too, but I only managed 1. I don’t think these are really “my thing.” I am going to give them another try, though. The flavor is fine, but the texture is…just ok. I’m still hoping to make something with them tomorrow since they’re this week’s challenge ingredient.

5:00 pm – Clif Energy – Chocolate Chip – Content (5)

I’ve gotten into the habit of eating one of these Clif bars before my zumba workout for the past couple weeks. I’m not sure if they actually give me energy or it makes me just think I have more energy, but so far, I’m rather enjoying them as my pre-workout snack. Does any one know what you should eat before you workout? I’ve always done carbalicious stuff like oatmeal or granola bars. What do you eat before you workout?

For today, I had a Clif Energy bar in Chocolate Chip. I have to say, I think this is my fave Clif Energy flavor so far….it was quite good! I didn’t read the label, but I swear I tasted cinnamon! The texture was nice and chewy and the flavor was really good, too.

I seem to remember, several years ago, people talking about how bad Clif bars tasted. I don’t know if Clif re-evaluated their formula or those people were wrong, but I’ve been enjoying my Clif bars.

5:45 pm – Zumba – Upbeat

I had an amazing zumba class tonight! Every class seems to get better and better. We danced our hineys off for a full hour and must have burned a ton of calories – roughly 500, according to fitday.com. You’d think as long as I’ve been doing this class that I’d be really good with the dances, but the instructors are amazing and always coming up with fabulous new dances. There were a couple dances tonight where I felt particularly uncoordinated, but I still had fun.

I’m working on not checking my watch as much when I workout. I tend to be curious about how long we’ve been working out…how much time is left…not because I want the class to be over but just because I’m curious. Tonight, I didn’t let myself look. Not. One. Time. I just let loose, danced away and enjoyed each dance as they came along. I felt much less distracted and more in tune with class, so I’m going to have to keep working on this.

8:30 pm – Soup, Salad, + Buttered Toast – First Signs of Feeling Full (6)

Part of the reason I’ve been a wee bit frustrated about eating out so much this week is because we have TON of fresh veggies in our fridge. I decided to make the most of them tonight with dinner. Hubby left me a VM while I was at Zumba to let me know he was out with the boys watching bball, so I had dinner solo.

I started out by making a simple veggie soup because I was so darn cold in the apartment! I LOVE veggie soups. They are great for using up leftover veggies, make nice additions to meals, make nice lunches on the smaller side, and freeze nicely for a rainy day.

I took extra notice of the colors of the soup veggies, since that was a change for SCBR Week 6:

• Red – Tomatoes
• Orange – Carrots
• Yellow – Corn
• Green – Peas, Celery

The main attraction of tonight’s dinner, however, was to be a gigantic, fresh-veggie salad. I wasn’t sure if you would be able to see everything once I put it all together, so I took progress shots. I started with a big bed of baby spinach.

Then I added celery…

…3 colors of peppers…

…English cucumber slices…

…carrots…

…roma tomato slices…

…feta cheese…

…and to top it all off – Drew’s Rosemary Balsamic dressing – my fave! This was the last of the bottle, so I’m going to have to re-stock very soon…I am going on 4 bottles straight without finding a dressing I like better.

I did a pretty good job with the colors on this part of the meal, too:

• Red – roma tomatoes, red peppers
• Orange – carrots, orange peppers
• Yellow – yellow peppers
• Green – spinach, celery, cucumber

It’s hard to find good blue or purple veggies. I thought about having some blueberries for dessert, but I didn’t really want any.

I was really happy about dinner and looked forward to filling my belly with lots of fresh, natural, and healthy ingredients. It’s weird how the healthier you eat, the more you want to eat healthy.

I barely ended up eating any of the soup. I used to be an anti-salad person. I never found them to be very filling and hated to get them as entrees. Well, the salad tonight certainly did a fab job of filling me up because I only ended up eating roughly 1/4 of my soup.

I did manage to eat this entire piece of Great Harvest Oat Bran bread. I’m such a carb lover…and this bread, toasted, and topped simply with 1/2 tbsp of real butter was sooo good! I really wanted to eat the bread first, but I figured, logically, the soup would keep better than the bread anyways, so the bread had to be eaten asap. 🙂

I just had water to drink.

11:45 pm – Hot Milk – Content (5)

I’m going to go heat up a 1/2 cup of 2% milk after I’m done with this post. I could use some more calories (and have already added these in to today’s total) and I hear hot milk (or is it just milk – hot or cold) helps you sleep.

Summary

Calories Eaten: 1491
Calories Burned: 538
Net Calories: 953

Yikes! I’m under 1000 for the day…that doesn’t seem right…is this bad? I feel like I should go eat something, but I’m not really hungry. I already have some milk planned after this post.

The calorie count for tonight’s dinner was soooo low – mostly because I filled up on fresh veggies and held off on heavy dressings, cheeses, and other toppings. I wasn’t trying to eat a low calorie dinner tonight, I just really wanted to eat a bunch of the fresh veggies we have before they go bad…and because they’re quite tasty.

I’m a little perplexed by the under-1000 calorie total for the day. I’m still pretty new to calorie counting, so I don’t know what this means. Should I have eaten more? Should I have eaten foods with more calories? Planned my day out better? Go have a piece of cake? jk about the cake. hehe. Maybe under-1000 calorie days just happen? I really felt like I had a full day of eating, so I don’t think I deprived myself of anything. Any tips guys?