Yesterday went smoothly, although we did not do our four mile walk. Neither of us has had abundant energy since beginning this One Week Challenge, and after all of the body and energy work I'd had the previous three days, it was time to take a break. Today I moved my middle son into his dorm, which involved lifting and carrying on a day that is supposed to be a "break" day from the 8 minute exercise plan - oh well.
Yesterday's menus looked like this:
Breakfast: Chili Relleno Bake (essentially home-roasted Anaheim peppers sprinkled with a bit of low-fat Mexican-style cheese and a combo of whole eggs and egg whites whisked with some baking powder and salt and pepper).
Snack: Chocolate Protein Powder shake with unsweetened almond breeze
Lunch: More Chili Relleno Bake
Snack: low-fat, hormone-free mozzarella cheese stick, and 2 Almond Butter Cups since I could spare the carb servings (Recipe for Almond Butter Cups)
Dinner: 4 ounces of delicious pan-fried steak (Richard had marinated tofu), spring greens with a bit of parmesan cheese and homemade red wine vinegar dressing, and some strawberries and blueberries with an ounce or two of nonfat plain yogurt sweetened with stevia.
Today:
Breakfast: 2 blue cornmeal pancakes with stevia-sweetened maple syrup
strawberries and blueberries with an ounce of non-fat plain yogurt with stevia
Snack: Chocolate whey protein powder shake with unsweetened chocolate Almond Breeze
Lunch: (out with son at Egg & I) veggie fritatta (no mushrooms, no green peppers, no toast, no English muffin, and no potatoes - this made it is "free" Sugar/Carb meal, and it was very satisfying this way.
Snack: Matcha green tea frappuccino (Match green tea with stevia blended with unsweetened plain Almond Breeze and Vanilla protein powder shake (Jay Robb- sweetened with stevia).
Plus we cannot forget our daily Almond Butter Cup allotment!
Dinner: looks like it's going to be some roasted Anaheim peppers, mixed with some combo of cheese and corn tortillas (enough to make our carbs count, but not over-count), and probably a salad, too.
I do have to say, that on this diet, we have increased our saturated fat intake (cheese, a little bit of cream in the first frapuccino (Day 1), which can be tough on cholesterol levels, so I/we are thinking when we come to modifying our intake in light of sugar content of foods, we will be searching for a happier intake of types of fats.
Having said all of that, I did sneak a peak at the scale this morning, and am at 200.4 pounds, which means that I've lost 3.4 lb in the last five days following this eating plan and doing the 8 minute exercises each morning. We'll see on Monday what the grand total is and the difference from last week's waist measurement, and maybe I'll actually be under 200 lb, probably for the first time in several years. That would be pretty cool (as would seeing it decrease more and more!)
Showing posts with label whey protein powder. Show all posts
Showing posts with label whey protein powder. Show all posts
Saturday, August 13, 2011
Thursday, August 11, 2011
Day Four: One-Week Challenge aka "Sugar Awareness Week"
"Challenge" is a good word. When four spears of asparagus (yes, that is FOUR SPEARS) count for two of your daily SIX allotted Carb servings, and 1 of your 15 Sugars, then that's a serious challenge.
As Richard and I walked this morning, we agreed that after this "Challenge" week is over, that we needn't count any of our vegetables as Carb servings. He is really feeling the lack of carbs, as he has always had a fast metabolism, and naturally needs more food. I keep offering for him to increase his carbs, but he insists he's going to complete the challenge "as is". I even just offered him my last Carb, and he rejected it.
I made a visit to a new (to me) acupuncturist, who, after a thorough intake and constitutional assessment, highly suggested that I eat grass-fed, hormone-free red meat (which will work well with this Belly Fat Diet, thankfully), but she also recommended greatly restricting the gluten-free breads and processed foods (which we've also been doing anyway due to the carb and sugar content of all breads, we clearly have to make every carb count with this). She suggests following more of a "paleo" type diet, restricting refined carbs and keeping fat intake moderate. Obviously that is going to take a bit more research and planning. She was very much "for" my becoming sugar-aware, and was in agreement with the craziness of the nitpicky details of the Belly Fat Cure.
Having said all that, we trudge ahead, even with our lower energy levels. We like the protein shakes and reducing our sugar intake, and will likely take those two aspects with us into our future plan. The acupuncturist also encouraged strength training, which we have introduced into our daily life through the Belly Fat Cure, so will likely move that forward and increase it with our new plan as well. She is very much for our starting up tai chi and/or yoga again to help with daily life balance and keeping our energy flowing.
We are past the half-way point, just days 5, 6, and 7 to go. We will see what results come from this week. As of today I'd lost 0.8 pounds, so I have a way to go to the 4-9 pounds in one week "promised" with the Belly Fat Cure. Perhaps if my diet was completely horrible and I didn't move regularly, this 4-9 pound loss would be attainable in one week. But a big part of me is thinking that rate of weight loss is simply unhealthy.
As Richard and I walked this morning, we agreed that after this "Challenge" week is over, that we needn't count any of our vegetables as Carb servings. He is really feeling the lack of carbs, as he has always had a fast metabolism, and naturally needs more food. I keep offering for him to increase his carbs, but he insists he's going to complete the challenge "as is". I even just offered him my last Carb, and he rejected it.
I made a visit to a new (to me) acupuncturist, who, after a thorough intake and constitutional assessment, highly suggested that I eat grass-fed, hormone-free red meat (which will work well with this Belly Fat Diet, thankfully), but she also recommended greatly restricting the gluten-free breads and processed foods (which we've also been doing anyway due to the carb and sugar content of all breads, we clearly have to make every carb count with this). She suggests following more of a "paleo" type diet, restricting refined carbs and keeping fat intake moderate. Obviously that is going to take a bit more research and planning. She was very much "for" my becoming sugar-aware, and was in agreement with the craziness of the nitpicky details of the Belly Fat Cure.
Having said all that, we trudge ahead, even with our lower energy levels. We like the protein shakes and reducing our sugar intake, and will likely take those two aspects with us into our future plan. The acupuncturist also encouraged strength training, which we have introduced into our daily life through the Belly Fat Cure, so will likely move that forward and increase it with our new plan as well. She is very much for our starting up tai chi and/or yoga again to help with daily life balance and keeping our energy flowing.
We are past the half-way point, just days 5, 6, and 7 to go. We will see what results come from this week. As of today I'd lost 0.8 pounds, so I have a way to go to the 4-9 pounds in one week "promised" with the Belly Fat Cure. Perhaps if my diet was completely horrible and I didn't move regularly, this 4-9 pound loss would be attainable in one week. But a big part of me is thinking that rate of weight loss is simply unhealthy.
Monday, August 8, 2011
Day One Update 8-8-11
Update on our plan, and foods discovered:
The day was successful. It is quite eye-opening to discover just how much sugar is in our usual healthy foods. For example, for 1 tablespoon of balsamic vinegar, we had to count 2 Sugars. Rice wine vinegar would have cost none, but I didn't have any on hand for the dressing I was making with the olive oil and garlic. 1/4 cup of brown rice has 38 grams of carbs, which count for 2 of the 6 Carb servings we are allowed each day. It's only a 1/4 of a cup, which is not much, but good to remember when it comes to portions eating out.
I tried the green tea frappuccino recipe in Jorge Cruise's Belly Fat Cure book, he calls it the "Energize Me Green Tea" with only 1 Sugar count and one Carb serving count, and I'm not sure where he's coming up with either. It's meant to be a replacement for Starbucks "Belly Bad" Tazo Green Tea Frappuccino Blended Creme beverage (at 69 whopping grams of sugar for their "lightly sweetened" version.) Yikes! This healthier recipe contains a total of 1/2 cup of heavy cream per serving, which is a LOT more saturated fat than we are accustomed to. It definitely creamed up the drink, and the product was mighty tasty, but Richard and I agree that it was a bit too heavy, and it would probably be just as good with the unsweetened Almond Breeze instead. The recipe calls for Jay Robb Vanilla Whey Protein Powder which would help thicken it up a bit even without the heavy cream. It was a good experiment though. I will definitely feel better about it without the thick cream. Regardless, even with that thick rich drink we managed to stay within our 15 grams of Sugar and 6 Carb servings.
We found a little challenge with getting Sugar counts without Carb serving counts, because everything we'd had in the day until that point had both. We solved that by having berries (strawberries, blueberries and blackberries) with enough goat yogurt to count for Sugar but not Carb servings.
On that note, we were a little dismayed to find out that our stevia-sweetened drinks (like Zero Vitamin Water and Sobe-life water) also contain maltilol, a sugar alcohol, so they each contain 1 Carb serving, even if they don't count in the sugar counts. so, those will have to be incorporated carefully. We were, however, delighted to discover that the Virgil's Diet Root Beer and Diet Cola are sweetened only with stevia, so count for no sugar grams and NO carb servings. Hooray!
Even our psyllium husks count for a Carb serving, if we take the full 2 1/2 tablespoons. So, since I was out of Carb servings, I took only 1 Tablespoon, which kept the total grams of carbs at 4 grams, so zero servings, and I still got some beneficial additional fiber.
We walked our delightful route into and through town and around our local lake. It was a gorgeous day, and I feel very good about our first day of the challenge.
The day was successful. It is quite eye-opening to discover just how much sugar is in our usual healthy foods. For example, for 1 tablespoon of balsamic vinegar, we had to count 2 Sugars. Rice wine vinegar would have cost none, but I didn't have any on hand for the dressing I was making with the olive oil and garlic. 1/4 cup of brown rice has 38 grams of carbs, which count for 2 of the 6 Carb servings we are allowed each day. It's only a 1/4 of a cup, which is not much, but good to remember when it comes to portions eating out.
I tried the green tea frappuccino recipe in Jorge Cruise's Belly Fat Cure book, he calls it the "Energize Me Green Tea" with only 1 Sugar count and one Carb serving count, and I'm not sure where he's coming up with either. It's meant to be a replacement for Starbucks "Belly Bad" Tazo Green Tea Frappuccino Blended Creme beverage (at 69 whopping grams of sugar for their "lightly sweetened" version.) Yikes! This healthier recipe contains a total of 1/2 cup of heavy cream per serving, which is a LOT more saturated fat than we are accustomed to. It definitely creamed up the drink, and the product was mighty tasty, but Richard and I agree that it was a bit too heavy, and it would probably be just as good with the unsweetened Almond Breeze instead. The recipe calls for Jay Robb Vanilla Whey Protein Powder which would help thicken it up a bit even without the heavy cream. It was a good experiment though. I will definitely feel better about it without the thick cream. Regardless, even with that thick rich drink we managed to stay within our 15 grams of Sugar and 6 Carb servings.
We found a little challenge with getting Sugar counts without Carb serving counts, because everything we'd had in the day until that point had both. We solved that by having berries (strawberries, blueberries and blackberries) with enough goat yogurt to count for Sugar but not Carb servings.
On that note, we were a little dismayed to find out that our stevia-sweetened drinks (like Zero Vitamin Water and Sobe-life water) also contain maltilol, a sugar alcohol, so they each contain 1 Carb serving, even if they don't count in the sugar counts. so, those will have to be incorporated carefully. We were, however, delighted to discover that the Virgil's Diet Root Beer and Diet Cola are sweetened only with stevia, so count for no sugar grams and NO carb servings. Hooray!
Even our psyllium husks count for a Carb serving, if we take the full 2 1/2 tablespoons. So, since I was out of Carb servings, I took only 1 Tablespoon, which kept the total grams of carbs at 4 grams, so zero servings, and I still got some beneficial additional fiber.
We walked our delightful route into and through town and around our local lake. It was a gorgeous day, and I feel very good about our first day of the challenge.
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