Happy Sunday-funday!!! What are you eating today?

Good morning weekenders ~ I hope you are having a lovely weekend so far! I had a very lazy day and besides some errands, I barely moved! On one hand, I didn't feel like doing anything else but enjoying the down time and recharging... but in the end, I feel like a wasted a perfectly good day! I need to find a better balance in my life. Today, I am doing house stuff and getting organized for the week. The kids are coming over and we are going to grill last night's dinner since we ended up eating leftovers. I fell asleep during the Halloween movie and then slept through the Dodgers game, but they won! 2 down, 2 to go!

QOTD - What was a typical food day for you pre-WLS?

I was always winging it and eating at every opportunity. Starbucks latte, donuts in the break room, cookies here, candy there. Full restaurant take out (Thai, Mediterranean, Indian, Chinese) for lunch every day and I would eat the whole thing. Dinner was usually high-cal carbs/fat - alfredo, lasagna, pot pie, or fast food. Or - when I was dieting -this kills me, a 2000 calorie low carb salad with avocado, nuts, bacon, cheese and full fat dressing, SMH. I can't imagine how many calories I ate on an average day. I feel sick thinking about this....

Accountability - I switched out planned dinner for leftovers even-steven. 0 active minutes and only 3,676 steps. Today I am 168.2 and in need of movement - not sure what that will look like so I'm just going to roll with the day. Maybe I need the rest days on the weekend, but I feel like I have more time and should be doing something...

B- coffee, eggbeater cheese wrap

l - rotisserie chicken w/salad

d- grilled chicken and asparagus

s- quest chips w/plain greek yogurt

Have a great day!!

I remember potatoes, rice, spaghetti, lasagna, rice, cake, pie, donuts, cookies, candy bars, and lots of ice cream all washed down with Diet Coke.

Lunch was a whole sub sandwich or a restaurant meal. Morning and afternoon snacks from the vending machine and plenty of good things to eat while watching TV.

Always on a diet but they usually lasted three days. Always at Weigh****chers. Going shopping for clothes and getting depressed because nothing fit right so getting food instead.

Reading every diet book and trying all of them. Looking at beautiful clothes and telling myself I could get down to a lower size and buy it as a reward. Then gaining more. I dreaded seeing pictures of myself. I could fool myself but not the camera.

After surgery I still wanted the old foods. I never go a day without weighing myself. I feel awful when I see others struggling with weight. I wish nobody had to struggle with food.

I forgot about the vending machine and pints of ice cream! A lot of the foods I ate I no longer want, or found subs and created hacks to scratch the itch, but it's never the same. The camera was a brutal reality check, still is. While I writing my answer, I was thinking it was sort of a 600 pound life before, but it was never on that level. How often I ate, maybe, but the quantity not even close.

Good morning! It's softball Sunday. That starts after I serve breakfast to our house guests who are currently still snuggled tightly in their bed. I've got a big spread for them, so they better come down here hungry!

Accountability for yesterday. I stuck to my decision to not get in a workout. But as always, when we are serving up on the patio, I got in a lot of steps. 473 move calories, 18 minutes of exercise, 11,273 steps. I have no idea on how I did on protein grams. We had excellent Carne Asada, Mexican roasted chicken leg quarters, traditional refried beans, freshly made tortillas, lots of grilled veggies, rice, 4 kinds of cheeses, guacamole, salsas, dips, chips and chicharrons. And coffee flan for dessert. I ate only the protein items and 2 chicharrons plus the grilled veggies. Full stop there on food. I did not overindulge on food at all. I enjoyed a few glasses of wine. Definitely over board there.

Maybe I will try for a walk today. Maybe I won't. My hip is bad. But I will try to hit my step goal just by doing little bursts of things. After I get the company on the way and get back from softball, I'm not sure I'll have to cook anything today. The fridge is stuffed with leftovers already. No Carne Asada though. That got demolished. So sad.

QoTD: I have never been a big eater. I have always packed my breakfast and lunch for work. I rarely went over 1200 cals a day. I did WW's and Keto and calorie restricting. A couple times a year I would go crazy and eat a ton of Doritos or fruity candy and hate myself for it. I was born pudgy and I was certain I was going to die pudgy and I was sort of ok with that. As long as I could fit in my size 12 button fly Levi's, I was pretty happy. But then I just started gaining and gaining and gaining and nothing stopped it. Not 600 cals a day. Not being 100% sober for months on end. Not Keto. Nothing. WLS rewired me so that I don't seem to hold onto as much calories out of food. I'm back to eating approximately 1200 cals most days, and I make really good picks most of the time, but I did before as well. So frustrasting.

Bites today!

B: I'm not eating all this, but I am making: Shakshuka, roasted potatoes, cinnamon coffee cake, crostinis with garlic and olive oil, hummus, sour cream, greek yogurt, basil-walnut-parm pesto.

L: leftover chicken meat

D: TBD, but most likely more left over chicken meat, refried beans, grilled veggies.

Peace!

When I was eating 600-800 calories and still couldn't lose for months at a time, I was so frustrated. It never made sense to me. One brutal online coach told me I was in denial about what I was really eating and saying there is no way that could be true. Sometimes? maybe that was true? but there were plenty of times where it wasn't. The wonders of the human body!

Mornin' Weekenders!

I spent yesterday plowing through a book I had to read for a book discussion group that meets tomorrow morning. I need to get through another one in the next few days because I have a book review due (for a newsletter) on Nov 1 - cripes. On top of that, we went to a Homecoming bash (before the football game) at 4:00 PM yesterday - lots of food there, but I did OK - half a bratwurst, some mixed fruit, and about 1/4 cup of pasta salad. But once at the game - ugh. We had premium seats (thanks to the development director of the Athletics dept (we set up a scholarship for women's hockey in our trust recently - which explains how we managed to get the free tix to the box seats earlier this fall - and the premium seats last night). The premium seat section was attached to this "club" (you could see the game from the club - too - it was part of the stadium and had floor to ceiling windows overlooking the game) - all the free food you wanted. Tons of it. Including things like shrimp and crab legs! I blew it there. Six shrimp and about 1/4 c of roasted root vegetables (both of which were fine) - then I hit the dessert bar - 2 "gourmet" bar cookies and some apple crisp. Then later went back and had some Chex mix, about 2 oz of cheese, and some potato chips with French onion dip. I think that might have been it - but those desserts and Chex mix/potato chips pretty much killed me. Feeling it this morning. I've got two meals out this coming Thursday but I don't think anything else, so it's going to be super light eating most of this week.

QOTD: it's been so long I don't remember much, although I was obviously eating more than 3000 kcal a day, or I wouldn't have weighed well over 300 lbs. Even on my absolutely WORST days post-surgery (like Thanksgiving), I've topped out at about 2500 and felt like hell afterward. I can't believe I consistently ate a lot more than that before surgery - pretty much every day! Anyway, the couple things I do remember is my breakfast. Always a smoothie. Healthy, yes - but SO MANY CALORIES (at least the way I made them!). They would consist of a banana, a couple of peaches or a cup (at least) of melon, some berries, a bunch of plain Greek yogurt or half a chunk of tofu (for protein), and either milk or orange juice to get it going in the blender. So around 500 kcal there - plus the half & half in my coffee. Before I even walked out the door. We had a coffee shop on the first floor of the library I worked at, and I remember going downstairs several mornings a week around 10:00 to get another cup of coffee - with half & half - and a scone. So there's another 500-ish kcal. I usually brought leftovers for lunch. I must have had a snack in the afternoon, but I can't remember what. I did have a mini-fridge in my office where I kept things of yogurt and diet soda, so hopefully just that most days. I remember making microwave popcorn sometimes, though - and not the lighter variety. Dinner - I used to cook a lot more than I do now and I always made healthy things, but then, I always had two or three servings of whatever I made. So yea - just that right there is about a 3000 kcal day. And that doesn't even count the times we went out to eat - or the times I "overate" (compared to what I USUALLY ate...). When I went through my required six-month supervised diet before surgery, the dietitian had me eat 2300 kcal/day. That seemed like a really restrictive diet for me at the time. Do-able, but very restrictive. Now a 2300 kcal day would be a major binge day for me.

coffee with half & half

protein pumpkin muffin and a thing of Activia yogurt

not sure about the rest of the day because I'll be meeting up with my sister at some point (still haven't seen her yet, and she's been here since Thursday night), but after yesterday's blow-out, I will be eating very lightly today!! Maybe something like soup if we end up going out..

have a great day, everyone!

2300 is luxurious now! I tried an 1800 cal diet earlier this year, but could not eat it all with the focus being on protein and fiber - I just couldn't. I could easily eat 1800 in junk food or french fries though. I averaged about 1500 cals (protein and fiber first, then whatever fits) and felt like I was eating all the time and lost 20 pounds. I'm not losing anymore so I dropped it to 1300 hoping to get the losses going again. It's a game!!

Comedians told jokes about overweight people ordering huge meals with diet soda. I always did that. I felt I was saving those calories. 2300 would have felt restrictive to you. My prep diet was to eat nothing white. No bread, rice, cereal, pasta, flour, or sugar.

I only remember cheating once when I worked late and was the only person in the office on donut day. I was just high enough to qualify for weight loss surgery so they told me not to gain or lose any weight for six months.

I agree with the calorie saving with diet soda, me too and I didn't care how it looked to people, though it is kind of funny... My first surgery my only instruction was to maintain my weight - don't lose, don't gain. The second time I had to do the 2 week LSD and that is protein shakes and a small list of protein choices for 800 calories I think - it was brutal but I lost 15 pounds.

I had to do one week of protein shakes and lost 10 pounds. I was so excited and keep trying different shakes.