Variety is the Spice of Life

Whoever said that clearly wasn't trying to lose weight. Seriously, the lack of variety of that I have been eating has been maddening, but at the same time convenient. I love the fact that I know exactly what I am going to be eating every morning. I make my fruit smoothie and am out the door. I know that when I am packing my lunch that I know that I am having a salad with veggies, garbanzo beans, and guacamole. Dinner is a bean pasta most nights with tomato sauce. Snacks: protein bar and an apple with peanut butter. This is great, as far as making lunches, I'm in the routine of these things, I know what I am buying each week for groceries. This is terrible for the adventurer in me that wants to try new things EVERY day.

I have discovered some easy go to when I just need something different. I have found at Kroger a Falafal Wrap call Ta Dah. It is vegan and half of it with a salad is filling and satisfying.  I have also found some Indian and Asian premade meals that are nice for variety. I have to be careful with the sodium though, prepackaged meals are full of sodium.

I will say that despite the lack of variety, I am losing weight. I had a blip a week ago and gained two pounds, but was still under what I had lost the previous two weeks. This week I was down 2.2 which is what I gained last week and then a little more. If I can lose a pound this week I will have lost 5 pounds and I will earn a 5lb star! No more participation awards for me at Weight Watchers!

I did have a doctors appointment this week. My doctor and I are working on getting my asthma under control, because it has decided that it wants to be completely off the charts. She and I also had a serious discussion about my weight loss efforts. She said that she impressed with my 3.4 loss in 4 weeks. The week that I gained, I got sick two days before weigh in. So I am calling it a wash. I was following my plan mostly.

This week I made my own protein granola bars for my mistake. I found the recipe at Chocolate Covered Katie. I didn't get 10-12 bars because I made them in an 8x8 pan. Each bar is roughly 6SP. The protein bar I have been eating is 8SP.

I'm not really counting my points though. I did once this week and what I was eating was 57 points! I get 30 a day. When I realized what that I had an internal crisis about what to do. I mean I am paying for this program to help me lose weight. I payed to see a nutritionist to help me lose weight. The two programs aren't very compatible though. My fiancee and I had a long talk about it and what would be best for me, physically and mentally. It's a tough call right now because I can't imagine going back to my Saturdays without my meeting, but I also know that the Weight Watchers program wasn't working well for me.

Three weeks and going strong...well almost

So I have survived three weeks of being vegan. This week I made all my own meals, and stuck to the dietitian's meal plan mostly. I am still trying to figure out my portion sizes so that I am staying full longer. Lunch is the biggie for me. I am a teacher and I eat lunch at 10:45 in the morning. That means that I am usually famished by the end of the day. Right now my meals are at 6:30am, 10:45am, 3pm, 5pm, and 7pm. If my fiancee is home, we generally eat around 7. So the snacks are supposed to hold me over until then. Right now though, that's not cutting it. I have been having handfuls of nuts on top of my snacks. There were still some days that I'm below 1200 calories, so I need to get that up.

The nutritionist took a look at what I have been eating for Monday and Tuesday this week and said that protein is still an issue. I figured. I'm so tired of not getting protein. I really I am trying. So I replaced my granola bar with a protein one. So we'll see how that goes.

My nutritionist also recommended the cookbook "Thug Kitchen." I ordered that from Amazon, but haven't had made any of the recipes from it yet.

There has been one little hiccup....I'm currently sick and really want chicken broth. When I told my dad I couldn't have it, he was confused. My mom then suggested the cup a soup, citing that "that stuff isn't real anyway." Ha! The moral of the story is I need to find some sort comfort food that can replace chicken noodle soup.

What am I eating?

After I left my meeting with my nutritionist, I immediately headed to my local Trader Joe's. For those of you who don't know what Trader Joe's is like the mecca of affordable health food. Truthfully, the prices at Meijer and Kroger are comparable, but I can find some more plant based protein at a better price there. Also, their frozen meals are fabulous and generally healthier and better priced than at other stores. I will often get these for my fiancee when I won't be home for dinner. Anyway, I digress. At Trader Joe's I picked up some hemp hearts, walnuts, and quinoa and brown rice pasta.

After Trader Joe's I called my dad to see if he could meet me at Costco. My fiancee and I are probably one of the few people left who do not have a bulk food store membership. Fortunately, I am the biggest daddy's girl ever and he agreed to meet me right away. My grocery list at Costco included: individual packages of guacamole, vegan protein powder, spinach frozen triple berry mix, and cashews.

You would think that between Costco and Trader Joe's I would be finished shopping. Nope. Not yet. After Costco, I went straight to to Meijer and picked up my produce. Apples were on sale this week, so I picked up enough for one a day. I also picked up some stuff for my fiancee to eat. I'm still easing him in to the idea of veganism. After Meijer, I headed to Kroger. I was looking for Bragg's Liquid Aminos and Nutritional Yeast. Supposedly the nutritional yeast is like Parmesan cheese. I'll let you know how that goes.

Becoming a Veganista

I have eaten a primarily vegetarian diet since middle school. Why? I don't know. It something that just happened. If you ask my mom, I stopped eating meat after watching a deer be gutted in front of me. I don't remember it being terribly traumatic. But maybe it was. Who knows. Moral of the story is that I slowly started to ease meat products out of my diet. 

I began Weight Watchers in November to prep for my upcoming wedding. I figured with some accountability I may actually lose something. I was wrong. Don't get me wrong, Weight Watchers is a great program, but when you aren't getting enough protein, it is difficult to lose weight. In fact, I'm going to stay on Weight Watchers while I rework my diet. 

I met with a registered dietitian yesterday to go over how to be vegan. She was fabulous! We talked about how to get protein and how I basically wasn't getting any before. Honestly, I probably haven't gotten the correct amount of protein since I was in middle school (thanks Mom ;) ). She created a meal plan that I am going to follow for the next two weeks. It is just strict enough that I am getting enough of my nutrients everyday, but also lax enough that I have some variety in what I am going to eat. After talking to her, I felt that going to a vegan lifestyle isn't going to be all that difficult. Which I am grateful for. Now I just have to convince my fiancee that it's going to be fine.