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.