[Diet] Feeling a little proud of myself.

There are a fair number of truisms and clichés about getting back up after being knocked down and learning from one’s mistakes. I won’t bore you with them, but that is what has happened.

After doing things my way - at my own pace, and generally not having much success at it – I started up with Weight Watchers. Last week was my first weigh in, and I took home a bit of information for it. Now, anyone who has tried to break, change or start habits can tell you its hard, never mind doing two or even three of them at once. As such, I came back this week and actually gained a pound.

Yay me!

Thanks to the little food journal I got, I could see where I was having trouble plus figure out why. Seems a bit obvious, I suppose, but I wasn’t doing it before!  After thinking about it, I remembered (or more to the point, made it a point to remember) that afternoons are trouble for me when it comes to food. That’s when I want to eat, to snack, to put my face in a trough of something tasty just to keep my mouth occupied.

So, after my embarrassing setback, I prepared both a breakfast (oatmeal) and packed some snacks for today last night. Knowing that I am not a morning person and simply accepting that I am not in the mood to cook, prepare or anything of that sort in the mornings is helpful. I want to get out of bed and out the door as quickly as possible, but have no desire to get up early to cook.

The oatmeal was simply a cup Coach’s Oats in a bowl with 1/3 c. reduced-fat milk and 2/3 c. water, sprinkled with cinnamon and left overnight in the fridge. This kept the “point” cost down, and throwing it in the microwave is a pretty brain-dead easy thing to do. It stuck with me reasonably well – not great, but not bad. I could, and probably will, doctor it up a bit next time with fruit or something – both for flavor and bulk.

The snacks were likewise simple. A 1/2 c. of pistachios (the salt-and-pepper ones from Costco) and a peeled orange. The pistachios are nice, convenient, and the shells slow me down when eating them. I think I need that lest I inhale them and miss the “I’m getting satisfied” signal from my stomach. The orange, on the other hand, is too messy and too much hassle to peel at work. I actually had that very same orange at work for two days before admitting I would not eat it like that and bringing it back home. Sad, I know.

Today I did a lot better, I think. I had a little snack (about half the pistachios) before lunch, helping keep my stomach calm. A quick trip to Subway got me a turkey breast sub on wheat, veggies, pepper jack cheese and mustard instead of mayo. Top it of with diet Coke (I’m slightly addicted) and a low-fat yogurt? Not bad! The rest of my snacks were eaten bit by bit from lunch on.

Getting home I was pretty hungry, so I know I really ought to have another snack packed along with me next go around. But, behaving myself, I made a quick salad. Took an 8” tortilla, put it on top of a bowl, sprayed it with PAM and stuck it in the oven on broil. About a cup of lettuce and three small peppers got cut up, then put into the tortilla “bowl” once I pulled it out of the oven. Topped it off with some salsa and it was a nice little meal.

Am I still hungry? After about an hour and a half, yes. But at the same time, I’ve got close to 1/3 of my “points” left, and I’m not so ravenous I’ll go out and devour anything and everything. I’m not sure how I’ll finish off the evening, but its nice to know I’ve got some room to work with, you know?

Next challenge: dealing with the weekend and having so many friends who cook a ton of great food. Courage… courage!