Day 11

I'm not doing very well with blogging my food on here. I have been inputting the data in crono-o-meter, but have just been really busy these last few days to copy the screenshots and post them here. As a small summary, I will say that I've been averaging 50g of fiber the last 3 days with about 1600 calories each day.

Today I managed to do all right, but I seemed more hungry than usual. I was out all day with my family, going to a place where I knew it would be tough to get compliant food. I stopped off at the grocery store before meeting my family and picked up a bag of sugar snap peas, a mixed bag of raw broccoli, cauliflower, and carrots and some hummus (not compliant, had oil in it). But I was in a rush this morning and didn't have any food I could whip up and bring with me. I was happy that I woke up early enough to get in a short workout before meeting everyone.

I had forgotten to bring water with me though and was pretty dehydrated by the time I got home, around 4:30 pm. I had a huge headache by then.

7:30 am - swim: 0:45

9:30 am - shredded wheat, 1/2 cup blueberries, almond milk

1:30 pm - 12 oz bag of sugar snap peas, most of the carrots from the mixed veg bag, some hummus

4:30 pm - breakfast bar (not compliant either)

7:00 pm - 2 cups brown rice with kale, cheezy sauce, rest of the broccoli/cauliflower mix

8:15 pm - hungry still. 2 cups shredded wheat, soy milk

cron-o-meter report:

Pretty high on the caloric intake today. I shouldn't have eaten the breakfast bar, but I was starving on the way back from our excursion. Perhaps I should have had some starch at lunch time (I wish I had heated up a potato this morning!). 98% of targets met and 67g of fiber. OK, but could be improved.

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Day 8

Very busy work day. I'm covering for a coworker while he's out on vacation for two weeks and it was hectic. Met a friend of dinner at Rubio's and ordered a bowl, but I'm sure elements had oil in it. I still haven't entered my food into cron-o-meter, but here is the log for today.

9:00 am - 1/2 cup oats, 1/2 cup blueberries, 1/2 T chia seed

12:45 pm - Cheezy kale soup, crustless quiche

6:30 pm - Rubio's: California veggie bowl: citrus rice, black beans, salsa, grilled veggies, guacamole, lettuce

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Day 7

Ugh, I keep going to bed too late which makes it very difficult for me to wake up in the morning and workout. Tuesdays are a tough day to sneak in anything during the day because I have an evening class that runs until 9 pm, which also means I can't go outside for lunch.

A coworker has been expressing some interest in adopting a plant-based diet. He is pre-diabetic and is in a household where an older relative is diabetic (and eats terribly from what I understand). I've given him many resources and talked to him over the past few weeks about various topics but I'm curious to see what will actually happen. I am trying very hard not to be preachy and just volunteer information when he asks for it.

When I mentioned yesterday that I would be making a plant-based lasagna, he asked me if I could bring some in for him. I did but was also a little worried, because I generally don't think people should expect vegan, oil-free things to taste like the SAD foods they're replacing. Honestly I think they taste better :) , but different. He said it was "outstanding" and seemed to be impressed that plant-based food could be so tasty.

9:00 am - oatmeal: 1/2 cup oats, 1/2 cup blueberries, 1/2 T chia seeds

10:00 am - gigantic organic fuji apple

12:30 pm - Chef AJ's disappearing lasagna with 6 oz spinach

9:45 pm - another serving of lasagna

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Day 6

Stayed up too late last night again so I missed my workout. I should have gone at lunchtime.

9:00 am - oatmeal: 1/2 cup oats, 1/2 cup blueberries, 1/2 T chia seeds. I heated them up this time for a warm breakfast.



12:30 pm - cheesy kale soup, gigantic apple



I finally made a recipe that's been on my "to try" list for a while: Chef AJ's Disappearing Lasagna. I tend to make simpler recipes but was able to do this one because I made the components in stages: no-oil marinara one day, tofu-spinach filling and saucy mushrooms another day, assembly and baking today. It was pretty good, but too salty for me. I think maybe using full sodium tamari for the mushrooms (I didn't have any low-sodium) was the culprit? I ended up serving the lasagna on a bed of spinach but later found that since it was so salty, I just ate handfuls of spinach between bites to cut the salty taste.

7:30 pm - salad: romaine, spinach, red pepper, tomatoes, carrot, red cabbage, orange/hummus dressing; Chef AJ's disappearing lasagna with about 6 oz of spinach





Sorry, this was the first piece of lasagna out of the pan and I couldn't get it out cleanly. Looks more like "lasagna mess"!

cron-o-meter report:

100% of my targets met today (yay!) and almost 60g of fiber.

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Day 3

Overall, not as great as the last two days have been. It started out well. I made it to the swim workout again, but only did half of the workout since I promised a friend we'd go to coffee afterward.

6:30 am - swim: 0:30

8:30 am - 1/2 cup oats, 1/2 cup blueberries

Then a friend and I went to lunch, at Native Foods Cafe, a vegan restaurant, but not exactly a health-promoting one. Since they had a special today, I got that, and then was persuaded to have a decadent dessert afterward, a chocolate peppermint cookie sandwich. I didn't eat the cookie until later, when I was hungry. I realized I had eaten too much around 5pm when I still felt completely full.

12:30 pm - Native Foods Cafe: shared a saigon roll, Thai vegan meatballs with kale slaw and quinoa (pictured)



3:30 pm - giant vegan chocolate peppermint sandwich cookie

I didn't bother to eat dinner. I'm too full.

cron-o-meter report:

Not the best day. I had to guess on the nutritional stats at NFC since they do not post their nutritional info online, but I'm sure the food overall had too much fat and salt.

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Day 2.

The alarm went off at 5:10 am and then again at 5:20 and I ignored it. It was around 5:55 when I finally got up to use the bathroom, fully intending to go back to bed, but then I had a little conversation with myself about how I didn't want to feel disappointed again that I hadn't worked out. I haven't been very consistent with my exercise ever since I found out I was pregnant.

So I went to the pool. And even though I was 30 minutes late, I was able to swim about 3200 yards during the 45 minutes I was there. Pas mal.

Now I notice I am hungrier today, and ate both today and tomorrow's breakfast already. :)

6:30 am - swim: 0:45

8:45 am - 1/2 cup oats, 1/2 cup blueberries, 1/2 T chia seeds, (2x)



12:30 pm - "cheesy" kale soup (Dr. Fuhrman recipe), does not taste like cheese to me but it's still tasty (doesn't look very appetizing I admit!)



Made a quick dinner for myself of beans and rice. While the rice cooked, I heated up a bag of frozen broccoli as an "appetizer" and topped it with some salsa and mushrooms. I'm trying to eat the lower calorie density foods first, like Jeff Novick suggests.

7:00 pm - 12 oz broccoli with some mushrooms and 2 T salsa; 2 cups brown rice with kale, topped with kidney beans and cajun spices



cronometer report:

A little more food today, but I also exercised more. I hit 98% of my nutritional targets and had 57 grams of fiber.

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Day 1

Always easy when the motivation is the highest, right? I stayed up too late last night and didn't wake up early to workout. Pre-pregnancy I would always drag myself out of bed no matter how tired, but I've been trying to make sure I get adequate sleep now, even if my workouts suffer.

Here's what I ate today.

9:30 am - organic mixed vegetable blend with kale



1:30 pm - salad: romaine, spinach, bell pepper, tomatoes, carrots, 1/2 can of reduced sodium garbanzo beans, and balsamic vinegar. Then I ate the rest of the can of garbanzo beans (love them)! By the way, I'm not sure if this shot really shows how large this salad bowl is: it is a 2 qt bowl. :)



I had planned on having soup with my salad for lunch as well but I wasn't hungry so I stopped eating. I did get hungry right before I left work though, and knew I had a long commute ahead of me (and also had planned on running some errands), so I had the soup before I left.

5:00 pm - gwumpki soup (sorry, forgot the picture, but it's a bean/barley/tomato/cabbage soup)

Having the soup was a good idea since I wasn't starving when I finally did get home. I made veggie tacos, which I love. Two were just enough this time and I was craving something sweet after, but I'm currently out of fruit.

7:30 pm - 2 veggie tacos (fat-free refried beans, green beans, mushrooms, summer squash, red bell pepper, red cabbage salsa), with extra green beans on the side



I didn't get any real exercise today, but I did make a coworker walk with me for about 30 minutes.

E - short walk with coworker 0:30

I can't promise that I will continue to take pictures of my meals but it's fun for now. Sorry they are not the best quality pictures. They are mostly taken at my desk at work with bad lighting and on my cell phone.

So looking at my cron-o-meter stats, I met most of my goals (96%) and got 66.4g of fiber. Not bad.

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