June 26, 2013, A Fresh Start

June 26, 2013

Two years ago my waist was 26.5 inches. I worked pretty hard to get it there by eating paleo for a month or more. I did this to fit into a costume that had been made for me in 2009.

One year ago, I ate whatever I felt like and didn’t care much about gaining weight because I was going to hike the Appalachian Trail with my fiancé. We hiked over 1,300 miles of it and had horrid eating habits, but it was kind of necessary to keep pack weight down. Calculating calories per weight was a big deal, so we ate Pop Tarts every morning (at the end 4 every morning!), a cheese or peanut butter sandwich at lunch, and Ramen Noodles every night. We drank water and when we were in town, soda. Other town foods included pizza, burgers, Chinese cuisine, chips, cookies... anything fatty we could find. By the end, we were both definitely craving vegetables and fruits. We did carry apples sometimes, but they are heavy. I lost about 15 pounds on the trail and was pretty much at my ideal weight. I suspect if we had healthier foods, I’d have been the healthiest I’d been in my life.

Currently my waist is 29.5 inches, but I am getting a gut which is below my waistline. My hips are 42 inches. I weigh approximately 144 pounds (or more), the same weight I was in 2007 when Rox and I started our month long paleo experiment. You can read about that in the LiveJournal, “Milovia” if you are curious.  It starts in July 2007. I’m six years older now and I’m pretty sure my metabolism has changed since then.

I’ve been exercising more than I have been since October (when we stopped hiking), but eating too many processed foods; gaining weight, hanging on to fat. I mostly cut out soda and candy, but since then I feel like I've gained even more weight. So, what next? Paleo it is. Healthy, feel good, difficult to maintain paleo. Starting today. Perhaps not the greatest day in the world to start since I only got about 6 hours of sleep, but if I don’t start now, I might not start at all.

I am going to post my progress and recipes that I have made and if I like them or not. Today’s meal plan is as follows:

Breakfast:

1 banana, sliced

½ peach (it was rotting), cut into chunks

¼ cup walnuts

1 Tbsp honey (approx)

Mix all together, eat

Tea ... it was black, but I will start drinking green tea as I hear this can curb appetite and help prevent fat from settling in.

Snack: baby carrots

Lunch:

½ avocado

Lemon juice

2 hard boiled eggs

1 Tbsp parsley

1 stalk of celery

Ground pepper to taste, more parsley on top

Mix avocado and lemon juice together until a paste. Add other ingredients and serve over lettuce. (I used Boston lettuce. Can also use endive)

Snack: berries (rasp, black, and straw)

Dinner:

1/3 lb salmon

Ginger root

Honey

Olive oil

Make marinade out of ginger, honey, and oil. Marinade salmon for ... however long you feel like it. Wrap salmon in foil, place on baking sheet, and bake at 350F for 20 minutes or until cooked through – it will flake.

Kale

Dessert: apple

Breakfast: was great, as I already knew it would be. It kept me full for about 2 hours. I’m usually hungry by 10:30 anyway, so at that time I had my snack of baby carrots, hoping that it (and water) would stave off my hunger for another 2 hours. It didn’t work completely. I had about 24 oz of water and had to pee 3 times in those two hours. By 12:30 I was pretty darn hungry.

This is a note to self: eat more filling foods in the morning!

Lunch: the egg/avocado salad wasn’t bad. It could have used some salt, though. The original recipe called for bacon, and that would have been an improvement. My husband even made bacon this morning (jalapeño bacon), but I didn’t use any. Because I was so hungry, I ate very quickly which made me feel kind of sick.

A NY Times article states: A 2008 study in The Journal of the American Dietetic Association examined the feeling of fullness in 30 healthy women when they ate fast and slow meals on separate days. The fast meals resulted in higher caloric intake but less satisfaction.

Another note to self. Fast eating is not healthy.

Dinner: SO DELICIOUS!! There may have been a bit too much honey, but it was really good. I made Krispy Kale and it came out really well. I was very pleased with our supper.

Today’s meal plan puts me approximately 300 calories over what my other weight control program had me eating. Honestly, it is difficult to believe that my meal plan for today would pack on any kind of pounds. I understand that walnuts, the avocado, and olive oil are high in calories, but they are healthy foods in my book.

All-in-all, I feel great! Tired (from lack of sleep, I assume), but great. I didn’t do any exercise today, but I will tomorrow. I’m looking forward to tomorrow.