food diary for today

Breakfast: egg and cheese biscuit with a couple hash browns, oj

snack: blueberry biscuit (damn the bf for getting them!)

LOTS of water

lunch: fruit and yogurt smoothie

food diary for yesterday

breakfast: granola and milk

coffee

coffee

dinner: vegetarian chili (which was awesome) with a little bit of vegetarian cheese on top

dessert: 3 oz gelato

Food diary day 2

Breakfast: oatmeal squares and milk

Coffee, pretzel sticks

Lunch: vegetarian burrito

Beginning diet stats and notes.

Name: Amanda

Age: 25 and growing closer to 26 every day :(

Height: 5'8"

Starting weight (oh geez): 195.8

Healthy weight for my size: less than 164

Weight goal: 145

Diet changes already made: started replacing some meat in my diet with meat substitutes a few weeks ago, officially gave up meat four days ago.

Lifestyle changes I need to make: actually use my gym membership and take cardio classes, add more fruits and vegetables to my diet, saute foods in olive oil rather than butter, quit smoking, cut coffee from my diet or at least start getting it with skim milk, limit my intake of sweets, give up fried foods altogether... among other things.

So this is day 1 of the diet. We'll call it day 1 at least. Today I've done my first bit of grocery shopping with my health in mind. I have recently become a vegetarian, but by that I mean I wasn't eating meat, and not necessarily that I was eating healthily. However, I have been steadily been gaining weight over the past six months or so, somewhere to the tune of 20 pounds. I realize that some of it has to do with being on the psychiatric medications I'm on, but it's more a function of a high fat diet and a sedentary lifestyle. The trickiest part of staying on a reduced fat, reduced calorie diet will be giving up fast food completely and learning to prepare healthier, well balanced foods. Don't get me wrong, I know how to make some healthy food, but the largest majority of my specialties include butter and/or bacon and/or cream. Gotta move away from that. In a way becoming vegetarian is cheating a bit, because it pretty much immediately eliminates most fast food, sauteing things in bacon fat, and cuts out some of the things that are really a problem for me (especially breakfast sausage). It forces me to prepare my own meals and really think about what I'm putting in my body rather than just grabbing something because it's convenient. *sigh* I'm tired of being this heavy. I have plans to try out the beginner's Tae Bo class at my gym this week, and I think that'll be fun and good for me. I'm keeping my food diary so I can see exactly what's going into my body, and also keeping track of my exercise to see what I'm burning off. I'll weigh in every few days just to keep track of how I'm doing.

Food journal Day 1

Breakfast: McMuffin with just eggs (2)

Medium Mocha with whole milk

Post-grocery shopping: 15.2 oz fruit juice (15 g soluble fiber!)

Gym: burned 325 cal on the elliptical

post gym: Luna bar

dinner: veggie patty sandwich with vegetarian cheese (>300 cal), 1 Activia raspberry yogurt, 1 apple

dessert: 1 oz pistachio gelato (approx 50 cal)

1 vodka/oj