Keeping this low carb food journal has really helped me stay on track the last few days. I’d really been struggling with that the last few weeks, and the scales were starting to tell on me for my careless binges. It’s *so* easy to slip back into old ways, especially when you’re feeling a little down.
I’m hoping you’ll find it as useful, both for meal ideas AND accountability. Be sure to join in by sharing your own low carb meal & snack choices when you leave a comment! 😉
I still haven’t done any real grocery shopping. I can’t remember the last time I stocked up on low carb foods for the house, outside of grabbing some coffee & eggs here and there. And ordering another box of Quest Bars online, which arrived on Friday morning (yay!). I really do best when I have plenty of low carb snacks & foods on hand, but to be honest I’ve just been too busy to cook lately – outside of quick & easy stuff.
Fortunately I am traveling again this week, so I’ll only need a few staples to get me by. I’ll wait and stock up when I get back. I’m looking forward to a 4-day weekend of room service & restaurants! 😀
Yesterday was another great day for my carb count. And I am back to eating less than 20 net carbs per day – basically what is known as Induction Phase. I’m anxious to see those scales move down some more!
Breakfast:
A Mixed Berry Bliss Quest Bar (my favorite flavor of them all!). They go great with coffee, and are especially handy when you’re busy or on-the-go.
I had a busy morning dealing with a huge pile of paperwork that I was behind on. And man it felt good to get through all of that, finally!
Lunch:
For lunch I scrambled 3 eggs with ham & cheese. This is one of my favorites because it’s quick & easy – literally just 5 or 10 minutes in the kitchen and you have a good hot meal.
I sat down with my huge plate of eggs and watched one of my favorite TV shows, then took a nice afternoon nap…
Dinner:
My daughter and I decided to order out, so I got Applebee’s Classic Bone-in Wings. According to their nutrition facts the order is 6 net carbs. I usually blot off the excess sauce, too.
Later in the evening I got a little hungry again, and was craving something sinful…
I decided to just have another Mixed Berry Bliss Quest Bar and call it a night – which did the trick. I managed to get through the day without blowing my carb count! 🙂
No workout, yet again. Shame on me! I am determined to get on track, and to make exercise a regular daily habit – even if it’s just a half hour walk with my handsome Dane…
Your turn! How did your day go??
Patti Stafford says
Thanks for sharing Lynn,
Since I’m eating a limited variety of foods right now, I’m not really counting carbs. I’m sure my coffee is still my worst culprit. I have cut down on the sugar and creamer, and I do make myself drink it black more often, but it’s still my “sin” zone. I need to buckle down and get more strict with myself on it.
Breakfast is generally ham, eggs and cheese. Lunch is usually a salad or a wrap with lean lunch meat and lots of lettuce. Dinner is usually a ham and cheese quesadilla if I want something hot. If not, it’s usually the same as lunch or I’ll make grilled chicken with a veggie. I use the low carb tortillas for wraps and quesadillas.
I started back on low carb, or this limited eating plan, because of stomach issues. I know it’s extremely blah and limited right now, but it sure is nice not having a daily stomach ache from processed foods. π
Exercise is sporadic for me too. I have good days and no days. LOL. But as long as we keep working towards progress and taking steps to incorporate it into the daily routine, we’ll be good.
Lynn Terry says
I think I do best when I’m on a limited/boring eating plan. Enjoying food (too much!!) is one of my issues – so keeping it simple really seems to help.
Sporadic would probably be a generous word for me at the moment when it comes to exercise – lol. But I am *determined* to get on track with that and make it part of my daily routine!
Howard says
The food journal is a very good idea.
Keeping a detailed food journal was one of the more valuable things I did when I started low carb. It enabled me to spot the gluten problem, and the diet soft-drink problem (it was a bit sad to give up on diet cola completely, but it was nice to get better sleep!).
One of the interesting things about keeping a detailed food journal is that you eat less. It’s an interesting phenomenon. Without a detailed journal, dietary recall is typically so poor that it is worse that useless — and most “observational studies” in nutrition rely on dietary recall!
And it’s good to blot off the excess sauce on the chicken wings. I do not trust the nutritional information of any restaurant, for several reasons, not the least of which is that the food is prepared by people with no nutritional knowledge (or concern for nutrition) whatsoever. In a restaurant, if you can’t look at something and tell what it’s made of, it probably has sugar and/or flour in it.
Many years ago, I worked as a cook in a restaurant — if you saw what goes on in the kitchen of most restaurants, you would have no appetite left. What I learned from working in a restaurant has helped me avoid food-borne diseases on several occasions. (Rule of thumb for meat: If it isn’t obvious what kind of animal it came from, don’t eat it! Meatloaf in *any* restaurant should not be considered food.)
For me, one sure way to tell if a restaurant meal was too carby is that I get hungry too soon. I’m guessing from your relating that you got hungry later that evening is a good sign that the sauce on those wings was full of sugar. Be careful, Lynn! There are many pitfalls on the road to better health.
Lynn Terry says
Or – it was a sign that I ate too little, too early in the evening. π Just wings alone, with no veggies or other sides, is not a lot of food. It was probably 5+ hours later when I got hungry again, which is pretty norm for me…
Howard says
If it was 5 hours, then you did a good job of wiping away the excess sauce!
I find that I sometimes get (a little) hungry for no obvious reason, and if I ignore it, it just goes away.
I am experimenting with one-day-a week partial fasting, and I find that I get (a little) hungry around my normal meal times, but then it passes. I think the body just remembers when it’s time to eat, and if you skip it, somehow it is convinced that it got fed anyway.
It also seems that the more I learn about this stuff, the less I understand…
Lynn Terry says
Yeah, the more I learn about this stuff, the less I WANT to understand – LOL.
I’m not really one to eat on a schedule at all, by the way. I eat when I’m hungry – and stop eating when I’m no longer hungry (vs when I am too full to eat another bite, which was my old way of eating -lol). I’m the same way with sleeping & working – less schedule and more “eat when I’m hungry, sleep when I’m tired, work when I’m inspired”.