Wish Trader Joe’s fed me all the time

Trader Joe’s is one of my favorite stores. I’ve shopped there since 1975 when it was more of convenience store. I used to buy my Rolling Stone there in college. Nowadays it’s filled with great WLS-friendly food.

I had to stop there on the way home from work last night because I was out of pistachio nuts. TJ’s has these great roasted, 50% salted pistachios that are just right. I also picked up some heirloom cherry tomatoes for my daughter. One of my favorite aspects of TJ’s is the recent trend—at least for the past few years—of offering samples. Even if it’s a food I normally don’t or can’t eat, the portion is so tiny that it goes down just right. Last night’s sample was meaty spaghetti. I got about a tablespoon that was mostly meatball, plus a thumb-size piece of garlic bread. Hit the spot just right, as I hadn’t had my late-afternoon snack. At the sample station they also had a nice Chianti, but sadly, they weren’t offering any wine samples.  I didn’t buy the spaghetti because I don’t think I could eat much more than what was offered, and it was frozen and would be mush by the time I got home. Another visit I had chicken in a mango chutney sauce. The chicken was precooked and frozen, then simmered in the chutney. I bought a jar of the chutney for future use.

After visiting my husband in his nursing home, I picked up our daughter for shopping, which turned into dinner at Mimi’s Café. I had the fabulous cheddar broccoli soup.  When I got home, I was still a little hungry, so I had some pistachios with a few sips of red wine.

The verdict this morning is that my weight stayed the same. I wasn’t sure what I thought it would do, because I felt like I ate a lot of food. Apparently I’m OK.

This weekend I have a couple of eating events, although lots of walking is involved, so I suspect I’ll be OK.

See you next week.

Old dog can’t forget old tricks

I know I’ve raved here about not eating dinner. I’ve had damn near perfect days undone by an unwise dinner.

Last night I added some no-fat refried beans to a leftover Mexican beef/bean/cheese combo from Trader Joe’s. I had eaten part of it the night before with little problem. I felt really full for a while and thought I might have to make a bathroom dash, but everything stayed down. Last night I added blue tortilla chips for dipping. Chips have become a no-no for me because they tend to get stuck. But did I eat them anyway? Yes! Did they get stuck? Yes! I have no excuse. I guess I thought that this time they wouldn’t get stuck. My band is moody in that it’ll handle something fine one time and get stuck the next. But no need to push it, I just need to push the chips away.

On the bright side, I dropped a couple of pounds this week and am now down 82.5 pounds. I still don’t have an exercise program because I’m pretty much driving, at work, or visiting my husband in the nursing home. I do work on the second floor of a building without an elevator. I even had to run an errand in the next building over, so I went up and down the stairs an extra time today. This weekend I’m taking my daughter and her friend to a bird farm, an antiques mall, and other shopping, so at least I’ll be walking.

See you tomorrow. 

A day with no drama

Today went smoothly. No crises, no revelations, no heroic efforts. In other words, it was just a normal day.

Oh wait, I did try something different at breakfast. I made my usual 50g protein shake, cold, but I also brought along coffee. I have a Tassimo single-cup brewer at home that makes all different types of coffee drinks. One of the coffees I make is a European style, which means strong and small. It brews at about 5 ounces instead of 8 to 12 ounces of the other coffees. I drank with along with my shake, so it almost was a warm shake, and I got that rich coffee flavor I’ve been craving. I figure since the shake is liquid I’m not hurting anything by also drinking coffee. I normally don’t drink during meals.

I think I was helped in my eating today by something I saw late last night. Iron Chef, a really old episode from Japan, featured escargot as the secret ingredient. I’ll eat a lot of things, but after battling snails around our condo complex, I’ll pass on the escargot. I had them once, at a Newport Beach restaurant. Besides the snails, the chefs brought in snail roe and frog legs. One chef put olives on the frog legs where the feet should be, and when he tossed them into the oil, they started spreading. I don’t care if it tastes like chicken, that’s not making it into my mouth.

Now, if I can remember that image when a decadent dessert is calling my name, I’ll stick to plan.

See you tomorrow.

Didn’t eat enough so I ate too much

My eating yesterday wasn’t as good as it could have been. I was rushed in the morning and instead of making my usual 50g protein shake, I made a big latte (sugar free and low fat) for the drive to work. I brought some cheese sticks for breakfast but ended up not eating them. Lunch was my usual cottage cheese with bacon and sunflower seeds.

I had a 28g Chike protein shake for midafternoon, but forgot to bring my cheese sticks for the drive home. Instead I bought some mixed nuts and ate most of the bag before realizing it was a 3-serving bag and the whole mess was 450 calories. Yikes. I figured that would be my dinner, but I was hungry by the time I got home and had some of my Trader Joe’s blueberry goat cheese and crackers. I think my body knows when it hasn’t been kept nourished during the day because the munchies came back later that evening and I reached for some Godiva truffles sitting near the couch. They were good, but not that good. After they were gone, I reached for a big bag of M&Ms I won in a raffle basket. Lucky for me, the bag would not open, so I tossed it aside to take to a party.

Well, my not-on-plan eating didn’t do any damage, but it did me no favors, either. Today I got back on the narrow path with my protein shake for the morning commute, usual lunch, and now I'm having Chobani Greek yogurt for a midafternoon snack. And maybe this time I’ll remember the cheese sticks for the drive home.

I am a work in progress and I need occasional touch-ups.

I read lots of other WLS blogs and get great recipes I want to try on the weekend when I have more time. Reading blogs today compelled me to hop on Amazon and buy PB2, which is powdered peanut butter with most of the fat removed; Atkins all-purpose baking mix; and a 3-pack of Torani sugar-free chocolate syrup. I have not yet tried any WLS-friendly baking recipes, so that should be fun. My daughter bought a countertop doughnut baker, and if I can come up with something high-proteiny and low-carby, I’ll be happy.

See you tomorrow. 

I thought I’d gain and I did

I attended a conference/pajama party with a bunch of romance writers this weekend and expected that I’d gain a little, and I did, about 1.2 pounds. But that’s life. I got back on the wagon right away and will probably lose that really quickly.

In the past, I’d turn that one-day event into a week- or month-long binge-o-rama.  I got back on the wagon right away. I love the freedom that I’m really only accountable to myself and I don’t have to sweat a weigh-in on a particular day. When I had the weekly weigh-in with Weight Watchers, I got into a habit and binging and starving and that’s not good.

My conference/party day started OK. I had a QuestBar for breakfast with lots of coffee. Lunch was rubber chicken, potatoes, veggies, and orange sorbet for dessert. I should have brought a container because when I could only finish a few bites of the chicken, I discovered the hotel wouldn’t let me take the leftovers home. Some of lunch didn’t stay down, but the sorbet did. From then on, it was coffee, cake, red wine, happy hour chips and salsa, more red wine, and Halloween candy with red wine. The bad eating was worth the experience of brainstorming with a pack of authors in various states of inebriation. I got to know people I’ve known superficially for years at a deeper level. It was fun, and the friendships will go on, but the overeating ended that night.

I may attend another party someday like the one Saturday, and I may overdo it. The idea that the party food, not matter how “bad” it was for my eating plan, is available occasionally means I don’t have to eat everything because “my diet is starting tomorrow.”  Luckily, sort of, none of my friends is a big party animal, so the holidays shouldn’t be too dangerous.

When you fall off the wagon, remember: There’s a new wagon coming by every minute.

See you tomorrow.