Staying healthy on busy days

I eat a packed breakfast and lunch in my classroom, most often checking e-mail, grading or planning. Breakfast is easy - always a small banana and either a measured bowl of cerereal (Kashi Heart to Heart or Puffins) or a Banana Oatmeal Cup with Chocolate Chips that I read about on a great blog, http://stephaniecooks.blogspot.com/search/label/oatmeal. I bring fruit and Greek yogurt to have for snack with my class around 10:00.

I bring a salad for lunch, with a 2% Polly-O string cheese, 3 ounces of deli turkey, fruit and a sugarfree jello. I always eat the string cheese last. It's my favorite. If I'm thinking my afternoon will be rough, I save it for 3:00. It's the little things in life.

When the kiddies leave, I have a second snack. My nutritionist recommended snacking at 3 even if I don't feel all that hungry, so that I don't find myself starving at tutoring or a meeting and eating whatever unhealthy snacks are avaialable. This snack is generally fruit, and sometimes it's a 100 calorie pack of goldfish if I'm not going to eat until late. On rare occasions, it's both.

By the time I get home from school on one of my meeting or tutoring days and then work out, it is too late to start cooking most nights unless I'm well planned. When my husband or I can stop on the way home from work, we have fish with steamed or roasted veggies. On nights that we can't get it together for me to actually cook, my go-to meal is:

Morningstar Farms Garden Veggie Burger (110 calories)
1/4 avocado (80 calories)
Steamed Veggie (40 calories on average)
Salad (15 calories)
Homemade vinagrette with 1/2 teaspoon olive oil (40 calories)

That brings my dinner total to 285. I have a JELLO cup (10 calories) with a pot of green tea (0 calories) for dessert in the evening. It's a satisfying amount of food, it's tasty, and my husband is even eating the burgers (doused in hot sauce).

What do you eat on nights that you just can't take the time or don't have the ingredients to stay healthy?

Short term goal - ACHIEVED!

My short term goal was to lose 30 pounds by Saturday - I set that goal about a month ago, when we made reservations for an amazing restaurant for Saturday night. It's Hudson Valley Restaurant Week, so we are going to Xavier's X2O, http://www.xaviars.com/yonkers/index.html, where an appetizer, entree and desert is only $28. Considering that the least expensive entree on the menu is $25, it's an amazing deal. The menu for restuarant week, http://www.hudsonvalleyrestaurantweek.com/menus/X2O.pdf, looks amazing, and I can't wait to splurge on great glass of red wine and a roll. The meal itself I will ask to have prepared so that I am not "cheating," and I will alter my calorie intake for the rest of the day so that I do not go over my alottment. I'm looking forward to enjoying a special evening out with my husband and another couple who we love.

Feeling Great!

The weather has been beautiful here lately, so outdoor walks have trumped my excersise plan. Today my husband and I walked a trail at Rockerfeller State Park in Pocantico Hills, NY. The trail was a loop around a lake, where many tiny turtles were gathered on logs near the shore. It was a really nice way to spend the afternoon.

After a healthy dinner (steamed shrimp and asparagus) I decided to try on a few skirts that didn't fit when I bought them over the years, but since they were on sale and I always planned to start a diet, they seemed like a good idea. Both fit perfectly, and I felt so great in them. No spanx, stockings, or any other tactic needed. I tried on some hand-me-down jean capris from that a friend gave during a diet attempt, and those fit too. It feels so nice to feel good in clothes. I tried on the skirt that I wore to the brunch the day after my wedding - and it's too big. That made my night, and it gives me the motivation that I need to keep going.

Satisfying Evening

Today, I opted for an outdoor walk again rather than an inside workout DVD. I pushed myself to walk more quickly than yesterday, and went .25 of a mile farther. To calculate the calories that I burned walking, I added my weight, speed and disatance into this http://walking.about.com/library/cal/uccalc1.htm website, and found that I burned 256 calories - thats 50 more than yesterday's walk!

When I got home, I snacked on an apple while making dinner. I made a huge salad dressed with lemon juice, red wine vinegar, balsamic vinegar, lemon juice and 1/2 tsp. olive oil. I made some roasted eggplant to serve alongside our garden burgers and we also had some sliced avocado. It was a lot of food for the 280 calories it cost me, and I'm full and happy.

One of my goals is to stop snacking after dinner during the week. A pot of green tea seems to help, so I'll make some after I finish this post. All in all, it was a great healthy eating/healthy body day!

Exercise Plan

I began my weight loss on January 1st - yes, I am a cliche. It's been just about 10 weeks, and I've lost 29 pounds of my 100 pound goal. For the first month, I counted calories and journaled everything I ate. While I lost weight, it wasn't happening as quickly as I'd hoped it would. My nutritionist continued to encourage me to exercise, and I finally stopped making excuses (bad back, no time, too cold, etc.) and started to do about 15 minutes of pilates a few times per week. Since then, I've been doing 40 minutes of pilates 5-6 times per week, and this week I began using an aerobics DVD at home. My new thought is to do this three-day cycle:

Day 1: 15 minutes of pilates (ZONE Pilates Video 1) and 15 minutes of walking (first mile of Leslie Sansone's Walk Away the Pounds DVD)

Day 2: 30 minutes of pilates (ZONE Pilates Videos 1 and 2)

Day 3: 30 minutes of walking (first 2 miles of Leslie Sansone's Walk Away the Pounds DVD).

Today was a beautiful day, so my husband and I did a 1.75 walk outside rather than my day 3 plan. While it might not have been as vigorious as the DVD, it was fun and motivating to do it together.

2 days and nothing...

As a teacher, business trips are generally not a part of my life. I was asked to speak at a conference this morning, so I left for the hotel after school yesterday after school. After the 3 hour drive, I had dinner with the other two ladies I was presenting with, we practiced our presentation, and I went to bed. By the time I got home today, I was so exhausted and had such a head ache that working out was not an option. While my calories are well within my range, I am frustrated that I've had a 2-day workout hiatus and it doesn't feel good. That's a big deal for a person that had not worked out for two consecutive days ever in her life until two months ago.

Getting Started

I figured since I read enough blogs, why not start my own? I am 28 pounds and a little over 2 months into my weight loss journey. My goal is to lose 100 pounds total, but I don't really have a timeline. I have a busy bunch of days coming up, with my first ever business trip (teachers don't travel too often), and I'm ready to go with my new two-sizes-smaller-than-it-would-have-been-two-months-ago suit. More on how I am reaching my goal coming this weekend. Thanks for reading!