No carbs.

Happy Tuesday! This week is really dragging. That is bound to happen after a nice week vacation.

In looking at my food diary and also what I stocked up on at the grocery store, you can see that I eliminated carbs from the list. I won't be staying away from these babies for long because I would miss them way too much! I had done some reflecting on what I had been eating for meals over the past few months and it was filled with bread, pasta, potatoes and all the other good stuff. If you have a bagel for breakfast, granola bar for a snack, a sandwich with chips for lunch and pasta for dinner, that is carb overload in my opinion. A good solution to these heavy carb items would be eating the Earthgrain bagel thins or bread that is half the calories and size than a normal piece. Wraps are also a good alternative. I have decided to cut back on these for a week or two and slowly add them back into my diet. See you soon carbs!!!

This morning I had a hard boiled egg and a soy sausage patty. This breakfast really fills me up. I sometimes wish I could eat another patty b/c they are so good! One negative about Morningstar is that they are pretty expensive. One box of the sausage patties are about $5. That's expensive when you are buying the sausages, garden burgers, buffalo chicken nuggets, soy nuggets, etc. I like to ration these :). Also, Monster was introduced to these and sometime he snags 2 for his breakfast wraps he makes at my place. I love him enough to allow him to eat 2.

For my snack at around 10:30am I had around 20 cherries. 1 cup of these cherries are about 90 calories. I hate when cherries go out of season or if they aren't on-sale. They can cost up to 5.99 p/lb at a few stores here in Chicago. Lindsay(introduced me to cherries) sometimes would spend $12+ on cherries. It was so funny...she may be addicted. Fun fact: Bing cherries have high levels of anti-oxidants.

I walked around over lunch just to get outside and enjoy the weather. It's always extremely cold in my office, so the heat felt great. It's nice exercise for your body and brain to get out and walk for 15 - 20 mins over lunch. A nice refresher.

For lunch I brought a spinach salad with dried cranberries, 1/2 cup of walnuts, 1 scoop of blue cheese crumbles and a tbsp of blue cheese dressing. I also brought 4 Morningstar buffalo chicken nuggets that I added to the salad. For my snack, I will be having a small Breakstone's snack size of cottage cheese. This small snack size has 11g of protein!

Tonight I will be hitting the gym and making a nice dinner. I feel great so far! Sometimes when you start a diet your body can go into shock. Luckily I feel 100%. Maybe a bit tired, but that is because the weekend was nuts. Updates to come soon.

PK

Good evening. Tonight I made 2 dinners. One for myself and one for M. I made gnocchi with parmesan cheese and butter with garlic bread for him and broccoli with turkey meatballs for me. It was a quick and easy dinner. I stayed away from the gnocchi and bread even though it looked mighty tasty. I purchased the gnocchi at World Market and the turkey meatballs at Trader Joes. The meatballs can be found in the freezer section and are easy to cook. I wrap them in a paper towel and cook for only 2 minutes. Trader Joes is another one of my favorite grocery stores. It has plenty of healthy and organic options. Also, it's cheap! I have my staples that I always make a trip to T Joes for. The bill is never more than $20. Trader Joes is also known for $2 buck chuck. Easy cheap wine to make anyone smile.

For a late night snack I had watermelon. It was $1.25 for a small carton at the market down the street so I decided to splurge. I really was craving ice cream, but decided on the fruit.

I have a feeling I will be sore tomorrow. I spent 45 minutes focusing on my arms, legs and abs. Hoping I don't have a get out of bed ouchie moment. I think I will try yoga for my work out tomorrow.

Have a good night!
PK