This morning was my company’s monthly staff meeting.  One of the nice things that happens is we are provided with bagels and cream cheese from St. Louis Bread Company.  I keep wanting a plain bagel to keep the calories down, but they’re usually gone by the time I get there.  Instead, I went for the Dutch Apple Raisin Bagel instead.  It’s good, and it makes a pretty decent meal.  A little “heavier” on the calories than I would like to spend…

For lunch, we went to Fletcher’s Kitchen as planned. Today’s special was the Avocado Turkey Wrap, which is one of my favorite items on the menu. I’m not a fan of the avocado, so I usually just have them hold it. This time, it was a bit drier than normal, so I’m guessing they didn’t put nearly as much dressing as they usually do. On the side, I also the grilled zucchini once again. It’s really amazing how good the zucchini tastes when it’s grilled. It has a very bold, rich, smokey flavor.

For dinner, I decided to fix myself two grilled chicken breasts with some Valley Fresh Steamers Broccoli, Cauliflower, Carrots and Cheese. As I mentioned previously, the cheesy versions from this particular brand are absolutely awesome! The chicken was grilled on the Forman Grill with a bit of “Kickin’ Chicken” and Mesquite seasoning added. Meal was very tasty overall, and pretty filling. I think this helped me make my daily quota. Now I just have to see how it shows tomorrow morning. Just one more day until my next weigh in and I would like to have “Free Week” completely blown away by then! 40 pounds, here I come!

Thankfully I was able to get to the grocery last night.  I finally have some decent options for breakfast once again.  This morning, I went for the Yoplait Light Yogurt and a Fiber One Bar.   By the time I’d taken the photo, I’d been sipping my coffee for a while, so the cup looks a bit empty.   The yogurt has been one of the best items I’ve added back into the regiment.  It takes a little while to eat, and it tastes great.  The Fiber One bars have been nice and filling as well, though sometimes I feel they taste a little TOO sweet.  Not complaining at all, but I might look to some other breakfast bars and see my other options.  Overall though, it’s a perfect start to the day.

A friend of mine was able to get out for lunch today, so I decided to meet him up at Fletcher’s Kitchen rather than having the stuff I brought in.  Today, being Tuesday, meant that the Gail’s Chicken Sandwich was on special.  I decided to go for that, minus the bacon, with the grilled zucchini on the side.  Once again, I was pretty happy with the sandwich overall, though the lack of bacon really takes away from the flavor.   Still, it was a pretty healthy lunch overall, and it still leaves me with options for dinner tonight.

At the grocery yesterday, I picked up some Gortons Roasted Garlic and Butter Tilapia. I used to enjoy the Gorton’s frozen fish products, so I was looking forward to having them again. I also decided to have another variety of Valley Fresh Steamers that I’d never seen before, Roasted Red Potatoes, Green Beans and Rosemary Butter Sauce. The fish was pretty awesome, but once again the Valley Fresh Steamers were not the best. So far, the only varieties of their product that I’ve enjoyed have been the “cheesy” type. About 10 minutes after dinner, I was still hungry, so I decided to add some additional carbs and had a few slices of bread with spray butter.

Only 1365 calories, so a bit on the low end. Going to need to ramp up the calories… tomorrow’s going to be a bit high since I’m planning a Breadco Bagel in the morning and Fletchers for lunch.

You might have noticed, but the format for the posts have changed slightly. I’m starting to go with a single “Journal Entry” per day… I’m not sure if I’m going to stick with it or not, but so far, it’s made updating a bit easier. One thing I might do is start the post in the morning and continuously “edit” it through the day. As I said, I’m still not sure if I’m happy with it. Let me know what you all think in the comments…

This morning, I realized that I still hadn’t made it to the grocery to restock up on badly needed supplies. I’m going to have to make a run for it after work this evening. I needed to have something for breakfast, and I didn’t have time for a bowl of cereal before walking out the door. I finally decided to go for one of my Myoplex shakes. It’s not a perfect meal replacement, but it’s got lots of vitamins, minerals, and protien, so I felt it was better than going without breakfast entirely. I decided to have one of the chocolate variety. It was pretty good overall, though I think I prefer the vanilla.

For lunch, I wanted something spicy. I convinced everyone to head to “Noodles and Company”. There I went for the Japanese Pan Noodles. One thing that I changed up was the removal of the “Sauteed Beef”, going with the Shrimp instead. That saved me about 170 calories and gave me the protien that I needed. Also, I think I might have enjoyed the shrimp a little more than the beef, so it really was a win-win situation! I also gave it a nice squirt of “Rooster Sauce” (starting to be my favorite seasoning of all time), which kicked up the heat in the dish quite a bit!!

After I got home from the grocery, I didn’t want to cook anything, but there was something I’d been craving for a while! I decided to make up a small batch of tuna salad (minus eggs, of course). At the grocery, I did pick up some “Light Mayonnaise” which is a little less than 1/2 the calories of the regular stuff. I figured I could use this whenever I’ve got “mayo cravings” or when I want to make something that just doesn’t seem right without it (ie. Tuna Salad). Overall, the sandwiches were good, but I wanted something extra when I was watching TV. I decided to go for a yogurt, especially since I hadn’t had one in a few days!! The TV Show “Dexter” had gotten me craving Key Lime Pie, so I decided to go for that flavor of yogurt. It was pretty awesome!

Overall, a little on the “low” end, but without getting to the gym, I guess it’s not too bad.

I woke up today with a headache. I had one from time to time yesterday, but overall it really wasn’t that bad. Today was not the same. I really could barely lift my head off my pillow without it being a painful experience. After about an hour or so, I finally made the effort to get in the kitchen and fix something for breakfast. I decided to go quick and simple with two Lean Pocket Breakfast Sandwiches. Each time I have them, I’m more and more appaled to their taste, so I think this might be the last set.
After breakfast, I went back to bed and pretty much crashed until about 4PM. I then got up and had myself a late lunch. I checked the freezer and found I was running low on most of the things I ate regularly. I did have a few Smart Ones TV Dinners that I hadn’t tried yet, so I went for the Mac and Cheese. I followed the directions and nuked it up. When I went to try it though, I was shocked at how bland it was. I decided to “kick it up a notch” by adding some of the rooster sauce. Not only did it take it to a new level, it was almost too hot to consume! It was great though!

Later on, I started getting hungry again. I decided to fix me a bowl of the Chunky Healthy Select Clam Chowder. I figured it was still pretty light at 240 calories, and having a bowl full of warm soup would help me get to sleep. It did it’s job well.

Wow… at only 830 calories, I was definitely on the low end for the day.  I was extremely sedentary though, spending most of my day just resting and sleeping.

Today started off pretty nicely.  I woke up and wanted one of my favorite breakfast items of all time… grits and eggs.  I know, those of you that aren’t from the south might not understand the power of grits, but they are always a favorite of mine.   I recently discovered they’re actually pretty low calorie as well, so I decided to add them to my menu.   For the eggs, I used just plain egg beaters with yolk.   I then added a few squirts of spray butter for some extra flavor.  It was awesome!  I’m really starting to enjoy the egg beaters more and more.  The only time I’m really wanting real eggs is for over-medium eggs.  I’ll save those for a special weekend though!

After breakfast, I went out to Fenton City Park to watch a friend of mine run a 5K race.  She did pretty awesome, coming in at right around 30 minutes.   I felt that was truely awesome, especially given that it was averaging about 40 degrees outside, not including the wind chill factor.

After the race, we made a trip up to Sweet Tomatoes for lunch.  I decided I wasn’t going to do Ranch dressing again (I’m one of the few people in this world that isn’t a fan), so I went with a light drizzle of the Catalina instead.  Other than that, it was almost all veggies, so it was pretty healthy.  I also started off with a bowl of the Deep Kettle Chili.  It was all good, but after a few trips of my friend coming back with different items, I decided I wanted something a little more.  I went for the Pot Pie stew and also a blueberry muffin with cornbread.  It was all good, though I probably should have passed on the cornbread.

Later that evening, I stuck around for my roomates birthday party.  I decided to have a few items that they offered, but tried to keep my munching to a minimum.  I’m not sure how much was in each of the items, so it’s a bit of a guestimate.   Overall, the party was great.  For once I was playing quite a bit of Rock Band.  The practiced I’d been getting in finally paid off.

That gives me roughly 2320 calories for the day.

This evening, I decided to stop in at Qdoba to pick up a naked burrito.  This time, I added a few extras which may have made the overall meal much better.  The burrito contained the cilantro-lime rice, black beans, both the verde and roja salsa, steak, cheese, and finally, I added some of the romaine lettuce.  It was pretty good, though I was slightly still hungry afterwards.

That brings my total for the day up to 1600 calories.  A bit lower than I wanted to hit…

During the last week, one of the things I’d been craving the most was Bread Company.  Yes, strangely, even though I was off my diet, I was craving diet food!  Nonetheless, today was my big day, and I was going in for what I wanted most… a chicken salad sandwich from Bread Company.  Overall, it was as good and as messy as I remembered.  I was pretty happy with my choice and this time, had no regrets whatsoever with my meal choice.  My co-worker had one of the parfaits, and I was tempted to look into it.  I need to find the calories on that before I have one.  Next time maybe.

That brings my total for the day up to 850. :D  Lots of room for dinner!

I’m going to be upgrading the site to the newest version of Wordpress.   Please let me know if you spot any problems or issues.   I’ll post an update when it has been completed.

Update completed:  Please let me know if you notice anything “strange”.  I am using beta software, so there might be issues.

Nothing too major for breakfast to get things started.  Just coffee and Very Vanilla flavored yogurt.  I’m already excited about getting this diet started again.  I’m going to need to get to the grocery at some point this weekend and build up my stockpile again.