Who Cut the Cheese?

I did..... and the sour cream, and the 2% milk, and the mayo. I've been tracking my food for the past few weeks now on http://www.sparkpeople.com/resource/nutrition.asp Boy, that's a lot of work to begin with! Now that I have a bunch of foods listed in my favorites it's not so bad, but I don't see how someone who is working full time could possibly have time to track all their food, go to the gym, and spend time reading labels at the supermarket. I just spent an hour there and came home with 3 frozen dinners (because I was sick of my usual fare), some frozen juice bars, and a tub of nonfat cottage cheese. I was a label-reading maniac. Did you know that some "healthy" or "diet" frozen dinners have almost 400 calories and 9 grams of fat???? Most had at least 7 grams of fat, and 350 calories. I found a few with less than 300 calories and only 5 grams of fat. Those are the ones I got.

So, back to cutting the cheese....I love cheese - cheddar, jack, swiss, cottage, cream, feta, you name it, I love it. What I was noticing was that I've been doing pretty good staying within my recommended calorie and fat range every day, except for two things. Cheese and Cocktails. I've been staying wihin the recommended fat grams per day, so that hasn't been much of a problem. But, one teeny tiny slice of cheese is anywhere from 114 to 150 calories, and somewhere between 7 and 10 grams of fat! So, I'll be going along just fine all day - smoothie for breakfast. More on that in a bit. Lunch varies, but I usually keep it within 250-350 calories and not too many grams of fat, Dinner, same thing. So, at the end of the "Meal Day", I am around 1000 calories, give or take 100 or so.

Now, here's where things go downhill. I have a favorite cocktail - vodka mixed with cran-raspberry and pink grapefruit juices. I've altered them so that now instead of just vodka and juice I'm making them with orange-flavored sparkling water with just a splash of juice. So each one is now only about 70-75 calories instead of 120-125. I'm proud I thought of that little change. But, if I drink, say 3-5 of those babies that is 210-375 extra calories. So, I could still be in range for the day. Or I could have 2 slices of cheese either on corn tortillas (230+150=380) or a slice of bread (230+90=310) for the high end of the same amount of calories, with a whole lot more fat. The problem is, I've been doing both! And even sneak in an extra slice here or there.

So, I've decided I'm going to limit my drinks to 3-4, and get rid of all regular cheese in the house. That's meant I've been eating more cheese than I should, because I just couldn't bring myself to throw away the delicious Cheddar with Horseradish I bought last time i was at Costco, even though I knew it was going to be a problem. But, I'm excited about going to Costco this weekend and hopefully finding some lower cal/fat alternatives. I already have their Jarlsberg Lite, but I'm really hoping they have Laughing Cow Lite wedges or better yet, Bites. Those sweet little things are only 35 calories and 2 grams of fat and so so creamy.

Okay, so that's it on the food. Oh, no it isn't. Morning smoothies. I switched from 2% milk to organic unsweetened soy milk. That's 130c/5g fat to 80c/4g fat per cup. Lots of times I don't use a whole cup. I'm also using nonfat plain yogurt. I've gotten the calorie count down from 340-370 to 250-280. Also switched to lowfat sour cream. All these little steps will hopefully lead to fewer and fewer calories and fat. And you know what that means, right? A weight loss. Because I do care how much I weigh. I so hate lugging around these 2 big bags of rice everywhere I go!

How's the gym, you ask? You mean my new playground where I spend about an hour almost every day? Where all week I walked for 3 minutes, jogged for 30 seconds for a half hour? Where yesterday I walked for 3 minutes, jogged for one, for those 30 minutes? And then where I rode the bike on my random hill course for 20 minutes, most of the time at a level 10? And never even came close to reaching my max heart rate? Oh, it's just fine and dandy. How am I feeling, you ask? Like I can breathe better, like my heart is getting stronger, and like there really are some muscles hiding under the fat, thanks for asking. Yeah, me!

I cut the limbs off a tree in my yard today, because I was sick of trimming it while reaching over a fence, and it doesn't produce anything to eat or smell good. I carted all of the limbs up the stairs with no problem at all. A few months ago I would have had to stop and rest and would have been breathing really heavily. I would have cut the whole thing down, but the chain saw was out of bar oil, and then when I got back I was too scared to play with it. Power tools that can maim really scare me. Not sure what I'm going to do about it. Maybe ask a neighbor if they will supervise me. But all that limb-lopping has to count for some strength-training, right?

Okay, that's it for me. No more weight lost this week, which is a little bit of a disappointment, but hopefully once I have cut the cheese for good, things will start moving in the right direction again. If you want to find me this weekend, I'll either be reading labels at Costco, at the gym, or playing in the ocean. Hope everyone has a fun, healthy weekend too!