This was a Triumph

Today the temptation under my nose is a box of gourmet cupcakes in the office breakroom. They look like they were made fresh and the frosting piped by hand. But I resisted, not even a nibble! Honestly they were too pretty - their taste could not have lived up to expectations. ;)

Last night my husband had Burger King so I tried to find myself a Spaghetti Squash to make the Spaghetti Squash Rosemary Egg Nest recipe I found via Amber's blog, but the grocery store didn't have any in their produce section. From there I followed my nose and got a hot rotisserie chicken instead. I should have had some vegetables with it, I know, but I was so hungry by the time I got home that I dug right in. Today for lunch I had it on a Joseph's pita with spring mix and baby spinach, some mayo and Newman's Own Caesar dressing. It was fantastic and very filling.

I brought the Joseph's (not the same Joseph as the pitas, this is the Joseph that we also get our syrup from) Pecan Walnut Brownie Bites which I opened last night for dessert. I really like them, though I wouldn't confuse them for brownies! They are like soft cookies, kinda like the chocolate nut ones you can get at Panera bread (only no sugar!). I have to figure out, though, if their total carb count includes the Maltitol. It's listed at the same 'level' as the major categories, instead of indented in with the fiber and sugar. If they don't calculate them together that makes a serving of 8 bites 21g of carbs instead of 15g. It might just be a layout issue, though, but I know companies love to try and omit stuff for that 'net carb' lower quantity. I submitted the question to them via their website. Either way I have yet to eat a whole serving before being satisfied! Maybe that's because they're chewy, or because of the pecans. So I had about 5 more of those after my lunch, and I'm very full! I also am on my second bottle of water.

Tonight we are meeting an old friend and her husband and new baby for dinner, and my plan is to have Philly Cheesesteak (they're on Portuguese rolls at this particular restaurant, which are great for BFC calculations compared to most other rolls). I'll substitute the fries for vegetables and pick off about half of the onions, maybe eat it open face if the roll looks bigger than I remember. With unsweetened Iced Tea, the only tough thing will be to avoid the dessert pies the restaurant is named for (no it's not Cheesecake Factory, LOL, that's a whole other battle, including parking).

My husband is feeling much better today (evidenced by wanting to socialize) so we may go see Hunger Games on Sunday morning, and we'll try the Kay's Protein Chips.I'm thinking I'll bring a bottle of water and use one of the True Lime packets in it to match the chili flavor in the chips. But it's a morning show so I may wake up and only pack my travel mug of coffee after everything. :P

Behaving

My husband has a pretty nasty cold, so he's been off the plan just to eat whatever sounds good (my main treatment for being sick) and to drink things to soothe his throat (with lots of honey).

But I've been behaving! Normally I'd knock off and have a burger or six, too, if he's not adhering, but this week I'm being good. It's nearly summer, you know. Grilling season is within our reach, if I can just stave off the mashed potatoes and cookies for a few more weeks!

Tuesday night he didn't want anything in the house so I picked up Taco Bell. Man, did I ever want some Cheesy Gordita Crunches! But I had two crunchy supreme tacos, per Jorge's instructions, and I was okay! Thank goodness for hot sauce.

Yesterday at work someone brought Munchkins in for everyone. I just avoided the kitchen until they'd all been eaten.

Last night my husband wanted some of those ready-to-bake Nestle cookies. Those are some of my favorite, fresh from the oven (I despise cooled chocolate chip cookies, though, go figure!). We had to go out to the store for them and some organic milk for him to have with them, and so I picked up those sugar free pound cake slices and some frozen wild blueberries to have instead. I said to myself, "Look, you didn't eat crunchy tacos instead of cheesy gordita crunches yesterday, and avoid those munchkins, just to ruin it with cookies!" So I had my blueberry/poundcake/whipped cream treat with some dark roast coffee, and managed not to look at those cookies in front of my husband TOO hard. It helped that I let them cool longer on the stove after they were done, so I never saw the yummy gooey soft cookies I prefer.

I won't have any cookies tonight either. "Look, self, you didn't NOT have fresh warm cookies just to spoil it on yucky cooled chocolate chip cookies today!"

So I weighed myself this morning before my shower and my weight has continued to fall steadily. THAT's what behaving gets you. Go figure!

I popped over to Netrition.com the other day and ordered a few goodies. When my husband is better I want to take him to see The Hunger Games (which I saw with a friend on Sunday and loved so much I can't wait to see it again), and the worst thing about this diet is the portion control when all you want to do is munch all the way through a movie. So I was looking for a snack that would be more substantial than one ounce of this or that.

I found a product called Just the Cheese, which is a filler-free cheese snack, but reviews were spotty at best. Someone said in one, "I'll just stick with Kay's Natural protein chips" so I searched for those and found Kay's Nature Protein Chips in Chili Nacho Cheese flavor, which comes in a 5oz bag, rather than a cluster of 1oz bags. I know some of you will tisk at me, but my intent is to split the bag with my husband, for 2.5 servings each, during the movie, and that will be roughly 35g carbs each to finish off the bag. That's also a nice 25g of protein for each of us, making the whole thing roughly equal to a protein bar, LOL. Hopefully it's good! I'll report back.

Since my birthday is just over a week away I also got some sweets: Kay's Protein+ Cookie Bites, Dixie Diner Caramel Pecan Turtle Brownie Mix (one of the few of their mixes without excitotoxins),  La Nouba Marshmallows, Joseph's Sugar Free brownie bites, and Yes! To Cookies Ginger Cookies. Now it's not my intention to live off such sweet-emulators, but we haven't tried any of these products before so mostly I was trying to get a variety in case half of them are awful. :P My intention is NOT to bake that Ghirardelli Extreme Triple Chocolate Fudge Brownie mix my mom keeps buying and asking me to bake (saboteur!).

So now my question to you other BFCers for today: With regard to those Mug Muffins that Jorge posted the recipe for, how do you prepare them? I made mine with the frozen wild blueberries and SF vanilla extract but, while it was very tasty, the inside never cooked all the way through, even after an extra minute+ in the microwave. Does the mug seem important? Do juicy fillers mean I should cut back on other liquids? Anyone else have to make adjustments? I have no idea if microwaves work the same as ovens, but I'm at 750 ft above sea level, so it seems like it shouldn't be too different from Jorge's experience on the west coast.

Still here! (reprise)

It's been a life and a half since I last posted, I haven't been good lately about updating online. Just too busy!

I've been doing my best to stick to the tenets I learned from the BFC but until this week my husband and I haven't completely been sticking to it. Since I last weighed in.. oh I don't even remember when!  I had gained 8.4 pounds (largely attributable to the recent visits by Msrs. Ben and Jerry). Not as much as I thought it would be when I stepped on the scale, but still a shame to take those steps backward. I still fit in all the new and resized pants, at least, though the one "measuring" pair of jeans has definitely been tight lately.

So Monday morning I weighed in at 156.8, and we put aside the brownies and BBQ ribs from my husband's birthday and went back on plan. Summer grilling season makes it a lot easier to rededicate ourselves, and I'm really hoping not to take the 'days off' from the BFC that my husband insists on (though we've already talked about what to eat on Friday when we go to Bertucci's with friends).

I'm also trying this time not to rely on grains as much. Every meal last time through was built around the bread or the buns or the pasta and the rice. What a waste! Not enough to make us satisfied but enough to force us to cut back on the rest of the goodies.

Our store did start stocking the Ener-G Tapioca bread, though, which (if memory serves) is 10g of carbs per slice instead of the usual 15 - 18. Might be some sugars in it, not sure. I do know we can have a very satisfying French Toast breakfast using it. French Toast may well be my favorite remaining food (since sushi rolls really don't work for the BFC, boo!).

Tonight we're having Carne Asada on tortillas and loading up the rest of our meal with veggies. We didn't use a lot of veggies the first time through because the S/C values were so hard to determine on our own, and I always erred on the side of caution. So I left out almost everything! Not in the plans, this time. It's easy enough to look stuff up, and I'll err on the side of more vegetables!

My husband just started some contract work so now we have to figure out how to pack lunches for him. Usually at home he works around mid-day exercise and has a protein/psyllium shake for lunch. Not anymore!

Also found the thinkThin bars locally and ordered a bunch more off Amazon. Hoping they can help me on Tuesdays and Thursdays when I go straight from work to martial arts (I've begun assisting my instructor so I can work toward becoming an instructor myself). Last night I think I ate it too early - after two back-to-back classes I was ready to drop and my muscles said "Nope!"  So tomorrow I'll try it a little later, around 4:30 instead of 3:30. I was just in the habit of eating at 3:30 from when I'd pack food that needed more digesting before I started jumping and kicking. I also forgot to take my vitamins yesterday.

I still have that old problem of not being able to take my vitamins comfortably with anything. After lunch today I took them with the rest of my unsweetened iced tea and I'm still gagging and feeling unhappy. Just about the only thing that's worked so far is the Magnesium Powder I found on Amazon (raspberry lemonade only, the orange is chalky!), and only until it completely dissolves. It's as though the rule for swallowing vitamins is that the liquid can't be translucent! And yet almond milk still doesn't work. Guess I could try the unsweetened almond+coconut milk that we just started buying. Orange Juice has always worked the best for me, so when I finally reach my goal I'll see what happens if I use half a glass to take my vitamins in the morning.

I was getting really sick and tired of the taste and texture of F-Factor cereal, and Shop Rite took pity on me and stopped stocking it. That'll teach me to pity myself! So I got two new cereals to try.

The first is Optimum Slim, which I had a bowl of last night after I got home from class.

When I saw it I couldn't believe that I could fit it into the BFC. Look at that! It looks like a commercial cereal for adults who still have the sweet tooth of kids! Now there are no peaches in there but their prescribed serving size of a cup still has 6g of sugar, so I had 3/4 of a cup to bring it down under 5g. It tastes as good as it looks, and the different textures are great. Not having to add powdered cinnamon and Truvia for flavor (like I would with the F-Factor) is a major plus.

The second cereal, Cinnamon Simply Fiber, hasn't been tasted by me yet. My husband made quite the face and said "You can tell this one has 0g sugar in it!"

I thought he'd like it because of the cinnamon in it, but the tube shapes are very dry. He only tasted a pinch, though, without any liquid. I suggested maybe these would do better heated like grape-nuts. At least there's room for some Truvia!

We bought some Coconut oil a few weeks ago and are going to try the coffee mug Skinny Muffins in the mornings before work. I think we need a test-run though to figure out how long it really takes to prepare, cook and eat them. I'm not good about leaving myself time to do everything in the morning!

Has anyone here tried the Barlean's products? Are they worth the hassle and cost of buying them if I can only find them on Amazon?

Portions of the concrete walls of our future Whole Foods have been erected, but it looks like it could easily take until Winter before they open. Boo! I need me some Clemmy's, LOL! At least we have the ice cream maker for the summer.