Friday, February 29, 2008

Day One- part 2

My diet goes in 3 day cycles. Today is day 4, so I am eating the same foods as day one. There are 3 cycles of each menu (9 days each). These 3 meals are in the "Low Fat" category, next I go to Low Glycemic for 3 meals, and last I eat from the "Mediterranean" diet. My dietitian says that the Mediterranean diet should be good for me since it is "high" fat with oils and cheeses.

Anyway: here is the menu breakdown of the last 2 days

Day 2
Breakfast:
Waffles (2)
Syrup
Yogurt with Blueberries and Strawberries (Bran cereal and leftover syrup mixed in)
Lunch:
Cous Cous Salad (I ate it hot) with turkey, carrots and peas
Wheat toast (1/2 slice)
Snack:
Peanut butter bar
Dinner:
Meatloaf
Mashed potatoes
Green Beans
*I think I am forgetting something...*

Day 3: (my favorite day! Will eat this again on Sunday)
Breakfast:
Bagel toasted with butter
Snack:
Peanut butter bar
Lunch:
Turkey Sandwich on wheat
Salad with FF French dressing
A square of cheddar cheese (!!!!)
All bran cookie (!!!)
Snack:
Yogurt, peaches, and bran cereal
Dinner:
Sweet and Sour Chicken with lima beans (who knew I liked lima beans?!)
White rice
Carrots
Snack:
Finished my bran cereal snack with leftover milk

You should have seen me yesterday- MH and OK were totally laughing at my excitement over a square of cheddar cheese and a cookie! I guess I know what food items are going to be essential items when I go back to my own foods (May 24th).

This weekend's assignment is to learn how to use my PDA for food recording and make some meal plans for my dietitian to "optimize" for CR.

No procrastinating this time! :)

Wednesday, February 27, 2008

Day One

So it is officially day 2. I survived my first day on a diet! (No drama here...!)

Here is what my day looked like yesterday:

8am: met dietitian for introduction to the kitchen (where I pick up my food 3x/week), my PDA (for recording all my food intake), and for breakfast.

Breakfast: 1c Total Raisin Bran (less than I usually eat, but I love raisin bran so that was good)
1c Skim Milk (also what I normally drink) for both cereal and coffee
1c Coffee (no calories other than milk added)
1 med banana
A pretty typical breakfast for me- but I could not help but feel hungry after it was over.

Snack: (11am in the lecture of the class that I am TAing)
100 cal peanut butter bar (tasty!)
Green Jasmine Tea (first bought for me last Christmas from MomE.)
Again, typical snack. I usually have a granola bar (90-150cal) so when I was still hungry I began to realize my mind is messing with me.

1pm Lunch: Chef Salad (Romaine, green peppers, kidney beans, roasted turkey, shredded carrots)
Light Balsamic dressing
Garlic Bread Roll
Diet Dr. Pepper
Yep, I was still hungry and unsatisfied feeling. I whined a bit to TE who was very supportive and made me laugh at myself about being a drama queen.

It was also at this time that I got my calorie results from one of the 4 weeks I kept track of what I ate during the baseline phase of the study. I ate an average of 1509 kcal/day! Less than my calorie prescription! I remembered though that I chipped my tooth the first day of recording for that week and did not eat much for 3 days...

3pm Snack: Coffee --I was going to drink it black, but I couldn't (drama queen) so I had it with skim milk (they give me 1c every day that I don't have cereal- then I get 2c)
Mandarin Oranges (I even drank the juice!)
1/2 of my 40g of fiber one cereal ("to be eaten like popcorn"). Grrrmmpff. I also had to sit at a meeting while everyone else ate Bertucci's pizza.

8pm Dinner: Roasted Turkey with cranberry sauce
Candied sweet potatoes (everyone knows I hate sweet potatoes- these tasted amazing...)
Creamy applesauce with cinnamon + other half of fiber one cereal
Seltzer
Decaf chai tea
At this point I was full enough to not to growl at TE for eating a yummy looking burrito and SH's amazing chocolate chip cookies.
So while the food is fine (I will be excited for this month to be over) I am hungry enough at all times that everything tastes better than it would normally. I have also noticed that the day seems to go by much slower when I am waiting for my next meal. Maybe I will be more productive with all this extra time... I'll keep you posted :)

Monday, February 25, 2008

My Last Day Of Freedom

What would you eat on your "last day" of free eating?

I am not sure what I will have tonight... I overdid it this weekend at my parents house in NJ- so now I am actually very happy to be dieting. (*Please remind me of this statement in the next few weeks!)

Hmmm.....

Wednesday, February 20, 2008

My Magic Number

1670!!!

I just got my calorie perscription this morning: My body burns 2226 kcal/day (exactly!) so I am going to be eating 1670 kcalories/day for the next two years! Totally reasonable.

That is more than 4 - 400 calorie meals/day!

Yay!

Monday, February 18, 2008

Honesty and Clam Sauce

OK so I have been putting off writing another blog entry because I did not do what I had promised to do before my next blog entry.... Until yesterday...

I am going to be honest with all of you (if you know me this is not news): I am a procrastinator.

I am not going to give you all the reasons and excuses of how I was so busy (doing all the other things I left to the last minute) - I am resolving to stop using excuses. I will just report the results of my research and remember this when I think about giving myself another assignment!

Pop-Pop's Clam Sauce
Pasta: 210 calories per serving
Sauce: 140 calories per serving (!!) I was shocked by this- I totally figured it would be much higher
OK so for 350 calories that is totally within my range of 400 cal/meal (*I have not been told yet what my calorie consumption is going to be- but I am guessing that 400/meal and the rest (2-400?) on snacks is reasonable.

So when I figured this out, I will admit I was confused. I was expecting 700 cal at least- I always figured if it tastes that good it must be bad for me. Where did I go wrong? How could I have misunderstood my caloric intake that much? I thought about the occasions when I make this meal and realized how my presumed calories came into play.

I usually make this meal for friends while entertaining- so here is a list of the rest of the calories that I would consume when I have made this meal in the past:

Wine, red: immeasurable quantities, glass kept full
Snacks: cheese and crackers and/or chips and guacamole or salsa- constant snacking while cooking and catching up, again immeasurable
Shredded Parmesan Cheese: on pasta, 2Tbsp?
Garlic Bread: sometimes with, sometimes without cheese but always a few slices

So after freaking out a bit ("I can't do this- I love wine and cheese and garlic bread!!"), and calming myself down ("instead of pasta I can have the sauce on broccoli or asparagus- saving those calories for wine!"), freaking out ("but two years of this!") and calming back down again ("I want to diet, live longer and better, and I volunteered to do this...") I realized two more reasons why I am grateful that the scientists give me 3 weeks before beginning my diet:

1 - I need 3 weeks to really let the gravity of my decision (and how it will change a lot of my lifestyle) sink in, and

2 - There are things that I may not eat for the duration of this study because they are not worth the calories-- but I will eat them now as a last hurrah. So it is a sad goodbye to my favorite sweet muffins, peeps, most sugar candies (thankfully Easter candy is already out in stores), goodbye to full sugar soda (birch beer) and finally goodbye pasta- I'll miss you most of all.

Wednesday, February 6, 2008

Research

So I have been doing some research on CR. It is amazing what you can find on the internet (what am I 80?!); there are so many other people who regularly follow CR and are blogging about their experience!

The first blog I found was April's CR diary (link): she has been CR'd (lingo for calorie restricted) since 2004! She posts mostly recipes and rants, and from what I can tell (I have only read ~3mo worth) she loves being on a CR diet. April actually does an "extreme" CRON (calorie restriction with optimal nutrition) diet and considers CR a "glorified version of weight watchers."

April's blog has prompted me to start thinking about how I am going to get the most out of my daily calories. What I eat on this diet is entirely up to me (nothing is off limits) as long as I stay within my daily calorie count. So I, in my well fed mental state, thought I would make lists of my favorite things first to find out their calorie content, and second to try out cooking lower calorie versions of them. This way I will still have calories leftover at the end of the day if my experimentation ends badly!
Tonight:
Make: Cauliflower Soup (a CRON recipe from April's blog)
1 head of cauliflower- processed in food processor
Vegetable ("no chicken") broth
and seasoning (garlic, etc.)
Research: The calorie content of my Pop-pop's linguini with clam sauce. My ultimate comfort food-- I have a feeling it is not going to be pretty. Luckily KBW made an equally yummy, lighter red clam version for me not too long ago- so maybe I will attempt that one too.

Wish me luck!


If you are interested in an article about one journalist's efforts to go CR for 2mo- see this New York Magazine article: (link)
*April references this article in her latest blog*

Friday, February 1, 2008

Diet begins in 3 weeks...


Everyone is on a diet.

Dieting is the new religion.

I am joining the crowd. My new religious sect: Calorie Restriction (CR). (link)

This is my blog.

February 1, 2008
Location: Hospital Room 1202

I just received word that for the next two years I will be enrolled in a diet study. I will use this blog to help me remain focused on my goal (remember the mice! link), share lessons learned from weekly meetings, and to let everyone know what I am actually eating!

Check back soon for updates in the next few upcoming weeks!