Daily Menu Plan: 3/25/12

Breakfast: Berry Smoothie with Flax Oil (4), 1/2 cup Kashi GoLean (2), 2 turkey sausage links (2)

Lunch: Ham & Cheese on Light Rye (7), Cole Slaw (2), Apple (0)

Snack: 3 Wasa Light Crisps (1), 1 Laughing Cow Light wedge (1), grapes (0)

Dinner: Breakfast for Dinner Night = Pancakes (5), light syrup (1), 2 links turkey sausage (2)

Total PTS+: 27

Workout: 30 minute elliptical routine (3)

Daily Menu Plan: 10/18/11

I’ve been journaling religiously this week thanks to the WW iPhone app, but I’m finding that by not having a plan I’m eating way more than my 29 PTS+ each day.  That’s somewhat OK with my 49 WPAs (I have 23 left) and Activity PTS+ (I’ve worked out 4 times so far). But as we count down to the end of the week I don’t want to run out. Hence, menu plans for today (and ideally the rest of the week). My day tomorrow is a little up in the air but I have options that should be flexible. Here’s the plan:

Breakfast: Blueberry , Strawberry & Banana Smoothie with greek yogurt, flax oil (1 tsp) and 1/2 c Kashi cereal (6 PTS+)

Lunch: 1 serving cold Soba Noodle & Chicken salad (9 PTS+, recipe from the Flat Belly Diet book)

Dinner: Sweet Potato Soup (6) with large salad, 1 tsp evoo (1), vinegar (0)

Snacks: Granny smith apple with 1 Tbsp peanut butter (3), organic seedless red grapes (0)

Workout:  Bootcamp class (PTS+ TBD – it’s a new class and I don’t know how strenuous it will be)

If I get really hungry and need a bigger snack I’ll try to grab something for 3 PTS+ since I have one left and my Bootcamp class will likely be at least 2 PTS+.  The Kashi TLC granola bars fit that bill so that may be the answer.

Daily Menu Plan: Tuesday 9/6/11

Tomorrow is the first day of a new schedule for me. My office moved and my commute went from 45 minutes to 15. I expect this to be life changing, and am very excited. One other thing about the new office is that we are really not within walking distance of any restaurants so it will force me to bring my lunch more. This is a good thing! I am currently making tomorrow’s lunch and have planned out a day’s worth of eating since I am also going out to dinner with my mom tomorrow night. Not ideal after a long weekend of eating out (I went to Nantucket with friends), but by the time I get home from an after-work committment it will be 7:00 and she doesn’t want me to have to cook on top of that. So here’s the plan:

Breakfast: Mango/Peach smoothie with flax seed oil, Chobani vanilla yogurt, and Kashi GoLean for crunch.

Lunch: Whole wheat linguini with broccoli, 1 Tbsp pesto, 4 vegetarian meatballs, and a sprinkle of low fat italian blend cheese.

Snack: Apple with 2 Tbsp peanut butter

Dinner: 1 piece NYAJ’s bread with oil dip (Gotta have it!), baked haddock, and green beans

I am also going to take advantage of the shorter morning commute to work out in the a.m. I had gotten out of the habit when it required getting up at 5 am but now I should be able to get up at 6:30, work out for 30 minutes, and still get to work 30 minutes before I would have with my old commute. Did I mention I really like this move?!

Daily Recap: 6/15/11

This was, without a doubt, one of the most memorable nights of my life to date.

My dear, dear friends M & C confirmed that they are to become the proud parents of a beautiful baby boy. He is being brought to them by the gracious gift of adoption, and they got to meet him for the first time tonight. Words cannot express my immense joy, as I cannot imagine any better parents for this lucky little boy.

As if that weren’t enough, our beloved Boston Bruins won the Stanley Cup!!! It’s actually pretty ironic. This baby marks the 7th time M&C were considered as adoptive parents. Then the Bruins win the 7th championship by a Boston team in 10 years by winning game 7 of the series. Lucky 7s all around! Somebody take me to Vegas!!

Sadly, it was not the greatest day food-wise. But I’m OK with that given all of the other blessings that came. Here is what I ate (the good, the bad, and the ugly):

Breakfast: Mango peach smoothie with cereal and oil (5); turkey sausage (2)

Snack: Granola bar (3); grapes (0)

Lunch: Veggie lasagna (7), quinoa salad (3), brownie and cookie (14)

Snack: Toast (2) with PB (3) and banana (0)

Dinner: Iceberg lettuce + grilled chicken** (3); light fork-dipping in honey mustard dressing (3); 2 Corona light (8)

Snack: Banana (0); granola bar (3); Whole wheat bread w/ Peanut Butter (5)

(That last snack is b/c it’s 1 am and I am way, way, way too amped up to go to sleep. Dinner was at 8 pm (5 hours ago) so it’s no surprise I’m hungry. Can you say extra time at the gym tomorrow?!)

Total PTS+: (gulp!) 61
WPAs used: 32

Actually, I’m kinda surprised. I would have thought this day totally blew my entire week. But it didn’t. Sure, 61 PTS+ is alot. But I get 29 per day, and that’s only 32 WPAs of my 49. I had that many left. I’d only used 8 so far, which means I had 41 left. Using 32 today means I still have 9 left for the rest of the week. That’s not great, but doable. And with kicked up exercise to earn back some APs i think I can make it through the week and still stay on track.

See this is the thing about journaling. Often it’s not as bad as you thought. And instead of saying “I messed that up, so I might as well give up for the rest of the week” you can stay on track and end strong. So in honor of Lord Stanley and my beloved B’s I’m going to go for the win this week and do my best to come in within my PTS+. Go B’s!!! Little baby C picked a good night to become a Bostonian. I can’t wait to meet him!

** This was the sports bar’s feeble attempt at a salad. It was pretty pathetic.

Daily Recap: 6/14/11

Day 2 of my committment to journaling. I actually planned my meals today and really focused on hitting those 8 healthy guidelines. Didn’t get it perfect, but MUCH improved over recent days. There were even some veggies in there!

Breakfast: Mango peach smoothie with greek yogurt (3), 1 tsp Canola oil (1), and 30 g bran cereal (2); turkey sausage (2)

Snack: Grapes (0); Kashi TLC granola bar (3)

Lunch: Turkey sandwich on whole wheat with raspberry preserves & granny smith apple slices, and lettuce (5); cucumber sticks (0); 1/2 cup quinoa salad (2)

Afternoon Snack:  1 slice whole grain bread (2) with 1 Tbsp peanut butter (3) and sliced banana (0)

Pre-workout snack: Granola bar (3)**

Dinner: Tuscan Veggie Bake frozen entree (7)

Total PTS+: 33
Workout: 45 min treadmill + 45 min kick-butt workout w/ my trainer

** Unplanned but I was too hungry to work out on an empty stomach. I had to eat something and this would upset my stomach the least.

Daily Recap: 6/13/11

I started working with a personal trainer about 4 weeks ago, and one thing she asked me to do was keep a food journal. I said “yeah, sure, I do Weight Watchers! I have a food journal!” Yeah, right. I have not journaled much at all in the 4 weeks we’ve worked together, and have been too embarrassed to admit how bad my eating has really been. But she’s not here to judge me, she’s here to help me. So this week I committed to journaling everything. And since I’ve also been a bad blogger lately, I figured I’d combine the two. Instead of a “Daily Meal Plan” post I’m going to do a “Daily Recap” journal post every day this week. Here’s the first one (today was not a great day – Mondays are tough for me. But I’m going to get it reigned in tomorrow!):

Breakfast: Strawberry & blueberry smoothie w/ greek yogurt (3) + Kashi GoLean Crunch (2); 2 turkey sausage links (2)
Snack:  Kashi TLC Dark Cherry Chocolate granola bar (3)
Lunch: Chicken Pasta Pomodoro frozen entrée (7); Kashi TLC Pita Chips (5)
Dinner: Whole Foods vegan pizza on wheat crust (4); Single serve cup light vanilla ice cream (4) 
Late night snack (after watching the Bruins WIN!!): Granola bar (3)

Total PTS+: 33
Weekly PTS+ Used: 4 (45 remaining)
Workout:  30 min treadmill walk w/ weights on an incline (2)

Daily Menu Plan: 3/7/11

I actually have an entire menu planned out for the week (yeah!) so I’m going to share my daily plans with you each day. Here’s what’s on the roster for today:

B: Strawberry, blueberry, & banana smoothie with yogurt and Ezekiel cereal (5), 2 Applegate turkey sausage links (2)

S: 2 reduced fat cheese sticks (2)

L: Sandwich with 2 oz Nature’s Promise turkey (2), 1 slice 75% reduced fat Cabot cheddar (1), 2 slices WW whole wheat bread (2), and lettuce; 1 oz Popchips (3), 1 cup cucumber slices (0)

S: 1 organic granny smith apple (0) with 1 Tbsp almond butter or 20 almonds (3)

D: Gnocci (6) with 1/2 cup pasta sauce (1) and 2 oz ground turkey (2); large salad with 1 tsp olive oil + balsamic vinegar (1)

Total PTS+: 30 (uses 1 WPA)

E: Yoga DVD (I’m really sore from lifting and kickboxing this weekend, so using today to stretch and rest)

Daily Menu Plan: 2/26/11

Here’s my menu and exercise plan for the day. There’s  a chance I may go out to dinner tonight, in which case I’ll just choose something from the menu with an equivalent PTS+ value.

B: Strawberry and blueberry yogurt smoothie (5), 3 slices center cut bacon (2)
S: Granny Smith Apple with 1 Tbsp almond butter (3)
L: Black bean burger (4) with 1 slice 75% reduced fat cheese (1), salad w/ oil & vinegar (1), 3 oz Alexia baked sweet potato fries (4)
D: Laughing Cow Chicken (4), butternut squash w/ maple syrup (1), 3/4 cup brown rice (4)

Total PTS+: 29
Excercise: Body Pump Class (weights)

Daily Menu Plan: 2/2/11

I haven’t posted a meal plan in ages, mostly because I haven’t made one in ages. But with just 2 months to go until my 10th anniversary of joining WW I am bound and determined to get back on track. So here is what I plan to eat tomorrow:

Workout: Shoveling about a foot of snow, and if I can handle it after that 30 min on the elliptical

Breakfast: Berry Banana Smoothie (5 PTS+) with 2 slices of center cut bacon (2 PTS+) and 1 cup Trop50 (1 PTS+)

Lunch: Grilled ham and cheese on whole wheat (7), 1 cup V8 tomato soup  (2), and a granny smith apple

Snack: Red seedless grapes (0)

Dinner: Whole wheat spaghetti (5) with meat sauce (7), salad with 1 tsp olive oil (1) and balsamic vinegar 

Total PTS+:   30

I must say that my decision to uses pork sausage instead of my regular turkey was a big mistake. I did it because the pork sausage was antibiotic and hormone free, and Stop & Shop didn’t have a turkey sausage with the same characteristics. I didn’t realize it was 5 PTS+ per link and would make my meat sauce so high! To be honest I’ll probably freeze the rest and serve it to my boyfriend who can absorb the extra calories without much issue (he’s naturally thin and a runner, although he’s done WW before and knew me when I was heavy so I don’t have to hide any of my attempts to eat healthy – it’s great!). And I’ll work to find a turkey sausage that is bad-stuff free so I can have the best of both worlds.

This should be an OK plan, though. The breakfast above is very, very filling and I’ve been doing pretty well at not snacking as much between meals. I also have plenty of fruits and veggies in the house to snack on if I do get hungry. And I’m going to burn alot of calories shoveling so I’ll need a little extra fuel.

Here’s to the first day of my campaign to hit goal by my anniversary. I suppose that’s worth it’s own post…I’ll work on that tomorrow.

Day 1 on PointsPlus – Success!

Yesterday was my first official day on the PointsPlus program, and it was a doozy. I was spending the day with my family for Hannukah, so I knew the day would involve a bunch of foods that I don’t normally eat and might have a hard time counting. Luckily, though, I was able to do really well. I looked up foods throughout the day as I went and ended up exactly at my Daily PTS+ target before dessert. We were having my mom’s famous low calorie chocolate mousse pie for dessert so I calculated that, too, and just used some of my 49 WPA. All in all it felt like a very, very successful day. Here’s what I ate:

B (9:10 am): Blueberries (0), 6 oz Chobani vanilla yogurt (3)

S (11:30 am): Whole wheat english muffin (3), 1 Tbsp natural peanut butter  (3), medium banana (0)

S (1:30 pm): Granny smith apple while driving (0)

L (2:15 pm): 1.5 cups mom’s homemade bean/pasta soup* (8)

D (5:45 pm): 3 oz chicken breast (3), 3 latkes made from  mix – 3″ each (6), 1/2 cup sweetened applesauce (2), salad w/ fat free honey dijon dressing (1)

Total PTS = 29

For dessert I had 1/8 of my mom’s chocolate mousse pie, which I’ll have to post the recipe for shortly. It turned out to be 5 PTS+ for that serving so I pulled from my 49 for that and enjoyed it without a stitch  of guilt. I was totally satisfied with what I ate and didn’t feel like eating anything else even though I was up for several more hours afterward.

So I’d consider the first day of the new program a rousing success. On to day 2!

*This was a cross between ministrone, pasta fagioli and a stew. I looked up the PTS for all three and took an average.