Day 1 - 2 stars

Monday's Goals:
1500 calories
Strength Training

Monday's Achievements:
1500 calories
Strength Training

I did really well yesterday - 2 stars for diet and exercise. For my workout, I did FitPrime's From the Ground Up (did rebounding during the cardio segments) and had a 1500 calorie day yesterday. For breakfast I had my usual protein shake (300 calories). For lunch I had a bean and cheese burrito seasoned with salsa, jalepeno and lime juice (450 calories). After lunch I had a couple pieces of hard candy (50 calories) so that left me with 700 calories for dinner. I made a really good dinner last night - hubby was delighted...there's this recipe my mom told me about in our favorite cookbook The Best Recipe for salmon that is outrageously good. I usually substitute tilapia. It's fish that's broiled, then smeared with dijon mustard and then encrusted in a breading made of crushed potato chips, fresh toasted bread crumbs and dill. I also made roasted veggies (brussel sprouts, peppers, onions and carrots) and mashed potatoes.

The pain in the neck thing about this diet is that it is very cumbersome to count calories for meals like this. It takes a lot of diligence and care. What I do is, for each thing I am making, I write down the total calories for every ingredient going into the entire recipe - so, for example, if I am using a pound of tilapia, I look up tilapia in my calorie counter book and then calculate the total calories for a pound. I do this for all the ingredients. Then, when the recipe is done, I add up the total calories of the entire recipe, weigh the whole recipe on my scale and calculate calories per ounce. Then, I can dole out portions to myself that fit within my calorie limits for the day.

Major. Pain. in. the. ass.

I'd say that's the only thing I hate about this particular eating program. Otherwise, I don't really have too many problems with this diet. Well, except that the low-cal days (1400, 1500) are trying because I really never feel completely satisfied eating that little food in one day.

I will say, however, that I am NOT hungry. The plate of food I had for dinner last night was large! In fact, hubby mistook my plate for his (because he usually gets a big plate of food and mine is usually smaller). When I cook recipes that have fish or vegetables in them, they generally tend to be high in bulk for the calories, so my plate was pretty whopping in size last night. But still, I could have EASILY eaten seconds because the food was pretty light and I could have definitely gone for a nice, big bowl of ice cream afterwards and that would have been PERFECT!!!!

But as it was, I was determined to stick to my 1500 calorie limit and I did it!

Oh, and I forgot to add that usually after dinner - when I am craving sweets (which is most nights)....I make myself a homemade calorie-free lemonade (or limeade) to take the edge off. I fill a glass almost all the way with seltzer, squirt in a full lemon or lime and then stir in some Stevia (a natural herbal sweetener that has no calories). It's nice and sweet and keeps my sweets cravings from sending me off the deep end.