counting calories

Light Carb Update #3

Posted by Lisa Eirene

I am happy that it is starting to be berry season because berries, especially strawberries (my favorites), are lower in carbs. I’ve been struggling to get lower than 100grams of carbs a day in my diet. I hover between 100-130 on my “low carb days”, which doesn’t really feel low carb if you ask me. BUT I am still not eating bread, rice, potatoes or pasta sooo….in that aspect I’m doing well.

I’ve done some reading and it seems like a true low-carb diet, like Atkins, is somewhere around 20 grams of carbs a day. That sounds INSANE to me, and definitely not something you can keep doing long term.

Progress

The blip last week fixed itself this week! I’m down to 169! Woot Woot! Happy to be out of the 170’s finally. It was hard to break that threshold when I was yo-yo-ing up and down the same 5 pounds.

So far in the last month, or so, I’ve lost 6 pounds. I’m pretty happy with that!

Challenges

Last week Michael and I had a date night to see Joe Rogan’s stand up here in Portland.

We went out to dinner at Reverend’s BBQ and I was able to stay on my diet for the most part! I REALLY wanted the mac n’ cheese or hushpuppies but I ordered smart. We shared some deviled eggs:

And I got brisket with the collard greens. (So delicious!)

My carbs came from the BBQ sauce and the wine:

Despite that, I was able to stay around 100g of carbs total for the day of my eats. I’m happy that even eating out at a restaurant I was able to make good choices.

Friday or Saturday nights are usually the day I choose for my “cheat meal” but this Friday I stayed on track and the “cheat” was having some wine with dinner:

I had a salad with blackened salmon and cottage cheese.

Last week we tried cauliflower pizza for the first time. It was pretty good, but not quite right. Michael wanted to experiment and try again. So the day before he made the riced cauliflower even finer and then cooked it and tried to dry it a little more overnight. It didn’t really work so we ended up having homemade pizza.

It was an unexpected carb “cheat” meal that I was a little disappointed to have (because I was having some momentum and wanted to keep that going a few more days before having a cheat meal) but in the end it turned out to probably be a good idea. Going too long in “denial” phase can lead to binges.

The pizza was sooo good!

New This Week

Saturday for breakfast I tried having my breakfast burrito in a low-carb wrap:

Each wrap is 70 calories, 10g of carbs, 4g of fiber, 5g of protein. Good numbers if you ask me. So how did it taste? Not great…not as good as a flour or corn tortilla. I was kind of bummed out by that because I had high hopes! Especially considering the usual flour tortilla we use is 26 grams of carbs. BOO!

I think the Flat-Out wraps are also pretty low in carbs. I might check those out next week.

Surprise Progress

Posted by Lisa Eirene

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That’s me right now. 🙂 Happy dance!

A few weeks ago I decided to suck it up and step on the scale. I needed to see where I was at since I was going to try and really get serious about losing the baby weight. I was surprised to see that I had lost a few pounds and it was a nice surprise and a nice motivator!

At the time I was eating around 1800 calories as a base and if I worked out and burned another 400 calories, I was eating most of those calories back. It really did depend on the day and the baby. If Logan was going through some kind of growth spurt and was cluster feeding or I just felt hungrier than normal, I was listening to my body and eating more.

When I saw that I was losing a little bit of weight, I decided it was time to go down to 1700 calories as a base. It’s only a 100 calorie difference but I thought it was time. I hadn’t been feeling ravenous lately so I figured it was a good time to do it.

My only concern was that reducing my calories too much might effect my milk supply. I didn’t want that to happen, hence the 100 calorie difference. Losing weight would be nice, but not at that cost. In the last two or so weeks since I reduced my base to 1700 I have noticed a little bit of a shift in my supply. I’m hoping it’s not too significant. I’m keeping a very watchful eye on it and if it does reduce too much I might have to back off on trying to lose the weight right now.

Well last week I got on the scale and was happily surprised to see another loss! This time I was down about 1.5 pounds! So for the month of July (and part of June) I lost about 4.5 pounds! That’s a lot!

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When I got pregnant I was 157 pounds. My goal is to get back to 150 (my original goal weight) so that’s about 20 pounds to go. 14 pounds if I just want to get back to my pre-pregnancy weight.

Seeing the 4.5 pound loss this summer was really encouraging. I was honestly feeling pretty discouraged because I figured I wouldn’t lose the pregnancy weight until I stopped breastfeeding, but something is finally clicking and I’m starting to see some results.

4 Months Post-partum
4 Months Post-partum

Another motivator is that some of the summer clothes I bought in May (in the bigger size) are a little looser now.

What have I been doing?

  • I’m tracking my calories every day.
  • 1700 calories is the daily base + some of the gym calories I burn.
  • I’m trying to make better choices about WHAT I eat.
  • I’m paying attention to portions.
  • I’m trying not to drink my calories too much. Meaning, no more orange juice with breakfast, trying not to drink diet soda, trying to drink more water, trying to keep the glasses of wine or beer to just Friday and Saturday nights, etc. All those extra beverage calories are not necessary and they add up fast.
  • I’m working out consistently–swimming, walking, weight lifting, cardio machines at the gym. I’m working out 5 days a week in some form (some days it’s just a walk, and that’s ok).

Here is an example of one day:

Breakfast – 2 scrambled eggs, hash-brown patty, unsweetened iced tea, iced coffee. Calories: 407

Lunch – Grilled ham and cheese sandwich with a nectarine. Calories: 630

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Probably not the healthiest lunch but I’d been craving a grilled cheese sandwich for weeks and I burned a ton of calories on my walk with Logan.

Exercise – Walk. Calories burned: 607

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Snack – Trader Joe’s Chipotle Bean Dip with some raw veggies. Calories: Around 150

Dinner – Basmati Rice with a Vegetarian Indian dish on top and spinach salad. Calories: 500

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Dessert – Some pieces of chocolate and a glass of milk. Calories: 200.

Total for the day was just under 1900 calories (so 1700+ eating back some of the 607 calories I burned on our long walk). I did have some “liquid calories” (the coffee and a glass of milk) but I still had a bunch of calories leftover for the day.

Most of the time dinners are what Michael and I usually have–a protein and a vegetable. Like steak + sautéed sweet potatoes and onions + steamed broccoli. That’s a pretty good example of what we eat for dinners. Twice a week for breakfast I’m doing the overnight oats, the other days it’s usually eggs and an English Muffin or hash-brown patties (from Trader Joe’s–only 130 calories and so tasty!).

Here is another example of a gym day:

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That was weight lifting and the elliptical. As far as fitness goes I’ve got it pretty dialed in. I’m mostly back to what I was doing before I was too pregnant to do things! Being able to physical do the stuff I used to do has also helped with my motivation.

So onward and downward! I hope the scale keeps moving!