More About What I Eat

I tend toward late-night blog entries these days, given that I am gainfully employed, tend to stay out late most weeknights -- at the gym, or waiting for my Bronze Life Master husband to finish one of his twice-a-week bridge games. (To me, "bridge" and "Urdu" spring from the same source, and I remain perpetually in awe of anyone who not only understands it, but is resoundingly good at it.)

Because of this, my initial entry on What I Ate For A Whole Freakin' Week was a late-nighter: short on length, and on meaningful detail. Instead, I filled it with ezpz hyperlinks, hoping you wouldn't notice the lack of pith.

Um, so. I'll try to remedy that, with this somewhat leisurely Sunday morning entry.

I'm pretty much like everybody else: I do love food, and lots of it. Obviously, I can't eat "lots of it" if I'm to stay at a healthy weight. So, I do my best eat enough, but not too much. Some days, sure -- I eat a lot. Most of those days, I've put in a lot of miles . . . but on a few of those days, I did nothing more strenuous than walk from the car to house/house to car/car to office/and back, and hoof it up and down stairs a few times. I try to peg my intake to my outgo, but the two don't always meet up smoothly. In the long run, though, everything tends to balance out.

Also -- one thing I definitely am not, is an ongoing beacon of virtue, as Shauna "DietGirl" Reid puts it. While many >>bzzt<< some >>bzzt<< OK! A FEW! of my food days are near-paragons of nutritional perfection . . . others pretty much amount to carb celebrations, especially if I am stressed at work.* I never met a carb I didn't like, and that's highly unlikely to change. So, if you are looking for the perfect maintenance diet, you've found it -- unfortunately, it's for me; it may or may not be of any use to you.

Keeping that warning firmly in mind, herewith are the supporting pillars of my daily diet, in no particular order.

1. Life's too short to eat bad food.
2. Diet food sucks, so I eat as little of it as possible.
3. The only foods I don't eat are ones that are moldy or waaay past their expiration date. (Yes, I have been known to apply the 5-second rule.)
4. Chocolate! Chocolate! Chocolate!
5. Life's too short to drink bad wine.
6. Moderation in all things, including moderation.
7. Aim for 80% healthy intake, and have fun with the other 20%.

Now, despite my chocolate fixation and my love of carbs, I do work toward nutritionally-balanced food days. I strive toward getting my fruits and veggies in every day. The problem is, though: fruits are easy! Veggies are hard! Especially during the week, when I'm away from home most of my waking hours. I have a fresh fruit bowl on my desk, but a "fresh veggie" bowl just doesn't cut it. I like my veggies cooked, with the exception of tomatoes, peppers and the occasional carrot. (I run hot and cold on salads, too.) And while I like fruit snacks, the concept of a nice, steaming bowl of broccoli and cauliflower as an afternoon snack . . . eh, no. Doesn't work for me.

Instead, I try to pile on the veggies at dinner. This works, most of the time, assuming that I'm at home, or someplace where veggies are actually available.

As I said: I'm hardly a paragon of virtue. Still, my diet is much improved over a few years ago. Fortunately, I love fish - salmon's my extra-extra favorite - and I do like whole grains, tho' I confess to preferring white Basmati rice over brown. (Hey, millions of Chinese can't be wrong -- oh, wait, maybe that's "millions of Chinese don't even care.") During my weight loss journey, I discovered I actually like: oatmeal, spinach, asparagus, sushi, avocado. These foods are now a regular part of my diet.

In return, I've dropped a number of foods that I no longer need to eat (aka, "foods containing the dreaded trans-fats"): Krispy Kreme donuts, pretty much all fast food. And I no longer guzzle several sugared Cokes a day . . . or even one.

I still eat red meat, though, just not nearly as much as I used to. Maybe once or twice a month. And I prefer lamb to beef, and grass-fed beef to regular beef. I eat pork, chicken, turkey, and even have no-animal-flesh-at-all days, from time to time. Not consciously; it just works out that way.

I also have favorite foods that I'm unlikely to give up - now, or perhaps ever - but I eat them far less frequently, and in much smaller portions:

• French fries
• Scones (like Shauna, I am a Fool For All Things Scone)
• Muffins
• Fried chicken - wings or otherwise
• Cheese (there's nothing I like more than a gourmet fruit-and-cheese plate, and a glass or two of wine . . . oh, and would you throw in a little salumi?)
• Chocolate bars (as long as there's no coconut in 'em)
• Humongous chocolate chip cookies

Finally, I do actually eat so-called "diet" versions of certain foods. My hard-and-fast rule on these substitutes: they had BETTER taste as good, or better, than the real thing.

• Hellmann's Reduced Fat Mayonnaise (this IS AWESOME! 20 calories a tablespoon!)
• Reduced-fat cheese - Sargento or Cabot, thankyouverymuch -- Kraft 2% slices are gross.
• Diet Coke and Splenda
• Reduced fat or fat-free dairy. Examples: fat-free sour cream, skim milk. I do prefer reduced fat Philadelphia cream cheese to the fat-free variety.
• The occasional reduced saturated-fat product, like Lite coconut milk
• The occasional reduced-fat salad dressing - but I prefer my own mixture of olive oil and balsamic vinegar

That's it; that's the whole list. I don't do rice cakes, 100-calorie packs, Weight Watchers bars or recipes (sorry, WW), reduced-fat pastries, Fat Free Cool Whip <<shudder>>. Etc. My substitutes tend toward reduction of saturated fat, as I do have to watch my cholesterol levels. Oftentimes, I will take the sat-fat out of a dish, only to replace it with a healthy fat, like olive or canola oil.

Now, as for what I ate during the storied week in which Shauna, Gerry and I logged our food for the world to see . . . a few notes.

1. Yes, I count calories, and I don't bother to round them. I reported what CalorieKing gave me, even if it looks like an odd result. I weigh and measure my food at home, and eyeball portion sizes -- and mentally deconstruct my plate for calorie logging -- when I am out.
2. This was actually not a completely typical week for me: my husband was out of town, and I ended up home for dinner far more nights than I usually do. In addition, Saturday was the start of a three-day holiday weekend in New York City, and I do eat more (and oftentimes a bit less healthily) when I'm away on vacay. I did, though, try very hard to not be an "ideal" eater . . . and judging from some of my entries, I very much succeeded at that!
3. I like to cook - at last count, I have more than 200 cookbooks - but I have little time for it. Still, I do get a chance to be creative once in a while. Here's a recent rice cooker recipe of mine: Brown Rice with Tagine Spice, Dried Apricots, and Slivered Almonds.
4. Yes, I do eat meals that are more than 1,000 calories. It's a myth that women, especially, can eat no more than, say, 1500 calories a day, and can eat meals of nor more than, say, 500 calories a day. My annual average caloric intake is somewhere in the neighborhood of 2300 - 2400 calories a day. A glance at my Calorie King log reveals that I average more than that during the summer, when I can ride a lot, and less in the winter, when I'm forced to be more of a slug. (Multi-hour spinning bike rides are so not fun, and I so do not do them.)
5. That said, my typical meal is 400 - 800+ calories; my plus-1000 calorie meals are usually eaten out, or else are associated with an incipient (or just finished) long-distance bike ride.
6. Do I plan my food days? Sorta -- it's more big-picture than detail. I tend to be a seat-of-the-pants eater, and will gladly ditch what I planned to eat if a better offer comes along. ("Want to have Chinese/Thai/sushi on the way home?" "SURE!".) I set my CalorieKing log at 1900 calories, base, a day, and I eat at about that level (sometimes more, only occasionally less) on days I don't do any activity. Days that I do, I log the calories burned from the activity, based on what CalorieKing tells me, and eat the extra.
7. Yes, I'm fully aware that my calorie counts are not exact, nor are my exercise counts. That's not important. What is important, is that they are "right enough," and that my system works for me. It gives me a flexible framework on which to hang my eating habits. If I'm injured, for example, I know about how much I can eat. If I've biked 70 miles, I know about how much I can eat. If I start to gain weight, I can look at my food logs and pretty easily spot the reason. ("Hmmm . . . funny, I don't remember eating that much last week, but looks like I did!")

OK, enough with the notes. You can view my food week, as well as Shauna's and Gerry's, here. Questions? Leave a comment!

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*I still fondly recall the time I had a Very Bad Day at work, and my triple-chocolate response. I went out and got an Au Bon Pain double-chocolate muffin and a skim Starbucks mocha. The rest of my day was much more manageable.