Day 95 - Attitude Maturation (Food)

I've chatted up my recent exercise a good deal & I feel real good about it. The new PR's are nice, but those are just numbers really. The importance of them is not having set new PR's but rather the fact that I have gotten out there and not only exercised but pushed myself. That's the real PR, the fact that I have moved my butt one more time than I had before. Hey, I steal nothing; that attitude about PR's is one I learned from someone who has been with me my entire journey here & whom I respect; Kyle.

Oh I do talk about PR's like they mean the world to me perhaps, but know that I do so only to motivate myself. No matter how much I may talk of PR's understand I know that what matters is the exercise getting done - period!

Food, food is really what I want to talk about today. Others have done reviews of their changes in eating habits comparing their before meals to their after starting to get healthy meals. I think of this as more than just changing how you eat, but adopting a new attitude towards how you approach food as a whole. So now it is my turn, a reflection of my old attitude of food vs. my new attitude.

Breakfast @ 615 a.m...
OLD ATTITUDE: Apple Fritter & Sausage Biscuit
(Oh how I love apple fritters! Someday I will treat myself to one but no longer are they typical breakfast fare for me)

NEW ATTITUDE: Greek Yogurt w/ Fruit & dash of Granola
(I thought of this post idea right after breakfast, so I had to surf for a similar dish; this is quite close)

Snack @ 845 a.m...
OLD ATTITUDE: Snickers Bar
(I miss these; the best candy bar ever!)

NEW ATTITUDE: Carton of Skim Milk (Moo...)

Lunch @ 1145 a.m...
OLD ATTITUDE: Burrito, Rice & Refried Beans
(I like my refried beans triple refried, and I wondered for so long why I am obese)

NEW ATTITUDE: Garden Salad (salad bar) w/ Tuna (canned) & Sesame Oil

Snack @ 245 p.m...
OLD ATTITUDE: Rice Krispie Treat
(Perhaps the best 'tasting' energy bar sold in our cafeteria for a mid-afternoon boost to the finish line)

NEW ATTITUDE: Apple

Dinner @ 645 p.m...
OLD ATTITUDE: Steak & Potatoes

NEW ATTITUDE: Grilled Chicken Breast, Fried Rice w/ Veggies & Fruit Salad
(I forgot to take a picture of my actual dinner so I had to surf and whack a similar dish together)

Dessert @ 745 p.m...
OLD ATTITUDE: Ice Cream Cone

NEW ATTITUDE: Grapes
(When I have a dessert which is now rare) 

Tale of the Scale
OLD ATTITUDE: 4,200 calories (40% fat, 40% carbs, 20% protein)
NEW ATTITUDE: 1,700 calories (30% fat, 40% carbs, 30% protein)
(calculated using a FitDay account I use for reference when needed)

Huh? Would you look at that. I've said it a few times since starting my blog that I do not count calories and certainly not the energy breakdown. I did it just for this one post, and I am somewhat surprised at what I see there.

I would have thought my diet change would have seen my fat & carb intake drop and protein rise. I didn't expect to see carbs stay the same. Perspective, let me keep perspective. This is just one days eating, so I wont analyze this too much. I am eating more fruit than ever before so maybe that is why my carb intake is the same. Hopefully the carbs I am taking in are better than before. And I am eating better proteins so that should account for the rise in protein and drop in fat intake.

You can analyze the numbers until you have a brain freeze. The part of this comparison that takes just seconds to tag as cause for my losing weight is the calories themselves. Roughly 40% the caloric intake of the old gluttonous me, that is the core of my overall new food attitude which has me on my way here.

How is your attitude today?

Responsibility 199 - Gotta Do It!!

Day 88 - Red, White & Brown

Wednesday, Wednesday - Did you know today is Wednesday?

Here are the answers to yesterday's Sam riddles...
1- ANSWER - Meat
2- ANSWER - Pour two pancakes and brown the first side. After the first side is done, flip one, take the second off, and pour the third pancake. After another minute, take the first one off, flip the third one, and put the second one back on. Cook both pancakes until finished.
3- ANSWER - An egg

Hope you enjoyed the riddles. Luke's brain got these unraveled pretty quick, well done. His first try at #3 was a caterpillar, which I got a chuckle from... don't caterpillar's have meat? :-) If I had offered a prize for first to the answers it would have been a shiny new car, but, I forgot to offer a prize. Maybe next time.

Rice, I like rice; I love wild rice. I haven't eat allot of rice recently as I've tried to keep carbs in check a bit. No, I wouldn't say I am on a low carb diet, or any diet plan. My old eating habits were a display in carb overload. Today I keep them in check better while replacing much of the bad carbs I used to eat with fruit, veggies and better protein choices.

There you see a picture of a box of wild rice I bought recently. Unfortunately I have not been able to enjoy it yet. The other night I was going to make this rice as a side dish, that is, until my kids saw the box and let me have it. They love rice, but only, and I mean ONLY white rice. And more specifically they greatly prefer short grain rice cooked in the rice steamer over long grain versions. Bottom line, they love white sticky rice, and that is the only rice that exists in their minds.

Debate on - I countered that there are tens-of-thousands of  varieties of rice on this rock we call home and that we ought to try a few of them. Red, White & Brown, all sorts of rice colors, shapes and sizes to explore and adore! Silly me, I am talking to teenagers. They have all the answers and know it all, right? On that day I relented and put the wild rice back on the shelf. Simply I was not in the mood to make it, watch nobody else have desire to eat it but have plenty of desire to complain about it. That fun will we'll have on another day.

When you have six mouths in the house you will frequently encounter these challenges where some like an item and others don't. Fish and veggies are constantly being debated here. Rice not so much as we usually just go sticky. But now that my wife & I are working on getting healthier I am finding myself a little less tolerant to unwillingness to broaden palate horizons. As we are adding healthier options and trying new things we too would like to see them be a bit more desirous of doing so.

That said, I am a firm believer in not needing to ever eat a food you don't enjoy. Brussel sprouts, an absolutely hideous food according to my palate. You can pound out the health benefits of brussel sprouts in bronze and I won't capitulate to eating them. So then who am I to suggest, let alone insist, they take a left turn from sticky rice to a dish of wild rice? I mean, they are still eating rice, a healthy choice, right? It is not like they insist on having a side of gummy-bears with the chicken.
 

What foods do enjoy that you wish your family shared your desire for?

Responsibility 199 - Gotta Do It!!