Food Diary Day 2 – Many lessons learned

Over the past five months there is a valuable lesson I have learnt – not to let myself starve!
I would frequently sit at my desk at 11am in the morning, with no breakfast in my stomach, no water in my system and the only thing being processed by my body was a latte and the nicotine from two cigarettes.
That’s right – until September last year – I smoked.

I had quit on and off throughout my life – one time for about two years- but I went back to it when my life spun into turmoil and I hadn’t been able to give them away – until I got sick in September last year.

I haven’t had a cigarette since – and rather than packing on the weight, like most people understandably do – I have lost 16 kilos since.

I have also successfully trained myself to eat breakfast – which I never did, not even as a teen – and to exercise as well. Not bad in six months, really

However, I haven’t really taken to snacking. I’m always famished just before lunch and dinner … My goodness am I hungry! So, what do you do when you eat and you’re starving? Well, I don’t know about you, but I’m much more likely to eat more than what I really need because all I can think about is food and how much I want it in my tummy. It wreaks havoc on portion control – and for the guilt factor too.

I’d tried bringing fruit to work – that worked a bit – and then I’d buy these huge bags of nuts from the shops – but that’s dangerous because if you don’t break them up into portion sizes, if you’re like me, you’ll sit there and mindlessly munch and crunch and before you know it, a healthy snack has turned into a feast you should never have partaken in.

A colleague of mine recommended a cool thing you can get delivered to your work to ensure you have some healthy snacks on hand – it’s called HarvestBox. It’s a box that gets delivered one a week, on whatever day you like – and it’s filled with portion-controlled morsels of nuts and dried fruit. I was super excited when it arrived -

- and so far, it’s very scrumptious at about 3pm.

This portion of goodness had dried cherries, almonds and also tiny buttons of bittersweet chocolate. OMG - YUM! Just enough chocolate to give you the taste, but not enough to make you feel like you did something naughty. Perfect!

As for the rest of my meals – the second day of the week is Tom Yum Soup Tuesday – and so that’s what I had for lunch.

After enjoying my morning snack and a big lunch – I didn’t feel like anything in the afternoon.
After work I headed to the gym to do 40 minutes of cardio – bike, cross trainer, 100 floors on the step machine and then the treadmill. Sweat was flowing and the heart rate was definitely up!

Then it was home to make us a nice dinner. A Kashmiri curry – with a tomato and yogurt base, chicken, beans, carrots and green capsicum, and some yellow rice.
These are the bowls I use to dish up – the square one is Matt’s and the round one is mine – and significantly smaller.

Six months ago if I’d dished up my dinner in this bowl, I would have felt like I wasn’t having s propped dinner. At first, I did feel hungry – but now I’m very happy with this portion size.
Plus, the curry was delish!

I’m really proud of myself that I have been able to break some serious habits – smoking, not eating breakfast – and creating new habits like exercising, and now, snacking on healthy things to ensure I’m not starving and therefore giving me my best chance of making good food choices.

But, I’m not perfect – far from it. Obviously I have another habit to break – which I told you about yesterday (click here for my confession) - but I’ll never be perfect! All I can do is keep working to improve myself. I’m going to have slip ups and meltdowns and the like – but, that’s ok.