Spotless - Week 8

Protein Metabolism
For one week I have been diligently writing down everything I eat and the serving sizes. Not an easy task, but extremely eye opening! Turns out I really do eat a lot of sugar. I have been offered, and eaten, more than one serving of cakes and cookies almost every day this week (3 very large cookies, 2 1/2 slices of cake to be exact. I only eat desert when I think it tastes good. Unfortunately I couldn't say no to these.) So, what makes a person who doesn't like sweets eat so much sugar? Birthdays and parties. Eating healthy while socializing is down right difficult. Imagine if I made and ate my own sweets on top of that!

Lessons I've learned this week
Planning what you are going to eat each day is a must. I exceeded my daily serving of carbohydrates everyday. Every day. Why? At some point in the day I was hungry and didn't have a meal planned yet (usually at dinner). Snacking on something quick almost ALWAYS leads to eating something not in your meal plan. Looking back at my food logs I am surprised that it happened every day and I couldn't stop it.

So, where am I going over on carbs? Quick snacks and parties. Cake. Cookies. Another banana here or there. That extra slice of bread with almond butter and honey because it's 'just too good too resist.' It's amazing how quickly the little things add up. All the food I choose to eat is very healthy (besides the couple of cookies and bits of cake I ate), but I am eating too many servings of the wrong things. I didn't know that until this week. (Don't get me wrong, I am certainly not saying I need to eat less. I actually need to eat more of the right things. I am following the suggested servings of the DSP at 1600 cal. I eat all day long and never even get close to the 1600 cal mark - always fall short - and I am constantly eating! Who knew I didn't eat enough food before?)

Healthy diet equals varied diet. I was constantly eating this week. Every few hours I was getting out the next snack or meal from the fridge. The only way I could eat the daily amounts I needed was to have a large variety of food types in each meal. It took a bit of work and planning, but the days that I had the most variety were the best days for me. I felt satisfied all day and never got bored with what I was eating.

Meat satisfies for a long time. I know this is common sense, but I didn't realize the power of meat until this week. Like I've mentioned before, I'm not a big meat eater. I've tried to increase my protein this week by eating more eggs, nuts and chicken. I've discovered that I don't like to eat meat at night because I don't sleep as well with heavy meat in my stomach, and I can still feel it when I wake up! Yuck. I run in the morning and don't want to feel food weighing me down. It also ruins my appetite for breakfast, my favorite meal of the day. So, I don't eat meat at night, but try to fit it in at breakfast and lunch. This has changed my days significantly! I wake up fresh and ready to go and I'm satisfied all day long. I think I really did need to increase my protein intake. I'm surprised.

Fast Sunday
The last thing I would like to mention is how I felt today. As most know, I am usually ridiculously hungry on Fast Sundays. Not today!  This put me in a great mood. Remembering how I felt earlier in the week when I ate meat at night, I loaded up on pulled pork Saturday night at my friend's birthday dinner. The result? I wasn't hungry all day! Amazing.