Maintenance - What I Eat Now

A reader recently emailed me with some questions/topics relating to my Ask Me Anything post.  I guess I figured, because I've been living this "maintenance" life for so long now, that what I do is pretty boring, eating-wise, but she was interested enough to ask, so I decided to take pictures and keep a few notes on what I ate for a week.  Here's what the reader said to me:

Please start talking about your healthy food choices again. Blue Baker is obviously great, but a routine diet of their items is certainly not what is keeping you in the same size all these years. To keep from returning to where you started, you are constantly having to make the better food choice. That takes an enormous amount of inner strength! You have a lot to offer us on that topic, too, so don’t think you don’t. With your hubby gone for work a lot, you have made it a habit to make healthy choices, when it could much more easily be a drive-thru, junk-food, food-fest (I remember those days for myself!). So continue to share with us, how to you talk yourself into maintaining those healthy choices. What goes through your head when you’re making your food choices these days?

This post represents a week of my eating in March.  Jeff was traveling, so most of my meals were solo.  Toward the end of the week, as my long run on Saturday was looming (for this week, I was looking at running 11.5 miles), I started trying to increase my carbs a bit, plus I can't really do much in the way of salad/veggies, especially the day before the run, or my stomach rebels during the run.

I am not the poster child for eating a perfectly-balanced meal every day; what you are seeing here is real life for someone who used to be really overweight, lost a bunch of weight, and has managed to keep most of it off without hyper-focusing on every morsel that goes into my mouth.

Tuesday - exercise:  4 mile run

• Breakfast:  Protein drink and black coffee (x3) after my run.
• Lunch:  Leftovers - bacon from BB, about 4 oz of OJ, toasted sourdough baguette from Panera with about a teaspoon of butter.  I had dinner plans with a friend so I was eating light.
• Snack:  Iced nonfat latte (no sweetener) while doing a quick grocery shop - I don't usually stop at Starbucks while grocery shopping but the store I was at had one inside, plus I had a freebie coming to me.
• Dinner:  The restaurant we went to has added some new menu items, so we made a quick decision to try their chorizo queso with guacamole and chips.  It was pretty good!  Because I had the queso and chips, I didn't get fries with my pesto turkey burger.

How this was maintenance for me:  I ate fairly light during the day in anticipation of dinner out, plus I didn't get fries with the burger since we had an appetizer.

Wednesday - exercise:  none (rest day)

• Breakfast:   Black coffee (x2).
• Lunch:  Half of a huge salad from Salata - I got it to go, with dressing on the side, and brought it home for both lunch and dinner.  The salad was made with romaine lettuce, herbed chicken breast, broccoli, mushrooms, garbanzo beans, feta cheese, hardboiled egg, dried cranberries, strawberries, grapes, pineapple, and apples. 
• Snack:  Banana, then two Dove Dark Chocolate Promises.
• Dinner:  Other half of the huge salad.

How this was maintenance for me:  I planned on doing the huge salad to make up for the lack of veggies/fruit over the previous day (and let's be fair, probably the following day as well).

Thursday - exercise:  2 mile run

• Breakfast:  Black coffee (x2), protein drink, more coffee, and a Clif bar at the gift shop.
• Snack:  Chocolate cookie, bite of snickerdoodle cookie at the gift shop.
• Lunch:  Homemade chicken salad sandwich (350 calories), tiny dill pickles, Sun Chips (I went back for a second handful after I finished what was pictured).
• Dinner:  Split a burger and fries with Jeff
• Dessert:  Frozen Yogurt (and look, you can see the sides of the cup - that's my goal with self-serve, to not fill up the cup)

How this was maintenance for me:  My breakfast gets squeezed in as I don't have a lot of time between running and getting ready for my volunteer stint, so I usually end up bringing whatever I have on hand to eat at the gift shop while we're getting the store ready to open.  The cookies were free that day; I didn't end up eating one because after one bite I could tell it wasn't worth the calories - the other cookie, however, was delicious.  A staff member came in to buy chocolates for all of her group and had Rosalie and I choose one for ourselves as well, which was very nice.  I saved mine for later because I wanted to savor it and not take a bite and then have a customer come in and have to slam it down - if I'm going to eat those calories, I want to enjoy them!  I didn't eat lunch until close to 2:00 pm.  I was just going to have a bowl of cereal for dinner and the sea salt caramel for dessert but Jeff, who'd been out of town all week, got home earlier than expected, so I went with him to return his rental car and then we stopped for dinner out.  This day was a victory for me because I didn't eat the sea salt caramel treat when I came home for second dessert - hey, it's been known to happen!

Friday - exercise:  none (resting up for long run Saturday)

• Breakfast:  Black coffee, Greek yogurt with 1/4 cup Grape Nuts (trying something different instead of granola).  I could have gone with less Grape Nuts as that ended up being a lot of crunch in my yogurt.
• Lunch:  Split with Jeff - chicken shish kabob, rice, veggies, naan bread and baba ganoush
• Snack:  Cantaloupe, handful of pretzels
• Dinner:  Split a burger and fries with Jeff
• Dessert:  finally ate that sea salt caramel from Thursday

How this was maintenance for me:  Splitting two meals.  This was a carb-heavy day on purpose, in anticipation for our long run the following day.

Saturday - exercise:  11+ mile run

•  Breakfast:  Bottle of chocolate milk, a couple sips of OJ, lots of coffee, three pieces of bacon, and the raspberry/dark chocolate scone.
• Lunch/Dinner:  Chips and salsa, beef fajita roll up with a lime dressing on the salad greens, rice, a few bites of beans, a few chips dipped into the queso, and most of the guacamole.
• Dessert:  Half a Bundtlet cake.

How this was maintenance for me:  Quite frankly, it wasn't.  After such a long run, I got everything I wanted at Blue Baker - of course, I couldn't eat it all as my stomach usually doesn't allow for much when I run a lot of miles, but I had options, dang it!  It's pretty much an eat whatever day.

Sunday - exercise:  that would be a big fat NONE

• Breakfast:  Black coffee (x3), banana, leftover cranberry walnut muffin.
• Snack:  Some pretzels because I could reach the bag while lying on the couch with animals on me.
• Dinner:  Huge salad from Salata; did not come close to finishing it. 

How this was maintenance for me:  I went with my hunger cues and didn't have lunch - I was pretty hungry for dinner (as was Jeff) so we went to Salata, but neither of us finished our salads.  We gave it a good try, though!

Monday - exercise:  megaton of housework including vacuuming, ironically, a megaton of pet fur, plus 8 loads of laundry.  If I were counting steps, I'd have a lot on this day.

• Breakfast:  Black coffee (x2), plain nonfat Greek yogurt with dried cranberries and granola
• Lunch:  Clif bar
• Dinner:  Chicken salad sandwich, tiny dill pickles, Sun Chips (plus more after I finished these)
• Dessert #1:  Air-popped popcorn
• Dessert #2:  Dove dark chocolate Promises

How this was maintenance for me:  I had my old standby breakfast of Greek yogurt/fruit/granola, which holds me for quite a while.  I was busy all day with household chores, and then grabbed a Clif bar to eat right before I took Paco to the vet in the afternoon.  Dinner was early, right at 5:00, as I was pretty hungry at that point, and then I was still sort of hungry, which resulted in popcorn and then chocolate.  I pretty much ate most of my calories at the end of the day - eh, it happens.

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Other notes regarding this particular week's meals:

•  What I didn't show in the pictures is the amount of water I drink on a daily basis - I have a couple of 24 oz. Tervis tumblers that I'm constantly refilling throughout the day; I'd guess that I drink at least 100 ounces of water, if not more, every day, which also helps to fill me up.
• I'd been craving some Sun Chips and bought a bag - I love them with chicken salad sandwiches and even put them inside the sandwich.  But even though I put a reasonable handful on my plate, I went back for more each time.  This is why I don't buy chips very often.
• Because Jeff was traveling so much over the last few weeks, I made an effort to meet up with friends for several dinners; while I'm fine with being alone, it's not good for me to spend every meal, every day, all by myself.
• I get into food ruts with certain meals, which isn't necessarily a bad thing, but it kind of goes to show that no matter what, I still get food cravings.  The only difference is that more often, it's for big salads, or a 350 calorie homemade chicken salad sandwich, instead of Taco Bell's Big Box meal (I was so embarrassed when I realized it was marketed for men's appetites) or a McDonald's Extra Value Meal (plus an extra cheeseburger).  I'm not perfect, but I'm a heck of a lot better than I used to be when it comes to eating.