Gold Star

I had another visit with my nutritionist today ($300 and counting). It was a good visit, and she was very pleased with my progress. By her scale, it's been another 4 pounds, and she was impressed. After reviewing my food journal and talking things over, she said she thinks things are going really well and that I can keep on doing the same thing.

Sometimes when this method doesn't work, she switches patients to more of a "diet-diet" with stricter rules, like food exchanges and stuff, but she said I don't seem to need that and that this looser method is working for me. That's a good thing, cuz the constraints of a "diet-diet" are not sustainable for me over the long term, I know that from experience. So, yay me! :-)

Today we spent most of the time talking about my lunches at work. I've found that I need to make sure I have a filling lunch, cuz otherwise the afternoon can be dangerous - if I get really hungry and don't have any good snacks left, that's a *red alert* time for bad decision-making.

Today was a good example, actually, cuz it turns out that leftover jambalaya did not sustain me - even though it was a big portion - and by 3 pm I was already having hunger pangs. So we talked that through... I thought maybe it was just cuz it was so much rice, but as we talked about the recipe she said that's only part of it, that it really was that I didn't have enough protein. She recommended I have at least 4 oz (and for me I'd guess closer to 6 oz) of protein at lunch-time, particularly during the week, so that it can get me through 'til evening.

Her assessment was that the jambalaya probably wasn't enough, so she gave me good advice on "fixing" it and I came home and did just that. I opened up the little dishes and started making some changes -- I spooned out some rice from 2 f the remaining dishes into the other 2, then I stuck those with more rice into the freezer. I'll hold onto those for the weekend, when I can eat them as a dinner and have a less-carb-centric soup or salad as my other meal. I have much better snacking options on the weekend, too, so the carb-heavy meal might be better then. After that, I took the 2 remaining dishes that I'll use for lunch this week, and I added about 4 more oz of turkey kielbasa to each one. Sure, the new pieces won't have been cooked in the same way, but once they're nuked at work they should all taste fine. And the added meat will help me get through the long afternoons I have during the week. (Note, she's not ant-carb. In fact, she said "This isn't Atkins!" She said the trick is just learning the right way to space it out during the day.)

These are good tips - and experience as shown I really do need to have a more protein-heavy breakfast and lunch and save some of the carbs for dinner. It's all about learning how your body reacts and what your own natural schedule is during the day. Helpful!