Eating In. Eating Out.

Well tonight we are eating WAY later than my 6pm rule, but it was pretty much un avoidable. We had couples counseling at 5pm that ran a little late (till 5:30) so we were either eating dinner at 4:00 or now. I chose now. It’s also ok because I wont be going to bed so early tonight because I get a THREE DAY WEEKEND! So I’m ok with pushing things back an hour. I will have to think about counseling for next week and how to fit dinner around it, we will see.

Well tonight we are having a great (AND VEGAN!) dinner!  I am making Skinny Chili Seasoned fries (with my amazing Mandolin I got for Christmas!), the recipe is a video from The WW Chick that you can watch here. They are super easy and pretty much amazing! They also arent fried! Hallelujah! With this we are having Vegan Sloppy Joes (which my BFF Mallory told my are called Sloppy Janes) that we buy in a box from Whole Foods. They are really yummy, even Mr. Gaunt likes them. We have them on Sara Lee 80 Calorie Wheat Buns.

In other news I skipped weigh in this week. I have maintained well and am still sitting 1.5lbs away from my big goal of 75lbs lost. I’m ok with this, I will not dwell. So I missed the meeting, but I do know this weeks topic was on Eating Out. Anyone who has ever attempted to lose weight KNOWS eating out is freaking hard! It just sucks! Mr. Gaunt and I have a few places we feel comfortable eating at (Chilis has a light menu, Water Course has amazing Vegan and vegetarian food, Subway and Chipotle can be safe) (Oh and Eat This, Not That has a website now where you can get all kinds of great restaurant tips!) but it’s still hard. Bitch Cakes, an amazing WW member/blogger who I have raved about before did a great post on her own personal feeling on eating out. I just had to share HER list of reasons for why she doesn’t eat out:

• I don’t trust the cleanliness of the food/kitchen/preparer(s).
• I don’t want to be subjected to/distracted by/tempted by food.
• I don’t like eating while talking (it takes the focus off the food – I feel like dining and socializing should be two separate things).
• I don’t like having other people watch me eat.
• I am vegan and health conscious and don’t believe there’s (for example) no oil or MSG, or I worry that they shared a utensil that touched meat or something else I don’t want to ingest.
• I don’t like using silverware other people have used.
• I don’t want to see/smell meat that other people are eating.
• I know I can make a better, healthier, lower point version of whatever I am going to eat. So why stress myself out *and* pay money for a meal that’s not as enjoyable and also higher in calories, fat and points?

I think this is such a good list! Although I’m not a huge germ-a-phobe, I get what she is saying with cleanliness. She also posts about what she does with friends instead of eating out. Read her whole post HERE! I wish I could separate food with entertainment, it would make life easier.

So that’s about it, just something to think about. We had a really great therapy session tonight, brought up lots of old feelings and made me feel a lot better about things I would have called mistakes. I feel really good about this.

Grilled Cheese and Tomato Soup

The cold weather seems to be holding strong still, and I’m just about over it. Laying in the sun sounds so nice right now. We are expected to get snow tonight through Sunday, ugh. Luckily I’ve been working overtime so I will probably only have a 4 hour shift on Friday, get home before the snow gets bad.

Today is day two of no eating past 6 pm. It’s definately something I’m going to have to get use to because usually we eat around 7:30 or 8. Tonight I almost forgot until I looked at the clock and it said 4:55 pm! Eek I only had an hour to eat so Mr. Gaunt and I went the easy route and had Grilled Cheese and Tomato Soup with a big salad. The soup and sandwich are pretty basic (we use I Cant Believe It’s Not Butter, Low Calorie Whole Wheat bread, and low-fat cheese). The salad on the other hand is a bag salad from Costco that comes with a little packet of Blue Cheese Crumbles, Almond Slivers, and Dried Cherries. It is soooo yummy! I LOVE dried cherries! The lettuce is good too to use on all kinds of things. We are big fans.

Anyway we are now on season two of Everest: Beyond The Limit…umm.. addicting much?

Putting Dinner To Bed

Ok so I have heard this for YEARS now, something along the lines of how your suppose to stop eating two-ish hours before you go to bed. I got O’s Guide To Life (a best of Oprah Magazine book) on clearance at Barnes and Nobles for like $5, and Oprah rants and raves about this NO LATE NIGHT EATING rule.  I always thought it had something to do with food sitting in your belly while you sleep and somehow making you fat (who knows, I’m no scientist) but this article on Oprah’s website states that it mor has to do with people who eat in the mornings consume LESS calories throughout the day as opposed to people who wait until late night and just snack and snack and snack. It’s more about how much you eat rather than when you eat.

Bedtime Eating

A few times throughout the last 9 months I have ended up taking a nap and pretty much skipping dinner. The next morning I always awoke to a very nice number on the scale. Sleep is the best diet as far as I’m concerned because you don’t know your hungry when your sleeping! On a number of occasions I have taken a nice long nap on weigh in day so I can just sleep through the hunger and avoid snacking. I highly encourage this, especially if you’re having one of those days where you just cant cram enough food in your mouth, take a nice long nap.

Is it wrong that this bed makes me hungry?

Wait what was I talking about?  Oh yeah, so I’ve decided to do a little experiment with this whole no late night eating thing. For the next 10 days I’m going to attempt to not eat anything after 6pm. NOTHING! Of course water is fine, and maybe a Girl Scout cookie, but NOTHING else! (= So that means dinner needs to be on the table by 5:30pm, we can do this. Mr. Gaunt and I are both working at 5am for the next couple weeks, and because I work 30-40 minutes away that means I have to crawl out of bed at 3:30 am in order to have time to eat breakfast. I do NOT skip breakfast. So eating at 5:30 should be fine since we try to be in bed by 9.

So hopefully this will help me shed a few pounds that are clinging on for dear life. I’ll keep you posted to see if I notice a major change!