Free Food, Take 2

This is sort of a follow-up to a previous post about Free Food at work.  One of the ladies here at work is retiring at the end of March, and Friday is her last day.  They had a luncheon for her yesterday which was very nice.  From my understanding, she's been with the company over 30 years!

The luncheon was catered from a local place called The Pasta House.  I went there years ago with my parents and Memere (grandmother for those non-french people) and remember it being ok.  Apparently is has new owners, and the food yesterday was amazing.  They had rolls, a salad with oil/vinegar dressing, delmonico potatoes, chicken/pasta with a red wine sauce and mushrooms, chicken/pasta with a clear sauce, baked scrod, green beans almondine and some kind of beef. 

I had brought my lunch yesterday because I didn't know if I would want to eat the food that was provided.  I decided to play it by ear and eat when I got hungry....if that was at 10am, I'd eat what I brought and enjoy people's company at the luncheon....if I didn't get hungry before the luncheon then I would make good choices at the luncheon knowing I had food at my desk if I didn't want to eat what was provided.  I got hungry at 11:30, lol, and since we were heading upstairs for the luncheon at 11:45 I chose to latter route. 

I did not take any salad or roll, I don't really like either one.  I passed on the potatoes.  I did not know what kind of potatoes they were at the time, but they were in a creamy white sauce and I decided I probably wouldn't like them anyway (not big on sauces).  I took a small amount of each chicken (4-5 2-bite pieces of each) and approx 1/4-1/2c of penne pasta.  I took a serving of the fish and scraped the breading off of it, and took some of the green beans even though they were quite shiny!  I passed on the beef - it looked dry.  I took my time eating what I chose and thoroughly enjoyed it.  I was quite surprised when I was finished that I was not still hungry.

There was, of course, cake and desserts also.  Since I am not a big sweets eater (and the more often I eat them, the more often I crave them), I passed on both the cake and the desserts.  The cake did look nice and moist though.

I figured I'd be hungry later since it didn't seem like I ate a lot of food for lunch, but to my surprise I did not get hungry until about 4:30!


There was a ton of food leftover from yesterday's luncheon, so the R&D team heated up the leftovers in the kitchen upstairs and brought them down to the small kitchen we have downstairs in the office.  The receptionist sent out an email about the leftovers being in the kitchen and a wave of people descended on the kitchen.  Please don't assume I sit and watch the kitchen all day long - I don't, I just happen to notice these things. 

I brought my lunch today, as usual, and have been enjoying the food I brought from home.  I woke up with a sore throat this morning so have been sipping hot peppermint tea (with some water flavor sticks added to it) all day in an attempt to soothe it.  It may or may not be working, we'll see, lol.  Taking the Mucinex, however, usually kills my appetite and I was pleasently surprised when I got hungry at 9:30! 

I ate a smaller breakfast than normal today, so that may be why also.  I usually cook up three eggs and put them in my travel mug with some potatoes or black beans.  There were two eggs left in the carton this morning and I was too lazy to get the other carton out, so only cooked two eggs, lol.  I'll try to remember to take a picture of my mug with eggs in it. :)

I am going to a middle school band concert tonight (after work) that my friend Muffin's son is playing in, and I don't know when I'll be eating a normal supper, so I brought a ton of food with me today:
                    2 cup container of sliced spiral ham
                    2 bananas
                    2 chobani yogurts
                    2 apples
                    1 cup container of sliced frozen peaches
                    2 servings of baked oatmeal
                    various GNU and Thatsit fruit bars
                    gallon bag of air-popped popcorn (sprayed with olive oil and dusted with cheese flavoring)

The bars I will bring in to the concert with me in case I get hungry while I'm there.  We're getting there at 6:30 and it starts at 7.  I suspect it will get over sometime between 8 and 9. 

~Chelle

Being sick....and traveling.....

So, the last few weeks I've been fighting a sinus/allergy thing that popped up when I forgot to take my allergy meds for an entire weekend (couple that with very limited sleep and the outcome is never good).  This confirms that most of my sinus issues are a result of allergies.  I have been taking Mucinex and ibuprofen for a little more than a week, and have even started drinking peppermint tea because it is supposed to be good for clearing out sinuses. 

Last week I felt absolutely HORRIBLE.  So horrible in fact, that I ended up eating Kraft Mac & Cheese (and only M&C) for dinner two nights in a row.  It was the only thing I even remotely felt like eating.  I went away this past weekend to a cake show, and was supposed to leave Friday morning.  Thursday afternoon at work I was so icky and sick feeling that I left early (3-ish) and went home and slept for a few hours.  I woke up feeling much better and was able to finish my cake entry and still get to bed by 10pm.  Good thing, cause I was up at 5:30 to get ready to leave to go pick up a friend that was going with me.

I continued taking the meds and drinking liquids over the weekend and felt like a new person by the time I got home Monday night.  Then I FOOLISHLY thought I didn't need the meds anymore.  Stopped taking the ibuprofen and only took the Mucinex at night.  Big mistake!  I woke up this morning with a sore throat that I am hoping will go away.  I am back to Mucinex and ibuprofen per the label instructions.  Yes, I know I should go see a doctor, but the reality is that I just don't like them, lol.  I will go if it gets bad enough though.  I've had enough sinus infections to know at what point the doctor (and antibiotics) are needed.

I was down to 179.2 at last week's weigh-in, but was not diligent in tracking/making good choices over the weekend at the cake show and am back to 180.2.  I am not really that dissappointed.  I knew the consequences when I was making the choices (and yes, not making good choices was a choice I consciously made).  To date I have lost 87.4lbs, so I'm still pretty excited and happy with myself.

I won't lie though...I am totally looking forward to hitting the 100lb mark again.  I was cleaning things out a few weeks ago and ran across the 100lb certificate I received the last time I followed WW.  It's even signed by the same leader I have now!  I put it in a safe place and am going to bring it to show her when I hit 100lbs again, lol.  It's probably goofy, but I find it pretty cool.

I have some cool pictures of foods I've been eating that I'm going to try to remember to upload to the blog sometime in the next few days, so stay tuned!

~Chelle

Post tooth-extraction update

So....the last time I posted I mentioned I had a tooth pulled.  Let me tell you.......things are certainly much better when you're a kid!  I don't remember anything about having teeth pulled for braces.  For a good 4-5 days last week (post extraction) it felt as though there was a huge gaping hole in the back of my mouth.  It wasn't until the weekend that I was comfortable trying to chew on the side of my mouth.  I did manage to graduate to firmer foods though, lol. 

It is doing much better, and I have been trying to chew with that side to get used to it again.  I ended up having Mac & Cheese again for dinner last Thursday, lol.  I tracked everything all week, including the weekend (went to a cake show in NJ with friends).  I ended up gaining .4, but figure that's not bad considering I hadn't eaten nearly the amount of fruit I was used to (didn't eat an apple until Monday!), and like muscles retain water to repair themselves I figure my gums may be doing the same.  No idea if that's true btw, lol.

I am still in the tracking challenge on the WW Message boards, so yay!

~Chelle

Journaling, Tracking, etc......

Surprise surprise - it really DOES work!   lol!

When I first re-joined in Dec 2010 I was all gung-ho and joined one of the challenges on the WW message boards.  It was the All Day Every Day (ADED) Challenge.  It was monthly, and in order to remain in the challenge you had to track everything you ate every day, and not go over your WPs.  I did well for a few months, then got lazy about checking in all the time and forgot to continue signing up every month.  

Well, I've been having some issues with tracking since I started SFT in December.  I found the challenge again and decided to join for March to keep me accountable for tracking and not going over the WPs.

Last week was the first full week in a few months that I actually tracked EVERYTHING that I ate.  Ya know what....I lost 2lbs last week!  I had been losing and gaining small amounts each week, but this was great!  It certainly helps to keep you motivated to continue tracking.  To date (3/7/12) I have lost 87.4 lbs.  I am on track for tracking so far this week also.  I think being accountable to someone else (the Challenge) certainly helps.  Hopefully I am rewarded for my efforts next week. :)

The last few days have been sort of a challenge of their own, as will the next few.  I found a cracked tooth last week and made an appointment with the dentist.  My appointment was yesterday, and the tooth ended up being pulled out.  It was a wisdom tooth and it made more sense to pull it rather than fill it.  I was lucky as a kid/young adult - all four of my wisdom teeth came in straight - no need to have any pulled.  It was one of those teeth that was pulled yesterday.  So, for yesterday and the next few days it's soft foods and no straws.  I drink everything through a straw - so that's a big change.  Also, most of what I eat on SFT is not really soft foods, so I ended up counting PP+ for yesterday and didn't even eat all my points, lol.  I even had 2.5cups of Kraft Mac & Cheese for dinner - one of my favorite foods!  Today I had eggs for breakfast and have oatmeal, yogurt and bananas for lunch.  Dinner just might end up eggs again, lol.  The dentist told me that after Saturday I can eat whatever I feel comfortable eating.

It's nice that the SFT and PP+ options are so flexible and that you can choose to do either one on a daily basis.  I normally do SFT but yesterday (and probably the next few days too) I did PP+ because I wasn't eating nearly all PFs.  So, the plan certainly is flexible!

~Chelle