Christmas Challenge

Healthy Choices Christmas Challenge – Day 10

It’s Sunday and Day 10 (the last day) of our Healthy Choices Christmas Challenge. Christmas is over, my daughter’s birthday is over, and it’s time to settle down into the goals and plans for 2010.

But first one last entry for this challenge. Exercise wise today, I got in some stretching, some marching in place, but over all still was a slug. Definitely going to factor this into my next focus.

Food wise, well… still have no fruit in the house and low on veggies, so I made due with what was on hand, as I will all week.

noonish 3/4 cup of macroni and cheese

afternoon snack: 2 handfuls of almonds

6 pm  a slice of of the saved chocolate cream pie (think 1/6th of 1/2 of a pie)

7:45 pm 3/4 cup white rice, 2 oz of turkey, fresh broccoli, and 1/4 cup of turkey gravy mixed together

9pm to midnight: 3 handfuls of almonds, 8 baby carrots, and 1/2 bagel with cream cheese

Verdict of the Day

It was a difficult day for me today and I didn’t feel like eating, but did purely for the sake that I knew I needed to.  One choice that I made out of pure awareness was to add the broccoli to the rice and turkey mixture. That was a conscious decision that I hadn’t had enough veggies and needed to get some more in somehow.

Another choice was to grab the baby carrots instead of pecking through my kids’ candy stash for something to munch on. so that was good.

Thank you so much for joining me on this Healthy Choices Christmas Challenge! 

I’m looking forward to the new year, and 52 weeks to get healthy, fit and lose 100+! I hope you  are looking forward to 2010 with anticipation and delight of what you can accomplish.

Enjoy!

…Shannon

Healthy Choices Christmas Challenge – Day 9

Day 9 of  our Healthy Choices Christmas Challenge and it’s the day after Christmas and my baby’s 6th Birthday!

My Baby Girl turned 6 today!

Today is a double whammy tempting day typically because we have all those left overs in the refrigerator and we have a birthday girl in the house.

 And it’s a Saturday, which means a special time outing with one of my kids – this week it’s my 10 yo son.

But because we’re doing this challenge, I actually was conscious of what I was eating and did a much better job on the food part of this challenge.

But exercise wise – not so good again today. This is apparently becoming my biggest issue. or not “becoming” but IS my biggest challenge. I’m just not getting the exercise in these days.  Going to get through this weekend and re-examine a few things going into the new year.

Food wise, I chose to focus on prevention – eating healthier at home, so that when we were out I wouldn’t be famished and tempted to eat something I really shouldn’t.

Morning: 1 sugar cookie, a diet pepsi, and a tootsie roll (okay not so good there)

Lunch: about 2/3 cup mashed potatoes & 2/3 cup of broccoli cheese casserole left overs

~2 pm –  2 pieces of left over veggie pizza (the broccoli and carrot pizza from Christmas Eve)

4 pm – about 3/4 cup of left over lentil stew mixed with white rice and plain yogurt 

5 pm My daughter’s birthday outing: 1 slice of Chuck E Cheese cheese pizza and a diet soda. Plus a 1/2 of a 3 Muskeeteer’s Mint bar

7:30 pm  - Special Time Outing with my 10 yo son: 5 spoonfuls of my son’s  Cookies n’ Cream shake and 1/2 of a basket of Fuddrucker’s potato wedges

8:30 pm The picture of my daughter at the top of the post  shows the “cake” my older daughter made for her out of mini loaf sized chocolate muffins.

I had two of these chocolate muffins (no frosting). They are actually healthier than most, made with Devil’s food cake mix and pumpkin (no eggs & no oil).

This is one of our favorite recipes from the Hungry Girl cookbook, recipe and nutritional info is on page 180. 
 

9 pm through midnight 2 handfuls of Almonds, one entire bag of baby carrots, and 3 T of lite ranch dressing.

Verdict for the Day

Given the temptations of the day, I’m pleased with my choices. But ready to be done with all these temptations and to get back on track!

Healthy Choices Christmas Challenge – Day 8

It’s Christmas!  And Day 8 of our Healthy Choices Christmas Challenge.

My plan was to just be conscious of my choices, but not starve or deprive myself from my favorite treats. And for the most part I succeeded.

Like I said yesterday, I didn’t make any fudge or divinity like I had originally planned, so that was a choice to deprive myself of that temptation.

We also chose to save the pie for another day, and wait on making the Chocolate muffins until my daughter’s birthday tomorrow.  But we did have cookies, and they were a major temptation…

Exercise wise, other than spending part of the day standing and cooking, I didn’t do anything. Sorry. No go on my part. No real excuse. I thought about it, thought about suggesting a walk, but the reality was I just didn’t do it.

Food wise, well… you can see for yourself:

10 am 3 cookies (sugar and chocolate chip), a diet pepsi, and one Red Vine

1 pm  one homemade waffle made with white flour, syrup (I forgot to make the applesauce), 1 turkey sausage patty, one piece of turkey bacon, and about 2/3 cup of scrambled eggs.

afternoon snacks while playing cards with my husband & older kids: 6 cookies, lots of carrots & broccoli dipped in lite ranch dressing, and 3 Red Vines

6 pm Christmas Dinner: turkey, mashed potatoes, broccoli cheese casserole, gravy, peaches, jello, and 1/3 of a homemade bread roll.

We had eaten brunch late and had munched on snacks all afternoon, so it actually was hard to finish my one plate at dinner. Couldn’t even finish the roll, just had a piece of it and put the rest back for later. Definitely one of smaller Christmas dinner’s I’ve ever eaten.

8 to 10 pm  3 tootsie rolls (the longer thin variety)

10 pm one bag of microwave popcorn

Verdict for the Day

It’s Christmas. I made conscious choices, maybe not the most healthy, but they were my choices and I will deal with the consequences knowingly. I’m not even going to try to provide a verdict for the day.

I hope you had a great Christmas Holiday and…Happy Birthday Jesus!

Healthy Choices Christmas Challenge – Day 7

Christmas Eve and Day 7 of the Healthy Choices Christmas Challenge

I got to go grocery shopping today! I know sad thing to be excited about but we’ve been eating out of our pantry all week and I’m ready to get a few more things.

Exercise wise, I got quite a bit of walking in because my husband and I were out doing last minute christmas shopping for several hours. Also started the day with about 2 minutes of “at home walking” moves.

Still having hip and abdominal pain, but not debilitating like the last two days. So I just worked through them. Hope this goes away soon because I really WANT to get back on track with my exercise and this is hampering things quite a bit.

Food wise, it started out okay, but the late evening junk got me again. 

11:30 am  a fried egg sandwich with a 1 1/2 teaspoons of cheese melted on a plain bagel (not healthy, but I was okay with eating it early enough in the day and it was filling enough that I wasn’t tempted to eat out during our christmas shopping – only afterwards.)

5:30 pm Wendy’s Homestyle Chicken Go Wrap without the sauce. According to Wendy’s Nutritonal Facts, this is about 280 calories, 11 grams of fat, and only 1 gram of fiber.

So not the most healthy thing around, so just for fun I looked up what the nutrition would have been on the 5 piece chicken nuggets I was tempted to order: 230 calories with 16 grams of fat. So lower calories but a lot more fat. I’m okay with my choice.

By the way, in looking up that nutritional info, I discovered that I really like Wendy’s nutritional calculator – it allows you to “personalize” the calculator for the way that you had your item made (like for me, no sauce). Very cool.

8 pm Homemade Veggie Pizza on whole wheat high fiber crust. Again low on veggies, so today the pizza only had carrots and broccoli on it. but it tasted good
11 pm a handful of my husband’s coin candies (gummy type)

Midnight a mini Babe Ruth bar

2 am 3 cookies that were intended for Santa and a few bites of carrots that were intended for Santa’s reindeer

Verdict for the Day

I made the choice today not to eat out but the one small snack and I made the choice NOT to make any candy this year. No fudge, no divinity. Yes I’ll miss it tomorrow. But I feel better about my choices not having it around. I’m sure there will plenty of other store-bought candy around to tempt me.

Hope you have a great Christmas!

Healthy Choices Christmas Challenge – Day 6

Day 6 (Wednesday) of our Healthy Choices Christmas Challenge and only 2 more days to Christmas. 

Exercise wise, I got in some 30 second marching in place while waiting around for various things (cooking, doing chores, waiting for my kids, brushing my teeth). Just trying to take advantage of normal down time to work in some exercise.

In all probably totals about 10 minutes of exercise picked up this way.  Short of my 30 min/day goal, but being that I still feel miserable, I’ll take it as a success that I didn’t just go hide in my bed like I wanted to

Food wise, things were good, mostly because I just didn’t feel much like eating and because what I ate was pretty filling.  I also did better with water today, so that always helps.

11:30 am 2 drop biscuits (not healthy, but definitely yummy)

2:45 pm a baked potato with margarine and a little grated cheese

7:30 pm Lentil stew over white rice and topped with 3 tablespoons of plain yogurt.  Stew contained homemade chicken broth, lentils, carrots, onions, celery, lots of turnip and mustard greens, one potato, and one tomato.

Very filling, Super healthy and nutritious, and surprisingly tasty with the yogurt and rice mixed all together with it.

Verdict for the Day

I’m okay with today. Groceries are in short supply around here until tomorrow, and the lentil stew was a powerhouse of nutritious sustenance. So I’ll consider that a success.