Hungry but limited

Yesterday I lifted weights in the morning, not because I particularly wanted to or felt like it, but because I knew it would help wake me up fully and get me ready for a long cooking day ahead....and I was right! Today, after an intense cooking day (though shorter), I was very hungry leaving but limited myself to a couple of slices of pizza, on theory it would help me sleep. And it did! I crashed out at 9:30, and slept like a baby.

TODAY'S COUNT: 3,225

AM SNACK: 8:15am, iced green tea, 45 cal

BREAKFAST: 9:15am, smoothie, 305 cal


LUNCH: 12:30pm, whole wheat pasta with homemade sauce and romano and shrimp, momma salad with ranch, +/-815 cal
Had to guess on my sauce, but I suspect this count is pretty accurate.


SCHOOL SNACK: 3-6pm, various bites, pasta, +/- 560 cal


DINNER: 7pm, pizza, +/- 1,500 cal

Researching counts on take out Chinese is scary.

Today's count is more a guess of intuition than based in hard counts. Had a major cook day with the students -- it was Brooklyn Queens day, so had students from both classes spend the whole day with me knocking out 9 dishes for 200 for an event on Saturday. What this meant was me on my feet in full-on awareness mode (which includes teaching, coaching, barking, yelling, cheering, pleading, joking, scolding and soothing, many at the same time) and popping a lot of little stuff in my mouth as we went along. Got home with a little sack of Chinese food, but....looking up calorie counts for that stuff on line is both frightfully inaccurate and....high across the board. That stuff is DENSE. I knew Chinese food was high in calories, but....a pint of fried rice and an app of shrimp toast is around 1,400 cal? I would have guessed half that.

Between the cola I sucked down during the day to keep me energized and focused, and the remainders of the brownie scraps in the fridge at night, I found myself pretty wide awake until around 2am. Oofah!

TODAY'S COUNT: 3,445

AM SNACK: 8:30am, iced green tea, 45 cal


BREAKFAST: 9:30am, brown rice crispies with organic dead milk, 300 cal


SCHOOL SNACKING: 11:30am-7pm, about 24oz of coke, about 5oz of meatballs, about 8oz of penne with sauce, +/- 1,200 cal


DINNER: 9pm, beef fried rice, shrimp toast, water, brownie scraps, water, +/- 1,900

A lot of guessing

Chill day, morning with a sleeping baby and chores, afternoon in school. Hard to count the calories, but as I said, this is a run up practice to mid-July. Still, today's count seems believable -- when I went to bed, I was not hungry but could definitely eat more, consistent with the 3000+ days I've been having.

TODAY'S COOKING:
Chocolate Ice Cream: Made another layer in the ice cream novelties for Edie's 3rd b-day. Betsy has finally gotten around to eating the brownie scraps...

TODAY'S COUNT: 2650

AM SNACK: 8:45am, iced green tea, 45 cal


BREAKFAST: 9:45am, hardcore oatmeal, 245 cal


LUNCH: 11:30am, PB&J on whole wheat, momma salad just with salt, 660 cal


PM SNACK: 2pm, homemade granola bar, +/- 200 cal
Looking forward to making the next batch, I'll see how accurate my guessing is

SCHOOL SNACK: 3:30pm, chips, +/- 500 cal


SCHOOL DINNER: 7pm, meatballs, spinach, +/- 800 CAL


EVENING SNACK: 9:15pm, wholewheat pretzel sticks, 220 cal

Surprised/Nervous

Definitely overate today. Nutritionally, not horrendous except for the excess of pastrami and sugar at the end, but just too much. I'm starting to be a little surprised/nervous about how much I'm eating, and feeling like it's normal.

TODAY'S COOKING:
Mini knishes, brownies, ice cream batter: Since I'll be cooking a lot tomorrow through Saturday for school, I got a jump on the food for Edie's 3rd birthday party.

TODAY'S COUNT: 3595

AM SNACK: 7am, iced green tea, 45 cal


BREAKFAST: 7:45am, wholegrain chex with organic dead milk, 300 cal
What does it mean that I ate a double serving of cereal, but it only needed a half serving of milk?

AM SNACK: 10:30am, spoonful of knish filling, +/- 50 cal


LUNCH: 12:30, foot long Veggie burger hero on "9-grain" bread, bag of chips, diet coke, 1,840 cal
Holy crap! No wonder Subway doesn't advertise the nutritional info of it's vege-burger, as it's 485 cal a piece. In the future, 6" is the way to go. They sure make it easy & economical to over-eat.

PM SNACK: 5pm, watermelon, 175 cal


DINNER: 7:30pm, wholegrain chicken nuggets with ketchup, momma salad with a little ranch, 585 cal


EVENING SNACKING: 9-11pm, pastrami mini knishes, scraps of brownie, +/- 600 cal
In the future, this stuff will be measured, but too off the cuff and late in the evening.

Return of the Weekend Report

During Saturday, life was slow-paced and I was updating this blog through out the day. I've decided to "Tom Cruise" it, to give myself the weekends to live a little free-er, to not count calories. Yet by writing down and talking about everything I was eating, it seemed like I was beating around the bush about reporting calories.

SO. From now on, I will go back to a feature I had when I was in culinary school. Back then, I would write long entries every day about what was gone over in school, addended by what I ate the whole day. I'd give myself the weekends off, and write a summary on Monday of whatever interesting things I ate or did in the kitchen.

WEEKEND REPORT:
It was a Tour de Doughnut Saturday -- left out on bike at 7am, realized the drizzle made it feel 15 degrees colder. Stopped at Doughnut Plant to eat donuts and regroup. Tried to find a calorie count on the doughnuts, but every reference found in google referred to them simply as "calorie bombs".  Took Edie out on the big bike, and it got beautiful and sunny. -sigh-. Sunday was a car ride to Albany for a niece's bat mitzvah. Bagel in the morning matched a bagel in the afternoon. Killed the meatballs and fresh pasta in the evening, looking to empty out the freezer to make way for ice cream treat's for Edie's birthday this Sunday....


THE COUNT: 3,265 cal
Huh. Is over 3000cal for me normal? I haven't been cutting back, just observing to get a baseline, but I gotta admit I'm surprised. I ate well today, but not (what I thought was) excessively.


AM SNACK: 8:45am, iced green tea, 45 cal


BREAKFAST: 10:30am, smoothie, 430 cal


LUNCH: 1:15pm, 2 stouffer's pizzas, water, 920 cal


DINNER: 5:30pm, broiled cod, sauteed spinach, potato gnochi with parm, watermelon, water, 1,400 cal
I doubled the suggested servings for all three elements of the meal -- the fish, potato pasta and veg. And it still seemed like a conservative amount. Had to eat almost a kilo of watermelon to feel full. -sigh-

EVENING SNACK: 8:25pm, chocolate chips & roasted almonds, 350 cal


EVENING SNACK: 9:30pm, multigrain tortilla chips with salsa, 170 cal