For the last two days I've had a banana and a nut/fruit/grain bar that have held me over until lunch. But I'm still feeling a little iffy after the sugar from today's breakfast so I don't think this is a long-term solution. In the warmer months I resort to yogurt and fruit, but everything is so expensive and sour right now that it's not worth buying or making.
So for the winter/non-season months I'm looking for something that...
- Has grains and nuts (yay fiber!)
- Uses milk as the major liquid (I get grumpy if I don't have enough dairy)
- Can be nuked in the microwave in under 5 minutes (I hate "cooking" in the morning)
- Won't explode during said nuking (like oatmeal tends to do)
(Now that I think about it, my summer breakfast only fits one of these four criteria, but that's different.)
From my extensive research on breakfast foods this afternoon, I think I've settled on muesli. Now to find a good recipe that keeps for a while and is not too hard to make...that's a task for another workday.
Other than that, I'm being pretty successful at staying on track and losing weight. I gained a couple of pounds over the holidays, but some of that may've just been alcohol weight because it's come off pretty quickly as soon as I cut down on drinking. I'm about a half of a pound over my mid-December weight (and 3 pounds down from last week) but have only been watching what I've been eating for about a week so it makes sense that the weight-loss is due to alcohol water weight and not real calorie cutbacks.
Although I am envious of people around me who can pound Reese's Peanut Butter Cups and chase them with beer on a nearly daily basis without gaining any weight, I know that they're able to do that because they are much more active throughout the day than I am. And they're not actively trying to lose weight either. Some day when my job doesn't involve sitting on my butt for over 8 hours a day, I will have that extra burn to cancel out with peanut butter and chocolate. But for now I'm content with exercising that willpower. It's much easier to keep at it when I see results on the scale.
So for the time being, I will continue to limit my sweet intake to one per day because I simply can't live without sugar. The beer binging has successfully been cut down to once a week as well. I say binging because I'm so heavy that it takes about 5 beers to get me tipsy/drunk, even on an empty stomach, and by modern medicine standards that's considered binging for a woman. And sometimes I just want to be drunk. Other days, I just want a beer after work, so I keep it to that and treat it as a sweet. But there is no in between.
I used to limit myself to three beers when going out but it had the same effect on my mind and body as drinking just one (that being, I was stone cold sober), with over 300 extra calories. So now I'm embracing the 5-6 beers when I just need some mind-altering substances and other times abstaining completely. This seems to work best for me because I've been able to maintain this plan for the past several months with success.
Lastly, the weather has been really nice and will continue to be so for the forecastable future, so I've been getting out on my bike more. I've also re-re-re-re-re-begun Couch to 10k and am somehow managing to force myself out the door even when I really don't want to. My roommate said I should stop being so negative about the workouts but I've made myself a deal that I can be as grumpy as I want as long as I do them. But if I don't go, then no complaining for me. And since I really like to complain and can't deal with being obese anymore, this deal has worked out well for me.
All in all, life is successful in weight-loss land.
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