Comfort Eating and Comfort Shoes

I had a really crappy day yesterday. Clearly hormone induced, since there was very little wrong with my life and it was even a bright, sunny day, the hottest yet. I woke up feeling blah and lifeless, so after staring at my computer for half an hour and getting nowhere I decided to go run errands and do some shopping. I had clear goals and a list of things to do and get – go to the bank, get a new watch battery, buy toothpaste . . . Instead I found myself in the shoe store trying on just about every pair of summery high heels they had. An hour late I came out with two new pairs of impulse buy shoes, one of which is so high and fashionable and unlike me my husband was in shock! Actually part of reason I stayed so long and bought so much is that for the past year I have been confined to flats while my feet recovered from surgery. And I never was one for seriously high heels as I had jobs where I had to walk and stand all day and most shoes hurt my feet. So to find high heels that were comfortable to wear for the first time in my life! It’s a miracle I only bought two pairs.

Of course I had impulse buy regret as soon as I got home, and was once again feeling moody and unsatisfied. So I turned to chocolate for comfort, which as I mentioned yesterday, we now have an abundance of in the house. Over the course of the day I managed to eat over 1000 calories in chocolate! No wonder I had so few calories from protein and my diet was so high in fat. The lack of vegetables and healthier food probably didn’t help my mood either, creating a nasty cycle.

So no work done, no exercise, poor diet and all my spending money for the month gone on shoes. Whatever else happens, today has just got to be a better day!

                                                                                                                                                                                                 

The Score:

Calories:	Protein:	Carbs:	Fat:	Alcohol:	Fibre:
2610.60	90.15g	364.34g	88.14g	0	22.88g
	14%	56%	30%
Calories burned through exercise:		Rest Day

What I ate:

Time	Item	Amount
07:45	Vitamins - Centrum Advance A to Zinc, 400iu of Vitamin E, 1000iu Vitamin D3 and 500mg Glucosamine sulphate	1 each
	Cold water	200mL
	Mattesson's Turkey rashers	3 rashers
	Gluten Free fruit muesli	70g
	Alpro Soy milk	120mL
	Sainsbury's pressed apple and cherry juice	200mL
08:30	Black Tea	500mL
09:30	Raspberry and Echinacea tea	250mL
11:00	Eat Natural bar with almonds, apricots and yoghurt	50g
13:30	Heinz Beanz, reduced sugar and salt	185g
	Skim milk	200mL
	Waitrose Love Life free from fruit scones	1 scone
	with Flora Light	2g
	St Dalfour Blackcurrant jam	16g
	Plums	105g
	Dairy Milk Caramel Egg	1 egg
16:15	Irish Yoghurts Diet Strawberry	125g
	Butterkist microwave butter popcorn	25g
	Dairy Milk Caramel Egg	1 egg
19:00	Blackcurrant and ginseng tea	250mL
20:15	Turkey and Butternut Squash Risotto	333g
21:00	Dairy Milk chocolate egg	50g
21:30	Dairy Milk chocolate egg	50g
23:00	Ellactiva Chocolate Calcium Chew	1 chew
	500mg Glucosamine sulphate	1 pill

Plus 500 to 1500mL of cold water sipped from a water bottle throughout the day.

I Know I Said I Wanted Chocolate But . . .

Bit of a strange day. I had my interview to be an Olympic Volunteer in the late morning, so I had to get up and get out of the house at a decent time and make my way all the way out to the Excel in the rain. The interview went well, but the whole process took much longer than I thought it would. I only got back to Waterloo station about 1:15pm, at which point I decided it had been too long since I’d had food, so got some quick sushi. By the time I got home I was really tired and sore from my workouts over the past few days. So instead of a hill run I had a nap.

This would have been fine but then my husband and I ended up going on a chocolate binge that evening. We decided to stay in and watch a movie, so my husband went out to pick up a couple of things and came back with giant Easter Eggs and bars of chocolate for both of us. Now I did say I was craving chocolate, but I thought he’d come back with a single normal sized bar. Apparently I need to be more clear about what I expect! I know better than to keep large amounts of sweets in the house, but I apparently forgot to tell him. And yes, I know that I don’t have to eat it just because it’s there, but it’s really hard to resist the siren call of the sweets when I’m ensconced on the sofa watching a movie with my husband, especially when we’ve both been feeling a little blah all day. It does seem to be the less exercise I do the more likely I am to overeat.

So no surprise I had way too many calories, most of them from fat, and not enough from protein. Not a lot more to say, except there is still a lot of chocolate in the house to tempt me over the next few days!

The Score:

Calories:	Protein:	Carbs:	Fat:	Alcohol:	Fibre:
2828.90	129.92g	345.86g	101.0g	7.8g	35.15g
	18%	49%	32%	2%
Calories burned through exercise:		Rest Day

What I ate:

Time	Item	Amount
08:45	Vitamins - Centrum Advance A to Zinc, 400iu of Vitamin E, 1000iu Vitamin D3 and 500mg Glucosamine sulphate	1 each
	Cold water	200mL
	Whole Scrambled egg with 2 egg whites	3 eggs
	Heinz Beanz, reduced sugar and salt	185g
	Mushrooms	110g
	in butter	5g
	Raw Tomato	85g
	Sainsbury's pressed apple and cherry juice	150mL
10:30	Black Tea	700mL
13:30	Maki and Nigiri sushi	10 pieces
	Edamame	1/2 cup
	Miso soup	1 cup
17:00	Waitrose Love Life free from fruit scones	1 scone
	with Flora Light	2g
	St Dalfour Blackcurrant jam	16g
	Irish Yoghurts Diet Pear and Mango	125g
	Plums	150g
18:00	Galaxy smooth milk chocolate	84g
	Caffeine free Black tea	500mL
20:00	Poached salmon	120g
	Tilda Coconut and lime rice	100g
	Steamed broccoli	95g
20:45	Galaxy smooth milk chocolate	42g
21:45	Harvey's Bristol Cream Sherry	50g
	Galaxy Minstrels	42g
22:30	Ellactiva Chocolate Calcium Chew	1 chew
	500mg Glucosamine sulphate	1 pill

Plus 500 to 1500mL of cold water sipped from a water bottle throughout the day.

Curry as a Treat

A much better day all around. Not only was it bright and sunny again, but I did get a good night’s sleep so was feeling more awake and motivated. I had a good morning working away at my desk, was able to eat quite sensibly, and had no problems doing my weight routine. Where it falls down a bit is with the dinner. Chicken curry with rice, salad and a couple of poppadoms doesn’t look like a lot of food on the plate, but it came in at over 800 calories and almost 30g of fat!

I always have this image of Asian food, from India to China to Thailand, as being healthier than traditional Western food. Which may or may not be true, but that doesn’t mean its low calorie! Until I came to England I had never considered having a curry as a regular meal, either as a take away or something made at home. Growing up I thought we did OK for international food at home – we had traditional Western meat and potatoes meals, but also Italian pasta, Mexican tacos and fajitas, “Chinese” stir fries and Ukrainian perogies and cabbage rolls. But the prairies in Canada were mainly settled by Europeans, so finding truly Asian meals like Indian curries and Japanese sushi was rather difficult. It’s changing now but I still remember the first time I had Japanese food was when I went to University in Vancouver in 1996.

This being the case I still view many Asian foods as occasional treats and as such am rubbish at estimating calories and fat grams in these meals. I’m sure there are lower calories versions, but for the moment I’d best keep my curries as occasional treats!

The Score:

Calories:	Protein:	Carbs:	Fat:	Alcohol:	Fibre:
2193.34	129.01g	269.61g	65.67g	0	24.85g
	24%	49%	27%
Calories burned through exercise:		273

What I ate:

Time	Item	Amount
07:15	Vitamins - Centrum Advance A to Zinc, 400iu of Vitamin E, 1000iu Vitamin D3 and 500mg Glucosamine sulphate	1 each
	Cold water	200mL
	Mattesson's Turkey rashers	3 rashers
	Gluten Free fruit muesli	70g
	Alpro Soy milk	120mL
	Sainsbury's pressed apple and cherry juice	200mL
09:30	Black Tea	500mL
10:00	Raspberry and Echinacea tea	250mL
10:30	Brazil nuts	6g
	Cashews	17g
	Satsumas	105g
	Irish Yoghurts Diet Strawberry	125g
12:45	Homemade cottage pie	1 serving
	Alpro soya original	200mL
	Raw Tomato	113g
	Sainsbury's Be Good to Yourself chocolate mousse	62.5g
13:15	Green Tea	250mL
14:15	Resistance workout
	Strawberry lemonade Nuun electrolyte tablet in water	750mL
15:15	Sponser Chocolate Recovery Shake	30g
	in Skim milk	225mL
20:00	Loyd Grossman Rogan Josh sauce with chicken added	265g
	Tilda Lime & Coriander rice	125g
	Waitrose baby leaf salad	25g
	Sharwood’s plain poppadoms	2 poppadoms
	with Sharwood’s Mango chutney	50g
22:00	Ellactiva Chocolate Calcium Chew	1 chew
	500mg Glucosamine sulphate	1 pill

Plus 500 to 1500mL of cold water sipped from a water bottle throughout the day.

Getting an Early Night

I didn’t sleep very well on Monday night despite my long run. I woke up a couple of times in the night then was awake from about 6:20am onwards. Part of it was my restlessness, and part of it was my husband having a hard time getting off then waking up at 5am and not going back to sleep – so deciding to cycle to work and flipping the light on in the bedroom at 6:20am!

Needless to say I was rather tired yesterday. I was planning on doing a weight routine yesterday afternoon, but just couldn’t face it. Having said that, I normally take a rest day after my long run, so that’s not such a big deal. The bigger issue is that I always feel really hungry when I don’t get enough sleep, complete with cravings for sweets and simple carbohydrates. It’s a good thing there was no real junk food in the house because it would have been gone! As it was I had 2 portions of dark chocolate, a rice pudding, and a second afternoon snack. I tried to tame my hunger by making that second afternoon snack very high in protein, but it didn’t really work. The only reason I didn’t keep eating after dinner is that I went to bed at 9:30pm and was lights out by 10!

It is a bit sad when you have to go to bed early to stop yourself from overeating, but as I’ve said before, no sleep, no willpower!

The Score:

Calories:	Protein:	Carbs:	Fat:	Alcohol:	Fibre:
2192.46	130.88g	290.63g	57.90g	0	29.42g
	24%	53%	24%
Calories burned through exercise:		Rest Day

What I ate:

Time	Item	Amount
07:15	Vitamins - Centrum Advance A to Zinc, 400iu of Vitamin E, 1000iu Vitamin D3 and 500mg Glucosamine sulphate	1 each
	Cold water	200mL
	Mattesson's Turkey rashers	3 rashers
	Nature's Path Gluten Free O's	60g
	Alpro Soy milk	120mL
	Sainsbury's pressed apple and cherry juice	200mL
08:00	Black Tea	500mL
09:30	Raspberry and Echinacea tea	250mL
10:30	Brazil nuts	6g
	Cashews	17g
	Satsumas	105g
11:00	Green Tea	250mL
12:45	Prawn stir fry in Oyster sauce	270g
	Instant Rice Vermicelli noodles	47g
	Irish Yoghurts Diet Strawberry	125g
	Lindt Excellence 70% cocoa dark chocolate	20g
	500mg Glucosamine sulphate	1 pill
15:30	Muller rice pudding vanilla custard	190g
	Plums	125g
18:15	Waitrose half fat Mature Farmhouse Cheddar	40g
	Mattesson's Turkey rashers	3 rashers
	Caffeine free Black tea with milk and sugar	500mL
18:45	Lindt Excellence 70% cocoa dark chocolate	20g
20:15	Sainsbury's Pork loin	78g
	Boiled and mashed sweet potato	200g
	Steamed cauliflower	135g
	Sainsbury's Bramley apple sauce	30g
21:30	Ellactiva Chocolate Calcium Chew	1 chew
	500mg Glucosamine sulphate	1 pill

Plus 500 to 1500mL of cold water sipped from a water bottle throughout the day.