A Change of Plans

I placed my order for the week's food.  It came to another $92.50 and it started me thinking How much am I really spending?  I am fully aware of the ever-so-true "You can't put a price on good health" but the truth is that I have to.  I started working the numbers and after a 9.0 pound loss in five weeks, I also realized that just calculating the food costs and program fees, I'd paid $819.  Cash.  Out of my own pocket since none of this is reimbursable via insurance.  That is simply not sustainable.  That would mean I'd pay roughly $9,000 to lose all the weight I'd like to lose in the coming year.  Do you know what else that $9,000 could help me do?  Travel.  Buy our first home.  Help towards a new car.  Bulk up our savings.  Pay down my debt. Pay for a few more post-graduate credits.  I pride myself on making smart financial choices, but this was absolutely not one of them.

So while I'm 9 pounds thinner and a size smaller (went from an 18 to a 16), I'm also significantly lighter in the wallet.  I am back to square one now, researching options.  I had a chat with my friend that's on Jenny Craig.  I asked another friend for some info on the metabolic type diet she's following.  I went back and re-read some of the South Beach stuff from the first time I went on it.  I don't have a solid plan yet and I don't want to jump into something else that's going to be just as expensive.

In the meantime, I thought I'd give 'real eating' a shot and see how I do.  Yesterday started out incredibly well and as the day went on, it just went awry.  For breakfast, I went to our office cafeteria and had some fresh oatmeal with a pinch of brown sugar and a tablespoon of granola.  I had a banana and picked up some seltzer.  223 calories.  This is only slightly above the calories I'd have on a typical HMR breakfast day.

For lunch, I went back to the cafeteria with a friend and because I hadn't had any mid-day snacks and we went a lot later than I normally eat (1:30 vs. 12:00), I was famished.  I ordered a roasted turkey sandwich on artisan bread with a hummus spread.  I also had a small salad with 2 tablespoons of lemon vinaigrette dressing.  Oh, and a Sprite Zero.  420 calories.  This is higher than an HMR lunch because their entrees are only like 200 calories and the salad didn't add much in terms of calories.  I blame this on the bread.  But, it was delicious.

Dinner is where things went incredibly wonky.  I stayed late at the office and my husband and I needed to go the grocery store to pick up a few things.  I hadn't taken anything out to cook because I'd gotten so used to just popping an entree in the microwave that I hadn't thought about it.  So, I grabbed a chicken kielbasa for myself.  Uhm.  I shouldn't have done that.  First of all, who only eats one serving?  2 oz. of protein doesn't fill anyone up!  My thought process was that while I know regular kielbasa is terrible for you, this was CHICKEN!  This can't be bad, right?  Totally wrong!

After I ate a whopping 9 oz. of it and stole a cup of my husband's mac and cheese, I calculated it all and was dismayed to discover that my dinner was actually more calories than I should be eating in an entire day.  1247 calories.  No joke!  What could possibly be worse than that?  The realization that I also had over 5,000mg of sodium in that one meal.  OMG this is why my fingers swelled up like fat little sausages!

I ended the day at 2130 calories when it was all said and done.  I did a little snacking after dinner, which didn't help matters.  At first I was dismayed.  That's about 900 calories more than I'd been eating on the HMR plan.  But I've already identified where I went wrong:

1. I should have planned mid-morning and mid-afternoon snacks.  Those snacks should have been something like fruit, veggies or maybe a protein bar.  But something that would hold me over so I wouldn't go ballistic when I finally did eat.
2. I should absolutely not have gone to the grocery store while being famished.  The kielbasa was chosen because it doesn't take long to heat up.  I could have just as easily grabbed a Lean Cuisine or WW meal for lower calories, lower sodium and probably lower cost.
3. I should not have started on the mac and cheese.  It's clearly a trigger food for me.  
4. I should have paired the meat with vegetables.  They would have been lower calories, more fiber and actually fill me up.  That would have prevented me from further snacking.

The good news, if there could be any, is that I still came under the amount of calories I'd need to eat to maintain my weight.  I have up to 2200 to maintain.  So, while it wasn't a good day, I learned a lot and it's not like I ate enough to gain weight. 

Now I'm off to drink as much water as possible today to try to flush all of this sodium out.  I am going to start my day with an HMR cereal packet and some fruit.  I may as well use up the rest of what I've already purchased.  For lunch, I'm going to have some of a frozen quinoa and roasted veggie meal I purchased from Trader Joe's.  I will pair it with some additional fresh vegetables.  We're having a friend over for dinner tonight and I have yet to plan the menu, but I suspect it will be something like roasted chicken, with some veggies and perhaps roasted or boiled potatoes.


Today is already shaping up to be a better day!