Day 117 - The Giants Suck, But I Made a Great Breakfast Sandwich!

Hello everyone!  Welcome to today's edition of J-DOC.  Here's the story:

Breakfast - I actually cooked today.  I woke up early and had time to cook!  Ya know why?  I think it's because the Yankee season is over and so I went to bed early!  I was in bed by 10 and asleep by 10:30 last night and so by 6am, I had a full 7.5 hours of sleep!  Makes waking up a lot easier!  So I made breakfast sandwiches for Kristyn and I.  Taylor ham, Egg whites/eggs, bagel thin.  Also had Trop 50.  I gotta get on this roll because it was GOOD!!!!!!!

   

Lunch - Leftover Pork Loin, egg noodles and carrots.  Delicious left overs.  Yum!  And then after lunch, I went back to the band room to teach my drummers how to figure out the 3rds and 7ths to read jazz chords on vibes!  This was entertaining to do!  Couple of really good kids who are going above and beyond.  Now at lunch duty, I did a bad thing.  Could not help myself - they introduced a new food today at lunch.  For the first time ever, they had empanadas.  They looked SOOOOOO good.  I asked for one but they I guess had to give me two.  I'm sorry, I'm not sorry I had those.  Nailed it!  I hope for my waist line that they don't do them again, but for my overall happiness in the moment, I hope they have them every day!  :-)

Dinner - Packed a cold cut sandwich on bagel thin - turkey, pepperoni and yellow american.  Really enjoyed it on the bagel thin.

Snacking throughout the day - At various points in the day, I sampled another 2 chocolate bars (I ate half of each, so in the end it was a full bar).  Also had my "nightly" pretzels and goldfish, piece of cheese and yes - - - - - I stopped for a Slurpee.  Gotta stop this slurpee thing!  Between the slurpees and the Dunkin mornings, it really is a waste of money AND a lot of calories.

Sports Note:  So tonight marked the end of my 2nd sports team's season in just 1 week.  Tuesday we lost the Yankees and Thursday we lost the Giants.  They are TERRIBLE and I just don't understand it.  But they basically rolled over today for the season.  And the worst part is that I tried to stay up to watch it and it made me tired in the morning, screwing with my breakfast making abilities.  I hate them on Thursday night games and I hate that they make me love them.  :-)   I also HHHAAATTTEEE the Eagles.  No trolling please.  I'm not a happy camper right now.  My patience is wearing thin. .. . . . .

Day 116 - I cooked!!!!!

Hello everyone!  I'm getting on a roll with the blogging.  Now I just have to get on a roll of making sure to eat all my meals at home and not snack too much.  I'm definitely doing better since I started back on here, so I think in a few days, I should be able to break myself of the bad habits I recreated.  Here's today's wrap-up

Breakfast - Once again, I intended to have cereal but we still have no milk.  I just don't think about it when I'm driving home from work .  Who thinks about milk?   I was a bad boy - I went to dunkin but at least I didn't get the Red Bull.  I got the Bagel and the Donut though.  I brought myself some gatorade.  Not amazing to drink but at least it's not Red Bull, agreed?

Snacking - Granola bar mid-morning

Lunch - For lunch I had leftover steak that Kristyn Made a couple nights ago along with 2 pierogis and some corn.  Yum Yum Yum!!!!!

                                          
Snacking - Grabbed a Slurpee on the way home. 

Dinner - Cracked Pepper Pork Loin with Egg Noodles and Baby Carrots.  I actually cooked this time.  Not that it was anything earth-shattering to make, but I have not cooked in awhile.

Snacking - Had some pretzels and Goldfish and also a frozen Lemonade.  I've got some fruit in my fridge.  Gotta start tapping into that . . . . . . habits!

See you tomorrow.  Spoiler alert - There is no Dunkin Donuts in tomorrow's blog, guaranteed.

Day 115 - 3 meals in!

So yesterday, I ate 3 meals out so I followed that up with 3 meals IN today!   What I mean by that is that I didn't buy any food and all the food came from home.  :-)  Let's see what I can remember.

Breakfast - So I was really running late since I actually had to feed the baby this morning.  Usually that's a recipe for disaster which starts with D and that stands for DUNKIN!  But instead, I grabbed a dark chocolate and peanut butter protein bar and ate that in the car.  TOok a low calorie Gatorade with me also.  Enjoyed that.

Lunch - For lunch, I had leftovers of the stuffed pepper from the night before.  Also finished up my low cal gatorade and I think it's likely that I had a granola bar also.  I was really hungry because of the light breakfast and I remember saying how hungry I was and then Timochko tried to give me crap about just making breakfast and I shot back at him about how I don't wake up early because I go to bed too late . . . yadda yadda yadda. . . . . . . . I swore I was gonna make breakfast tomorrow in my mind.  (Spoiler alert, overslept again and didn't make breakfast!)

Snacking - We are getting set to do a chocolate fundraiser for the music students and one of our fundraising reps sent us over an entire box of chocolate bars.  There has to be 30 different bars in there.  That being said, the point is to sample them and decide which ones you want to sell.  Today was sample #1 - Fannie Mae Milk Chocolate bars.  I ate half and I split the other half between Steph and VG.  it was good!!!!!  So far, I'm good if we just choose those!

Dinner - Kristyn cooked again!  She's killin it lately!  We had breaded chicken breast with some veggies and wild rice.  Water was the drink of choice this time around.

Snacking - THere was a lot of small snacking throughout the evening.  I had some goldfish, I had some pretzels, a minute maid frozen lemonade and a piece of cheese.  I'm thinking that was it, but it's possible where was something else.  I struggled a bit on the snacking tonight - Yankees stressed me out.  I REALLY thought Sanchez got all of that ball in the 9th.  Oh well, what are you going to do?  Red Sox won 108 games and that was no fluke. Great team this year.  But I hope they get crushed by Houston.  :-)

See you tomorrow . . . . . . .

Day 114 - 3 meals out

So it's day 114 and we are off!

Breakfast:
For breakfast, I went to the refrigerator to grab some milk and guess what, I forgot to add milk to the shopping list!  SOOOO, no cereal for me.  This led me down a dark path of my Dunkin Donuts typical breakfast.  ARGH.   Epic fail. 

Lunch:
Lunch time came around and Jason and Shane asked if I wanted to go to Farmhouse, which is a restaurant in Cresskill that I have never been to.  It was a professional day, so of course I went!  I had an omelet with red & green peppers, onions, sausage and bacon.  It was not a huge omelet, but very filling.  Also had home fries and 2 slices of buttered toast.  Water was the drink of choice.

Dinner
For Dinner, I had a meeting of the New Jersey Association of Jazz Educators.  This is at the OMega Diner in East Brunswick.  (Actually, may be another town, but I'm not sure.)  So I had a grilled chicken sandwich on whole wheat toast with mashed potatoes and water again.  This is pretty good for me on a diner meal. 

Snack
After dinner, it looked like we were about to  be done, but then everyone ordered dessert.  I order some chocolate ice cream with chocolate syrup.  Now let me tell you - the pieces of cake some of these people ordered could have fed small armies.  I REALLY wanted the chocolate cake (with ice cream!) but I held off.  When I'm at the diner, surprisingly, I feel like a couple scoops of ice cream is the dessert that is the least bad in some way.  I know that sounds weird and silly, but have you ever looked at a good Jersey diner dessert display?  It's out of control!  A little ice cream looks like nothing next to that!

And that's it for today.  Thanks for reading.  I'll try to eat some home cooked meals tomorrow since today was a train wreck in terms of that.  All things considered, I think I made decent lunch and dinner choices - although there were maybe a few too many potatoes in the lunch at Farmhouse.

TTFN - Ta Ta For Now!

Days 110-113 - Sort Of . . . .

Today is day 113.  I wrote this big coming back post and then have not posted.  I'm really struggling to find the time.  I am not going to try to remember every move of the past 3 days, but I will tell a few stories from it and I am going to do a full write up of today.  :-)

Story from Thursday - Day 110
So I have lunch duty.  I was good for the first 3 weeks in avoiding all school lunch food - my biggest weaknesses being the cookies, chicken fingers and Mac & Cheese (in that order.)  So 1 month in, I have bought chicken fingers 1 time and I did get cookies pretty much every day for 1 week, but that was it.  So on Thursday, I go to the lunch lady and ask her to put my two cookies on my tab (which is up to $8 now btw) and then I finish them and go to buy a pretzel, which they were out of.  I was disappointed until I literally had this thought in my mind: "OH SHIT, I JUST ATE 2 COOKIES AND DIDN'T EVEN REALIZE IT.  NOW I HAVE TO BLOG ABOUT THIS!  DAMN IT!!!!!"   Old habits die hard.   Gotta pay my bill and get off of my 1 week cookie run.

Story from Saturday - Day 112
So this was a long day with the marching band.  Met the kids at CHS at 5:30am, headed to Rutgers University and had our rehearsal with them and the other high schools, saw the Scarlet Walk show and then it was time for what they called "lunch" on the schedule.  This was actually breakfast - they supplied breakfast sandwiches from Jersey Mike's.  It was great they had Eggs only, egg & cheese, choices of taylor ham, bacon or sausage, egg whites, gluten free - you name it.  Was well set up.  I got taylor ham, egg & cheese. (Didn't really want the cheese, but there was no sandwich with meat left without cheese by the time I got up there.)  So I eat it.  It was pretty good.  No big deal.  May not be the healthiest, but it was what they had and let's be real - not a big deal.  I'm sitting there with my staff and I say "ok, I'm gonna go feel out if I'll look too gluttenous to ask for a 2nd sandwich."  I start to stand up and I literally just stop myself and say "DAMN IT!  I CAN'T GET A 2ND SANDWICH BECAUSE THEY I'LL HAVE TO BLOG ABOUT IT!"  I was so disappointed!  I could have gone ahead with it because the sandwiches were actually only 1/2 sandwiches if you consider it was half of a very long roll, BUT I figured that there was really no need at all for this 2nd sandwich outside of my personal desire to have another.  So I skipped it.

ON TO TODAY - SUNDAY - DAY 113

Breakfast - after yesterday - I need to sleep!!!  And sleep I did!  Sleeping until 9am with 2 kids under two is like sleeping until 1pm on a Sunday in college when you are hungover.  It was glorious!  So we had planned to go to Secor Farms with the kids for pumpkin picking.  Rather than hold the process up at home, I stopped at Petracco's and got a bagel and a Red Bull.  (I know I know - I'm gonna slow down on the Red Bulls again.  I'm in a little Red bull relapse but I'm coming out of it, I promise.

Snacking at Secor - I was good.  They have these DELICIOUS apple cider cinnamon sugar donuts.  I know they are great because I've had them in the past.  Kristyn went to get one and asked if I wanted one and I lied and said NO.  So I didn't get one.  I had 1 bite of hers and really regretted not getting one, but now that I'm home - I'm glad about it.  Then she grabbed a coffee at Dunkin' and I stayed in the car.  2 for 2!

Lunch - As soon as I got home, I housed 2 pieces of Yellow American cheese because I just needed something quick!  About an hour later, I finally got to eating lunch.  We were out of leftovers and I had this Healthy Choice Power Bowl that Kristyn likes.  I made it.  Lots of Sodium, which is the thing that I end up having a little more of as I avoid calories and fat grams.  Ya know, not many decent tasting things are lacking in calories, fat carbs, sugars, sodium and everything else.  I typically look at calories the most and sodium is often somewhat high.  The good news is that I don't eat a lot of these frozen things anymore.  BUT even if I did, realize that even a high in sodium healthy choice meal is soooooo much better than having chicken fingers and french fries, no?    Anyway, here's a photo of the meal I had.

To be honest, I didn't really love it.  It was OK and I guess it had some things in it that are supposed to be good for you but it was a little dry for me, not tasty enough.  I prefer the Santa Fe Rice and Beans one from Smart Ones.  I would eat this is I was stuck but didn't really feel it.  Kristyn seems to love it.  So don't go by me!  Got these at Costco.

Snacking - I ended up having 2 more pieces of cheese and about half a serving of goldfish.  I didn't realize we had goldfish but a HUGE-ASS box was just chillin on the counter, so I stuck the ol' hand in for some.  A serving is 55 fishies.  So I think I had about half of that. I also had a rice krispie treat at some point.

Dinner - Mrs. Verderese made a nice dinner tonight!  Stuffed Peppers with ground turkey and a mixture of stuff to make it taste good.  :-)  It was awesome!  For some reason, the photo did not upload to my computer, so I can't share it.  Oh well . . . . . .   It was healthy, that's for sure!

That was it for today.  I didn't snack at night.  No need.  I actually did lots of work tonight - started a grad class online about using Google Classroom.  Good stuff!

Days 87-109 - A little break, but I'M BACK!!!!!

Diet is a dirty word.   (It's also 4 letters, which is usually not good.)  To say that I'd been on a "diet" for 86 days would be an interesting way to say it, and an inaccurate way also.  The word diet implies limitations, sacrifice, avoidance, torture!  A better way to describe a long term diet would be "Lifestyle Change."  This includes making better choices, creating, trying new things and improving habits.  For the first 86 days of my daughter's life, I started the trend toward lifestyle changes.  I did GREAT for about 30-40 days.  Then I did fairly well for a few weeks.  Then Vacation and the end of summer came and I did OK.  All the way through, I never slipped back completely into the old lifestyle.  Instead of eating healthy once in awhile and falling back on bad foods, I made bad choices once in awhile and fell back on better choices.  I would say that this was a successful run. I lost 21 pounds and felt great.

For the past 23 days, I needed a break from the blogging.  It is a lot of work and  I like to do a good job of it, make it entertaining for you to read.  Did you know I was averaging about 375 views per day?  That really helped keep me on track.  The past few weeks, I have fallen back on SOME bad habits.  My breakfast is one that I have not been able to shake since school started up again.  BUT my crazy awesome wife has been cooking a lot, meaning lots of healthy dinner and lunch leftovers.  I have tried to keep up on the water drinking instead of lots of diet soda - keeps me hydrated in a good way - when i drink more water, I feel more refreshed and usually make better food choices.  Part of why I stopped writing was the amount of time it takes and I've been overwhelmed at work.  The other part is that I was making at least 1 bad choice almost every day and I didn't think the purpose of the blog was to make excuses every single day about what I was eating.  I didn't need to justify it every day.  AND I didn't think that was what you were all trying to read about.  What I will say is that 23 days went by since my last write-up and I have lingered in the same weight zone - going up or down 2-3 pounds at max at any given time.  But it's not about the weight.  Sure I have kept it off by not going off the reservation at all with my eating, but I definitely don't feel as good as when I was making better choices more often.  SOOOOO, I'm ready to get back on the train. 

I'm not starting over at day 1, because I don't feel like I have failed the last 23 days.  I just haven't done AS WELL and I have not written about it.  When I think about the long term journey, my intentions are to lose 50 pounds.  I am currently down 19.8 and it has happened over the course of 109 days.  Sure, I was there 30+ days ago, but the days that have passed since then still exist.  They are part of the long term project.  I slipped up and have not been doing great, but I did not fall off the wagon.  So here we are.  I've actually had some requests to get back to it (the blog, anyway.)  People have told me they miss it and others have just inquired as to how I've been doing.  It's motivating to share it with people and I guess when it's going well, people enjoy reading about positive stories. 

I'm going to do my best to keep it up daily, keep it entertaining, and make as many good choices as I can. 

THE BREAK MATH

While I was on my break, I kind of came up with an informal math theory of food choices.  80/20.  80% good choices + 20% other options will lead to long term positive results.  Now due to allowing the 20% of imperfections, that may bring my productivity to 60% BUT it is a better formula for long term results.  It may take me 6 months to lose 20 pounds  this way instead of 4 months (random numbers I just made up) but the post-weight-loss-fall-out will be much easier to deal with because I will not have starved my brain of pizza, ice cream, cookies or other things I love . . . . . . 20% of the time is the key.  If I cut everything out cold turkey, then when I reach my goal and reintroduce everything back, it will all just pile back on.  

So J-DOC is back! (I think.)  Back on track.  Day 110 coming up.  Wish me luck and happy reading!

80/20.  Here we go!