Lobster Shorts Food, vegetarian, weight loss

Friday Fun Day

Disclaimer. I am not a medical professional, nutritionist, or anyone with any business giving diet/nutritional advice. This is my own personal journey. When it comes to yourself, seek the advice of a medical professional.

Friday starts with “Epic Breakfast”. Epic breakfast has lattes from the Snapping Turtle and Harvest Sandwiches from Tim Hortons.

I was going out for dinner with friends this evening. Knowing that I had the option to take a train or walk home earlier that afternoon. It was a pretty hot day and I wanted to burn some extra calories before dinner. For the same reason, I wanted to have a light lunch.

I stopped off at the grocery store and you can see what I bought in the photo above. The strawberries smelled so wonderful I had to get them. I was pretty thirsty, so I also got watermelon. There were two slices of watermelon, but one of them didn’t make it home. It was SO GOOD! It got all over me it was juicy and delicious. YUM! I had half the garden salad for lunch with avocado and balsamic dressing. I forgot to take a photo of it. I got really hungry before I went out for dinner and had a chocolate cracker.

Dinner started with a cocktail at the Braai House in Stratford. I’ve been there a few times now and always enjoy the food.

I didn’t order appetizers. I rarely do. I don’t think I’ve ever had a problem with being hungry with just the entree, so I skip it. I ordered a pizza to share with my spouse.

I had two slices of pizza and two cocktails. I will stick with one drink next time. Two drinks hit me like a brick and I left that restaurant pretty tipsy. I’m pretty sure I was still tipsy when I went to bed that night. One is enough lol.

FridayCalories
Tim’s Harvest Sandwich391
latte160
Apple sauce45
M&Ms100
Watermelon 2” slice87
Strawberries 1/2 cup25
garden salad130
Avocado 1/2160
Dressing 1/8 cup90
Watermelon 2” slice87
chococracker30
2 cocktails500
Pizza 2 slices740
Total Calories2545

I was trying to keep the calories down at lunch to come closer to 1800 calories, but as you can see, I went WAY over. I should have stayed away from those M&Ms at least. I didn’t have a calorie count on the pizza, so I used the same as it would be for a pizza chain for a large pizza and used that. I also used a tequila sunrise to guess how many calories were in the cocktails I had. I’m hoping there were less in what I had! I went over and it’s going to happen sometimes. I still want to be able to enjoy restaurants with friends and I’m not going to beat myself up about it and move on.

Lobster Shorts cooking, thrifting, vegetarian, weight loss

Pope Mugs, Dirty Matcha Lattes, and Why I Feel Scammed By Hello Fresh (but still love it)

Disclaimer. I am not a medical professional, nutritionist, or anyone with any business giving diet/nutritional advice. This is my own personal journey. When it comes to yourself, seek the advice of a medical professional.

I found something out today and I’m annoyed. Hello Fresh comes packaged individually for each dinner and sometimes extra food items that need to stay extra cold are left out to be in contact with the ice everything is shipped in. Each bag has the number of calories per serving on it and I thought that the calorie count included everything in the whole dinner. I started making the sesame salad recipe for that evening’s dinner, I looked at the calorie count and it said 240 calories… What? I knew the Beyond Meat patty that was included in the dinner would have had around that many calories by itself. There was no way. I looked at the calories on the Beyond Meat package and it was around 300 calories per patty. There were two patties! LIES! So what I think is happening, is that Hello Fresh is only listing the calories in the bag and anything extra you need to add has its own separate calories. I’m so annoyed. The calories should be listed as the whole dinner. I get why they wouldn’t add the oil you use from your own kitchen into it because you can use whatever oil you choose and they wouldn’t have access to that info… but when it’s an included ingredient and it’s part of the recipe!? – Add it to the calorie count! Grrr. That means my calorie counts are under for the last two days, I never added oil either. Now I know and can adjust for the future. Don’t get me wrong, I love Hello Fresh and will continue to buy it, but that’s annoying. Also, no wonder I didn’t find the last two days very difficult.

As for what I ate today and the calories (this time the count is more correct), it started out with my usual egg on an English muffin and black coffee. I ran out of avocado so I had the sandwich with cheese. Pretty good, but I do love my avocado and missed it. Lunch was chili in a can, the same kind I’ve been having repeatedly for lunch, Sprague brand from Costco and really good.

On the way home I stopped at a thrift store hoping to find a teapot. Mine was broken over the weekend. I loved it and I’m so hopeful I can find another one. This one was special because you could heat it with a tea candle and your pot of tea would stay hot for hours. I really loved it. I did not find a replacement teapot, but I did find clothing items and these pope mugs! I did not buy the pope mugs, sorry.

Dinner was sesame salad from Hello Fresh, it was really good and I’m pretty sure I’ve got the calories right now. There were almost enough calories left for a dirty matcha latte. I knew I’d go over a bit but I wanted one.

I make my dirty matcha latte with a shot of Tia Maria Matcha, a cup of whole milk, and a teaspoon of matcha. It was pretty good. I prefer the latte sweetened with maple syrup and not Tia Maria, but sometimes I want the naughty version. I’ll post my daily calorie count in the chart below. I couldn’t find the calorie count for Tia Maria Matcha, so I used the calories for Tequila Rose, I figured they would be similar.

ThursdayCalories
english muffin140
egg78
cheese113
coffee0
tea0
goldfish crackers under 2045
chili400
apple sauce x290
granola bar160
hello fresh kit240
beyond meat patty300
tia maria matcha69
whole milk160
matcha10
Total1805
Lobster Shorts cooking, vegetarian, weight loss

What I Ate Today With Calorie Count Day 2 -July 13 2022

Disclaimer. I am not a medical professional, nutritionist, or anyone with any business giving diet/nutritional advice. This is my own personal journey. When it comes to yourself, seek the advice of a medical professional.

Before I go into what I ate today, I will give you a weight update. Unfortunately, I have gained the weight I lost for the wedding back. I was 169lbs on my wedding day and currently weighing 177lbs this morning. It’s disappointing to have lost all that headway. I did OMAD (one meal a day) to lose weight before the wedding. I don’t want to do that again. My history with fast weight loss and diets hasn’t done a lot for me. An 1800 daily calorie limit seems to be more sustainable. I’ve only done it for two days and even in these two days I wanted to do late-night snacking with binge foods, but it wasn’t a big deal not to have them. It’s been great for stopping from grabbing fizzy sweet drinks from the fridge – not soda, but it might as well be. Instead, I’ve been drinking sparkling unflavoured water. It’s not bad!

Breakfast and lunch were my go-to’s: English muffin with avocado and egg and a bowl of chili. As usual, I had coffee with breakfast and tea during the day. I got a latte on the way to work from The Snapping Turtle. I love it without any sweeteners or flavorings, while my spouse loves hazelnut. I do really like the flavor shots in a latte, but I only want a couple sips, while with a straight latte I love it right to the end. This is very strange to me because I have such a sweet tooth.

I did manage to skip the M&Ms today, but not the granola bar for the ride home. I also had some apple sauce as well. Dinner was paneer curry from Hello Fresh and it was really good. The calories were 560 per serving and although I had less than half, I was munching on the cheese bits and peppers while I was cooking it, so I used the full calorie count.

I did get hungry later in the evening and I munched on some cherries. The cherries were SO good. I was thinking of having chocolate, but I didn’t want to go over my calorie count for the day and 2 cups of cherries seemed better than one small piece of chocolate (I was snacky!), so I had that. I managed to stick to my calorie count for the day and feel pretty good about how things are going. I’ll post the calorie chart for the day below:

WednesdayCalories
english muffin140
egg78
Avocado 1/2160
black coffee0
latte w/whole milk136
tea0
chili400
apple sauce45
granola bar160
Hello Fresh paneer curry560
Cherries 2 cups100
Total Calories1779
Lobster Shorts cooking, Food, vegetarian, weight loss

The Monotony Of Counting Calories and What I Ate Today – July 12 2022

Disclaimer. I am not a medical professional, nutritionist, or anyone with any business giving diet/nutritional advice. This is my own personal journey. When it comes to yourself, seek the advice of a medical professional.

I’ve tried tons of diets. If they include a vegetarian lifestyle (even if they don’t I can usually adapt it to one), I’ve probably tried it. I’ve even tried Keto, which I did notice increased my libido. I’m taking a guess here and assuming that means my everyday diet includes too much sugar/carbs. Keto was not a diet I was able to stick with, even with the unexpected benefits. Like every other diet I’ve tried, it was quickly cast aside and any benefits I gained were quickly lost, or it just didn’t work. I’m sad to say, there is no miracle solution to weight loss for me.

I really dislike counting calories. It’s monotonous, tedious, and annoying, but I need to do it. For the last few weeks, I assumed I was eating pretty well with fewer calories, but I didn’t lose any weight. It was time to figure out where I was going wrong and have a better understanding of how much I was eating. I knew I was doing a couple things wrong. I was eating too much junk food and portioning out the same amount of food as my spouse, who is a male. I do not require the same amount of calories as a grown man, therefore I really shouldn’t be eating the same portion sizes as one. I cut my portion size down to about 75% of what he was eating, yet still didn’t notice any weight loss.

I started a spreadsheet chart and am aiming to eat around 1800 calories a day. Sundays I’ll be a little more lax. I’ll post the results of what I ate on July 11/2022.

MondayCalories
Avocado eggs benny563
coffee0
tea0
chilli400
m&ms100
granola bar160
apple sauce45
strawberries18
cola – a couple sips from my spouse10
curry680
Totals1976

As you can see I went over my 1800-calorie goal on my first day.

Tuesday I had an egg sandwich with avocado for breakfast.

For lunch, I had a can of vegetarian chili I got at Costco: Sprague. They are great for lunch – heat and eat. Although this photo does NOT look appetizing, the chili is actually really good, with a slight hint of heat. I really like it and plan on having it for lunch during the work week, until I eventually want something else.

Dinner I have been making Hello Fresh for a couple weeks now and I LOVE IT!!! They have about 6 vegetarian meals to choose from every week. I just noticed that they have the calories for each meal listed on the bag. SUPER helpful. Even though it’s pretty expensive it keeps me from getting takeout on the commute home. That was a huge problem for me. I have been having granola bars on the ride home which isn’t great, but I notice the dogs get a better walk when we get home if I’m not starving, as they are always walked before dinner. I tend to become a homebody after dinner and prefer to walk them beforehand. That usually means we eat really late at night, but so far that’s how it’s going for us.

Last night was fatoush salad from Hello Fresh and was one of the lower calorie items: only 480 calories per serving! I usually divide the dinner into three as Hello Fresh usually has generous portion sizes, giving my spouse lunch to take to work the next day, but because the calories were so low, I only divided it in two (I did not dole out a smaller portion size than my spouse this time lol). It was really good. I loved it. I’ll post the results of the calories I ate for the whole day:

TuesdayCalories
english muffin140
egg78
Avocado 1/2160
black coffee0
Lemondade 1 cup100
bite of a scone30
tea0
Chilli 1 can400
m&ms 1/8 cup100
tea0
apple sauce45
granola160
raspberries65
fatoush salad480
chocolate cracker30
Total1788

That chocolate cracker was had late at night and right before bed. It wasn’t necessary, but since I would stay within my allotted calorie count for the day, I ate it. Not exactly the precedence I want to set. These little things add up and could interfere with my goals.

Overall I think I did really good yesterday and hope to keep it up. My intentions usually fall apart and instead of picking myself up and continuing, I scrap the whole process. I’d like to stop doing that and figure out a way to stick with it carrying on with my goals. It’s something I need to work on in myself and learn to figure out.

Lobster Shorts Food, vegetarian, weight loss

I cooked!

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I cooked a few times this week and what I made turned out really good! The photo above is the Black Bean Mole and Salsa from the Speedy Bosh! cookbook. It was a really unique recipe with some ingedients I didn’t expect (like chocolate and oranges). It was good too! The recipes in the book look really interesting and not so typical. I’m really looking forward to trying more of them.

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This next dish, I used a sesame sauce recipe from The Complete Book of Sauces with broccoli, zucchini and rice. It was also a success! It was also a quick make and that is something I can use in my life. Our routines are all upturned after expanding our family with the two dogs and quick and easy is what I’m looking for.

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For this egg and sweet potato dish, I went off roading. I based this creation roughly off this recipe here. I left the bacon out and used different veggies. I cooked everything in my air fryer except for the egg, which I did in a pan. It was also good. I loved the ease of “set it and forget it” using the airfryer. I love that appliance.

Three successes! I’m still terrible about getting takeout instead of cooking during the work week. It’s my planning that’s causing me problems. I need to set aside the time to know what I want to cook, get the ingredients and prepare it. Otherwise, I’m going to keep eating unhealthy. These three dishes I was super proud of. If I could keep cooking this way, I think I would be doing myself a huge favour.

Lobster Shorts weight loss

Weddings and Weight Loss Updates

Disclaimer. I am not a medical professional, nutritionist, or anyone with any business giving diet/nutritional advice. This is my own personal journey. When it comes to yourself, seek the advice of a medical professional.

November 18 2021

I’ve ghosted you guys for awhile, which usually means I’ve fallen off the bandwagon. I haven’t worked out in quite awhile, probably not since my last post about it! Two weeks before my wedding and my dress was a slight bit snugger than I was comfortable with. I decided to switch back to OMAD (one meal a day) until the wedding.

I was down to 169lbs on my wedding day and the dress fit perfectly (thank goodness!). I’ve decided to stick with OMAD for the weekdays again, because it gave me results. The cons are I’m definitely not eating all that healthy. I’m getting a lot of take out and after the wedding I’ve had cheesecake daily (it’s all gone now lol).

I’m hoping to get back into exercise again soon, but haven’t felt like it lately. I know I should prioritize it. I actually pulled a muscle in my chest about a week ago, while I was reaching for something over my head. It hurt for days and I had trouble sleeping. I’ve really gotta give yoga a proper try. I think it would help immensely. I’ve started getting an achy back in the mornings sometimes and I know it’s from being sedentary.

I’ll keep you all updated!

Lobster Shorts Food, vegetarian, weight loss

August 31 2021

Shark week has begun and I am getting cravings. I want cookies! I am trying my best to ignore them. Last night I got take out at the Pita Pit – a small halloumi pita. I finished the whole thing. In the future I’m hoping to cut that down. I’m not sure how many calories are in a pita, the small size is pretty big. I’m hoping to shrink my portion sizes down and polishing the whole thing off isn’t helping. I recall not being able to finish one back when I was 20lbs lighter. I’m sure I’ll be getting pitas again in the near future.

When I got home from work I went for a jog on the treadmill. My speed was 3.7 again and I went a little further on the distance and for a longer duration. My goal on the treadmill is to keep it at around 30 minutes, but to increase the speed. My legs are tired, but so far my hip muscles aren’t bothering me like last time. I think that’s pretty fantastic, but I usually feel the previous days workout in the evening the next day, so I might still be in for some more discomfort.

I was sweaty. I snacked on a banana before I went to bed and had some sparkling water. I would have had more water, but I didn’t want to be up all night peeing. I need to improve my water intake. I’m pretty sure I live in a constant state of dehydration. I don’t seem to care to drink anything unless it’s coffee or alcohol. I never seem to be thirsty.

Breakfast started with a smoothie bowl and coffee. For lunch I had a can of Campbell’s Moroccan Chickpea soup. I’ll be going out for sushi after work today and I’m really not sure how I’m going to make that healthy. It’s a buffet. I’ll have to make up for it by eating healthier on Friday and the weekend.

Disclaimer. I am not a medical professional, nutritionist, or anyone with any business giving diet advice. This is my own personal journey. When it comes to yourself, seek the advice of a medical professional

Lobster Shorts Food, vegetarian, weight loss

Sunday Too Much Funday and Week One Weight Loss Results

Sunday started with “Epic Breakfast” (that’s what I call the big breakfast I cook on Sundays. There’s no restrictions). It was air fried potatoes with salt and a bit of avocado oil, a croissant, two fried eggs, and coffee. I massacred those eggs. Sunny side up was not happening this day.

Here I am taking the kayaks for a walk. It was going to be another scorcher today, so we went for a paddle on the river. We tried out the new kayak racks. They worked very well, but the tie downs that came with them were crappy and kept slipping. I tied the tails to the boat seat and that helped a lot.

I saw some pretty things and cool creatures along the way. There are tons of clams in the river. Don’t worry, this one was put back in the river after a quick snap shot.

There was a clear spot that is a little deeper further up the river. We were super hot and decided to take a quick swim to cool off. It was very refreshing but I don’t know if there are any leaches or craapy things in the river, so I made it quick. I must have snapped this pic before I got crispy fried. I don’t know why I always assume I’m not going to burn. I did. A lot. My spouse was putting aloe all over my face and neck when I got home and calling me his cherry tomato.

Lunch was a bowl of leftover green curry and for dinner I had a 6inch veggie sub. Between lunch and dinner I managed to have a bottle of a vanilla mudslide (the boozy kind), and a strawberry banana Palm Bay. The mudslide was amazing and I want to drink a million of them.

I also had these cookies with the sub. Later I had a slice of pie and a glass of wine too. It was a decadent day. Because I went kayaking, I counted that as my workout for the day. I was planning to do the stretching video, but I was burnt and didn’t feel like it.

Time to see my results after a week:

I’m down 0.2lbs… That’s it. After all these really tough workouts. I am annoyed. Apparently, my cheat days include too much cheating. I was very irritated with the results when I got on the scale this morning. I had planned to make a green smoothie bowl for breakfast but I was in a foul mood and didn’t make anything. I ended up stopping in at Tim Hortons for an egg and cheese sandwich on the homestyle biscuit and a coffee. I had a bowl of soup for lunch today and plan to have a healthy dinner, but no idea what that is yet.

I’ll give my measurements to compare as well:

August 23 August 30
Waist 37″ Waist 37″
Hips 43.5″ Hips 43.5″
Mid Thigh 22.5″ Mid Thigh 21.5
upper thigh 26″ Upper Thigh 26″
Mid Calf 14″ Mid Calf 13″
Bust 40″ Bust 40″
Upper Bust 36″ Upper Bust 37″
Bicep 12″ Bicep 12″

Even though I’m down in some spots, that could be a measuring error, so I’m not counting it as a win yet, plus my chest is up an inch. Overall I’m pretty unhappy with the results. I’m going to have to do less cheating on cheat days and reduce the amount I’m eating. I didn’t see the results I was hoping for, which would have been a loss of a couple pounds. I’m grumpy.

Disclaimer. I am not a medical professional, nutritionist, or anyone with any business giving diet advice. This is my own personal journey. When it comes to yourself, seek the advice of a medical professional.

Lobster Shorts Food, vegetarian, weight loss

Saturday Breakfast and Workout

Every Saturday, my spouse and I go to the Stone Town Cafe. We go every week, it’s a tradition we started back when our dog was still alive. The three of us would get egg and cheese sandwiches. The owner of the café always had a couple cookies for her, sometimes a few of the café regulars too. She was stuffed by the time we went home. I miss her a lot. She loved her Saturday morning treats.

We’ve kept with the tradition, and still go every Saturday. Lately, I’ve been having a lot of eggs at home and have wanted something different. I’ve been getting the Mediterranean wrap. It’s healthy with lots of veggies and light on the cheese. I get it with a coffee.

On the way home from breakfast, I went to Kitchen Smidgen for some sweet treats. They had one of my favourites, custard tarts. One for both of us and a meringue to split. One bite each lol. It’s probably lucky for me that the bakery is only open Fridays and Saturdays. I feel it’s okay to splurge on weekends.

Lunch I made an attempt at green curry without a recipe. It was okay. It had tofu, green curry paste, coconut milk, and veggies. I served it over brown rice. I did some weeding today and I just sat on my butt in the garden to do it. My thighs are still burning like crazy from the Start It Up workout I did two days ago. I’m making sounds when I sit down and stand. You know… huhhhhhhh what did I do to myself groany sounds… Every time I sit or stand. I did the Slim In 6 Ab workout. That’s all my legs would allow. I wanted to save the stretching video for tomorrow.

This was dinner this evening. Avocado and egg on a whole wheat bun, a piece of cheese. I’m still craving this non stop. No signs of getting sick of it anytime soon. I had a slice of pie this evening and a glass of red wine. I forgot to take a picture of the pie. It was strawberry rhubarb pie with a sugar crumble topping, homemade. I’m going to be splurging a little tomorrow too. Sunday is big breakfast day. Once it cools down a little I’d like to spend some more time outside. It’s still very hot here in Ontario.

Disclaimer. I am not a medical professional, nutritionist, or anyone with any business giving diet advice. This is my own personal journey. When it comes to yourself, seek the advice of a medical professional.

Lobster Shorts Food, vegetarian, weight loss

Snack Boxes, Cookies, and Pizza… Oh My

Disclaimer. I am not a medical professional, nutritionist, or anyone with any business giving diet advice. This is my own personal journey. When it comes to yourself, seek the advice of a medical professional.

Here we are again, avocado and an egg on an English muffin, served with coffee. I love this breakfast. I could eat this every day, multiple times over and over and over again. Just talking about it, I want to eat it again.

I didn’t bring my lunch to work today, I was going to make something when I got home. My snack box from Vegan Cuts came in and I dug into it on the way home.

I split this rice krispie square with my spouse. Then novelty of having rice Krispy squares again was wonderful, the square was okay.

I split this cookie from the snack box too. I don’t want to dump on a product, but this was really gross. We both took only a bite and didn’t want anymore. It tasted really plastic like.

We tried these Snacklins and I really liked them. Lots of snacks, right… well there’s more.

I stopped in at the Snapping Turtle again for a dreamy latte and a cookie. This time the cookie was MY idea. I had forgotten I hadn’t had lunch yet. They didn’t have my favourite peanut butter cookie, but they had these chocolate covered coffee bean shaped ones and they left the café with me. One for each of us.

I didn’t really need lunch at this point, but still wanted something else, so I tried the new cheese from the Cheese Of The Month Club from the local cheese shop. I’m not sure what kind of cheese it is, but it has chili peppers in it and super good with a wonderful nip to it.

To make my day even healthier, I had pizza for dinner with wine, again. It was tasty.

I got everything I needed to do today done around 8:00pm and I really wasn’t feeling up to a workout. My legs were still really sore from yesterday and I just didn’t have it in me. I am trying to form a habit, (don’t they say it takes around 30 days?) of daily exercise and I didn’t want to start slacking off before I’d even hit a week. No days off. So I did this arm workout again. I didn’t do well. I had to put my arms down constantly and give them a shake many many times. I was doing push ups (very very modified push ups) yesterday with Slim In 6 and I don’t think my arms had recovered enough for this one. It was probably the day I should have done stretching, but I really wasn’t in the mood to set up the DVD player and change my clothes.

It wasn’t my best day, but I was saving Friday to Sunday for cheat days. I didn’t want to eat quite this badly on Friday, but I’m not going to beat myself up about it. I’m hungry, so I’m going to snack on some pickles before bed.

Which turned into a slice of strawberry rhubarb pie