3 Ways to Deal with Stress and Carbs

It's been a rough week at work - not the stress level from dealing with the personalities as just having deadlines looming and knowing we have a lot of information to process in order to produce some spreadsheets. Finished them today - but we ended up estimating something entirely different after a come-to-Jesus meeting on Tuesday. Hallelujah!

But, the point is that after my 10-day hiatus from exercising, eating right, and drinking enough water, I am still dealing with the carb addiction! I wanted something to munch on constantly.

So what did I do?

Looked for substitutes which would give me the crunch, but fewer carbs. Not sure how I did - the wasabi peas are all gone.

Kept emergency food on hand again. (So, I did keep my chocolate intake at work down to one hershey bar today. Yesterday I ate half a pack of thin mints!)

Three more things I can do and will do:

1. My own zumba at home (working on new choreographies to teach)
2. Mow the lawn (another good workout usually, not too bad, either).
3. Put air in the bike tires and hit the trail.

So, let's schedule those events.

• Mowing the lawn - if I can get the mower fixed Saturday - on Saturday.
• Air in the tires - Saturday if time, else Sunday
• Zumba choreography - Sunday

Maybe I can do the zumba choreography on my back patio. Doesn't that sound like fun?

Tuesday's What I Ate Today

So far, I've had:

Breakfast:
2 cups of black coffee
Low-carb hot cereal with blueberries, cinnamon, splenda and milk

Snack:
A handful (large) of wasabi peas (they're all gone now)

Lunch:
Chicken soup, 1 cup (dubious nutritional value, top ingredients had potato and sugars)
PB&J Sandwich - 1-1/2 (Low-fat PB & no-sugar-added Strawberry Preserves on low-carb bread)

Water:
4 cups - 32 oz so far

Today's Menu

What I ate today:

Coffee, 3 cups? - black (I can do that with good coffee, or good-enough coffee)
1 cup Yogurt with diced strawberries (1/2 cup?) and some Fiber One Cereal (1/2 cup?)

Steamed Tuna & Broccoli in pats of butter, lemon juice (bottled), and dill weed

I used the steam bags that are new to do this - someone at work had done it and told me to zap it for 2-1/2 min, which I did. The tuna was wa-a-a-a-y overcooked for me, a sushi lover, so I will cut it back a lot. Also, the broccoli came out good (from raw, mind you) and so I will leave it and remove the fish next time, then add the fish back for the last minute.

After that, I didn't eat so well. But, I did stick to ONE diet soda, and ate some Wasabi Peas, which would have been fine if I hadn't had so many of them. Two many factors, and even then, I went and got a small bag of chips (about 20-25 carbs, so with my metabolism up, I can normally handle them) and discovered the frozen Thin Mints my co-hort had forgotten. He offered them to me, and I had been craving chocolate (it's stress week at work), so I got 4 for him and 4 for me, then he brought the box back into the office, not knowing I'd already brought us some. He took a few more, but the box was done for - or at least that foiled half.

My list is getting away from me. A handful of barbecue chip crumbs when I got home later, then a cup of yogurt with Fiber One cereal and some sugar-free strawberry preserves thrown in for the strawberry/splenda mix I had used for the morning (too tired to cut strawberries).

How does your daily menu compare? What did you do right, what can you improve? C'mon, inquiring minds wanna know!! Post a comment below - it may say it can't be anonymous, but it can - just make something up ;)

Things I Did Right Today

I got a little lax lately, knowing I shouldn't, spending time with a special special man in my life. I should have managed the water at least, but even that got away from me. I didn't exercise for 10 days - we all know how hard that can be to recover from! - and worse, my metabolism dropped. Big Bummer!!

So, today, what I did right (WIDRT):

1. Had yogurt and fiber and strawberries (vit C) for breakfast (recall that I was on MAINTENANCE, not OWL, tho I may need to cut back to OWL if the exercising and other corrections don't get my weight back to a couple of weeks ago).

2. Drank lots of water - all that I needed to, in fact

3. Went to a Zumba class, where Christine proceeded to try to kill us. I survived, but how embarrassing to be an instructor and feel like a beginner after a class! And I did 2-3 classes last week, so I don't think I was that bad off.

Granted, I came after working 11 hours at work, but still.

The class was over-packed, too - about 45 students where 20-25 is a good class size for the room. I know I work harder on each of the routines because I know what muscle groups we're supposed to be working, and I work them. But still.

But still.