WIAW: Pinterest Wins

I've had a pretty boring day eating-wise so far, so I decided to share a little of what I ate yesterday, too. Plus, I thought my eggs were pretty. :-)

Thanks to a pin on Pinterest this was my first time adding avocado to my eggs and first time choosing a ripe avocado. Avocado is a healthier way to add the same creamy texture as cheese. It tasted okay to me. I let the boy child taste some and he was not a fan.

Day 22 - Green Smoothie. My tried and true strawberry banana. That will always be my go to.

Simple spinach salad with hard boiled eggs, one yolk

After a very rough night, this next item is all I could think of. I didn't care if this was on my "plan" or not. If I was going to get through my workout and the day period, I needed caffeine. So I made this iced coffee with chocolate creamer and soy milk.

Time to paint my nails

Equipment used: resistance band, 10, & 15 lb weights

Today I worked my back and biceps and after I walked past the mirror and noticed my butt, I decided to add in a few sumo squats and dead lifts. Do you see the sweat?

Thank goodness I prepared my oats the night before. I ate this post workout. My schedule was off because I was up late, so by the time I had this, it was around 11 am.

Bad presentation, I know. :-)

This was a snack later... my tried and true strawberry banana, except this time I added a little Greek yogurt.

For dinner tonight, I tried a recipe for my rotisserie chicken I found on Pinterest that sucked. I won't be using Italian seasoning for this again. Or maybe there were other factors involved, because my chicken came out dry. I slow cooked it for 6-7 hours on low. Maybe I added too much water? I don't know. After adding a little BBQ sauce it was fine (a clean eating no-no).

The roasted zucchini was on point! A Pinterest win. I drizzled olive oil, sprinkled garlic powder, salt, and pepper on top and roasted for 15 minutes. Everyone liked it.

Later in the evening I snacked on granola and finished my half gallon jug of water.

Do you create your own recipes or do you heavily use Pinterest like me, lol?

Review: I Used Lose It! to Lose It!

I found the Lose It! app for iPhone's while randomly browsing iTunes one day.  I had no intentions on counting calories at the start of my weight loss journey, but this colorful, easy to use app caught my interest.  It just looked fun to use.  It wasn't like keeping a written food journal in a diary.  This app does most of the work for you.  You  just have to log it.  That was May 2009.  Three weeks later into June 2009, I had lost the first 15lbs.

I was one of the early Lose It! app users before they developed the website into what it is now.  Now you don't have to have an iPhone and a recent Android version has been released.  

When you first set up your account.  It will ask you to enter the standard info (i.e. Today's Weight, Goal Weight,  Height, and how much weight would you like to lose a week) that assists in determining your daily calorie budget.  My current calorie budget for maintenance mode (to maintain my current weight) is 1,964 calories a day.  If you're trying to lose weight, of course yours will  be lower, depending on your stats of course.  Once you've entered this info in, you can start logging your food and exercise calories.

The food database has been updated several times, so it includes almost every food and/or restaurant you can think of for every meal (breakfast, lunch, dinner, snack).  If not, you can enter the item in manually.  The same goes for exercises (especially if you use a HRM which may give a more accurate calories burned count).

I eat so many carbs and not enough protein - working on that!

I like the Report feature (the full version-visible only via the website) which shows an analysis of your calorie trends including nutrient information. I'm able to see a breakdown of My Nutrients.  I particularly like to keep up with my Fat-Carb-Protein (& Fiber) percentages now that I am in maintenance mode.  Whereas, when I was just trying to lose weight and thought all of that was overwhelming, I just wanted to burn more than I ate.  Today's Fat-Carb-Protein percentages weren't that great.  I like being able to see this because its a quicker way of assessing what I am doing "wrong"; I like the extra control it gives me over my diet.

There's other extras like the ability to add friends so you can motivate each other, participate in the forums for additional help/resources, graphs showing your progress, and badges congratulating you for different achievements and milestones.  My most recent badge was one for "Smooth Sailing".  Earning the "Smooth Sailing" badge means I'm doing a great job of maintaining my weight.

I have heard of the other calorie counters like My Fitness Pal. I've never given that site a try, but I liked the convenience of the Lose It! iPhone app upfront.  I'm always on my phone anyway, so... this made it 10x more likely that I'd continue its use.  Two years later and 60lbs lighter, all using this app to track my calories, is proof!

Do you keep a food journal? Did you find it tedious or helpful?