Making Progress

So... I have now lost 16 pounds with 2 days to go until I hit my 3 week time. I placed my own order with some of my own choices and should have a new batch of food by next weekend. There will be some products I haven't tried yet.  I thought you might be wondering what my "Lean and Green" meals look like, so I've attached some photos of food I've made. They are crabmeat stuffed flounder with zucchini and mashed cauliflower. Ground turkey and veggie patties with asparagus and lettuce salad, meatballs and sauce with eggplant and salad with cucumber, radishes, and sun dried tomato dressing, crab cakes with eggplant and lettuce salad with sesame ginger dressing. The last one is a HALF portion of tuna-veggie salad on lettuce.

Well, Thursday was really challenging. Even though I was prepared with some medifast oatmeal "cookies" and some medifast muffins that didn't turn out very well. I gotta get that right! I also took my lean and green meal with me to work-- this time it was the flounder/crabmeat-- since I knew I wouldn't get home until 7:30 or so. As it was, I didn't get home till after 8 and had one meal to go. I guess I was thrown off by being out of my routine. The bars are supposed to help out here. And while they taste good, they just don't stay with me like some of the other foods. So, after having a meeting from 3:30 to 5:30 where there were cinnamon rolls, doritos, m and m's, and other stuff like that ( I had bottled water and my cookies), and getting out of the gym at 7:30, I stopped at the nearby Stauffer's for some spinach. I shopped around a bit and looked for some of the sugar free syrups,  but they didn't have any I wanted. By now, I was really starving.  I thought I could pick up a piece or two of the rotisserie chicken, but all they had was whole ones.  I wandered around the store looking for something to eat. This was getting dangerous. I just couldn't find anything I wanted, even some lean meat to take home to cook and I finally gave up.
My problem continued in the car and when I got home too.  I found 3 or 4 little sticks of celery in my lunch bag, though, and these staved off the hunger until I got home. I had a Medifast meal-- a chocolate shake--but it still didn't satisfy me. Uh oh...  So I had two dill pickle spears-- I had found some at Costco that were made with Sea Salt, so much less sodium!  Not enough .. I had some jello. I'm only supposed to have one snack a day, so this could have been bad. I  know this is hard to believe, but I began craving some wax beans I had picked up at Stauffer's along with the spinach. So, I made those and they satisfied me pretty much. They were fresh, not canned. I ended up having ONE MORE SNACK!!! -- another wedge of Laughing Cow Cheese. I went to bed a little bummed.

BUT, unbelievably, when I weighed myself Friday morning the scale had finally moved.
On Friday I went back to more of my usual routine and was successful. I had oatmeal, shakes, chicken noodle soup, and a mint bar. The whole way home I was planning dinner and had myself set on salmon cakes, but when I got home, I found I didn't have any canned salmon. This is something I ALWAYS keep on hand since it is such an easy meal to make. I was disappointed but I didn't want to lose my momentum. I had some canned crab, though, so I made homemade crab cakes without breadcrumbs. THEY WERE FANTASTIC!!! I think these were the best I ever made. Really nicely spiced. It was only later I saw how much sodium is in Old Bay Seasoning. On my next shopping trip, I quickly grabbed some with reduced sodium for my next venture.

I noticed when I logged my meals for the day, though, that I was short on protein and higher on carbs.  The crab meal was very low calorie, and even with three crab cakes, I had half a protein portion I could eat. After looking around for what protein could suit me and would also be low on carbs, I ( Unbelievably again!) actually left the house (about 8 PM)  and went to Oregon Dairy  where I bought, among other things, some Boca burgers. I ate one of these, since it was a lot of protein and little of anything else. This was also delicious! I was able to have a little mustard as a condiment and it really went nicely. This night I went to bed encouraged.

I got up on Saturday with a mission. I was going to set out on a geocaching adventure close to home to see if I could manage being out on a cache run and still be prepared with my Medifast meals.  I decided to have the Medifast scrambled eggs for breakfast. I had a portion of cookies that I had made for Thursday left over so I took those, a Peanut Butter Crunch bar, and even a vanilla shake, which I figured I could pour into half of one of the bottles of water I was taking along and shake it up if I really needed it. This would last me about 6 hours and I didn't plan to be out that long, even though I also had some errands to do, so I thought I'd be okay.
Well, everything started going wrong and that usually has meant lately that I just give up and scrap my plans. I couldn't get my computer to get an internet connection so I could download some nearby caches. I tried not to be impatient and re started it at least three times.  Nothing was working. I finally decided it was one of my pieces of equipment.  Amazingly, I figured out which one, fixed it, and got on and downloaded. That took an hour.... Now I set out for my first cache which was nearby at Landis Valley museum area.
I searched and searched, but couldn't find anything. I was going out blind-- just using the downloaded coords and my iPhone app, which I now read and saw there were at least three DNFs ( did not find) on this one. That's when I realized I didn't have my recharge cord with me. If I was going to cache this way, I needed that cord, so I went back home. Finally, I set off again. Another hour had gone by. The next cache I went after was in the woods and was hard to get to, but easy to find. One down, on to the next. Another nearby one was on the bike path near Township. This one had BIG hllls to go up and down. I was a little intimidated because the other problems I've been having  are my back aching after standing or walking for a short time and getting out of breath on inclines. Nevertheless, I pursued this one. Again into some woods. I think I have to climb down a very steep incline and go across a creek, but I don't want to do it if the cache really isn't there. So, I come out of the woods, sit in the grass, and look it up. I'm sure now it's on the other side so I go in again. I make my way down the steep hill, across the water, and up the hill on the other side. THANK GOODNESS it was obvious when I got there.  After backing my way down this other steep hill, climbing up the other one, I again take a break and look up the next cache. It is then I realize that I haven't been as out of breath, nor is my back hurting as much. If going to the MAG gym is helping with this, then I guess I'll put up with the boredom of the program for a while longer!
Time to eat a meal already, so I do so as I head for the next cache.

I grabbed more and then did some errands in between. I was still feeling pretty good. After a few more, I go to one that is a little cemetery on the side of the distributor road to route 30. The place was CRAWLING with grasshoppers! As I carefully made my way through tall grass I realize there is poison ivy everywhere! I decide I HAVE to go right home and clean up NOW!!!

In the end, I did 12 caches and spent about 5 hours doing this and the errands. I didn't need to use the shake until I got home.
I made the ground turkey into patties and mixed in some veggies: mushrooms, garlic, celery, zucchini, peppers, spinach and parsley. Since I can have 7 ounces of lean turkey (this was 99%) these made GIANT portions. It was like eating two quarter pounders, and then some. But they were delicious and since a pound made 2 portions, I was able to freeze one for another time. I think it will be key for me to have some things that are big portions for when I get to a "starving" situation. I had a Kemp's sugar free raspberry popsicle as a treat.

 Today I spent some time crockpot cooking so I don't have to make meals during the week. I did some turkey chili ( with no beans!) and some Spanish chicken. I was able to get 7 meals to freeze in addition to the two I kept available for this week.  I also made a tuna-veggie salad and had half a portion for lunch. I'll have the other half for lunch tomorrow, when I have ANOTHER luncheon to go to. This will be my "emergency" meal in case I can't eat what they provide. Since I only ate half of my protein and greens, I was able to have shrimp cocktail (10 shrimp) with asparagus and lettuce salad for dinner.  I'm headed for bed with no feeling of hunger now. Tomorrow-- the luncheon and the gym-- I'm skipping a red hat meeting because I'll need to eat after the gym and they will have all kinds of goodies. I'll catch up later.
I'm anxious to see if the scale will go down more by Wednesday am-- the end of my first three weeks. That day is the REAL start of the school year for me. The teachers are back and I have meetings all throughout the day. I need to be prepared!!!!.

More later, of course.