So harder to keep up with this blog  then I thought.  But I have a good excuse, the roommate was sick for two days. So no great activity happening.  My day usually begins by getting up at 7am, getting ready for the gym.  Today 7 am the alarm clock goes off and the cat immediately bounds across the bed, time for breakfast.  I drag myself out of bed feed the cat, make coffee, brush my teeth, throw on the gym clothes and head out the door.  Wednesday mornings is a morning with Eric my personal trainer.  He works me hard for an hour some with weights some without weights.  I usually have a bit of something before I go so I have a bit of energy.  My breakfast usually consists of a protein bar or protein pudding, after gym I will finish this up.  I take a water bottle to workout which holds 24 oz of liquid, so there are my first 3 - 8 oz glasses of H2O.  I shoot for 8 glasses a day.  Besides hydrating by body it's supposed to help curb your appetite.  Back to the protein bar, I order them from,www.NashuaNutrition.com, they have a big variety of bars and shakes.  I like the Rocky Road bars, they have 170 calories,7g of fat, 15g of carbs, 14g of protein, this may seem like a lot but it's my whole breakfast.  I do switch around and some are better then others. The Caramel Crunch are really good too and they are a little better for you.  When I'm feeling like being really good I use the Mocha (my fave) Pudding and Shake Mix, they are 100 cals, 1.5g of fat, 7g of carbs, 15g of protein.  I make the pudding the night before so it's nice and firm and cold in the morning.  I use just a touch less water then they say to get the right consistency.  So that's breakfast.  Lunch is usually the same thing everyday, kind of boring, but it works for me.  I buy Boars Head Turkey or a turkey tenderloin (I explain that later), a light cheese, like Jarlsberg, carrots, lots of carrots, and celery oh and cottage cheese.  Lunch: 2 oz of turkey, 1 oz of cheese, 1/2 cup of carrots, 1/2 cup of cottage cheese, a stalk or two of celery.  I do weigh out my cheese and turkey.  So if I eat all of this that comes to about 240 calories for lunch.  I will allow about 200 calories for snacks from breakfast to dinner, that will give me about 600 calories left for dinner, if I'm keeping with 1200 calories a day.
 Dinner becomes a bit more creative.  Like tonight for instance it's turkey burgers.  Just to let you know Turkey is the only poultry, beef or pork that I eat,  I do eat fish, but that's it in the animal world.  New England Turkey Burger from Cooking Light July 2013 issue, about 407 cals, my body doesn't agree too much with onions so I use shallots instead.  NO bun, roasted veggies,asparagus and zucchini, about 1/2 cup 40 cals and then salad, about 50 cals.  I also use light mayo in the burgers.  The salad tonight is roasted golden beats, arugula, carrots, dried cranberries, a little toasted tofu and fennel, dressing is usually a glaze balsamic vinegar that I lightly drizzle over the top of my salad it has about 30 cals per tablespoon.  I am very generous with the salad because usually it doesn't have too many calories. Oh and salad is always last on the meal, instead of first.
Today I only had 2 oz of turkey and 1 oz of cheese today, because I was late with lunch because I was cleaning out my moms re-fridge for her and roomy was cleaning her carpet.  You see she is 89 years old and can't do much cleaning on her own.  Mom just happened to have one of those little bags of reduced fat cheese-its (160 cals) ugh!!   Snacks are hard to come up with, carrots but I get tired of those, I get the 90 calorie bars from Quaker, or Nashua has lots of things you can look for, like White Cheddar protein chips (120 cals), or cinna-crunch'n chocolate (150 cals)  you really have to look around to find something that you can snack on.  If your good about dishing out two table spoons of peanut-butter you can put this on celery,
the cinna-crunch n' chocolate is a good dessert if you need one.
I'm trying to cut out as much bread, pasta, rice as possible and fruit too, I do mostly protein and veggies.  Sticking to this is the trick, mostly during the week it's not too bad.  My big problem is going out to eat, what to do!  So far today I've had about 1050 cals, so if I need a little something to nibble on later I have about 105 cals left.  If I really get a hunger urge I did exercise today, but even with the exercise I try to keep the calories at 1200.  So there you have it.