Day 16: A Milestone

According to the Nutrisystem app (NuMi) I’ve finished the “Fresh Start” part of the program. I guess that covers the first 2 weeks. I had the option to stay on Fresh Start or move to the standard Nutrisystem program. I decided to go ahead and move on although I’m a little worried about eating more. I’m supposed to eat 1400 calories a day now and I haven’t even been able to hit 1000. I know one thing - if I’m going to eat 1400 calories I definitely need to get some exercise every day. I guess this gives me something to focus on. I really like the app as you enter everything you eat and drink and document your weight and measurements for tracking. You can scan the package of Nutrisystem foods and it automatically logs it. I haven’t tried scanning non-Nutrisystem food so I don’t know if that works. You can find many non-Nutrisystem foods using their search feature and log them so that is handy.

Even though I didn’t get to sleep until around midnight I was wide awake at 7 am. I guess that’s “sleeping in” since I usually get up at 5:30. Breakfast was hazelnut coffee and a 2.1 ounce 180 calorie cinnamon roll. I have to say it was pretty darn good, although 2 or 3 of them would have been great .. LOL ! At mid-morning I finally tried the vanilla shake mix. I have to say I prefer the chocolate but the vanilla was fine. I may try using a scoop of each tomorrow and see how that is. Lunch today was amazing ! I had a 4 ounce 220 calorie chicken fajita melt. It was really good and since I had bought a jar of salsa I added that and it made the melt just delicious ! Salsa is definitely going to be my go to seasoning going forward. It’s super low calorie and delicious ! I also had a PowerFuel with lunch for the first time ! It was 1/2 cup of 1% low fat cottage cheese. It was nice to have some dairy. I also had a bowl of carrots so I got half of my veggies for the day. Needless to say I am comfortably full and should be good until dinnertime. I was starving and felt a little woozy when I got up to prepare lunch, so that was a warning. The cinnamon roll for breakfast was great but carbs alone are not right for me. They recommend a PowerFuel at breakfast too and that can be as simple as an egg or a piece of cheese. I think some protein at breakfast is definitely needed. My afternoon snack was a 1.8 ounce 150 calorie chocolate cupcake. This comes as a frozen item and it was delicious ! I goofed on that though because the app shows a PowerFuel or a Smart Carb for the afternoon snack now, so I really should have had the cupcake this evening. Oh well. Dinner was a 4 ounce 150 calorie packet of bbq seasoned chicken. To me it looked like sloppy joe made with chicken instead of beef. I served it on an 80 calorie slice of whole grain bread. I think next time I will toast the bread. It had a nice flavor so I enjoyed it. I like corn bread with bbq .. sure would have been nice to have some of that ! So I’m at about 980 calories for the day. I can still have an evening snack if I get hungry later.

Today has been a wonderful relaxing day. I went out early to the post office (all junk mail!) and the store and I’ve been watching it snow ever since. All we’ve had so far is a very fine but steady snow but the temperature has dropped to 11 degrees as of 6 pm. My plow guy checked in to see if my pipes have been ok and to see if I needed my driveway plowed at any specific time tomorrow. He was worried because it’s supposed to be so cold again starting tomorrow. He truly is a nice man. So far, so good on my pipes ! I think the combination of the siding repair, replacing the galvanized pipe AND moving the run away from the foundation will keep my water running no matter how cold it gets. I’ve been watching the storm coverage on The Weather Channel all day as there was nothing else on that interested me. Not even a good movie on TCM !

Since the snow is coming from the southwest it looks like the worst of it won’t hit my area until much later tonight, so I’ll probably wake up to a blizzard or a winter wonderland ... or maybe both !