Blogmas Day 4: A day without rice cakes

     I have always been a bread kind of girl. Even though growing up tortillas where the staple, I always went for the fluffly sliced white bread instead. Every single meal, I needed toast,a roll or something. Why? because that is what I was used to and I wanted it. The problem came when I decided to start this journey. There was no room for toast or rolls within my budget unless I was willing to give up something else.

     Just so we are clear, I would have toast with breakfast, some sort of sandwich for lunch and maybe a roll or biscuit for dinner. Pair that with my complete portion distortion...well it does not take a genious to figure out how things got as bad as they did. I have tried to get rid of my bread mind. So one of the things I did was to switch my morning toast for rice cakes and nix sandwiches for lunch. I also got rid of the dinner rolls or biscuits. It isn't perfect but it is something so far.

    The problem is that I have realized that rice cakes have become my crutch. I have unconciously made them my new bread. I started having two with breakfast, then I decided I could spare the 80 cals and make me a "sandwich" for lunch. I never incorporated them into dinner, but I am sure it wouldn't have taken me long to get there lol

    I guess looking at the big picture, 2 rice cakes with my meal accounted for in my calorie budget wasn't too terrible. In reality, they have absolutely no health benefit or nutrition to my diet. Maybe just maybe it is better than bread but switching one for the other was not beneficial. I needed to stop. I am looking to accomplish being no sugar no grains at some point. With some leeway somewhere. I just have not figured it out exactly. It is not because I want to jump on the bandwagon or because it is trendy now, but because being hyperinsulinemic for so long, I know this would be greatly beneficial to my health. However, as much as I can talk to the talk , I am  having a hard time walking the walk.

So today, I decided to try to commit to a day without rice cakes and try to avoid legumes and flour as well. This is how it went down:

Breakfast

I was home with a super long to do list to accomplish. I decided I wanted to start my day off with a big hearty breakfast so that I could keep going til after lunch. There was a lot of toting boxes and organizing going on, I did not want to waste any time.

I decided to go with an omelet. I found this cute omelet pan at a flea market. Best quarter I ever spent! It is just perfect, it does not stick even if you use cheese. There is no need for oils or sprays. I love it!

Anyway I love creating recipes on MFP so that I am aware of how many calories my food actually has. With 2.5 ounces of 91/9 ground beef, 2 eggs, half a cup of yellow squash an onion it came in at 288 calories with almost 28 grams of protein I was going to be full a while. I also had some coffee and a cutie with itI ended up only eating 2/3 of it and saving the rest for later.

Lunch

After toting so much stuff to the shed in the backyard and getting Christmas up, I was ready for a break. For lunch I had the rest of the omelet, a half a serving of 2% cottage cheese, some carrots and celery.

As I was munching away, I looked over at the cottage cheese tub and noticed it has 5 grs of sugar...why?? I have gotten so good about reading my labels but I never thought to check this one. I was not happy lol.Pictured is 117 g (one serving) of cream cheese. I ended up just eating half. I was not really super hungry considering my big breakfast!

Dinner

After being busy all day, I really did NOT feel like cooking. I opted for some tuna with a lot of lime juice along with some more celery. I was feeling tired and a little achy so I was wanting something sweet. My bananas are starting to look too ripe on the outside but were shockingly firm and nice looking inside, so I had that for dessert. My doggies wanted some of it as well!

     So, I survived a day without rice cakes! Imagine that! I think that I need to get better at identifying when I am replacing a bad old habit with a new bad habit. I think this is actually doable. I just need to try harder. By the way, taking pictures helped make better choices too haha I can totally understand why Sean over at the Daily Diary of a Winning Loser does his food tweets! I know there is lots to improve. How do you think I did?