Staying Healthy: Eating & Exercise (12/5 – 12/11)

I occasionally get questions from readers wondering if I’m getting enough protein, or too much salt, or too many carbs these days. The answer is I’m/we’re doing fine in spite of eating vegetarian. I’ve posted a screen shot above from MyFitnessPal of last Tuesday’s meals and snacks. At the bottom of the page, my daily calorie limit is now at 1500 as I’m no longer trying to lose weight but maintaining my current weight, and I was below that by 36 calories. My carbs, sugar, and sodium numbers are very slightly over the recommended amounts (thanks to the lemon meringue pie). My protein intake looks low compared to what MyFitnessPal recommends (75 grams daily), except that for a woman my age that recommendation is quite high; a daily intake of 45-60 grams of protein is what’s a more realistic range for my age and activity level, and at 49 grams I’m right in the ballpark. I check these macros every day and adjust what I’m eating, if necessary, so that my diet is in balance and I’m meeting my nutritional goals. Brett eats larger portions than I do, but he stays within his range each day as well. Also, I don’t count calories when it comes to fruits and vegetables – I eat as many of those as I want, and we eat a lot of vegetables (and not as much fruit)!

We are eating more prepared foods these days than we did in the past. With just the two of us to feed, it does not make sense to fix big meals every day, and I honestly also no longer enjoy cooking as much as I once did. We have a very small kitchen, and only a small amount of storage space in our refrigerator and freezer so it’s impractical to make dishes that create a lot of leftovers and that we’d be eating for days. Once in a while is okay, but definitely not every day. When we buy prepared foods we are careful to avoid “frankenfoods.” I always read the ingredients and if there is bunch of stuff I don’t understand or know what it is, I’ll pass. The prepared foods we buy add variety to our diet, and allow us to enjoy dishes we wouldn’t otherwise.

We continued cleaning out the freezer last week, and also enjoyed some of the vegetarian entrees we picked up on our last shopping trip. All of them were good and we would purchase them again!

Sunday: Vegan chili dogs; steamed artichoke

Monday: Vegetable enchiladas; seasoned rice; cucumber spears

Tuesday: Tikka masala mini pizzas with roasted squash and feta cheese

Wednesday: Vegetable potstickers; steamed rice; namasu

Thursday: Baked ziti casserole; steamed artichoke

Friday: Vegetable yakisoba with shrimp

Saturday: Be’f pot pie; roasted vegetables

We enjoyed a small slice of lemon meringue pie for our dessert last all week. It was soooooo good, but we finished it last night. We’re having the last of the cream puffs tonight, microwave s’mores tomorrow, and after that it will be whatever we have when the girls are here (fingers are crossed that Costco has their chocolate cakes in stock!).

We’ll start this week with four meatless meals but then switch things up and meat will make its first appearance on Thursday. Meiling has asked me to fix the broccoli & tofu stir-fry, one of her favorite dishes, but YaYu doesn’t like it, so I’m making it the evening Meiling and WenYu arrive (to be fair, YaYu wants a dish that Meiling doesn’t like that we’ll have after her older sisters return home. For the record, WenYu eats everything without complaint.)

• Lentil soup & toasted cheese sandwiches

• Spaghetti with plant-based ‘meat’ sauce

• Mini pizzas

• Broccoli & tofu stir fry in spicy peanut sauce

• Italian sausage & pasta in garlic wine sauce

• Ham with macaroni & cheese

• Chinese 3-color salad (hayashi chukka)

Last week’s rain put a damper four days of walking. We took our regular day off on Sunday, then sat inside and watched it rain all day Monday. We were expecting more of the same on Tuesday, but ended up with a beautiful afternoon so we headed up to the park and walked just over four miles. We thought we might get out on Wednesday but Brett went out to check what was happening in the direction of the park, came right back inside and said “no,” and sure enough we had rain coming down less than a minute later. Thursday it was very windy but once again it was nice up at the park and the wind kept us cool during another four-mile walk. It rained all day Friday, but Saturday’s weather surprised us and we walked four and half miles at the park. So, only three days of exercise this past week but we were grateful for that. We watch our calories very carefully on the days we don’t get to walk.

Thursday was very windy at the park, but perfect for a long walk. Exotic and noticeable chickens are again making an appearance after a long stretch where they all looked alike.

Brett and I are looking forward to doing some hiking with the girls when they’re here if the weather cooperates. I hope to hike the full Maha’ulepu Trail with them, and maybe the Waioukapua Trail at Barking Sands but I’m pretty sure they are going to want to hike Sleeping Giant as well and that’s out for me. We plan to do some golf course walks with them up at the park (they want to look for golf balls and go into the gully) but otherwise we’ll just continue with our regular walks (WenYu and YaYu will probably run).