December's pink food thread!

[suregena]

Suregena,
So funny about the “not enough protein”…I easily ate 75 – 100+ grams of protein per day on a vegan diet w/out even thinking about it! Protein is seriously the least of health worries on a veg diet! I think that’s a great idea to really limit your beans, especially if that was your diet w/DS1. I also love beans and never eat them unless we’re out (which is entirely too often!).

Regarding what I ate when I was vegan, my favorite meal was the following:
Brown rice or quinoa topped w/steamed veggies (kale, carrots, purple cabbage, broccoli, cauliflower) and tofu topped w/sauce (tahini + soy sauce + bit of water). Honestly, I craved this all the time and had it once or twice a week. DH loved it as well.

Another staple in our house was a big salad w/:
• Romaine lettuce
• Endives
• Cucumber
• Tomatoes
• Green beans (grilled or raw)
• Asparagus (grilled or raw)
• Edamame
• Beets
• Apples

I mixed it up and topped it w/vinaigrette dressing. For DH who wasn’t/isn’t vegan, I put ****d white cheddar in it.

I also made quinoa tabbouleh, vegan potato salad and wonderful enchiladas topped w/a cheese sauce made out of cashews and nutritional yeast flakes. That sauce is also really yummy over tortilla chips for nachos but screams BOY!

Haha, mmm... that all sounds so very yummy! My diet was/is dairy/mexican food heavy (or indian and then with the lazy nights of pizza/pasta... vegetarian but not super health-conscious vegetarian... i.e., we were CONSTANTLY eating donuts, cookies... we're always so tired after work we think we deserve "treats"... which borders on excessive... it's a good thing I don't gain weight eating like this!) so I wish I could think of more vegan meals without throwing in some sort of cheese because I fear I should really cut back on dairy when/where I can. I'm not really inspired right now in the diet because I haven't done a big grocery shop until I'm paid...


My diet was always heavily mexican food. Living in the UK, that's unusual, but I'm from Arizona! Haha! I swear we would have burritos for dinner at least 4x a week... and always repetitive toppings of black or pinto beans (I usually make big batches in the slow cooker so don't really add salt to them), romaine lettuce, salsa, hot sauce, sour cream, cheeeeeeeeese.

So, I really need to get so different... and my own innovativeness is not kicking in. I need a meal plan. Or else I'm going to get flustered every day and reach for the reduced fat cream cheese constantly!

I figure replacing cheese/dairy with tofu is probably a good idea.

Ah, who knows.

[Mochagirl]

Hey Mocha! I just sent your packie...I feel so strange just sending you seaweed...It'll be so anti-climactic when you open it. I totally wanted to stuff some chocolate and toffee covered pecans in there but I didn’t b/c I don’t want to ruin your sway. I figure the seaweed is bad enough, lol!

Yay! Thanks, Jen! I'm excited to have a new treat to try!

I'm sending you O vibes so you can move on to the 2WW! Catch that egg!

[suregena]

-1 coffee with soy milk

-Part hummus and part reduced fat cream cheese on weight watchers danish bread with black pepper and basil
-1 Fabulous Bakin' Boys - Mint Chocolate Christmas Cupcake... mmm...

-A cereal bowl (about two cups, cooked) of the pasta leftovers from last night... that also has some grilled veggies and green beans in it, with reduced fat cream cheese (didn't add additional, it's from last night) and some chopped plain tomatoes... I added 10g of soy spread (there is 0 protein in the soy spread! I don't know how soy-heavy I want to make my diet but... no protein, which is odd) so it would be super dry reheating it as I do not own a microwave and reheated on the stove.

-Some stewed peeled pears & apples I made this evening that has some of the soy spread melted in from cooking, also.

I've been using myfitnesspal to tally things up... and sometimes I just wonder how accurate it is, then I look at the actual products and the tallies seem correct. Although I feel like the sodium count is off...
HOW am I not eating much sodium? I feel like I'm eating a LOT of food in general. I probably need to swap good calories, i.e. real food for empty ones, i.e. soda, candy. :/

I'm just not sure how accurate it all is, to be honest.

Calories: 1,314
Fat: 45
Protein: 38
Sodium: 400

[GeCon]

I've been using myfitnesspal to tally things up... and sometimes I just wonder how accurate it is, then I look at the actual products and the tallies seem correct. Although I feel like the sodium count is off...
HOW am I not eating much sodium? I feel like I'm eating a LOT of food in general.

I found with sodium that a lot of entries on myfitnesspal are incorrect due to other members submitting the details and making mistakes when inputting the sodium. I had to change quite a few items due to this. Basically the packs list sodium in grams, i.e. 0.1g. Myfitnesspal, however, lists sodium in mg. So a lot of times people input the sodium content as 0.1, but don't realise that it is asking for mg not g, in which case it should be 100mg. Therefore in this example the item would show no sodium content when it has in fact 100mg, which is 1/10 of your daily allowance. Hope this makes sense.

[Mochagirl]

I use Fitday, and the problem I find with it is that when it gives the sodium for something like pasta, it assumes you're salting the water, so it gives it this really high sodium rating even though on the package it says '0' for sodium. The same goes for most cooked vegetables. I always cross-check everything with packages and other sites and I use the 'custom foods' function to enter my own values all the time.

[Out of the Blue]

I'm sending you O vibes so you can move on to the 2WW! Catch that egg!

Thx, Mocha!

[Out of the Blue]

Monday:

• 2 C. tea w/splash of rice milk
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• Air-popped popcorn, chipotle pepper hummus, weight watchers “giant latte” ice-cream bar
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• Sautéed leeks and mushrooms with white basmati rice and goat cheese, plain low-fat yogurt with canned pumpkin, cinnamon and stevia
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• Throughout the day, 2 C. peppermint tea, 2 C. RRL tea

[Mochagirl]

I ended up having an accidental cheat night last night. I did pretty well during the day:

7am: coffee
12pm: 1/2 pita with 1 TBSP light Hummus and cucumber, homemade low fat banana muffin
5pm: pasta with sauce made from low fat cream cheese, a splash of milk and a pinch of parmesan + sauteed mushrooms and leeks

This is where I was before my evening started:

Calories: 932
Protein: 31g
Sodium: 406mg

Then....I went out for 'dessert' with some of my friends. I'd made sure I'd left plenty in my caloric budget for a dessert, but when I arrived at the restaurant it turned out half of them were ordering supper first and the other half wanted to split appetizers before we got dessert. So...I ended up picking at all of the apps we ordered: crostini with mushrooms and goat cheese + with tomatoes and cheddar, a cheese plate, and onion rings. I didn't eat a lot of anything (1/2 of each flavour crostini, 1 giant onion ring, a few tiny ****s of cheese), but I ate enough that I'm sure my sodium and protein were through the roof. I also had a martini and shared a dessert tasting platter (chocolate cake, creme brulee and pumpkin cheesecake) for dessert. Again, I only had a couple of bites of each since I was sharing the platter with 2 other people, but I'm sure it brought me way over my limits. Oh well, at least it was yummy .

[Out of the Blue]

5pm: pasta with sauce made from low fat cream cheese, a splash of milk and a pinch of parmesan + sauteed mushrooms and leeks

Sounds heavenly!!!

Then....I went out for 'dessert' with some of my friends. I'd made sure I'd left plenty in my caloric budget for a dessert, but when I arrived at the restaurant it turned out half of them were ordering supper first and the other half wanted to split appetizers before we got dessert. So...I ended up picking at all of the apps we ordered: crostini with mushrooms and goat cheese + with tomatoes and cheddar, a cheese plate, and onion rings. I didn't eat a lot of anything (1/2 of each flavour crostini, 1 giant onion ring, a few tiny ****s of cheese), but I ate enough that I'm sure my sodium and protein were through the roof. I also had a martini and shared a dessert tasting platter (chocolate cake, creme brulee and pumpkin cheesecake) for dessert. Again, I only had a couple of bites of each since I was sharing the platter with 2 other people, but I'm sure it brought me way over my limits. Oh well, at least it was yummy .

You’re okay! You needed it and your overall trend is super...no need to worry.

[Out of the Blue]

Hey, Suregena...How are you doing? Hope all is well!