Stuffed Like A Turkey!!!!

I ate enough to feed a family of 8 in Somalia last night! I'm thankful for that but I woke up feeling guilty this morning. I would have needed some sort of a super power to control my eating yesterday. Anyways today is a new day and I gotta get back to controlling my eating habits.

I am fasting today. Let me explain...During the holy month of Ramadan we have to fast everyday for a month from when the sun sets till the sunrises. I wasn't able to keep all 30 fasts last Ramadan because I was studying and taking the bar exam so I need to make them up. Today seemed like a perfect day to fast cause I am still full.

Let me explain how a brown Thanksgiving works. Dinner starts around 7. We eat turkey and a ton of Indian food (gotta keep the culture alive). We also have stuffing mashed potatoes, gravy and all that stuff. There's no alcohol(big no no) but there is alcohol free punch and a ton of dessert. (pictures posted below)

I am also posting a pic of how I frequently burn 800 calories in just 30 minutes (picture courtesy of a family friend).

Eating plan for today- I can eat around 4:20 p.m. I plan to eat a salmon burger, flax seed chips, salsa, toast with nuttella, mushroon turnovers and milk!!! (and maybe some left over turkey!) I'll let you know if I stick to it!

Story of my life!

Alcohol free drinks!

Halal/Kosher turkey!

Chicken tikka masala and nihari

Chicken biryani

gotta have cookies

It was my niece's bday so I got her this cake which tasted better than it looked. It was chocolate cake w cannoli filling

Gobble Gobble

Today is my favorite holiday. That might be because I was born on Thanksgiving day. I was told there was a turkey and chocolates next to my crib gifted to me and my family because I was a Thanksgiving Baby!!!

In addition to me being born on turkey day, I also love this holiday because we get to pig out and eat everything we want guilt free. So no food journal today, no watching what I eat today, no counting calories. Tomorrow I shall start tracking again!

What am I thankful for? Incase you were wondering (and I'm sure you were) , well lets see... I'm thankful for you reading this right now!

Happy Thanksgiving!

Ps- will post pics of my dinner tomorrow!!!

Chocolate pilgrims at the bakery near my house!

The word DIE is in the word diet

Coincidence? I think not! So I've come to the conclusion that I am not on a diet but I am trying to eat differently (which simply means I have stopped eating my feelings). I came to this decision at dinner time.

Sorry I didn't get a chance to post yesterday. Sunday was Funday which basically means I ended up falling asleep after watching 3 consecutive hours of cooking shows on the food network. I love to sleep almost as much as I love to eat. Just thought I'd share that with you.

I had plans to eat vegetable gyozas for dinner. But when I came home there were gyro platters, pizza (New York has the best pizza in the world!), paneer naan and some other indian food all set on the dinner table. It was almost like an international buffet. Rather than salivating while other people ate all of this in front of me I decided to join them BUT control my portions. So instead of having an entire slice of pizza, half the gyro platter, a naan and curry like the old me would have I had a bite of the pizza, the gyro meat and salad only and 2 bites okay fine 4 bites of paneer naan.

Food Journal: banana, mushroom turnovers, chai, 8 whoppers, an m&m cookie from subway(please stop judging.), a bite of pizza(that was heartbreaking but I survived), gyro meat, lots of lettuce (felt like a rabbit eating all that lettuce), tomatoes, a spoon of rice and 4 bites of naan with zucchini.

Our neighbor sent over red velvet cupcakes. I didn't take a single bite (I ate a cookie instead)!

Gyro platter. There is a ton of rice under all that lettuce!

I love pizza more than I love you!

It's like cheating at solitaire!

One of my Professors from law school used to tell us if we don't study everyday it's like cheating at solitaire. Well I remembered his words of wisdom (or nonsense depends on how you look at it) today because after two days of eating right, today was my "cheat" day. 

I read a ton of stuff on how to eat right and lose weight. Most articles/ authors have said to allow yourself a cheat day. Cheat days usually come two weeks after you start eating right but in my case, my cheat day came after just two days. I had no choice I swear!  

I went to the city today and had brunch with my sister. We went to this Indian restaurant called Junoon. I ordered the lobster omelet  and chai (drank 3 cups: one for me and two on behalf of my friend nathalie)  and then tried some of my sisters food cause it looked and actually tasted better. We didn't order any desserts because in my opinion Indian desserts suck (sorry mom, dad and any other brown people I may have offended). Indian desserts are lumps of sugar with butter. I'm sure there are more ingredients but all I taste is the butter and sugar. Please don't get me started on how there is no concept of chocolate desserts in my culture. Maybe its the lack of chocolate in our cuisine that causes people like me to be addicted!!! Who knows but it's a theory. 

Anyways, so because we didn't order dessert we went to this cupcake place called, Baked by Melissa. I may have texted pictures of these cupcakes to some of you because they are so tiny that I find them amusing (pictured below). I thought how bad could two bite size cupcakes be? Well I'll tell you how bad : 90 calories in each of them. I didn't even have time to chew these cupcakes because I ended up inhaling them!!!! Those 180 calories flew right to my hips in less than 15 seconds (okay fine maybe10 seconds). 

Goal for tomorrow: start eating right again! 

Food Diary: lobster omelet, 4 bites of poori (indian bread that's deep fried) with aloo sabzi(potato curry), 2 bite size cupcakes(big mistake), half a Godiva Oreo (please stop judging me), flax seed chips and salsa, mini whole wheat pizza. Don't know my total caloric intake but it's okay because today was my CHEAT DAY!!!

 

Sign in an Italian grocery store called Eataly. Italy...Eataly, get it??

Brunch is almost ready!

We got the family pack!

What's on your grocery list???

So I woke up today and luckily there were no cookies or brownies to greet me in the kitchen. So I had my usual (whole grain toast w a little bit of nutella) and carried on with my day. When I came home I saw my dad pulling in the driveway at the same time I was. When he got out of the car he was holding two grocery bags. I asked him what he bought. He told me and I quote " Not much. We were out of milk, eggs, butter, bread, bananas, ice cream and candy".

I reminded him I was on a diet and didn't need candy or ice cream around the house to which he responded by saying "good then you can eat the bananas." Just when I thought my day was free from junk food out came the groceries (pictured below).

Normal people like Joe, Michael, Tom, and James (common names off the top of my head incase you are wondering) go to the grocery store to pick up milk, eggs, bread maybe some cheese and crackers and whatever else they may need. Fortunately or unfortunately (depends on how you look at it) things work a little differently in my house. Apparently candy is a necessity that needs to be restocked once we are out of it.

Anyways you will be proud to hear I only ate 4 whoppers (40 calories). But you will be disappointed to hear that I ate an entire snickers ice cream bar. I started eating it with the intention to eat half today and the other half tomorrow. Well tomorrow came about half hour ago. The ice cream bar was 180 calories (I feel like I suck at life as I type this). :( But it's okay cause I stayed under 1200 calories but I need to make sure the weight watchers problem doesn't repeat itself this time.

Food journal: Whole wheat with nutella, mushroom turnovers, flax seed pita chips w salsa (salsa has 0 calories. how cool is that), salmon, gummy vitamins, chai, 4 whoppers and a snickers ice cream bar making my grand total 1115 calories!!! go me!

p.s- There's a glimpse of the bananas in the back

Ain't no house like TOLL HOUSE!!!

 Day one of officially not eating like a heifer!!! I am trying to consume only 1200 calories a day
(that is what I need to survive. Don't worry I am not trying to develop an eating disorder).

I woke up and the first good morning I got was from the brownies I posted a picture of yesterday. I ignored them and ate whole grain toast with a little bit of nutella on it instead. After breakfast the brownies were still staring me in the face and I couldn't stop thinking about them so I ate a quarter of a brownie. That's technically not cheating because one brownie consists of 180 calories and I ate a quarter of it so it was 45 calories and let me tell u it was worth every damn calorie!!!!

Let me tell you a little bit about myself. My parents, sisters, nephew and niece all have a sweet tooth ( i think its genetic). So everyday someone brings or bakes something that is hard to resist. Today it was toll house cookies. Let me tell you about nestle toll house cookies(pictured below). The original chocolate chip ones taste awesome but for the holiday they take it one step further and add peppermint chips to the chocolate chip cookie. Talk about tis the season!!! Cookies are my weakness. I swear sometimes I think cookie monster is my biological twin brother and we were somehow separated at birth but his blue skin convinces me otherwise. Anyways I had to give in and eat half a cookie. One cookie has 80 calories and I had half so this was actually 5 calories less than the brownie!

Just for the record: The old me would have ate all the brownies last night and at least a dozen cookies today so huge pat on the back for me here!!!!

Food Journal: Whole wheat toast w nutella, chai, banana, salmon, vegetable gyozas, gummy vitamins (so good), half a cookie, quarter of a brownie and like ten pretzals making my grand total a little less than 1200 calories!!!!

Pictures of the day: the cookies and a little something my friend Stephanie texted me that reminded her of us (she loves junk food as much as I do).

Truth Hurts!

I have been starting my diet for years now. I am 5ft tall (some may consider this to be short, others may look at it as being petite) so when I gain weight it shows more than it would on a tall person (to me a person who is 5ft 4" is a giant). When I was 16-22 years old I was 100-103 pounds. That is my ideal weight at the moment.

The sad part is I still think I am 100 pounds. Like when I go to the mall I pick up size zero dresses and then I go in the fitting room and reality hits me in the face like the 4 cupcakes I gorged for lunch have hit my hips.

For those who know me know that junk food is the love and sadly the center of my world. I once started weight watchers and after two weeks found my weight had increased. When I looked at my food journal I noticed all the calories I consumed consisted of cookies, cakes, ice cream and cookies (can't have enough cookies).  Needless to say the weight gain was not weight watchers fault.

Now don't get me wrong I have been on diets where I lost weight. I lost almost 10 pounds before I graduated law school (for those in law school or those who have ever been in law school you know finals week is more like feast week!) But I gained every pound back during bar prep!!!! I gained more weight waiting for my results and then plopped on a few more pounds celebrating me passing the bar.

So my goals: my goal is not to be "skinny". My goal is to live a healthier life. I don't want to consume more calories than I need and I would love to know what fruits and vegetables taste like. So please join me in this journey as I will include pictures of foods I am fighting hard not to eat along with my daily progress. p.s- goal for tomorrow is to avoid the brownies seen below :)