I’m almost embarrassed to share my low carb meals & macros from yesterday with you.
Scratch that. I AM embarrassed to share this. BUT, that’s the challenge this week: for us to all share our meals & macros with each other – as low carb accountability partners. 🙂
Don’t worry – I’m already holding myself accountable for this one. Grr!
I’ll tell you where I screwed up, WHY I screwed up, what I’m doing about it – and what YOU should do when you find yourself in this same situation…
I have what I call a “carb budget”, which is 20 net carbs a day max. This not the first time I blew my carb budget. It happens. It shouldn’t I guess, but it does. 😛
This is what you do when you totally blow your carb budget:
Eat SUPER CLEAN for the next 3 days.
That means super low carb, only real food, and shoot for 3 ingredients or less per plate. No bars, no shakes, no fancy recipes, no products full of ingredients you can’t pronounce – just real food, real simple, and really low carb.
My Meals & Macros For Monday
Let me just go ahead and tell you the downfall… I had Atkins Bars and Quest Bars in the house. I don’t have anything against either of those, except I usually only eat Quest Bars in maintenance mode (they tend to stall my weight loss).
Atkins bars don’t affect my weight loss at all, but I know they do for some people. Anyway, I don’t know why I ordered them – knowing I’m bad to “overeat” them when I have them around. 😛 So that was a big part of my “macro meltdown” yesterday…
I started the day off having my usual coffee and grabbed an Atkins bar – just because they were in the house and it was super convenient.
I only ate about half of it when I realized I would rather have some “real food”. So I chopped up the other half of the bar and put it in with my usual “low carb cereal”: 1/3 cup pecan halves, 1/4 cup cottage cheese, and 2 strawberries:
I stir that all up together and it tastes like cereal. 🙂
With the Atkins Bar, plus the extra strawberry (I usually only add one), my breakfast came to 8 (EIGHT!) net carbs:
That’s almost half my 20 net carbs for the day! 😯
My next big blow came at lunchtime…
I had a Small Wendy’s Chili in the refrigerator – leftover from when I got two the other day (so I’d have an extra one, lol). I normally only eat this on the VERY rare occasion because it’s much higher in carbs than I prefer (15 net carbs for a small):
I was in “clean out the refrigerator” mode, and hated for it to go to waste. So I let it go to MY waist. 😐 It’s a relatively low carb food, so I easily rationalized it. Anyway, add in the sour cream packet I added to it… and that was 17 MORE net carbs. GEEZ.
That put me at 25 net carbs already for the day, which didn’t even include my 8 coffees. *sigh* I decided I should have a ZERO CARB dinner. I made a quick tuna salad: tuna, mustard, mayo & dill relish (no carbs).
I got hungry again later, and grabbed a Quest Bar – again, just because it was handy. And then I was hungry again before I went to bed (which was a bit late) and grabbed yet ANOTHER one. The Mixed Berry Bliss bars are 4 net carbs EACH – so that added another 8 to my total. Ack!
Add in my coffees and I totaled out at 41 net carbs for the day – and 1,681 calories.
NOT ideal, and definitely NOT my usual.
It’s easy to over-do it, even on “low carb foods”, if you’re not eating REAL FOOD and keeping it super simple…
On a positive note, I did get PLENTY of water in yesterday. 🙂 I’ve been doing better and better with that. But… I’m having a bit of a problem with my water bottles:
Given I really “blew it” yesterday, I’m taking my own advice and eating super clean (and super low carb) today. I also put away the few bars that are left, and decided to break the habit of reaching for those. They really are a “crutch food” for me. And there’s no more chili hiding in the fridge either. 🙂
Stay tuned for much better low carb food diaries the rest of this week…
Your turn! What did you eat yesterday, and what was your carb count for the day??
Best,
Lynn Terry,
aka @LowCarbTraveler
Last week I did the same thing to myself! Actually my co-worker and I did. We decided to have Starbucks coffee like we do a couple of times a week, but we hadn’t since we went back to this WOE about 3 weeks ago. We always get a Venti Breve Latte, me with 1 Splenda, she gets 2. Well imagine our shock when we put it into myfitnesspal food calculator and it’s 24 NET CARBS!!! I was at 44 net carbs that day. If I had not had the latte I would have been at 20 which is my goal.
No more lattes from Starbucks for us! But we got right back on the horse and didn’t let it ruin the rest of our day! Good advice from you on eating clean the next 3 days.
Oh wow, Alicia! But good on you for staying on track regardless – way to go. π That’s definitely the thing to do.
Any idea what spiked the carb count – was it way too much heavy cream, or some other ingredient?
I love Starbucks Frappuccinos, however, they are extremely high in carbs, and calories, and cost! I went to a local Starbucks with my daughter about a year ago, and one of the Barista’s helped me create a beverage I COULD drink, that didn’t cost me my youngest child!
Here is my order and the nutritional values from MFP:
Grande Iced coffee, extra shot of espresso, 2 oz heavy whipping cream, 2 packets Pyure (a stevia/erythritol sweetener available at Walmart), 1 c ice. No classic syrup (and you have to verbalize that or it goes into the drink), DOUBLE blended and served in a Trenti cup!
This drink almost doubles in size (approx 28 oz) when it is double blended because the blended ice expands. If you get it in your grande cup after double blending, you lose half the drink you paid for!
MFP Nutrition Facts
Calories 202
total fat 20g
total carbs 1g
dietary fiber 0g
sugars 0g
protein 0g
Net carbs=1g
and it tastes AMAZING!
I did the same thing. I ordered a ‘light’ vanilla soy latte, as the barista assured me there was no sugar in the syrup. Found out afterwards 11 g of sugar on the milk!! Yikes. It did taste super sweet and now I feel gross. Won’t do that again.
Thanks for sharing your “oops” day…I know I won’t always be able to track every morsel I eat, and I know that there will be days when I’m so busy I don’t track BEFORE I eat, so it’s good to know the best way to get back on the wagon. My macros have been stellar the last couple days – 5% carbs, 25% protein; 70% fat (not sure it’s all been healthy fat though)….I had my first UNwich from Jimmy John’s today and it was really good; tonight I’m experimenting with fat head pizza and have already calculated it into my counts and I can have two slices….hope it’s as good as my successful LCHF friend has told me it is…..Thanks Lynn.
I’ll have to try Jimmy John’s the next time I’m in the city. I hear people raving about them all the time! π I’d love to hear how your fat head pizza turns out. That’s another thing I’d love to try out myself.
Daisy – Cottage Cheese 4% Milkfat Minimum, 0.25 cup
Fisher Pecan Halfs – Nuts, 0.25 cup
Coffee – Brewed from grounds, 4 cup (8 fl oz)
Fresh Raw – Raspberries, 49 gram
Snack
Hyvee – Water Coolers Peach, 1 container (32 flozs ea.) 0
Wrigley’s – Prism Watermelon Sugarfree Gum (Minus Sugar Alcohols), 1 Stick 5
Lunch
Zaycon – Bacon, 3 fried slices
Egg – Large (Usda), 2 egg (50g)
Jello – Orange, Sugar Free, 6 oz
Tomato – Cherry Tomato, 159 g
Kraft – Classic Ranch Dressing, 2 Tablespoons (30g)
Kirkland Signature (Costco) – Diet Green Tea With Citrus, 1 container (16.9 fl oz (237
Snack
Hillshire Farm – Black Forest Ham Ultra Thin, 2 oz
Water – Municipal, 2 cup (8 fl oz)
Dinner
coconut chia pudding, 1 serving(s)
Grilled chicken – Chicken, 5 oz
Fresh – Grilled Yellow Squash, 100 g
Butter – Butter, 1 tablespoon
Anderson Erickson – Heavy Whipping Cream, 2 tbsp (15 ml)
Great Value – Extra Virgin Olive Oil, 1 Tbsp
Coffee – Brewed from grounds, 2 cup (8 fl oz)
Totals calories 1,502
Total Net Carbs 21
Total Carbs 44
Awesome, Jean! Thanks for “taking the challenge”. π It’s so fun to see what other people are eating, and how their macros work out. Your “grilled yellow squash” sounds really good. I may have that this week myself! *cheers*
Breakfast: Daisy Cottage cheese-1/4 cup, 1 oz pecans plus an Atkins shake.
Lunch: Two fried eggs using 1 Tbsp of Kerrygold butter to fry, 2 oz. sweet italian sausage, 1/4 cup fried onions (fried with sausage), 16 oz. water.
Dinner: Cedar Bat Easy Made Salmon in garlic & chive sauce, whole bag of Birds Eye Steam Fresh Sugar Snap Peas
Total for the day: 30 net carbs, so I blew it too. Should have eaten half the bag.
I love seeing all the Daisy Brand cottage cheese. π It’s the BEST on the shelf!
Your meals look great, Michele – outside of the sugar snap peas. Still, 30 net carbs isn’t so bad for the day. And for that matter, neither is my 41 – it’s just double what I usually do. π lol But we still ate “low carb”… and we can eat “clean” for the next few days and be right back in our “happy numbers”. π
Don’t be so hard on yourself, it was only one day. The trick is always not to allow it to become two! One thought, I’m not seeing nearly enough fat in your diet. They call it low-carb HIGH FAT for a reason. Perhaps more fat would make you not have so many cravings for those extra little bites here and there. Keep on keeping on!
LOL Pete – you’re preaching MY tune! π My fat yesterday was only at 60%, true. I shoot for 70-80% of my calories in healthy fats, and usually hit that. It’s hard to hit 70 when you’re eating protein bars. π haha.
I’m sitting at 68% already today, with dinner still to go. And I am SO looking forward to dinner! π π
You’re right – never let it become two (two bad meals, even). Get over it, and eat clean… that’s what I always say. *cheers*
Oh Lynn, you had a bad day… don’t take it out on the poor water bottles! LOL…. Use them as a reminder of when you used to wobble, and laugh! Then you can thank those water bottles, even the crooked ones for a job well done! Remember it’s what’s on the inside that truly counts! LOL
LOL Sherri! hahahaha
Those water bottles – they scare me. π π
I too hate to waste next time put half your chili in a container in freezer for another day. I do it another lol the time to keep me from overeating
Smart, Kris! π
It pays for me to just not BUY higher carb foods, or have “crutch foods” in the house like that. I know better, lol. Given my tendency to lean too hard on those because of convenience. π
I appreciate that you shared your off day, I’m just concerned by the tone of it. We all have days when we don’t eat as well as we should, either by accident or design. It’s not a personal failing, it’s just that stuff happens. When we really get into problems is when we start beating our selves up about those days. We get enough negative messages from others without adding to it. Going over your carb count on one day doesn’t make you a failure or a bad person, but that’s kind of the vibe I’m getting from your post..
I totally agree with you, June! I’m all about self-forgiveness, and moving right on to better choices – and then keep trucking along toward your goals. π
It may be easy to lose some of the tongue-in-cheekiness and tone in text writing, but I DO want to be a better example on a week when I agree to share all of my food choices – especially for people who are newer to eating low carb.
And then there’s the two main issues I know I have going on right now: 1) Crutch Foods are a problem for me, and I know this. It’s an issue I fully intend to deal with.
And 2) Every time I get super close to my goal weight, I tend to sabotage my progress in that direction. It’s a weird mind game I’m trying to work out in my own head, lol. π
I do best eating real foods, and that’s also when I FEEL my best – which is exactly what I want. Just sharing my day publicly was great accountability, and made the next day full of much better (super healthy) food choices.
I was just going to say you could have frozen the chili in that container it came in. I’ve done that before!
Lynn;
Have you tried the Fathead Bagels yet? They are super simple to make, and are just perfect! Here is the website where I found the recipe:
http://www.resolutioneats.com/blog/low-carb-everything-bagel?rq=bagel
These made up nice and light, the texture was a match to my previous bagel addiction. Instead of the “everything but the bagel topping” from Trader Joes called for in the recipe, I used 4 tbsp dried minced onion, 1 tbsp minced dill, and 1 1/2 tsp poppy seeds and kneaded it into the dough, rather than just using it as a topping.
The recipe makes 6 bagels, with 412 calories per bagel according to my calculations on MFP, total fat is 34g, total carbs 11g, dietary fiber 4g, and protein is 20g. This makes net carbs 7g, but I have never eaten a whole bagel in a sitting. I find them very filling.
I use a MorningStar Farms breakfast sausage patty sliced in half and laid out over the bagel half, a slice of colby cheese, and 1 tsp mayo on 1/2 of the bagel, toasted. This breakfast sandwich has 389 calories, 31g fat, 8g total carbs, 3g fiber, 24g protein, and 5g NET CARBS, and it really satisfies my “bread addiction”.
I’ll have to try that, Susanne – thank you! π