Flat Belly Diet

Day 9 of 28

Last night I finally sat down with the book and put a check mark by the meals that looked the most interesting to me. I read through them all. Most have 4 or 5 ingredients. I think I found one meal where I had all of the ingredients. So, I wrote down the things I didn't have. A lot of the brands/products have been a challenge for me to find. It sure takes longer at the store when I don't know if they even have what I'm looking for! Take unsweetened cornflakes. How hard should that be to find? There is this huge selection of cereals, and finding one with no sweetener is really difficult! I found one at Whole Foods on the first big shopping trip, but haven't located any in the groceries by my house yet.

Today I found olive tapenade - whatever that is. I'm the only person in my family who doesn't like olives. I'll eat them cooked in most things, but I've never stuck them on my fingers to eat them like a treat. But some meals looked interesting that had the olive tapenade as an ingredient. I also picked up roasted red peppers. I've never had them from a jar... I got a different brand of rye crackers - I hope they are basically equivalent. I still haven't located Thomas' whole wheat Sahara wrap. I wasn't sure if that was more like a whole wheat tortilla or pita bread. I went for the pita. Oscar Meyer had the only turkey bacon I could find. This is not a grocery list for the faint of heart! Or for those who must watch every dime.

For example all summer, I had plenty of mint, basil and other herbs growing on my deck and hardly used them. Now, it's winter, and I'm paying two bucks for fresh herbs!

Starting tomorrow, I'll finally have some "official" flat belly meals!

Well, for various reasons, I've ended up following it more closely.

Day 11 of 28

Today could have been a "bad food day" in that my morning at work was stressful, and I went in search of something to munch on. So I decided to split my afternoon snack and eat half. I took a look at the "snack" menu in the book and found one that had popcorn and Parmesan cheese. I've never had that as a combination before, but okay. That satisfied my desire to snack. I was a little concerned that I'd feel hungry later in the day and set myself up for trouble. But all turned out alright.

Breakfast was a repeat from yesterday - Oatmeal with pecans & bananas. I've never eaten it like that before then.

I wasn't even really hungry when I got the urge for the mid-morning snack. It's the first clearly emotional eating challenge I've had since I started this.

For lunch, I tried a one outside of anything I would have thought of - Salmon Sandwich. Instead of using canned salmon, I took 2 oz of Salmon I'd cooked for dinner the night before. I'd eaten Ezekiel sprouted grain bread before, but it had been a really long time and I couldn't remember if I liked it or not. I put on the olive tapenade, tomato & lettuce. Considering I'm not a big olive fan, it was pretty tasty. I'd repeat it, but probably not often. There are lots of turkey meals in this plan, and I wanted something different. So it served its purpose.

It's listed as 400 calories, but it didn't seem quite as filling as usual. I went back to the book to see if I'd missed a "side" to go with the sandwich. Nope. That was it. I'd have to say my hunger ratings were -2 before lunch and probably 2 immediately after lunch. Perhaps that was still a hold over from the morning's stress snack!

I had the remainder of my snack before going to the gym. By then I pretty much felt back on track.

I picked up some groceries on the way home and made the California Turkey Salad for dinner. I just realized I used the ginger sesame dressing instead of the balsamic vinaigrette. I thought that was an odd paring with walnuts and gorgonzola cheese! Well, I liked it anyway.

Tomorrow I'm going to an all day community service type meeting. It's my first time where I don't know what food will be around - so I'm going to pack some turkey wraps, nuts and such to make sure I have essentials to get me through the day.

When I started this thread - I really thought there would be others on this plan that would join in... It's turned out to be a blog!

Day 12 of 28

Today I had an all day meeting with a group of volunteers from a non-profit organization I support. It was a fun day - but posed food challenges.

I fixed a peanut butter & banana english muffin for breakfast, and packed a lunch and snack to take with me. There was a ton of food there. The only thing I had that was off my plan was a small (5 oz) cup of coffee with creamer. It would have been really easy to just forget I brought anyting and have a splurge day. But I really want to see if this plan works - so that helped keep me on track. I was pretty proud of myself for packing lunch and taking care of myself.

Only one person asked me about it.

The hardest part was not partaking in fresh baked cookies.

I got home in time to fix dinner - I ended up replecating last night's dinner.

I didn't have a chance to get in much exercise today, so I went over my MFP calories for the day. That's a bit hard for me - I always prefer to be just under my MFP daily calories.

Hi, great job! I got this book the other day from my mom (who never used it for more than a couple days). I have been using the MFP plan for almost a year now with great results. But the belly fat, now is my primary issue and of course the last thing to go.

I have read all of your threads, very interesting by the way. As I sit here with my grocery list for the next first four days,
I think am I ready for this? should I do it? will I do it after four days? What will I feed the family?

Do you have any answers or advice?

Yeah, I'd skip the cream of wheat! :-)

I don't have to worry about cooking for more than two, so I'm not sure about that part - but if I were doing it all over again - I'd not have doubled the dry goods for two when I shopped at the beginning. I'd also have picked and made a shopping list for the first couple of days after the jumpstart. Get mor ginger than you think you'll need.