Day 3

Onward to Day 3.

Breakfast: Banana. Nothing much to this, peeled one large banana and ate it.

Lunch: Pasta w/ cottage cheese. I boiled 3/4 cup Penne pasta in a small pot for about 10 minutes. I originally planned on eating 1 cup dry, but the serving size on the box said "3/4" so I decided to go with that instead. It didn't seem to be a large difference. I would be curious to see what it comes out to after cooked but didn't think about it until after I started eating. It filled up one of my small bowls about half full, so that is definitely less pasta than I typically eat. As for the cottage cheese, I mixed in about 1 & 1/2 tablespoons into the pasta as a substitution for spaghetti sauce. I wanted to use the spaghetti sauce I had in the fridge, but apparently it was older than I thought, as it had mold growing on the top of the lid. This dish was rather bland as a result. I probably could have added some cheddar cheese to compensate for taste but decided against it as that is just extra calories.

Dinner: Barbecue chicken, stuffing and baked potato. I used half a bottle of Kraft barbecue sauce to marinate raw chicken strips than baked them in the oven at 400 degrees for 30 min. They came out really well, very tasty. The chicken I used happened to be on sale, but I did notice that it was a hormone and antibiotic free chicken, which makes me happy. The stuffing was from Stovetop and I mixed it with water and canola oil instead of butter. In the future, I would like to learn how to make stuffing from scratch instead of relying upon processed methods. Baked potatoes were cooked for about 10 minutes in the microwave in a freezer bag, which steamed them quite well. I topped my potato with about 1/4 cup of shredded cheddar cheese but no butter or sour cream. I'm not sure if I could eat a completely plain baked potato, so I figured that out of all the options, cheese was probably the best.

Treat: Brownie and banana bread. I ate one brownie in the late afternoon and a small bite of banana bread. Need to get all of those treats out of my house ASAP! They are way too tempting for snacking. Although, I do think that still, with my not drinking soda at all, it's not a really bad thing.

I have been experiencing some headaches that I am thinking come from caffeine withdrawal or from low blood sugar. One of the harder things to do in this is to make good choices while still maintaining a proper amount of calories because some of the more healthy choices do not carry a lot of calories. I think that I'm still so afraid to "mess up" by eating something unhealthy and I do need to remember that it's still about moderation.

So far, no more Mountain Dew and I've been drinking nothing but water. Pats on the back for me! I'm pretty proud of myself so far actually.