it's a whole new blog

Today I had a second meeting with the nutritionist who is helping me tweak my diet. At our first meeting, I was somewhat (okay, very) skeptical that I needed a nutritionist's help and only went to throw a bone to my internist. She had recommended the nutritionist in addition to a number of tests which I declined. Even as I left that first meeting with my new list of nutrition and exercise goals, I was not convinced that it had been an hour well-spent. Although,admittedly, I liked her suggestion to eat more legumes as a way of beating down my cholesterol level, and I was enthused about starting to weight-train again.

Over the last few weeks, I've made my version of some of the changes she recommended. I've been weight-training a couple of times a week, and upped the miles I'm walking. I'm using Sparkpeople.com to keep track of my food, exercise and other goals. After my first appointment, I modified Sparkpeople's Nutrition Tracker to record my consumption of cholesterol and saturated fats in addition to calories, carbs, fiber, etc. I was able to print out all of that to take my appointment today -- she was clearly impressed with how well I'd done my homework. Looking over several weeks' worth of print-outs from the Nutrition Tracker, it was clear to me what I need to do differently: (1) eat even more legumes, (2) eat way more fruits and vegetables. The goals are 3 cups of legumes each week and 5 cups of fruit and vegetable each day.

I typically eat some fruit at breakfast and a vegetable and salad at dinner. My lunches need work: today's included a tablespoon each of celery and green onion, and about 2/3 cup of chopped romaine. Although that is better than my typical lunch, it is not going to get me to 5 cups (not to mention that no legumes were consumed today). I've never been a salad-for-lunch girl so I've spent the evening trying to come up with some brown bag ideas that get me excited about lunch. I've come up with some fun new ideas, then the idea that this could be a whole new blog.