I Snapchat my meals that I really enjoy and send to my friends and family. This is from this morning’s breakfast.

So, the habit stacking got derailed from travel 2 weekends in a row. Nephew’s basketball tournament and then a 50+ women’s tournament the weekend after. Did my best to eat good both weekends, but didn’t have the energy to meal prep or to prepare workday meals and snacks the night before. I’m so glad I went to both tournaments though. Love spending time with my sister and my nephew, got to see friends and family at the tournaments, and the 50+ women’s tournament was such an amazing experience that it deserves its own blog post. I am being more mindful of my social and emotional health, and the tournaments did give my heart a boost.

I’ve been tracking my foods but to be honest, I haven’t tracked everyday and on the days I do track, I don’t add everything I eat. Hence, the scale hasn’t moved and I’ve been feeling tired again. Also, when I do track my protein and I have my meals and snacks prepped, I realized that I am overeating….I’m finishing everything even if I’m full to make sure I get my protein in.

I feel like I haven’t quite hit on the right formula for my meals and snacks yet in order to see the results I want. So here are some of the tweaks I am going to try.

1- Slow down my eating, be mindful of how I’m feeling, and stop eating before I feel full or stuffed. I think that’s going to be really helpful right there, even if it cuts down on my protein intake in the short term.

2- Make sure I’m eating non-starchy veggies with my breakfast, lunch, and my snacks. Still save my carbs for dinner like sweet potatoes, quinoa, chickpea pasta, etc. Carbs at night help me sleep better.

3- Cut back on my dairy intake slightly and see if that makes a different. I love my cottage cheese and my yogurt, but I wonder if I have a little dairy sensitivity going on that is helping my body to hold on to some inflammation.

4- Find different food/meals/snacks that get my protein in without feeling stuffed. This will take some experimenting, some learning as I go, but I’m willing to put in this work because my health goals are everything to me right now.

This morning I wanted to put one of the tweaks into practice. I was hungry upon waking and but didn’t want eggs for some reason. So in my fridge I had a loaf of Dakota bread from Great Harvest Bread Co., some perfectly ripe avocados, leftover rotisserie chicken and some spinach. I toasted the bread, heated up the spinach and chicken in a pan with a little olive oil, mashed 1/4 of an avocado onto the toast, sprinkled some hemp seeds on the avocado, then topped it with the 3 oz of chicken and spinach, then sprinkled some Everything But The Bagel seasoning. This was soooooo good!! And I felt good after eating it. It was just the right amount of food where I didn’t feel full or stuffed, but satisfied. And it logged in at 35g of protein, 19 g of net carbs, and fulfilled about 25% – 35% of my magnesium, fiber, and Omega-3 goals!

I have to add that I’m surrounded by inspiring people. My sister is making astounding progress with her health, my oldest daughter Samantha has lost 30 lbs while being a busy mom and women’s health nurse, my middle daughter has lost 15 lbs on Noom and is doing PT to get her foot injury issues resolved, and my youngest is running track and very mindful of her nutrition. My husband is working on lowering his blood pressure and all his labs are good. Our family friend/brother lost 20 lbs during a weight loss challenge and he was laid up with a traumatic leg injury the whole time. He lost enough weight where his blood pressure came down quite a bit and his doctors have to adjust his medication.

I’ll keep the blog updated as I’m relearning this 55 year old bod. Sometimes I feel like I do not recognize or know this body anymore at all. That’s the frustrating part. But I value myself and my health enough to relearn myself.