I have a hard time getting into any kind of routine. I have my munchkin every other week. So one week I have plently of time to exercise after work. Then the next week by the time we get home, do her homework, get her dinner, pratice piano, I'm out of time.

I snack too much. So I've been trying to substitute better snacks. Sugar Free Jello, lowfat cheeses, nuts. I try to read lables more and get lower calorie foods when I can.

Snacks do me in all the time, too. I love ice cream. I also love Nutella.

Mmmmmm Nutella

We're pretty conscious. We generally restrict eating at restaurants or ordering in to once a week. We're vegetarian and I've limited my cheese to occasions when I have been thinking about it and really want it. (That's my rule for any 'craving.' I have to have it for a week before I really respond to it.)

We plan our weekly menu on Sunday morning, go to the farmer's market for produce, to the store for other supplies, and stick to it pretty well. Our main meals are typically things like steamed veggies (w/ a veggie protein for me), stir fry with greens and brown rice, balsamic corn and bean salad, baked okra with pomegranate reduction... it's very healthy stuff. No butter (only cholesterol-free Earth Balance). No bad oils, only olive and sometimes canola.

I eat the same thing every morning-- teaspoon of peanut butter before vitamins, then fat-and-sugar-free-yogurt/bran/berries once I'm at work. I eat leftovers of our dinner food for lunch. I eat salad at night (and a few bites of whatever I'll be having leftover.)

I drink four ounces of juice with my vitamins in the morning, water for the rest of the day. Sparkling non-sweetened juice or iced tea (Izze and Pom Tea, primarily) as a special treat perhaps once a week.

We're exercising (or, our goal is) every Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday morning. Swimming laps during the week, water aerobics on the weekend.

Haven't lost a pound. It it my metabolism, my stress level, my PCOS? My occasional desserty-type snack? My portion size? I dunno. But I'm being pretty damn healthy and that's what really matters. Not that it isn't effing frustrating.

I had veggie stir-fry over brown rice for lunch.

The world doesn't want me eating healthy today. First, I burned the rice and had to start over again (the pot's still soaking). Then, I heated the oil in the wok too fast and it smoked and burned to the wok and I had to start that all over again (the wok's still soaking).

Now I'm snacking on fudge Reese's. That seems to be going quite well.

So you basically suck as a cook, then?

I must respectfully disagree. I stipulate that both a Snickers and low calorie cookies are equally bad choices. They are both processed beyond all recognition to the point that they are barely food anymore. All the low calorie food in the world won't make you healthy because it isn't what your body needs.

Stick to whole foods: veggies, rice, beans, fruits, real fats, grains, etc. If you aim never to eat out of a box you'll be healthy. It really isn't fat/calories that will make you fat (for the most part). It is eating foods that your body won't have anything else to do with but turn it into fat, be it a snickers, a low cal cookie like food, a diet soda, a regular soda, whatever. If you want a snickers grab a piece of fruit instead. If you still want some junk food then bake some ccokies or a cake with unbleached sugar, real butter or canola oil. It will still be junk, but it is real food that your body will be able to deal with. If you are eating whole foods most of the time then cravings will come less often.

My bet is the fat. French food generally uses real oils. Your liver needs essential fatty acids to make bile which rids your body of excess fat. The right fats won't make you fat. If I remember correctly, the liver controls your metabolism.

Since going veg our diet is pretty low fat. So we're adding in this smoothie made with hemp oil. Hemp oil contains Omega's 3, 6, & 9, making it superior to flax.

2 cups rice or soy milk
Ghirardelli cocoa powder to taste
Agave nectar or honey (the agave mixes better)
2 tablespoons hemp oil
1 banana

Have this for breakfast and you will have loads of energy until lunch. It eliminates my soda cravings.

Basically, we have the healthy eating part down for right now. I normally have the smoothie, or a banana if I'm lazy, for breakfast; a salad with dark greens and beans, or a veggie sandwich for lunch; various bean or tofu dishes for dinner, or pasta once a week; and lots of fruit to snack on. I've quit refined sugar and soda as well. I have loads more energy and patience. I've lost weight in the last three weeks as well. I have no idea how much but my pants are very loose. By next week I think I'll be down a pants size. This is just an added bonus, as feeling great is the real payoff.

Exercise I need to work on. When it's cooler we go on lots of walks. We normally swim everyday in the summer, but the pump in the pool broke last month and we've just now gotten it back to swimmable condition. We have an elliptical, but it's ten o'clock at night before I can get on it, and I'm pretty beat by then.

No, actually I don't.

Today's mishaps were a combination of a typo in a cookbook and my computer being too far away from the kitchen. The eventual meal(s) were quite good (and healthy), and I'll get a nice upper-body workout getting the wok clean.

See? That's exercise AND eating healthy.

And fudge Reese's. ;)