Adding carbs

I remember when we first started this diet, I felt like I had to plan every meal and every bite. Fortunately, it got a whole lot easier.

My new problem now is adding carbs back in. Yesterday we started with the next phase of this diet. We will be on this phase until we reach our desired weight. In a nutshell, we have to eat 11-20 grams of carbs with breakfast, lunch, dinner, and bedtime snack. If it will be longer than five hours between any of these meals, we need a snack with 11-20 grams of carbs. It seems easy enough, but that first piece of toast yesterday was really hard and for lunch I had a grilled cheese sandwich. After that I felt "breaded out." I wasn't sure I could eat anymore bread. Fortunately, you don't have to get your carbs just from bread and similar foods. Although adding the whole grain back in is a good idea.

There are a few more vegetables we can eat now - like corn, peas, sweet potatoes, carrots, and beets. We can also add legumes - yeah for kidney beans (I can see taco salad coming sometime this summer). We can also have a lot of fruit now, although not all fruits are available yet. About the only fruits that I can think of that are missing are the melons and some tropical fruits.

Last night I wanted to just have meat and a lot of vegetables, but I had to figure out a carb and I didn't want any grains, so I fixed some diced apples and strawberries. Finding a snack before bedtime with more carbs was also a challenge. I finally settled on some crackers with my cottage cheese and chocolate protein powder. I have grown to love my cottage cheese and chocolate protein powder.

Today we had a nice omelet with toast for breakfast. For lunch we had a big green salad with chicken and avocado and we added kidney beans for our carbs - it was great. For dinner we had chicken, a big bunch of broccoli, and a sweet potato (1/2 cup mashed) was added for our carb. I am still stuffed and we ate an hour and a half ago. For my snack tonight, I'm thinking about having some strawberries for my carbs - YUM!.