The good, the bad and the ugly

So last night I fell into a bit of a trap... Thai is by far my favorite food 'genre', but it generally isn't good for you. And when I actually go for my favorite dishes, well.. it's never good for me. Last night I had pad see ew with fresh tofu. I guess I should know better than to go out to dinner write after deciding to eat healthy but hey you do what you have to when it comes to friends.

The dish was great (and I felt good about getting my tofu not fried) but while it's not awful in terms of calories for a large dinner (600) it doesn't fit into my needs.

Here's a general guide of what I usually eat and why:

1. I try (though not always successfully) to top load my calories. That means taking in more in the morning and less in the afternoon. This allows my body to burn off more of it since (theoretically) I will be active later in the day.
2. Breakfast is almost invariably fat free plain yogurt with some some of fruit and fiber-rich cereal. This always makes me feel like I am starting my day right, even if I ruin it later on..
3. Lunch tends to be leftovers from dinner, or a salad. I'll get more into these in the coming posts.
4. Since trying the South Beach diet about 6 months ago I try to avoid all bad-for-you carbs.. this includes pasta, white rice, instant oatmeal, etc. This is tough though since two of my favorite meals are macaroni and cheese and pad thai. I try though.

From now on, I am going to try to be even more adamant about the above. I may even go back to South Beach since I have gained back all of the weight I lost on it and then some. (Note: this is because I didn't do the second half of the diet properly, not because it doesn't work. It did for me until I fell out of it.)

Last thing. I also feel compelled to show you guys one of the many fitness/calorie aids I've come across as I start this journey. I already knew SELF had one online, but it turns out livestrong.com does too. Random I know. I'm going to sign up for it and check it out. I'll let you know what I find!