This is one in a series of food photo diary posts in which I track my food in pictures. I’m also counting my calories. Read all about it in this post or click here to view a detailed breakdown of my calorie intake in a nifty spreadsheet.

Food photography is an obsession of mine. For months now I’ve been taking pictures of everything I eat and sharing them on Flickr, a site that’s so cool I probably wouldn’t have kept up my food photo diary without it. Since using Flickr to host my food photos, I’ve stumbled across a few other Flickr foodies with similar appetites who make this food photography stuff even more fun by leaving comments on my photos and sharing their photos and recipes with me. The food photo diary is so much more fun than this calorie counting shiznit: it’s social, creative, and it’s all about the food, man, not the numbers.

So I wanted to give a little shout out to a few of my Flickr friends, all of whom have blogs of their own where you see and read about their food-fueled adventures.

• Sleep Dream Dress makes inspirational smoothies, among other things. I love her passion for a good bowl of oatmeal: “This morning I woke up at sunrise after having simply beautiful dreams of the future. Like all the star’s aligned I made the most amazing bowl of oatmeal yet.”
• I aspire to take photos as lovely as Celine’s of have cake, will travel. Celine is a “thirty-something, bike-obsessed, vegan Swiss expat who lives in California with 2 cats (Willow and Buffy) and 1 (one!) husband.” Her vegan desserts make me drool, especially the Apple Pie in Pecan Crust.
• I thought I was alone in my love of Bircher Muesli until I discovered les jumeaux‘s blog, pistachios and rainbows. Her bircher experiments are inspirational, and make me want to mix up my usual morning muesli with exciting add-ins like figs and nut butter.

Diary for Wednesday, June 3, 2009

Calories In: 1,578
Calories Out: 1,897
Deficit: -319

Even though I keep running deficits, I don’t seem to be losing weight. I’m not really gaining weight either. It makes me wonder where I’m going wrong with this calorie counting thing. It probably has less to do with the counting and more to do with the eating, exercise and old habits.

Breakfast

Bircher muesli with yogurt and bananas

Calories: 364
Protein: 11.5
Fat: 9
Carbs: 64

Swimming

A short swim. 25 minutes. 1000 meters.

Calories burned: ~130

Snack

Banana and avocado smoothie

Following up from yesterday’s post, I tried to make a more interesting smoothie using one avocado, one banana, 50ml of soy milk, 100g of yogurt, 2 tsp of honey and a bit of nutmeg. This made more than enough smoothie for one sitting, so I only had about 1/3 of the mix and saved the rest for later. As for the taste, it was nice and VERY rich, but the flavor of the avocado didn’t really come through. Seems like a waste of a good avocado to me, but who knows, maybe I was just working with a flavorless avocado. Next time I’d like to try this with banana, avo, soy milk, and dates.

Other smoothie ideas: mango and chili, strawberries and basil. Stay tuned!

Calories: 153
Protein: 5
Fat: 8
Carbs: 18

Lunch

Black beans and cabbage slaw.

A lunch for bean lovers, which is what I am. After the super rich smoothie, I wanted something relatively light but filling. Beans are my answer to this. This slaw was a quick cabbage and carrot affair, dressed with lime juice, salt, pepper and some homemade chili powder. Cilantro would have been nice, but alas, I had none!

Calories: 300
Protein: 17
Fat: 1
Carbs: 60

Snack

More banana and avocado smoothie

Calories: 153
Protein: 5
Fat: 8
Carbs: 18

Dinner

Hot sauce glazed tempeh with quinoa and grilled veggies

This is the tempeh recipe to end all tempeh recipes. Tempeh has kind of a weird flavor, so you have make sure you cook it with the right flavors that actually work with the flavor of the tempeh. The marinade in this recipe does the trip. It’s so incredibly delicious and it makes a ton, so I typically throw some other veggies like peppers and onions in with the tempeh, then grill it all in the oven. Today I added mushrooms and asparagus.

Calories:
Protein:
Fat:
Carbs:

Cycling