Splurge Saturday is here again!

Finally.  It took long enough!

So, here goes, although there were a few things I forgot to snap photos of, including a doughnut, chicken with cashews, a spring roll, and hot and sour soup, an apple pastry and a chocolate frosted brownie.  Other than that, here it is:

Would you think that would be enough to make me gain 2 1/2 pounds overnight?  It was!

Friday catch-up

Friday was a bit rough - it was the longest I'd gone on the diet without a break, and I was getting pretty tired of the same old stuff.  So to change things up a bit, I tried a recipe I found from a link to recipes that mostly (some include optional cheese) follow the guidelines of the slow carb diet.  I made the omelette muffins, and I put turkey bacon and spinach in mine.  They took way longer to cook than the recipe said, though, which meant my breakfast was later than I wanted it to be.  But don't they look tasty?  They tasted like eggy popovers.

The coconut oil I used, as suggested in the recipe, wasn't much help in preventing them from sticking to the muffin pan, so they fell apart a bit when I pulled them out.  I'll have to pick up some muffin papers for the next time I do it.  This would be a great way to get mileage from leftover veggies as well as have eggs in a new and different way.

At lunchtime I mixed up a quick batch of soup.  I used lentils again - I am really enjoying them, particularly with that turkey bacon, and I tossed in a can of diced tomatoes and spiced it up a bit.  I had the soup with a Nicoise-inpired salad I threw together - lettuce, tuna, olives, and onions.  It was pretty tasty.  I wish I'd had some avocado to go with it!

I forgot to take pictures of dinner last night - the chicken I'd planned to use wasn't defrosted enough, so we ended up getting takeout from Chipotle.  I got a burrito bowl with black beans, salsa, chicken, guacamole and lettuce, and it was so filling that I couldn't eat it all. 

So I made it through one more day of slow-carbing it.  Whew!  It is really tough sometimes, but it's doable.  Particularly with Saturday coming up, the light at the end of the tunnel.

Thursday

It seems I'm developing a routine with this diet.  I'm a lot hungrier early in the mornings than I used to be, which I guess is good, since it's helping me adjust to eggs and beans and things a little better.  Today I had more scrambled eggs, and I'm finding that lentils are the easiest legumes for me to eat so early in the morning.  I sauteed some red onions and turkey bacon, and then I threw in the lentils, and I pretended they were potatoes as I ate my eggs.  Luckily I have a vivid imagination.

For lunch I heated up some leftover chicken and zucchini from last night's dinner, and I tossed them with some baby greens, along with red onions, chickpeas, olive oil and balsamic vinegar.  It wasn't bad, and I also added some chicken broth to the leftover lentils to make a quick and easy soup.  That stayed with me, so I wasn't too hungry for the rest of the afternoon.

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I was so excited to eat dinner that I neglected to take photos.  I made some haddock with a quick and easy Minimalist recipe, and it came out great.  First you sautee some minced ginger in some vegetable oil - about a tablespoon or so.  Then you add the fish (any white fish will do), and pour over it 1 1/2 cups of water, a half cup of soy sauce, some sliced green onions, chopped cilantro, a teaspoon of rice vinegar, and you bring it to a boil.  Then you cover it, turn off the heat, and let it sit for 10 minutes.  Then it's ready!  We ended up using  a little cornstarch mixture to thicken the sauce, and that worked out great.  My husband made rice to go with it, but I had soup - yes, more soup!  This time I used the immersion blender to mix the bean (pinto) and veggie (celery, onions, garlic and carrots, along with some cumin, salt, and a dried cayenne pepper) into a creamy soup.  It was delicious.  One of my daughters thought so too, so there are no leftovers for work tomorrow.  I'm glad she enjoyed it, though.  We also had some steamed broccoli, which was tasty dipped in the fish sauce.

I am still feeling energetic, which is great.  Particularly as we are leaving for our trip soon, and there is so much to do!  I do feel as though I'm spending a lot more time cooking than usual, but I'm also thinking that there have got to be ways of streamlining this more effectively. I will figure them out. 

I lost another half pound, which puts me at 5.5 pounds lost, total.  I get the feeling from others who have tried this and other similar diets that the weight loss will probably go a lot more slowly from here on out.  I'm hoping to see progress, even if it's small, because that will help me to keep going.  If there's no progress, I am more likely to throw up my hands and wonder what the point is.  We'll see how it goes!

Wednesday

It's a bit pathetic - I completely forgot to take photos of anything I ate today!  It was a busy day, I guess, and with so much going on, it just slipped my mind.  But I stuck with the diet - it's feeling like a challenge now, so I am not really tempted to cheat.  I know that Saturday is just a few days away.

The best part of today was that my friend D at work has decided to join me with this diet!  I know she's been trying to lose weight, and this seems to be working for me.  It will be fun to do it together - we can help each other out along the way.

For breakfast today I had eggs over easy, turkey bacon and some lentils that I just heated up a little bit.  Even though the beans are not appealing to me in the morning, they definitely help stop me from getting hungry, so I'm going to keep trying to include them.  I didn't have much time to get lunch together before work, so I just threw some baby greens and diced veggies (onions, red peppers, tomato), and some garbanzos, too, in a container, along with a side of balsamic vinaigrette.  I also grabbed a can of Amy's split pea soup, which I'd never tried before, just in case.  I was so glad I brought that, because the salad just wasn't enough.  In fact, D and I ended up splitting the soup later on in the afternoon, which totally hit the spot after we both sat through a staff meeting with banana bread sitting right there on the table the whole time - plus some delicious candy, too.  It's not so hard to resist food when I'm not hungry, but it's a struggle when I am!  We decided we are going to stock up on "legal" foods to help us out when these things happen.

For dinner I made mashed cauliflower, which I was a bit skeptical about, but it turned out great.  I microwaved a cut-up head of cauliflower in a covered casserole dish with a little water in the bottom.  It took quite a while - maybe 8 minutes - until it was soft.  Then I used the lid to hold the cauliflower in while I poured off the excess water, and I added some butter (maybe a tablespoon or a bit more), a dash of cream - maybe a tablespoon or so - salt and pepper, and some Cajun spices.  I whizzed it up with an immersion  blender, and it was surprisingly delicious!  We also grilled some zucchini and chicken.  It wasn't bad!  I did not feel at all hungry for the rest of the night.

Oh!  And I almost forgot to mention that I lost half of that pound that I gained yesterday.  Woohoo!

Two more days, and then Saturday will be here again.  I'm already thinking about foods I'm planning to eat.  I may make some brownies.  And French fries would be nice.  And definitely strawberries and bananas!

Tuesday

Well, I've been on the diet for a week now, and so far, so good.  Despite today's minor setback, I'm still sticking to it faithfully.  Breakfast was a bit of a struggle this morning - it's hard to fit in breakfast on school mornings, but if I wait till I get back from dropping the girls off at school, too much time has passed for me to eat within an hour of waking up.

  

I had eggs again today - even though I was so craving a big bowl of oatmeal!  I made them with turkey bacon, red onions and spinach mixed in, and I had some of the black bean soup from the other night.  I tried, but I was only able to eat about half of the eggs, and a little bit of the soup.  It's so hard that early in the morning!  I will keep at it, and maybe the mornings will get easier.  I noticed it wasn't bad on Sunday, when I was able to sleep in a bit.  But so early in the morning, it is a bit rough.

I met a friend for lunch at Clyde's in Georgetown.  It was the most challenging time I've had finding something from the menu that worked.  We ended up splitting the "crab tower" appetizer, which is one of my favorite things on their menu.  It has lump crabmeat with avocado, seaweed salad and roe on a very tasty rice cake.  I left the cake and the crispy wonton garnish and just had the crab, avocado and seaweed.  It was delicious, as always.  I didn't miss the rice all that much, surprisingly.  I didn't think to take a picture till after we'd split it in two, but it looked even better before we got our hands on it.

For my entree I chose the grilled chicken salad.  I suspect the candied walnuts aren't optimal for the diet, but I ate them because I had told them not to put any goat cheese on the salad, so I felt entitled to a few nuts. 

I was rushed getting to work this evening, and I forgot to snap a picture of the small bowl of last night's leftover lentil soup I had before I left.  Plus I took a salad to eat at work - baby greens, leftover salmon, red onions and diced tomato.  I was pretty hungry when I got back from work, so I helped myself to a small bowl of wasabi peas.  They are spicy and tasty!  Sometimes I just need some salty crunch.

Tuesday - It's working!

I weighed myself this morning with some trepidation, but I needn't have worried.  I lost the pound I gained after Splurge Saturday, and one more pound on top of it!  That brings me to a total of 5 pounds lost since I started the "Slow Carb" diet one week ago today.  Woohoo!

I also realized that if I omit the beans from breakfast, I won't get that faint nausea that's been pestering me in the morning.  I'm good with beans at lunch and dinner, but for some reason I just can't handle them first thing in the morning.

Check out this delicious egg scramble that I made today, with diced turkey bacon (picked some up at Whole Foods yesterday - and wow, is it good), sauteed red onions, and fresh spinach.

This diet so does not have to be boring!

Back in the saddle again...

I was a little surprised to find after all that eating on Saturday - the bagels, the milkshake, the ice cream, the doughnuts! - I only gained a pound.  Pleased, but surprised.  And actually, just the tiniest little bit panicked. Was the one pound weight gain, as has happened so often before, the beginning of the end?  I sure hope not.

One thing that I've been loving since starting this diet program is that I feel, for the first time in ages, that I actually have control over my body.  It's a strange but really positive feeling - but one that I'm not quite ready to trust.  Could it all be a fluke?  It just doesn't seem possible that I can do this without feeling really deprived - sure, there are cravings for things that I'd love to eat - but there are so many things that I can eat that I'm never feeling hungry or grumpy from low blood sugar.  Plus there is that sparkly light of all-you-can-eat Saturday at the end of my tunnel.

I was so busy yesterday trying to get things done around the house (we're leaving on a cruise the week after next) that I completely forgot about the food pictures, except for breakfast.  I made scrambled eggs with smoked salmon and green onions, and although I would have loved to have thrown some fresh goat cheese in there, I didn't.  And I didn't miss it.  All that much.  (Saturday is coming!)

For lunch I ate leftover bean soup from Friday, a small bowl of cottage cheese (the only cheese we're allowed - and I imagine that should be occasionally), and some leftover salad.  Nothing to write home about, but I certainly wasn't hungry.

Dinner was actually delicious, and I wish I'd thought to take pictures: black bean soup with veggies and fresh cilantro; a salad of baby greens, red onions, a few garbanzos, and some diced tomatoes in a balsamic vinaigrette (my 10-year-old informed me that the salad would probably be better with some blue cheese crumbles on it.  She went and got some and I was envious!  But Saturday is coming); grilled chicken wings, and grilled asparagus.  I'm definitely not feeling deprived. 

Friday Meals

This diet is getting easier by the day.  I actually had a little appetite for my breakfast in the morning, and I managed to eat most of it.  I should have heated up the black beans  - but I was in a hurry to get the kids to school, and so I just rinsed them off from the can and put them on my plate.  That Cholula hot sauce is pretty good on the black beans.  It's more flavorful than spicy - my 10-year-old had some beans and hot sauce too.

It's amazing how long the breakfast stays with me.  I was so busy running errands - we're leaving for a 2-week vacation in a couple of weeks - that I didn't even think about eating until 2 pm!  When normally I am starving by 11 o'clock.  I reheated the soup I'd made the night before, and I ate this entire bowl of it.

I still felt a little hungry, so I filled up another bowl (see below), but in the end I only ate about half of it.  I was stuffed!

Then I had my first restaurant experience while following the diet.  We went to Busboys and Poets in the District, the one on 14th Street, and there was actually quite a bit for me to choose from (some with a few minor modifications).  It worked out pretty well!  I totally forgot to take a picture of my appetizer, though.  I ordered mussels in a lemongrass sauce.  They were good, but it looked like the sauce had a ton of cream in it, so I just kind of shook it off the mussels and ate them.  It came with some garlic toast that looked delicious, and I would have loved to dip it in that sauce!  But I gave it to my friends instead, and thought about my splurge Saturday, which was the very next day, and it wasn't too hard.  The results I've had so far really inspire me to stick to the diet rules.

I also ordered the Cobb Salad, and I did remember to take a photo of it: 

It came with some pita bread, which I just set to the side and ignored.  I ordered it without the crumbled blue cheese and bacon (I don't really eat pork) it was still delicious.  But what was a little disappointing - and this is one of my pet peeves - is that I had to cut everything before I could eat it.  Sure, the plating is lovely, and would look super in a food magazine.  But if I wanted to cut stuff up to make a salad, I'd have stayed home and done it.  They give you a dull dinner knife and a couple whole chicken breasts.  Really?  It took me so long to hack everything up into tasty bite-sized pieces that I had to eat so quickly and could hardly enjoy it, because we had a show to catch (imusical at WIT - if you live in the area, you should check it out.  It is hysterical!  And I think there are only a couple shows left this season). 

I love that this diet is so doable, and that there is no counting calories.  I can't stand that.

Thursday

I weighed myself this morning, and I've lost 1.5 pounds since Tuesday.  I can't get my hopes up too far at this point, because I can fluctuate so much with my weight from day to day - two to three pounds from one day to the next isn't uncommon. 

I had a bit of a problem as far as breakfast was concerned, though.  I had a breakfast date with some friends, but I couldn't meet them till I dropped the kids off at school.  So I made some turkey bacon and had three slices of that, hoping it would be enough to jump-start my metabolism.  For the rest of breakfast , which I ate about an hour and a half after waking up - and I was terrible today about remembering to take photos - I ordered an omelet - a Greek omelet without cheese.  It was pretty bad - I should have just gone for scrambled eggs.  The tomatoes were winter pale and tasteless, and the olives were the bland, sliced kind from cans.  It was rough not having any potatoes, grits or toast - things I love love love!  But I sucked it up and ate my nasty omelet - the company was good!  And it stuck with me - I didn't get any lunch till 3, and while I ate a few carrots between times, I wasn't all that hungry. 

I keep saying I wasn't hungry and being happy about it, but I should say what I really mean is that I felt okay.  I didn't feel grumpy and drained the way I get when I haven't eaten recently.  This is a good thing - I hate feeling that way.

For lunch I had a pretty good salad - leftover salmon from last night, mixed with baby spinach and baby greens, great northern beans and avocado, with a mustard vinaigrette dressing.  I had more carrots to eat, but I ended up giving them to a friend because I was so stuffed!  I just drank water, my usual beverage.

We had another rushed evening - yet another evening school event.  The original plan was to reheat the enchiladas from Monday night, so I did that for everyone but me.  I made some more soup, with beans and tomatoes and onions, and I ate that, and we all had some sauteed spinach.  Things were so rushed that I forgot all about taking photos, but I ate two bowls of soup and had a glass of wine.  All in all, while it's not the best food ever, it's not too bad, and I do feel satisfied.  I also am feeling really good - upbeat and energetic.

My first slow-carb breakfast - blah!

So one thing I've been doing that is bad, bad, bad, is that I haven't been eating breakfast right after I get up.  According to the 4-Hour Body plan, you should eat within 30 minutes, an hour at most, of waking.  I wouldn't mind that so much, but breakfast has become a sort of ritual for me.  I am the kind of person who needs a certain amount of alone time in order to be a kind and patient person when I'm around other people.  And as a librarian, dealing with sometimes difficult customers, and as a parent, dealing with sometimes difficult children, that alone time is necessary to being able to maintain my equilibrium in trying situations.

So in the morning, whenever my schedule permits it, I have my breakast "respite."  It honestly gives me a psychological edge for the rest of the day when I can have my breakfast, a quiet cup of copy, and read a book.  20 minutes works - a half-hour is optimal. 

I've been getting up at 7, getting the kids ready for school, leaving at 8 to drop them off, and getting back home and eating breakfast at about 8:30.  So that's not really going to work on this diet plan.  And what I normally eat?  All things that are prohibited on this diet.  Usually a whole-grain bagel or toast, some cheese or yogurt, and fruit.  Yup.  None of that is permitted now, so I have to eat something that is not appealing to me at that hour of the day, and I have to get up extra early to eat it.  This diet had better see some results pretty quickly, is all I'm saying. 

This morning I got up at 6:30 and made myself breakfast:  four strips of turkey bacon, two eggs, and some refried beans from Trader Joe's (with jalapeno).  And some coffee  Here it is:

I only managed to eat about half of it, though.  It was just too early for that kind of breakfast for me.  And the refried beans were just awful.  I tossed those in the trash, along with the rest of the can, and gave the remainder to the dog, who has decided this is the best diet plan ever.

I was feeling a little queasy after that attempt at breakfast, so I had a little bowl of sliced cucumber.  I really, really miss fruit.  I thought I might be craving chocolate or bagels or something, but so far what I'm positively dying for is a bowl of strawberries.  Or a mango or a banana.  I cannot wait till Saturday!

I felt faintly nauseated all morning at work today.  Maybe that's not so bad - I wasn't hungry at all!  I have to say, though, I'm not feeling too optimistic about this breakfast change.  Ferriss says it takes a few days to get used to it.  This may be the hardest change I'll have to make with this plan.