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: lunch and dinner

I went out to lunch, and again, it wasn't too difficult to find acceptable things.  We went to Panera, and I ordered a small Thai chicken salad (without the wonton strips), a cup of vegetarian black bean soup (no potatoes, pasta, or rice in it), and some unsweetened ice tea.  It was pretty good.  I was really hungry, though, and I realized that although skipping beans at breakfast might have been more palatable, the meal did not stick with me as it has been doing, so I will try some kind of beans tomorrow.  Blah.

For dinner I made more soup again.  I think everyone's starting to get a little tired of the soup, but that's okay - more leftovers for me to have at lunch!  Today I diced up some of that delicious turkey bacon from Whole Foods and sauteed it with some onions, carrots, and garlic, and then I poured in a box of organic chicken stock, added some cumin and salt and pepper, and after a bit I drained some canned lentils and threw them in.  Just before serving I added some minced parsley, and it was pretty good, with a nice smoky flavor.

My husband cooked up the salmon while I put together a salad.  Oh, and I roasted some cauliflower, too.  Usually I toss it in some freshly grated Parmesan cheese just before I serve it, but I served the cheese on the side, since I'm not eating any for the next few days.   

I had seconds on the soup.

One thing I am enjoying immensely about this diet is that I actually eat until I'm full, and I feel totally satisfied for the rest of the evening.  Usually I try to cut back on portions, which leaves me feeling peckish for the rest of the night, constantly thinking about food.  Not any more, and that is a nice change.

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.

Wednesday - lunch and dinner

For lunch I had leftovers from the tuna/bean salad from dinner, along with some cucumbers.  Here it is:

 I really wanted some crackers or something to go with it - what a habit eating grains is for me!  But I felt pretty satisfied after I ate it, so that was good.

My husband ended up having to work late, so I got a bit peckish as dinner got pushed later than usual.  I had a few bits of toasted seaweed, which I'm assuming is okay to eat.  I like this kind, which has wasabi powder on it - it's spicy!

Our original plan for dinner was salmon, rice, and green beans.  I find it hard to eat big pieces of meat and fish, so I was a bit worried I'd be hungry with just fish and vegetables.  So I made a quick batch of soup with black beans and vegetables.  I was surprised by how much my kids enjoyed the soup - I have a feeling they'll be eating more vegetables than usual as this diet progresses.

 I forgot to take a picture, but I actually had thirds of the soup.

Here's the salmon (sideways, sorry).  I've never been a big meat eater - that's about as much as I can take in a single meal.  I do love beans, though, so that is going to help.

All in all, it wasn't too bad.  And I have to say, it was lovely to eat until I was full, for a change.  And I wasn't hungry at all for the rest of the night.