Tuesday, April 10, 2012

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!.

Recipe - "Spaghetti" & meat sauce

I've had some rave reviews and requests for my "spaghetti" & meat sauce recipe. Some of it is a little by taste, but here is the basic idea.

1 spaghetti squash
1 lb. ground beef
2 cloves garlic, minced
1/2 onion, chopped
1 Tbsp. butter
1 can (14 oz.) crushed/diced tomatoes with basil and herbs
1+ tsp. Italian seasoning (dried)
1+ tsp. Basil (dried)
1+ tsp. salt
1/2 + tsp. pepper
2 diced tomatoes
Parmesan cheese (optional)

Saute the onion in the butter until transparent, then add the garlic and continue to cook for a few minutes, being careful not to burn the garlic. Add the ground beef and cook until browned and cooked, then add the seasonings and the can of tomatoes. Let simmer for about 30 minutes and start tasting. I think the secret to its flavor is the basil.

Cook the spaghetti squash by quartering it lengthwise, remove the seeds and membrane, and then turn the pieces upside down in a microwave safe dish with 1" of water. Cover the dish with plastic wrap and microwave until done (anywhere from 15-30 minutes).

Scrape the "spaghetti" out of the squash. Each serving would have some "spaghetti" with about 1/4 of the meat mixture on top, then some diced fresh tomatoes on top of that, and Parmesan cheese if desired.

This has become one of our favorite recipes. Hope you all enjoy it.

Weigh-in 2

Yesterday was the 8 week weigh-in and we're both pleased. My husband more so than me. He lost 25 lbs. and I lost 10 lbs. It's always discouraging that men lose weight faster and easier, but in all fairness to me, he had a larger body mass to maintain so while we ate about the same amount of food his calorie consumption (even though we didn't count calories) was a lot less than what he needed to maintain his weight. I was about 500-700 calories a day less that what I needed to maintain my weight, so I lost about a pound a week. I'm really excited about the 3 inches I lost off of my waist. That's what the low carb diet is all about - getting rid of that fat around the middle. My hubby has not measured himself yet, but at the last measurement a month ago he had lost 4 inches off of his waist. Hopefully he'll measure himself tomorrow.

I was helping with my new granddaughter for about 2 1/2 weeks and didn't get much chance to exercise so I probably could have lost a little bit more. We started back walking again today, so that will help our weight loss efforts. If I haven't mentioned it yet, we have a reward for ourselves when each of us loses at least 30 lbs. - a trip to Disneyland. By the time I lose 30 lbs., my sweetie will be looking real fine. We'll probably both be at our ideal weight by then. My only worry is that my hubby will stop when he gets to 200 lbs. He's mentioned a few times that he doesn't know if he should try to lose more at his age. He thinks it will be too difficult to maintain as we get more sedentary. I hope we go for the "gold ring" as we'll feel so much better and enjoy life so much more.