Planning & Chat for Nov. 12 - 18
 

It's that BLAH time of fall - between fall and winter. Lots of grey days. Big pots of soup, fireplace cuddles (if you're lucky enough to have a fireplace and someone to cuddle).

Now what else to eat? "Warm" salads? Veggie stews? How will we stay OP while facing TG (the Americans) and then the ultimate diet kablammo Christmas?

Have a great week everybody

Dagmar

Soup and more soup
 

I just made my first ever pot of soup from scratch. Ham and pea. Delicious but certainly not really low cal. I am limiting my portions and consoling myself while looking at DH having thirds :o by knowing that he's not eating anything deep fried or other wise harmful.

And I'm starting this week off at 133 lbs and changing the ticker to reflect this. :yes:

It's 6 weeks til Christmas and I'm confident I'll make my goal to be in the high20's by then.

Dagmar :cool:

Good morning!

I'm back to the chiropractor in a half hour or so. Here's hoping he's good with me lifting this week. Although I haven't been very consistent, I sure miss it when somebody says "you can't do that right now".

I bought some lovely lean proteins and things I can grow yesterday. Should be a good week.

Well, even after all my screwups last week, I am down a little bit. I dropped to 129.4, which I am rounding down to 129 :) This week, with the assistance of DailyPlate, I am GOING to stay on plan all week long.

I have discovered that brothy soups are really the way to go for me. I add tons of veggies, a little chicken or tofu for lean protein, and it's very filling while still being very low cal. Yesterday I had a humongous bowl of this spicy shrimp and noodle soup (recipe from Food Network, if anyone wants it), which was a meal in itself, and it was only 300 cals! Perfect for bringing my own lunch to work. Now I just have to find some better containers to carry it in. I have a lot of Tupperware, but I don't like putting plastic in the microwave, and so far I've been unable to find any really good glass containers that are leakproof. However, this weekend I'm leaving the city to go visit a friend in upstate NY (where there are actual MALLS and stores where things aren't overpriced), so perhaps I'll try shopping there.

Happy Monday everyone!

Soup! I had a great soup dinner Saturday--chicken gumbo. My only problem with the meal was that I served pumpernickel bread with it and I had too many slices! But I agree that soup is great this time of year and it's a heck of a lot less in calories than my traditional comfort food (casseroles).

Ah, all this talk about soup has me wanting some homemade chicken soup!!! Wonder how fatting it is?

Anyway, the beginning of another week, another week that I'm NOT down any weight and that I'm swearing to get serious again. *sigh* BUT this time for sure!! Who's sick of hearing that? I know I am! I'm looking forward to Shane's 6 pack ab club so I need to work hard to show some improvements for my picture update in 2 weeks. ACK.

I've had two protien drinks, some grapes and am just eating some tuna right now. I'm approaching the my weakest time of time in terms of willpower so we'll see how I do.

Meanwhile, this am I ran for 60 minutes on the treadmill faster than I've EVER gone on it. I totally felt amazing!!!

Boy, this must have been a "Soup" weekend :stir:. I also made some vegetable beef soup on Saturday. Low calorie but very hearty and filling .

But then yesterday I made a beef, noodle and cheese casserole (very fattening I'm sure) :o. Sometimes I think I'm like Jeckle and Hyde. I can be very good one day and very bad the next.

I need to get myself in gear :kickbutt: and try to string a few good days together this week.

Hope everyone has a great day!

Low cal casserole?
 

Is there such a beast?

I don't tend to use recipes when cooking but I'm interested in exploring some new ones. What are everyone's favorite low-cal cookbooks/recipe web sites?

I'm using a Time/Life series of healthy cooking books that I bought about 20 years ago - time for an upgrade. I'm thinking of trying Oprah's guy's book - I think his name is Bob Green?

thanks,
Dagmar

Morning! I'm a bit surprised by how quickly the time between alarm and gotta go passes. But I wanted to say "Good Morning".

I use FoodNetwork.com for almost all of my recipes. I usually have a main ingredient that I'm in the mood for, so I do a search for that. Then I see how I can modify the recipe to make it healthier (e.g. cut the oils/butters down, and then sub some chicken broth to make up the difference). I found a GREAT tool in another section of the forum that calculates nutrition of a recipe very easily:
http://www.calorie-count.com/calorie...e_analysis.php
You just paste the whole recipe in, change a few small things, and it instantly tells you the nutrition facts. Takes less than a minute per recipe, and I love it.

Hopefully that's helpful to someone :)

Dagmar~Cooking Light has a great deal of recipes--low cal, low fat and yes, they have casseroles!!! I use that site ALL the time!

Cooking Light, both the magazine and the website, is my hands-down, favorite source for recipes. Almost every recipe comes out fantastic (my SO has commented to me that once advantage to my being on this diet is all the great new recipes I've found that he really likes); they give nutritional info for every recipe and it is usually spot-on (not so with a lot of other recipe sources); and most recipes fit in my calorie plan, so I don't get excited by a recipe and then find out a can't eat it when I do the nutritional analysis :mad:.

The food sections in both my local papers (the SF Chroncle and the Fremont Argus) are probably my second favorite. Again, almost every recipe comes out fantastic, they are great about providing accurate nutritional info, and the publish lots of recipes that fit in my calorie plan. They also publish lots that don't fit in my plan (some have had close to 1,000 calories per serving :fr:), but at least the nutritional info is right there so I can see right away that it isn't a recipe for me.

I love cassoreles and I have lots of recipes for low calorie ones. I have a Tamale Pie casserole that comes it at 265 calories per serving; a ground beef, rice, and cheese casserole that comes in at 300 calories per serving; old-fashioned tuna casserole (complete with pasta) that comes in at 360 calories per serving; and an Indian-style ground turkey and rice casserole that comes in at 325 calories per serving. I have lots more. Just like meat loaf (for which I also have lots of low-calorie recipes), casseroles don't have to be high in calories.

Thank you everyone!
 

Now I'm really hungry. Dinner is microwaving/cooking and I'm reading about casseroles. Will try those sites for new and exciting dinners.

I am going to have one piece of chocolate cake tonite (bought one piece at a fancy store called Dufflet) in honour of it being Chris Noth's birthday.

No, this is not an excuse ;). I feel that, being a true fan of his, I owe it to him to help him celebrate. :p :p :p

Have a good night everyone! I'm whoo hooing with the new O magazine and my piece of cake.

Dagmar :devil:

My accomplishment for the day: I came within 24 calories of my target today! And it was 24 under, besides. I also did 4.5 miles on the elliptical (on cross-country, so it was HARD) tonight while watching Biggest Loser, which I'm thrilled about. And finally, I cooked a really yummy dinner with two new recipes: sesame noodles and seared ahi tuna over greens with wasabi vinaigrette. Again, courtesy of Food Network.

Also, I just want to take a minute to say how fabulous frozen bananas are. They ripen and get more flavorful even when they're frozen, so when you first freeze them, they're not too banana-y and just creamy and taste like vanilla ice cream. Then in a few days they ripen, and then it's like eating banana ice cream. Both are amazing, and much healthier than actual ice cream! I love them.

Frozen fruit
 

Laura thanks for the tip about the bananas. I'll try that. Someone else also mentioned frozen grapes.

Do you peel the bananas and grapes before you freeze them?

Dagmar :tired: (I hate daylight savings)

Morning!

You gals reminded me that I used to blend frozen fruit into fat free soy milk. It melts faster than ice cream but it's good! Must do that again.

Morning SusanB!

So you end up with a really thick smoothie, sorta?

Dagmar

For frozen bananas, I peel them, wrap them in foil, and toss them in the freezer for at least two hours (though I've kept them in there for probably a week or two). As I said, they do ripen in the freezer even, but I find that it's much slower than ripening on my counter (especially since my kitchen has no natural light so bananas go bad VERY quickly). I've never tried making frozen grapes but I've heard they're great also.

I make breakfast smoothies out of just frozen fruit (a variety of the bagged kind), a scoop of protein powder, usually 1/2 cup juice, and then however much water is needed to get it to a drinkable consistency. They're delicious, and only 300 cals! Not bad.

Frozen bananas are the BEST! I peel them, slice them and put them in a ziplock bag. I take out what I need and reseal the rest. I like them blended with plain Fage yogurt at lunch or blended with milk for a banana milkshake for breakfast.

Does anyone have a recipe for this? I had some fresh pickled cucumbers at lunch the other day. The liquid had dill in it but it was also sweet--not much vinegar at all. I've been searching all over and I can't find a recipe that calls for sugar and dill--its just one or the other.

This recipe does:
http://www.foodnetwork.com/food/reci..._27557,00.html

I made it this summer, and I didn't like it very much, but my family raved about it. Just wasn't to my taste.

Thanks! That sounds very close to what I had (although no onions or radishes). I'm going to give it a try while my folks are in town.

Afternoon folks!
Yes, Dagmar ... if you eat it quickly, it's almost as thick as ice cream. And I'm a sucker for ice cream.

I make my smoothies with greek style plain non-fat yogurt, frozen fruit, and Torani syrup. I use about a cup of yogurt, 2 tbsp syrup, and I think around 70g of fruit. They come out super thick--so thick I could eat them with a spoon and some people might want to add a little skim milk to thin them out a bit. I use frozen berries or mango, but you could use bananas (one day when I'm feeling like I have calories to spare, I'll have to try that).

BTW-My SO uses frozen bananas in his smoothies and he has kept the bananas in the freezer for months with no ill effects. They do turn brown, but they taste fine in the smoothie. He peels the bananas before freezing them.

I've frozen grapes before and it isn't necessary to peel them, but then I never peel my grapes. In fact, I've never heard of peeling grapes--that seems like a lot of work!

alinnell: Cooking Light has a recipe for Cucumber Pickle Spears that calls for both sugar and dill.

Peeling grapes
 

It seemed absurd :dizzy: but I've never frozen any kind of fruit except berries so I had to ask.

I just put two very ripe bananas in the freezer (wonder why its called free-zing, nothing free about it :?:) which I'm going to use in smoothies for dessert tonite.

Still trying to get the DH on board the diet train. He's had another set back for leaving his workplace and he was sulking big time (cookies, chocolate, bourbon - he'll have such heartburn today) last night after school.

I'll keep chipping away and setting the example. His sister's whole family is dieting now so I'll keep hoping he finally "gets it".

Obesity can equal diabetes, hip replacements, heart problems, arthritis etc. which are all present in his immediate family.

Have a great day everyone!

Dagmar

Good morning!
I get a big bag of frozen fruit at Zehrs (no name). It's got peaches, grapes, melon balls, strawberries, pineapple. I can make a mixed smoothy or pick out the kind I want.

Whenever I hit the supermarket, I am always stocking up on frozen fruit. Whatever's on sale/cheapest at that particular market, and then I make different blends each morning depending on my mood (e.g. blueberries and banana for something creamy; pineapple, orange, and strawberry for something citrus-y). Mine usually come out between 250 and 300 calories, which isn't too bad for breakfast on my 1500 cal daily limit. Though maybe I should rethink that...

I weigh myself every morning. I know you're not supposed to, but I swear I don't obsess over it. I only actually track it once/week, but weighing daily helps me see if a number from my actual weigh-in is off due to water retention or something silly. I use a digital scale that measures to 1/10 of a pound. Now, I realize that it might not be that accurate... but I have been at the exact same weight for a week. I did have a bad day last Thursday, but I've been eating REALLY well since then, and have still managed to save 3583 calories (that's saving based on a 2000/cal diet, which I think is probably about right for me to maintain). So - shouldn't I show SOME kind of loss??

Still here and doing what i need to do. Have not been on the scale.

Barbara~check your link to the recipe. I think the wrong thing got posted.

Meanwhile, I did find that recipe. Thanks!

I had a weird thing happen today. I got up, went for my run, drank about 32 ounces of water and half a cup of coffee, and had my shower and suddenly it dawned on me--I forgot to weigh myself! It is so ingrained in my morning routine. How on earth did I forget?

alinnell--oops! Yes, I pasted in the wrong URL. You probably don't want to take a two-hour survey on stock compensation. :lol: I fixed the link.

Scenestealer--When I got down to your weight (and I'm about your height), I stopped seeing a loss every week. It would go in fits and starts. I'd have a couple of weeks with no loss and then lose 2 lbs in one week. For me, it was all related to TOM. For a while there, I could pretty much predict when I would show a loss based on where I was in my cycle (assuming I stayed on plan). I know you've said before that you don't believe in water retention, but it's been my experience that it has a big impact on the scale (I can tell when I am retaining water based on how many times I have to get up and pee during the night).

My smoothie comes in at around 140 calories, depending on what kind of fruit I use. It is 1/2 cup (100g) non-fat greek yogurt, 140g of frozen fruit, and 1 tbsp sugar free syrup. I think it comes out to about 10-12 oz total. But I eat it as a snack, not as a meal substitute. I think you would need something more substantial to use it as a meal.

That is a REALLY good point, Barbara, and one I completely forgot about. I'm about a week away so it probably is more water retention! I definitely do "believe" in water retention; I just try to account for it as much as possible by weighing myself every day (so I can see if it's really far off), and by weighing in first thing in the morning after using the bathroom, when it's more likely that my water weight is consistent. But thank you - that makes me feel so much better and not like giving up :)

Phooey!
 

Proudly told my DH this morning that I'm within 2 lbs of my goal weight.

He just brought home 2 litres of ice cream and a bag of chocolate chip cookies. For his stress he says.

Gonna stay in my office

Dagmar :(

Wow, that's so awesome!! Congrats for being so close to goal!!!

And I hear ya on the hubby's eating habits. *sigh* Mine ordered a pizza for supper. MAN it SMELLED GOOOOODDDDD!!!!!!! And the ice cream and cookies yours brought home would be a great dessert for after the pizza! YUMMMMM!!! Ugh, I have to stop thinking about it now. lol

Thanks 3FC Featherweights
 

I felt really bad last night. My DH is really bringing me down although I know his behaviour is because he feels so threatened by what I'm doing, and because he's too lazy to develop any self-discipline.

I posted about the cookies and ice cream and then I felt better. I can't confront DH or ask for support for any of my personal goals because he is such a self-absorbed baby (men - arrrrggghhh!!).

I feel like I'm among friends when I'm online here. Any time I need advice or support here you are. THANKS!!

Dagmar :D (didn't eat any of the "bad" food last night)

Congrats Dagmar! Remember, we're here for you to vent to. That's what this place is for, because we all know what dummies our DH's can be!!!

So speaking of DH....I finally got mine to start the c25k program. He lasted 4 days. He got through week 1 and the first day of week 2 and then said his knee hurt. Off to the doctor after the pain lasted a week. The doctor said his quads aren't strong enough to support his knee while running and prescribed ice, rest and an anti inflammatory. He was told once he felt better to strengthen his quads and then he can run again. He asked if using our Nordic Track would help strengthen and he was told YES. So, he's healed. It's been 3 or 4 weeks. Does he use the Nordic Track? NO Do you think he ever will? NO It's very upsetting because he's a couch potato with a stressful job and he drinks too much. He's been gaining weight the past few years and it's all in his chest area which means he's a prime candidate for a heart attack. Any suggestions on how to get him to exercise? My only plan right now (other than outright nagging) is to ask him for a gym membership for Christmas and tell him it should be for both of us and then once there, I'll sign us up for a personal trainer to get us going.

;) Are we married to the same man Allison?

I think your idea of signing both of you up and then hiring the trainer for motivation is brilliant!

Nagging definitely doesn't work. I find my DH just digs his little trotters deeper into the couch if I try that. :D

Dagmar

Dagmar~yesterday at lunch we discussed getting a membership. He did tell me his knee feels a lot better, so I said that he needed to start working on building his thigh muscles. Let's see if it sunk in!

Have a great weekend everyone!