I'm in the "no counting calories group" and also in the "frustrated that I'm over 50 and still fat group" along with LittleElla. At least by living this food plan, I know that I'm eating much healthier, and I can say that my body feels a little happier, if not as light as I'd like it to. If I look back, I can see and feel the difference since I started, and I need to use that encouragement to get going again. At least it's fresh fruit and veggie weather, and that always makes me happy!

So, let's talk about volumetrics favorite foods and recipes. What do you call your "go to" favorite that you can always count on for satisfaction? What's a recipe you've been repeating lately?

ROASTED VEGGIES ~ onions, celery, carrots, turnip (/or parsnips), green and/or yellow beans, and sweet potatoes or butternut or other kind of squash ... OR I alternate the beans with broccoli and cauliflower (as I vary these from time to time); you can also add slices or chunks of zucchini too, if desired.


SALADS ~ I make sure to have two basic salads made up in my fridge at all times with some prepared veggies and this really helps. I make up a big container of Romaine Lettuce salad with a mix of veggies like sliced celery, onions, radishes, baby cukes, and carrot matchsticks (and just before serving, I add thin slices of tomato).

Then I also cheat a bit and buy bags of premade mixed Coleslaw (like Dole) and put that into containers; which I then add some thinly sliced onion and/or green onions and radishes. Sometimes I even mix the two salads together.

You can add whatever ingredients you want to your salads. I try to have two salads a day -- one or the other kind for lunch and for dinner to vary it a bit.

I like these ideas. The first one works for me too because it has this basic simplicity with lots of combo options that allow you to have the same limited thinking requirements but endless variation. The second one is also a great one--and I try to keep up myself--because it takes away the excuse factor ('cause it's always there) and is the easiest solution when you get home from work and want something quickly. My only problem is I sometimes override these easy and simple factors with less desireable options. Now that I'm back on my strict CC and home-made kick, I've removed the excuse option. For some reason, I'm either "ON" or "OFF". I did awesome last year because I was "ON" for eight months to get to (almost) goal at about 142. This year my goals is to have more options on my nozzle..."ON", "Med-low", "Medium", "Med-high" (and try to block the "OFF" optoin).

Tomorrow's our second annual joint family Memorial Day Picnic. We're very happy as this family we join together with are so enjoyable and all our kids combine as best friends. The mom and I both used last year to lose all our weight. She lost like 100 or something and just had a nice tummy tuck to flatten herself out. So, this year, I'm confident that we'll see a shared goal of delicious foods but probably all on the very healthy side. We've both been able to increase healthy activities for our spouses and kids. Her husband and she learned ice skating in the winter and the hubby bought a bike (she bought one last year). My husband got a personal trainer this winter and now is the official assistant coach for our younger boy's soccer team. All of our kids signed up for karate. The boys and I bike as commuters to school and work but not my husband who takes the bus/subway to work. I'm encouraging my hubby to buy a bike so we can bike on dates together. I also wanted us to find out about contra or square dancing as another possible dating option.

I'm looking up picnic recipes:
1) Balsamic Vinegar Pasta Salad: tons of sliced veggies, 1 lb pasta with some vinegrette
2) Jicama Mixed Salad: julienned mixed fruit and veggies, julienned jicama, with 1/4-1/2 cup lemon juice (and I'll add some Truvia if it's just me) (I use bell peppers, carrots, onions, oranges, apples, grapes, jicama, parsley or cilantro)
3) Beans and Vinegar: chick peas, kidney beans, and soybeans with a chopped onion, julienned carrots, and a diced tomatoe with a vinegrette.

I mix just olive oil (EVOO) and vinegar as my vinegrette.

My kids are weird as they regularly eat dressing-less salad, raw cauliflower and broccoli, and plain (raw) tofu slices. So, it'll be just my husband who will bring curried chicken stripes on bamboo sticks for the hibachi. He's from Nepal so it'll be delicious curry twisted to American hibachi picnic style cooking.

We might also made a potatoe Nepali chutney which has cold cubed boiled potatoes mixed with a sesame paste (and other ingredients I'm not sure of). It's delicious as a salad but Nepali cusine has this as a small addition to curried veggies, rice and lentil soup.

My way of eating on Volumetrics:

Meats: lean to extra lean ground beef; lean steaks

Poultry: Any and all poultry without skin...also the new KFC grilled chicken is low.

Veggies: All and any, prepared without fat. I use I Can't Believe It's not butter Spray, or even better, the fat free liquid margarine called Smart Squeeze. To me this tastes just like melted butter on veggies.

Fruits: Love all of 'em - I go lightly on fruit juices and some dried fruits

Grains: Whole grains over bread and crackers. Still love my pasta and rice - just go for the whole grain variety because I find it more filling.

Sugar: Because diabetes is rampant in my family, I always use sugar substitutes instead of the real thing.

NEW FOOD FIND: I just about gave up on nuts - for me it's a trigger food. I didn't eat nuts for years and really believed it helped keep my weight down. My new food find is Fitnutz and PB2 brands of powdered peanuts. I mix 3 tb. of the powdered peanuts (basically defatted peanuts ground to a powder) with 2 tb. of bottled water. This makes a nice sized portion of "peanut butter" with a low caloric density of less than 2. I just love this stuff.

I am experimenting with baking lower caloric density baked goods. It definitely can be done.

Wow, I'm interested in the Fitnutz and PB2 powdered peanuts. I miss PB&J sandwiches. Last year, I did eat a half-sandwich of PB&J with my favorite jam (Lingonberry, my Norwegian roots all the way).

I'm vegetarian so that helps with my densities. This weekend's picnic was awesome. I made the veggie w pasta salad and a mixed bean salad w apple cider vinegar. My friends loved the bean salad enough to take the whole container home.

What are folks planning for volumetrics this summer?

Volumetrics has to be the most common sense approach to weight loss there is! I am trying to do the volumetrics + eat only real food, no preservatives or artificial sweeteners. It is a completely different way of thinking for me, but it makes so much sense! Good job everyone on your weight loss!

Hello to you all,

my books for the Volumetrics system have just arrived and I am ready to start next week.

I was browsing Jenny Graig's page about her diet, when I found a tiny mentioning that her diet was based (licensed out) by B. Rolls, the volumetrics system.

So I figured I will go right to the source and here I am still trying to figure out everything and reading the book (s).

For me it is a bit hard to read, because I am thinking in kg and cm

Well, will be around and I am sure will have lots of questions in the beginning.


Have lots of luck with loosing weight,

later,
Les

Good luck Les- this is a good time of year to start because all the fresh fruits and veggies will be coming in! Add some daily movement and you'll see progress quicker!

Thanks ArtCat,

my problem is, I am a dog walker for the local Shelter and I walk my *** off, or should I say I should, since it is still trailing along behind me.
So I am a pretty active person, and I also do not eat fats, at least not the ones you would spread on bread or use in cooking.
My problem at the moment is, I am skipping veggies most the time, and only eat fruit sporadically.
I am sure that is it, so I will change.


To ALL
What do you think of the Fiber One Cerial (57% Fiber)? Any good?
I eat it at the moment, but it tastes kind of sweet to me.

Chears Les

Les, Glad to have you checking in here. I'm a bit on the rabid side of volumetrics and really love talking about food densities and such. Huge fan of B Rolls.

You asked about Fiber One. I looked up the nutrition facts and saw that a 1/2 cup has 2 g protein, 14 g dietary figer, and 10% DV calcium. For me, I like the higher protein processed food such as Kashi cereal (Go Lean, 1/2 c, and Go Lean crunch, 1/3 c) with low-fat plain yogurt and fresh fruit. I'm focusing on high calcium items with each meal because I'm female, in my forties and also nursed or was pregnant for a long time.

I really thought the veggies that Volumetrics promoted was a crock but gave it a shot that first month of my weight loss last year. I did the pasta/veggie switch--decreasing pasta amount with increasing veggie. I'm now a big pro at the switch. Keeping my favorite meals but increasing veggies to over flow. I eat four times a day and track calories in a daily written journal noting which of the five food groups each serving gives me.

Last year, I worked about 8 1/2 months to lose over 35 pounds. I did the same thing last year (4 meals, calorie tracking) with each meal about 300-350 calories for a total of 1200-1400 calories per day. I over did the exercise a bit last year (my knees are shot but hopefully not permanently) and now have to lose my remaining pounds with careful eating and safe exercising.

We don't own a car and I have to travel our small city a lot so I have been a huge walker and biker. I kept waiting for the weight to come off because I was such a walker and then also biking more and more. But I found that I never did walk or bike enough (and people always considered me very active) to ever lose weight. I ended up tracking (then reducing to the 1,200 to 1,400 level) my food consumption and adding aerobic exercise about four times a week. I'd hoped that that calorie and aerobic exercise was just for the weight loss part of my lift. But now I figure that once I'm really in my maintenance phase, I'll pretty much have to stick with the same plan of aerobics 3-4 times a week, volumetric meals of 350-400 calories, and keeping all that walking and biking.

What are some your your favorite high veggie yet totally scrumptous meals and snacks?

Hi iaradajnos,

I am female as well

I have been doing the diet for two weeks now and lost 8.8 pounds.
I am still not sure what I am doing, but it works. Sure wish, that the recipes would taste better.
Today I made the Pasta Primevera and all I can say is YUCK! Eatable, but no real taste to it.

Since I did not get around to read more than a few pages, I still have to catch up with that. Maybe I can do it when I am on vacation. For now I am trying to eat as little fat as I can, and stay low with calories and eat lots of veggies and fruit.
So you see, I need lots of help.

Being original from Germany, I am used to lots of meat and sauces with starchy sides. Have lived a long time in Italy, I also like the Mediterranean food.
So I am easy with food as long there is not so much spinach in it

Thanks for the help about the Fiber one cereal. I will try something you suggested.

Is there a website where there are more recipes for the volumetric diet?

Thanks Les

I've been able to keep most of my favorite recipes just by adjusting them a bit. Any meat gets switched to a lower fat meat and decreased usually by at least half. Veggies get increased so that they're at least half of the meal, and the starches get switched to whole grain or healthier options and also reduced. Any fats have been switched to canola or olive oil, and for right now I pretty much avoid and cream-type stuff, although there are options there, too.
A surprising find for me was TVP (Textured Vegetable Protein)- it looks like dried soy crumbles. You rehydrate it with any flavor of liquid that you like and then use it instead of browned ground meats. It's great in spaghetti sauce, chili, etc, and you can even use it to make burgers, although that takes quite a bit of added flavors to make it palatable.
I try many new things- next on my list is Tofu Shirataki noodles as a substitute for pasta noodles- ED of .177. That suggestion is from the Hungry Girl books/website.
Les- you Mediterranean food background will be very useful for you, because that style of eating is much healthier than many others (especially American). Too bad you don't like spinach, though. I'm assuming you don't like either cooked or fresh? It's pretty useful to put in stuff.

ArtCat: I think you mentioned the TVP and I meant to remember it the next time I went shopping at Whole Foods.

It reminds me of when our family went to a family retreat that rented an functioning monastary in Maine. We ate cafeteria-style and got our food on trays served by "lunch ladies" who must be local Maine ladies working the kitchen. My hubby's Hindu so beef is completely "off the table" (har har har). When getting the dinner for the four of us (hubby, two little kids, and me), I asked for the "vegetarian" option. It looked like it had TVP so I got us all some. While eating it, my husband was convinced it was meat but I was just as convinced it was that "weird vegetarian stuff we haven't ever had". He wanted me to ask so I went up to the little old lunch lady and asked about what was in the vegetarian dinner. "Oh, vegetables, ground beef, and noodles," she happily responded probably thinking my next question was to ask for the recipe. I just about died since I had to report to my Hindu spousy that I'd just fed him ground sacred animal. Ewww. Apparently, remote Maine people think "vegetarian" means lots of vegetables.

As for your strategies for keeping dishes that are favorites, I have done the same. Over time, I have really watched the calories and nutrition of various food items in a favorite dish. So, a sauce I bought would eventually be made from scratch then eventually I'd switch to extremely flavorful ingredients to save calories without a sauce.

For example, I have eaten sub sandwiches with mayo but this year I switched out mayo for tons of pickles. I then started adding ground pepper to the sub for more flavor. I'd eat the left over veggies after the sub was done--basically lettuce, tomatoe, and peppered pickles. I'm now enjoying salads with no dressing made up of chopped pickles covered in ground pepper topping shredded lettuce, tomatoes, and soybeans. Weird but it's really yummy. I now have become that strange vegetarian who practically lives of lettuce.

For recipes, I think you might look back in "summertime" and "volumetrics" for various people's offerings of favorite items.

I really hope to keep us talking about how things are going and food ideas.

ArtCat-
Thanks for letting me know about TVP, I do like meats, but never did eat many. I got my hubby on the diet as well and he is a big meat eater. I will try it on him if I can find it.
Btw, are you flavoring it with beef broth and such or something else?

I wonder, do you guy's know Meatless Bocca Products? I have been using them off and on even before volumetrics.
What do you think?

iaradajnos-
woops, I can't believe they gave your hubby beef .


To All-
I found out that I like veggies a lot better with Indian spices like Curries and such. Also they make it a bit spice without being to much.
I just wish the price of the veggies would go down a bit, I spend a fortune on produce.
I can't believe I lost more weight!!!!! I am now down to 234.3pounds

In a few moments I will have my fibre one (box has to be emptied) cereal and my 1/2 cup Smart Balance Fat Free Milk with added omega 3s & Vitamine E.
Don't know if it is any good, but it's no fat and the taste is great
For Lunch i will take the same I made last night. Chickpea Curry (without the spinich). I don't do sports other than walking the dogs and walking back and forth all day in the Shelter it self. So I do get a workout
In that heat and moisture on the air here in the south, I also have a steam bath, or some would say simmer in my own juices LMAO

Thinks to think about:
I love my simple Tzatziki sauce.
So I will see what it tastes like with fat-free yogurt instead of Greek yogurt.
This sauce can be used on just about everything on bread, in salads and defiantly on meat, just not on chicken
I will experiment around and if it tastes okay, I will post the recipe if you are interested.

Also, what do you think of me collection all the mentioned recipes in to a pdf or doc file, which I can host and have a link on her for new peeps like myself to download?

Just a thought.....

Forgive me if my English sucks, I never went to school for it, just picked it up on the go so to speak LOL "Thank god for spell checkers