I attend my food class Friday...any advice? Will I be making big changes as far as in my kitchen?

The biggest change for my from pre-conditioning was the fact that you're not allowed to have any potatos, rice, pasta, or carrots any more (and from what I understand they won't be allowed until some time in to or after stabilization). Be ready for LOTS of veggies!! I totally wasn't prepared for the serving sizes of raw veggies/salads. I was moved to the green menu today and you're required 8 oz of raw or 4 oz. of cooked for lunch/dinner. It's sometimes SO overwhelming! Yesterday and today at lunch I actually had to toss the last part of my salad because I physically felt like I was going to get sick. Has anyone else felt this feeling? It's kind of scary.

Lettuce was becoming a problem for me (I even hate washing it...), so now that I can have tomatoes I've made several 'salads' with no lettuce. Just cucumbers, tomatoes, green pepper, celery, etc. I like the Walden Farms 1,000 Island dressing, and for some reason doing without the lettuce has been a really nice break! Cucumbers and tomatoes are heavy enough that it doesn't take nearly as much to get to 8 oz.

And the green menu is either 4 oz cooked or 8 oz raw, so if you're tired of the raw, eat more cooked for a while. That was also a nice change to not have to eat raw at lunch every day.

I'm VERY overwhelmed by vegetables, especially lettuce. It was making me ill, too. I couldn't take eating lettuce anymore, which is unfortunate because it's really the only vegetable I'll eat. Everything else makes me gag.


Anyway, as far as changes during pre-conditioning after food instruction, you're supposed to cut down on sugar, caffeine, cokes, stuff like that. Those things can be difficult to let go of. But it won't last forever.

Hey Noahsmama,
I definitely felt the same way about lettuce - who knew just how much 8 oz of lettuce would amount to - it's huge! The first few salads I made were with L&T only, had no cucs, and it was so big I had to put it in a mixing bowl. I was seriously nauseated eating it with barely any dressing and thought I was going to toss my cookies or veggies rather before I could get to the bottom of the bowl. This seriously turned me off from salads for a while. It became painful to even think about eating my salad at lunch so often that instead I just stopped having it and resorted to cooked veggies instead.

Thankfully I like quite a few cooked veggies - broccoli, cauliflower, yellow squash, zucchini and green beans so these are my staple, I can tolerate the spaghetti squash. Sometimes I'll have 4 oz of raw veggie and 2 oz of cooked as a way to break it up. I've given up on the salad dressing hunt, instead I mix up a salad dressing cruet of vinegar with about 3 tbsp of olive oil, add freshly chopped garlic and italian seasonings and store in fridge. I know I am getting less than 1 tsp of oil per serving when I shake it up and measure out 2 tbsp of dressing for my salad based on the proportions/ratios.

Something else you may want to try is broccoli with "cheese sauce". It would go well with cauliflower as well if anyone is brave enough to try it. I'm on the Beige menu so I have 6 oz of protein, Basically I take 2 oz of cheddar cheese (equiv to 4 oz of reg protein) and 2 oz of cottage cheese. I use a fork to mush the lumps of cottage cheese until fairly smooth, add the cheddar and microwave for 30-45 seconds until creamy and melted. I then dump in my 4 oz of steamed broccoli, stir well and enjoy! This was a fave lunch for awhile b/c it was good and quick. I had to cut it out b/c all the cheese was seriously slowing down the GI Tract and I was afraid it was slowing down my weight loss as well so I've backed off the cheese some :0).

Anyways,
try this out, you might find it to be not so bad!

I too eat the taco salad a few times a week, I love it...I cook up the meat (chicken or bison) on Sunday and freeze in 4oz portions, and I just zap it in the micro and put with salad...I buy the already chopped lettuce for a quick preparation in the morning...I buy and cook all my meat for the week or marinade it on Sunday. I also need a crunch...so I buy the packaged coleslaw and pick out the carrots and mix with a protein and add spray salad dressing, I sometimes chopped an apple and mix it in with the cabbage...easy and good.

Thank you all very much for sharing your tips! It helps newbies such as myself and many others find alternatives. I never was a big salad dressing person so that wasn't a big transition for me. I'm going to try the Green Giant Steamers that someone else mentioned in another thread for another lunch option (instead of salads).

I also will try that 'cheese sauce' and see if I like that. I'm always looking for another way to eat steamed broccoli. I also want to try zucchini.

As far as the 'crunch' for taco salad, someone posted a tip to take the 100 calorie Doritos and eat about half and so I did that and it tasted pretty good. I definitely like that and the 'spaghetti' I cooked last night.

I also tried the 'sloppy buffy's' recipe out of the MRC Cookbook and didn't like it at all. I think what I might do is to brown my bison and just put a little bit of Manwich on it simply for flavor. I know it's not OP, but it would give me another alternative to chicken. As someone else mentioned in another thread, I think I'll be on a 'chicken' strike for a few days because even the thought of it nearly makes me nauseous! Although, my center gave me a chicken lasagna recipe that I really want to try so I may try that one!