Month: June 2011

Late in the week, a little fishie swam up to my doorstep.

Actually it was a big fish, a very big King Salmon fish all the way from Alaskan waters to Dallas courtesy of my folks who wanted to share a little early summer seafood with all of their kids and grandkids who live in Dallas. So….my sibbies and I all had a fabulous treat the likes of which we don’t regularly enjoy (turns out King Salmon who swim all the way fresh from Alaska don’t come cheap!)

Thanks, Mom and Dad for the wonderful gift!

With the help of my four little darlings, I managed to chop this headless fish into steaks for everyone to enjoy. My brother Pete introduced me to the beauty of cedar plank cooking, and I am happy to say that for the first time, I managed to grill fish without overcooking it. Overcooking such a nice fish would have been tragic, no?

We used a little bit of EVOO, garlic, salt, pepper and fresh rosemary….slapped the fishie on the cedar planks

and they cooked up beautifully.

For the first time in over 16 years of marriage I attempted to cook artichokes for us to try…I thought they’d go nicely with our salmon.

Despite following directions to the “T”, my chokes were not nearly done when it was time for us to sit down to supper, so we had to put off tasting them till the next night, but no matter. We had some other leftover veggies on hand which subbed in nicely.

Everyone enjoyed their fish. Some of us loved it so much, we had four helpings’ worth! And still managed to clean our plates!

I gotta say, even if the fishie had NOT been “approved” South Beach fare, we’d have happily dug into such a wonderful supper anyway…in actuality, not only did it fit into our diet, it may be the yummiest meal we’ve had so far in Phase 1!

Day 6 was more eventful than I would have liked, and not because of our South Beach diet. Late in the afternoon, while on the way to purchase a quick drive-through supper for my children, so I could grab eldest son from wrestling camp and allow him to eat/change in the car while we drove across town to his last baseball game of the season, which we’d hoped to enjoy as a family….I had a “fender bender” of sorts. I will not go into detail other than to say this was one of my more traumatic car accidents I’ve been in, and I’ve been in two others which qualified as pretty serious. We are all ok, and the other party involved appears alright, and for this I am incredibly thankful.

The evening didn’t turn out the way we’d planned, and the hour was late when Jay finally returned home with our ballplayer, whom I personally think looks adorable in his uniform, but you can’t tell a 10 year old boy that to his face.

My dear husband was kind enough to bring supper for the two of us since I was in no state to cook.  We each enjoyed a Chipotle burrito bowl, which I hear can actually be more healthy than their salads depending on what you choose to put in yours!

None of their wonderful rice (which we LOVE!), since that’s off limits right now. But we enjoyed chicken or beef (depending on which one of us you talk to), black beans, a sprinkling of cheese, fajita veggies, salsa, and lettuce. Jay nixed the fajita veggies in favor of adding sour cream to his. All very delicious, and even in line with Phase 1 requirements.

Personally for me, after a less than relaxing afternoon, it took an awful lot of willpower to pass up enjoying a relaxing glass of wine with our meal, but I contented myself with water (and a lot of prayer!).

For future reference, a Barbacoa Burrito Bowl at Chipotle with their delicious beef, black beans, cheese, lettuce, and tomato salsa has only 410 calories and 17 grams of fat. This in comparison to their Chicken Salad with chicken, lettuce, black beans, red salsa, cheese and chipotle honey vinaigrette which packs a whopping 720 calories and 41 grams of fat. As most of my readers likely are aware, salad isn’t always the healthier choice!

Day 5 on the beach went well. Since it was Sunday, I had my diet partner around for the second day in a row which is great because we can commiserate  together keep each other accountable to stay on track. After church in the morning, swimming with friends in the afternoon, and a baseball game for our oldest son in the early evening, we wanted something cool and fresh-feeling for supper.

I grabbed some already-cooked shrimp, threw together a garden salad with some fresh veggies and low fat blue cheese, and we reheated our asparagus from Day 2 for our second side. Once again I forgot to take the picture before we began to eat, so you get to enjoy seeing my plate partway full of food!

As you can see from my hastily-snapped photo, we enjoyed cocktail sauce with our shrimp. Which raises the topic of sauces: ketchup and other condiments often have too high of a sugar content to earn the “South Beach” stamp of approval. I purchased a low sugar ketchup to use in making our cocktail sauce

added a goodly amount of horseradish and lemon juice, and voila! we could dip our shrimp!

Last night as we sat down to watch the Mavs win the Championship (YAY Mavs, you ROCK!!), it hit me: no wonder I can lose weight on this South Beach diet: every time I feel an urge to reach for a snack of something I love, I am immediately struck by the thought that “I can’t eat that, because it’s not on the diet!”. ARGH!

Almost everything I would eagerly reach for to snack upon is forbidden for now. I would expect all the sweet stuff to be off limits: the wonderful yummy things like ice cream and cookies, cake, brownies, pancakes dripping with maple syrup, french toast. Sure, ok. The challenge for me with South Beach is that even healthy snacks like fruit, popcorn, wheat crackers and cheese, apple and peanut butter…none of it is allowed right now in Phase 1. I can still have the cheese (low fat) and peanut butter (low fat, no sugar) but they seem sad and lonely without their carb-ful sides/dippers. And so far I have not learned to love veggies and cheese or veggies and peanut butter.

Well, I have learned one thing about myself at least: I enjoy my carbs, and I enjoy my snacking. I think it’s safe to say that both Jay and I are practically fantasizing about the healthy carbs we will finally be able to enjoy again in exactly 9 days (not that we are counting!) once Phase 1 of the diet is complete.

In the meantime, we like what our scales read in the morning, and I am greatly encouraged by feeling like I fit in my clothes again properly. When you are 5’4″, a few extra pounds really do impact you quickly, and they can make everything feel so uncomfortable! I am also thrilled to report that my energy levels continue to feel very, very good even, really much better than they’ve been in months. Almost makes saying “no” to some of my favorite things completely worth it, but I’d be lying if I didn’t admit to being grumpy about missing some of my favorite snackie foods for now. Well, I gotta run…I hear a tomato calling me. DELISH!

Day 4:

We spent Day 4 of South Beach: Phase 1 on the road as we had an out of town funeral to attend in honor of a friend. We left our house shortly after 6 am and returned around 6pm. I commented to Jay that given we planned to be on the road, we probably shouldn’t attempt to hold ourselves too strictly to South Beach, because it would likely prove challenging, and we were already in for a rather long day. Remember how I told you that he has tremendous will-power? He would hear none of my waffling. He responded that of course we were going to stick to our diet, we could absolutely make it work, even if we did plan to spend eight hours of the day in the car, driving!!

So…I am here to tell you that following South Beach on the road is actually doable, at least in our very, admittedly, isolated experience of one day!! Given our tummy troubles from the day before, we limited veggie consumption early in the day. Breakfast consisted of coffee with non fat half ‘n’ half and splenda, plain lowfat yogurt and hard boiled eggs, all of which I packed from home.

For our morning snack we enjoyed a handful of nuts.

I assumed we’d try to find some restaurant for lunch that would serve meat and veggies. As Providence would have it, the flat tire from last week, which had been repaired, began leaking air again during our drive. It had to be repaired before we attempted to drive home. Immediately after the funeral we checked our maps for the closest Discount Tire store, and mapped the location of the nearest restaurant to the store. (Since we’d have to walk to lunch in 100 degree Texas heat, with one of our party still sporting a severely broken toe, something farther away just wouldn’t do.)

And thankfully there was a Wendy’s right next door. Yay!

After looking over their menu (keep in mind NO starchy carbs are allowed these first 2 weeks: that means no bread, nothing with a bread coating on it, and no potatoes) I chose a small cup of chili, a small side salad, and their grilled chicken sandwich minus the bun and sauce (since sugar is out, so is honey mustard). Oh, and I had a lowfat milk. I finished only half my salad and chicken, packing the rest for home. That chili was about the most delicious thing I’d ever tasted!

Jay also had a cup of chili, and opted for one of their Cobb salads.

In all honesty, neither the blue cheese nor the bacon in his salad was lowfat, so he did cheat a bit, but all in all I think we did very well!

Our afternoon snack (the creator of South Beach strongly suggests enjoying both a mid morning and mid-afternoon snack) was again, a handful of nuts. Admittedly, had I found time to pack a cooler we would have had more cold options available as snacks.

We arrived home just in time for supper. To keep things easy, we threw tuna “burgers” on the grill, and I popped a “steam in the bag” pack of Edamame into the microwave. Meanwhile, for our second side, I tried another “South Beach” recipe I have seen in my cookbooks.

Surprise South Beach Mashed “Potatoes”:

Steam or microwave cauliflower until soft. Puree cauliflower in food processor and add butter, half and half, and all spices to taste, mixing to blend. Finish off with a sprinkling of the cheese.

(Notes) I added the thyme and cheese to enhance the flavor of the dish. I also didn’t want to bother with the food processor, so ended up trying first the hand-held mixer, and then the hand-held blender to mash the cauliflower. Small bits of cauli flew all around, so the folks who suggested using the processor seem to have known what they were talking about. Just saying.

Everyone says this recipe “will fool people” into thinking they are eating mashed potatoes. While we did not agree with this conclusion, we really did enjoy this dish, and I will plan to make it again.

I forgot to take a picture before we ate, so had to use the empty box to represent our tuna burgers!

I am happy to report that our tummies did indeed recover from the ickiness of Day 4. We’ll see how we do from here on out.

It’s been a week since my clumsy run-in with my bathroom door jamb and I am still much more bothered than I thought I’d still be at this point by my pesky toe. Never you mind that my new friend, the Orthopedic Surgeon (whom we’ll assume for the sake of argument knows a bit more about broken bones than I) assured me to expect a full six weeks’ time to allow the toe to properly heal. I like to push the envelope a bit. For now, I am contenting myself with having graduated from walking with crutches to gimping around with the help of this bit of glam footwear.

I’ve done alright, but am still in a fair bit of pain. Today the metatarsal which I broke back in 6th grade began plaguing me painfully; I attribute this new ache to the weird way I am walking on my injured foot.

But you don’t want to read all about my aches and pains…

I decided that if I couldn’t work out (envelope-pusher or not, that is absolutely out of the question for now) to help rid myself of these few pesky pounds I’ve acquired, I could do the next best thing: change my eating habits. And so after a bit of research into various diets which span the gamut from crazy fad diet all the way to the simple “Eat Less” (kudos to my awesome brother, Pete who has lost and kept off a significant amount of weight with this ground-breaking method!), I have settled on and begun the South Beach. Yes, ok it might sound a little “2003”, but it seems a fairly reasonable way to knock out a few pounds while still eating in a mostly balanced fashion. Being the smooth talker that I am, I have gotten my darling husband (who has, himself hinted at wanting to drop a few pounds) to jump on board with me, and so as of today we are two days into the first phase of South Beach, aptly termed “Phase 1”.

I won’t bore you with the science and chemistry behind what you are allowed to eat and not eat in the various phases of the diet; suffice to say I think it is sound for the most part, and it is centered around eating the right kinds of carbs and really minimizing sugar for the first couple of weeks. The hardest part of this is foregoing any and all starches which I LOVE LOVE LOVE. Not to mention saying goodbye to alcohol for a full two weeks.

Here is the one observation I have to share at this early stage: in spite of feeling somewhat hungry as I gaze longingly at the Wheat Thins, homemade granola that a sweet friend made us (M, I promise I enjoyed quite alot of it before succumbing to SB!), Cheetos, bread, cookies, ice cream, Triscuits, my wonderful friend Tia…

and so many more delicious things that are, for now, off limits….

That in spite of this, or maybe, because (I am starting to believe), because these things are off limits, I have had more energy yesterday and today than I can recall in a long time. A very, very very LOOOOOOOONG time.  And it has given me pause. I have read over and over about how refined carbs will ultimately lead to blood sugar crashing, and then inevitably, a craving for more of the same. I have never been a gluttonous eater, but I enjoy mostly what I want to enjoy, in moderation. Admittedly, along with the better carbs, there are a fair amount of the more refined variety in my regular diet. Which isn’t a bad thing. BUT….I have been truly amazed at the way my body has responded to the removal of starches. Two days is not nearly enough time to draw huge, sweeping conclusions, but let’s just say I am encouraged to stay the course through the end of Phase 1 and see how I feel after two weeks of eating this way.

For his part, Jay called me during his commute home today and begged me to have some sort of”South Beach approved” snack ready and waiting when he walked in the door or he vowed to eat his steering wheel right then and there. Despite his good-natured whining, my man has way more willpower than I do, so I believe he’ll be a perfect diet partner and either encourage me faithfully or drive me nuts with his ability to “be good”!

I have faithfully taken photos of our suppertime meals in addition to a couple of new recipes I’ve tried and I hope to post recipes and observations as we progress. So for now I will leave you with an iphone pic showing what we enjoyed for supper our first night “on the beach”: grilled pork loin chops, roasted broccoli, and a garden salad.