I have a really good feeling about tomorrow's weigh in because of all the walking I did this past week, and because of the difference I can see in how my clothes fit. Yesterday I was laying on my back on the couch with my legs hanging off the edge and "Temptation" came up, pulled on the waist-band of my pants and said "geez" in response to how loose they are.
Yesterday at the gym as I was stretching I realized that my pants felt like they'd slipped down so I tucked my thumb in the waist to pull them up and got nothing but undies, then realized that my actual pants were a good inch lower on my hips than I had originally realized. Luckily I was wearing a long enough shirt to cover so no one saw anything, that I know of, but it's quite clear I'm going to have to either invest in a belt or do some home-style tailoring and take the pants in a bit to improve the fit.
I'm going to try making home-made chicken scallopini this week but I am going to try to tweak the recipe so that it's healthier. I won't really know for sure if that's do-able until I go to the store and do some label reading but the first step is to cut the amount of butter in half (at the very least), and eliminate the heavy cream from the sauce entirely. I'm trying to come up with some kind of flavorful liquid idea to replace the butter and cream I'm cutting out that is healthier ... right now I'm thinking chicken stock but if anyone has any better ideas please toss them my way. The sauce uses lemon so whatever liquid I use it needs to be able to offset and compliment the lemon juice. Of course the obvious solution is to just use less sauce entirely, which I will be doing on my own portion but "Temptation" likes to drown his food in sauces, hence the brain storm. I'm also going to bake it in extra virgin olive oil instead of sauteing it in butter and flower and, if I can find them, I want to use whole wheat or spinach noodles instead of regular flour noodles.
Tonight I made home-made chicken, veggie, and rice stir-fry. Figuring calories wasn't as hard as I thought it would be on home made food when my own hands were doing the making. I counted everything that went into the dish in cups, added up the calories for all ingredients, and then divided the total number of cals by the total number of cups.
Food:
2 glasses of water
1 cup of coffee w/creamer
1 cup shredded carrots w/pomegranite dressing
1 pack Newton's Fruit Crisps
1 pack whole wheat pita chips
2 cups chicken, veggie, rice stir-fry
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Daily Caloric Intake: 833
Activity:
40 minutes cooking (on feet, active cooking)
20 minutes cleaning (dishes, counters)
If you normally make a sauce with a rue..butter,flour and cream or milk and want to make it healthier you can get rid of the butter completly. Buy low sodium chicken stock and use corn starch as your thickener or just use less butter and use milk instead of cream.
ReplyDeleteEven though I have not been having huge numbers on the scale I too have been not only seeing it in the mirror but in my clothes too. I have Jeans that I am wearing that I could not. I put a pair on the other day and I was not going to wear them I was going to wear stretch pants but I told Jack I might as well because summer will be here before long and I wont be able to wear any of my jeans that I have next winter. Kinda sad about that since I have a lot of jeans that I like!!!
First, let me start by I'm excited by the good successes you've been having! I don't comment on every success, but I read about them -- good job, you! :)
ReplyDeleteSecond, this is not meant as a criticism or challenge -- I am just asking an honest question. I've noticed for the last several days quite a few days of very-low intake... sub-1000 calories. Sometimes you are more up there around 1400 calories. I'm curious, are you doing that caloric-cycling I mentioned a few weeks backs??? If not, that's kewl -- just sort of looks like maybe you are. I didn't advise doing sub-1000 calorie-days every-other day -- are you intending to do that, or just been having "off" days recently on accident??? If you are intending it, I'm not trying to be critical/challenging -- just curious as to why... wondering if you've come to a conclusion and/or learned new facts that maybe I could glean???
I haven't done it yet, but theoretically I'm a fan of low-calorie regimens such as the caveman-diet and the (for lack of a proper name, cuz I don't know of one) super-low-calorie-diet-that-has-been-shown-to-prolong-quality-life-diet. Just wondering if maybe this is your version of that or something???
In other words, I'm curious about what you're doing and whether or not it's been intentional.
Originally the low calorie days wasn't intended to be cycling, I've just been uninterested in food and making healthier choices. When I make healthier choices I find it difficult to eat as many calories as usual because the healthier calories fill me up faster and sustain me longer. However, once I realized what was going on I did decide to have a day or two that were a bit higher than the rest because I saw it as the perfect opportunity to try cycling exactly as you had suggested and, based on this week's weigh-in, it TOTALLY WORKED! 5.5 LBS LOST!!!! *Doing the happy dance all the way to the gym tonight*
ReplyDeleteI think the super low calorie thing you're referring to is the HCG diet. I could be wrong but it's the first one that comes to mind. I'm against it because it calls for forcing 500 calories per day right off the bat and I don't think this is practical, sustainable, or healthy. Being able to eat less than 1,000 calories without feeling deprived and miserable when I first started counting would have been impossible. But now after more than 60 days of simply being aware of what I'm eating and how it will affect my hunger pains, eating less than 1,000 calories almost seems natural to me.
Renea: I am glad to see you, I was worried about ya because I hadn't seen you here or on your blog for a few days. Chicken stock and corn starch sounds like the way to go, I think with the lemon and capers it will be every bit as delicious as a rue and, honestly, my favorite scallopini sauce is the one they have at Mimi's which doesn't use cream at all.
ReplyDeleteWhat are your thoughts on hollandaise? Do-able or pure evil?
I have NEVER in my life made or eaten hollandaise..I think it is egg yolks..But other then that I have no idea. Sorry I wish I could be more help with that one.
ReplyDeleteOh, glad to hear your cycling-experiment has been successful! :)
ReplyDeleteI was not talking about the HCG-diet -- however, it should be noted that it somewhat of a misconception that the HCG diet restricts you to a mere 500 calories/day. That misconception is based on a fundamental misunderstanding of how the HCG diet works. I haven't tried the HCG, so my knowledget of it is purely theoretical -- but I did look into it a fair amount and even read a book about it. The fact of the matter is that the HCG diet is based on a hormone extracted from pregnant women that helps pregnant women burn their fat-stores in order to supply additional calories to their baby and still get enough for their own nutrition as well. When HCG is present in the bloodstream you are able to consume only 500 calories in food/day because the hormone is releasing around 2500 calories/day from your fat-stores -- therefore, in reality, you are actually "consuming" around 3000 calories/day. Like I said, my info. is theoretical -- whether the diet is actually successful with the average person is something that I am not sure about. But to be sure, it's not a diet based merely on controlling one's intake of calories... you are actually getting more calories than you need, just not from food.
The low-calorie diets I was referring to, however, are based on a lot more scientific and historical evidence. The basis for the scientific-based ones has been shown to "improve age-related health and to slow the aging-process in a wide range of animals", including current human studies (which are incomplete due to our long lifespans) that are showing positive results. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calorie_restriction
The basis for the historical-based ones is research and observation of the paleolithic-man's dietary habits which, among other factors, includes going for long stretches of time ingesting little-to-no-food (but with copious amounts of water) and then eating a large meal of primarily natural, whole foods. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caveman_diet
http://www.cavemanpower.com/food/caveman_power_diet.html
Either way you cut it, I'm glad to hear the cycling is working out for you -- and I'm super-glad to hear about your 25#'s!!!
:D