I’ll tell you, I am in love with the ceramic knife Jane gave me for Christmas. Got some little steaks, used that knife—cuts more efficiently than a razor: just draw it across the steak and instant slices; did a stirfry with bean sprouts, Teriyaki Sauce, sugar snap peas, sunflower seed and a few almonds. The ricotta cream for dessert. Breakfast of 2 egg omelet, with 2 Canadian bacon pieces; lunch of salad with vinegar and oil and mozzarella. Off comes the weight.
The next 3 pounds won’t likely be as cooperative. But persistence and the like of that diet will do it. You have to dispose of 6 cups of veggies each per day, and keep fat low and avoid starch nearly entirely. That’s the essence of it. I am here to tell you stairs are easier, and getting into and out of cars is easier, and I’m feeling it.
I’m also much more cheerful since I got on the higher thyroid dose. The miasma of gloom has dissipated. Took a few days, but I’m starting to feel like me again.
You gals will be ready for P90X now. =) Actually I highly recommend it. My wife started doing it and its a love/hate thing. I’m very happy for you that you found something that is really working!
what is this px 90 of which you speak? Can we eats it, yesss, preciousss?
By the pricking of my thumbs,
Something wicked this way comes.
By the tick’ling of my toes,
‘Tis a Spokane Trader Joe’s.
http://www.spokesman.com/stories/2011/feb/16/trader-joes-construction-awaiting-permits/
To be sure, TJ’s has some decadent stuff, like more wine and cheese that WC Fields and Wallace could keep up with. But they also have stuff like Tuna in Green Curry $1.49, 7oz, 24g protein, 230 Cal. Red curry at the same price for those wishing throat sterilization.
I find it’s the potatoes and starch and grain and carbs that do me in. The meat is fine.
(My loquaciousness appears to be due to the TJ’s Coffee à Cocoa I sampled. Or some Two Buck Chuck–probably $3 in WA–transportation costs.)
lol—we loves curries! We can’t have rice, but using steamed broccoli stem shreds as noodles works!
Try that weird veggie, Spaghetti Squash, as a base instead of rice.
I’m going to have to do something about my dietary habits. DH has been attempting to get out of pre-diabetic territory, and found an app he loaded onto his iTouch: Carb Counter. This works great for him, and he has managed to drop 20 pounds (Yay!), but even though I am eating the same diet (with the exception of the PB&J at lunch), my weight is staying about the same. It’s driving me nuts, especially since he is a picky eater and I’ve tried to find foods that he will eat while staying inside the dietary boundaries. I don’t like the thought of having to go do all broccoli, all the time, but that may be the trend!
Glug. First step is get the thyroid checked, if you can’t lose weight, to be sure you’re not swimming against the current: simple blood test. But beyond that, it’s the veggies. I was a confirmed meat and potatoes person, and found as I got older, that just wouldn’t fly.
I hated veggies. Really, really hated veggies. But after eating huge amounts of them since September, I’m beginning to actually crave them. Apparently the bod has figured out it ‘wants’ certain things the veggies have, and will do a craving to get them. Which is a good thing.
I’m really not too fond of broccoli: I do really like brussel sprouts.
My last blood work came back “completely normal”, so I dunno. If the Dr. didn’t specify looking for thyroid trouble, would that have appeared anyway (really hate the thought of repeated blood tests)?
I wish I could find half the stuff I like in anything but the Birds-Eye or Green Giant packets that are $4 each! Yes, even brussels sprouts and limas!
Can you get Pict-Sweet? I’ve found them very good. As for brussels sprouts, I can’t stand frozen ones and always buy fresh.
I have no problems whatsoever prepping or eating the veggies, it’s the matter of getting them! You would not believe the shenanigans I had to go through to get a boring old round purple turnip, and Brussels sprouts are an alien concept around here. OTOH, it’s quite easy to get fresh or frozen edamame (soy beans), bitter melon, lotus root, okra, pak choy. I make a mean pinakbet (which DH won’t touch)!
Actually the ‘normal’ standard has changed considerably in the last few years. I took that info and headed for an endocrinologist, as the person likeliest to know same; and he was dubious when he took me on. I swore on a stack of whatevers that I had 9 out of 10 of the symptoms of deficiency, so he said let’s try it. Turns out I was in the early stages of whatever I’ve got, and I’m now on 2-3 times the dose I started with, so I’m real glad I pushed it. I feel like my old self when I’m on it—lower than a snake’s belly when I’m low in the stuff.
I swear to you, the real veggies are no more trouble to fix than the frozens: just put 2 tbs of water in a sealed vessel and microwave. In the case of Brussel sprouts, raw is actually faster to cook than frozen!
My wife and I are mad fans of roasted Brussels sprouts:
Trim stalk ends, remove any yellow leaves. Toss with a bit of olive oil and kosher salt, and spread on a cookie sheet which has been lined with aluminum foil. Roast at 400 degrees 35 to 40 minutes, shaking pan 2 or 3 times during the cooking to even out the browning process. They can be cooked a bit faster if you halve them before roasting.
It just doesn’t get any easier, and these are yummy–nutty and crisp on the outside, and just a bit al dente inside.
P90X is a highly-hyped DVD daily workout regimen featuring “muscle confusion”. I think every sports radio talk jock is on the program/payroll. I believe that it is fairly intense, and probably works quite well if you stick with it.
One thing I don’t know is how much exercise equipment/farkles you need to have. Or if you just go to the gym and do the routine there.
The DVD’s probably taste like nasty nasty lembas (gollum, gollum).
looking at what you have been saying about the body’s craving for things, I am convinced that hunter gatherers were won over to growing cereals for 2 reasons (in N Europe and the UK)
a, once they tasted carbs, which their diet previously was not high in, except for hazelnuts and roots, they could not resist the craving. imagine being able to eat bread suddenly!
b, beer!
otherwise, why would they? we know their diet was healthier before, and they didn’t have population explosions, nor did they destroy their wild environment. we know now that the neolithic was not achieved by an invasion of farmers, but by social change. I think the body’s biochemistry and human appetites must account for the changes. once farming got going and populations expanded there was no going back!
gotta be beer!
Yes, you would have to add a lot of spices and other stuff to cover the taste of broken up DVD stuff, whatever they are made of. 😉
I didn’t actually follow the regimen for P90X, we just did a few of the DVDs while I was deployed and got hooked. I really believe that if you follow their program it will work for anyone, but diet is just as important as exercise on these things. I would also recommend lots of water intake and no diet sodas. The body is a funny thing, some of the dietary sugar substitutes the body will react to just like sugar and stop the weight loss. Skating is good exercise too, I’m not knocking it.
I’m back to trying to loose the 7 pounds I gained over the winter months, and my wife is starting to like the Pliometrics DVD and the AB Ripper DVD, so I’ve been doing those with her. Our base gym has the DVDs too, so I can workout there occasionally. I can’t wait for the weather to improve so I can start running outside again.
We don’t drink diet soda at all—Jane will, with Captain Morgan, but not otherwise, as a general rule: the fact the carbonation plays hob with calcium and bones is persuasive for us. Plus it puffs you up like a toad. And I don’t like carbonation in the first place. From childhood, I’d rather drink flat Coke than fizzy. Our only exception is Champagne, which doesn’t have the Alka-Seltzer taste that soft drinks do, to my palate.
The first thing we did was cut out all sodas from the diet. The only concession I make is the flavored seltzer waters with no sweetener, just lemon, lime, etc. Even that I try to go lightly on, because they have a surprising amount of sodium. If I’ve spent a couple of hours on yard work, I will drink Gatorade, the lo-cal version, in addition to water. Otherwise, I get a weird little tremble in my hands, which I attribute to sweating like a pig.
Jane got this weird stuff called E-lyte on the internet, a liquid which you add to whatever you think will cover the taste, which can seem sort of salty. It’s Gatorade in a bottle, 1 bottle serves, oh, 30 people. It’s also a decent hangover cure—if you have had Champagne in excess some evening.
Bought sunflower seeds today under the power of suggestion from some author lady…. Mmm, ’twill be good in salads. Will try it in a stir fry, though no sugar snap peas on hand, unless I go to the store again.
The sugar free drink mixes like Crystal light are not bad in a bottle of water. If I’m not mistaken Aspartame is one of the sugar substitutes that won’t affect your diet.
Ooohhh, recipe time: Portuguese Bean Soup!
Soak half a bag of navy beans overnight, changing the water at least once. You can use the whole bag if desired.
Simmer a couple of ham hocks or a meaty ham bone in a half gallon of water at least 2-3 hours, until whatever meat remains is falling off the bone. If I have extra ham broth, in it goes as well.
Dice up 3 stalks of celery, 3 carrots, one potato, one onion (CJ and Jane, omit; it won’t suffer) and add it to the pot. Throw in a tsp of red pepper flakes, a couple of chopped cloves of garlic, and a can of chopped tomatoes. A cup of chopped cabbage is optional.
Throw in the soaked and drained beans and let the whole thing simmer for a couple more hours, until the beans are soft. You may need to add more broth or water if the beans slurp up too much.
I usually chop up a Portuguese sausage and throw it in for the last half hour if there isn’t enough meat in the mix.
Eat straight, or over rice, or with biscuits or rolls, as your diet allows.
mmmm. We do something similar with a leftover ham-bone: a spiral sliced ham leftover end does great as the meat in a pot of navy beans!
Back before I knew I had an onion allergy, the family recipe was ham/bean soup with a fresh red sweet onion diced, with a dollop of mustard; and a side of cornbread cooked in bacon drippings. That’s probably colorfully described at Dobies Diner as ‘pig with a heart attack!’
The local ‘heart attack’ is a Loco Moco: 2 scoop rice, a hamburger patty (with or without fried onions), a fried egg on top of that and brown gravy over all. Cholesterol bomb!
Oooh… I was thinking this evening as I examined the kail in the fridge that I should make soup this weekend and Chondrite has convinced me. I love bean soups and I think I will play around with that recipe and add some chopped kail to boot!
Hmm, I know I have lentils on hand and possibly chickpeas / garbanzos, since I don’t have any navy beans on hand. But that Portuguese ham and bean soup sounds very good. Maybe next week’s grocery trip.
Couldn’t find sugar snap peas at the store. What the heck? They usually have them fresh or frozen. So I’ll use the bean sprouts for salad or a nice stirfry, meanwhile. I must’ve overlooked the snap peas, but I thought I was careful. Oh well, next time.
Joe, those roasted Brussels sprouts sound great and simple. I’ll try that next time I fix us some.