Thursday

Discovery of the day: Quick ways to lose weight

In the last year or so I've discovered two really quick ways to lose a couple of pounds.

Method A: Discover your husband is having an affair. (Note: I don't recommend this)

Method B: Get a virus that kills your appetite and make you and poop a lot. (Apologies for the oversharing.)

Method A was good for almost 15 lbs in two weeks and lasted about six months before it all came back. So far, Method B has been good for a pound or so. I'm actually much happier with Method B, since it broke me through my first goal. It's A Very Important Pound.

If I can stay motivated, I'm hoping this particular pound won't come back.

Bad joke of the day:

A: What's a quick way to permanently lose 275 lbs?
B: Method A.

Sorry -- must be the virus talking.
;)

Wednesday

Discovery of the day: Falafelicious!

I'd had this hankering for falafel ever since I saw the recipe in my Moosewood Cookbook a couple of weeks ago.

I decided to try cooking dried chickpeas to see if the texture would be different than canned. Got that done earlier in the week. I had to hang around the house yesterday morning to wait for the furnace guy so I took that opportunity to put together the "batter". Screw the "hand-mashing"; I used the food processor and it was done in nothing flat. I stuck the bowl in the fridge and came in to work, pleased that I A) knew what we were having for dinner that night and B) had already started it. Both are rare experiences for me.

Once I got to work, I started thinking that frying the falafel probably wouldn't aid me in reaching my goal, so I poked around on the Web and found a couple of recipes for baked falafel. 350 deg. for 20 mins? Sure, why not.

They came out... OK. Flavor was good but the texture was... eh. It couldn't have been too bad -- my son actually ate it (dipped in mayo) -- but dammit, I wanted the fried crunchy goodness. The tahini sauce I made rocked, though. And next time I'm using canned chickpeas. I can't see where the texture of the cooked dried beans was any different. And if there was a difference, it certainly wasn't worth the 3-4 hours it took me to cook them.

I scooped the rest of the falafel into little mounds and froze them on a cookie sheet. I'm going to throw them into a zip-top bag and keep them in the freezer until I'm ready to try again. And yes, next time they will be fried.

In other news, my solid 6 lb loss is holding. I'm fighting a headache and some... intestinal upset today. Hope that's a temporary aberration and not the sign of a virus to come!
 

Tuesday

Discovery of the day: Patience, grasshopper

As I got on the scale this morning and noted a solid 6 lb total loss, I reflected a bit on yesterday's post. Yeah, I'd love to see spectacular 10+ lb loss in three weeks, but christ on a cracker (whole grain), I only have about 15 total to lose. And I'm not exercising at all. What am I complaining about?

If I was 30 lbs overweight, eating fast food three times a week, drinking a couple of adult beverages a day, snacking on things that come sealed in crunchy bags, and cooking full-fledged banquets (or decorating cakes - I used to do that) on the weekend; yeah, I'd expect to see a huge drop in poundage upon stopping those behaviors.

But I wasn't, so I didn't.

My dietary habits were OK -- half&half addiction aside -- just not quite OK enough to keep my weight down in the absence of just about any physical activity. I need to remind myself that a solid 6 lbs in three weeks is a success, especially since I can now wear my jeans without hurting myself.
 

Monday

Discovery of the Day: Proper pomegranate attire

I found out on Saturday that disassembling a pomegranate with a white shirt on is a bad idea. I now have a white shirt with pink spots. I think Shout will get them out, though.

Other things I learned this weekend is that the novelty of The Plan has worn off, I haven't lost any more weight (holding at 5-6 lbs), and when you're out and about on a Saturday afternoon with a young child, it's really hard to find something to eat that doesn't violate The Plan in one or more ways.

Saturday afternoon I took my son to the symphony. I mis-timed lunch so by the time we got out after 3 pm we were starved. Luckily I had brought some peanuts for him to eat during intermission but they had long since worn off by the end of the concert. Got down to the ferry terminal and bought my son McD's (hey, he likes it) and I figured I could find something do-able upstairs at the World Wraps place.

Well, I was too hungry and tired to try to make sense of their huge menu so I ordered the first vegetarian wrap I saw, teriyaki tofu with rice and a few veggies. Luckily I ordered a small. It filled the hole, but there was a lot of really sweet sauce and barely any veggies. If I had had the presence of mind to stand there another minute I probably could have found something salad-based. I hope it was a better choice than McD's but I wouldn't bet on it.

Sunday was kind of an off day overall. Lots of cravings for I don't know what. I did some housecleaning (which may have contributed to my mood). I should have gone to the store since I was out of a lot of my staple fruits but blew it off. I got the bright idea to try to make falafel for dinner, but the chickpeas took longer to cook than I'd planned so I ended up reheating some veggie stew I had in the freezer and served it over whole wheat noodles. My son ate it but wasn't thrilled. And I didn't feel like eating a BAS so I skipped it.

I should count how many heads of romaine I've prepped in the 3 weeks or so. Theoretically I eat ~1/2 head/day but I don't always hit that goal. Still, I could probably call it 12 heads so far and not be far off. Plus I bought two more today. I know for a fact that's more lettuce than I cleaned (let alone ate) for 2007 total. Wow.

I've not made much progress on my list of go-to, kid-friendly dinners. I've got pseudo-Mexican (pintos & rice & guacamole w/a cheese quesadilla for my son, over lettuce for me), egg drop soup, and tofu & veggie stir fry. And once a week we do Mom's Diner, where we each get to pick what we want.

That's not a very long list.

Yeah, I'm feeling closer to "down" than "up" today, but I'm still eating my BAS for lunch. If I pay a little more attention to my oil intake, I bet I can get the scale moving again. Or I could just start walking at lunch time but I doubt that's going to happen before spring.
 

Thursday

Discovery of the Day: Too much tofu...

...annoys the boy.

I managed to crank out a stir fry last night. I used a bag of frozen stir-fry vegs (learned that frozen baby corn and water chestnuts taste better than canned), about half a head of bok choy, and some bean sprouts. And I put in a whole lb of pressed tofu, cut into 1" cubes. After eating five or six pieces my son announced "I don't like tofu."

Actually he does like tofu, he just doesn't like a freakin' half-pound of tofu.

Notes for next time: Press and marinate the tofu ahead of time. I pressed but didn't have time to marinate last night. Use only 1/2 lb tofu (duh!) Find a better sauce. I used Mark Bittman's recommendation from "How to Cook Everything", which is just chicken stock and soy sauce, and it was... underwhelming. I need to re-read the recipe -- maybe I missed something.

I have the rest of the stir fry with me today, to reheat and throw on top of the other half a head of bok choy plus romaine for lunch.

Speaking of romaine, I didn't have a BAS with my dinner. I feel slightly guilty.

I haven't lost any this week, but it is PMS week so I'm hopeful that my body will catch up soon.
 

Wednesday

Discovery of the day: Uh...

So far it feels like I've been at a dead run all week. I have to keep reminding myself that it's only Wednesday. Yesterday after work I went to the chiropractor so my son had dinner at his dad's. By the time I got home, took out the garbage and recycling (it was Garbage Eve), brought in my groceries, and prepped a seemingly never-ending pile of FFV, I barely had enough time to eat my default BAS (romaine w/marinated beans and avocado) before dashing out to pick up my boy. Not a lot of time left to discover new things.

However, I have made progress on slightly altering my son's diet. For breakfast, his "usual" for the past 4 (or more?) years has been an Eggo Nutrigrain waffle with maple syrup. A week or so ago I, ahem, accidentally ran out of waffles, so he's cheerfully shifted to either Cheerios or shredded wheat with rice milk, or a piece of peanut butter toast, along with a piece of fruit (usually the other half of my banana or a little satsuma orange) and maybe a small glass of soy milk. I'll call that a success.

Next thing is to work on his veggie consumption at dinner. Historically I've been fairly lazy about providing veggies w/dinner -- just one more thing to deal with and it's easier to just not. But I need to work on closing the gap between what he eats and what I eat or I'm going to be producing two dinners when I can barely garner the mental energy for one.

Luckily, he's pretty tolerant for a kid. I can give him various bean & veggie soups (I do use chicken stock) and a piece of bread and he's happy. He likes steamed broccoli (yay!) but isn't big on salads. He will eat cabbage, stir-fried or slaw. So it shouldn't be too bad. And once in awhile it's fun to play "Mom's Diner" where we each get to choose what we want. On those rare occasions I'm not averse to pulling out a Blue Box for him, although he does have to eat either peas or mixed vegs (the frozen ones) along with it.

In reality it's probably more about training me than him. Ain't that usually the case?
 

Tuesday

Discovery of the day: Surviving TDM

By the time my son & I left the dentist office yesterday afternoon there wasn't much mental energy left to spend on cooking. My boyfriend suggested we go out to Taco Del Mar. OK, I figured they had lettuce and beans there so I could probably find something to eat.

I ended up getting a Cabo Salad with pinto beans instead of meat and no cheese. I also had them put guacamole on it. :)

Verdict: Not bad. It contained a decent amount of lettuce, and between the pintos and the black bean & corn salsa, I felt like I had plenty to eat. The only downside was that the guacamole was really salty.

I've eaten there regularly for awhile and haven't noticed that problem before so hopefully it was a random thing. But the scale didn't like all that salt! I've been generous with the water today so I'm sure all will be well tomorrow.

I'm kind of at a loss for other fast food places to try. I can't bear to eat a limp, smelly McDonald's salad, and salad bars generally seem to be a thing of the past. If there was a place called Big-Ass Salads, I'd be there!