At Goal & Successfully Maintaining. So Why Am I Doing This All Over Again?
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@AnnPT77 The date hors d’oeuvre sounds amazing! I will definitely try that out!3
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springlering62 wrote: »
Blackstrap molasses can add to smoothie. Specifically blackstrap.
This caught my eye too. My mum was taking this daily to supplement potassium since potassium tablets tend to be high in sodium.1 -
MaggieGirl135 wrote: »@AnnPT77 The date hors d’oeuvre sounds amazing! I will definitely try that out!
Agree.
But, dates are one of those foods I can guzzle and have to steer clear of.
I know you’re vegan @AnnPT77 but there’s a restaurant here who does bacon wrapped dates that are to die for. Two ingredients.1 -
springlering62 wrote: »MaggieGirl135 wrote: »@AnnPT77 The date hors d’oeuvre sounds amazing! I will definitely try that out!
Agree.
But, dates are one of those foods I can guzzle and have to steer clear of.
I know you’re vegan @AnnPT77 but there’s a restaurant here who does bacon wrapped dates that are to die for. Two ingredients.
I'm vegetarian, not vegan, or there wouldn't be cheese in my dates. 😉
I only buy dates when needed for prepping specific foods. I don't keep them around the house, generally.
Quite apart from being veg, I don't much care for bacon. (Heresy, I know.) I liked side pork better, back in the day.0 -
I can't have dates in the house either. Way too yummy. The only time I buy them is when I'm making granola because the recipe uses dates and oranges for sweetening.1
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ridiculous59
Please share your granola recipe!
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New to myfitnesspal and have many pounds to lose. I found this site last night and have binged all yesterday evening and just finished today. Spring, thank you for posting. You are so very talented in so many ways. And yes... this is better than tv as someone else said. Thank you to all the others who have commented. I have book marked and will be lurking around often. So very helpful and Entertaining!9
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@AnnPT77 what brand of blackstrap molasses do you prefer, and where do you buy it?
Of those I've tried, I prefer this one (photo below). It doesn't say "blackstrap" on the front, but does in the ingredients. I've seen it quite a few places hereabouts, but usually buy it at a local health-food-ish grocery store. (I'm in Michigan, it's from Texas, so it's not a local brand, nor a store brand.) There are cheaper brands, and I don't claim to have tried all of them, but I tried quite a feel, found this one tastes best to me.
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springlering62 wrote: »MaggieGirl135 wrote: »@AnnPT77 The date hors d’oeuvre sounds amazing! I will definitely try that out!
Agree.
But, dates are one of those foods I can guzzle and have to steer clear of.
I know you’re vegan @AnnPT77 but there’s a restaurant here who does bacon wrapped dates that are to die for. Two ingredients.
I've made bacon wrapped dates (with an almond in the middle) for finger foods to take to a party. Always very popular and there are never any leftover temptations to bring home.6 -
Volume + Dieting = Epic Fail, right?
Wrong!
Have you discovered volume eating?
It’s possible to eat large volumes of filling, nutritious, enjoyable foods for low calories.
There’s even a huge thread devoted to ideas:
https://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/10563959/volume-eaters-thread/p1
I enjoy mixing bowl sized salads several times a week. Four cups of greens, 3oz carrots, 5 oz radishes, five of cherry tomatoes, and about ten of cucumbers, with some zero cal dressing (or salsa or a quality balsamic) comes to about 125 calories. Bulk it up with some deli meat or grilled chicken, a serving of feta and you’ve got a serious meal for 3-400 calories.
Grilled chicken breast with some Lawry’s or other simple seasoning is a boatload of protein and low calories.
You can eat a whole package of green beans or asparagus for very few calories.
Roasted vegetables can be a low cal feast. (mmmmm beets!) and the chilled leftovers over salad greens the next day is just as good.
BL’s favorite volume eating right now is anything that our Ninja Creami home ice cream maker churns out. While I was gone, he read the quick start brochure, bought a bunch of cans of pineapple in juice and made himself a pint of sorbet every night for 180 calories. (Amazing what they can do when they really want to….)
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My volume treat right now is spaghetti squash with a little salt, pepper, and a very little butter. (Unlike you I really prefer the taste of real butter! But a little goes a long way for me.) A giant pile of spaghetti squash “noodles,” some greens, sliced tomatoes, and a big slab of pork loin comes in at about 400 calories, tastes great, takes forever to eat, and looks colorful and impressive.8
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Another volume eater here. Lunch most days is a bag salad kit. There are lots of choices with different dressings and condiments. I pair that with a protein source like canned chicken or tuna or leftover steak or taco meat.3
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Truth!!!!! I use so little butter or Mayo now compared to before. Too much is just kinda icky.rheddmobile wrote: »… and a very little butter. (Unlike you I really prefer the taste of real butter! But a little goes a long way for me.)
BL made dinner last night so I could do an evening class. Tomato soup with sliced chicken sausage and grilled cheese sandwiches.
He proudly announced “There’s four grams of butter per slice of bread”. The dude is awesome.
BTW we’ve been using the “I Can’t Believe It’s Not Butter Lite” at 35 cal per tablespoon. It tastes just fine and gives you the mouth-feel of something richer.alteredsteve175 wrote: »Another volume eater here. Lunch most days is a bag salad kit. There are lots of choices with different dressings and condiments. I pair that with a protein source like canned chicken or tuna or leftover steak or taco meat.
Bag salads are heaven’s gift to calorie counters. They stay so fresh and I’ve found a brand that doesn’t have that “irradiated” taste. I buy five or six bags at a time. So easy. Just rip open and pour the whole bag into the bowl.
And half a bag with tomato cherries is a quick easy and filling side dish for dinner for well under 50 calories. It’s the only way I can get leafy greens into BL because I’ll prep the salad while dinner is cooking and he eats it on the spot til the rest of dinner is ready.
I have a mini crockpot that’s maybe a quart or quart and a half big. I throw either a couple chicken breasts or a chunk of pork loin in at breakfast, set it for low, and by dinner time I have a pot of easily shredded meat I can season for sandwiches and also as a supplement to the dog’s fry food. Chicken breast and loin are about $2 a pound here so it’s cheap and nutritious for both of us, and buy does he get excited when he sees both of us are eating the same thing! Yeah, we’re a pack!4 -
Oh oh oh! And if you have access to Taylor Farms fresh bagged stir fry kits, they are fresh and fantastic. Most groceries carry them, including kroger, Lidl,Walmart.
I add a few ounces of chicken or tofu and don’t use their sauce unless I have extra calories to play with.
The whole big bag is about 70 calories without their sauce and includes stuff like Brussels sprouts, cabbage, snow peas, carrots. Good stuff!
Instead of their sauce, I use a honey ginger balsamic vinegar. It gives a nice crisp flavor for almost no calories.2 -
Chicken is getting difficult to find in my area (Wisconsin). Visited Florida about 3 weeks ago same thing. Anyone else observing this?. Also tried to get cornedbeef yesterday. Stopped at 2 stores and nothing. What a whacky world this is.
I am a +1 on big salads. I love the crunch of iceberg, but mix about half spinach with it for nutrition. Add some cukes, onions, and boiled egg, turkey or chicken and a very filling meal.1 -
I second the huge salad idea! And I love honey ginger balsamic on it. I buy it by the wine bottle size when I visit the "oil and vinegar" store. I'm also a fan of homemade soups in the cooler weather and always have containers of various types in my freezer. Right now I have some borsht, carrot ginger, cauliflower, and veggie. Our local Walmart sells bags of veggies that are nearing their expiry date for $2. What a deal! I can make a Crock-Pot full of soup and eat massive bowls of it for relatively few calories.0
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As requested, here's the granola recipe. Several years ago a local SDA church in town offered vegan cooking classes. There was a series of about 8 classes and it was a nice way to pass the winter. I enjoyed them so much I took them the next winter too
This recipe is from one of their handouts. I usually half it, and just add whatever nuts and seeds I have on hand in my pantry. You can see that the recipe is well used...
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@fatty2begone i live in north Georgia, the chicken capital of the planet. We are normally spoiled with $1.99 a pound boneless skinless, even cheaper on sale. It’s been hit or miss here. Sometimes a decent though not abundant supply, generally sold out.
A lot of stores here have bare shelves particularly bag salads (but that’s a salmonella recall), some dairy products (I cannot find blue cheese for love nor money) and a few other things. It goes in waves. Yesterday Kroger had a limited supply of beef. There were also a lot of bare shelf spots, and places where the last few had been pulled up to the front.
I just got back from San Diego and they’ve been hit with the cream cheese shortage we had over the holidays. Now, we seem to have it coming out our ears in ATL.
Except for the Greek cream cheese I want. I’m going to have a whack at making my own. I made labneh one time. It’s not hard.
ETA: it doesn’t help that Atlanta has had a dusting of snow twice this month. Everyone goes buck wild and clears the shelves in case they starve for the twelve hours it will take to melt.
And OMG a shortage of Fancy Feast. I’m rationing the last ten cans of creamy tuna, and my Stinky is NOT happy. I even looked in every store I visited in CA and was willing to check a couple of cases as checked baggage. No dice.
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alteredsteve175 wrote: »Another volume eater here. Lunch most days is a bag salad kit. There are lots of choices with different dressings and condiments. I pair that with a protein source like canned chicken or tuna or leftover steak or taco meat.
I do this for quick and easy suppers. Mix in tuna, salmon, dry cottage cheese or vegetarian taco "meat" for a protein source and voila, it's a meal.0 -
We had Mexican for lunch today. BL had chicken fajitas.
Last time we had Mexican, I peeked at his diary, and he had charged himself 371 for a full Mexican fajita meal. We’re talking salad, guacamole, rice, beans, tortillas and the whole sizzling platter thing. 😬
We had a brief talk about trying to be a little more accurate. So this evening I looked and he’d charged himself 671. 😬😬
I do the cooking and weighing and he generally copies my entries. Other than that, it’s the occasional fast food, where he can snag the generic entries.
He really has no clue how large a tablespoon of anything is, or an ounce, or the frequent 15 and 28 gram servings.
He had calculated 10 grams of peppers and onions. We reviewed his lunch and came up with just shy of 1300. (We didn’t have chips and salsa, and he didn’t get tortillas for his fajitas this time.)
That’s when he confessed to me that he’s been really worried about the message he gets when he closes his diary.
You know. This message:
(This is a screenshot from my own diary)
He said he’s nowhere near where the five week prediction generally puts him and it’s had him down.
Y’all, this message is utter BS. Long time users have been begging the folks at MFP for years to get rid of that thing.
One thing you need to understand is “that if every day were like today” doesn’t exist.
No two days are alike. Even if you somehow manage to eat the exact same things every day, your steps are different, your activity is different, you may have applied more salt, drank more or less fluids, been constipated, had work and/or personal stress, suffered road rage, the weather was hot, your didn’t sleep well. NO TWO DAYS ARE ALIKE.
I get the good intentions of posting a banner like that, but it creates unrealistic expectations. IGNORE IT.
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BL is also concerned he hasn’t lost more weight.
If you’re one of those people who loathes getting on the scale, I’m sorry, but you’ve got to do it more often than him. He has weighed in maybe four times since he began in August.
Weight fluctuates up and down for the same reasons as above. I was up 11 pounds Sunday morning after a transcontinental flight. I’m already down six of those, and anticipate the rest gone by next week.
But if I didn’t have a consistent source of data to draw from, study, learn from, I’d probably think “OMG I’ve failed”, beat myself up, and go buck wild.
Or be like BL and berate himself for not having lost when he might have chosen the one day his weight bounced up to weigh in.
It’s really common for people to be up and down at consistent times of the week. My highest weight of the week is customarily Monday, and my lowest is Saturday. It can be a difference of four pounds and I have absolutely no idea why, but data proves I’ve been like this for months, and have grown to expect it. If I didn’t weigh regularly, I’d have no idea of this trend.
Ladies, your monthly cycle (obviously) has a similar cyclical effect.
IMHO, the more data points you can give yourself, the more likely you are to succeed.
So BL is going to begin weighing in several times a week now, so he can start to understand what’s going on, and maybe why.
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I never bother closing my diary because I got tired of that message.
Re: estimating Mexican food. I generally find one of the chains that has massive portions and is required by law to list calories, and work from there. Also, good on him for avoiding the chips and tortillas! For some reason flour tortillas spike my blood glucose worse than anything.
Re: water weight. I had a low calorie but high sodium Korean meal (haemul sundubu aka seafood tofu soup, plus side dishes of pickled whatever) and bounced up FIVE POUNDS overnight! Next day, gone.7 -
That banner can be really demoralizing because even IF it were accurate, it is always 5 weeks away. It's like this goal that you never reach. I don't know about you, but I don't remember what it told me 5 weeks ago, so did I "succeed" this 5 weeks or not???? Instead, all I have is a message telling me that this lower weight is "still over a month away, suckah!". Tell him there are many of us that agree with you and he should just ignore that stupid thing. He's still logging and trying to reach his daily calorie goals. He's exercising. THOSE are successes!
And yeah, I agree, he needs to weigh more often. I didn't think I would like daily weigh-ins but they are SOOO comforting on those water weight days. I don't even think about it now: wake up, go to the bathroom, weigh myself. It's just what I do.7 -
He weighed in this morning for the first time in three weeks, and was up half a pound.
Down in the dumps but says he will keep on plan.
We’re going to sit down and review his diary tonight and tighten up on logging.
He’s really upped his activity level, so it’s got to be inaccurate logging. I don’t think he’s cheating because he’s been so invested in this.
I’ve been hesitant to review his diary because, as a grown man, and essentially a retired statistician/forecaster for a major corporation, this is something that should be well within his wheelhouse.
I don’t want to be diet nanny, ya know? But if it helps him stay on track and , above all, healthy, a gal’s gotta do what a gal’s gotta do.7 -
That five week message always reminds me of this skit about winter on Canadian tv a few years ago:
https://youtu.be/wkDvqQKGgDA 11 -
ridiculous59 wrote: »That five week message always reminds me of this skit about winter on Canadian tv a few years ago:https://youtu.be/wkDvqQKGgDA
Hilariously accurate. Today it was -41 but on Tuesday we're gonna be -2... until Tuesday gets closer, of course.2 -
I don't know how to quote someone (I'm seriously old school,) but the
(remember the chickens riding goats stampede? LOL
had me rolling.
Springle, your post bring out the best in people. So fun and educational to read.
I haven't started exercising yet. I have some severe physical limitations, but when some of this weight comes off, maybe some of the pain will go with it.9 -
anmlmzdiet wrote: »I don't know how to quote someone (I'm seriously old school,) but the
(remember the chickens riding goats stampede? LOL
had me rolling.
Springle, your post bring out the best in people. So fun and educational to read.
I haven't started exercising yet. I have some severe physical limitations, but when some of this weight comes off, maybe some of the pain will go with it.
Just hit the “quote” button at the bottom of the post you want to quote. It will prefill in the response box so you can then type your response after it.
Like so:
No worries. I still can’t do a lot of the fun stuff like snips and such.
Regarding exercise. One of the best posts I ever read was from a woman who was morbidly obese with restricted mobility. She made a decision to all to the end of her driveway and back. Then to the mailboxes and back. Then to the first fence post, then to the telephone pole, the next pole. She increased distance every time she felt comfortable with it. Eventually she was walking by several miles at a time. She was overjoyed at her own success.
To paraphrase Bilbo;
It's a joyful business, Frodo, going out your door. You step onto the road, and if you keep to your feet, there's no knowing where you might be swept off to.12 -
And PS if you quote someone OR use an @ sign in front of their ID like @anmlmzdiet it both highlights their name in the post and puts a flag up top that you’ve been mentioned in a post so you can check and see why your ears are burning.3
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