Trying to convince myself this is a good, yummy lunch..... :(
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No dressing? Other than the fake bacon bits, that actually doesn't sound bad. I'd lose the bacon bits and make light mustard vinaigrette dressing. Then it would a yummy lunch.
If you don't want a dressing, try adding spicy pickled vegetables for more taste.0 -
Oh, hon, this whole post makes me sad! If you don't like salads, you really don't have to eat them.
What kinds of things would you actually like to eat for lunch? Give us some suggestions and I'd bet money we can help you fit them into your calorie goals.
I never learned to like vegetables; partially experience (frankly, my mom was a terrible cook) and partially it's the psychological impact of the memories of being forced to eat some of that which she made - which sometimes made us violently ill. I mean, even the dog wouldn't eat some of her cooking, and I'm not kidding. Once we were saved from eating her cooking for a couple of days because whatever she was making caught on fire and the whole oven burnt out before I could get the fireman who lived down the street to come put the fire out (she wouldn't call the fire company... flames shooting out of the oven, and she was worried about what the neighbors would think if they saw a firetruck come to our house!)
Anyhow....
The problem is the kinds of foods I love to eat for lunch... macaroni and cheese; grilled cheese sandwich (with bacon, no less); cheesesteak; pizza; lo mein (with beef, or chicken or shrimp or all three), etc... are all really terrible foods for someone trying to lose weight. It doesn't help that my boyfriend can pretty much eat whatever he wants and not have to worry about his weight, so when he asks for one of my special grilled cheeses.... we're talking about butter in the pan, a slice of bread on that, three slices of cheese on that, add on 3 slices of bacon (already cooked), add three slices of cheese on top of the bacon, add a piece of bread on that.... cook one side, flip it, and then add three more slices of cheese, 3 more slices of bacon and three more slices of cheese and another slice of bread.. when that side is done, flip again and do the 3rd slice of bread. Yes, that's the "special grilled cheese" in our house - 3 slices of bread, 6 slices of bacon, and 12 slices of cheese, all browned in butter. I do most of the cooking in the house - as in 99%, unless you count him heating any prepacked frozen foods in the microwave as cooking.
And dinner.... I can - when I'm being "bad" - wolf down an 18 ounce prime rib with no problem. Or the chinese buffet - lots of crab legs, shrimp, rice, egg drop soup, spare ribs.... yum yum.
finding a way to make vegetables palatable is, for me, a challenge. I can manage some celery and carrots if they are buried in a stew. Of course, the gravy kills that.
And I love breads.... for example, the biscuits at Red Lobster... yum... actually, triple yum. The brown bread at Outback.... yum also.
So I need ideas that work. I'm trying to keep my daily calorie level in the 1200 - 1400 range.
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Oh, hon, this whole post makes me sad! If you don't like salads, you really don't have to eat them.
What kinds of things would you actually like to eat for lunch? Give us some suggestions and I'd bet money we can help you fit them into your calorie goals.
I never learned to like vegetables; partially experience (frankly, my mom was a terrible cook) and partially it's the psychological impact of the memories of being forced to eat some of that which she made - which sometimes made us violently ill. I mean, even the dog wouldn't eat some of her cooking, and I'm not kidding. Once we were saved from eating her cooking for a couple of days because whatever she was making caught on fire and the whole oven burnt out before I could get the fireman who lived down the street to come put the fire out (she wouldn't call the fire company... flames shooting out of the oven, and she was worried about what the neighbors would think if they saw a firetruck come to our house!)
Anyhow....
The problem is the kinds of foods I love to eat for lunch... macaroni and cheese; grilled cheese sandwich (with bacon, no less); cheesesteak; pizza; lo mein (with beef, or chicken or shrimp or all three), etc... are all really terrible foods for someone trying to lose weight. It doesn't help that my boyfriend can pretty much eat whatever he wants and not have to worry about his weight, so when he asks for one of my special grilled cheeses.... we're talking about butter in the pan, a slice of bread on that, three slices of cheese on that, add on 3 slices of bacon (already cooked), add three slices of cheese on top of the bacon, add a piece of bread on that.... cook one side, flip it, and then add three more slices of cheese, 3 more slices of bacon and three more slices of cheese and another slice of bread.. when that side is done, flip again and do the 3rd slice of bread. Yes, that's the "special grilled cheese" in our house - 3 slices of bread, 6 slices of bacon, and 12 slices of cheese, all browned in butter. I do most of the cooking in the house - as in 99%, unless you count him heating any prepacked frozen foods in the microwave as cooking.
And dinner.... I can - when I'm being "bad" - wolf down an 18 ounce prime rib with no problem. Or the chinese buffet - lots of crab legs, shrimp, rice, egg drop soup, spare ribs.... yum yum.
finding a way to make vegetables palatable is, for me, a challenge. I can manage some celery and carrots if they are buried in a stew. Of course, the gravy kills that.
And I love breads.... for example, the biscuits at Red Lobster... yum... actually, triple yum. The brown bread at Outback.... yum also.
So I need ideas that work. I'm trying to keep my daily calorie level in the 1200 - 1400 range.
My husband is about like you-- peas are about the only green thing I've seen him eat. So, two thoughts. First, just lighten up the things you're used to eating. That's how I started out and that's what I do for him now since he's cutting. I think your calorie goal probably doesn't need to be quite so low, and you can exercise for a few extras. But, for example, you can still make grilled cheese. Just halve the butter, get a thin cut bacon, a lower calorie bread, and only do one "layer." Although, I will say that your boyfriend's version sounds amazing and I may have to try it later.
I've learned that most recipes that call for oil really don't need as much as they say they do. You can usually use less cheese too. But mostly, just control your portions.
Have you tried roasting your veggies or hiding them in soups and casseroles? I can even get my husband to eat some veggies if I puree them up into a nice creamy tomato basil soup for example.0 -
I have a similar calorie goal and eat regular food that I like. Some foods I need to alter a bit or have a smaller portion of. Pre-logging my meals for the whole day has been super helpful in making sure everything fits my calorie goal. I often eat leftovers or a sandwich for lunch.
If you want to work more vegetables in I would experiment with cooking them differently. A roasted or grilled vegetable can taste pretty different than a boiled or raw vegetable. You might put them in a stir fry or a soup. One of my vegetable hating dd's favorite meals is minestrone soup.
budgetbytes.com
molliekatzen.com/archives.php
laptoplunches/bento-menus-season/Allseasons/
kalynskitchen.com/p/blog-page.html0 -
Make your own dressing with lemon juice and some salt and pepper. Yum! There are also recipes online to make your own italian dressings and such.0
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ILiftHeavyAcrylics wrote: »squirrelone wrote: »
It tastes bitter to me. I'm not saying it's bad and that other people can't like it. I'm saying that I don't. I don't know if I've had baby leaf, specifically, FRESH or not.
If you taste sweetness, that's great for you. I wish I did.
I'm not sure why some people can like something and others don't. Never thought about the how's and whys before. It's an interesting idea!
You cannot argue taste, though, lol. Everyone is different.
I wish I had saved it but I didn't, but I read an article recently about how differently people perceive tastes. One of the ideas being floated was that picky eaters are much more sensitive to bitter flavor, and so things that might not taste bitter to other people will taste that way to them. I thought it was interesting.
That is interesting. I pride myself on not being picky (although there are some odd things I dislike, usually due to texture or associations), and I actually tend to find that foods that are described as bitter are ones I like a lot. Maybe it is a lack of sensitivity.
(As an aside, my sister dislikes most spicy foods and is convinced that people who like them just aren't sensitive enough.)0 -
finding a way to make vegetables palatable is, for me, a challenge. I can manage some celery and carrots if they are buried in a stew. Of course, the gravy kills that.
Have you experimented with cooking them yourself? My mother is not the greatest cook, and we had lots of canned veggies when I was a kid, and when I finally had fresh veggies cooked correctly and learned to do it myself it made all the difference. That and just trying a wider variety of them. (For example, canned green beans, ugh. One of the worst parts of dinner when I was a child. But fresh green beans sauteed a bit with some olive oil is one of my favorite things ever.)
Since you mention liking prime rib, a reasonable portion of some deliciously-cooked meat with nicely-prepared veggies on the side might be a way to start. You can take a bite that includes both, to ease yourself into it.
Roasting veggies is often a good way for people to learn they like them, too. Makes them especially delicious. Because it's fall I've been roasting root veggies like carrots and parsnips and turnips and celeriac all together. Those are sometimes an easy option for people, as they can be sweeter and more like, I don't know, a potato than the veggies people think of. And I like adding roasted root veggies to a salad too.
It's not really the time of year for it (if you are in the northern hemisphere), but I always recommend that people go to a farmers market and walk around to get sold on fresh veggies. You often see really appealing-looking produce and get to get ideas on how to prepare them from people who are enthusiastic. It's more psychological than anything else, but it is part of how I convinced myself that vegetables were fun and exciting and delicious.
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Most people who don't like vegetables were exposed to one or two preparations as kids (canned or boiled), and those are disgusting. I love vegetables, and I won't eat them canned or boiled. They taste like cardboard, at best, or feet, and the texture is horrible.
Conversely, anything tastes better if you add some olive oil and salt/pepper/spices and roast it in the oven until the outside gets caramelized. This works really well for cauliflower, green beans, broccoli and sweet potatoes (my favorites), but carrots work well too. Some people who don't like cooked vegetables like raw vegetables better. What about carrot sticks dipped into ranch dressing, onion dip or hummus?
There's also absolutely nothing wrong with hiding your vegetables in other things. Stew/soup is great for this. I always add peas or carrots to my mac and cheese, and usually throw some chopped up tomatoes on top.
Eating vegetables isn't required for weight loss, though. If they're something you're really hung up about, take that stress away and stop worrying about them for now. You can lose weight eating exactly what you were eating before, just less of it.
For your lunches, I would take that tuna and turn it into a tuna salad sandwich or wrap, or eat it on crackers. Maybe make it an open-face sandwich if you'd rather have one slice of thicker bread instead of two slices of thinner bread. You can make it with light mayo, plain greek yogurt or hummus (or a combination of any of those) to lighten it up. Add some carrot or apple slices as your side.
Do you like soup? There are a ton of low-calorie soups that are pretty filling that you could take to work. I make a (kind of trashy, but still good) work grilled cheese by toasting the bread and then adding the cheese and microwaving the sandwich until it's melted. You could experiment with different variations on grilled cheese -- mozzarella with some chopped up sundried tomatoes and fresh basil or a few spinach leaves is really good.0 -
GiveMeCoffee wrote: »Sorry that salad looks sad. Eat things you enjoy you should not have to convince yourself that something is good.
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Do you remember where you read it?ILiftHeavyAcrylics wrote: »squirrelone wrote: »
It tastes bitter to me. I'm not saying it's bad and that other people can't like it. I'm saying that I don't. I don't know if I've had baby leaf, specifically, FRESH or not.
If you taste sweetness, that's great for you. I wish I did.
I'm not sure why some people can like something and others don't. Never thought about the how's and whys before. It's an interesting idea!
You cannot argue taste, though, lol. Everyone is different.
I wish I had saved it but I didn't, but I read an article recently about how differently people perceive tastes. One of the ideas being floated was that picky eaters are much more sensitive to bitter flavor, and so things that might not taste bitter to other people will taste that way to them. I thought it was interesting.
I am what most would call a "picky eater." I try so hard to like foods that I don't like, but (shocker) have little success. Always attributed it to being raised on total crap, but maybe I'm Bitterness-Challenged.
To follow up on that... I've never read a study on it, however in culinary school it was covered many times that you have to be very careful about bitter flavors when making food for children, and that in general "picky" eaters will cotton to a lot of the foods that children like, owing to an underdeveloped sense of taste.
Which then lead to discussion about recipe development for the lowest common denominator, and that a focus on sweet over all other flavor types will increase sales...
Now, I don't think picky eaters are children, I just found that the anecdotal statements jived quite well with my professional experiences when I was a cook.
Want to ?
http://ajcn.nutrition.org/content/76/5/1101.full.pdf&embedded=true
It doesn't seem to be underdeveloped taste - actually, an overdeveloped or different sense of taste.
That said, it can sometimes be overcome. I hated all typically bitter veg as a kid. But as I've gotten older and eaten more and more (had no choice - thanks mom), I've developed an appreciation for the bitterness in some. Broccoli, Brussels sprouts, baby spinach is OK, cauliflower ...
I wonder if that's why I find many things taste so much sweeter to me than they seem to do for other people?
ETA: links - stupid oversensitive trackpad0 -
No dressing? Salads are horrible without dressing imo. A good dressing (doesn't have to be high cal) can turn a salad from a miserable lunch to one you actually enjoy eating.0
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Real bacon rocks. Also, maybe add some avocado and garbanzo beans.0
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Put some dressing on there for God's sake! Try the Bolthouse Farms yogurt dressing. They are only about 50 calories per serving and delicious. My favorite is the honey mustard.0
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