26th Aug 2010
If you’ve been following my menu plan - I have not posted for two days so have let you down. No excuses - so I won’t give one. I’ll merely give you the rest of the menu so hopefully you can continue.
My menu’s are really a template for you to follow when you plan your own menu. The four previous posts to this one include menu’s for Sun - Tuesday and also the Grocery List and On-Hand list that goes with the recipes. All recipes are posted on this site so you can look them up and find out the Calories, Fat, Fiber and Carbs of each individual dish.
Wednesday
Breakfast - Cinnamon Toast
Lunch - BLT
Dinner - New Orleans Style Red Beans and Rice
(Look at each recipe and add up your calories then calculate how much you can spend on Snacks and fill out your calories with your Snacks)
Thursday
Breakfast - Oatmeal with cinnamon and fruit
Lunch - Swiss Cheese and Bean Burrito
Dinner - Taco Chicken Salad
(Same thing here with your Calories and Snacks - see previous posts for amount of calories recommended - I’m NOT a nutritionist - these are only suggestions)
Friday
Breakfast - 1 Slice of my Whole Wheat Batter Bread with sugar free jam
Lunch - Swiss Cheese and Bean Burrito (remember to make 5 of these at a time so that your lunch is pre-made)
Dinner - Lasagna Ligera and small green salad
(look up recipes and calculate your calories and what you have left over for extra fruit and snacks!)
Saturday
Breakfast - French Toast a la Kittie’
Lunch - N.O. Style Red Beans and Rice
Dinner - Grilled Fish and Jo JO Potatoes (NOTE: I like to cook my fish the day I purchase it, so I’ll go to the grocery today for this fish - my fav is salmon but most any fish will do that you can grill)
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23rd Aug 2010
I got up this morning and put my kidney beans on to soak so I’m ready for dinner (New Orleans Style Red Beans and Rice) that I posted yesterday.
Beginning this past Friday I have been posting a possible weekly meal plan. And so below will be Tuesday.
Breakfast - Frozen Fruit Smoothie - take your strawberries that you purchased and wash them, cut off the tops and cut them in half and then put them in a baggie and freeze them in your freezer. You cannot make this dish in the morning if the strawberries are not frozen.
Lunch - Swiss Cheese and Bean Burrito - and I make five of these at once so that I have made at the least three more of my lunches for this week.
Dinner - Chunky Chicken Pizza - remember the chicken breasts that you baked on Sunday - here’s another time you’ll use them.
And the calories total 765, so for a woman who is following a 1,200 calorie plan you’ll have 435 left for snacks and for a man who is following a 1,500 calorie plan you’ll have 735 left for snacks. Don’t forget your snacks!
All recipes are on this site so look at them today - before tomorrow gets here and plan your day!
Happy eating from the Happy Dieter - ME!
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22nd Aug 2010
I have given you what I will eat today (Sunday) and now I’ll list what I’ll eat tomorrow (Monday)
Breakfast - bran cereal and fruit with skim milk and coffee
Lunch - BLT
Dinner - New Orleans Style Red Beans and Rice
All recipes are on this site. Today’s menu has 660 Calories which means you’ll have 540 left for snacks if you’re a woman and 840 left for snacks if you’re a man. Snacks are an important part of any meal plan. They can be a deal breaker, so never forget them.
And as you know I’m NOT a nutritionist. This is a suggested way to eat and it’s the very way I lost weight and am keeping it off.
Before you go to work or start your day, take your package of beans and wash them in a colander and then place them in a large pot (the one you intend to cook them in) and fill it with 8 cups of water. Cover and leave until you come home. The beans should be moist and plump and ready to make your recipe.
When making your lunch be sure and cook 4-6 pieces of turkey bacon so you don’t have to do this again this week either. I’ll eat another BLT later in the week and if the turkey bacon is already cooked then it’s done.
The red beans make 10 servings and you’ll be eating it again this week as well.
Do you see where I’m going with this? By the end of the week there will be very little - if any - cooking. My way of cooking and eating is like I’m making my very own “delivered to your door” meals. I always make more than I need to cut out future steps.
Be sure and see the previous posts for the Grocery List and the On-Hand list and also the menu for Sunday, if you are following this.
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20th Aug 2010
This is what I will eat on Sunday, which is when I’ll start. After I go to the grocery (see grocery list and on-hand list in the previous blog) I will come home and bake the boneless skinless chicken breasts to use for lunch on Sunday and then store the rest in a gallon baggie for the rest of the week.
ALL recipes - even for the toast - are on this web site - just go to recipes and click. And the recipes list all the calories, fat, fiber and carbs
Breakfast - Cinnamon Toast
Lunch - Taco Chicken Salad
Dinner - Lasagna Ligera - HINT: Once you make this dish, it makes 12 portions, so you’ll freeze them for later. I’ll eat this again on Friday night so once this is made dinner is made for Friday too!
My snacks will fill out my calories for the day.
In my reading and research it is generally understood that women should never eat less than 1200 calories a day and men 1500 calories a day.
As you know I am NOT a nutritionist - this is just a suggestion of what to eat and it is how I eat everyday now. On this day the total calories will come to 830 which means I’ll have 370 left for snacks. If you’re a man you’ll have 670 calories left for snacks, which means if you’re really hungry at dinner you could have seconds of the Lasagna!
I usually eat at least one 100 calorie pac of popcorn a day, I’ll have some fruit in there somewhere and I might have a glass (4 oz = 100 calories) of red wine with my Lasagna.
This is day one.
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13th Aug 2010
What a wonderful time Neil and I had in Mississippi! We saw so many friends and family and people we didn’t expect to see but so glad we got to! I can’t wait to go back now… There’s really no place like home…
I have been very lazy lately about posting so I’ll make no promise but I’ll try to be better. So much to say about the state of Mississippi’s health - and I mean the people who live there. I did a live radio show with Seth Kent at WONA while I was there and so I made “my” food for people to stop by and try. I had a hard time finding some things that I take completely for granted here - like low fat cheese…couldn’t find it. I needed a red bell pepper and the only way to get one was to purchase three (one yellow, one orange and one red) in a package all together.
Now I know that people don’t get fat because they are missing something like low fat cheese - but it was hard to find fat free mayonnaise and I got the very last Balsamic Vinegar. If people don’t have choices - what do they do? I can tell you that it took very little to persuade me to eat wrong. Something like - not finding pretzels would send me straight to the potato chips. I could rationalize that “at least I tried” to find the right food.
I hope anyone reading this will go to your super market and request that they stock the shelves with the items you need to make you more powerful. You can take the power food has over you back - but you first need the right food to do that with. So ask for it - WINONA!!
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8th Jul 2010
I just found this out and I’m freaked out. I’ve been cooking and eating Splenda and NOT counting any of the calories! It meets the FDA standard for a ZERO calorie product because it has less than 5 calories per serving - but their serving is 1 teaspoon which has 2 calories - so you do the math. 2 cal per tsp = 6 cal per T X 16 T in one cup = 96 Gee whiz - we can’t win…. We in the overweight community are taken in once more. I’m still going to use Splenda. I mean it’s the best for baking and cooking that I’ve found so far - but HEY GUYS in the food industry - tell us the truth! We can take it. Like I say- knowledge is POWER. And this is knowledge we needed to know!
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12th May 2010
After 4 years of having lost weight and the daily work of keeping it off - something happened today that is truly remarkable. I went on a bender but what I wanted to pig out on was not delicious and so after three bites - I quit eating. I had shut the door to my office (Sneaky Fat Kitty had come to visit) and was ready to hunker down and eat - and after three bites I quit.
My boss Dave Bell used to give away one pound boxes of dark chocolate with his logo on the block of chocolate for Christmas each year. He didn’t do it this past year but he had two boxes left from the year before and one box from two years ago. I went into his office to do something and I spied the one box that was 2 years old. Knowing that he’d never give two-year old chocolate to anyone I talked myself into thinking that this would be okay. That he’d never miss it. And Fat Kitty doesn’t care how old the chocolate is - I mean this is one pound of luscious dark chocolate. She’s never been picky before.
So I tore open the packaging and looked at it. There it was - a pound of chocolate. My mind was telling me that this was not a good thing to do but then I walked over to the door of my office and shut the door, like I’ve done a thousand times before - knowing that I’m about to do something I shouldn’t do.
I sat at my desk and tried to break off a piece to eat. It was too hard to break so I got a knife and after a minute of sawing I was able to get a chunk ready to eat. I chomped down and felt the chocolate in my mouth. It was - WHAT - tasteless????? What’s going on here. So I took another bite and ate it and then another and this was not going as I had hoped because the chocolate was AWFUL! Hard and tasteless and old. So I threw away the remaining part of the chunk and then threw away the remaining block - box and all.
This might sound like a bad thing, but I’m choosing to see it for what it is - a breakthrough for me. I have over-eaten most of my life - many times and a variety of foods - and it never matter if it was delicious or not. It was just food and I was eating it. This was tasteless - and so I stopped.
Maybe Fat Kitty finally got picky about food, or maybe my good sense kicked in. I don’t know. I only know that this was another example of how good habits can overtake bad ones if you give them half a chance.
There are two more bars of chocolate in Dave’s office from a year ago - but he should not give them to anyone. If Fat Kitty won’t eat them - no one should.
A blog is about being honest - so when I am doing things that I question I want to share them with you - in case you behave this way on occasion too. We are not bad people. We just want to eat. But hopefully by me telling you this story it will make you feel more comfortable with being honest with yourself. If I can tell you a story like this - you, only talking to you, can surely be honest with yourself.
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9th Apr 2010
I was recently talking to someone on the phone about my weight loss and at the time she had not met me so wanted to see a before picture of me. I told her I lost 60 pounds and she thought that was incredible - until she saw my before picture. I could hear her voice change over the phone as she said, “Oh, you’re not that fat.” You just look kind of chubby.” I told her that I was 60 pounds overweight and lost it all and that’s not chubby - that’s fat. She took a second and then agreed. Yes, that’s a lot of weight to lose. And speaking for myself - YES it was… And I still work to keep it off.
But this morning I got to thinking about that conversation. When I was in high school years ago no one was fat. Maybe one or two schoolmates but not like today. I wasn’t even fat. I was “chubby” then. I needed to lose probably 20 pounds back then and at the time that was considered a lot to lose. But today, since 66% of the country is so overweight 20 pounds doesn’t seem like very much anymore. People who have weight issues are almost always 40 - 60 - 100 pounds overweight, so it seems to me that 60 pounds is the new “chubby”. My body mass index was in the obese range yet I was not the fatest person I knew, far from it. I had even allowed myself to think that I wasn’t all that overweight.
Now that I have lost all that weight I cannot imagine gaining even 20 back and to gain all 60 pounds - well, I will never do that. This is the first time that I can say that for sure. After almost (coming up on) 4 years since I started this journey and always thinking that I could gain it all back - I now know that I will not. I will never be fat again.
And you don’t have to be either. Let me hear from you. What can I do to get you started and how can I help you stay on a path that leads to a healthier you? I know you are beautiful - do you know that? Once you know that and truly believe it - your life will change in ways that you cannot imagine. And you are beautiful if you never lose a single pound. I’m not on the “everybody needs to lose weight” bandwagon. This is your life and should be lived on your terms.
But if you do want to lose weight - first you must realize that 60 pounds is NOT chubby.
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6th Apr 2010
I record Oprah’s talk show on my DVR everyday just to see what she’s got cooking (literally). She has so many great guests and she has a weight related show 3-4 times a month and they’re usually very informative.
Yesterday she talked about a book title, “Women, Food and God” and mentioned that she had an except from it on her web site. If you have not read the article in O Magazine (I subscribe) or read this book, I urge you to check out the article on www.Oprah.com - it was wonderful. Most of what the article talks about I found out for myself in my own weight loss journey, but when someone like Oprah puts it out there MILLIONS of people like me (in the overweight community) will be helped by reading it. My book is finished and I’ve written about much of what this book talks about - but I don’t know if or when my book will see a major audience, and this kind of message cannot wait. So - in the meanwhile - check out the article on Oprah’s site and let me know what you think.
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14th Jan 2010
What a great experience this radio show is turning out to be. I set out to help people change their lives if they have food or weight issues - but this show helps me just as much. This morning right before we started Seth said he forgot to play a request for a lady and could we play it during the show. Of course I was fine with that but I had no idea what the song was - It was “Lord I Hope This Day Is Good” by Don Williams, which is just about one of the greatest all time country songs EVER! As I listened to it play I thought this is what we all struggle for and hope for - a good day. Lord just let this day be good and let me be good and eat well and nourish my body in a non-destructive way. My whole day started at that moment. It was already a good day but that song sent it through the roof.
And I hope if you’re reading this that you’re having a good day too. I wish that for you everyday.
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