Thursday, January 28, 2010

South Beach diet

Well, I've managed to get my weight up to 243, which is a personal high for me. Too much Christmas stuff at Dina's (although she was good before Christmas), Grace, Angela (of all people) and well myself. I never held back when we went out to my favorite hangout, the Honeytree or when Michael & Dina took us out for dinner. So what do I do about it?
Barb found these diet pills put out by Jillian of the Biggest Loser. $20 and a 21-day plan. I noticed first off that I needed to run to the can more often. In fact I had to hurry to the bathroom more than once! I did go down to 237 but when we had lunch with Pastor Mike & Judy and saw what Mike lost on South Beach, we decided to try it.
Barb agreed to prepare all of the funky stuff I had to eat so why not - give it a rip!
Since I am on day 4 now as I write this, I'll summarize the first 3 days.
Mistake #1. Sunday was NFL Championship day. The NFC & AFC Championship games to determine who plays in the Super Bowl. So I decided it would be nice to have "last meals" and bought a large frozen pizza for dinner. We went to Dominik's for B'fast where I had a Dagwood sandwich and fried potatoes. From there it went downhill. As we watched the games, I ate cheese, cheese and crackers, 3 beers and finally most of the 3 meat pizza. I think Barb had 2 pieces and we left one. Monday morning, I found that I had gained 2 lbs. and was at 239! Big mistake.
Day 1:
Breakfast was 6oz of V8 vegetable juice (hot & spicy yum!), 2 strange vegetable quiche cups made with spinach, eggs, low fat cheese, green peppers and hot sauce.
Mid-morning snack - a mozzarella cheese stick
Lunch was grilled chicken breast on a romaine salad with balsamic vinegar dressing and sugar free Jell-O for dessert.
mid-afternoon snack was celery stuffed with Laughing Cow light cheese.
Dinner, grilled salmon (yuck) replaced with left over chicken we had for lunch, steamed asparagus and a tossed salad with a light Italian dressing.
My evening dessert was a vanilla Ricotta cheese thing Barb made. Very good.
Day 2:
Breakfast was the hot & spicy V8 vegetable juice, 3 poached eggs and 3 slices of Canadian bacon. In retrospect, 2 slices of Canadian bacon would suffice.
Mid-morning snack - 2 turkey roll ups made with Boston lettuce, low fat turkey slices and cilantro Mayo made with low fat Mayo, chopped cilantro leaves, lime juice, soy sauce and garlic. This is a very nice snack.
Lunch was chopped salad with tuna. The salad was chopped lettuce, cukes, tomatoes, celery and an olive oil dressing with llimejuiceand garlic. I vetoed the avocado that was in the recipe. Unlike most folks, I happen to hate avocado. I had another Jell-O for dessert.
My mid-afternoon snack was once again celery stuffed with Laughing Cow light cheese.
Dinner: baked chicken breast served with roasted egg plant with red & green pepper, fresh basil and olive oil and a small tossed salad. Seems to be a lot of veggies.
My evening dessert was another Ricotta cheese thing Barb made but with some coffee powder and unsweetened cocoa powder. Again, a very good combination but Barb rewarded me with a sugar free fudge sickle too.
Day 3:
Breakfast was not my favorite. She prepared an omelet with asparagus, mushrooms and cheese. Not too bad with hot sauce but I told her I would prepare the omelets from now on. I agreed to eat anything she put in front of me and that was difficult. lol
Mid-morning snack was another mozzarella cheese stick.
Lunch was interesting because we had a lunch date with our good friend, Jan. We decided that I could eat a Chef's salad with their blue cheese dressing. I also drank ice water. A beer would have been nice or even a diet coke but not during the 2 weeks of phase one.
Barb made me Ham roll ups for my afternoon snack which were the same as the turkey ones but using ham instead. Very good.
Dinner was a broiled sirloin steak, which Barb cooked very well, steamed broccoli, sliced tomato and a really horrible mashed cauliflower. OK, she used her blender to mash them instead of her hand mixer so it was pureed instead of mashed. I ate them but it was hard!
Tonight's dessert was another ricotta cheese thing with slivered almonds. Tasted OK but I preferred the other two she tried out.
As I go through this experience, I will try to keep posting my meals.