Joyce: April 2007 Archives

Well, it happened again. I got majorly sidetracked from posting, what with Easter, work, and a few other issues rearing their heads. I still have to post the Phase One menus, but first I have to dig them out of their hiding place(s). In the meantime, I'll forge ahead with what menus I'm working with. I'll post for the week, with intermittent notes/recipes that may or may not be of help. I originally (a few years ago) started with Atkins, but ended up with a modified version, that is close to South Beach. Now, I'm starting with South Beach, but I'm stating up front that I plan on veering off from time to time, but will still make adjustments to reduce fat/sugar/processed junk content. South Beach says potatoes are verboten. Sorry, I'm too Irish to agree to that completely. Ain't happening. But, I will try to lessen the damage where possible. Can't promise more than that.

Now, the menu I'm currently working on. I'll post the notes later.

Sunday 4/15:
Spaghetti with turkey sausage

Monday 4/16:
Tacos

Tuesday 4/17:
Buffalo Drumsticks, macaroni salad, celery sticks w/ranch dressing

Wednesday 4/18:
Chili

Thursday 4/19:
Pork roast, sweet potato fries, green beans

Friday 4/20:
Baked fish, potato salad, mixed vegetables

Saturday 4/21:
Kielbasa, macaroni and cheese, broccoli

I know, it doesn't look like diet food. But, there are changes you can make to make this faster, and much healthier.

As for breakfasts and lunches, I don't go for fancy.

Breakfasts:
Eggs and turkey bacon. Oatmeal (regular, not quick, and NOT instant). Whole grain cold cereals with low-fat milk. Fruit. Coffee or tea.

Lunches:
Salads. Half a sandwich (whole grain bread). Soup. Fruit. Diet soft drink or water. Coffee. Leftovers if they're diet-friendly.

Snacks:
Fruit. Cheese sticks. Almonds. Hard-boiled egg.

Individual notes to follow; recipes where needed. Lame excuses liberally sprinkled throughout.

Since you (hopefully) did some of the prep work last night, when you get home, you just have to heat up the meat filling in the microwave and set out the various toppings. When the meat is hot, warm the tacos or pitas in the microwave for a minute, and dinner's ready. You can open a bag of salad if you have one, but with the veggies in the tacos, you can probably slide without it tonight.

After dinner, and you've had a chance to relax and get your wind, you can do a bit of prep for tomorrow's dinner - buffalo drumsticks, macaroni salad and celery sticks. Nothing major. Make sure the chicken is defrosted, if not, put it in the fridge to defrost. Boil 8 oz of macaroni (half a package, roughly). and cut up some celery.

Cutting up the celery doesn't have to be a big deal. Just take it out of the bag, and with a sharp knife, cut off the top of the entire stalk. Then cut off about 3 or 4 inches down, through the whole stalk. If that's not enough, cut again. Separate the decent stalks from the leaves and yellow innards, wash and store in the fridge.

For the macaroni salad...  whisk together some Miracle Whip type dressing - about a half cup, a few tablespoons of cider vinegar, and about a half teaspoon of celery seed (unless you're up to chopping a bit of celery). You can add a spoon or two of pickle relish and maybe a squirt of mustard. Chill.

There's a saying in the military about The Seven P's... Proper Prior Planning Prevents Piss Poor Performance. I find that often it's not the actual cooking that's the problem, it's knowing what to cook, and having things there and ready. So, I'll give some tips for the current meal, and ideas for prep work to make things easier for the next day's dinner. It's a lot easier to chop some onions, and brown off some ground beef after dinner, when things aren't so rushed. You can do it when the kids are doing homework, or when the little ones are in bed.

Dinner for this day is Spaghetti with Sausage. If you're on Phase One, and all pasta is out, spaghetti squash is a workable alternative. If you've never cooked spaghetti squash, this site has some good instructions with photos.

Otherwise, whole wheat pasta or Barilla Plus is a good choice. As long as you keep the portions reasonable, you can diet and still have pasta using the whole wheat kind. The added protein makes it lower on the glycemic index, so you metabolize it more slowly.

While the pasta is simmering, cook off the meat. We use turkey sausage. After cooking it in a skillet, remove to a plate (for cutting up in chunks - makes it go further) and deglaze the pan with the sauce.

Choose a sauce that doesn't have added sugar, and watch the salt content. Some are not too bad. Turn the burner off first - tomato sauce really splatters. Whenever possible, I deglaze the pan I cook meat in. It adds a lot of flavor, and more than makes up for lower fat/salt content. And, it's free, right there in the bottom of the skillet. Just put your sauce or other liquid in the pan, and scrape up all those brown, carmelized bits of flavor. I use a little wooden scraper or spoon for this.

Then add the sausage back to the pan, heat the sauce through, and dinner's ready. They also have some "light" grated cheese for topping.

Tomorrow's dinner is tacos. Prep work for that would include browning off the meat and making the filling mix. Chop the tomatoes and lettuce and store in fridge for the next day. For "tacos" you can use whole wheat pitas, a not-bad substitute. If you must have tortillas, see if you can find the low-carb versions. They don't always have them available, but I know I've seen them. I'll be honest. I use regular corn tortillas. As long as you don't have a half dozen tortillas, you'll be okay (IMO). The real problem with tacos is the fat in the meat. Use lean meat or ground turkey or chicken. If you like sour cream in your tacos, pick up some low-fat or fat-free types.

Okay, just a few notes on snacks, most of which will be common sense.

First, the easiest way to deal with the munchies is to have lots of healthy ones on hand, and don't buy the junk. You can't eat what's not there.

Keep a dozen hard-boiled eggs on hand. To hard boil (in case you don't know), put a dozen eggs in the bottom of a pan so they're single layer, or mostly so. A dutch oven is good for this. Try not to use fresh eggs, as they'll be buggers to peel no matter what you do. Cover the eggs with cold water, add a teaspoon or so of salt, and bring to a boil over medium heat. Don't use high heat, or they may bounce around and crack. After the water comes to a boil, lower it to a simmer, and set the timer for 15 minutes. Lots of recipes say turn the water off and wait that time, but sometimes the yolks can be kind of softish that way, so I just do a low simmer. After 15 minutes, turn off the heat, drain off the hot water, and add cold water. Wait a minute, then stir the eggs around a bit with your hands. Then change the water again. Stir with your hands again, and change water again. You're stirring with your hands so you can tell when the eggs are no longer hot. After about 3 changes, they should be fairly cool to the touch. Take them out, dry a bit with a paper towel, and put an "H" on the end with pencil (so you don't mistake a raw egg for hard-boiled). Put back in the carton or other container and chill. If you go through a lot of eggs, do a couple of dozen eggs. It may seem like you're eating a lot of eggs, but in the beginning, it's not that easy to go cold turkey from junk food, and having a protein snack really is a big help. After a bit, the carb cravings will lessen considerably, and you'll be more moderate in egg consumption.

Cheese sticks are good, if you can tolerate cheese. There are low-fat ones, and they're a good source of calcium. I recently saw some that were pepper-jack, but I haven't tried them. The store varieties seem just as good as the brand name ones (to me) and warehouse stores, like B.J.'s and Sam's Club have them in larger packs.

Nuts are a good snack, if done in moderation. Almonds are good, and you can pack a portion (1 oz) in an empty mint tin so you'll always have a quick protein snack. Peanuts are another good snack, again, in moderation. Get the ones in the shells, as having to shell them slows you down, and putting about 10-15 peanuts in the shell in a snack bag looks like more than a few measly little peanuts. It's all about perception.

Last, but certainly not least, there's fresh fruit. Nothing beats a cold, crisp apple for sinking your teeth into. An orange is better for you mid-morning or afternoon, as first thing in the morning it can spike your blood sugar. Stay away from juice (it's like main-lining sugar) and don't get those little fruit cup things. Way too much sugar.

Diets always say to pack celery, cucumber, carrot, green pepper snacks, but I personally think you're setting yourself up for failure with those things. Not that they're bad, but unless you're incredibly gullible, you know you're getting gypped. They're not very satisfying, and you'll be hungry again in no time. Eat them, but add some protein with it.

All of these things are easy, and fairly inexpensive. Certainly less expensive than hitting the snack machine (including when it eats your quarters and you get no Twinkies).

One last note on carrying your lunch. It's not always easy to find a decent lunch container that's up to the job, and leaves you with some sense of dignity intact. I found a site, KeepYourCooler.com, that has coolers in all shapes and sizes. You can order a bunch and have your logo put on, but you can also order just one. They're a bit more expensive than the kind you get at WalMart, but if you use it every day, it's money well spent. I got one that comes with silverware, salt/pepper shakers, and a pretty green checked napkin. It makes me feel special.

Ok. Nothing major for lunches. I don't like to excessively focus on meals, just eat, enjoy, and get on with my life. When the weather is nice, I like a nice salad - with about an ounce or two of meat, some cheese, a cut-up egg, some cherry tomatoes, and a bit of dressing (in a separate container). If you put the dressing on the side, the salad doesn't get soggy, and you tend to not use as much. Good choices are light versions of ranch, caeser, balsamic vinaigrette. Just keep an eye on sugar/fat content, and which is oil is used - olive oil is best, but canola is okay too.

Soup is good, too, but you really have to watch the salt content in soup. Homemade soup is great, and you can do it up in a large crockpot without having to be there (for later in the week), but when you don't have time/ingredients for that, canned is good too. Just watch the salt.

Sandwiches on whole grain bread are okay, just not lame white bread. It's not really bread, and all that processed white flour will trip you up. Watch what you put in the sandwich, too. Mustard beats mayo. Low-fat meats and cheeses are good. When making tuna/egg/chicken salad type fillings, try to go easy on the mayo. Hellman's makes a canola mayo that's not bad, and is a better choice. Still, fats are fats. Use a small spoon when digging in.

Leftovers are a good way to vary lunches, as long as they're diet friendly. A big container of 3 cheese lasagna probably isn't a good idea. A decent chili is. Stew, chicken cacciatore (low cal version), meatloaf (made low-cal), brown rice, whole-wheat/protein noodles, other starches in moderation and some leftover veggies are good.

Add a piece of fruit and a cold bottle of water/diet drink, and you'll have a lunch that was easy to put together, will satisfy, and help you stay away from the office snack machine.

Lunch doesn't have to be fancy. In fact, IMO, it's better if it's not. Every meal doesn't have to be... "Hey, guys, the circus is in town!" Food has a place. Just not center stage.

To keep breakfasts simple, I stick with just a few variations. It's too much to deal with in the morning. And it takes away from checking my email and reading morning news online.

I keep eggs in at all times. They used to say that eggs were bad due to the cholesterol. Now, the latest is that it's not bad at all. All things in moderation. A decent non-stick pan (with sloping sides to make omelets easier to slide out) and a silicone spatula make cooking eggs a snap. The silicone spatula (as opposed to the rubber kind) doesn't melt from the heat, and is flexible enough to make coralling the eggs easier.

Turkey bacon is a not-half-bad alternative to regular bacon. At least it's tolerable, and the alternative is no bacon at all (at least if you want to lose weight). There are several brands, some are thin and crispy, some are meatier and almost like Canadian bacon. You'll have to experiment to see which you like. There's turkey sausage, which is okay from time to time, but it does have a higher fat content (albeit not as high as regular sausage), so you'll have to keep that to a minimum. Nuke it for speed and easy clean-up.

I'm an oatmeal kind of person, so that's my mainstay. The instant kind has too much sugar, and is too processed. It's a teeny bit faster to cook, more processed than the regular kind. The quick oatmeal is somewhat better - no added sugar, and somewhat less processed. The Irish/Scotch oats are best, but they take 20 minutes to cook - not practical for rushed mornings. Regular oatmeal is a good compromise - just takes a minute and a half (as opposed to one minute) in the microwave and is slower to digest, so it stays with you longer and you don't get hungry so soon. I keep a half-cup measure (actually, an empty plastic cup that held applesauce - it's close enough to a half cup) in the cannister. I mix it with low-fat milk, about a half-cup, and nuke that for a minute and 15 seconds. I add sweetener, and a bit more milk - brings it to eating consistency and temperature. Maypo (yes, they still make Maypo) is good, but more expensive than just getting the large cannister of store brand oatmeal.

A bit of fresh fruit is good, but not juice - the fruit has fiber and is more work to digest, so is better for your metabolism. Coffee or tea, and that's a good, quick breakfast.

Ready-made cereal is okay, as long as it's whole grain, doesn't have a lot of sugar, and no trans-fats. Not a lot of choices there, but there are some.

For an occasional treat - scramble (or fry) an egg, put on a whole-grain english muffin with a sausage patty (turkey sausage if you can get it), well drained of fat, and a slice of low-fat cheese. Not something to have every day, but when you gotta have a mcmuffin, it's not as bad as the "other" kind.

Not a lot of imagination here, but I'm half asleep anyway. As long as it's fast, easy, and staves off the hungries, it's fine by me. I have enough to deal with.

Another thing that helps with following diet guidelines, or just preparing healthy nutritious meals, is ordering groceries online. This may or may not be available in your area, but it's another huge time saver. Nowadays, most all supermarkets have websites, and many of them have online shopping. You "browse" the aisles, adding things to your virtual shopping cart, just as you do at the real store, check out, and have them deliver it to your door. Shopping this way really helps to cut down on impulse purchases and stick to your list (and your diet), but there are a few caveats.

• First, they accept payment with credit and debit cards, some take checks (electronically) but few, if any, accept cash. The driver does not accept payment, he just delivers. Check with the supermarkets in your area to see what payment methods are accepted.
  
  
• They usually have the weekly sale circulars on their website, so you can make your menus and shop the sales, and you can register your "courtesy card" to take advantage of sales that use them. But, the stores around here do not accept coupons for online sales. If you use coupons extensively, online shopping may not be your thing.
  
  
• Before you place your first order, check out the availability of the sorts of things you buy and the brands available. There's a market nearby that has great prices, and I was looking forward to having my order delivered in short order. During my shopping experience, I learned that the database of available products was sparse, not up-to-date, and mostly contained only the most expensive choices vs. the less expensive store brands. I was only able to complete half of my order, and have not used them again. The store I do shop from has an extensive database, reflecting current sale items and store brands. Shopping there is quick and painless.
  
  
• As online grocery shopping becomes more prevalent, getting delivery times of your choosing can sometimes be difficult. I find if I do my shopping a bit at a time, saving my shopping cart as I go, and try to finalize my order by no later than Thursday, it's easier to get a weekend delivery time. See which of the local markets have convenient delivery times. If delivery times look too available, there may be a reason. Check their prices and stock availability. Read all online shopping documentation, and call with any questions before deciding on which grocery to patronize.
  
  
• Be aware there will most likely be a delivery charge. Around here, it ranges from 7 to 10 dollars. I consider that more than reasonable, considering the savings in time and money. Ensuring I have adequate food supplies keeps the convenience food and take-out trips to a minimum, which more than compensates for the delivery charge. Officially, the delivery person does not accept tips. One store looks the other way when you tip, but another delivery person actually declined the tip. Your choice.

Shopping online is not necessary to the success of the South Beach Diet, but I've found that having the resources I need make following my menus much easier.

Before I post my menus and recipes, I think I'll start out with some ideas that I found helpful to get me though the first two weeks of South Beach.

Most important is how you approach these first two weeks. The official claim is that it's not restrictive. Well, it's not as bad as some diets, but it is restrictive, in that there are no starches, or rather, precious few, and no sugars. This phase is very important, in that it gives your system time to clean out, to detox of some of the overly processed junk, the sugars, the chemicals that have been playing havoc with your metabolism. It also helps your metabolism switch from burning the junk and turning it into fat, to burning the fat you've been stockpiling on your hips and thighs. Very important phase. Don't skip it.

Also, if you don't have a crockpot, get one. You can get a basic one for not much money, and if you truly can't afford a basic one, see if you can beg or borrow one, or join Freecycle and ask if anyone has one they don't use anymore. This one appliance is worth its weight in gold when you don't have time to cook.

I also suggest you get a few basic crockpot cookbooks, if you can swing it. It's not necessary, you can scout out what recipes you need online (or here, when I post them), but it does save some time. I found these two to be helpful:

Better Homes and Gardens Slow Cooker Favorites Made Healthy

and

Fix-It and Forget-It Lightly: Healthy, Low-Fat Recipes for Your Slow Cooker

They focus on low-fat cooking, but they're not exactly South Beach - the recipes often do have sugar in them. But, they're easy enough to adjust, either omitting the sugar, or substituting sweetener or a sugar-free alternative. I've used a number of these recipes, and they turned out great. Another one I've used is:

Easy Slow Cooker Cookbook

This last one is not exactly diet, but it uses simple ingredients, and easy prep, and you can make what alterations you need easily enough.

I got all three at Borders, but they're pretty easy to find online, and used copies can usually be found on Amazon or Ebay.

It's a lot easier to stick to your menu and/or diet if dinner is ready (or nearly so) when you get home. Microwaves, pressure cookers and other time savers are great, and do have their place, but a hot meal when you walk in the door is the best option of all.