With the uric acid concerns, I've been working on ways to kick more purine out of the diet. One thing is to pull out some meat in favor of greek yogurt. My husband HATES yogurt. Heck, I love yogurt and I'm not a fan of plain greek yogurt. My gut feeling is to throw strawberries in everything, but he's been turning bright red every time he eats them so we cut them out.
Sooo... I have oranges, I have greek yogurt, let's go!
Orange Smoothie
Ingredients:
6 ounces plain greek yogurt
1 large orange, peel removed, cut up into pieces
A few drops vanilla stevia
Preparation:
Blender. Go go go. You know what to do.
Verdict:
I think this may be a serious winner. It's filling, and he loves it. It tastes a lot like an Orange Julius, and I'm not even kidding - it's shockingly similar in consistency and flavor. It's desert, it's a fruit, and it's a good amount of protein.
Analysis:
The vanilla stevia hadn't been the plan. I'd forgotten about it, as finding stuff to do with it is harder than I'd thought when I got it. I'm sure this would taste great with regular stevia, but the vanilla rounded it out just enough that it came out amazing.
He says it's pretty filling; at around 19 grams protein for the whole thing, that sounds about right. The downside is that the whole thing clocks in around 200 calories, which is a lot. There's a couple ways to deal with this. For one, a half portion a day may be more realistic for some. This is also good for the person who sometimes has trouble reaching the 500 mark. My husband is supposed to be at around 800, which is HARD with his appetite and the fact that he can't eat out and about as easily. It's pretty normal for him to get close to the end of the day, and not know WHAT to eat. This is an easy solution that I can keep in some containers in the fridge.
So yay!
Saturday, July 9, 2011
Recipe: Vegetable Pho-style Soup
I wanted to whip up something that was filling, not to calorie-laden, and that we could both eat. This is what I "cooked up". It's along the lines of Pho.
Vegetable Pho-style Soup
It's "souper"!
Ingredients:
32 ounces chicken broth
2 stalks of bok choy (with leaves), chopped
2 stalks of celery, chopped
1/2 head of broccoli (cut up so each piece is about half a floret)
1 tablespoon garlic (or to taste)
1 tablespoon hot chili sauce
Chopped ginger to taste
1 cup miracle noodles (rinsed well)
Protein of choice (we used shrimp, but chicken or lean beef would be great choices)
To put on top:
1 green onion, chopped
8 basic leaves
1/2 lime
Preparation:
First off: don't chop stuff too small. It'll just get to mush! Determine what kind of protein you'd like and cook it up. Pour broth in a saucepan. Add meat, garlic, chilli sauce, and noodles. Bring to a gentle boil (this is the time to throw in the ginger if you want it). When it's boiling, add the bok choy, broccoli, and celery. Let cook until the bok choy leaves wilt a bit.
Remote from heat and serve in bowls. Garnish with green onion, basil, and a wedge of lime.
Servings and modifications:
2-4 servings.
We called this two servings; we each got half. It was a LOT of food. We didn't use a lot of shrimp (I only added 10 total) so I think an ideal modification would be to add more protein and consider breaking it up into 4 portions. I couldn't finish mine (but hubby finished his all up). With the noodles and vegetables, it was very filling. If you don't take the protein into account, the soup came out probably less than 60 calories for the entire thing (if even that). This makes it a very low calorie item that fills up a lot of space.
Ingredient recommendations:
Chicken broth: I found some organic stuff that wasn't too expensive, and was 5 calories for 8 ounces, and at my regular grocery store no less!
Chili sauce: Huy Fong Chili Garlic Sauce is WIN. No sugar or crap he can't have, and AMAZING in this soup.
Protein: We got some frozen shrimp that we can just throw in and let it thaw in the soup. Super easy!
Vegetable Pho-style Soup
It's "souper"!
Ingredients:
32 ounces chicken broth
2 stalks of bok choy (with leaves), chopped
2 stalks of celery, chopped
1/2 head of broccoli (cut up so each piece is about half a floret)
1 tablespoon garlic (or to taste)
1 tablespoon hot chili sauce
Chopped ginger to taste
1 cup miracle noodles (rinsed well)
Protein of choice (we used shrimp, but chicken or lean beef would be great choices)
To put on top:
1 green onion, chopped
8 basic leaves
1/2 lime
Preparation:
First off: don't chop stuff too small. It'll just get to mush! Determine what kind of protein you'd like and cook it up. Pour broth in a saucepan. Add meat, garlic, chilli sauce, and noodles. Bring to a gentle boil (this is the time to throw in the ginger if you want it). When it's boiling, add the bok choy, broccoli, and celery. Let cook until the bok choy leaves wilt a bit.
Remote from heat and serve in bowls. Garnish with green onion, basil, and a wedge of lime.
Servings and modifications:
2-4 servings.
We called this two servings; we each got half. It was a LOT of food. We didn't use a lot of shrimp (I only added 10 total) so I think an ideal modification would be to add more protein and consider breaking it up into 4 portions. I couldn't finish mine (but hubby finished his all up). With the noodles and vegetables, it was very filling. If you don't take the protein into account, the soup came out probably less than 60 calories for the entire thing (if even that). This makes it a very low calorie item that fills up a lot of space.
Ingredient recommendations:
Chicken broth: I found some organic stuff that wasn't too expensive, and was 5 calories for 8 ounces, and at my regular grocery store no less!
Chili sauce: Huy Fong Chili Garlic Sauce is WIN. No sugar or crap he can't have, and AMAZING in this soup.
Protein: We got some frozen shrimp that we can just throw in and let it thaw in the soup. Super easy!
Day 18
Wow, are we there already? Hubby is 20.5 pounds down.
Rant
I've been slacking on updates. Mostly because I'm a little discouraged - people are calling left and right to ask about getting on this diet, and it's starting to feel like a chain letter. You know, someone tells 10 their friends, a few of those friends tell 10 friends, ect.
I spent 8 years trying to convince people to eat right, and offer to help them do it. People weren't exactly beating down my door to take the slow route. Which is kind of sad - if they'd done it when I said "go do it!" they'd be there already. Then again, maybe that makes me a hypocrite because I've gained some back and been slacking.
Status
Today's been a bit of a down day for him, though. I think it was just a long day without a lot of sleep.
People are really noticing the difference, and he can fit into clothes that he couldn't before. It's really exciting, and I can tell every time something fits again that he's thrilled.
Health
He's currently coming up with elevated uric acid levels. We don't know yet how high those are; usually higher uric acid comes with losing weight fast or too many purine rich foods (such as beef, chicken, fish, and some other stuff that my husband LOVES). For now, I'm getting him down on animal protein, up on veggies, and moving him into more eggs, cottage cheese, and greek yogurt. He's not thrilled, but his knee (which he had surgery on last month) is still hurting more than he thinks it should. I've got him some supplement as well. The naturopath agrees with what I've just laid out there, so I'm not just chucking around stuff without having someone who knows what they're doing say it's ok.
Me
During all this, I started tracking my own food again. So far, that's working well for me. I'm taking in 1600 calories a day on average and losing around 2.5 pounds a week. The best I can figure, on that high of an intake, is this is a combination of knocking off birth control pills (which can increase appetite) and being on Adderall (which seems to crank up the burning, as well as reducing appetite). If anything, I'm having trouble getting enough calories right now, and typically end up forcing it to make sure I get it all in. I know for myself, cutting below 1300 is a no-no because it'll actually harm me more than help me.
It's a little creepy that the Adderall is helping so much, because I feel almost like wow, it's like I'm cheating. However, the reason I take Adderall is because having a five minute long attention span makes everything suck, especially my job which includes writing code. I could write code within a week of starting it. Coincidence? Weight loss is a fine side effect I suppose.
I'm down 3.5 in the last week and a half since I started tracking my food. :D
Rant
I've been slacking on updates. Mostly because I'm a little discouraged - people are calling left and right to ask about getting on this diet, and it's starting to feel like a chain letter. You know, someone tells 10 their friends, a few of those friends tell 10 friends, ect.
I spent 8 years trying to convince people to eat right, and offer to help them do it. People weren't exactly beating down my door to take the slow route. Which is kind of sad - if they'd done it when I said "go do it!" they'd be there already. Then again, maybe that makes me a hypocrite because I've gained some back and been slacking.
Status
Today's been a bit of a down day for him, though. I think it was just a long day without a lot of sleep.
People are really noticing the difference, and he can fit into clothes that he couldn't before. It's really exciting, and I can tell every time something fits again that he's thrilled.
Health
He's currently coming up with elevated uric acid levels. We don't know yet how high those are; usually higher uric acid comes with losing weight fast or too many purine rich foods (such as beef, chicken, fish, and some other stuff that my husband LOVES). For now, I'm getting him down on animal protein, up on veggies, and moving him into more eggs, cottage cheese, and greek yogurt. He's not thrilled, but his knee (which he had surgery on last month) is still hurting more than he thinks it should. I've got him some supplement as well. The naturopath agrees with what I've just laid out there, so I'm not just chucking around stuff without having someone who knows what they're doing say it's ok.
Me
During all this, I started tracking my own food again. So far, that's working well for me. I'm taking in 1600 calories a day on average and losing around 2.5 pounds a week. The best I can figure, on that high of an intake, is this is a combination of knocking off birth control pills (which can increase appetite) and being on Adderall (which seems to crank up the burning, as well as reducing appetite). If anything, I'm having trouble getting enough calories right now, and typically end up forcing it to make sure I get it all in. I know for myself, cutting below 1300 is a no-no because it'll actually harm me more than help me.
It's a little creepy that the Adderall is helping so much, because I feel almost like wow, it's like I'm cheating. However, the reason I take Adderall is because having a five minute long attention span makes everything suck, especially my job which includes writing code. I could write code within a week of starting it. Coincidence? Weight loss is a fine side effect I suppose.
I'm down 3.5 in the last week and a half since I started tracking my food. :D
Tuesday, July 5, 2011
Updates
Husband is up to around 16 pounds lost! It's really cool. I'm super proud of him; he's not only losing weight, but I think he's feeling more confident and happy as a result.
I've managed to lose 2 pounds in the last week just by tracking my food again. Which, for a week, is not terrible for normal weight loss.
July 4th was a slight bit challenging. There was a lot of food that was completely off limits - while I can pull off a hamburger and still knock off 2 pounds a week, he can't. He spent a lot of time away from the food as a result. At one of the barbecues we were at, they made stuff that he could eat. It helps that one of the people there is starting the same diet today (July 5th, although it'll be the 6th by the time this gets posted). She wisely waited until after the 4th to start.
I haven't had any recipes to report because my husband has started cooking more as he adjusts, which is great! It's cool to see him get excited about cooking stuff and how to create dishes that work for him. This is a lot of what I have done in the past while losing weight, as it helps to focus on what you CAN have over what you can't.
Some things he's made are some awesome spicy scrambled eggs with green onion and some garlic chicken on the grill. He's totally awesome at looking at ways to put stuff together.
I'm thinking some egg lemon soup sounds good, myself. It's nice having more healthy stuff in the house again.
I've managed to lose 2 pounds in the last week just by tracking my food again. Which, for a week, is not terrible for normal weight loss.
July 4th was a slight bit challenging. There was a lot of food that was completely off limits - while I can pull off a hamburger and still knock off 2 pounds a week, he can't. He spent a lot of time away from the food as a result. At one of the barbecues we were at, they made stuff that he could eat. It helps that one of the people there is starting the same diet today (July 5th, although it'll be the 6th by the time this gets posted). She wisely waited until after the 4th to start.
I haven't had any recipes to report because my husband has started cooking more as he adjusts, which is great! It's cool to see him get excited about cooking stuff and how to create dishes that work for him. This is a lot of what I have done in the past while losing weight, as it helps to focus on what you CAN have over what you can't.
Some things he's made are some awesome spicy scrambled eggs with green onion and some garlic chicken on the grill. He's totally awesome at looking at ways to put stuff together.
I'm thinking some egg lemon soup sounds good, myself. It's nice having more healthy stuff in the house again.
Sunday, July 3, 2011
Good and bad day
Since 6/21, my husband has lost around 12 pounds (give or take a little as his initial weigh in was partway through the day and clothed).
Today was good and bad.
The bad
He's up a half pound since yesterday.
The good
A button up shirt that he's never gotten to wear button up now fits and can be buttoned.
I think the second largely made the first okay.
The joys of food tracking
He's been tracking his food on Fitday which helps a lot. Looking at his "pie chart" of the amount of calories he had from carbs, fat, and protein, it clearly shows that the trend has been roughly 1/3 of each, and he's losing 1-2 pounds a day easily. Yesterday, it was nearly 1/2 protein in the chart. I think it's a pretty clear indicator that he has to lighten up on the protein, and fill in more of those extra calories that he has on the 800 plan with fruits and veggies. Which I did try to tell him... :)
Today was good and bad.
The bad
He's up a half pound since yesterday.
The good
A button up shirt that he's never gotten to wear button up now fits and can be buttoned.
I think the second largely made the first okay.
The joys of food tracking
He's been tracking his food on Fitday which helps a lot. Looking at his "pie chart" of the amount of calories he had from carbs, fat, and protein, it clearly shows that the trend has been roughly 1/3 of each, and he's losing 1-2 pounds a day easily. Yesterday, it was nearly 1/2 protein in the chart. I think it's a pretty clear indicator that he has to lighten up on the protein, and fill in more of those extra calories that he has on the 800 plan with fruits and veggies. Which I did try to tell him... :)
Thursday, June 30, 2011
Ok kind of funny
My husband is bummed that he misses chocolate. Or maybe he's bummed that I managed to snag in white chocolate, dark chocolate, and vodka, and am still managing to get the right carbohydrate, fat, and protein numbers. Granted, I'm only tracking towards 1.75 lbs lost a week.
He's jealous of chocolate, I'm jealous that he gets to lose weight fast. It works out.
He's jealous of chocolate, I'm jealous that he gets to lose weight fast. It works out.
Day 8 of husband's diet
The stolen salad reappeared; either someone realized they took the wrong one, or realized that it was seriously boring food and didn't eat it.
I'm currently boiling some eggs before bed so I figured I'd post something.
Measuring food:
I haven't gotten into it much, but I am an old pro at tracking food, measuring portions, ect. I'm solid at eyeballing many foods, and often help my husband because of this. I haven't tracked my food in a while, though, and the reason why is simple: it's easy to splurge when you're not paying attention. And I've been doing too much of that.
In light of that, and to help be supportive, I've started tracking my food again. I'm currently using FitDay again for the time being, although I opened a new account. A cleaning of the slate so to speak. I think this is going to help because I don't think my splurging is good for him. He says he's fine with me cruising around chomping on an ice cream sandwich, or telling him "DUDE THAT GUY ON THE SECOND FLOOR MADE BANANA RUM ICE CREAM!". It's not that I don't believe him, I do - he is super blunt and honest that way. For my peace of mind, though, I'd like to be more accountable and start ditching the junk from my diet, too.
Eating out:
No new exciting recipes today, although I am learning a lot about how to work on the eating out stuff. Today we had no time to pack dinner, so I stopped in for teriyaki. My favorite is spicy chicken, steamed veggies, and brown rice. I could live off of that, and it would be quite balanced. Rice is clearly not an option for my husband, so I got him some chicken breast and steamed vegetables.
Today's eating out lessons learned:
-Plain chicken breast is boring. He said he wanted the spicy sauce. I worried there may be something in it he shouldn't have. He said he'd rather take his chances next time than eat plain boring chicken.
-Ask for the kind of veggies. Typically, it's a bunch of broccoli and a few carrots there. Today, it was carrots and a few pieces of broccoli. I'd planned on giving him my broccoli as I can happily live off of carrots, but there just wasn't time with all the car shuffle to get to rehearsal. He didn't eat any carrots, though; that was my job. :D
-Plan ahead; find a list of places that you know will work. Teriyaki is pretty high on my list.
And a final one aside from that: keep more salad on hand. That's probably less about eating out and more about always having a backup vegetable that's easy to pack with.
Eating out so far:
Red Robin:
Not terrible choices, but you have to be careful. Hubby stalled after the visit there, but I don't know if that's a true stall or his body going "ok this 2-3 pounds a day thing is a little much after 5 days, let's take that down to more like 1 pound." I worry that the chicken has too much stuff it's been stewed in or something. He did however manage a salad with cucumbers, tomato, lettuce, and chicken. He used vinegar as dressing. In a pinch, it worked.
Teriyaki:
Our favorite place near my work is fairly solid here - they use straight out chicken, not stuff that's soaked in crap. I think a lot of teriyaki places have similar options. What to watch for: chicken other than breast. Not all chicken is alike. Most of the chicken there is probably thighs or something, which isn't hCG friendly obviously.
Tomorrow we are going to Mediterranean, which is going to probably suck badly for him. It was his idea, though. :P
A final note
I won't lie: this hCG thing is crazy to me. I do, however, have a hard requirement of a diet: I trust no diet that doesn't allow apples. Period. If a diet says no apples, it's immediately not credible as far as I am concerned. Don't ask me why. Maybe it's because I have a very high fiber requirement. I will admit that the hCG diet met that requirement. We're both eating more apples than ever before around here.
And I get to eat all the bananas. Bananas are good drummer food. Actually, everything is good drummer food. Nevermind. Drummers eat everything. If anyone finds a drummer doing the hCG diet, get a picture because otherwise I won't believe it! :)
Aside: another bias I suppose. Low potassium puts me in a very bad state, so bananas and potatoes are my drinking buddies. Granted, all we drink is water, and potato always steals all the butter, but whatever.
I'm currently boiling some eggs before bed so I figured I'd post something.
Measuring food:
I haven't gotten into it much, but I am an old pro at tracking food, measuring portions, ect. I'm solid at eyeballing many foods, and often help my husband because of this. I haven't tracked my food in a while, though, and the reason why is simple: it's easy to splurge when you're not paying attention. And I've been doing too much of that.
In light of that, and to help be supportive, I've started tracking my food again. I'm currently using FitDay again for the time being, although I opened a new account. A cleaning of the slate so to speak. I think this is going to help because I don't think my splurging is good for him. He says he's fine with me cruising around chomping on an ice cream sandwich, or telling him "DUDE THAT GUY ON THE SECOND FLOOR MADE BANANA RUM ICE CREAM!". It's not that I don't believe him, I do - he is super blunt and honest that way. For my peace of mind, though, I'd like to be more accountable and start ditching the junk from my diet, too.
Eating out:
No new exciting recipes today, although I am learning a lot about how to work on the eating out stuff. Today we had no time to pack dinner, so I stopped in for teriyaki. My favorite is spicy chicken, steamed veggies, and brown rice. I could live off of that, and it would be quite balanced. Rice is clearly not an option for my husband, so I got him some chicken breast and steamed vegetables.
Today's eating out lessons learned:
-Plain chicken breast is boring. He said he wanted the spicy sauce. I worried there may be something in it he shouldn't have. He said he'd rather take his chances next time than eat plain boring chicken.
-Ask for the kind of veggies. Typically, it's a bunch of broccoli and a few carrots there. Today, it was carrots and a few pieces of broccoli. I'd planned on giving him my broccoli as I can happily live off of carrots, but there just wasn't time with all the car shuffle to get to rehearsal. He didn't eat any carrots, though; that was my job. :D
-Plan ahead; find a list of places that you know will work. Teriyaki is pretty high on my list.
And a final one aside from that: keep more salad on hand. That's probably less about eating out and more about always having a backup vegetable that's easy to pack with.
Eating out so far:
Red Robin:
Not terrible choices, but you have to be careful. Hubby stalled after the visit there, but I don't know if that's a true stall or his body going "ok this 2-3 pounds a day thing is a little much after 5 days, let's take that down to more like 1 pound." I worry that the chicken has too much stuff it's been stewed in or something. He did however manage a salad with cucumbers, tomato, lettuce, and chicken. He used vinegar as dressing. In a pinch, it worked.
Teriyaki:
Our favorite place near my work is fairly solid here - they use straight out chicken, not stuff that's soaked in crap. I think a lot of teriyaki places have similar options. What to watch for: chicken other than breast. Not all chicken is alike. Most of the chicken there is probably thighs or something, which isn't hCG friendly obviously.
Tomorrow we are going to Mediterranean, which is going to probably suck badly for him. It was his idea, though. :P
A final note
I won't lie: this hCG thing is crazy to me. I do, however, have a hard requirement of a diet: I trust no diet that doesn't allow apples. Period. If a diet says no apples, it's immediately not credible as far as I am concerned. Don't ask me why. Maybe it's because I have a very high fiber requirement. I will admit that the hCG diet met that requirement. We're both eating more apples than ever before around here.
And I get to eat all the bananas. Bananas are good drummer food. Actually, everything is good drummer food. Nevermind. Drummers eat everything. If anyone finds a drummer doing the hCG diet, get a picture because otherwise I won't believe it! :)
Aside: another bias I suppose. Low potassium puts me in a very bad state, so bananas and potatoes are my drinking buddies. Granted, all we drink is water, and potato always steals all the butter, but whatever.
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