Slipknot's Slope

[Slipknot]

Hey All,

I'm a married, fortysomething father of two living in the general vicinity of southeastern PA who has decided to climb back onto the beach for the third time. As you can probably guess, I have trouble managing phase three. I took my first trip back in 2005 and lost 35 lbs of "quitting-smoking-weight", but gained most of the back by 2008. I shed 25 during my second run, but here I am heavier than ever after a holiday season of bad behavior and a metabolism that's not getting any younger!

After climbing up on the scale on Sunday in preparation for yesterday's start, I realized that I needed to go straight back to Phase 1 for a full carb detox (my 2008 beach trip was phase 2 and a steady 1 lb loss per week). So far, it's been almost eerily easy, but it's only day 2 of Phase 1. My focus this time is in really trying to keep the creativity going with food and seasoning choices so I don't get the burnout that's plagued me in the past. Good eating really takes attentiveness and energy and can't be taken for granted.

I look forward to learning new things from the community here.

Chris

[Slipknot]

B: Two eggs scrambled with ham, a 1/2 cup refried black beans, and 2% milk
S: Peanuts
L: Seared ahi tuna, a ceasar salad (kicked the croutons off the restaurant offering), and a diet cola
S: String cheese and a cup of green tea
D: Pinto Bean and beef stew with cumin and cilantro (big thanks for Kalyn's Kitchen for this recipe: http://kalynskitchen.blogspot.com/2009/02/pressure-cooker-recipe-for-pinto-bean.html), a side salad with ranch, and 2% milk
S: Wedge of Laughing Cow Light (couldn't find the regular at BJs).

It was fun to cook dinner and actually chop veggies and herbs especially with our new knife set. Sharp knives are awesome. I have a lot of energy and enthusiasm for this round, but it's still early. I was off yesterday so I had time to plan a provisions trip to BJs and Giant and stock up on some P1 staples like refried beans, chicken breast and ground sirloin. I also snagged some turkey sausage and a couple sirloin steaks. Kalyn's Kitchen is a great site for injecting good flavors in the SB WOE. I made her stew (link above) stovetop with canned beans and no pressure cooker and found it to be awesome. I didn't add the extra water or broth as Kalyn advises and ended up with a thicker stew that was more to my liking.

[Kyan]

Hey Slip!

Welcome back!

Is your wife Beaching with you, or are you on your own? I can't imagine how hard it would be to have different meals at the table!

Your menu sounded very Beachy - and tasty, too!

I'm like you.... I went off of the Beach for a bit and ended up heavier than when I started. Bah! But at least we are both here!!

[Slipknot]

Hey Kyan - Thanks!

My wife is joining me mostly, but she has a really hard time with P1 since she's a near-vegetarian and grain lover. Right now, we're enjoying the same meals but she might add a whole grain portion while I'm swearing them off. We'll meet again when I'm back to P2. The kids can be difficult the please under any circumstances, but they usually eat as least part of a dinner. We're grilling chicken tonight for salads and the kids will just eat some off their plate with some basmati rice on the side or some regular pasta. We have some snacks for the kids in the cupboards that are always a temptation, but that's always been part of the challenge for me.

Thanks for checking in. It's great having a community like this - especially as a guy. We don't usually talk about food when we socialize, so it's great to have a forum for that. Good luck to you the rest of the way! Like you said - at least we made it back!

[lakegran72]

WELCOME BACK ............. P3 is the greatest challenge for me, I REALLY need the daily connection with our SB friends to keep me beachy.

[Slipknot]

Thanks lakegran72!

I know what my problem with P3 is - I just don't like veggies that much. My tastes tend toward meat and potatoes or other nasty starches, and when I do love a veggie, it's because it's slathered in butter or melted cheese. Because of this, I end up eating a lot of beans and salads when on P1 and P2 because I like them. Burnout inevitably sets in, however. In order to make this WOE really work for me, I need to find way to work other veggies into the mix so that I'm not having a salad and/or beans with every lunch or dinner. For example, I'm planning on grilling sirloin tomorrow and cooking up some sauteed onions and mushrooms to cover up my ~4 oz. piece. If I add in some steamed broccoli florets with a pinch of seasoning salt and EVOO, I can skip salad for a meal. I need to find more veggie combos I can get into to keep this thing going after I hit my goal.

The connection helps, too!

[Chris55]

Have you tried roasting veggies on a cookie sheet? Drizzle with olive oil, and pop in the oven with whatever else you're cooking. When they start browning and caramelizing, they're done (20-30 min. at 350-400). Lots of veggies are wonderful this way - asparagus, cauliflower, eggplant, zucchini, grape tomatoes, peppers, onions, mushrooms. Leftovers are great the next day cold with balsamic vinegar (and a sprinkle of feta) or morphed into a soup. I make these whenever I put something in the oven for dinner. Another cookie tray goes in with potatoes for the rest of the family, and I have a low-stress dinner that makes everyone happy.

[Slipknot]

Hey Chris55,

That's a great idea! I need simple ways to get more veggies going, and I like nearly all of the ones you have listed. I have such a strange relationship with veggies - it's not that I even dislike them as much as find them so easy to ignore in favor of meat and starch. I blame my parents for making me clean my plate when I was young!

I really like your idea of making a tray of veggies and some potatoes for the non-believers. We're trying to steer the kids toward healthier options, but we got them into carbs in the first place and now have to deal with that legacy.

Thanks for the post!

[Slipknot]

B: Two eggs scrambled with ham, scallions, cilantro and black pepper; 1/2 cup refried black beans; 2% milk
S: Peanuts
L: Buffalo Chicken Salad with Blue Cheese, Diet Coke with lemon
S: Green Tea
S: String Cheese
D: Grilled Chicken with hard-boiled egg on romaine with 1000 island dressing, 2% milk
S: 2 wedges LCL Garlic & Herb

Using the scallion shards and fresh cilantro we had leftover from yesterday's stew made me feel efficient and my tastebuds feel like they earned their keep. I'm concentrating my two servings of caffeine to the afternoon hours when I typically have to fight the most hunger pangs and it seems to be working. I've been unhappy with the fit of my clothes for weeks, so my resolve is really strong now. Either this WOE makes me feel more alert, or it's a by-product of having to really think about what I'm about to eat. The only hunger I really felt was during my commute home, but I intentionally delayed my PM snack until I was making dinner - another tough time for me in the past. I know we don't count calories, but the 35 I saw in 1 wedge of LCL (along with the 1g of fat) made it easy to eat two for my midnight snack.

I go out to lunch daily with a group of my coworkers and we usually split an order of wings at this one restaurant we frequent. We went there today, and I was really tempted (and one wing probably wouldn't have hurt me), but I did not like what I saw on my scale and want to like it again - so I settled for a couple of celery sticks coated with hot sauce. It felt good to have control.

I'm going to make my own refried black beans after this can of Trader Joe's; it will add another flavor profile to my P1 breakfasts. I've burned out on refried beans before and I don't want to again. Some things are too good to lose.

On to Day 3!

[Chris55]

I think I've shifted my focus quite a bit to vegetables since starting SB. I join a CSA every summer, so get lots of veggies and often ones that I'm not familiar with. I've gotten to the point where I think about what veggies I'm having for dinner first and plan around that - definitely a shift in thinking!

For the kiddies, it helped my sanity with my three to offer a variety at each meal. Either a salad, veggies and dip, or a stir fry with lots of different colors. I made them pick two and yes, let them dig them out of the bowl. It was too hard to remember which one liked what, which one liked brocolli raw and not cooked, etc.

You might want to try my "huevos SB" breakfast. I take some black beans, sprinkle with taco/mexican seasoning, top with some low fat cheddar, microwave it and top it with a poached or fried egg. A little salsa and lf sour cream if you like, and your taste buds will be happy! And it will keep you full until your morning snack.

[Slipknot]

Thanks, Chris, for another great idea!

I really need to plan on dinners from the "inside out" - that is, plan around the veg. I'm such a carnivore that the protein is typically my focus. My goal this go-round is to get every other dinner with non-salad veggies. This should greatly assist with keeping salads off the burnout list. Once I'm in P2, I plan on going breakfast grain first - again, maybe every other day - to keep the beans off the burnout list. I feel like a field general here planning my food attack, but that's the way it has to be.

I've got fresh sliced mushrooms for tonight that I need to cook before they go slimey on me, so steak and sauteed mushrooms/onions it's going to be. I'll grab some veggies to oven roast on my way home and celebrate my first salad-less dinner! I really enjoyed the pan-seared ahi I had for a restaurant lunch on Monday, so that will be future meal - I can grab what I need for that as well once I figure out what veggies to have with it!

[Chris55]

You can also play around with slaws instead of the ho hum tossed salad. I keep broccoli stalks when I trim my broccoli, shred them with carrots, cabbage, scallions, and toss with an asian dressing - I like Newman's sesame low fat sesame, add a little neutral oil if I'm not having any other oil in the meal. It goes well with fish or any grilled protein. A side of soba noddles for the starch-deprived in the family is easy, too.

[Slipknot]

Wow! Another thanks! And that slaw idea plays right into the seared ahi tuna I'm pondering for later in the week! I'm going to look for that dressing on my way home. The kids will eat up noodles and/or rice, but fish is always a hard sell. We don't believe in forcing food on them, so we'll have to grill a little chicken - thank goodness for the bulk chicken breast buy we just did at BJs!

I realized we need a box grater and mandoline in the kitchen to get some textural variety going (not to mention slaws...). Our pepper pump broke last week and our little hand mill is all flavored with coriander seeds, so I can see adding a spice grinder and pepper mill to the list of necessary kitchen do-dads. I really like cooking; I wonder why I get lazy and stray away from it every couple of years. Something to ponder...

[Slipknot]

This is all going WAYYYY too easily. I made sure to measure out 1/2 cup of refried beans at breakfast, so I'm not overbeaning or anything. Maybe it's the 2% milk? Nah, that's only two glasses a day and I've got a gallon of 1% waiting in the wings now. Maybe I'm just so resolute that I'm not letting myself notice any pangs? Well, it's Day 3 and I guess there are a lot of worse problems to have. Still, I'm suspicious.

[lakegran72]

Easy is GOOD. ............This is an adventure .......embrace it.
You have a great attitude......I think you are going to be a veggie lover in no time.