Monday Menu Plan on Sunday

Sunday, March 08, 2009

My weekly meal plan, for my own purposes and anyone interested. I've finally solved my lunch/dinner dilemma, which I've never discussed before. Essentially, Bill eats a 500 calorie dinner, and I would prefer 300 cals because I have to eat more times to get through my longer day, thus using more calories. Anyway, I've decided to eat 2/5 of my dinner for lunch the next day. That way, my morning snack would be my Greek-style yogurt, lunch would be dinner, and snack is nuts and cheese. Here is dinner:

Monday: Parmesan chicken, roasted brussel sprouts and other veggies
PM: soak beans

Tuesday: Cuban pork and black beans and tomatoes
AM: beans in crockpot
PM: soak beans

Wednesday: Pasta e fagioli sans pasta
AM: beans in crockpot

Thursday: Potato and corn chowder and broiled chicken

Friday: Salsa verde chicken, rice and beans
AM: soak beans

Saturday: Ham, bacon, and asparagus risotto with salad

Sunday: "lasagna" casserole using rice pasta


Mon-Wed are low carb, Thurs-Sun are high/normal carb. Gotta sleep, catch up the hour I missed yesterday.

  

Always strive to add rungs to your ladder of life

Friday, March 06, 2009

My doctor's appointment went as I expected. I spent about 3 min. talking to the doctor about thing I already know, and went and got blood drawn, and will get the results next week. I'm incredibly glad the wheat thing is over, because last night I got really sick, almost like back in Nov., and felt awful and didn't workout, and didn't want my snack. I know it's bad when I don't want to eat! Fortunately, I slept and this morning I feel good, and I'm not eating wheat at least until I get those results back. I'm pretty convinced wheat and my digestive system don't mix, no matter what the tests say, but if I get negatives then I am likely to try a "normal" (non-gluttonous) wheat containing diet for the next 8 weeks until my follow-up appointment (or until I get really sick again, I'll only go so far for positive results).

The good (maybe?) part about the doctor's appointment is that I had some time while waiting for transportation (2 buses!) to check out this used bookstore in Florence, MA (Florence is a village, 3 pizza places, a diner, and the used book store were pretty much it). I found a book I've been hunting for for years by David Gerrold, When Harlie Was One, great classic AI science fiction. I also bought two other Gerrold books (about Vampires in space!) and two Mercedes Lackey books, and one Indigo Girls piano book, all for just under $20! Yay!

Well, I've been eating junk all week, so I have very little to discuss in terms of food, but I made an awesome dish last night: salsa hamburger pie (adapted from Living on a Dime website). I browned ground turkey with diced tomatoes, onions, and jalapenos and a little ground cayenne pepper and poured that into a baking dish, and put mexican shredded cheese over it. I made cornbread batter (1/5 cup cornmeal, 1/2 whey leftover from yogurt making, 1 tsp baking powder, 1 tsp sugar, 1 egg) and poured that over the top, and then baked at 350 for 25 min. Expect a full meal plan for next week this weekend!

Other than last night, I've also been exercising doing split body supersets with enough reps and weight to make my muscle sore. I'm hoping to put some of those extra calories to good use building muscle. however, Wii Fit tells me I've gained 10lbs since Sat. I know that most of that is water weight, but it doesn't make me happy anyway. That's ok, because Sat-Wed is low carb, so I should lose it all again in that time.

The only major downfall to going back on diet after 5 days of eating lots fo food and especially quick sugars is that my metabolism is still running on the old system, and my blood sugar just took a dramatic drop which I was unprepared for. I had lunch, but lunch was a crust-less quiche and kielbasa, so I'm not sure if it will bring my sugar back up or if i will need to eat half a larabar. I'll give it 20 min and see what happens. Fortunately, that should adjust by tomorrow, plus I won't be running around like a crazy person tomorrow using up sugar that isn't replacing.

Yay for back on diet!!!!

  

February was so long that it lasted into march

Wednesday, March 04, 2009

I know, it has been a while.

So, first thing's first, why has it been a while 1) I am sometimes a busy person and 2) I'm doing a gluten challenge. So, my whole wheat thing is getting exciting, because I finished my double blind study which taught em two important things first, that I am pretty able to tell within 6-24 hours that I have injested as little as 1 tablespoon of wheat and second, I have issues taking notes, so I lost two of my last three data points due to bad note taking, oops. But the remaining ones were perfectly on. Now, my doctor's appointment is tomorrow, and so since Sunday I've been eating a lot of gluten, mostly in the form of yummy sweets I won't likely be eating again, possibly ever. This means that my calories right now are awful and I don't feel that great. Not nearly as bad as back in Nov, but a few months of healing probably dampened the issue. Still, I will be glad to get off wheat again after tomorrow.

In terms of being busy, I had my birthday last week, and did some mini celebrating on Wed. and we went out to dinner on Sat. that was fun. I've been working on a new procedure at work, while also still fixing an annoying piece of equipment, while also working on two current projects, so work is crazy.

This weekend, I bought a chicken to play with! Stop and Shop had roasting chickens on sale $0.99/lb, so my whole chicken was about $7, and first I cut off the breast meat while raw and put three meals worth in the freezer. Then, I put the remaining carcass and legs and wings in the crockpot and cooked it until the meat was done. I put another 3 meals worth of cooked meat in bags in the freezer. Then, I added water and cut veggies to what was left in the crockpot and overnight simmered a whole lot of stock (like, 3qts worth). So, my chicken was quite worthwhile, practically a whole week's worth of food.

I'm also doing a new diet/exercise routine for March. I'm doing a muscle building-fat loss switch off throughout the month in 10 day intervals. So, for March 2-6, I'm eating higher cals (this week much higher, but typically maintenance) and doing heavy weight routines every day. Then from March 7-11, I'll eat very low carb and with a calorie deficit and do a lot of cardio. Then I repeat that system twice more for 30 days and see where I'm at. This should be interesting.

Ok, that's a good enough update for now. I'll try and be better!

  

  Member Comments About This Blog Post:

CINCYDORA 3/4/2009 4:35PM

You sound like a busy woman. Good luck with the new exercise program. It sounds interesting. Report Inappropriate Comment

When eating a fruit, think of the person who planted the tree.

Tuesday, February 24, 2009

I was MIA yesterday, but I've eaten a lot of great food lately, so I have a few recipes to share.

Last night, I made a great stir fry. I used cubed round steak (8oz), broccoli rabe (2 cups flowers and stems), and shredded cabbage (1.5 cups). I cooked it all up in a 3 tbsp of lite soy sauce and 2 tbsp of teriyaki, and served it mixed with brown rice (1 cup) for me and my husband. I have lots of stems and leaves from the broccoli rabe left over, and I boiled and sauteed some with garlic and red wine vinegar for lunch today. It was good, but the broccoli rabe is a bit sharp, so I'm thinking next time I should carmelize some onions to add to it, yummy!

My eggplant casserole for lunch was also great.
I made a few changes, I made half the recipe, but I used twice as much cottage cheese as was called for. I didn't have any tomato paste, and I didn't simmer the sauce long enough (it came out a bit too liquidy), but it still tasted good.

Tonight for dinner, I made a ham and scalloped potato dish. I made a cheese sauce like I do for mac and cheese, but added some sour cream to it, and poured it over sliced red potatoes, diced ham, and crumbled bacon. I topped the whole dish with crushed rice chex. It was gluten-free (maybe, it was part of my double blind study, but it could be GF). If you want the whole exact recipe, leave me a note or something.

My Monastery lentils were good too.

I'm also going on a yogurt making spree. My Greek style was so great that I used it up and had to make more, plus I've been eating yogurt at night, plus Bill has been eating yogurt, and buying premade stuff was breaking my budget. I know I can use the homemade because I eat plain, but I need to experiment a bit to make some fruited and sweetened stuff for Bill for the right number of calories. I suspect it will be a breeze, but take some tweaking, hello weekend! I've got the yogurt making process down to a science, I heat the milk/nonfat dry milk mix on the stove while cooking dinner (to 180F), then I let it cool to 100F (takes about an hour to cool), then I put it in containers in the cooler with a container full of very hot water and a blanket. In the morning: yogurt! If I want Greek style, I dump it in the colander with coffee filters underneath in the fridge, and it is strained when I get home from work.

Tomorrow I'm going to test my crockpot for real, because I'm going to cook a few packages of split chicken breasts for 6 hours and then let it switch to warm, and take them out when I get home from work. Then I'm making pizza for dinner, gluten-free, and probably caesar dressed salad (no croutons).

I did an aerobic/plyo workout and an ab workout off exercisetv.tv, I felt worked out, 40min total, plus my arms/abs circuit this morning 15min.

In other news, tomorrow is my birthday, and I'm going out to karaoke in the evening, yay! I also bought a Friendly's Reese's Peanut Cup sundae cup for dessert. We are going out for real off-diet dinner on Saturday (weekdays are too crazy).

Today, I think I ate a few too many little caramel things that my office mate brough it. I had two yesterday, and a few today, but my digestive system was unhappy this afternoon, so I think perhaps I should avoid them for a while. They didn't have an ingredients list, so they may be gluten-contaminated, oops. GI appointment coming up on March 5th! I plan to gluten-up the three days prior to 1) further test my point and 2) hope to get a positive blood test of sorts, but at least 3) be personally convinced that wheat makes me feel like crap. Even if nothing else is true, if the wheat makes me feel bad, I'm quitting it anyway. The people I've talked to with "Celiac" have mostly not had positive tests, they simply discovered the problem, like me, and fixed it by eating gluten-free. Therefore, I'll be in good company.

That was quite a bit of update, but I doubt I'll update tomorrow, too busy with Karaoke!! I'm going to practice songs I may use for American Idol in Disney, might as well multi-task! Speaking on multi-tasking, the food eating mindfully bit is going quite well, and I'll do a complete update on that later.

  

If at first you don’t succeed, you’re running about average

Sunday, February 22, 2009

Wow, it is time for a serious update. Last week was a little bit nuts, I was out 3/5 nights, which made dinner and exercise more difficult, but still accomplished. I was at the dinner and a movie party with a quinoa dish in a white wine sauce that came out great, so I'll drop the recipe below, and red velvet cupcakes, also great. I was far better at this party than my own. I had two plates of dinner, but 1/4 of the first and 1/2 the second were salad. Also, the food was all natural, mostly veggie, and not full of crap, so I felt okay even if I had more than I would for a typical dinner. I had one cupcake with dinner, and grabbed one for later, which I made a point of waiting for at least 1/2 the movie to eat. I had one glass of wine (strawberry-rhubarb wine!). After the movie, I may have gotten into the rice noodles and sauce and a few more cupcakes, but when I felt full, I stopped, bam, no more. Now, I just have to improve the system so I stop when satisfied, not just full, or more specifically, that I find satisfied so I know what it feels like. I do believe focusing on my eating is helping. When I force myself to think about the food, I go slowly, I savor the bites, and I recognize the sensations of eating, something I haven't done before very well (at least not unless it was on purpose!).

In other news, I make a meal plan every week nowadays, and I'm going to start posting it both for my information, and yours. If the recipes come out well, I'll post them too. This way I won't focus on what I ate each day unless it was important, different, or awesome. I also have a weekly workout plan, I may post that, we'll see. Here's this week's meal plan:

Breakfast all week: 1 oat/flax/nut-cake, 1 egg over-medium, 2 slices turkey bacon, 1 cup green tea with honey and fiber-sure, liquid vitamin mixed with 1 oz V8 fusion and 1 oz 100% grapefruit juice, coromega, calcium chew, iron supplement, metformin.

Morning snack all week: 1/2 cup greek style yogurt, 1/3 cup blackberries, 1 tsp agave nectar, 1 Tbsp flax meal

Lunches
MWF: shepard's pie made with sweet potato and ground turkey
TTh: cheesy eggplant casserole (like an eggplant lasagna, no meat)

Afternoon snack
MWF: 1/2 oz mixed nuts, 2 prunes
TTh: Monastery lentils

Dinners
Mon: Steak stir-fry, using up the cabbage I have, with broccoli
Tues: Cheesy potatoes with ham, salad
Wed: Pizza and salad
Thurs: Enchilada casserole with black beans and spinach
Fri: Polpettone (mozzarella stuffed meatpatties) over spaghetti, salad
Sat: Birthday dinner, out!! (actual birthday on Wed)
Sun: Morrocan Pork Ragu

yum!

Tonight is chili and cornbread, just basic stuff.

Oh, I bought a new crockpot! It is a 5-qt. Rival digital smartpot, meaning that I can set the timer and it will switch to just warm after cooking rather than seriously overcooking my food, woohoo! Right now I'm making homemade applebutter in it because Red Delicious apples were on sale for $0.99/lb, wow! That's fall pricing in the middle of winter! I kept a few apples out for other purposes this week, including probably apple-cinnamon muffins for Sunday. Other than the apples, my grocery trip was mostly stocking up on sale items, like cheese and bacon and protein powder. I'm starting to get some nice stockpiles, hehe!

Ok, I'm off to stir the chili and cook the cornbread, and then dinner! hooray!