12W12S11: Salad of the Week - Chef Salad Recipe

Okay, here is the "recipe" I used to recreate the Chef Salad from yesterday:

• 2½ ounces Leafy Romaine salad blend
• 1 ounce low-fat honey ham lunch meat, chopped
• 1 ounce low-fat roasted turkey lunch meat, chopped
• ½ ounce Swiss cheese, deli sliced, chopped
• 1 large hard-boiled egg, chopped
• ½ cup grape tomatoes
• 2 tablespoons shredded carrots
• 1½ tablespoons sunflower kernels
• 1½ tablespoons light honey dijon salad dressing

The flavors are pretty much the same as yesterday's store-bought salad, although obviously theirs was a little prettier. I really enjoyed the sunflower kernels yesterday, so I decided to use them for "crunch" this week instead of croutons. You can use croutons if you prefer. (I like croutons better with creamier dressings like ranch and blue cheese, myself.) Yes, I actually weighed out the lettuce -- this weight comes out to a little over 2 cups, even though the bag says 3 oz. = about 2 cups. With my ingredients by my math and an assist from Lose It, this salad has 330-350 calories per serving, including the sunflower kernels and dressing.

Side note: I always forget how tasty honey dijon dressing is -- I generally prefer vinaigrettes or creamy dressing, but this particular brand of dressing (and the Newman's Own that I'll be using later in the week when I run out of Ken's) is very tasty, and I might start using it instead of mayonnaise on sandwiches this summer, if I ever start packing sandwiches in my lunch again. It will be nice on a ham-and-Swiss or turkey-and-Swiss wrap.

12W12S11: Salad of the Week - Chef Salad

I was going to do a soft-of Cobb salad this week, but I didn't have the chance to get to the store over the weekend, and when I stopped in at the Wawa this morning to grab a salad from the cold case, they didn't have any Cobbs left, so I went with a chef salad. I will get a better "recipe" together for tomorrow, when I make the salad myself, but here is a picture of the label from today's salad so you can see what I am working with:

I went with fat-free honey mustard dressing, and since this one is pretty low in calories (210 for the salad plus 60 for the dressing), I will also be adding in some sunflower kernels from the vending machine to get closer to 350 calories. When I "replicate" this for the rest of the week, I'll be using lunchmeat ham, turkey, and Swiss cheese, plus croutons. Again, "recipe" to follow.

12W12S11: Salad of the Week - Chicken BLT

I'm not much of a salad person, but I really want to not have to buy Spanx for the wedding, so I've decided to try an experiment and have salads four days a week. I'm also interested in seeing if having fewer carbs at lunchtime does anything for me -- I am not really a low-carb kind of person (give me pasta or give me death!) but I'm not exactly cutting carbs out completely, either. Breakfasts and dinners will be the same, and on Fridays and the weekends I'll keep doing what I've been doing.

Because I don't want to spend a lot of time dithering around getting stuff together in the morning, I'll be eating the same salad every day, with a different "featured" salad each week. This way, I can make up a couple of sets of ingredients in advance and just grab 'em and go in the mornings. Today I started with my own version of one of my very favorite fast-food salads -- the Wendy's chicken BLT salad, which you can't even get any more. Here is what is going into this week's version:

• ¼ head iceberg lettuce (head cut into wedges, to make it easier to transport and store)
• ⅔ cup diced cooked chicken (from the lunch meat section)
• 1 tablespoon Hormel real bacon bits
• 2 tablespoons reduced-fat shredded cheddar cheese
• ½ cup cherry tomatoes
• ¼ cucumber, diced
• 1 serving croutons (~30 calories or so)
• 1 tablespoon McCormick Salad Toppins
• 1½ tablespoons light ranch dressing

I am weird about crunchy stuff staying crunchy, and keeping my meats and veggies separate until I actually eat my salad, so I put everything into separate containers: lettuce in a ziploc bag; chicken, bacon bits and cheese in one container; tomatoes and cucumbers in another; croutons and crunchies in yet another; and I brought the whole bottle of dressing and keep it in the work fridge. This makes a really big salad, probably about 4 cups worth total, and I figure I got at least 2 full servings of veggies out of it (and probably 3, because it was at least 2 cups of lettuce). You could use whatever kind of dressing you like -- the light ranch I went with has 60 calories per 1½ tablespoons. I've gotten the Wendy's salad with light honey mustard and that was also very tasty. I've gotten used to not using a lot of dressing so this was perfectly fine, although if you like more you can always use more dressing or thin the ranch out a bit with a teaspoon of skim milk if you wanted to.

Next week I'm pretty sure we're going to have some hard-boiled eggs around, what with Sunday being Easter and all, so I think I'm going to do a version of a Cobb salad, with chicken, bacon, eggs, tomatoes, and blue cheese crumbles. Not sure of the dressing yet -- hell, I'm not even sure I'm going to actually stick to this that long, but I'm going to try to, in the interest of science -- but I think I'll go with a light red wine vinaigrette, because it's easy and usually delicious.

(Yes, I know this is deathly boring. Sorry. But I use this space to keep myself honest and to try to psych myself up when I am getting down. Ignore me, just like usual.)

12W12S11: I Am Weary, Let Me Rest

The last two weeks have not been good for me. I've been physically and emotionally exhausted: my husband is working that crazy shift, I've been busting my butt at work, we're trying to raise a four-year-old without someone getting killed, it's been raining like the end of days, the basement has been flooding, the roof was leaking, etc. It's just been one big disaster after another, my life, and I let being careful and diligent fall by the wayside.

Plus, let's be honest: I've been on a diet for almost a whole year. I am only halfway done. I'm hungry and cranky and I have days when I just don't want to keep track of every single morsel of food that I put in my mouth. I don't want to exercise, even though I've been doing my "dance like you're drunk at a wedding" aerobics plan, which I actually do enjoy. I spent most of last week vegging out in front of the television, trying to catch up on my TiVo and cursing myself for indulging in entire bags of popcorn and big bowls of cereal for a bedtime snack.

Yes: self-sabotage. I know. I know. Nobody is more aware of this than I am. Another setback, after it took me so long to lose that extra half-pound last time. But it's water under the bridge this time.

OK. So now I've gotten that out of my system and I am getting back to business. Dieting isn't easy or else there would be no need to do it, right? But I have a vacation coming up that I need to buy a bathing suit for, and I know that when we leave I will not be anywhere near my goal weight, but I want to be closer to that number than I am to my starting weight, even if it is only two pounds closer. Solider on, and all that.

And if I can stay the course and lose ten more pounds before we leave in a little over six weeks, then I am going to allow myself a total vacation when we are away. No counting, no tracking, no denying. I'll be walking around Disneyland and dancing at a wedding and swimming in the pool, so it's not like I'm going to sit completely still on my butt eating bon-bons for a week.

Also: if I can mose ten more pounds, I might not need Spanx under my dress. Which is as big a bonus as we can expect at this point.

12W12S11: Ch-Ch-Changes

You know how, when you start working out, they tell you that sometimes your weight will fluctuate a little bit, because you're adding extra activity, and that makes your calorie needs change, and your body responds differently?

Yeah. Since I started my regimen (and then went and changed it), my weight has fluctuated by almost ten pounds. Like, I thought you were supposed to lose weight FASTER when you exercised? It took me until today to get back even to my old low, let alone lose any additional weight.

Three weeks. Eesh.

Whatever. No point in kicking my own ass over it, except when I'm working out. I lost another half-pound, and I will take it. I'm going to keep up with the vitamins and the arms and the cardio (what I am doing now is what I call my "dance like you're drunk at a wedding" exercise plan -- I make a 30-minute iTunes playlist, different every day, and just go crazy in the living room, incorporating as much as I can remember from the videos I've been using, but mostly just dancing my butt off and actually enjoying myself).

I also switched LoseIt! over to the 1½ lb. a week plan, because trying to lose 2 lb. a week was only allowing me 1,198 calories per day, and that just isn't enough. I am tired and cranky and hungry all the time -- I think the exercising has changed my metabolism a bit (for the better) and I don't want to starve. In trying to lose 1½ lb. a week, I get an extra 250 calories (1,448), which is doable. My plan to use up the extra calories is as follows:

• Breakfast -- now 300-350 calories (up from 250-300). Make up the extra calories by adding more fruit (i.e., large bananas, larger serving sizes) or extra ½ cup of skim milk.
• Lunch -- now 300-350 calories (up from 250-300). Make up the extra calories by adding an additional serving of vegetables or an extra ½ cup of skim milk.
• Snacks -- No change. Calorie limit remains at "float." Make up an extra calories by adding extra nuts or an extra ½ cup of skim milk.
• Dinner -- No change. Calorie limit remains at 600.

I think this plan is going to be good, because I am getting extra calories, but I am also trying not to waste them. Right now I am getting half my daily calories from dinner, and I am trying to tilt that balance a little bit, get more calories earlier in the day. Not a whole lot -- I will get almost half my calories from dinner -- but I am hoping to make up the extra calories with smart servings of stuff. Fruits, veggies, nuts, milk.

Already I've changed a couple of little things. I switched over to unsalted pistachios instead of regular ones. I mixed the new nuts in with the old stash, so I am still getting a good mix. This won't change calories at all so it's kind of a weird thing to change, but I the lunches I eat (soups and Lean-Cuisine type meals) are salty and I am trying to watch that where I can.

Also, I went back to eating Chobani or some other Greek and/or organic brand when I have yogurt in the morning, instead of the light yogurt I was eating. I have no fundamental problem with light yogurts, and I might start adding mini-cups of light yogurt in to the after-exercise snack rotation, but I really think that the extra protein and fewer artificial things in the Greek yogurts are worth the extra calories. (Plus, they do taste really good.)