A Confession / Week 3 update

Hello, dear friends and family,

I promised myself that I would post an update on my weight every week, so that if I didn't post, you would know something was wrong and call me out.  And I managed to avoid posting my first weekly update.  It's not that things weren't great on Sunday--far from it.  Saturday morning was the highlight--I was down 8.5 pounds from my starting weight, and 2.5 more than my goal for that week.  I've been taking measurements with my tape measure, too, and I was down 2 inches at the widest part of my hips and 1 inch around my thighs.  I even played tennis for the first time in over a year.  I was ecstatic, and very, very proud of myself.  You could hear the crowing down the block.  Here was my progress for the week.

And then, Sunday night came.  Since then, let's just say I've had two red days, and I've paid for them in going back up 1.5-2 pounds for the last few days.  I posted a long, rambling post about it last night, but I'm back down to the lower baseline now and I feel a little silly, so I have taken it down.  It just goes to show that weighing yourself every day can be just as demoralizing in the short term as it is inspiring.  I'm still hopeful that I will be able to be at or below my goal for the week when Sunday comes around.  Keep your fingers crossed for me...

p.s. I'm working on modifying my parents' recipe for Swedish meatballs for the SB diet phase 2.  I tried a different recipe last week that I didn't like very well and it inspired me to try to modify this one. With a little more sauce, I think it will work.  I'll post it when it's ready for prime time.

Exercise and Weight Loss

I thought I would post an interesting article I just found in the New York Times on the actual experimental data supporting the relationship between exercise and weight loss.  Apparently, exercising on its own doesn't help you lose weight that much unless you're doing it at really high levels.  It does seem to be the absolute critical factor governing whether or not you keep the weight you've lost off after you finish your official diet.

Simple Scramble

This is _very_ basic, but I realized that I have made it almost every day since starting South Beach. It's yummy and it's one of the things that keeps me from feeling deprived.  You can put whatever you want in it that follows the rules, but this is what I do, and I think it's delicious.  I am on a pretty late schedule, so I have been eating this as a kind of brunch.  If you want it for just breakfast, you might want to do 2 eggs instead of 3 and 1 piece of meat instead of 2.  Also, feel free to add more veggies to it; I do that on the weekends when I have more time to go out and get them.

Simple Scramble2-3 eggs
approx 2-3 T fat-free milk (not totally sure; I never measure)
1-2 pieces low-fat deli meat
1 wedge Laughing Cow light cheese
1-2 green onions, chopped (optional)
salt
1-2 T Olive or Canola oil

Mix eggs in a bowl.  Add milk and salt to taste and mix.  Slice cheese wedge into small pieces and place in eggs or on side of the bowl (just so they're easily accessible).  Heat oil over almost-high heat (I put it on the next lowest setting under high).  Add green onions and tear up and add deli meat.  Cook meat and onions 1-2 minutes until meat is fragrant and/or slightly brown.  Add eggs and cheese and scramble until slightly browned.

Anyway, I feel a little silly putting this up, but it's nice to see it with South Beach-friendly ingredients, I guess.

Chicken Piccata with Fried Capers

The winning entree for the last two weeks has been this recipe for Chicken Piccata with Fried Capers, also from Kalyn's Kitchen.  I like capers already, but I think the frying makes them even better, and my boyfriend (who is being forced to try many of my concoctions) thinks the frying turns them from bad to ok. :)  I've made this twice now, and it's been great both times.  The second time I tried making a double recipe, which was very easy.  Here's a copy of the recipe.

Chicken Piccata with Fried Capers from Kalyn's Kitchen
(Makes 2-3 servings, but could easily be doubled. Recipe adapted slightly from Fine Cooking Annual.)

2 or 3 very large boneless, skinless chicken breasts
2 T nonpareil capers (or less if you don't love capers like I do)
2 T olive oil
salt and pepper to season chicken
1/2 tsp. poultry seasoning (optional, not in the original recipe)
1 clove crushed garlic or about 1/8 tsp. garlic puree
1/2 cup homemade chicken stock (or use canned chicken broth, but be sure it's low sodium)
2 T fresh lemon juice
1/2 tsp. Splenda (honey can be used if not on South Beach Diet)
1 T butter or Smart Balance spread, cut up (original recipe called for 2 T, but I thought 1 T was plenty)
1 T chopped fresh parsley

Trim all visible fat and tendons from chicken breasts. Cut each one in half to make two pieces about the same size. One at a time, put pieces inside a heavy ziploc bag and pound chicken to make it an even 1/2 inch thick. Season chicken with a small amount of salt, pepper, and poultry seasoning if using. Chop parlsey and set aside.

Rinse the capers and pat dry with paper towels. In a 10-inch nonstick frying pan, heat olive oil over medium-high heat. When oil is hot, add capers and fry until they open slightly and crisp a little, took 60-90 seconds for me. Remove pan from heat and use a spoon to transfer capers to paper towel, letting the oil drip back into pan.

Get oil hot again, then saute chicken on top side until nicely browned, about 3-4 minutes. Turn over and cook on other side until chicken is done, probably only 1-2 minutes on the second side. Arrange chicken on serving dish with browned side facing up. (You can cover them to keep warm if you want, but I didn't and they were fine.)

While chicken browns, measure out chicken stock, garlic, butter, and lemon juice so they are ready. Add garlic to hot pan and saute 15-30 seconds. Add chicken stock, and scrape pan to dissolve browned bits. Cook until stock is reduced by half, about 2 minutes. Stir in lemon juice and Splenda, then turn off heat and add butter/smart balance spread, stirring until butter is melted. Add half of capers and parsley to sauce, then pour sauce over chicken, garnishing with remaining capers.

Alissa's Notes
I have made this twice so far, once with a normal size, once with a double recipe.  For a novice chef, I would make sure to measure everything (chicken stock, garlic, butter, and lemon juice) before starting to cook the chicken, as you will be too paranoid about how long to cook the chicken to measure everything in time.  Also, the original recipe calls for butter for taste even on South Beach Phase 1, but I thought the Smart Balance spread tasted good.  I also substituted more oil instead of the spread the second day since I had run out of the spread, and it still tasted pretty good.  When cooking the chicken, the pounding is important for making sure the chicken cooks in the correct amount of time.  The first time I definitely overcooked it by leaving the chicken on the second side for longer than the recipe suggests, so stick to the suggested time.  The medium-high heat seemed a little high for me, though, so I turned it down almost to medium the second time around.

"Mary's Perfect " Salad Dressing

I've never been a "healthy" salad dressing person--Caeser is my usual choice.  So I was definitely worried about finding a salad dressing that would work for me on South Beach.  I'm happy to say that my fears were almost immediately assuaged when I found this recipe for "Mary's Perfect Salad Dressing" at Kalyn's Kitchen.

Here is the original recipe, copied directly from Kalyn's site (hope that's ok):

Mary's Perfect Salad from Kalyn's Kitchen
(one serving)
Best quality olive oil, enough to cover greens
(I'd say about 1 T. for a large serving of salad. Be sure the olive oil says *Extra Virgin* and *First Cold Pressed* on the label if you want the best flavor.)
Juice of 1/2 lime (you can use lemon, but the lime is really great)
About 4 drops of red wine vinegar
salt and pepper to taste

Toss greens with enough olive oil to barely coat lettuce. Squeeze lime juice over salad, sprinkle on red wine vinegar, toss again. Season with salt and fresh-ground pepper, then serve.

You can add all kinds of things to kick it up a notch like crumbled gorgonzola, feta, or shaved parmesan, olives, red peppers, artichoke hearts, or garbanzo beans, or toasted pine nuts or almonds.

Alissa's Notes

I've tried this with just olive oil and red wine vinegar when I didn't have lime juice, and it still tasted pretty good.  I also just keep a large bottle of lime juice on hand for when I don't have fresh stuff, and it still tastes good.  I also don't use any salt or pepper.  My typical salad is just spinach leaves, low-fat deli meat torn into pieces, and 15 nuts (pecan, almond, walnut, etc) plus the salad, and it's surprisingly satisfying (particularly for someone who isn't really into salad).  I make it all the time now.

Hello, World.

Hello out there, oh dear blogosphere... oh, let's be honest.  Hello, my family and close friends, who are probably the only ones who will read this. :)

I'm turning the big 3-0 this year, and I have decided that this is the year I'm going to lose it all.  I've been "watching my weight" with varying degrees of attention since I was 15.  I've lost a bunch (but never reached my goal), gained it back slowly, lost it again, and now I'm back up again, this time at my highest weight ever.  I have a loving family, fantastic friends, a wonderful boyfriend who finds me attractive just the way I am, and an almost-completed Ph.D., and I am sick of my weight being a giant, swollen pimple on the forehead of my otherwise happy life.  Plus, I'm getting to the age where it really isn't going to get any easier as I get older.  So this is the time.

To try to make myself as accountable as possible, I'm going to tell you _all_ about it.  Yes, it will probably be boring.  And no, you don't *really* have to read it.  You just have to pretend you have, or ask about it once in a while.  Because I know I can lose the first 10 or 20 pounds; it's sticking with it long-term that's the problem, and I don't want to burn out this time.  So this blog is my own personal experiment in the power of peer pressure.  Please feel free to comment, or if I haven't posted in a week or more, write a note or comment asking how it's going.  It's going to be a long haul, and every little bit of motivation helps.

So here's the master plan.  I'm going to be using the South Beach diet (as well as exercising) to try to lose weight.  I've done it once before with great results, but I stalled out because I wasn't really *cooking*.  Omelets are great for breakfast, but you can only eat so many of them for dinner before you get bored.  Why didn't I cook?  The big, shameful secret: I don't really know how.  Ok, not entirely true.  I can cook... some... if my mom is available on standby for 3-4 emergency consultations per recipe.  But the recipes I've made on my own could probably be counted on both hands.  Of those, many are my "favorite recipes from growing up," which of course are the most cheesy, fatty ones available in my parents' repertoire (surprise, surprise).   So I am essentially starting from scratch, using the South Beach books and recipes I find online to try to follow my diet and turn myself into something of a grown-up (in the kitchen at least).  Ideally, these will be recipes that I keep in my book and continue to make for years to come, so I don't really have to think about "dieting" to be able to maintain my weight loss.  *insert idealistic dream sequence here*

So as I've been using the South Beach books and scouring the internet for South Beach Phase 1 recipes that sound simple and fast enough for me to make them after a long day at work, I have realized that there are probably a lot of people out there just like me.  Non-cooks who would like to learn some basic things that are healthy, quick, and "user-friendly" enough to learn to make quickly.  So in addition to my weight loss chronicles, I will be posting the recipes that I have made every time my adventures in healthy cooking unearth a good one that I would make or have made again. 

Today is Week 2, Day 2, and I am currently down 6.5 pounds.  It feels puny compared to what I know I can lose if I'm exercising religiously.  It is, however, under my target of losing 2 pounds per week, and given that I haven't set foot in the gym, I'm pretty happy with myself.  I definitely want to include exercise in this program, but given how busy I will be in the next 6 months, I need a diet that I can lose weight on even without it. 

Below is my weight loss graph for the last two weeks, which includes my notes on how well I've been following the diet.   The scoring is based on a strike system in which the green dots at the top of the chart are no strikes, the yellow dots are one strike, the red dots are two strikes, and the black dots are three or more.  I'm allowing myself a glass of wine (but only one per day) even in phase 1 despite the fact that it's a South Beach no-no, so a strike can be non-SB snacking, a non-SB meal, or having more than one alcoholic drink (wine or otherwise) in a day.  I'll also be adding dots for exercise as I prod myself into getting to the gym.  It's a little overkill, but I do like being able to see how what I've done has affected my weight, so I figured you might, too.

Soon I'll also be posting recipes for an awesome salad dressing, as well as Chicken Piccata, which have been the winners in my cooking adventures so far.

If you've made it all the way to here, I commend your fortitude (thanks, mom).  Future posts *should* be shorter.