Weight Watchers (Part 1)

[lala]

Ok, here's my challenge: white meat. Yuck. What do ya'll do with turkey breast? I've always preferred the dark meat, but have loyally sworn off for the duration. I'm tired of the stir frys. What's something quick and delicious?

Just had another thought...Trader Joe's Punjab sauce.

Hey, great ideas, everyone! Thanks! This really helps...

Jensen, we must be on the same wavelength. I just bought a jar of that. It'll be opened after I finish the Trader Joe's Red Coconut Curry sauce (which is pretty good...) Love TJ's... great prices on all those veggies that I eat, good selection of cooking sauces for when I'm tired!

[hjshorter]

TJ's cooking sauces are good, especially when it's 5pm and I have no idea what's for dinner. They aren't bad calorie-wise either if made with a little meat and lots of vegetables.

[therese]

You could do tandoor-style turkey breasts: slash them deeply (or cut into chunks) and marinate in plain low fat yogurt/tandoori spice (I've got a tin, don't know the source) and then broil. Traditional accompaniments of raw onion and tomato use up no additional points.

I also use them to make scallopini: slice across the grain and pound thin. Dredge in world's smallest amount of flour and then saute in minimal olive oil. Deglaze pan with white wine and lemon juice, adding some capers at the end.

You could also do a marsala version of the scallopini.

[therese]

Interesting, I'll have to try almond. Splenda has a horrid aftertaste to me - just as bad as saccherine and aspartame.

The more complicated the remainder of the flavoring the less I notice the Splenda. I use it to sweeten iced tea, for instance, but prefer it in tea that I've made with tea masala (pre-made finely ground mix that typically includes cinnamon and cardamom and pepper). You can also add it to home-made cocoa, or just use cinnamon straight in cocoa.

I also vastly prefer "real" sugars, so try to rely on the sugar already present in fruit when I make sweets.

[Tess]

I like your blog.

I'm almost to the end of my introductory 3 months of WW online and have lost 10 pounds. That seems slow, but I'll take it; I only wanted to lose 20 altogether. I hope they don't change the program too much; the current one seems to work for me.

I have not given up good food at all. It helps that it's summer and lots of great fruits and vegetables are available, and that I like sushi and other low-fat things. Sometimes I get tired of figuring out the points and just eat a lot of yogurt and other stuff with very obvious point vlaues for a while, but that's because I'm lazy.

[LEdlund]

I swear this thread has motivated me. I had another loss at weigh in today - that makes it losses (or staying the same) at the last four weigh ins. Journaling begins tomorrow!

Betts - I agree with you about the meetings. I can't imaging myself not going. We rarely talk food (unless it's to discuss the point value of pad thai or something like that) but mainly focus on the mental aspect of weight loss. That is why the leader is so important. If I couldn't relate, I wouldn't go.

Cusina - Your meal sounds fantastic! I'd never thought about using egg whites for a grilled sandwich. Perfect! What type of bread do you use to keep the sandwich at 3 points?

mrsadm - I definitely do not miss my steak on WW. I have steak two or three times a month, if not once a week. One of my favorite meals is grilled steak, sauteed greens and a glass of wine.

Tess - our WW leader has indicated to us that the new program is an either or type of thing. In other words, you can stick to the old plan if you want. That may be just in Washington though. I'm kind of nervous about it too.

Also, in case anybody is interested, I really like this WW blog.

[Tess]

Glad to hear they're not changing the plan radically.

Here's another WW blog I like:

Ointy

Turkey suggestions: We often roast a whole boneless turkey breast, usually basted with some kind of wine reduction. I pop for the expensive organic ones at Whole Foods. Besides using them as lunch meat, I chop them up and make salad using any chicken or turkey salad recipe. The last batch I made had curried yoghurt dressing, green onions and champagne grapes.

[Cusina]

Sorry, that sandwich should be 4 points... I only counted for one slice of bread, duh. I used natural ovens right wheat bread. They have several varieties that are 1 point per slice. Then 2 points for the cheese.

Our meals are such that dinner is the main meal of the day. Another big thing for me on WW is that I force myself to meal plan, at least for dinner. We eat a whole lot better and go out less when I do that. Do you all meal plan too? Where do you guys turn to for meal ideas?

I've noticed that my cooking has gotten a lot more simplistic since starting this plan. I almost never cook from recipes unless they are from the few cookbooks I have that print the nutritional info. for each recipe. I kind of miss that complexity. Tonight's dinner, for example, was an ham, smoked mozza (leftover from last night's sandwiches) and veggie frittata with toast. Tasty, but practically brainless. I think I'm not confident enough yet within the program to make more complex stuff. I hope that comes with time.

[Jensen]

Our meals are such that dinner is the main meal of the day. Another big thing for me on WW is that I force myself to meal plan, at least for dinner. We eat a whole lot better and go out less when I do that. Do you all meal plan too? Where do you guys turn to for meal ideas?

Here, now

I have been meal planning a lot more. I think not planning was my big downfall that led me down the path to overweighted-ness. Since moving here, for a bunch of reasons, we ended up eating out more and more. You can't do that and stay at a reasonable weight (or, apparently, I can't).

Until recently, I was using my trips to the farmers' market to help with my meal planning. I'd hit the market on Saturday morning and then, after I got home, would write down what I'd purchase on a whiteboard stuck to my dog fridge. From there, I'd plan meals around the *vegetables*, not around meat.

I found that to be really helpful. Of course, now that it is stone fruit season here, most of the market goods are peaches, nectarines, plums, and pluots. Kind of hard to plan a meal around those. (Also, missing the market can throw a wrench into things.)

[bilrus]

I normally meal plan, but as I mentioned above I am a political consultant and in late Summer and early Fall (like right now) I start having a very upredicable schedule (I am still at work at 8:40 as I type this).

This ends up meaning lots of wasted food - especially stuff from the farmers markets. At least I can freeze any meats.

This is what knocked me off of plan two years ago and started me back up.

I need to figure out good things to have that I can make for myself (and my wife) without messing up the kitchen in about 5 minutes. This might keep me from stopping off for something on the way home too often.

[FL Heat]

I tend to sit down with a cookbook once a week and pick out 2-4 new dishes, and then 3 or 4 standbys. Then I write exactly what I need to purchase for those dishes and make my list in order of the grocery store aisles. I have a dry-erase calendar hanging up on the refrigerator, and I write the meals for the week on it, with the most-perishable-items-dinner up first, and then through the week.

The boyfriend can see at a glance what we're having, and I never have to wander into the kitchen and wonder what the heck I'm going to cook.

It's time consuming, but it's developed into a ritual of sorts for me that's real important in my weight loss & working out, since it takes a lot of stress off me for the week ahead (or two weeks ahead, depending on what the grocery budget is).

Kathleen Daelemans, the chef and author of Cooking Thin and Getting Thin and Loving Food (I think I did the EGullet Amazon link right!)recommends having what she calls "kit meals" handy. It's a package, basically, of everything you need to make a quick, healthy meal, all put together. So when your plans fall through for going out, you can grab the package and put something together. Things like fritattas (if you always have eggs), soups, pasta meals; or even cooking something ahead of time and freezing it in serving-sized portions (which is what I've done with several different kinds of soup). It's worked really, really well for me to have those to fall back on when I burn/ruin something or it just tastes awful.

Diana

[NulloModo]

Interesting, I'll have to try almond. Splenda has a horrid aftertaste to me - just as bad as saccherine and aspartame.

A good way to eiiminate most artificial sweetener aftertastes is too blend. I find a blend of Splenda, Stevia, and Saccharin to taste nearly identical to sugar, without any of the characteristic afterastes of the individual ingredients.

[therese]

I've found Stevia pretty much intolerable. I'll try mixing it with Splenda. And I must have some aspartame around here someplace.

I've been much better about planning all my meals, entering my points before I eat (or as I eat, in the case of breakfast) since I'm taking lunch and snack to work. I find that I'm generally not hungry enough to eat all that I've packed, and end up subtracting those points when I get home.

I don't plan meals before I shop, but put together ideas while I'm at the market and then write them down when I get home.

[therese]

LEdlund and Tess---great blog links. Except that I should have peed before reading LEdlund's, as I think I may have wet myself laughing.

[Cusina]

Our very own eGullet blog is a WW this week. Abra's blog. And she is a personal chef. Yum. Looking forward to following her throughout the week.

Tonight is clean out the fridge before vacation night. Anyone have any suggestions for Portabellas stuffed with some sort of tofu based mixture?

Our trip is to see my inlaws in Mass. with a side trip to Maine. Tough food territory. My father-in-law is king of the midnight snackers and a good enough cook that his concoctions are hard to resist. whoo boy.

[Jensen]

It must be everyone's holiday time!

I'm heading out tomorrow for Connecticut. I think I'll be able to stay OP while I'm there. I'll be staying with a friend and she lets me cook when I visit her.

I'm looking forward to peeking in on Abra's blog. Maybe I will get inspired to try different things while back east (my friend has a much nicer kitchen than I do and much nicer pots and pans and knives and things like that).

[therese]

You're allotted a certain number of points per day as your baseline. The number is determined by your weight, so as you lose weight you also have to go down on points. I'm down to 20, a level at which getting adequate nutrition requires some thought---not much room left for junk.

The present plan also includes two other sorts of points. The first is activity points (AP), which you earn for physical activity that ranges from chopping wood to ironing to jogging to whatever. As an example, 40 minutes on an elliptical machine is worth 4 points (or at least I think that's what it was, I'll have to check). So if you'd like you can "eat" your AP on the day you earned them.

The other sort of points are flex points (FP). You get 35 for the week to use as you see fit----very handy for the evening you go out for Thai or a sudden surprise visit to French Laundry.

Lots of foods are actually zero points: most vegetables (particularly if you eat a cup or less of them), seasonings, small amounts of dairy, etc. A 1 cup (yes, really 1 cup, not a big bowl) serving of cold non-trash cereal is generally 2 points, 1/2 cup skim milk is 1 point, etc. The points are assigned by WW, and are based on calories, fat, and fiber. It helps to play around and figure out whether choosing a non-fat or sugar-free option of an item actually changes its point value, because it doesn't always.

The online version has little windows that you use to entire your various foods and activities, and keeps track of your points earned and used. You also weigh yourself once a week, and enter that info (at which point you get a new allotment of FPs), and that's charted for you on a graph.

[hjshorter]

We're going to be camping next week. I am trying to figure out what provisions to take. The plus side is that we can only open the cooler once a day.

[Cusina]

Wanted to post a link to my favorite idea source since starting this program. http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/051...9/egulletcom-20

This book is organized by menu and she includes the nutritional information on each of her recipes. Good stuff and lots of sideline tips and quotes that make the book interesting reading.

[Jensen]

Tonight I'm going to celebrate another successful weigh-in (and the resetting of my flex points) with a real treat: pork chops. My friend and I went to the farmers' market in Davis last night and I purchased some 1.25"-thick pork chops from a pig guy. No hormones, natural feed, blah blah blah.

I've got some leftover corn on the cob from the other night that I think I will scrape and build some sort of salad with too.

I lost points today (dropped to the next level of target points) so I hope I can keep it all under my allotment!

Maybe if I just dress the corn salad with lime juice???

[bilrus]

The best thing about being my size on WW is that I currently would need to lose 120 pounds before I leave the highest points level.

Lime juice with corn would be pretty good, the sweetness of the corn might offset any bitterness. If you wanted a little more substance (and fiber) a little bit of black beans would be good in a corn salad.

[LEdlund]

Maybe if I just dress the corn salad with lime juice???

Lime juice with corn would be pretty good, the sweetness of the corn might offset any bitterness. If you wanted a little more substance (and fiber) a little bit of black beans would be good in a corn salad.

And some chipotles in adobo sauce. Yum. Now I know what I am doing with my left over corn.

Congratulations on the loss this week.

[Jensen]

Maybe if I just dress the corn salad with lime juice???

Lime juice with corn would be pretty good, the sweetness of the corn might offset any bitterness. If you wanted a little more substance (and fiber) a little bit of black beans would be good in a corn salad.

And some chipotles in adobo sauce. Yum. Now I know what I am doing with my left over corn.

This sent me on a frantic search through my cupboards for chipotles in adobo. I was sure I'd stashed a tin in there somewhere but no...

I substituted a pepper from the market on the weekend. It's not a hot one but it still has a bit of a burn to it. The salad is now made and waiting in the fridge until dinner time. It ended up being:

* corn

* tomato

* onion

* chile

* cilantro

* juice of 1/2 lime

Seasoned only with salt.

The little taste I snuck was pretty good

[Jensen]

I need to figure out good things to have that I can make for myself (and my wife) without messing up the kitchen in about 5 minutes. This might keep me from stopping off for something on the way home too often.

I've always liked to have some Trader Joe's sauces in the cupboard for quick dinners. I was very happy to discover that they are also points friendly.

I've also got the fixings to make up some dal lentils which I will freeze in serving size packets (not for convenience but because I'm the only one who will eat that

). That might not work if you have busy *seasons* though, rather than just a busy day, here and there. It still takes time to prepare the initial meal and freeze it.

For a quick meal, there's always the trusty stir fry. My grocery store sells some fresh veggies already pre-chopped.

And there's always my favourite low-point meal ... sushi!

[Betts]

I'm loving this thread.

I had a great 8 pt dinner tonight that left me feeling very satisfied and husband loved it. 5 oz grilled scallops on a cup of curried fresh corn, tomatoes and scallions with some super wonderful fresh green beans and 3 little new potatoes - abt 1" dia each. I skipped the Vioginier that probably really went well with it but tomorrow is WI day.