NOT a light recipe!

We had a "potluck lunch" day at work today, and while I stayed away from the donuts, I did eat about 800 calories more than I normally would for breakfast and lunch!  It'll be a bowl of cereal for dinner tonight!

Anyway, my go to recipe for these types of events is a BBQ Kielbasa recipe.  It's relatively cheap, and easy to make and everyone loves it.  It is not my creation, I got it from a guy I met years ago.

Ingredients:
 

3 lbs. kielbasa

1 large sweet or Vidalia onion (thinly sliced)

2 large or 3 small bell peppers (thinly sliced)

sliced mushrooms (Optional)

2 or 3 cloves crushed garlic

2 tbs brown sugar

14 1/2 oz can tomato sauce

1 bottle bbq sauce

10 "squirts" soy sauce

Tabasco sauce to taste (optional - I use about 3 or 4 "squirts")

Basil, oregano to taste

One bay leaf

2 tbs extra virgin olive oil 

Preparation

Cut kielbasa into bun size lengths, cover with water and bring to boil.  Continue boiling for 10 minutes.

In a large pot, heat oil, add garlic, onions, pepper and lightly sauté.

Add rest of ingredients (except kielbasa) and cook about 10 minutes.

Combine all ingredients in crock pot, cook on low 4-5 hours

Calories:  A lot, Fat: A lot, Carbs:  Some, Protein:  Some, Sugar:  Some.

I've had it on rolls like hot sausage and I've eaten it by itself, either way it's good!

Another recipe - Strawberry Smoothie

I love ice cream and I really love strawberry milkshakes.  As I mentioned previously, a 16 ounce McDonald's strawberry shake is 690 calories and a 16 ounce shake from Dairy Queen  is 650 calories.  That's a meal's worth of calories for me and as I also mentioned, shakes don't work for me as meal replacement.  They are a dessert - a treat!  However at 650 + calories, I can't treat myself that often.  So I decided to try a strawberry smoothie.  I found a lot of recipes and a lot of them call for different fruit juices, but I cut it down to the bare bones.

Ingredients

1/2 cup skim milk
1/2 cup light vanilla yogurt
Dash vanilla extract
Whole frozen strawberries

Put the first 3 ingredients in a blender, then add enough frozen strawberries to bring the volume up to about 12 or 14 ounces.  Put the lid on the blender and start the blender on low.  Let it blend until it sounds like the strawberries are all chopped up, then run it on medium for about 30 seconds and then high for about 30 seconds.

Pour it into a glass and enjoy.

This will give you a 16 ounce shake and is around 148 calories.  I don't weigh the strawberries so that's the best estimate I have.  Now that's a treat I can have a couple times a week!  The full breakdown, based on a cup of strawberries, is:  148 Calories; 29g Carbs; 0g Fat; 9g Protein and 13g Sugar.

If I have one after I lift weights, I add 2 tablespoons of peanut butter for extra protein.  The breakdown with peanut butter is:  338 Calories; 37g Carbs, 16g Fat, 16g Protein and 16g Sugar.

In comparison a fast food 16 ounce shake has: 690 Calories, 114g Carbs, 20g Fat, 15g Protein and 100g Sugar. Some fast food joints also offer a berry smoothie, which isn't that bad, but still not as good as mine.  A 16 ounce McSmoothie is: 250 Calories, 57g Carbs, 1g Fat, 4g Protein and 54g Sugar.

I'd recommend drinking it with a straw, especially if you have a mustache!  Otherwise beware of drips!

Also, here's a post from my old blog :

10/5/2007 11:25:18 AM

Week 16
A great week! I came back from vacation, stayed focused on my calorie intake and made sure I hit the gym all 5 days and it paid off. I not only lost the pound I gained on vacation, I lost 6 more on top of it, a 7 pound loss this week. Now I know some of that is probably water weight, but I was still excited to see it.
Every week I hope to only lose 1lb. A loss is a loss and I don't consider this to be a race. My goal is to reach my target weight by the end of 2009. If it happens before that, great! If it takes a little longer, as long as I am still progressing, great! I figure the slower I lose it, the easier my body will adjust to it and the easier it will be to maintain the loss. My biggest concern after I lose the weight is excess skin. I hope to lose it slow enough to allow as much as possible to relax. I expect it will still be an issue though. However it is one I will gladly deal with, the benefits of being a healthy weight definitely outweigh it.
For anyone reading that might wonder what I eat in a normal day, here is what I ate yesterday.
For breakfast, an egg sandwich - 1 egg scrambled, 2 slices of bacon, 1 slice american cheese, on an english muffin.
For lunch, Subway - 6" sweet onion chicken teriyaki sandwich, with provolone cheese and all the veggies on wheat bread, a bag of baked sour cream and onion chips
For dinner, 2 tilapia fillets, seasoned with lemon-pepper and old bay, grilled. 2cups steamed vegetable medley, and 1 cup pasta salad.
Snacks: a handful of m&m's and an apple at work. 100 calorie pack of cookies and a salad in the evening.
It came out to around 1900 calories.
I also don't stop eating at any particular time, if I want a snack at 10:00 at night, I have one. I never understood when people say they don't eat after 8:00 or 7:00. If you are hungry, eat. Our bodies don't just add pounds at night. I don't even really worry if I go over 2000 calories a day. It is just easier to keep track of on a daily basis, rather than a weekly basis.
It isn't hard to do what I am doing. It takes a little fore thought and planning sometimes, and you have to think about your choices when you do eat. That's it. Hell if you like McDonalds, get a small fry instead of a large, get a single cheeseburger instead of a double. Start slow by making better choices and the rest will fall into place!
Last night, I mowed my lawn in about half the time it took me in June. In June when I was finished I was out of breath and winded. Last night, I wasn't even breathing hard.
Starting weight June 15 - 375
Today's weight Oct 05 - 330.5
Total loss in 16 weeks - 44.5 lbs
Rich D

Makin Pancakes!

As promised, here is the recipe for the whole wheat pancakes.  It is a modification from a Cooking Light recipe.  I make a batch on the weekend, let them cool and then freeze them, 2 pancakes per pack.  I get 12 pancakes from the batch and each serving of 2 is 192 calories.

Ingredients

3/4 cup all purpose flour
3/4 cup whole wheat flour
3 tablespoons sugar
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 cups 2% milk
1 tablespoon vegetable oil
1 large egg
1 large egg white

Preparation

Combine flours, sugar, baking powder, baking soda, and salt in a large bowl, stirring with a whisk. Combine milk, oil, egg, and egg white, stirring with a whisk; add to flour mixture, stirring just until moist.

Heat a griddle or skillet coated with cooking spray over medium heat. Spoon about 1/4 cup batter per pancake onto griddle. Turn pancakes over when tops are covered with bubbles and edges look cooked.

When I cook them to freeze, I leave them a little lighter in color than I would when I serve them immediately because they will be reheated in a toaster.

Per serving: 192 Calories, 31g Carbs, 5g Fat, 7g Protein, 10g Sugar.


When I plan on eating these, I just pull a pack out the night before and let them thaw in the fridge.  At work, I put the pancakes in the toaster on medium and eat them with sugar free jelly and turkey sausage. The turkey sausage is also precooked and frozen.  It's also thawed out the night before and reheated in the microwave while the pancakes are in the toaster.

The whole breakfast is 332 calories, 42g Carbs, 12g Fat, 20g Protein and 11g Sugar.

Is cooking that hard?

I know there are days when we don't feel like cooking.  It happens to everyone.  Sometimes the best dinner can be a bowl of cereal, simply because it's there and it's easy.  But I am really amazed at the number of people that don't cook.

As I said in the last post, I can view other people's food journals on MyFitnessPal.  If someone makes a forum post asking for meal ideas, I go check out their diiary to see what they've been eating and I can see why they have problems.  Shakes or smoothies have big followings for breakfast or lunch.  Personally, a shake or smoothie doesn't stay with me as a meal.  I like a fruit smoothie as a treat, but not a meal.  Next are the microwave meals.  Again, I'll have one every once in a while, but really don't like them.  The ones I do like are the Swanson Hungryman meals and they typically have enough fat and sodium to last a week so I don't even buy them.   After that, most people are eating take-out in one form or another.  I believe, even if you are careful in your restaurant selections, you still have no idea how many calories you're eating.  Even with the nutritional information posted, a little extra oil, a little more butter, it all adds up.  If you aren't trying to lose weight, the extra calories shouldn't matter but for someone counting calories, it could make a huge difference.

The only way I am comfortable counting calories is to know exactly what I'm eating and the only way I can do that is if I or my wife prepare it.  For example, the cafeteria at work offers omelets.  They have eggs, egg whites, egg beaters, fresh veggies and several types of meat including turkey sausage.  The first thing the cook does when you order an omelet is to splash down a ladle of melted butter.  Then when he sautes the vegetables, he lays down a little more.  Suddenly a 100 calorie omelet is up to 300 calories because of the butter.

My advice, if you are trying to lose weight, start cooking for yourself.  It's cheaper and it's healthier.  It takes a little more effort, but that's just extra calories your burning!  Don't know how?  Ask someone to teach you!  Even when I was single and lived alone, I cooked for myself.  It doesn't have to be fancy or complex to taste good.  Toss a couple chicken breasts in a crockpot with a jar of salsa or season a pork chop with a little garlic powder and put it under the broiler.  Stop relying on other people to provide you with a basic need.  I promise you, if cooking were hard or complex, I wouldn't do it.

Aha!  Once a week, I'm going to pick out one of my meals and post the recipe here.  I'll include the time it took to prepare it and the nutrition info.  In honor of my pop-tart loving co-worker, the first recipe will be for the whole wheat pancakes!

I lost 1.2 pounds last week.

On January 2nd I weighed in at 370.6 pounds
On February 18th I weighed in at 355.6 pounds

15 lbs lost so far.

Protein Shakes - I don't get it.

One feature on MyFitnessPal allows users to share their food diaries with other users.  Many new users find it helpful to view the diaries of other people with a similar caloric limit.  However what I notice is the number of people drinking protein shakes on a daily basis and I don't understand why.  I know athletes, both endurance and body builders, need the extra boost of protein, but I don't see why anyone else would.

The average protein shake has around 20 grams of protein.  You can get the same amount in a chicken breast or a couple hard boiled eggs and a handful of cashews.  I understand that those things aren't convenient to eat at the gym, but you could certainly eat them shortly after a workout.

Anyone eating a healthy diet will get their required amount of protein without supplements or shakes.  Even with normal exercise, you still don't need more protein than you could get with a normal diet.  I understand that if you are pressed for time, it's convenient to grab a shake as a meal replacement, but every day?

Trying to lose weight is hard enough.  You need to pay attention to what you eat.  You need to start exercising.  Why do you need to add extra expenses by purchasing special food or supplements?

I'm sure people will say I'm wrong and I won't build muscle without the shakes, but I don't believe them.  I know with my routine I won't end up looking like Mr. Universe, but that's not my goal.  I just want to be healthy and I can get healthy without special shakes.

If they work for you, great!  I just don't get it.

No change this week! Doh!

Well, I weighed in and there was no change to my weight.  I didn't gain anything and I didn't lose anything.  I think my cheat day had something to do with it, but not in the way you would think.

I had a bacon cheeseburger and fries for lunch, and for dinner, I had half a cheese steak hoagie and an order of fried mushrooms.  My calorie total for the day was 2674 calories.  However when I average out my week, my daily average was 1991 calories. So I didn't gain weight from too many calories.

On Saturday, I ate o.k and was under my calories., but had grilled kielbasa sandwiches for dinner.

Sunday, my wife and I divided up the grocery shopping, I went out early and got an egg mcmuffin for breakfast, had soup and a sandwich for lunch and we ordered pizza for dinner.  Again, I kept under my calorie goal.

Then I looked at my sodium numbers and I realized that on Friday and Sunday, I ate double the RDA of sodium and was over on Sunday by about 500mg.

Another contributing factor is that I increased the weight on each exercise in my strength routine last week.

I believe both factors are causing me to retain excess water.  I'm willing to bet that everything will balance out next week.  All I can do is keep tracking my calories and continue exercising and the weight will come off.  It's not voodoo and there isn't a shortcut.  Moderation and exercise... forever.

I have to admit it's the forever part that's daunting.  It's so much easier to think that once I hit my goal weight I can stop, but I know what will happen if I do.

Today shall be a Cheat day and it shall be good!

For about a week and a half now, I've been craving a bacon cheeseburger and fries.  I planned on it last weekend, but we went out to dinner twice and neither place had what I would consider a quality bacon cheeseburger..  Also, I'm not talking about some fastfood cheeseburger.  I want the real thing.  I'm hoping for a Bocktown burger.  If you live in Pittsburgh or visit, you have to try Bocktown beer and grill at least once.  First, they have over 400 beer choices.  Second, they make the best burger.  The Bocktown burger is a bacon cheeseburger with bbq sauce, served with lettuce, tomato and onion on Italian bread.  I know it doesn't sound like much, but it is one of the best burgers you'll ever eat.  However it is raining, so I may just skip going out and get a burger from the cafeteria.  Surprisingly, they make a pretty good burger as well. It's no Bocktown burger, but it's as good as you could get in most bars or chain restaurants.  Burger, fries and a diet root beer.  The only thing that could top that is if they had apple pie for dessert!  Today could easily turn out to be a 3000 calorie day.  Bad, but I'll be burning about 500 calories exercising tonight and I've been under my goal for the last 5 days, so I'm sure I'll still average the week under 2000.

Here's an old post from 09/28/07:

Week 15 

I spent this last week on vacation. I hoped to maintain, but ended up gaining a pound. About halfway through the week I suspected it would happen. 

We spent a week at the beach and I had good intentions. I made sure the hotel had a gym and planned on using it, but knew just by eating out 3 meals a day for 6 days that would be over my calorie limit. Add to that enjoying a frozen drink poolside plus a beer or two in the evenings while looking out at the ocean, a couple sinfully delicious deserts and the hotel gym sucked! It was terribly maintained. The nautilus machine was rusty, I couldn't adjust the seats because the pins were rusted into place and the incline on the treadmills no longer worked. I went once and just decided the heck with it. A week off won't kill me. 

One of my biggest concerns starting this was that I wouldn't keep up with the gym. I (like a lot of people) always had the best intentions, but I would join, go for a couple weeks, then excuses would start and I would quit. I figured the best way to prevent that this time would be to not make excuses and just go. I set a goal to go at least 3x per week every week from July to my vacation. I figured that would give me enough time to make the gym part of my routine. I met that goal and found that I missed going to the gym. So much so that after getting home last night, I packed my gym bag so I could go this morning. It felt really good to get in my full work out. 

So I gained a pound, big deal! That pound and two more will be gone by next week! 

Also now that I met my previous goals, it is time to make new ones. 

1. I am modifying my gym goal. At least 4x a week through the end of the year. 

2. To get below 300lbs by January 4, 2008. (My first weigh in date of the new year!) 

Today's weight 337.5 

Thanks, 

Rich

January goal update

On January 9th, I set these two goals for the month of January:  Exercise 3x a week and pack lunch 18 out of 20 workdays.

I exceeded both goals.  I packed lunch 19 of 20 days and I increased my days exercising from 3 to 6!

I am going to keep almost the same goals for February.

I will pack my lunch 18 out of the 20 workdays

I will exercise at least 5x a week for the month.

How I'm doing what I'm doing

I've been using myfitnesspal.com to track my calories and exercises.  In addition to the food and exercise database, it has an active and diverse message board.  As with any Internet forum, there are many contradicting opinions on what works best for dieting and exercise.  Some people insist on heavy weight training, some insist on high intensity cardio, some say fasting or fresh food only or shakes or whatever fits in your calories...  It can be confusing if you don't have a clear plan.

Me? I'm of the opinion that the best diet is the one that works best for you and is one that you can maintain indefinitely.  If you like drinking a shake for breakfast and cereal for lunch, a big mac for dinner and you're losing weight then who am I to tell you that you're wrong?

Here's what I did.  Please remember that I am not a fitness expert or have any type of medical knowledge.  I know that our bodies require a certain amount of calories to just function.  It's called your Basal Metabolic Rate (BMR).  It's the amount of calories your body would need to keep things working if you did nothing at all.  Then there's something called your Total Daily Energy Expenditure (TDEE).  This is the amount of calories you burn all day.  It includes the BMR amount and anything extra like getting dressed, walking around, etc.

I googled BMR and TDEE and found a site that calculates those 2 numbers based upon variables like weight, height, sex, age, etc...and used it to find the BMR for my goal weight.  It lists the BMR for that weight at 1783 calories, and the TDEE for that weight with a light activity level (light exercise 1-3 days a week) at 2452 calories.  I figure if I eat the amount of calories for my goal weight, I will lose the excess weight and be used to that amount of food and be able to maintain that goal weight when I get there.  A good site to calculate this is fat2fitradio.com.

I set my limit at 2000 calories, knowing that I'm under-estimating on some foods, and don't log certain things like the cream I put in my coffee.  Between the under-estimating and things that aren't logged, I figure I'm eating around 2500 calories a day.  But this is also where it gets a little hairy...

At my current weight, my BMR is 2886 calories.  I am eating under my BMR which is something you shouldn't do, unless you are morbidly obese.  Unfortunately, I fit that category.  Using the military body fat calculator on fat2fit, I have a body fat percentage in the 35-40% range.  The acceptable range for men is 18-25% and the range to be considered fit for men is 14-17%.  By eating 2500 calories, my body is using up it's store of fat a little faster.  At some point, I may plateau because my body will become used to the lower calorie amount and my metabolism will slow down, adjusting to the lower calorie range.  I'm hoping that I'll get to the weight where 2500 is my BMR before the plateau.  If not, I will probably have to start eating more calories to speed things up again, but I'll cross that bridge when I come to it.  Also, I think my cheat day will help keep my metabolism up with the boost of calories.

There's also contradicting opinions on eating your exercise calories back.  Say I eat my 2000 calories, but burn an extra 150 on the treadmill, should I eat them back?  It depends.  There are 5 levels given for TDEE.

Sedentary - no exercise and a desk job
Lightly active - light exercise 1-3 days a week
Moderately active - moderate exercise 3-5 days a week
Very active - hard exercise 6-7 days a week
Extremely active - physical job, hard daily exercise or 2x a day training

If you calculate your tdee for moderately active and you exercise 3-5 days a week, then no, you shouldn't eat back your exercise calories because that number is worked into your tdee.  If you calculate based on sedentary and start exercising like a fiend, then yes you should be eating those calories back or you risk dropping below your BMR and causing a metabolic slow down and plateau.

So if you want to lose weight and you want my OPINION, based on no medical training or fitness background, calculate your BMR and your TDEE and then eat around 80 or 90% of your TDEE.  So if your current TDEE is 2000 calories and you eat 1600 calories, you'll lose weight.  It's not recommended to go below 70% of your TDEE, unless you are morbidly obese.

I know it might seem confusing, but I think it's better than randomly picking a number and trying to stick to it.  Let's face it, why would you try to stick to 1200 calories a day which might be below your BMR when you could eat 1600 calories a day and lose weight just as fast if not faster?

One of the members of myfitnessplan.com created a post that he called a roadmap to weight loss.  He provides more detail and offers custom plans.  Here is the link to his post:  Roadmap

As for the type of foods, I eat whatever I want as long as I stay under 2000.  I do find, however that home made, non-processed food satisfies me more than processed foods do.  See last month's post on Pop-Tarts as an example.  It helps that I enjoy cooking.  If you don't like to cook and want to live on frozen micro-waved meals, then have at it!

Sunday update, weigh in and achievement!

I slept in on Sunday and didn't get around to making breakfast until 11 ish.  I made a batch of whole wheat pancakes so that I could freeze the left-overs for weekday breakfast.  Anyway, we were meeting family at Red Lobster early (3:00), so I knew I could skip lunch.  That opened up some options for me at the restaurant.  Instead of my planned meal of shrimp skewers and broccoli, I ordered their "Wood-fired grill trio"  It was a skewer of grilled shrimp, a skewer of grilled scallops and a grilled rock lobster tail.  I substituted crispy red potatoes for the rice and stuck with the broccoli side, salad and 1 biscuit.  The biscuit was the hardest part!  I love those things!

Breakfast was only 425 calories for 1 egg, 2 pancakes and syrup, so I had almost 1600 calories to play with, going into dinner.  My meal turned out to be 1070, so I went for broke and ordered dessert.  They have an apple crostada, which is fancy speak for apple dumpling alamode which was 510 calories.  The whole meal was great and came in at 1580 calories.  

That put me in at 2005 calories for the day, only 5 over my limit, but not really because I burned about 250 on the treadmill before going to dinner!!

So what does this have to do with weight loss?  Am I recommending that you eat 1500 calorie meals every day?  No.

I'm merely pointing out that losing weight doesn't have to be a sacrifice.  You don't have to live on cottage cheese, lettuce and canned tuna.  I planned my meal carefully, adjusted my plan when I could and enjoyed spending time with family.  I didn't have to sit there and either wish I could order something different or eat 3000 calories and feel like a failure because I went over my limit.  Yes, it takes some effort and yes it takes some thought, but what the hell is so hard about googling "Red Lobster Nutritional info" and logging food into an app?  You don't even have to do math because the apps do it for you! 

Also, I write this as a lecture to myself because there's a reason I got this way.  I need to keep reminding myself that it isn't hard to google "Red Lobster Nutritional info" or log food into an app!  Hell, I don't even have to do math!

Almost as if it were a reward for my efforts, I dropped 2 pants sizes in January!

I weighed in this morning as well:

On January 2nd I weighed in at 370.6 pounds
On February 4th I weighed in at 356.8 pounds

13.8 lbs lost so far.

Challenging weekend

I thought that this weekend would be a bit of a challenge, but I think I have a pretty good handle on it.  The problem is that we went out to eat today, and are going out to eat again tomorrow.  Normally, I reserve one day as a "cheat day", when it doesn't matter if I go over my calorie limit and even then, I still try and keep it within reason.  I hate when I have to do it more than one day in a week.

Tonight we went out with friends to a local chain that doesn't post nutritional information.  They have a small menu and while the food tastes great, there are a lot of hidden calories and I was really worried about blowing my day's limit.  I ended up settling on a salmon salad, only had 1 piece of bread and had enough calories left over to stop at Dunkin Donuts on the way home for a brownie batter donut!  Woo Hoo!

Tomorrow, we are going to Red Lobster for a late lunch with my in-laws.  This is actually easier because they post their nutritional info online.  I'll be ordering the Garlic shrimp skewers, with a salad and broccoli.  I'm going with regular ranch dressing on the salad and will limit myself to only one cheddar bay biscuit.  It will be under 600 calories and I'll be able to stay under my limit tomorrow as well.

It was nice today catching up with friends over a good meal and it'll be just as nice tomorrow with family, especially knowing that it can be done without eating a day's worth of calories in one meal.