Monday, August 9, 2010

Sonoma Diet day five

Good day today. I treated myself to a breakfast burrito (well, Greg cooked it, I just told him what I wanted): a scrambled egg, turkey breakfast sausage and spinach wrapped in a whole wheat tortilla. Lunch was another steak and blue cheese wrap, since we had some tri-tip left over. Dinner was one of my favorites from this plan: beef and mushroom kabobs. Tenderloin steak, baby bella mushrooms and grape tomatoes, marinated and broiled. Delish! We had a salad with it, topped with the Greek Vinaigrette from the book. I really, really liked it.

Tomorrow, we go to my mom's for dinner. She promised to cook something healthy, so we'll see!

Sunday, August 8, 2010

Sonoma Diet day four

Well, the reunion last night wasn't bad, food-wise. They had a yummy selection of fresh fruits, grilled vegetables, caesar salad, pesto lasagna (which I did not have), roasted red potatoes (which I also didn't have, aren't you proud of me?), a yummy chicken breast with an artichoke and sundried tomato topping and tri-tip. Overall, quite healthy! I did have one tiny piece of bread with butter on it, and I did have three tiny (literally--a mouthful) cupcakes for dessert. I know, I should have skipped dessert, but I forgive myself.

Today, I had my egg and a piece of locally made, multi-grain, high fiber toast. Lunch was the steak and blue cheese wraps from the Sonoma Diet book: whole wheat tortilla, leftover tri-tip from the other night, blue cheese, romaine lettuce (I think that's all...supposed to put bell peppers on, but ew). Quite tasty and decadent! Tonight is Mediterranean Pork Chops, broccoli with almonds and hot pepper (the chili flakes) and toasted quinoa pilaf. I'm not big on pork chops, but these are pretty good, and I like the quinoa pilaf a lot. If you don't know what that is, quinoa (pronounced keen-wah) is a tiny spherical grain. It has good flavor and is fun to eat! Highly recommended on this diet.

Have a great Sunday, everyone!

ETA: I didn't like the broccoli. I'm starting to think the only thing I like on it is cheese! The pork chops were good, and so was the quinoa. The book said to put bell peppers in, but that's gross, so we used mushrooms.

Saturday, August 7, 2010

Sonoma Diet day two (a little late)

Yesterday was a good day. I've been starting each day with one fried egg and a Thomas' Better Start Multigrain English Muffins. These are "light", with 1/3 the calories of their regular product but 1/3 of your daily supply of fiber. Honestly, I don't know how these companies are making these high fiber and whole grain products that taste so good and have good texture. I have a feeling an expose  is going to come out to tell us these companies have been lying to us, but for now I'm going to go with it! Here are some of the nutritional facts from the Thomas':

Calories: 100
Calories from fat: 10
Total fat: 1g (no saturated, no cholesterol)
Sodium: 170mg
Total carbs: 25g
Dietary fiber: 8g
Protein 5g

Diet wisdom from at least a couple of gurus I've read say to subtract the fiber from the total carbs, and that's the number you should be worried about. That means these have 17g, which isn't all that bad for bread. On Sonoma, this is a reasonable amount. In the first wave, this is fine as long as I watch it closely the rest of the day.

Yesterday for lunch we had chicken and black bean wraps, which were totally tasty. According to the recipe, we were supposed to make a black bean spread, but we didn't have all the spices so we just warmed up the beans and put them in straight. Whole grain tortilla, of course. I loved it. For dinner we had her grilled tri-tip, except we were lazy and broiled it. It's seasoned with rosemary and I don't know what else, but it's totally delish. The key here, since it's red meat, is portion control. I think you get 4oz of meat. We had a simple spinach salad with it (baby spinach and sliced almonds), and did her recipe for broccoli, roasted red peppers and kalamata olives. That we did not like. We don't really like bell peppers, but are trying to be open minded because they're one of the "super foods" she lists in the book. We can tolerate them in some applications, but this was definitely not one of them. *shudder*

In the evening, I DJed a dance (http://www.jenniferdance.blogspot.com), and ended up dancing quite a bit. I've been nursing my sprained ankle and not doing a whole lot (as my friend and bludgeon Patience would say, using it as an excuse), so I'm pretty well out of shape. I danced a lot, though, and my ankle survived pretty well and isn't any worse today. I got a lot of exercise and had a great time. On the way home, we stopped for Del Taco Tacos Del Carbon. The chicken ones have only 5 grams of fat and are really tasty! If you're going to do fast food because your starving, it's not a bad way to go.

Tonight I have my 20th high school reunion. I'm not sure what's going to happen meal-wise, but I have a feeling it'll be bad. I'm going to enjoy myself but try to be modest. Have a great day, everyone!

Thursday, August 5, 2010

Back on the Sonoma Diet

Well, hello, blog! Long time no see. I know, I'm a horrible friend. What have I been up to? Well, I was working for a horse trainer for 10 months and lost a ton of weight. At one point, I was at 178, a total loss of 50 pounds. That rocked! I was working so hard, physically, that I was burning probably 4-5,000 calories a day and eating as much as whatever I want. Then, I decided to leave that job to go back to working at home full time, writing. Funny, all of a sudden I can't eat whatever I want anymore. Oh, and then I was helping a friend with a horse and it freaked out and knocked me around a bit and I ended up with a sprained ankle. Therefore, not much exercise in the past three weeks. I know, I know. Excuses. I could find exercises to do, but I'm lazy.

So, anyway, I've packed on a little extra padding again, so I need to go back to watching what I eat and *sigh* exercising. Greg and I love The Sonoma Diet, so we're going back on that. We love it because the food is fantastic--she gives a lot of great recipes. Of course, you don't have to follow her meal plans and recipes, but it's a great way to start, get some ideas and get used to this way of eating. It's basically all about balance, whole grains and lean meats, but it's also about making food taste really great so you feel satisfied. You get a wide variety of food, and it's a way of eating that you can live with for the rest of your life. The hardest part is that there is a lot of prep work and cooking involved, but we like that, and it gives us something to do together.

For lunch today, we made the Greek salad with shrimp. Delicious! We did a little extra prep so we'd have some ready-to-go salad toppings to go with dinner tonight. Tonight's dinner isn't exactly on the plan, but it could be worse--it's turkey meatloaf, sweet potatoes and salad. We bought a pre-made turkey meatloaf at the store (it's Jennie-O brand, which has a lot of great turkey products) before we decided to go back on Sonoma. It's close enough. We'll try to steer clear of packaged foods from now on when we can, but we don't want it to go to waste and it's not that bad.

Now I should probably get some exercise...Maybe in the pool!