Week 2 was a test of wills!
On Saturday night (since the week starts on an odd day), we met with some friends for soup night, graciously hosted by the James & Erin Clark. Diet-wise, soup night turned out to be our cheat day, which was a good little break from the diet madness. Soup night was the first real test of willpower in a situation where we couldn't control - and didn't know - what was in the food. With his metabolism and having run that day, Ben was still able to maintain a reasonable number of calories, but I really didn't pay attention to what I ate besides quantity. We chose to bring a smaller-sized bowls, which helped limit portion sizes.
What is soup night? It's a small gathering where everyone brings a crock pot full of soup and a side or dessert. Spread it all out, and you have a wonderful variety of food in front of you. The soups & sides/desserts everyone brought were amazing!
Here are a couple of my favorites from the night:
Verdict:
Soup night is FUN.
I half expected your typical run-of-the-mill soups to show up, but never did I imagine I would have my first experience eating beets (borscht) and had no idea that you could make a soup out of walnuts. The chickpea and spinach soup was so good, I thought about it every single day for over a week until I got the recipe and made it myself.
You'll enjoy soup night too... I promise, we will hold a Bartley a soup night this year!
-------------------------------------------
But wait, there's more:
We ate out at Bub's Burgers at the end of the week. But no Big Ugly burger challenge for us! If Ben's doing his calculations right, you can have an post-cooked 1/4-pound elk burger for under 200 calories if you nix the cheese and ketchup. Add about 150 calories for the bun and you're still out the door for <400 calories.
For those of you who know Ben, he likes to enjoy some burger with his ketchup, so while that's hard, Bub's seasons their burgers SO well that you really don't want to smother it with ketchup - it'll hide the taste! Elk tastes no different than beef, except it's much leaner -- and even leaner than bison. Now, you can't go to Bub's and not order the sweet potato waffle fries, so we split a large order in half between the two of us. I also cut my burger in half and take the other half home for a yummy snack later in the week. But we did good: for two people who also always order a gigantic (their only size) milkshake at Bub's, we've been foregoing... I usually leave in a state of hurt when I put down all of that food, so it's really not a loss. :)
Week 2 - Ben:
Having lost a few pounds now, Ben started adding more calories to his daily intake and being less stringent and restrictive on his foods. Since he got through the first week by eating virtually the same meal every day, it was a welcome change.
During the second week, also, Ben got sick and stayed sick all through the week. Better nutrition, vitamin C, and getting enough sleep were a big part of the focus during week 2.
His overall weight loss was roughly 4 pounds with each day averaging about 1100 calories in the negative.
[More on Ben soon, I need to get the full story from him]
Week 2 - Steph:
In general, my outlook was much better. You know the four (corny) stages of team development? Forming, storming, norming, performing? Week 1 was forming: getting onto the diet (forming), followed by frustration (storming). Week 2 was a week of Norming - some acceptance and the slow beginnings to a change in my habits. Performing is that future state where everything's just clicking along.... we're not quite there yet.
[Sidenote: is the fact that I'm making this connection a sign that I've been in the corporate world too long?]
I started measuring things (serving sizes) by eyeballing. I'm not so nuts that I keep a set of measuring cups and spoons in my purse, but I'm finding that eyeballing and estimating is a good way to keep from mindlessly eating lots of food.
Yep, still drinking a ton of water. I've been trying to keep a glass or bottle of water near me at all times. If I drink a bunch of water with my meal (because I usually don't need a beverage with my food), it helps me keep hydrated but also stay fuller throughout the day. Kind of obvious there, but it's good to get back to basics.
For me, because of the frustration of tracking every morsel during week 1, I mostly quit taking pictures of food and quit tracking every bite. Just as I'd feared, it was starting to become another thing to worry about; eating well/healthy can extend your lifespan, but the added stress can still kill ya! It's all about cost-benefit. :)
I started researching low-calorie recipes, too. The Women's Health Abs Diet includes a meal plan for 3 weeks worth of low-calorie meals and days totaling around 1,500 calories. The plan also walks through some exercises and workouts, so it's a complete package. Free to check out! I like the fact that the plan emphasizes that it doesn't have to take a long time to plan and cook to be healthy, so all of the meals/recipes it gives can be assembled and prepared in less than 10 minutes. However, some of the recipes on there are a little strange. For the extra 3 minutes that it might take to cook an egg in a skillet (over the microwave), I'll take my chances so I don't end up using that time to clean up splattered egg from inside the microwave.
Speaking of low-calorie recipes... as I've mentioned before, my curiosity and interest in diet & nutrition isn't really a new trend. As I was going through the kitchen, I remembered that my mom had given me a number of "Eat This, Not That" books the last few Christmases. You need to read these books!! Unlike the WH Abs Diet, the foods on here taste good and won't get you funny looks when you pull one of these meals out for lunch. I also have a version of this series of books that covers eating out -- the restaurant survival guide. Since so many restaurant and fast-food meals seem to be stealth calorie bombs, it's good to have the book as a reference in the center console in my car in case I'm going somewhere new and need to choose a meal that's less than 1.58 billion calories. Only $10 or $11 at Costco = worth the investment!
(Above) - I made this chicken salad sandwich with a couple of tweaks. It's Chicken Salad Sandwich with Curry & Raisins, except I don't like curry and I don't like raisins. I switched it out for grapes and a little bit of cumin. The Boston Market version is 800+ calories and mine, if I had made it according to this book, would have been 400. The thing was, it was really good. I had to stop myself from eating loads more, but not because I was restricting. It was because it felt full! Very suspicious: this stuff didn't have the feel of "diet food" in a good way.
I'm now itching to buy the latest book, "Eat This, Not That - Supermarket Survival Guide," which helps identify some foods that, although they look the same, are very nutritionally different.
Having a copy would be like having a Rachel (RD) in a book! A few weeks ago, she was telling me about how she was teaching her roommate to shop for healthy foods and read ingredient labels. Two examples she gave were 1) Peanuts and 2) Ice cream. For peanuts, even though they may be plain non-salted dry-roasted peanuts, some manufacturers will roast them in salt, needlessly adding to their sodium content. So, lesson learned: look for as few ingredients as possible! The same applies for ice cream: there are so many fillers and artificial ingredients in some ice cream brands, it can't possibly be good for you. But, read the ingredient list on a carton of Breyers and you'll see three ingredients: milk, cream, sugar. Much better. If you can't pronounce it, walk away.
On the running front, unfortunately, nothing spectacular all week. I just felt tired and pulled a 55-mile week, a big achievement, since I typically get injured as I break the 50-mile plane. A 10-mile pace run was scheduled for Saturday. Ben's advice for pace runs is to eat your typical pre-race meal on the night prior to a pace run because you treat the pace run like a race. We ate some whole wheat pasta with ground turkey meat sauce that night, the first real carbs I felt like I'd had in a while (breaking the salad-for-dinner routine). The run went BETTER than expected! (link works if you're logged into R2W) I felt great! So great that I was completely and utterly wiped out for the rest of the day. The run was definitely something to be proud of.
Meanwhile, I read some McMillan articles about refueling & recovery, some tips which stuck with me. Maybe the info here will help you, too! Greg McMillan writes about the proper mix and timing of nutrition and eating for best recovery. It turns out that Endurox R4 is that perfect 4:1 ratio of carbs to protein, best within 30 minutes of a workout. On days where I'm feeling especially pooped I'll down a scoop of Endurox and water right after I'm done running. Bonus: it doesn't taste bad if you're using the fruit punch flavor. Dare I say I enjoy it?
Outcome: I lost 2 pounds, bringing me to 111.4 lbs, and I think I lost some chub! The most important and notable result is that I'm slowly shifting my mindset. I'm not saying that my views of food are completely and 100% fixed and that I'm not tempted to eat all the Oreos in our pantry in one sitting. I'm just keeping calories in the back of my mind when I eat. Not obsessively, but it never used to get a second thought -- that's how I would be led to overeat.
All in all, good changes after only 2 weeks. Onward and upward!
On Saturday night (since the week starts on an odd day), we met with some friends for soup night, graciously hosted by the James & Erin Clark. Diet-wise, soup night turned out to be our cheat day, which was a good little break from the diet madness. Soup night was the first real test of willpower in a situation where we couldn't control - and didn't know - what was in the food. With his metabolism and having run that day, Ben was still able to maintain a reasonable number of calories, but I really didn't pay attention to what I ate besides quantity. We chose to bring a smaller-sized bowls, which helped limit portion sizes.
What is soup night? It's a small gathering where everyone brings a crock pot full of soup and a side or dessert. Spread it all out, and you have a wonderful variety of food in front of you. The soups & sides/desserts everyone brought were amazing!
 |
| Moroccan chickpea soup via Food Network |
- sauerkraut soup from Rick
- chocolate dessert soup by James
- blueberry bars from Leslie
- de-licious fresh guacamole and vegan chickpea-spinach soup made by Shiva and Jenny
- Carman & Oscar brought a super good roasted red pepper soup
- Betsy made this I-might-have-to-park-myself-here-all-night good beer bread.
- there was a white chicken chili and broccoli cheddar soup , but I have no idea who made them! Jon/Jaylyn?
Want to see what else everyone brought to soup night? Here's the collection of recipes.
Soup night is FUN.
I half expected your typical run-of-the-mill soups to show up, but never did I imagine I would have my first experience eating beets (borscht) and had no idea that you could make a soup out of walnuts. The chickpea and spinach soup was so good, I thought about it every single day for over a week until I got the recipe and made it myself.
You'll enjoy soup night too... I promise, we will hold a Bartley a soup night this year!
-------------------------------------------
But wait, there's more:
We ate out at Bub's Burgers at the end of the week. But no Big Ugly burger challenge for us! If Ben's doing his calculations right, you can have an post-cooked 1/4-pound elk burger for under 200 calories if you nix the cheese and ketchup. Add about 150 calories for the bun and you're still out the door for <400 calories.
For those of you who know Ben, he likes to enjoy some burger with his ketchup, so while that's hard, Bub's seasons their burgers SO well that you really don't want to smother it with ketchup - it'll hide the taste! Elk tastes no different than beef, except it's much leaner -- and even leaner than bison. Now, you can't go to Bub's and not order the sweet potato waffle fries, so we split a large order in half between the two of us. I also cut my burger in half and take the other half home for a yummy snack later in the week. But we did good: for two people who also always order a gigantic (their only size) milkshake at Bub's, we've been foregoing... I usually leave in a state of hurt when I put down all of that food, so it's really not a loss. :)
Week 2 - Ben:
Having lost a few pounds now, Ben started adding more calories to his daily intake and being less stringent and restrictive on his foods. Since he got through the first week by eating virtually the same meal every day, it was a welcome change.
During the second week, also, Ben got sick and stayed sick all through the week. Better nutrition, vitamin C, and getting enough sleep were a big part of the focus during week 2.
His overall weight loss was roughly 4 pounds with each day averaging about 1100 calories in the negative.
[More on Ben soon, I need to get the full story from him]
Week 2 - Steph:
In general, my outlook was much better. You know the four (corny) stages of team development? Forming, storming, norming, performing? Week 1 was forming: getting onto the diet (forming), followed by frustration (storming). Week 2 was a week of Norming - some acceptance and the slow beginnings to a change in my habits. Performing is that future state where everything's just clicking along.... we're not quite there yet.
[Sidenote: is the fact that I'm making this connection a sign that I've been in the corporate world too long?]
Yep, still drinking a ton of water. I've been trying to keep a glass or bottle of water near me at all times. If I drink a bunch of water with my meal (because I usually don't need a beverage with my food), it helps me keep hydrated but also stay fuller throughout the day. Kind of obvious there, but it's good to get back to basics.
For me, because of the frustration of tracking every morsel during week 1, I mostly quit taking pictures of food and quit tracking every bite. Just as I'd feared, it was starting to become another thing to worry about; eating well/healthy can extend your lifespan, but the added stress can still kill ya! It's all about cost-benefit. :)
I started researching low-calorie recipes, too. The Women's Health Abs Diet includes a meal plan for 3 weeks worth of low-calorie meals and days totaling around 1,500 calories. The plan also walks through some exercises and workouts, so it's a complete package. Free to check out! I like the fact that the plan emphasizes that it doesn't have to take a long time to plan and cook to be healthy, so all of the meals/recipes it gives can be assembled and prepared in less than 10 minutes. However, some of the recipes on there are a little strange. For the extra 3 minutes that it might take to cook an egg in a skillet (over the microwave), I'll take my chances so I don't end up using that time to clean up splattered egg from inside the microwave.
Speaking of low-calorie recipes... as I've mentioned before, my curiosity and interest in diet & nutrition isn't really a new trend. As I was going through the kitchen, I remembered that my mom had given me a number of "Eat This, Not That" books the last few Christmases. You need to read these books!! Unlike the WH Abs Diet, the foods on here taste good and won't get you funny looks when you pull one of these meals out for lunch. I also have a version of this series of books that covers eating out -- the restaurant survival guide. Since so many restaurant and fast-food meals seem to be stealth calorie bombs, it's good to have the book as a reference in the center console in my car in case I'm going somewhere new and need to choose a meal that's less than 1.58 billion calories. Only $10 or $11 at Costco = worth the investment!
 |
| Cook This, Not That! Yummy and GENIUS meal ideas. Check out the page on all the quick things you can make with a $5 Kroger rotisserie chicken! |
I'm now itching to buy the latest book, "Eat This, Not That - Supermarket Survival Guide," which helps identify some foods that, although they look the same, are very nutritionally different.
On the running front, unfortunately, nothing spectacular all week. I just felt tired and pulled a 55-mile week, a big achievement, since I typically get injured as I break the 50-mile plane. A 10-mile pace run was scheduled for Saturday. Ben's advice for pace runs is to eat your typical pre-race meal on the night prior to a pace run because you treat the pace run like a race. We ate some whole wheat pasta with ground turkey meat sauce that night, the first real carbs I felt like I'd had in a while (breaking the salad-for-dinner routine). The run went BETTER than expected! (link works if you're logged into R2W) I felt great! So great that I was completely and utterly wiped out for the rest of the day. The run was definitely something to be proud of.
Meanwhile, I read some McMillan articles about refueling & recovery, some tips which stuck with me. Maybe the info here will help you, too! Greg McMillan writes about the proper mix and timing of nutrition and eating for best recovery. It turns out that Endurox R4 is that perfect 4:1 ratio of carbs to protein, best within 30 minutes of a workout. On days where I'm feeling especially pooped I'll down a scoop of Endurox and water right after I'm done running. Bonus: it doesn't taste bad if you're using the fruit punch flavor. Dare I say I enjoy it?
Outcome: I lost 2 pounds, bringing me to 111.4 lbs, and I think I lost some chub! The most important and notable result is that I'm slowly shifting my mindset. I'm not saying that my views of food are completely and 100% fixed and that I'm not tempted to eat all the Oreos in our pantry in one sitting. I'm just keeping calories in the back of my mind when I eat. Not obsessively, but it never used to get a second thought -- that's how I would be led to overeat.
All in all, good changes after only 2 weeks. Onward and upward!
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