Chicken for breakfast

My sleep schedule has been crazy so I find myself hungrier for protein in the early hours of they day. Yesterday's red cabbage meal had my protein in it. In the evening I ate a breakfast-y toasted oatmeal with toasted coconut and apple sauce.  Delicious, by the way.  Here's the recipe for that:

Toast 1/4 cup oatmeal plus 3 tablespoons flaked unsweetened coconut in a dry pan or in the bottom of your slow cooker.   (75 calories oatmeal, 100 calories coconut)

Add to a half cup (more or less) unsweetened natural applesauce.  Trader Joe's Gravenstein applesauce is a favorite of mine.  (50 cal.)

Sprinkle some cinnamon if you like.  Enjoy.

Toasting the oatmeal adds so much flavor!  I will never add boiling water to oatmeal again.  Oh, and don't use the boxes full of packets of oatmeal!  Get the round container of good old Quaker Oats or a generic brand for best value.  

It was very tasty and satisfying at only 225 calories.  If you have calories to spare, you could always add a little more applesauce.

That was last night's meal.  This morning I had chicken and broccoli with a little lemon and 1 tblsp pecorino romano for less than 300 calories, I believe.  Let's calculate:

3 oz fresh chicken breast, broiled in its own juice   170

6 oz frozen broccoli -- 50
fresh garlic and fresh lemon juice - I don't count the neglible calories in this
1 tablespoon pecorino - 20
1/2 tbsp olive oil - 60

300 exact.  Was delicious.  That 6 ounces of broccoli was a copious amount and there was plenty of chicken on my plate.

I ate half a granny smith apple and 10 grapes as well.  I am upping my calories to about 700 - 800 for the next few days to avoid  crashing and burning.  The other night I had what I think is "carb flu".  Slight chills, headache - luckily it was bedtime anyway, so I slept and got an extra 2 hours sleep.  Lucky me, I can do this.  Felt much better upon waking.  That's why I'm going to add the extra calories.  I don't want to make this un-doable nor do I want to make myself sick.  At 800 calories, I am still very low.  

One symptom I haven't had is excruciating hunger.  I experience a hunger pang when I haven't eaten for a few hours, I drink some tea and it goes away.  And this doesn't always happen!  I think this is because I am eating protein, fresh veg and fruit - high volume, low calorie and the protein is very sating.   I am hoping to shed another 5 to 7 pounds this week. I know from past experience that there usually is a larger loss the first week of any diet.  "Water weight" they say, as if it isn't real progress - but ask yourself, who wants to walk around with 7 excess pounds of water on their bodies?  I don't.  Not a good look.  So anyway, we'll see if I can duplicate the great results I got last week. 

I will keep making good choices and continue to be honest with myself.  The rest will follow.

Day 7 - Easy like Sunday morning

Ok, not really easy, but it hasn't been as hard as my denial kept telling me it would be.  I've been weighing in every day since Monday.  Here's what my weigh-ins look like:

mon	238.0
tues	238.0
wed	234.5
thurs	234.5
fri	234.5
sat	234.0
sun	231.0

Yes, that's right! I am down 7 pounds now. And, like I said, I wouldn't say it was easy, but I haven't the issues that I thought I would. First of all, after about the first 36 hours, I stopped craving my usual intake of junk (I think doing the "before" photos helped with that). So resisting temptation hasn't been an issue this week. Second, I am not forcing myself to eat food I don't enjoy. I have been preparing fresh vegetables, eating fresh fruit, getting my protein in from nuts, mostly, but I did eat a can of wild tuna this week as well. I fixed the kale recipe that I posted and today I am doing a red cabbage and apple recipe from Martha Stewart. It includes bacon; I used turkey bacon, of course. I don't eat very much pork, even at the height of food anarchy, and the turkey bacon is much lower in calories. And calories count. Every little calorie counts when you're doing VLCD (very low calorie dieting). And that brings me to my third point - I am tracking my food, but I am not obsessively tracking every single morsel that touches my lips.  I have years of experience with weight loss, weight maintenance and staying fit.  I know the calorie count and nutritional content of many foods without looking them up.  I know what normal, non-gluttonous portions are supposed to look like.   And I also know that chewing a stick of gum shouldn't have to be subtracted from the 500 calories I am allotting myself for nutrition.   The idea here is to wring the best nutrition out of a very small amount of food, not spend 350 calories eating a chocolate cupcake and then starving the rest of the day.  The cupcake makes a difference, though, and should be counted - well, it shouldn't be eaten in the first place.  But the few calories in a stick of gum or an Altoid do not matter.  That's because I am staying honest with myself.  I am not going to sit down and eat a case of Altoids, so I think I am ok with not writing down each Altoid that I may consume.

So, all in all , it is going great and I remain motivated because of that awesome 7 pound weight loss this week!

Nothing tastes as good

Nothing tastes as good as that empty feeling feels.  Nothing happens without that empty feeling.

Being hungry burns abdominal fat.  What, you say? Yes, the mainstream weight loss industry doesn't want to say this.  I don't know if it is because the new PC thing is to call dieting the new "gateway drug" (to anorexia) or because the "fitness" industry makes more money if we stay fat but:

"Unlike fat in other places, belly fat is earmarked to provide quick energy in the event you need to fight, flee, or endure a famine," Dr.  Wheeler says. "When you engage in moderate activity (akin to fleeing or fighting) and cut calories (as in a famine), most of the fat you lose first will come from your belly."

Quote is from:

http://www.health.com/health/article/0,,20568100,00.html

Ironically, that article is offering "hunger free ways to lose belly fat".  Right.  Because the ACTUAL way to lose belly fat is - to be hungry, sometimes.  And Dr. Wheeler as much as says it, in that quote up there.   "...cut calories (as in a famine)..."

If you want to fish, you have to cut bait.  And if you want to be thin, you will have to be hungry sometimes.  You will have to feel the burn.  I never accomplished anything fitness-wise, without a little pain and I never burned any fat without feeling a little hunger.   Back to basics.  No fear. #500caloriediet

All this and skinny, too.