Finding foods to eat at first was difficult for my wife and I because grains and sugary foods were so common in our diet. Over the past 3 weeks we’ve tried some new recipes and figured out some tasty meals and snacks.
I’ll start with some of the snack foods. Coconut oil mixed with peanut/almond butter is one I picked up from my brother. I never liked coconut oil all that much but I’ve acquired a taste for it. I’ll also do full fat plain yogurt alone or mixed with peanut/almond butter or a few berries. Amanda made Kale chips once , which they were awesome. I’m definitely looking forward to those again soon. Once in a while I’ll have some nuts or cheese, not very often though. I think that is pretty much it for snacks.
For breakfast I’ll sometimes have yogurt or the coconut oil mixture I mentioned above, but I have been skipping breakfast most days. The biggest breakfast I’ve had has been eggs with spinach and feta cheese.
For lunch there are a few things I’ve been having. I’ve really grown to like having turkey “sandwiches” between romaine hearts. I’ll also have salad or leftovers.
Dinner. This has been the hardest part. I think mainly because we have children, who obviously are not on the diet, so most meals something I’m avoiding, but really like, is on the table. We’ve done burgers and hot dogs a couple times. We buy some rolls for the kids. Amanda and I will just eat it without a roll with a nice big salad. This is actually one of our favorite meals. I definitely miss the roll, but at the same time would be perfectly satisfied doing it this way. Taco night is one of our favorites. We basically have all the same taco fix-in’s just without the shell and instead make one big salad. We just have to be careful if we buy a salsa; it has to be sugar free, and we go very light with the salsa because of the sugar content of tomatoes (tomatoes would take the place of our allowed handful of berries on taco night). We’ve grilled chicken quite a bit and had chicken salad (no grapes) “sandwiches” (again in romaine). We pretty much have salad every night with our dinner, some nights, salad is the main course. I’ve grown to like it a little more than I used to. We’ve tried two different pizza alternatives; both were a big fail. We have a few other recipes we’re looking forward to trying, like vegetable lasagna.
Dessert. Yes it is possible to have dessert on this diet. We’ve only done two. Granny Smith apples are another fruit allowed (in place of the handful of berries) once in a while. Amanda made an apple crisp with Granny Smith apples with almond slivers, pecans, coconut flakes, cinnamon, and maybes something else as the “crisp,” I’m not too sure. It was delicious though. She also made whipped cream to top it. She sweetened the whipped cream with xylitol. The other dessert she made was cookies . These were also amazing. The main ingredients were almond butter, peanut butter, cocoa powder, xylitol, and some coconut oil. I will post the recipe at some point.
I started week 3, weighing 220 lbs. Historically, this has always been the point where I’ve fallen off of whatever weight loss plan I had been doing. I don’t think it helped having that in my head all week. This wasn’t the best week, I didn’t cheat, but I don’t feel like I did my best either. I lost 2 lbs. this week, its less than I’d like to see, but its still a loss. I’m trying to stay positive and focused. I’m looking forward to having a solid 4th week.
– Dr. Mark