Weight Loss for Dummies

Parent Cafe
881

<p>I have no problem with beans or lentils, never have. My husband does, though, and he refuses to eat them, ever.</p>

<p>zm, I am happy to enter the Minstrone Soup recipe. It’s from Mark Bittman’s vegetarian cookbook. It’s a very “loose” recipe, I don’t pay a lot of attention to amounts.</p>

<p>1/4 c extra virgin olive oil
1 med onion, chopped
1 carrot, chopped
1 celery stalk, chopped
1.5-2 cups hard vegetable (e.g., potatoes, winter squash, parsnips, turnips) peeled and cut into 1/2-inch dice
salt and pepper
6 cups vegetable stock
1 cup cored, peeled, seeded, and chopped tomatoes (canned fine, include juice)
1.5-2 cups soft vegetables (e.g., green beans, cooked dried beans, zucchini, summer squash, leafy greens like kale or collards) cut into smaller than 1/2-inch dice
1/2 cup chopped parsley leaves
grated Parmesan for serving (optional)</p>

<p>Put 3 T olive oil in large, deep saucepan or casserole over med heat. When hot, add onion, carrot, celery. Cook, stirring, until the onion softens, about 5 min.</p>

<p>Add hard veg and sprinkle with salt/pepper. Cook, stirring, for a min or two, then add stock and tomatoes; bring to boil, then adjust heat so mixture bubbles gently. Cook, stirring every now and then, until the veg are fairly soft (about 15 mins). (You may prepare in advance to this point; refrig up to 2 days, reheat before proceeding.)</p>

<p>Add soft veg and parsley and adjust to simmer. Cook until all veg are very tender, about 15 mins. Adjust seasoning, add remaining olive oil, and serve.</p>

<p>I like to use turnips and butternut squash as hard veg. Yesterday I used white cabbage, zucchini, green beans, kale as soft veg. I used a large can of diced tomatoes (I never bother to peel or seed), and two drained and rinsed cans of kidney beans. I don’t use the extra olive oil. I sometimes add some brown rice pasta. Last night I made so much that I had to transfer to my slow cooker after cooking the hard veg for more room, cooked the rest of it very slowly. I ended up with about 27 cups (judging from capacity of the freezer containers I used).</p>

882

<p>mathmom, that southwest salad sounds wonderful!</p>

883

<p>I make Mathmom’s salad in a little simpler way all the time - it’s my favorite “go to” salad that for me is really a meal. Sometimes I even add grilled chicken bites to it and it really is a full meal!</p>

884

<p>I don’t know if I’ve ever followed the recipe exactly on that salad. I’m pretty sure for example that I often throw tomatoes in it. :)</p>

885

<p>Looks like progress is being made. I had a big weekend with wedding cake and plenty of cocktails but am holding steady. Does anyone eat Dreamfields pasta? We had it last night for the first time and loved it, just wondering if it really equals out to 5 net carbs a serving. I probably had more like 2 servings though. Served it with tossed with olive oil, garden fresh basil, these really sweet little orange tomatoes and grilled chicken. It was worth the splurge but I just wonder if I can trust it. Had a little gurgling afterward, but not that sick, full, carb feeling.</p>

886

<p>Some of the Pastene soups aren’t bad - they are lower carb in that they are below 50% carbs and the accomplish this partly because they use beans with some protein and they add in olive oil. The beans typically have a lot of fiber too. You could add in soy hamburger or Texturized Vegetable Protein (TVP) to drop the carbs or tofu.</p>

<p>I made low-carb pancakes over the weekend with flaxseed meal. I put in two eggs but I imagine that you could make them without the eggs. I also tossed in wheat gluten (80% protein, 20% carbs) and baking powder. I imagine that you can make baked goods, maybe even bread, with relatively low carb ingredients.</p>

<p>I had a look at almond flour at the supermarket for making muffins and it was $10/pound. Perhaps it can be had far cheaper in bulk. I’d rather just eat almonds at $5/pound instead of buying the flour at twice the price.</p>

<p>If you’re looking for something spicy, you might try a Thai Satay sauce (spicy peanut) on tofu. It’s customarily served as a sauce for meat on a stick.</p>

<p>The previously mentioned mozzarella and tomatoes sounds good. Part-skim mozarella has 6 grams of fat, 1 gram carbs and 7 grams of protein. The tomato is about 50/50 of carbs/protein but most of the carbs are in the form of fiber making for an excellent nutritional combination.</p>

887

<p>Snuck out for an hour low tide beach walk with the puppy & a friends big dogs. Nice to have an hour of exercise already done.</p>

888

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<p>I had a look at their website - interesting products. Similar to the wheat gluten that I bought over the weekend - it contains the endosperm from the wheat. In Rob’s Red Mill’s product, it’s 20% carbs, 80% protein. So they’re making pasta from it. I’ve never tried it but it sounds like it could work.</p>

889

<p>I make a version of mathmom’s southwest salad, Google Cowboy Caviar and you’ll find dozens of versions, I add jalepenos & avocado. It is yummy with intense flavours, and it you concentrate on chewing each piece, each bean, each pepper, each tomato, etc, you can really slow down the whole meal, possibly be more satisfied with less food!</p>

890

<p>MomLive - usually just firm, but I squeeze the water out of it, wrapped in a dish towel, set under a cast iron skillet, before I cut it into cubes. And yes, lots of marinades are good. Sometimes I use Vietnamese fish sauce, for example.</p>

891

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<p>Seriously? Can’t people who don’t want the details just skip the LONG and DETAILED posts?</p>

892

<p>Yay for exercise done early in the morning!</p>

893

<p>I love tofu, but avoid it and other soy products because I have read that they are not good for growing boys. S2 is 12, and the vegetarian in the family. I would eat it myself, but my problem is finding meals that everyone can eat. I know that women who have had certain kinds of breast cancer are supposed to avoid soy for the same reason growing boys are - something to do with hormones. </p>

<p>One food I love that has to be absolutely off the menu now is ravioli. Trader Joe’s has delicious varieties, but the nutritional information is horrifying. There is no way I can fit them into a weight-losing eating plan. Maybe if I ever get to the maintenance stage?</p>

894

<p>Go easy on soy foods, especially when cooking for your DHs. The jury is still out whether soy contains estrogen-mimicking compounds and what they do to our bodies.</p>

<p>Cross-posted with NYMom.^^</p>

895

<p>My doctor told me to stay away from soy products because I have had a DVT (blood clot) and can never take any hormones ever again.</p>

896

<p>Isn’t it frustrating that something that should be so good for you (soy) can be so bad? And now things like butter and bacon, which were until recently considered the worst, are now considered healthful by some very well informed people?</p>

<p>I feel as if I’m living in Sleeper:</p>

<p>[YouTube</a> - ‪Woody Allen’s 1973 film “Sleeper” may accurately portray healthy eating in the future‬‏](<a href=“Woody Allen's 1973 film "Sleeper" may accurately portray healthy eating in the future - YouTube”>Woody Allen's 1973 film "Sleeper" may accurately portray healthy eating in the future - YouTube)</p>

897

<p>I think all things in moderation are good, don’t you? I have recently fallen in love with edamame. Are they soy beans?</p>

898

<p>I don’t eat too much tofu either. Just on some occasions that I do eat because I am at a restaurant and don’t want to make any fuss. I’ve heard a report about tofu years ago. The following link is soy negative effects.
[Soy’s</a> Negative Effects | Men’s Health](<a href=“http://www.menshealth.com/nutrition/soys-negative-effects]Soy’s”>Is Tofu Healthy for Men? | The Latest Science on Soy)</p>

899

<p>The guy that they talked about drank three quarts of soy milk per day.</p>

<p>I have about two to three servings of tofu per week.</p>

<p>I think that strict vegetarians have a relatively harder time on a low-carb diet.</p>

<p>I sprinkle in meat, fish, poultry, yogurt, eggs and cottage cheese as animal sources for protein. There are also other vegetable sources besides soy but it’s very hard to find other vegetable sources with ratios that are close to soy.</p>

900

<p>BC, this may explain why I have been loosing weight. I’ve lost interest in food. Just about everything has problem. Sigh!</p>