Low Carb Meals

So the one thing both my husband and I need to do is drop some weight. It's been an issue for us for the past 15 years. We have lost weight on occasion, but we always have gained it back. The reason is because we make some adjustments in our eating, lose some weight, but then we revert back to our old eating habits. 

So we both went to the doctor this week and the main messages was: Lose 5% of your body weight in the next month. Basically, he wants us to lose 2 pounds a week until we reach our goal weight. The main way we have to do that is to drastically cut the carbs. 

Cutting carbs is hard to do when you're eating out of your pantry, I know. The foods we have to avoid are the staple items such as pasta, rice, beans and grains. Over the past few days, we watched a bunch of videos with Mark Sisson, who wrote the Primal Diet. I get the premise: Just eat a lot of protein and fresh vegetables, avoiding legumes and potatoes, processed foods, etc. Organic grass-fed proteins are key. Sugar is out. However, Mark still allows or recommends a glass of red wine a day and some dark chocolate for a sweet treat. He also adheres to the 80/20 rule, meaning you strive to adhere to the guidelines of his diet 80% of the time. He also said if you put a teaspoon of sugar in your coffee in the morning, that's not going to kill you, as long as you cut out sugar in the rest of the foods throughout the day, meaning no processed stuff no breads, cakes, muffins, energy bars, sugary sauces, etc.

So last night we had a healthy big ass salad (that's what Mark calls it!) with a bunch of vegetables and some chicken for the protein, using a homemade lemon juice and oil vinaigrette with a dash of mustard and honey thrown in. I had roasted the beets and marinated the eggs in the beet juice drippings and vinegar for a pickling effect. I think it all looks pretty Eastery on the plate, don't you?

My very skeleton-bones outline of our daily diet will look like this:

Breakfast: eggs with sauteed vegetables or a protein powder drink or Greek yogurt with berries.

Lunch: big ass salad with viniagrete and a protein.

Dinner: protein (chicken, beef, fish, lamb, bison, etc) with grilled/steamed/boiled/roasted vegetables.

Snack: handful of nuts (macadamia, almond, walnuts), dark chocolate, berries.

We can throw in some cheese here and there, but that really falls into the 20% category. 

I'm still going to keep my pasta, rice and beans for the 20% side of our cooking, meaning maybe we'll only have it once a week. My husband and I will start tracking or meals again on MyFitnessPal, which is a really good tool that shows not only your calories, but also your macros and the nutrient content of the food. I found I can pair it with my digital scale and my Garmin wrist watch, as well as Map My Walk, so it captures all my steps and exercise as well as my weight. I was pleasantly surprised to notice when I looked at the MFP app this morning that under the recipe section, they have categories for Immune Support and Pantry Meals. It looks like MyFitnessPal is keeping up with the times!