Love/Hate Food: Week 4

The last and final week of the month long detox!  This week is called the Glyci-Med approach, learning to eat glycemic balanced meals.  What this means is eating to maintain stable blood sugar which stimulates less insulin release.  Lower insulin means less fat storage!  Eat frequently, at the right times and consume protein, healthy fat, fibre and low glycemic carbs and this will help you achieve glycemic balance.

Eating the right foods mean eat lean protein and low glycemic carbs and healthy fats for each meal and snack.  Drink 8-12 cups of water a day for women, and 16-20 cups for men, but this is also dependant on weight.

Eating at the right times means aiming to eat every 3 to 4 hours and not to eat anything 3 hours before bed.  Try to eat at the same time each day.  This was a hard one for me, especially on weekends.

This past week, meals have been more 'normal' much less restrictive than the previous 3 weeks.  There were no more limitations aside from the fact that you still should not eat processed foods, keep beef and pork to a minimum etc.  We still had to drink the detox shakes twice a day.  I think I've actually grown to like them.  A good way to keep from wanting to snack on things I shouldn't be snacking on.

Again like previous weeks, I am only posting meals that are new.  No point in posting the same pictures over and over again since some of the meals are repeated.

The final weigh in, down 9.5lbs. 

Week 4 Day 1: Dinner

Curried Ginger Chicken Breast with Quinoa

Day 2: Breakfast
Pancake fail for me.  I don't own a non-stick pan.  I hate them.  Not sure if it's because the batter didn't have any oil and it's full of cheese, oats and egg whites, all of which love to stick to pans, so yes, these pancakes do not look like pancakes.  Taste wise were pretty tasty.



Ricotta Cheese Oatmeal Pancakes

Day 3:  Breakfast Lunch & Dinner
High Protein Muffin was made on a slice of Ezekiel bread instead of Ezekiel English muffin.  I already didn't like the sliced bread, so I didn't want to spend more money buying English muffins that I probably would not like either.  Spanish Chicken Dish very yummy.  The only thing I would have changed was to bake the chicken breast instead of sautee it in the pan since it took longer to cook in the pan than in the oven.  The Greek dipping sauce for the kebabs were delicious!  I could eat this sauce with everything!!!!



High Protein Muffin

Spanish Chicken Dish

Mediterranean Chicken Kebabs wth Greek Dipping Sauce

Day 4: Breakfast & Dinner
I again had yoga at night so I made a smoothie for dinner while the hubby had fish.  Hubby said sweet potato pancakes tasted good but did not stick together well enough, kept falling apart while he was frying it.

Berry Flax Cottage Cheese

Tilapia with Sweet Potato Pancakes

Day 5: Breakfast Lunch & Dinner

Berry Quick Delight

Low Fat Caesar Salad with Grilled Chicken

Almond Crusted Chicken Fingers with Herbed Potato & Asparagus

Day 6: Breakfast & Dinner

Frozen Strawberry Yogurt

Coconut Curry Chicken

Day 7: Breakfast & Lunch
Since I am not at home on Fridays, I forgot to take pictures of the meals.  Breakfast was Delicious Apple Dish, essentially an apple cinnamon oatmeal.  Lunch was Toasted Turkey Tomato Mayo Sandwich with Side Salad.

Love/Hate Food: Week 3

From the start of Week 1, I was looking forward to the arrival of Week 3.  Week 3 is the week where you get to slowly re-introduce citrus, cow dairy, cow cheeses, wheat and grains.  I love carbs.  I love bread.  Thats probably the reason why I had so much trouble losing weight in the past, carb heavy diet.  I didn't each much rice, heck I don't even like rice!  But if I did eat rice, it was brown rice, which is healthier than white rice.  My love is towards breads.  I can't say no to a freshly baked loaf of bread.  My favorite meal in the world is fresh bread and butter.  I could eat that every single meal, forever and ever!  Alongside my previously carb heavy meals, the rest of everything I put into my mouth was pretty healthy.  Low fat, plenty of fresh fruits and vegetables.  I have to admit now I see that I was consuming less protein than I should.  You should have heard me counting down the days to when bread was reintroduced again.  Each day I would say to the hubby something along the lines of, "Guess what???  On Tuesday for breakfast we get to eat a slice of rye bread!" or "On Friday for lunch we get to eat an egg, tomato and cheese sandwich!"

The purpose of re-introducing these foods slowly day by day is for us to notice if our body has any bad reactions when these foods are consumed.  Bad reactions include, bloating, gassy, constipation etc.  If you have any of these reactions, you should probably be avoiding these foods in the future. The rule is re-introduce each type food each day separately, and cannot eat that type of food again until all foods have been re-introduced.  This is so that you can get a clearer picture of which foods affect you and which do not. No confusion this way. So basically once you re-introduce the food for that one day, you cannot eat it again until week 4.

I also have to note that on the second day into our week 3 detox plan, our diet got derailed a small bit.  We had a friend's wedding to attend.  Dinner reception was at a Chinese restaurant (10 course meal) AND I was told not to leave so early because at 11pm Smoke's Poutinerie was catered for some poutine.  I cursed my friend for doing that and told him that I hope his poutine sucks so I won't eat any of it.  In truth, the poutine wasn't the greatest, I found the gravy very weak and it wasn't cheese curds, it was broken up bits of mozzarella.  But regardless, I still ate some poutine because it sure beat the salads I've been eating recently!  As for the main dinner meal, aside from the oil, most of the food in a Chinese banquet meal is allowed in the meal plan.  The only things I didn't eat was the suckling pig which isn't allowed (the hubby was looking forward to this dish in particular all day long and ended up eating double portions) and fish, because I just don't like fish.

Week 3 down, just one more week to go! Hovering around an 8lb weight loss so far.

Week 3 Day 1 Citrus:

Grapefruit & Goat Yogurt

Roasted Beet, Orange & Walnut Salad




Rice Pasta with Peas, Zuchinni and Goat Cheese



Day 2 Yogurt:
Friend's wedding was this day.  Breakfast was Dose of Dopamine Chocolate Yogurt.  Lunch was Roasted Vegetable Soup topped with Greek Yogurt.

Day 3 Cheese:

Low Fat Caesar Salad with Shrimp

Carb-Conscious Lasagna

Day 4 Rye:
For lunch instead of the Rye bread it was supposed to be Wasa crackers.  But I didn't want to buy more food just for one meal, so figured we'd eat another slice of rye bread.

Slice of Dimpflmeier Rye with Almond Butter and Boiled Egg

Slice of Dimpflmeier Rye Topped with Goat Cheese & Tomato and Roasted Vegetable Soup

 
Day 5:
Today was supposed to be the re-introduction of Kamut.  But since this isn't something that we normally consume anyways, we figured we would omit it.  Today's meals consisted of what we are allowed to eat in Weeks 1 and 2.

Mary's Cracker Crusted Chicken with Herbed Sweet Potato Fries and Steamed Broccoli

Day 6 Ezekiel Products:
Ezekiel products are bread products made with sprouted grain.  This has to be the absolute worst bread out there.  Texture reminds me of either sawdust or a crouton.  And this is all prior to toasting the bread!  Worst part is, each loaf of bread is $5 and it's not even fresh....it's located in the freezer section!  For lunch, the recipe was for Tuna melt.  However since I dont' eat fish, I used some left over roasted chicken breast and made myself a Chicken Salad Melt instead.

Sunday French Toast

Chicken Salad Melt

Tuna Salad Melt

Day 7 Whole Wheat:
Since I volunteer on Fridays I didn't take a picture of my lunch which was Tasty Egg and Cheese Sandwich with Mixed Greens.

Whole Wheat Pasta with Chicken, Goat Cheese and Roasted Asparagus



Love/Hate Food: Week 2

I've been pretty lazy about updating this blog and am now finally getting around to writing about week 2 of The Supercharged Hormone Diet.  I'm actually in the middle of week 4 right now.  The end is so close!!!  Back to week 2.  The only difference between week 1 and week 2 of the detox is that in week 2 you are allowed the addition of 1 daily serving of gluten free grains or potatoes.  Gluten free grains or potato selections can include millet, rice and rice products, buckwheat, rice pasta, rice cakes, rice crackers, white potatoes and sweet potatoes.  I had no idea that one serving is only 1/2 cup.  I guess that would be a shock to any Asian out there.  One serving of rice to an Asian is always one heaping bowl.

Not many pictures for this week's food since most of the meals are the same as the previous week because of all the limitations of what we can and cannot eat.

Upside, down another pound this week :).

Week 2 Day 1 Lunch:

Chicken Chili

 Day 2 Dinner:

Chicken Souvlaki with Rice & Salad











Day 3 Lunch & Dinner:

Scrambled Eggs with Dill and Feta Served on Sliced Tomatoes

Roasted Chicken Breast with Garlic & Herb Sweet Potato Fries

The roasted chicken breast was supposed to be a whole roasted chicken.  But a whole roasted chicken would mean leftovers sitting in the fridge.  And the fact that I had chicken breast in the freezer already, I just thought might as well use it.

 Day 4 Dinner:

Chicken Stirfry with Peppers and Fresh Basil and Brown Rice











  Day 5 Dinner:

Rice Pasta with Chicken, Goat Cheese and Asparagus

 Day 6 Dinner:

Tilapia with Roasted Tomatoes on Brown Rice

This was the hubby's dinner since I don't eat fish.  I had a blueberry avocado smoothie instead because I perfer lighter dinners before going to yoga.  I have it arranged so when I have yoga, he eats fish so I don't smell the stinky fishy smell.

Day 7 Dinner: 

Chicken Cabbage Cashew Stirfry on Brown Rice

No cashews at home so I just omitted them.

Love & Hate Food: Week 1

As most of my friends and family know, I have a love hate relationship with food.  I love food, but food however does not treat me as kindly as I would like.  Throughout my childhood, I had a difficult time with food.  I was always the fat kid, so my parents tried to put me on a restrictive diet.  This didn't mean that I wasn't allowed to eat certain foods, but rather, I had to ask for permission to eat food.  This was their way of monitoring what I ate and hoping that I would look 'normal' like all those other skinny kids out there.  This led to lots of sneaking of food which didn't help me lose any weight at all.  What I did get used to was having to ask "Can I eat this?".

Throughout my life I've tried many diets.  I've even been bribed by an aunt and uncle with money to lose weight.  They told me that If I lost 5lbs they would give me $5.  I've tried this diet from some cardiac institute before.  Lost 20lbs back then, but also caused me to black out twice and walk into the wall once and the microwave once. 

Recently a friend of mine mentioned she went to an info session held by a naturopathic doctor by the name of Dr. Natasha Turner for info on a diet.  I thought she was nuts by wasting time going to some doctor advice when she clearly didn't need to lose any weight.  Anyways, she tried a few of the recipes in the book, and that was about it.  So she offered the book to me to read.  The name of the book is The Supercharged Hormone Diet.  I read through the book and found it pretty interesting.  This diet is all about re-balencing your hormones so you can lose weight.  I looked at the recipes and they looked way better than what I was able to eat when I followed the cardiac institute diet.  So I decided to give it a shot.  Worst case is I eat healthy but I don't lose weight.

To do a quick summary of the diet.  In total there are 4 phases, each phase lasting 1 week long.  Throughout each of the phases you will need to drink 2 detox shakes each day.  Exercise is 4 days of light cardio 30 minutes at a time and 2 days of yoga (they suggest ashtanga, anusara or hatha).  There is also a suggestion of taking quite a few supplements.  I didn't follow all of them, the only additional supplements I took in addition to my normal barrage of vitamins is vitamin D3 and a probiotic. 

Meal Schedule: 7am-8am breakfast, 10am detox shake, 12pm-1pm lunch, 3pm detox shake, 6pm-7pm dinner.  And no eating 3 hrs before going to bed.

The so called detox shake that I am required to drink twice a day is a mixture of 100% whey protein isolate mixed wth water, almond butter and a hypoallergenic fibre source.  There is another option for the detox shake and that has berries, water, chia or flax seeds.  But the second option requires a blender and I'm too lazy to have to wash it after.  So i just put mixture 1 into a cup with a lid and shake it.

Week 1 is a detox week (grain and potato free).  This first week you are to cut out all grains and potatos, corn, citrus and processed fruits, peanuts, red meats, cow dairy, alcohol and caffine, sugar (honey is ok), store bought condiments.  The only oils and fats you should be taking in is canola oil, butter, flaxseed oil, hemp oil and extra virgin olive oil.  I found this first week to be super heavy on the protein.  In my normal meals I probably don't even eat half the amount of protein put in front of me.  But so far so good, after week 1, i'm down 6.5lbs :)  Most of which i'm assuming is water weight....but we'll see.

Week 1 Day 1:


Easy Egg White Goat Cheese Omelette

 

Protein Topped Feta & Peach Salad



Tomato Turkey Delight



For the Protein Topped Feta & Peach Salad, I subbed the peaches for blueberries, since peaches are so expensive this time of the year.

For the Tomato Turkey Delight, I subbed turkey for chicken.  And instead of serving on top of green beans (hate green beans) I served on top of left over boiled Shanghai bok choy.

Day 2: I keep forgetting to take pictures of the morning breakfast smoothies :(

Goat Cheese, Pear and Pine Nut salad



Chicken Souvlaki with Salad



Day 3:

Quick Berry Delight with Goat Yogurt

Roasted Beet, Orange, Walnut & Baby Arugula Salad

Tilapia with Fresh Tropical Salsa

For the Roasted Beet, Orange, Walnut & Baby Arugula Salad, I subsituted the orange with strawberries since citrus is off limits this week and also subsituted spring mix for arugula since it's cheaper.

For the Tilapia with Fresh Tropical Salsa, the salsa not so tropical since our pineapple wasn't ripe enough.  Served with sauteed beet tops instead of squash since the hubby doesn't like squash.  And since I don't eat fish and had yoga after dinner, I made myself a blueberry avocado smoothie for dinner instead.

Day 4:

Mediterranean Omelette with Fresh Berries



Pureed Squash & Apple Soup





Roasted Chicken Breasts with Cauliflower Mash

The omlette again did not turn out, and ended up being scrambled egg whites again.

Pureed Squash & Apple Soup is the worst recipe so far.  It's disgusting!  I will never make this recipe again.

Day 5:

Power Protein Scramble



Japanese Spinach Salad







 

 



Almond Crusted Chicken Breasts with Steamed Asparagus & Rapini & Beets