Tue 19 Sep 2006
Lately — and by lately, I mean during the last ~7 months, if not longer — I’ve been eating like crap. And when I eat like crap, everyone in the house eats like crap, because I’m in charge of groceries and cooking. And making us fat.
For the first few months after Noah was born, I cut myself a lot of slack. But things have been mostly stable for awhile now. The routine isn’t easy, but it is a routine.
Now I need to work on the routine involving less frozen pizza. (By the way, I can’t say enough delicious things about Freschetta’s thin crust pizzas.)
Step One in Project Live Long & Prosper is me resuming my daily fruit & veg report to you nice people in the blogosphere.
If I am really brave, I will also admit to the awful day last week where — no kidding — I hate half a dozen krispy kreme donuts. (Um, yeah, honey, I didn’t tell you about that…I stopped at the grocery store for apple juice for work and also bought donuts.)
[Ed. Note: did you catch the freudian slip there, where I tried to pretend I hated the donuts? No no, I love the donut. What I did to those 6 donuts, yes 6, over the course of a regular workday, was I ate them. I didn’t hate them. Not for a minute.]
Ok, that’s it. The daily fruit & veg report will also include a section on treats. It won’t include the ~1.5 quarts of apple juice I drink per day, mixed with ~4 quarts water. That’s just a given, although I think I’m going to try again to mix it up with some lower-sugar-therefore-lower-cal options like lemon juice.
PLLP, Sept 18: No fruit. ~2/3 cup mixed veggies + beans & rice for dinner. 2 pkgs chocolate chip pop tarts. (I really shouldn’t go to the grocery store in the morning if I didn’t eat breakfast.)
PLLP, Sept 19: 2 very small organic gala apples. Leftover veggies/beans/rice. 2 donuts at work. Anticipating pizza for dinner, and maybe also ice cream. (It’s goodbye dinner for the Baby Juggler Family, who move to the opposite corner of the country on Thursday. Whaaaaah! MORE comfort food neededwanted!)
Step Two is meal planning. Does anyone have any great resources for shopping & cooking such that dinner on weeknights is fast and easy and healthy and generates leftovers that can be lunch? The One-Armed Cook recipes have been “eh” so far. Oh, and no recipes are allowed to involve fish.
September 19th, 2006 at 2:24 pm
Always a challenge, with demanding little ones underneath, especially when they are obsessed with pulling things out of the refrigerator and dishwasher when they aren’t clawing your pantlegs.
A couple of things that have helped us eat better: getting a weekly box of organic fruit/vegs delivered to the door; getting pre-prepared chicken, burgers, meatloaf from Whole Foods and making salad/rice to go alongside; buying Trader Joe’s bulgoki, which is great and very fast; making sure there is decent milk/cereal/bananas in the house for breakfast. I think we are more motivated to eat better now that Levi is eating basically what we eat (although the last few weeks have been very challenging while we prepare to move).
September 19th, 2006 at 4:31 pm
F and I lost a total of 60 pounds between 2001 and 2003. It was a combination of the law school diet (i.e. work full time, attend class, and sleep) and getting ready for our wedding. We’ve managed to keep it off since then (thank you, thank you). Here are some things we find helpful: Annie’s organic burritos (specifically in the red pkgs because they have whole wheat tortillas); garden burgers; recipes on epicurious.com that are noted as “easy” and then cut the fat either entirely out but at least in half…it almost always turns out just fine; huevos rancheros with egg beaters, fat free black beans, brown rice, and low fat cheese; lowfat, store-bought soups; and, Kashi frozen waffles with spray butter in the morning. We do the box of organic veggies too but it’s a struggle to get through them without waste and I might suggest one step at a time - change your eating habits and then take on the box of veggies because it’s a real job. Enough assvice from me.
September 19th, 2006 at 5:20 pm
Have you looked for places where you go and prepare dinners, already planned and ready to put together? There are quite a few in the DC area (where I am) and some have really healthy options, with whole grains, low fat, etc. At the place I ordered dinners for my SIL who had a baby, they divided the entrees in two for the same price so for $130, she got 16 dinners, all enough for leftovers the next so so it was 32 dinners total. Great deal and good, healthy food.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/09/05/AR2006090500487.html
I’ll bet there are things like that in Atlanta. A lot of them listed are franchises.
September 19th, 2006 at 5:29 pm
Okay, here you go. I just found this one:
http://www.dinnerstores.com/
September 19th, 2006 at 8:46 pm
Wow, that looks great. A bit out of my price range, but maybe worth considering for really high stress months. I need to find one in Reno, if Reno has one.
Liza, your timing with PLLP is perfect for me. I let the first few weeks of the semester screw with my eating habits, and now I need to re-establish some healthy trends.
Maybe I’ll post fruit and veggie counts here too, if you don’t mind turning this into a group kind of thing. (I assume you don’t, but let me know if you do.)
So far today I haven’t had any, but I also haven’t had anything bad for me. (And boy to I know the donut story, from the inside.) Later this evening, after getting back from a cameo at a social event, I plan to have a big ol’ heap of brocolli.
September 19th, 2006 at 9:37 pm
Reno — and anyone else! — I would love the company on the fruit & veg count.
And Melissa, Scoutgjee & Jean, thanks! Those are some very helpful ideas.
(BTW, Scout, I lurk on your blog, but I can never remember my fr&@&$ blogger pw, so even when I want to comment, I get thwarted.)
September 19th, 2006 at 10:34 pm
Liza,
Have you looked at Rachel Ray’s 30 Minute Meal books? Lots of good ideas in there.
Not that Karen and I actually use any of them…I’m still very much a meat and potatoes kind of guy. But at least now the majority of my meals are made at home and not under the golden arches.
September 19th, 2006 at 11:22 pm
Well, I had good intentions, but I went to an alumni thing at a pub, intending to stay about 20 minutes, but only one other person showed up and we didn’t want to leave the poor alumni rep stranded. He ordered a pizza. I was good and had only one slice, and it had veggies on it, but I don’t think that counts.
The night is young, however. I can can still probably get in some brocolli as my late evening snack.
September 20th, 2006 at 10:40 am
Totally sympathize. And try doing it when you’re allergic to all the healthy snacks like raw carrots and apples. Now, the poop brigades have taken away my main staple, bagged spinach. We went through one to two bags a week, but by bizarre coincidence had a big ol’ box of mixed greens one week and the one Kroger brand not on the recall list the next week during the sicknesses.
But I digress. Rachael Ray is an excellent suggestion, although I find all of them take 45 to 90 minutes, especially when SOMEONE decides he wants to nurse in the middle. Also, I just can’t chop that fast.
I’m a member of the Cooks Illustrated Web site, http://www.cooksillustrated.com. It costs about $25 a year, but you get access to all their recipes and equipment reviews. They have a lot of great veggie prep ideas, and I bought the cookbook “Best Light Recipe” from their collection (from eBay, though, got a better deal than the member discount). A lot of the recipes take time, but they’re not too putzy and the flavor is fantastic. Best brown rice ever. We’re planning to get a big ol’ freezer so I can make meals ahead and freeze for when I go back to work.
Did you get my e-mail with the veggie taco recipe? That really does take as long as it takes to saute some onions and chop some toppings. If you like Indian food but not the gobs of clarified butter in most dishes, I can send you a great recipe for chickpeas and tomatoes, also very fast. I usually make it with some packaged palak paneer, since canned spinach is OK. Takes about as long as it takes to cook the rice.
Sorry so long. Never ask a foodie a question.
September 20th, 2006 at 10:46 am
Ooo, oo! Sorry, one more, and then I shut up and nurse Adam, who’s kicking the keyboard.
Sneak vitamins in unsuspecting meat-and-potatoes places: Boil a peeled chop turnip with your taters, which of course you don’t peel, and add a chopped clove or two of garlic during the mashing. Don’t even need gravy then. In our low-fat regime here, I also use just a tablespoon of Olivio margarine and evaporated skim milk (a great cream substitute) to mash instead of butter and milk. Couple spoons of low-fat cream cheese when feeling decadent.
I shut up now.
September 20th, 2006 at 11:22 am
Mmmmmmm. Carrie, I’m hungry just reading.
Sadly, my lovely wife is not so much a fan of Indian food. Occasionally, she’ll indulge me, but I don’t think cooking it at home is really workable.
I want a bigole freezer so I can make large batches and freeze meal sized portions. Our cool french doors fridge = diminished freezer capacity.
September 20th, 2006 at 12:46 pm
Oh, one more thing I thought of is getting one of those hand mixers (like a long stick w/ a tiny blades on the bottom). When it gets cold, you can cook up lots of veggies and seasonings (and big piece of meat if you eat it). Remove the meat, use the mixer to puree the veggies, add meat back in. You have a really hearty, thick soup then. And, freeze.
Oh, also if you use ground meat, use half and then add half extra firm tofu.
September 20th, 2006 at 3:48 pm
Two words: Crock pot.
Dump in frozen spinach (it’s safe, and it doesn’t go bad if you forget you have it), carrots, potatoes, one chopped onion, brocolli, and whatever other veggies you like. I add lima beans (frozen, of course) for texture.
Dump in meat or tofu of choice. Low-fat cuts of beef and lamb work especially well.
Fill the rest of the pot with water.
Add seasonings if you want to. I wait until I’m eating it, and then salt very lightly.
Turn it on.
Check back every few hours. You can leave it for hours at a time, especially if you top it off with water and turn it to low before going away.
When it starts to smeel good, sample it. If it tastes good, it’s done.
Freeze in meal-sized portions.
Even *I* can make this, especially because interruptions don’t matter. Have to stop for an hour or two between adding the carrots and the potatoes? Who cares? No harm done at all.
September 20th, 2006 at 3:49 pm
Ooops. I didn’t look at what HTML tags were allowed. So much for my numbered list, but you get the idea.
September 21st, 2006 at 8:11 am
Try these:
kraftfoods.com has some great quick, easy, and nutritious dinner recipes partly made with their products - you can also sign up to get a free monthly recipe magazine from them. I know a lot of people hate her style, but a lot of Rachel Ray’s “30 Minute Meals” are good and you can adapt her recipes to include your favorite ingredients - you can get the recipes at foodnetwork.com under her section.
September 21st, 2006 at 11:43 am
I’m a big fan of Cooking Light. Every month they have two features called “Dinner Tonight” and “Superfast” which have lots of great ideas for fast, tasty, nutritious meals. Their website also offers a searchable database of recipes. Just enter an ingredient you want to use and it will come up with a list of possible recipes. The magazine also lets you know what recipes freeze well or do well if made ahead. We try to make a menu for the week and do one large shopping trip on Sunday afternoon (without fail though we forget something and end up doing a smaller run during the week). Hope this helps.
-Amber (Mom to Levi’s Cousin Noah)
September 22nd, 2006 at 1:26 pm
Pre-baby, we signed up for something called Menu Mailer, which sent out a set of menus each week WITH a shopping list. Our enthusiasm died down quickly because we’re kind of picky about food, but it’s a decent concept and takes all of the brainwork out of meal planning/shopping.
What we’ve done SINCE baby is adapt the concept to our tastes. We made a list of everything we like to have for dinner and categorized it by how long it takes to prepare. Each weekend, we plan out the next weeks meals, picking things according to how crazy the day is likely to be. Then we make a shopping list. It is MUCH easier to eat decently during the week if you don’t have to make any decisions and you have all the ingredients you need.
We do try to make extra to freeze but we have a small freezer and no hope of buying a deep freeze cause there’s nowhere to put one. If you have a basement, the next time you have a bit of cash, I say splurge and get one. I dream of a deep freeze. It’s almost a fantasy.