Round

I headed back to work and back to tracking my diet at the same time.  I’m not really starting over - I was eating pretty well on vacation and exercising pretty regularly, it’s just been the few days away when my eating was a bit out of whack - normal for both an end-of-vacation setting free, and also the stress and sadness of the failed pregnancy.

Still, being more strict felt good, and made some of the choices at a hotel convention meeting for 3 days a lot easier.  I tried to pay attention to eating more fruits and veggies, didn’t allow myself anything other than plain yogurt or fruit for dessert, skipped the bread on the buffet (even though a few times it looked better than the rest of the meal) and had only fruit and tea at coffee breaks.  None of that felt like a big deprivation - I know from years of experience that the hotel-buffet desserts and carb nibbles they set out are mass-produced industrial junk that tastes greasy and sugary and not very interesting.

got lucky with the fruit plan — there were big baskets of fruit at every meal, full of variety, including a bunch of rare exotic stuff that costs a fortune that I hadn’t tried — and luckily one of my dining partners had traveled widely and knew a bunch of these fruits and orchestrated several tastings — YUM!  My favorite was the mangosteen, a fruit I’d tried and loved before but then forgot about it as it’s not easily available near me.

Also interesting but not quite topping the mangosteen was the granadilla, which is a variety of passionfruit and is sweeter and milder in flavor, but gummier and grayer in looks.  Was pretty ugly to see but tasted good.  I wouldn’t go too far out of my way to find it, but if it’s next to the mangosteens (which ARE worth finding the time to get to an Asian market) I’d pick some of them up.

Our meeting ended today and not-too-late, so I was able to get to the pool and swim, which was something I’d looked forward to since the weekend.

I got in control of my breakfasts again.

When I eat poorly it often starts with breakfast - living in Paris it’s easy to gobble down hundreds of calories and many many fat grams first thing in the morning (actually, that’s pretty easy to do anywhere!).

When I start with oatmeal things are really great, but I haven’t felt like oatmeal in a while. Two weeks ago I decided to buy some different cold cereals as I savor the end of my imported shredded wheat (ah, the strange things one misses as an expatriate!).

I bought 2 boxes of Special K, one with red berries, the other with chocolate.

Chocolate? In cereal? For breakfast? Not just any chocolate either - it’s real dark chocolate (also available in milk chocolate, in fact). Not ‘chocolatey’ like in the US either. Real shavings of chocolate. Of course, the calorie-saving aspect is in the fact that the pieces of chocolate are shavings and not chips, and of course the ratio of chocolate-to-flakes. But after my initial hesitation I spent a few minutes examining the nutrition info on the boxes and since the calories for the flavored cereals are about the same as the plain Special K, I figured what the heck.

These past few days it’s been an treat in the mornings. Healthy, quick and easy, but also a bit of an indulgence. I even had that twice over the weekend while my DH indulged in a rich brioche with our fabulous farm-fresh butter and a friend’s homemade jam for breakfast. Other than that first moment of decision I had no regrets with my choice. That said, maybe the bowl is a little more full than usual, so while it fits within the healthy breakfast criteria, I don’t think I’ll be buying it every week…

But having breakfasts back under control makes a big difference, and if it took a bit o’ chocolate to do it, what’s the harm?

My healthy diet is getting easier for me.  I have had a really good week - focused, veggie-filled, not feeling deprived.

Going away for this weekend wasn’t so easy.  First there was the lunch my DH prepared just before we left.  Very sweet of him to whip up an omelette for us all, but it was loaded with butter…  We also didn’t have enough water with us for our hike, and although I made decent choices at dinner, I was over-hungry and couldn’t resist the bread (nor the chocolate buttons before dinner).

The good news is I did walk (well, very light hiking) both Saturday and Sunday.  It felt good to move my body and fabulous to breath fresh country air.  Every time we go hiking (which isn’t often) I’m reminded how much I like it, and it’s something both my husband and I would like to do more often.

Breakfast this morning was tough - huge basket of bread and pastries, no fruit in sight…  I had bread w jam (lower cal choice than the pastry) and a plain yogurt.  Skipped the sweetened applesauce (which is not very healthy) and had a ton of coffee.  I purposefully went light on breakfast, but paid for it later when I was starving after our hike and very grouchy… Of course I didn’t make the best choices then either, because the one thing you can usually find open in France on a Sunday afternoon is a bakery, so bread it was…

Still, to focus on the positive I made generally healthy choices, I got in some exercise, and at all times I stayed in control of my eating and ate what I considered the “less bad” of my choices.  Sometimes that was 8 chocolate drops instead of the whole pack, sometimes 4 slices of bread instead of buying a slice of quiche or a chocolate croissant, but at all times I did manage to make the choices.  And that, my friends, is real progress.

I’ll repeat again my mantra (in hopes of convincing myself of it someday) :

PROGRESS, Not Perfection  

Glad to be home again — especially because next weekend we’re away again — and it will be EVEN HARDER!

Well, my daily planning sheets pulled a success story today. I knew tonight could be challenging as I’d invited a few of my employees over to coach them on a huge presentation they have next week (they are very junior, it’s their first presentation of this kind, to my boss’s boss). They were so grateful I offered them my evening that they insisted on bringing dinner - pizza. When planning my day I realized that I had better get in a decent-sized healthy snack, because a hungry girl around pizza is not usually a diet success.

I wasn’t even that hungry for a snack but had a bunch of cherry tomatoes while working on something and then ate the yogurt anyway to be stronger for later.

What I didn’t expect was to eat McDonald’s in France. I have not eaten at McDonald’s in 4 years - well, even more, because I didn’t even eat at McDonalds when I lived in the US. It’s probably been 7 or 8 years since I’ve eaten under the golden arches.

I was with a different employee today and we were looking for a place we could work in peace and quiet (we usually pick hotels or sometimes restaurants) and he said “oh, we should go to McDonald’s”. …okay. He was right - free wifi, plugs for the computers, lots of space, very few people in the morning. We worked really well there, but of course the lunch rush started and we were getting hungry but still had another 2 hours of work to do… what were we going to do, go somewhere else for lunch? No, we ate McDonald’s. He of course “supersized” it and knew the menu pretty well (he’s 25 and has no weight issues, no problem). I however took 15 minutes to decide finally choosing a burger that looked like it was a “high quality” one on a good bun etc. No sauce on the thing (although one slice of cheese) and I added some ketchup. No fries, I had the salad, and Perrier. I just looked up on the website and I was duped - the burger I chose was one of the highest calorie ones on the menu even though it looked really plain (although I wonder if the calorie count is w the sauce that I didn’t have?). I did leave 3/4 of one of the buns, and overall the calories are fine (especially since I’m not officially counting them!) but still… McDonald’s is not the best diet choice. I would have been better off w 6 pieces of McNuggets if I could have stomached the processed-particle taste. Back in my McDonald’s days I did like those things.

All in all, I did well at McDonald’s and also saw no reason to go back.

And the pizza? No problem there either - I put out a HUGE platter of raw veggies (since we were all girls) and some chips that I don’t like. I ate more than my share of the veggies but restrained myself on the pizza, having 2 plain cheese slices. I was smart enough to put the remaining pizza directly in the outside trash bin, because half an hour after they left I found myself opening cupboards and the fridge looking around. I just brushed my teeth and went to bed, but if that leftover pizza had been lurking I might not have resisted.

So, two challenging situations handled with flying colors!

By popular demand, I am posting my recipe for Cherry Clafoutis.

A clafoutis is a French fruit dessert over which a flan-like preparation is poured, then the whole thing is baked. I’ve seen clafoutis described as mid-way between a crepe and a custard. The classic version is cherry (which is what I made) but nowadays they are made with almost any fruit. I am actually excited to try some others (apricot, raspberry, apple), but I will try not to go on a clafoutis binge at the same time I’m dieting… so other flavors will have to wait.

I will not call this dieter’s food, but it is actually not-so-bad calorie-wise for a dessert, and if you just have veggies and soup for dinner the egg can stand in for protein and you’ll have the calories to allocate… (hmmm - do I sound like I’m justifying my eating for the past 2 nights?)

I calculated the whole recipe the way I made it as 1110 calories using an online recipe-calculating site. Note that this is with my modifications - I did not add more sugar on top of the berries (saving 1/3 cup sugar, but mainly because I often find fruit desserts too sugared), and I also cut out the powdered sugar on top and the butter for the pan (I used silicone). Obviously if you use all the sugar called for and the butter you’ll up the counts.

The recipe is marked at 6-8 servings and from the way I cut the first piece I was closer to 6, but I had extra stuff and actually made a small clafoutis on the side which is what I counted as number 7. So for my 7 servings it comes out to 160 cals per serving. Not bad at all! Totally do-able on most diet plans, although for me it still needs to be planned in.

For the real foodies out there, there are plenty of recipes out there that use melted butter, or cream instead of milk, more eggs, lots more sugar, etc. But most of the French recipes I found are very close to this one, and I figured I was safe trying Julia Child’s technique for my first go. One thing — it’s VERY easy to make.

I found this recipe online, by the way, on a foodie blog :

Julia Child’s Clafouti
serves 6-8 for

1 1/4 cups milk
1/3 cup sugar
3 eggs
1 Tablespoon vanilla
1/8 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup flour
3 cups cherries, pitted (the French recipe books all said to leave the pits in, so that’s what I did)

1/3 cup sugar
powdered sugar

1. Preheat oven to 350 F or 180 C.
2. In a blender blend the milk, sugar, eggs, vanilla, salt and flour.
3. Pour a 1/4 inch layer of the batter in a buttered 7 or 8 cup lightly buttered fireproof baking dish. Place in the oven until a film of batter sets in the pan.
4. Remove from the heat and spread the cherries over the batter. Sprinkle on the 1/3 cup of sugar. (THIS SUGAR I OMITTED)
5. Pour on the rest of the batter until the tops of the cherries are just poking through (With the remaining batter you can throw away or make another small clafoutis).
6. Bake at 350 degrees for about for about 45 minutes to an hour. The clafouti is done when puffed and brown and and a knife plunged in the center comes out clean.
7. Sprinkle with powdered sugar (DIDN’T DO), serve warm.

How about sharing a dessert recipe that you can eat when you’re dieting?

I have very good intentions for this week - I have a ton of work to get done, and I have the house to myself. My DH is traveling for a week, so I figured this is a good opportunity to have a really focused week. (Both for work and for food).

I went a bit nuts at the market - hope I don’t let too much spoil.

I cleaned and prepped the radishes (two bunches!) and a big thing of celery.

I made a killer vegetable soup with eggplant, tomatoes, celery, carrots, red cabbage, onions, zucchini and a bit of red pepper.

I have a huge bag of spinach, which I plan to sautee very simply with spring onions.

I have 3 turkey breast filets to cook up tonight to serve as my protein for the week.

My plan is basically to eat soup and turkey all week, rounded out w some extra veggies (still have leftover roasted broccoli, carrots and green beans). And we have a massive - MASSIVE - pile of cherry tomatoes.

Writing it down I’m not sure it’s humanly possible to eat all this in the 6 nights ahead of me - but it’ll be good for me to try! Unfortunately I don’t have any days for lunch at home, that could help make a dent in all this…

It helps being able to fill the fridge to the gills with food that’s all for me. And not needing to worry about making things everyone will like or with enough meat is another help in healthy eating.

I did make a cherry clafoutis that was supposed to be to share w my DH before he left, but the time got away from me and I didn’t get it done in time for him to have it - so it’s all for me. No worries though, I just calculated the total calories in the recipe and the WHOLE THING only has 1100 cals - so spread out over several meals it’s quite reasonable. Was a breeze to whip up and looks really good too!

I had a weird day yesterday - got a stomach bug or ate something that was off (don’t know which) and got sick after 4 bites of lunch (in the restaurant bathroom) and ate very little for the rest of the day (had bread and butter at dinner, and some apple).

Today I’m feeling better but no strong appetite either - I am almost never sick to my stomach and hate throwing up, so I’m quite keen to avoid going back to that…

Since I don’t have a clever idea for a post today, I thought I’d just list what I ate :

Breakfast : at home

• Special K red berries cereal w milk
• 1/2 cup of kiwi smoothie (wasn’t good, I threw it out…)
• Tea w milk (x2)

Lunch : restaurant w colleagues

• Salad w open-faced curry chicken sandwich. Salad was mainly lettuce, a few slices of tomatoes, a bit of dressing (not much), a tablespoon or two of corn. Sandwich was on pain de campagne drizzled w olive oil, chicken curry stuff was made w mayo or cream - but there wasn’t much of it (3 oz max).

Snack : home - raided the fridge veggie leftovers…

• roasted curried cauliflower - about 2 cups of it
• roasted beets - less than 1 cup

Dinner : at home - instead of a “real” dinner we raided the fridge of leftovers and cheese…

• Piece of French bread w goat cheese
• 2/3 cup of leftover veal paprikash
• loads of raw veggies - cherry tomatoes, radish, celery
• yogurt curry dip
• 2/3 of a strawberry tart. My DH came home w three desserts from a local bakery and wanted to share them all (this is a frequent pattern). I asked if I could have the strawberry one. This was a bit of a stress point for him, but I gave him 1/3 that way he got to taste it too, and I didn’t eat nearly as much as I would have otherwise (a dessert and a half…).

Total fruit and veg count for the day : 11

So this weekend’s big challenge meal was this morning’s brunch at my mother-in-law’s place.

As expected there were croissants of all kinds, breads galore, butter, jams, etc.

I ate :

• 1 slice brioche w sugar-free jam
• 1 soft-boiled egg
• 2 small slices bread (1 w butter) for dipping into the soft-boiled egg
• 1 mini raisin croissant
• 1 2-inch piece of baguette w butter
• handful of cherries
• 1/2 a kiwi
• tea w milk
• “verrines” (glass w layered items)
  • one small shot glass of strawberry-banana on pistachios
  • grapefruit w fromage frais and whipped cream
  • raspberry rhubarb
• small slice of melon
• one slice of coppa ham

All in all I did okay. I ate way less than I usually eat at a brunch, helped enormously by the fact we weren’t at our house (with all the favorites that we like), and also by the fact that I’ve been doing really well for several weeks now — and have a weigh-in on Monday.

Interestingly, I did watch my MIL and my SIL and saw that they both sat for long periods at the table without eating anything - something that I have a really hard time doing. If I’m at the table w food around me, I almost always keep nibbling at something. I need to learn how to do that, as social meals in France can often last for many hours.

The rest of the day I’ll mainly eat veggies, maybe some popcorn if I feel a need for crunch, so the day should be fine overall.

Yesterday evening I came home from work to find my stepson (DSS) ready for a snack — and I was too. I wanted to make myself my new Tabasco-fired air popcorn, but thought that I’d offer him a treat and finally make the microwave popcorn my DH bought a few months back - Jolly Time Mallow Pop which is supposed to be a marshmallow flavor like Rice Krispie Treats.

I thought I was safe as I had a plan for myself and I don’t like sweet popcorn (although - warning - I do like Rice Krispie Treats, I just never eat them). I made his popcorn first and was kind of fascinated / grossed out by the slimy white goo that is the “flavoring pouch”. We eat mainly whole foods around here - packaged foods are rare for us, and its been a long time since I’ve seen a slime pouch like that. My DSS was pretty excited by the whole process. He had rarely seen me make microwave popcorn, so even that was exciting to him, and the sugar-slime mix was a perfect treat for an 8 year old…

Well, it was pretty tasty. Terribly sweet and more than a little chemically, but creamy and greasy and sticky. He loved it. And I tasted more than I should have. And then kept grabbing another few bites. I never made my own air-popped hot-sauced version, and I think I ate about 1 1/2 “servings” of his - which I have just dutifully looked up on the box and figured out to be around 300 calories. Which doesn’t blow me out of the water (although the trans fats could blow up my arteries…) but did make dinner automatically a “light” one.

Lessons learned :

• Do not let this packaged garbage food into the house. My DSS was happy with this treat but would have been just as happy with air-popped corn with butter and sugar, all of which are REAL ingredients.
• Do not eat the stuff just because its around (if only…)
• Make my own snack first. Had I done this I doubt I’d have touched his, except maybe a bite out of curiosity. I kept munching because I was hungry and wanted to crunch…

I was able to have a veggie-only dinner so the day was fine overall.

There are so many lessons to learn on this path!

Yesterday I wrote about trying to make myself like fennel. But I also recently tried to get myself to like air-popped popcorn — and this time it actually worked!

I love popcorn. I especially love it popped in oil and then tossed w real melted butter and salt. But I can’t have that regularly and lose (or even maintain) weight, so it’s out. I substitute two things - either air-popped popcorn w the melted butter and salt (which is really only marginally better) or microwave popcorn. I did manage to find an air-popper machine online here in France about 2 years ago, but honestly haven’t used it that much because I know the calorie count of the prepared thing is a whopper. When I bought it I had visions of air-popped corn somehow having changed, or myself being able to change and start to like the stuff plain … but right after I got it and tried it — blech!

The microwave popcorn is relatively calorie-friendly. The big bag can substitute for dinner pretty easily and even as a snack it doesn’t blow your calories out of the water. I buy only the 94% fat free stuff. But I have a few problems with it :

1. I can’t get low-fat microwave popcorn in France, so I have to get it from the States (a trip to Costco, everything in my suitcase retains that fake popcorn scent, and in general the hassle factor is quite high even if I ask friends to bring it…)
2. My DH hates the smell. I mean really hates it. Sometimes to be nice to me he’ll suggest I make a bag and then as soon as I do he is airing out the house and complaining of the smell… Even if I do the closed-kitchen-door routine and open back door, open microwave, fan on full blast, put the popcorn outside in a bowl to let it air out… nothing really gets rid of that microwave popcorn smell.
3. It’s a bag of chemicals. Whatever stabilizers are put in the bag to replace the trans-fats are probably not a whole lot better. Shelf-stable and cheap fats in general are not good for you. And there are scary things on the net about the chemicals they use for “flavor” (especially butter flavor). Over the past years I’ve become more and more a whole-foods person, so this is one of the few “packaged” foods that makes it into our home… and microwave popcorn is so processed it doesn’t really sit well with me.

As you can tell this popcorn thing is something of a dilemma. I never liked plain air-popped popcorn. But a few days back as I was thinking about filling, whole-grain, low-cal foods I remembered air-popped popcorn. And decided to give it a try to see if it was as bad as I remembered.

It wasn’t.

It was kinda bland as the salt won’t stick to the dry kernels (and they don’t sell I Can’t Believe It’s Not Butter spray here, nor Pam…). But it wasn’t bad, and I realized I could eat it plain from time to time and be reasonably happy to have the crunch.

Then I googled for a bit and found a flavoring idea that seemed good - Tabasco (that I can find in France!, plus, I love spicy). So I made another little batch and shook some Tabasco on and some salt (as Tabasco is wet…) and shook it around in a covered bowl (well, at first it flew around the kitchen from a not-so-covered bowl, but I learned that fast…) and then tasted and… YUM.

Spicy, crunchy, salty, and LOW CAL!!!

So - trying the foods you thought you didn’t like does have it’s payoffs. But it’s okay to still not like them too.

I loved the comments from the last post, so chime in if there are any foods you want to make yourself learn to like!