You have probably heard the phrase “lifestyle change” when people talk about weight loss. Unless you are blessed with an incredibly high metabolism, you can’t subsist on pasta, pizza, pancakes, and burgers and not gain weight! But if you LOVE those foods (like I do) there are alternatives.
My wife and I have lost a lot of weight thanks to Medi-Weightloss, but a lot of the diet tips we have learned will remain with us long after we have left the program. Here are four “cheats” that have helped us survive being calorie-deprived:
Breakfast is an important meal. Your body needs fuel to start the day, and if you skimp on breakfast, you’ll be tired and hungry all day, and prone to eat more at lunch and dinner. We can’t have that.
Protein Pancakes are low in calories, high in protein, and ridiculously delicious. I was skeptical when I saw the recipe – only 3 ingredients! But they are not only a sweet treat, particularly with blueberries, but a hearty one, that will stick with you until lunchtime. Here’s all that’s in the batter for one serving:
One egg, or a 1/2 cup of egg whites
1/2 scoop of Vanilla protein shake mix (your choice, but the Medi version is only 60 calories for a 1/2 scoop)
1/8 cup of low-fat part-skim Ricotta cheese
You don’t even need syrup for these – they’re easy to make, and less than 200 calories. You can’t BEAT that!
Shirataki Noodles are magic. I don’t know how you can buy a bag like this and only add 15 calories to your meal. That’s David Blaine street magic, right there.
Just drain the water and warm up a bowl of this in the microwave for a minute or less. Add marinara, and you’ve got a fabulous pasta dish that is loaded with protein and vitamins, and is around 200 calories (less than 300 with ground turkey!).
If you’re not into soy-taste like this, and some people aren’t, there’s another crazy, but potentially even easier pasta solution. I will talk about that in a minute.
First, let me introduce you to the most amazing snack bar known to mankind: the Quest Bar.
I am hooked on the convenience of snack bars. Working on the air until 7pm every night makes it difficult for me to have dinner at a reasonable hour. My long-suffering wife and children graciously hold dinner until I get home so we can all eat together, but by the time 4pm hits and I’m in the middle of my show, I am ravenous. I like Special K bars, which are around 100 calories, but they’re not particularly filling. Granola bars are loaded with sugar and carbs and make me sleepy after I eat them. Quest Bars, on the other hand, taste crazy good, are less than 200 calories with 20 grams of protein, fiber + they’re less than 5 carbs. They’re amazing, and my fave is the chocolate brownie.
Now, about that crazy spaghetti gadget I mentioned above: twist the Vegetti over the top of a squash, and you get pasta. It sounds nuts, doesn’t it? But you’d be surprised how good it tastes.
Again, I was quite skeptical how this was going to taste when my wife suggested it for dinner one evening not long ago. What would the consistency be like? Marinara sauce on squash strands sounds like salad to me, and probably wouldn’t taste as good.
I was wrong.
If you do this right, the squash “noodles” taste very similar to pasta al dente. Even if you don’t do it exactly right, it still tastes pretty darn good when you’re jonesing for pasta.
Thank you, Vegetti!
But perhaps the holy grail of dieting has got to be pizza; wouldn’t it be amazing to eat pizza and still lose weight? You can buy reasonably low-cal versions at the grocery store, I have seen Atkins and other diet pizzas for sale, but you get a tiny piece that still adds up to 400 calories or more.
We decided to try cauliflower crust pizza, instead of some pre-packaged high-sodium “diet” version. I have tried cauliflower as a mashed potato substitute, and it’s not bad, but how would it hold up as the key crust ingredient?
The jury is still out.
The times my wife and I tried it, it came out a bit more like a casserole than a crisp crust, but the flavor was there. We used this recipe. Fat free mozzarella, pizza sauce, cherry tomatoes, turkey pepperoni and a cauliflower crust = less than 300 calories for a pretty healthy portion.
I look forward to getting past the acute phase of the Medi program, but I am happy to have discovered these “cheats” along the way. Who knew losing 20 pounds was going to be so delicious?
