Program Notes

So once the initial issues of figuring out how to eat enough good stuff (fruits, veggies) to counter eating a smaller quantity of less good stuff { (meat, cheese, white rice) I'm of the belief that there is no bad food over all but I could be starting to change this opinion*} were sorted out things have been going pretty well. The truth is I'm never hungry and I'm never full. In some ways it's a weird feeling. Like I guess that's how you're supposed to feel, like you stop eating when you're no longer hungry not when you're full or when the plate is empty. But man that is almost a foreign concept for me. I'd never really thought of it before. There have been a couple studies out lately that say we eat as much as we're given not as much as we want or need and that is blindingly obvious to me now. My criteria for stopping eating are 1) the plate is empty or 2) I'm full. Stopping when I'm simply no longer hungry is just....weird for me and it's something I don't know that I can do much off. That's where knowing what a portion size is supposed to be and how much I'm supposed to be eating in a given day is a huge change and benefit for me.

"Eat only 1 cup of rice with like 2 cups of vegetables instead of 3 cups of rice and .25 cups of vegetables." Oh, ok, I can do that.

I really am of the school of thinking that says there is no bad food. Like say chocolate cake isn't a bad food. It's just a food that you should eat in small amounts and not every day. But dude meat? Not really a good food. I'm carnivorous like a bear is carnivorous but 85% vegetarianism is looking mighty good to me these days. Example: yummy, tastely little vegan meatballs? Like 3 points a serving. Real meatballs? Like 12. Example: Morningstar Farms Chick Patties: 3 points. Regular breaded chicken patty for sandwichs: 10 points. Grillers Garden Burger: 3 points (5 with all the necessary additions like cheese and ketchup). Standard restuarant burgers: Range from 7 at McDonald's to 20 at "casual dining restaurants." So yeah I'm thinking vegetarian meals are going to become and even bigger part of our diet than they were before. We'll have regular dose of lean chicken and fish but only very occasionally splurge on meals arranged around huge hunks of meat (say like on my birthday exactly two weeks from today).

And in case you're interested get the vegan meatballs as Trader Joes (3 points), add a little bit of pasta sauce and simmer (1-2 points) until meatballs are heated through, serve on a Wonder Bread Hot Dog Bun (1 point!) and you've got a very, very tasty, very The Plan friendly lunch.

Something else we've learned in the past little bit is that it is super hard to eat healthy food if you aren't making it yourself. Example: Noodles and Co. B's favorite dish from the is the Indonesian Peanut Saute with tofu. It consists of noodles, a light brown sauce, vegetables and tofu. Sounds no so horrible right? So very wrong, a small serving is 18 points. 7 points more than the Wisconsin Macaroni and Cheese I like to get. We may be having dinner at a chain Italian place this weekend for a friend's birthday and because we're being pro-active about this we scoped out all the nutritional info and figured out points etc. Jesus, Mary and Joseph if you eat what these people give you in many, many (I dare say most) cases you'll have exceeded what your caloric and fat intake is supposed to be the entire day. Granted Italian food has pasta, cheese etc but the amounts of fats and calories in these admittedly huge portions are crazy. Again it goes back to us eating whatever is put in front of us. It's really hard to combat that. I see now that it's all on you to be super vigilant about what you put in your body. You can have anything you want but you just have to plan for it and think about it instead of just blinding eating whatever day after day. Such a simple epiphany but such a huge one.