Phase 2 Archives - Page 3 of 4 - My Eating Clean Journey

Down 27.2 pounds in 33 Days and My Cholesterol Results

February 5, 2014

When you wish upon a star, your dreams may come true. Right now I feel like I’m living in a dream. I stepped on the scale today and I’m down 27.2 pounds in 33 days. Plus, I had my blood drawn yesterday at my doctor’s to run a few numbers and my cholesterol is down to 117. What an amazing number to see. A healthy number. All my hard work and clean eating is really paying off. I wish I would have listened to my friend a year ago when I first heard about Omnitrition and their Omni-Drops.

I wanted to share a portion of the book, Pounds and Inches from Dr. Simeons. At the very beginning of his book he talked about Obesity as a disorder and says this:

As a basis for our discussion we postulate that obesity in all its many forms is due to an abnormal functioning of some part of the body and that every ounce of abnormally accumulated fat is always the result of the same disorder of certain regulatory mechanisms. Persons suffering from this particular disorder will get fat regardless of whether they eat excessively, normally or less than normal. A person who is free of the disorder will never get fat, even if he frequently overeats.

Those in whom the disorder is severe will accumulate fat very rapidly, those in whom it is moderate will gradually increase in weight and those in whom it is mild may be able to keep their excess weight stationary for long periods. In all these cases a loss of weight brought about by dieting, treatments with thyroid, appetite-reducing drugs, laxatives, violent exercise, massage, baths, etc., is only temporary and will be rapidly regained as soon as the reducing regimen is relaxed. The reason is simply that none of these measures corrects the basic disorder.

I am this person that Dr. Simeon describes in his book. I have been moving towards an eating clean lifestyle for the past three years but didn’t have much success in the weight loss category. Although I was feeling better and knew I was feeding my body the nutrients that it needed to remain healthy, the weight was still an issue. Thanks to his research and trials with his patients

in Italy, I feel he has unlocked the secret to losing weight – for me. I have been on almost every diet out there and have never had much success. There is an Omni support group on facebook for customers of the products. Someone was mentioning the other day that they were disappointed that they had only lost 3 pounds in two days. My response to her was that we put way too much emphasis on what the number of the scale is. We need to know that by eating a good diet full of whole foods, we are feeding our body with vitamins and minerals. Imagine if we just ate what we wanted and didn’t care if it was processed and full of ingredients we couldn’t even pronounce. I remember when I was following the Weight Watchers plan and celebrated a 1 pound loss each week. So what this one person on Omni-Drops lost in two days and was disappointed in, I would be celebrating at the three week mark on Weight Watchers.

If anyone would like information on Omnitrition and the Omni-Drops, please feel free to email me at cleaneating@comcast.net or leave a comment here on my blog (which I love receiving by the way).

Bun-less Sloppy Joes

January 31, 2014

Tonight’s dinner was Bun-less Sloppy Joes. It was really quick to make (approx. 10 minutes total time0. Now that my husband is doing the diet also, I end up cooking two batches of both meals. Our son is eating along with us but is enjoying at least a double portion of what we eat plus tonight he did put his mixture on top of some bread.
If you’re following the Omni-Drops plan, this is a phase 2 recipe.

Sloppy Joes

4oz ground beef

1 recipe barbeque sauce

Butter lettuce or any large variety lettuce leaves

Brown ground beef in small frying pan. Add barbeque sauce and a little water to achieve desired consistency. Cook for about 5 minutes. Serve on lettuce leaves.

Makes 1 serving

Total weight loss for today – 22 pounds in 27 days (R1P2D27)

Homemade Chicken Nuggets

January 29, 2014

Last night for dinner we made homemade chicken nuggets. No more processed, frozen nuggets for this family. These turned out so good. They were crispy and flavorful. I served them with a side of homemade BBQ sauce and roasted asparagus.

Homemade Chicken Nuggets

First, cube your chicken up into chunks

Put the cubed chicken into a bowl and squirt some mustard on them. I used French’s Spicy Mustard as it doesn’t contain any sugar. Toss the chicken pieces until they are well coated.

I used some Wasa Crackers (3 of them because I was making three batches of 4oz of chicken) and put them into my blender and blended on high to make them into a crumb. If you’re not following the hcg diet, you could use panko or regular bread crumbs.

Put the bread crumbs on a plate and dredge each piece of mustard chicken in the cracker crumbs.

Pop them on a baking sheet (I always line mine with aluminum foil)

Bake in a 400 degree, pre-heated oven for 20-25 minutes. I did not turn my over half through and they came out with just the amount of crisp on them.

Eating Clean and Feeling Great – A Week of Dinners

January 23, 2014

If you’ve been reading my blog, then you know I started a new diet at the beginning of January, on the 2nd to be exact. I am feeling great. The thought that my body hasn’t had sugar, oil or processed food is wonderful. It’s the journey I have been longing for and it’s even effecting the scale. I’ve lost a total of 17.8 pounds.

One thing that I’ve noticed over my 30 years of trying to lose weight, is how much attention we give to the number that’s on the scale. If it’s not moving downwards then we get discouraged and give up. I’ve been a victim of that. I once exercised for 5 months straight, 5 times a week for one hour and didn’t see any difference in the number on the scale. I decided it wasn’t worth the effort and gave up. When the scale isn’t budging, it’s important to look at the other positive things that are happening within you. For me, although the scale is going down, I do celebrate my “non-scale” victories. For example, I have so much more energy then I had before I started eating clean. Also, last weekend my sister and I went to visit my parents in upstate New York. They live near a casino and we had plans of going to bingo a few times during our stay. We stayed on plan the whole time, no cheating from the two of us. We met my parents at bingo and my mom packed us each a salad with grilled chicken. We both packed some “approved” foods from our eating plan so we were prepared. I brought in my homemade Honey Mustard Dressing and BBQ Sauce to put on our salads. For dinner we went to the restaurant and asked what vegetables they had as a side, none of them were what we could eat. My sister asked if they had access to any asparagus and the waitress replied that the neighboring restaurant had some. She ran next door and picked us up two side orders to go with the 8oz sirloin steak that we split. Unfortunately the asparagus wasn’t very much but my sister had packed a cucumber with her and I had packed my food scale. We weighed out the asparagus and supplemented with the cucumber. It felt so good to be successful by being prepared.

So, two tips for today: Celebrate the Non-Scale Victories and Be Prepared.

Here’s what I ate this week:

Chicken Curry

4oz chicken sliced thinly (easy to do if it’s semi-frozen)

2oz onion, big slices

2oz celery, bite size pieces

curry powder, to your liking

chicken broth

In a medium sized pan, add in your onions and celery and saute with a splash of chicken broth for about 2 minutes. Toss your chicken pieces in the curry powder and add them to the pan. Add additional chicken broth to help cook the vegetables and keep the chicken from sticking to the pan. Cook until the vegetables are tender and the chicken is cooked throughout, about 10 minutes.

Low-Carb Chili

Curried Beef and Spinach

4oz ground beef

4oz spinach

curry powder

Cook the hamburg in a pot with a splash of beef broth. Cook until cooked through. Add 1/2 cup of additional beef broth and add in the spinach and curry powder (to taste). Cook for about 2-3 minutes or until the spinach is wilted.

Curried Chicken and Cabbage

(see a theme going here this week)

4oz chicken

4oz cabbage

curry powder

Cook chicken in a pot with a splash of water or chicken broth. When no longer pink, add in your cabbage and a little more broth to help cook the cabbage down. Toss in the curry powder and mix well. Add sea salt and pepper and serve.

Here’s the meal we got from the restaurant at the casino. We took it to go so we could eat it during our bingo session.

Unstuffed Cabbage Rolls

Roasted Radishes

4oz radishes

sea salt and pepper

braggs aminos in a spray bottle

Line a baking sheet with aluminum foil or parchment paper, place the radishes on the baking sheet and spray with the Braggs Aminos. Dust with salt and pepper. Bake at 400 for 15-20 minutes. Keep an eye on them and check for doneness.

Italian Grilled Chicken with Radishes and Spinach

Which one is your favorite from my menu this week?

Roasted Cabbage and my Diet Update

January 16, 2014

I’m on day 13 of my weight loss journey and I’ve lost 13.8 pounds. Hoping I hit the 15 pound mark by the end of the week. I didn’t realize I was four days behind on blogging, wow – time is flying by. I can’t remember what I ate each day but I will provide you with some food porn photos. 🙂

I’ll start first with tonight’s dinner. We had Chicken and Roasted Cabbage. It was my first time trying Roasted Cabbage and I really liked it. It had a kick of lemon on it.

Roasted Cabbage and Chicken

Take a head of cabbage and cut off wedges. I was just feeding my son and myself so I only cooked three wedges (one for me and two for him).

I cut a lemon in quarters and used one quarter. Squeeze it into a small bowl and add about 1/4 cup of chicken broth – drizzle over the cabbage. I then salt and peppered it.

Bake for 15 minutes at 425 degrees and then flip them over.

I cooked some chicken with some spices in a pan on low/medium heat. No oil, just add a bit of water every now and then. I love when you do that and it added the caramelization color to your chicken.

The little piece is 4oz and It’s mine. The bigger piece was my son’s.

Here’s my menu from the rest of the past few days.

Two 2oz burger sliders on a wasa cracker. Topped with homemade Ketcup. Served with Asparagus.

BBQ Chopped Chicken Salad

Chili made with ground beef, radishes, celery and a plum tomato. Simmer with a bit of water and spices (chili, cumin, chipotle and sea salt and pepper)

Cabbage and Hamburg (I could eat this everyday)

Day 9 – 11.6 pounds lost – Mashed Radishes

January 12, 2014

Day 9 of the Omni-Drops and I lost only .2 pounds yesterday. That’s okay with me as I’m focusing on the overall total, which stands at 11.6 – nice number for 9 days.

I did have a great non-scale victory last night. My husband and I went to see Lone Survivor at the movies and I chopped up an apple, squirted it with 1/2 lemon juice and a few drops of SweetLeaf’s Stevia Drops in English Toffee and brought that with me to the movies. I knew I couldn’t have the popcorn, which I LOVE and needed to be prepared. By the way, the movie was amazing. I had read Marcus’ book when it first came out and I couldn’t wait to watch the movie. I was surprised to see him in it and very proud that he decided to share his story with the rest of the world.

Okay, now onto what I ate yesterday.

Breakfast: 1/2 grapefruit
Lunch: Curry chicken, asparagus and cucumbers
Dinner: Filet Mignon and mashed radishes – If you’ve never tried mashed radishes, you need to. I really dislike raw radishes but cooking them, completely changes their flavor. I also made a “mock” gravy that I added to the radishes. I added some water and 1T of milk to the pan that I cooked the steak in and scrapped all the goodness off the bottom of the pan. I then added that sauce to the radishes and mixed in.
Snack: Sliced apple (at the movies)

I also stumbled upon this great graphic that shows what 5, 10, 15 and 20 pounds of fat look like. It’s always nice to visualize how much weigh you lose as you go along.

Did you set a New Year’s Resolution to lose weight? How are you doing? I’d love to hear from you so I can cheer you on.

Omni Update and “Spaghetti” and Meatballs

January 11, 2014

I know I’ve been MIA the last couple of days, sorry about that. My daughter is home visiting from college and I’m trying to spend time with her before she heads back. Here’s my Omni-Drops update: R1P3D8 – I’ve lost a total of 11.4 pounds so far and my energy has been wonderful. For the past 8 days I haven’t had to deal with the afternoon nap bugging me and dragging me down. I’ve also been having a harder time going to bed. I normally go to bed around 10pm but I’m finding myself laying in bed at midnight, awake. I’m taking my NiteLite and it’s giving me a great nights sleep. I need to start making myself take it before I’m actually tired so I can get back to an earlier bed time. Since I skipped a day, I’ll be listing two days of menus. Wednesday: Breakfast – 1/2 grapefruit Lunch – BBQ Chicken Salad Dinner – Omni Burger Sliders and Asparagus Snack – Granny Smith Apple

BBQ Chicken Salad – Click to see the BBQ sauce recipe.

Omni Burger Sliders and Asparagus

Thursday:

Breakfast – Grapefruit

Lunch – Chicken Cabbage Soup

Snack – Granny Smith Apple

Dinner – “Spaghetti” and Meatballs

Chicken Cabbage Soup

“Spaghetti” and Meatballs

Instead of spaghetti, I replaced it with cabbage, sliced long and thin.

Meatballs

4oz ground beef

Wasa cracker

Italian seasoning, sea salt and pepper

garlic, chopped

Sauté the meatballs in a nonstick pan just till brown, turning to brown on each side (If your first

batch of meatballs is sticking, add a little water to the pan.) Add in your cabbage and Spaghetti Sauce, mix and simmer for 25 minutes

Make sure you measure out your spaghetti sauce and cabbage to stay within the 4oz limit.

Chop the wasa cracker into tiny bits and add in seasonings before adding in the ground beef

Brown in a pan before adding in the sauce and cabbage

Day 6 Omni Drops – Chicken Fajita Lettuce Boats (Wraps)

January 9, 2014

Day 6 and I lost another full pound. I’m not at a total of 9.8 lbs lost.

Breakfast – Nothing
Lunch – Unstuffed Cabbage Rolls
Snack – Granny Smith Apple
Dinner – Chicken Fajita Lettuce Boats

Also took Omni IV and Fiber ‘n More.

Unstuffed Cabbage Rolls (click on title for the recipe)

Chicken Fajita Lettuce Boats (also called wraps if you use Boston Lettuce)

4oz chicken, chopped

2oz onions, chopped

2oz, lettuce leaves

salsa

fajita seasoning (I used chili powder, cumin, sea salt and pepper)

Toss chicken with the seasoning and cook in a pan with the chopped onions. Layer them on the lettuce leaves. I used Romaine lettuce and turned them into lettuce boats. I place all the fillings on 1/2 of the lettuce and then folded the lettuce over and ate it like a sandwich. Prepared to get a bit messy when the salsa drips. 🙂

Day 5 Omni Drops – Honey Mustard Dressing and Unstuffed Cabbage Rolls

January 8, 2014

I woke up this morning, stood on the scale and celebrated another one pound lost for a total of 8.8lbs. It was also my first morning where I woke up with more energy then I knew what to do with. I decided to do a bit of housecleaning before work. I also realized that I haven’t drank coffee in 5 days. Although I’m allowed to drink coffee on the Omni Drops, I can’t have my hazelnut creamer that makes my coffee ohhh sooo delicious.

I really am feeling great and I didn’t even deal with any detox or withdrawal symptoms. I would guess it’s probably because I was already eating a clean diet with very little sugar and carbs, besides whole grains.

So, here’s what I ate yesterday:

Breakfast – Just a big tall glass of water (or two) with lemon
Lunch – Honey Mustard Chicken Salad
Dinner – Unstuffed Cabbage Rolls
Snack – an out from the refrigerator, delicious granny smith apple

Honey Mustard Chicken Salad

4oz chicken, chopped
4oz lettuce
salt and pepper
Omni-Approved Honey Mustard Dressing (recipe below)

Cook chicken, place on top of lettuce, pour on some honey mustard dressing and enjoy.

Honey Mustard Dressing

· 1/3 cup of Apple cider vinegar

· 1 cup water with 1 packet of Stevia mixed in

· 1/2 tsp salt, pepper, onion power & garlic powder

· 2 1/2 tablespoons of Spicy Brown Mustard

Whisk all ingredients together. This makes a nice marinade as well.

Unstuffed Cabbage Rolls

4oz. extra lean ground beef

3oz. cabbage, chopped

1oz onions, chopped

garlic clove

Spaghetti Sauce (below)

Cook the onions and garlic in a skillet with 4 oz extra lean ground beef until meat is browned.

Add in 4 oz of shredded cabbage and approx. 1/4 cup of water.

Cover and simmer till liquid reduces and cabbage is tender. Add in 1/4 cup of spaghetti sauce and stir to combine. Enjoy.

Spaghetti Sauce

1 onion, diced

1 garlic clove, minced

Dash of sea salt

1 can crushed tomatoes (organic & make sure there are no other ingredients)

1T Italian Seasonings

Cook an onion and garlic in a non-stick pan over medium heat, stirring frequently, until the onion is clear. (If your onions are sticking, add a little water.)

Add a dash of sea salt to bring out the onion’s sweetness. Turn heat to LOW

Stir in 1 can or jar of crushed tomatoes. Add some Italian Seasoning, Cracked Pepper, and Sea Salt to taste. Remove from heat.

Homemade BBQ Sauce and Ketchup

January 7, 2014

Yesterday I made my first round of homemade BBQ sauce and ketchup – following the Omni Drops program protocol. I topped my Sliders with the BBQ – yum.

BBQ Sauce

·         1 cup Tomato sauce (no salt or sugar added) (or puree fresh tomatoes instead of finding a
·         canned sauce)
·         4 tbsp Apple Cider Vinegar
·         1 tbsp Bragg’s liquid amino
·         1 tsp Dijon Mustard (Golden’s spicy brown has no sugar)
·         1 tsp Liquid Smoke*
·         1 tsp Chili powder
·         1/2 tsp Garlic powder
·         2 pkgs (2g) stevia
·         1/8 tsp Salt

Simmer all ingredients at a medium low heat for 15-30 minutes.