Meal Ideas for Losing Weight

By request, I am posting some actual "meal ideas" for losing weight. These are the things that I actually ate "regularly" while I was losing weight. I hesitate to call my way of eating "low carb", because I'm sure that I'm getting lots of carbs from vegetables, legumes, squash, some grains, etc. However - I was not eating ANY refined carbs, and now, I eat refined carbs RARELY.

First - I did take 2 weeks to break some of my refined foods/sugar cravings. I elimated ALL sugar, fruit, flour, grains, starchy vegetables, and legumes. This was for only two weeks. So in that period, here is what I typically ate:

Breakfast: EGGS (fried, scrambled, omelets, etc) with lots of butter, cheese, sea salt, pepper, salsa etc. Bacon, Canadian Bacon, Sausage. Sometimes I chopped up canadian bacon and scrambled it in the eggs, along with onion, pepper, cheese - then ate with salsa as a condiment. I often had 2 eggs and several slices of breakfast meat.

Mid-Morning snack: string cheese, raw milk cheese, pistachios, cashews, almonds (not all of these at once - I would usually choose a hunk of cheese and a handful of nuts)

Lunch: SALADS! I most often enjoyed chef salad with meats, cheeses, bacon, cooked eggs, sliced avacado, tons of veggies and homemade ranch or homemade creamy dill dressing. I also made tuna salad and served it on a bed of lettuce rather than in a sandwich. Taco salad was another favorite. I started with the lettuce as my "base" then topped it with taco meat, all the fixings, lots of sour cream and salsa and omitted the chips. (Later I would just crumble a COUPLE of chips over the top of the salad, almost as a "crouton" for some crunch.) I also liked to take Boston Lettuce and use that as a "wrap". I'd make ham and swiss or turkey and pepperjack "wraps" and then dip them in dijon/mayo blend that I'd whip up. With the wraps, I'd often have whole milk cottage cheese on the side, and in the summer I had a sliced tomato from my garden nearly every day!

Mid-Afternoon snack: same as above, or I'd also go for celery/pb or celery/cream cheese (I liked to doctor up my cream cheese with garlic salt and dill, dry minced onion - blend well, then spread inside the celery sticks). I also had dill dip made up (I make my own) and lots of veggies handy for veggies/dip.

Dinners: I quit making so many "casserole" type meals, and instead would roast chicken, or make up a beef roast, and then just serve lots of veggies with it. I also would usually put out some salad. (For my dinner salads, I liked to do a balsamic vinegraitte dressing or a dijon vinegraitte since I usually had the creamy dressings at lunch.) This way, I could make some rice or corn for my family, and I could just opt for the meat, vegetables and salads. I love vegetables, and I usually serve several at a meal. Some of my favorites: sauteed greens w/onions and garlic (green chard or spinach are the favorites), roasted brussle sprouts (sometimes with bacon!), steamed veggies of all kinds: brocolli, cauliflower, sugar peas, carrots etc, roasted asparagus (!!!), green beans (home canned, and just heated up, or I get the french beans at Sam's and make Garlic Green Beans). The key with vegetables is to make sure you put plenty of real butter on them and season with sea salt or good garlic salt. Another note on dinners: I kept frozen wild caught Salmon filets and Tilapia on hand so that if I was making a "casserole" or serving something like Spaghetti, I could just easily throw a salmon filet in the oven for myself. Sometimes I'd make a cream sauce for it, but often it was just melted butter and fresh lemon juice drizzled over, with sea salt and fresh cracked pepper. This way, I could have my meat entree and just eat the other veggies/salad that I planned on with the meal. Some other things I did were to make things like chicken alfredo by baking the whole chicken breasts IN the alfredo sauce (rather than making a sauce that went over pasta). Then I could serve the pasta on the side for the rest of the family. (They could place their piece of chicken ON top of the pasta, then serve extra sauce over it. I could just forgo the pasta.) I did this with parmesean chicken too.

After the two weeks were over, I had initially lost about 10 pounds. At this point, I started adding in SMALL portions of "carbs" into my diet. I made sure they were all REAL foods. At first, I limited myself to 1 serving of a "carb" food each day. Then, as I saw that my weight loss wasn't slowing to much, and I wasn't dealing with sugar cravings, I moved to 2 servings. The things I added in were: real oatmeal, brown rice, sweet potatoes, winter squashes, berries (strawberries, blueberries, blackberries, raspberries), low-carb tortillas (for wraps at lunch).

With the above additions, I'll give you some examples of how I worked them in: If I had oatmeal for breakfast, I was sure to eat a salad for lunch. If I had eggs for lunch, I'd go ahead and make a wrap in a low-carb tortilla for lunch (or put the crumbled tortilla chips on my taco salad, etc.) For dinner, I would add 1 "carb" food to my meat/veggies/salad meal. I would either have half a baked sweet potato or some baked winter squash (or roasted rutebega/parsnips), or a small portion of brown rice. With any of the "carb" additions - I made sure to load them with good quality fats, which slows the insulin response, and insures good absorbtion of all the fat-soluable vitamins. I put atleast a tablespoon of coconut oil on my oatmeal, along with cream, berries, and a little bit of raw honey. My squashes and sweet potatoes and brown rice had plenty of butter and sea salt.

I also made homemade soups very frequently! I did not worry about the barley in my "Vegetable Beef" soup, nor the brown rice spaghetti in my "Minestrone", nor the noodles in my "Chicken Noodle" soup. I usually make grilled cheese for my family to go with soups (on my homemade whole wheat bread), but for a long time, I just had a salad with mine. I got to the point where I'd add a HALF grilled cheese to my meal. Now, I can easily eat a whole grilled cheese with my soups with no problem.

In my experience, I lost weight quite quickly in the first 2 weeks, then my weight loss tapered to a slower pace. In the end, I started just after Thanksgiving, and by my birthday in April, I was down 30 pounds. That's a tad more than 4 months, so lets say 16 weeks to just take an average: that comes out to 2-3 pounds per week, on average. I did hit one stretch were I felt like I "plateaued" a bit, but I don't remember it lasting long. The only time that my weight loss stalled out was when life was "off" and I had consumed some refined foods. Once in awhile, I would have to take 2-3 days to go back to the "strict" phase to jump start the weight loss again.

Now that I am maintaining, I don't have to be nearly so picky. I still generally have eggs or oatmeal for breakfast, but once in awhile, I'll have some whole grain pancakes or waffles that I make for my kids. (Our family goes through 4 dozen eggs a week, mainly because we do not eat breakfast cereals of any kinds.) I also like to use sprouted corn tortillas and make breakfast burritos! I still eat chef salads several days a week. I eat a sandwich maybe once a week. The other days are often re-heated leftovers from dinner. My dinners haven't changed much. I still watch my "carb" foods at dinner. I won't have rice AND corn, for example. I make cornbread with homemade chili, and I like to have it with butter and raw honey, but I only have one serving. I have found that, so long as I stay with REAL foods, and WHOLE foods, I can maintain my weight with very little "effort".

I do not count calories, or "fat grams" - and never have. I just stay away from refined foods, and processed foods, and eat a reasonable portion, stopping when I am satistifed, not necessarily "full". I don't always snack - in fact, I rarely do. However, if I do feel actually "hungry", I will grab a handful of nuts (cashews, almonds, pistachios), or a hunk of cheese.

For "dessert", in the evenings, I found several caffene free teas that I liked to have. Decaf chai with milk (no sugar), or Stash Decaf Creme Caramel, or a few herbal blends were my favorites. I still enjoy winding down with a cup of tea!

I should note beverages: I drink large amounts of raw milk, and lots of water. I also am a big coffee drinker. I make a pot of coffee every morning, and enjoy it with real cream (no sugar, no "flavored creamers", no "powdered creamers"...... read the lables on those things - they are nothing buy hydrogenated oils, corn syrup and chemicals!). I generally enjoy my coffee in the morning (whatever I want), and then I drink water and milk all the rest of the day. Sometimes I'll make a pot of tea (I love a strong assam or earl grey!) instead of coffee. I completely got off all soda pop, and I don't drink Diet. I also stay away from all artificial sweetners (including splenda!). Aspertame is a topic for a whole different blog post, but I will say, related to weight loss: if you are taking in splenda or aspertame and you aren't losing weight, or not as quickly as you'd like - it could be the artificial sweetner. Many people respond to the artificial sweetners as they do real sugar. It may be elevating your insulin levels more than you know, and so, inhibiting your weight loss.

Well - this was very long - but I hope helpful!

Shauna