Although I managed to get through the holidays without gaining weight, I've slipped a little bit off the wagon in early January. As a result, I started this week closer to 140 pounds than 135. Not a huge increase, but the way five pounds turns into ten and then into twenty is by not paying attention. So I've been following a 1500-calorie-per-day diet (plus more on days that I work out) this week.
I went into this week thinking, "I hate salad." But eating fresh, relatively unadorned vegetables gets you a lot of nutritional impact for very few calories, so I decided to suck it up.
After four days of this, I think it's not that I hate salad. I just hate bad salad, and there's a lot of it out there. You know what I'm talking about: soggy yellowish lettuce, tomatoes that aren't even close to bright red, gloppy dressing applied in mass quantities to hide the fact that the vegetables are no good.
Instead, I've eaten several times at Mooncake Foods, a great little Asian fusion restaurant near my office, for lunch. On Monday I had their chicken sausage/Asian pear salad. Wow! So much better than what I usually think of when I think of salad. The greens were actually green, the chicken sausage popped with flavor, and the pear added crunch and sweetness without a ton of extra calories.
After having a bad salad the next day, I went back to Mooncake yesterday and today -- yesterday, for the lemongrass shrimp with greens and today for steak with cilantro pesto and greens. (Each dish came with rice, of which I kept my consumption to 1/2 cup or so.) And you know what? I always thought 1500 calories for a day was practically nothing, but when you eat meat and greens, it isn't! I've had plenty of leftover calories to spend on snacks, which I've mostly been using on the delectable dark chocolate-covered almonds sold in one of the office vending machines. And I've lost two pounds.
This is not to say that I'm going to quit having quesadillas from Calexico for lunch (ZOMG AWESOME) once the weight comes off, but I suppose being more paleo at lunchtime wouldn't hurt.
Also, if you live in NYC...Mooncake Foods RULES. None of the dishes I've mentioned costs more than $10!
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2 comments:
The keys I have found to a decent salad since moving towards a paleo-ish diet are chicken (or some other meat, like salami), avocado (amazing--perhaps the most important ingredient), nuts (walnuts, pecans), some sort of vinegar dressing (apple cider vinegar, red wine vinegar--both are delicious), and cheese (I like more natural cheeses like Jarlsberg swiss or cheddar as opposed to processed American cheese). Good fat and protein and natural dressing are essential to a decent-tasting salad--along with lettuce, and big slices of peppers and onions. Sometimes I add raisins or craisins. And pepper helps too.
-Jason
Good comments re salad. I have been making my own salads to take to work for a while now and would add a few tips:
1. Vinaigrettes are great (and much less likely to have hidden carbs than something you buy off a shelf). My standby is a simple lemon dressing- nothing more than lemon juice, olive oil, a smidgen of fresh garlic, S&P.
2. I prep a ton of veggies ahead, usually on Sundays. Steamed broccoli is easy and cheap, and is one of the best in terms of nutrition and thermogenic value. Also relatively easy are roasted peppers, roasted eggplant, mushrooms, etc. I usually keep several kinds of cheeses, olives and tomatoes (grape tomatoes tend to be good year round and have a better shelf life I've found).
2. I've tried several approaches to chicken and found roasting my own to be more trouble than it's worth. I buy the FreshDirect whole roasted chicken from Rosa Mexicano which is really flavorful and for $10 I get 9 portions. It's a pain to break the chicken down, but I find the mixed dark and white meat is much more satisfying than just breast meat.
3. Mesclun/baby greens are great and convenient, but often last less than a week and are expensive. I get a lot more mileage out of a nice head of romaine, just chop and wash it all at once and store it in a big ziploc with some paper towel. Easily 10-12 salads from a single head!
Wow, not sure why I felt the need for a salad diatribe, guess I just like salad..
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