How I’m eating pizza on my diet

Some people have expressed an interest in how I’m eating nowadays that’s letting me loose weight each and every week without regular exercise. So, I thought I’d write a bit about that. This will probably be the first of a series of my sample meals.

First some background. Any of you who have been reading this blog for awhile know I am using Weight Watchers, with their points plus calculations, as my primary weight loss program. Only one of  you knows I’m using Primal/Paleo eating as part of it too.

Primal whatal you ask? Primal/Paleo eating is basically pretending you live in the hunter/gatherer era so you only eat what people would have eaten then. We’re talking about the time before cultivation here so you are basically supposed to eat meat, fish, poultry, eggs, vegetables that would have grown in the wild, berries, nuts and seeds. I’m doing a VERY modified version of that. So modified that all I’ve really done so far is cut out all rice, pasta, and bread and most things made from flour except for the occasional bag of Cheetos and my friend Nancy’s brownies. People who eat strictly Paleo also say no dairy products but I figure my ancestors were clever enough to catch an occasional female animal and milk it so I still eat some cheese every once in awhile.

Like today. We ordered pizza. Pizza?!! How is that primal? And how do I make that fit within my points plus limit of the Weight Watchers program?

No, I don’t fill up on tossed salad first to kill my hunger. I really don’t eat big meals anyway, I just eat four or five times a day instead. If I filled up on salad I would be too full to eat pizza.

Plus, I don’t like the meats with which most people top their traditional pizzas so I get my pizza topped with chicken and mushrooms. The mushrooms and tomato sauce have no points so I only have to count the chicken and cheese. Chicken may well be the lowest point topping available once you get beyond vegetables.

Then, because I no longer eat pizza crust I scrape the toppings off onto a plate and eat just them. This large dinner plate full of toppings is only four points plus and it’s plenty to keep me going for a few hours.

Then I throw away the empty crust.

Isn’t that wasting a lot of food you ask? Yes. But, I decided that’s better than wasting my health.

So I get to satisfy my craving for pizza without blowing my points plus budget. For me, that’s a win-win situation.

TTYL,

Linda

ps. If you decide to try this, please do your own calculations for the pizza you choose. I deliberately did not tell you the brand or size of serving I eat as pizzas vary so widely. I will say I like leftover pizza. I may add olives to my leftovers to bring the points up a bit.

Celebrating a power outage

Yes, you read that right. The power for this park is scheduled to be down Thursday from 9 am to noon and we are happy about that.

I know; I know, you are all asking if we are crazy. At least those of you who live in houses are. Some RVers, especially those who stay in one place for awhile might already have guessed why we are happy.

You see, we have a generator in our RV to supply power when we camp somewhere with no electrical supply. Yes, we normally have power here so our generator does not get used.

Therein lies the problem. Generators are made to be run. They like to be run. Fluids, just like our bodies’ blood, are best when they get to circulate regularly. How many of you have let your lawnmower sit over the winter without having drained the fuel? Doesn’t work come Spring, right?

So, we are supposed to run our generator at least an hour every month to keep it happy. We are supposed to do that while calling for a full load of energy from it. We usually do that by running our generator and air conditioner at the same time.

Now, generators are noisy. And put out smelly exhaust. So neighbors in RV parks don’t appreciate you running them there. So we usually exercise our generator while driving from one site to another. But, we aren’t making any trips down the road this summer. What to do? What to do?

Wait for your park to announce a planned power outage. Then use that as an excuse to exercise the generator! Win!

TTYL,

Linda

ps. Down another 1.8 pounds this week. Happy, happy!

My Day, My Way

Today is my birthday and it was about as perfect as I can get.

I slept most of the morning.

I had restaurant leftovers for breakfast.

I ate only an apple for late afternoon snack because I was saving my Weight Watchers points for later.

Then we went to my favorite restaurant, Timberlodge, for dinner and I had my favorite wild rice soup and filet mignon, which was cooked exactly as I like it. I also had garlic mashed potatoes. Plus, I still have enough points left for my late night munching which will probably be leftover steak.

And I got the only present I asked for: a longer USB cable so I can sit in my favorite chair with my iPad plugged in and be able to put it on my side table without unplugging it.

Life is good!

TTYL,

Linda

Weight Watchers Goal #1

Today I reached a Weight Watcher’s goal of having lost 5% of my starting weight. No, you don’t need to do the math on that. 🙂

How did I do it? Apparently by eating more this week than I’ve been eating the last several weeks. You see this week I ate all my daily points allowance plus all my weekly points allowance then I ate some more.

Weight Watcher’s let’s you do that by giving you credit for your activity as well as your food. So when I went over my weekly points, I did enough exercise to bring my balance from negative 2 points back to zero. And I lost 1 1/2 pounds!

Does that make sense? Maybe. You see, if you don’t eat enough food, your body thinks you are living in a famine so it stores calories more efficiently. By increasing what I ate my body may have said the famine is over so it can go back to sloughing off those extra calories.

So, I need to keep eating those fruits and veggies that are zero points because those calories count even if the points don’t. Apparently, I can’t get enough calories while staying within my points allowance by being a carnivore. 🙂

Yes, the exercise might have had something to do with it as well. But, I have to be careful there. I know from reading WW blogs that there are people who justify terrible eating by doing lots of exercise. I don’t want to become one of them. But, there’s probably no danger of me exercising too much, right? 🙂

TTYL,

Linda

ps. Dave says he moved this blog to a new server so if you didn’t get it, you need to set new bookmarks and/or RSS feeds. How you are supposed to know to do that if you didn’t get it is beyond me. 🙂  Oh, he’s says you got it, just not as efficiently since you got redirected. The better address is https://sandcastle.sandsys.org.

Cornfusion

The 101 Market is our park’s next door neighbor.

Between us and their store, they planted corn, which in some cultures is also known as maize. Planting corn is not unusual for this semi-rural area. But there seems to be a lot of bare spots in their cornfield.

Dave offered to hike up this hill across the street to take pictures for me.

But he just got more bare spots.

There was a much better view from the highway ramp just behind the barrier wall last week. I wish we’d taken a picture then. The you could see just how a-maze-ing this field is.

Or you could wait until October to come see if you can find your way through this corn maze that’s growing next to us.

TTYL,

Linda

 

ps. Down another 1/2 pound this week. But, I may have to start exercising regularly instead of randomly to pick up speed.