It's been a while since i've posted and I thought I would post about something that i've been getting asked about a lot. Lately Brock and I have been on a no-carb diet and we've both lost a good amount of weight! We started in May, and to date, i've lost 25 pounds, and he's probably lost between 30 and 35 (grrrrr) but people keep asking me why i'm doing it and how i'm doing it. So i'm going to answer those questions here...
We both had put on some extra weight during our first year of marriage (the newlywed 20??) and after we got our fill (pun totally intended) we were looking for something to do about it. We didn't want to diet though, we knew that if we wanted to lose a good amount of weight and keep it off we had to do a lifestyle change. So Brock did some research and we decided to try a (eventually) low-carb diet, but since we wanted to drop some serious weight, we had to start out NO carbs. then gradually introduce carbs back into our diet. We keep it light, with fish, vegetables, beef, and chicken. We've also chosen to give up dairy (except for cheese) and sugars. Luckily Brock is an awesome cook or else I would have gotten bored with it and gave up a long time ago!! haha! He's come up with some great recipes that keep it fresh when we have dinner. For breakfast and lunch we're on our own since we are both at work. Sometimes we have enough left overs from dinner that we can bring the next day but usually it's so good we eat it all up!! In the morning I usually eat scrambled eggs, and a couple pieces of bacon, then for lunch I have a chicken ceasar salad, then for dinner its usually whatever Brock comes up with. Some good steak, or chicken recipe. One of the recipes we do is something we call "Chicken Stuff" it's a dish that we actually had at Brock's brother's house one holiday season, and it was so good and easy, we decided to make it ourselves! I wrote it down as best I could, but the beauty of making your own recipe is that you can add or take out anything you'd like! So feel free to use this recipe as a base for something you can create yourself!
Items:
*4 Chicken breasts seasoned to taste (we used cayenne, salt, and pepper on ours and it spices up the rest of the dish)
*3 cans of chicken broth
*2 cans of diced tomatoes in juice
*½ blue carton of mushrooms sliced (or more if you like mushrooms)
*approx 4 cups of Artichoke hearts (we use the Costco ones that are marinated in oil already in a jar, but you can marinate them with whatever you’d like before putting them in)
any other vegetables you may want to put in, we’ve used squash before (right before the end or it will get too smushy)
you can also add basalmic vinegar if you want- depnding on how much you like vinegar
Directions:
1) Cook whole chicken breasts in separate skillet until it is almost cooked all the way (it’s going to fully cook when you mix it with the other items)
2) When the chicken is about half done, or towards the end, put all the rest of the ingredients together in another pot separately and let cook while the chicken is finishing.
3) When chicken is almost done, chop it into chunks and add to pot with all the other ingredients.
4) Let cook for about 30 – 40 minutes.
5) Enjoy!
If you want to make the dish a little heartier, you can get frozen cauliflower out of the bag, steam it, and then dice it very finely (almost like you would an onion) and have that on the bottom of your bowl before putting the rest of the stew on top. The cauliflower acts like rice and soaks up the juices, it just doesn’t add the extra carbs to your meal!
When we want to have carbs, we'll cook some cous-cous and put the stew on top of it when we serve ourselves. ITS YUMMY!!!
Another recipe we use a lot is one that Brock found on AllRecipes.com it's called Coconut Chicken Curry. Now I don't like anything with coconut in it and I had never had curry before so this dish already had 2 strikes on it when I had it, but it was DELICIOUS!!! I don't know if it's the actual recipe or if it was the Brock-ness spin he put on it, (because he always does) but it was amazing!! It does have brown rice in it, so we don't eat it as often...but it's become my new "comfort food" meal....too bad it makes our house smell for about 3 days if we don't have enough windows open when we cook it. Here is the link for the recipe: http://allrecipes.com/recipe/curried-coconut-chicken/detail.aspx
I've put it a lot more time at the gym as well, at least once a day, sometimes twice a day. I do either straight cardio, or i've added Piloxing into my routine as well. It's fun, but a little pricey for me, so I don't do it all the time, although there is a dvd you can do at home in the meantime. Brock has a set of weights that he uses at home during any free time he may have since he's trying to gain more muscle as well as lose fat. We both have a goal we want to get to, and then once we're there, we'll add more carbs into our diet. We still eat out with family when there are special occassions, and when we go over to someone's house we'll eat before we leave, or we'll just eat whatever is there. We don't want to make someone else not eat something or not serve something just because we've chosen a particular diet. We just try to control it as much as possible when we do have the choice of items to eat. When I started to plateau and wasn't losing any more weight, i cut out cheese too and that helped kick my body back into gear. We've substituted milk with Almond Milk (which is reallly yummy!) and have found a new love for macadamia nuts!
It probably sounds so cliche, but i've noticed that i've felt a lot better while being on this diet. I don't feel as bloated, I don't have nearly as many stomach aches as I used to, and I just overall feel better. It's almost like i don't feel as heavy. I've been sleeping better, and I don't have some of the health issues anymore that I did before! It's weird too how I feel so sluggish after eating a lot of carbs. So say we go to BJ's Pizza for a night out one night (our favorite restaurant) we'll order our favorite pizza and maybe split a pizookie for dessert. While i'm there, it tastes amazing and I feel great....until I go home that night or wake up the next morning. Then im battleing with an upset stomach or just feeling like i need to take an 18 hour nap and it usually lasts for a couple of days. That actually makes me stick to my diet more because everyime I "cheat", I actually feel worse in the end so....ya! That's pretty much it! Feel free to ask me any questions if you're more interested in what we're doing but thats pretty much all there is to it. I NEVER thought I would be able to give up carbs, but I guess you can't knock it until you try it! :) To see how we've changed....here's a picture of us last December at Disneyworld....
and here's one that was taken of us about a month ago:
and here's one taken of us from last week with our friend Kristine
I don't have one of us standing, but that will come soon! I do however have two of me by myself...
The picture on the left is of me on our anniversary last October, and the picture on the right is of me at a bridal shower about a month ago...
So that's that. I'll keep you all posted on my progress as im only 15lbs away from my goal weight. I do however need to remember to add strength exercised to my routine though to start toning. But that's a whole other project :)
-Heather
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