Sustaining Weight Loss: 2009

6/7/09

Fresh salad with chive flowers

Am still searching for vegetable recipes that are tasty and do not include butter, cream and/or cheese. Today's salad, made with fresh chive flowers from the garden, fits the bill. In addition to chives, the salad contains arugula, and fresh cilantro from the garden. Chive flowers are delicious.

6/3/09

Exercise

I had a private session with Josephine Connolly yesterday. My weight is still three pounds above my current goal. We agreed that I need to start thinking about losing another 10 to 15 lbs. In the meantime, I will enter my weight into an excel spreadsheet each day, so that I will be able to generate a graph for my next session. Have also agreed to start some strength training with weights to improve the muscles in my arms. I intend to follow the regime suggested by Vicky Hallet on June 2 in the Washington Post, to try to develop Michelle Obama arms. The exercises are:

Triceps kickback: Leaning slightly forward and holding a dumbbell, extend your arm straight behind you. Bend at the elbow and repeat.

-- Skull crusher (or French press): Lying on your back, hold your dumbbells straight up in the air, then lower your hands to near your ears while keeping your upper arms still.

-- Dip: Sit on a chair, then scoot your butt off while gripping the edge. Lower your tush a few inches and push yourself back up.

Your secret weapon for looking tops in a tank is creating what West calls "a rounded, coconut shoulder." (You know what she means.) For that, try these:

-- Overhead press: Holding dumbbells with bent elbows on either side of your chest (so your arms and head form a "W" shape), raise the weights to the ceiling.

-- Side raise and front raise: Like it sounds, you grip a dumbbell and -- with a straight arm -- lift it laterally or in front of you.

-- Reverse or rear fly: Hinge at the hip so your torso is pointed toward the floor, and hold the pair of dumbbells straight down. Then, raise the weights to the side (as if you're flapping your wings) with your elbows bent slightly.

So far I can only do 10 reps of each exercise with 5 lb weights. Hope to do more as the days progress.

5/8/09

A Simple Fish Chowder

Delicious supper tonight. A simple fish chowder. Made with 1 lb of tile fish cooked for 5 minutes in a vegetable broth, 1 lb of potatoes, a few chips of slab bacon to saute the onion, skim milk, a dab of homemade yogurt and fresh parsley from the garden. The chowder will be divided into 6 portions, three of which will be frozen.

4/30/09

Recipe for red cabbage

I haven't been cooking much recently and there has been a head of red cabbage in the refrigerator for several weeks waiting for me. Tonight I finally prepared my favorite red cabbage recipe. It comes from an old cookbook by Pierre Franey entitled: Low-Calorie Gourmet. My cookbook falls open to this recipe because I have made it so often.

It is as follows:

1 red cabbage cut as thinly as possible with a mandoline
1 large apple peeled and thinly sliced
1 tablespoon of butter
1 large onion chopped
1/2 teaspoon salt
freshly ground black pepper
1 tablespoon of dark brown sugar
1 tablespoon red wine vinegar
1 cup water

Melt butter in butter in a wide pan and saute onion for 1 minute. Then add the sliced apple and the cabbage and saute for 5 minutes stirring. Add the salt, pepper, and brown sugar. Add the water and vinegar and cook covered for 30 minutes with occasional stirring.
I find that the quality of the wine vinegar can make a difference in the final taste, as does the quality of the apple . The recipe makes 6 to 8 servings, depending on the amount of red cabbage used.

4/22/09

Homemade Yogurt and Peach Jam

The picture is of a serving of homemade yogurt made with 1% milk and a tablespoon of peach jam.

4/21/09

Salt Cod Bouillabaisse

A bit of a nutritional surprise this evening. Last night I prepared one of my favorite soups. It is a bouillabaisse that is made with dried salt cod. I prepared it with 1 pound of salt cod that had been soaked in water for two days, one pound of boiling potatoes, onions, leek, garlic and tomatoes and two tablespoons of olive oil. It was flavored with a large pinch of saffron. I divided the the soup into 6 portions and assumed that each was equivalent to 2 proteins, 1 carb and one fat and 1 vegetable. The soup shown in the photo was supper tonight. It also contains a few garlic croutons made with homemade bread. Along with a nice tossed salad this made a delicious, filling, wholesome, and low calorie (so I thought) supper. To my surprise, when I calculated the nutritional analysis of the soup (shown below), the caloric content was considerably higher than I expected. This is due to the fact that dried salt cod has 3 times as many calories as fresh cod! So,I am going to divide the remainder of the soup into 7 rather than 5 portions and will no longer consider this dish a low calorie fish dinner. However, I still think it is delicious and healthy since it is so low in saturated fat.
To see the details of the nutritional analysis click on the image to view an enlarged version.

4/20/09

A Calorie Free Treat-- The Miracle Ball

In maintaining weight we are told that is important to find activities that are as or more pleasurable than eating. One such activity that I discovered recently, thanks to my yoga instructor, is the Miracle Ball. These balls, and the "exercises" that are found in the accompanying booklet were developed by Elaine Petrone. They are fantastic! They relieve stress and tension in the most amazing way. And in some positions allow for strengthening exercises in a completely painless way. I particularly enjoy placing a ball under my neck while lying on the floor. Also, two balls under my hips are extremely relaxing. But just about any of the suggested positions are wonderful, and I cannot recommend these balls enough.

4/15/09

Peanut Butter Breakfast

This breakfast has 1 carb, 1 fat, 1 protein, and 1 fruit. It consists of 1 oz of homemade bread, 4 tsp of peanut butter, 1/2 sliced banana and 1 crumbled walnut to enhance the photo. I combined it with 1 tablespoon of psillium dissolved in a glass of water for fiber, 1 glass of 1% milk, and, of course, a great cup of coffee--vesuvio blend from Batdorf and Bronson.

A favorite soup

This is a red pepper and potato soup from the New York Times that I like very much. One cup is equal to 1 carb and 1 fat. The photo in the Times is nicer than mine, but I like the way the soup looks before it is pureed (lower photo). The Times recipe calls for fresh basil which would certainly be nicer than the fresh chives that I used, but that is all I have.

4/12/09

Is this cookie worth it?

There was an interesting recipe for whole grain chocolate cookies in the NY Times a few days ago. They look very tempting so I decided to do a nutritional analysis on nutritiondata.com. The results are shown here. Basically, one cookie is equal to 1 carb and 1 fat, and because all of the fat comes from butter, most of it is saturated. Not sure whether it is worth it. Perhaps for an occasional splurge? Click on the image for an enlarged view.

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4/11/09

A Delicious,Healthy, Low Calorie Sauce for Pasta.

This recipe is called Eggplant and Tomato Ragout and comes from Martha Rose Shulman's cookbook entitled: Provencal Light. One half cup of the sauce is equal to 2 vegetables and 1 fat. When mixed with 1.5 oz of whole wheat pasta, it makes a delicious, and filling lunch. The recipe is as follows.

2 lbs of eggplant
2 tablespoons of olive oil
2 medium onions, thinly sliced
3-4 cloves of garlic, minced
2 pounds of fresh or canned tomatoes
1 teaspoon of fresh thyme
2 tablespoons of fresh basil (I omitted this)
salt and pepper to taste
I added a few drops of Tabasco.

Cut the eggplants in half, and score down to the skin. Bake on a 475 oven for 20 minutes skin side up. Cool, peel, and cut into a small dice. Saute the onions in the olive oil ( next time I will use less oil and add tablespoon of water) until they are soft. Add the garlic, and after 1 minute add the tomatoes, eggplant, thyme, salt, and pepper. Cover and cook on low heat with frequent stirring for about an hour, until the mixture forms a thick puree. I waited until the mixture had cooled, and pureed it with a stick blender. Probably best to let the mixture sit overnight to develop the full flavor. The recipe yields eight 1/2 cup portions. I divided the mixture into half cup portions and stored them in the freezer.

4/10/09

Charting weight

This chart shows my weight fluctuation for the first week of this blog. It is my first effort to create a chart in Excel. Much to improve, both in terms of maintaining my weight, and in learning to create and publish charts in Excel. The baseline is my current goal weight. The graph shows that my weight fluctuated by two pounds during the week, ranging from 2 to 4 pounds above my goal weight.

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4/8/09

Nutritional Data for Whole Grain Waffles

I calculated the nutritional value for the 1/4 waffle discussed in the previous post using the tools available on nutritiondata.com. As you can see, this 1/4 waffle is a healthy food that is equal to 1/2 carb and 1/2 fat in the Connolly Schoonen diet. On the right side of the figure I show what happens when, in addition, one adds 1 tablespoon of psillium dissolved in a glass of water and adds 1 teaspoon of sugar for coffee to the meal. This now equals a full carb, 1/2 of a fat, and lots of fiber. It provides a healthy basis for the addition of fruit and peanut butter or cottage cheese. Alternatively, 1/2 waffle would be equal to 1 carb and 1 fat, and could also serve as the basis for additional peanut butter or cottage cheese, but in lesser amounts. Be sure to click on the image to see a full size and readable version of the figure.