I started a diet on Monday of this week to begin one of my new year's resolutions. I'm thirty pounds overweight according to documentation that I read and that has been given to me through various health professionals and organizations. Thirty pounds! While at my yearly visit with my primary care doctor a few weeks back I was examining a chart she had hanging on the back of the door that said I was a pound shy of being obese according to my BMI. Not that this chart checked my BMI, but according to height and weight, etc. Obese. Little ole me.
Before Christmas I had been watching television during the day, probably relaxing after cleaning and lifting weights, and saw this doctor on Anderson Cooper who had written a book on dieting. He was talking about how his diet, Shred, was different because you ate four meals and three snacks during the course of a day and this helped keep your metabolism going which in turn helped burn fat. He had plates of food in front of him, one of which contained pancakes and bacon. I was hooked just with that.
I did some research in the next month on the diet via my friend the Internet. I also read about the diet in several magazines. I put the book on hold at the library, but there were several people in front of me. Finally after the doctor visit I broke down, bought the book, and started this week. The problem was that I bought the book on Sunday and started the diet on Monday. Monday is my grocery day, but I had to take Connie to a doctor's appointment and so my grocery shopping was put off to the late afternoon.
In this diet you drink a fruit smoothie or a protein drink as part of one of your meals every day. I am not a smoothie person unless it has coffee or chocolate in it. Unfortunately these had to have fruit in them and be under 300 calories. There was no way I was going to be able to concoct one of the smoothie recipes in the book without going to the grocery so I researched Tropical Smoothie, a restaurant right up the street from my house. I was to have this smoothie as Meal #2 at 10:30 in the morning and I figured I would buy it on the way to Connie's house. The only smoothie that was closest to the 300 calorie limit, without using Splenda, was a Blue Lagoon. This blueberry and strawberry smoothie was 305 calories so I figured I would drink most of it and chuck it to avoid those extra 5 calories. I bought the smoothie and tried it. Okay, it wasn't awful. I figured I would be able to drink it just fine as I drove and ate my raw carrots, the other part of Meal #2.
By the time I got to Connie's house I was ready to chuck the smoothie into the garbage can that sits outside the condo complex. I was only halfway through the thing in the half an hour it took me to drive and I was over it. The strawberry seeds alone were making me nuts. I tried to chew them or drink them and ended up driving with my window open so I could spit them outside like a tobacco chewer. How the hell would I last on this diet drinking these things every day? I finally finished the smoothie forty minutes later after driving Connie to the doctor and sitting in the waiting area while she filled out paper work. I was relived it was over. Except then it was time to eat snack # 2. Pretty much all this eating was wearing me down.
That afternoon I bought some of the ingredients at the grocery. Just the thought of some of the items, like pineapple juice, made me want to run the other way. I guess I am as picky as my mother always complained I was about trying things. But I bought the stuff and stored it all in my refrigerator. I should have taken a picture of the inside of my refrigerator because you couldn't have fit another thing in there after my trip what with all the yogurt and fruit and vegetables.
The next day the smoothie drink was for Meal # 3 which comes around 2:00 pm. Darcy had an orthodontist appointment that day at 1:30 so I had good intentions of preparing my smoothie beforehand and taking it along in a cooler. But the thought of hauling out my smoothie maker from the garage, cleaning it, and making it was too great for me and I didn't do it before hauling off Darcy. Darcy began whining about her teeth as soon as she returned to the car and was telling me how good a McDonald's frappe would be on her mouth. I told her I was dieting. She told me McDonald's had smoothies, looked up the calorie intake, and declared them under 300. I got a wild berry smoothie.
Ugh! Yuck! Yuck! Yuck! This thing was way worse than the one from Tropical Smoothie. It was smaller, not as thick, but the taste was just nasty. I whined, but choked the thing down quicker than the last one and decided that no matter what on Wednesday I was making one from the recipe. If that too was something nasty then Dr. Ian Smith was going to have to come up with something else for ole Cara on this diet. (I follow him on Twitter)
Wednesday morning before going to get Connie for another appointment I hauled out the smoothie maker. I have never used the thing before, having gotten it for Tom who likes smoothies. I think my kids have used it, but I hadn't a clue about the thing. It was filthy. I took it all apart and cleaned it thoroughly, then followed the recipe for Lemon Berry Smoothie. It had blueberries, strawberries, juice from a lemon, blueberry yogurt, milk, and ice cubes. Right now in Florida strawberries are in season and in abundance. They are bright red and very juicy. The fresh blueberries were expensive, but they too looked nice and tasty. I dumped it all into the maker, turned it on, and watched it whirl around. The recipe made four servings all under 200 calories so I poured mine into a container that I carried with me to Connie's and shoved the remaining three servings into the refrigerator.
I got into the car and opened the drink bottle to attempt to choke down my homemade smoothie. The taste was not bad. I tried another. Then another. OMG! Delicious! The combination of the milk and yogurt was just sweet enough and very smooth, but the fresh fruit? That made all the difference. I drank the darn thing before I got to the next city, five minutes away. Who knew? Who knew what a difference fresh fruit would make?
SueG: "I did."
Madison: "I did."
Connie: "I did."
Tom: "I did."
Okay, whatever. I never said I was a chef. So that was the first one of Cara's diet myths - smoothies are awful - that was proven wrong at the end of several days. From now on the smoothie portion of my meal will be homemade. So far it has been delicious. I can hardly wait to try another recipe.
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