Rearranging Meals

At the beginning of the program, it can be confusing to figure out what you're supposed to add, what you're supposed to eat, and when. On the plus side, it's okay to eat your food whenever you like; you don't have to eat it in order. If you're happier with a huge breakfast and not snacking, there's nothing wrong with loading up your extra food at breakfast time. As long as you consume everything you're supposed to eat, you're doing the program just fine.

Since I'm on the program for women with 100+ lbs to lose (I don't adjust down to the standard plan as long as I'm still losing- I'm happier with the few extra calories!), this is my plan:

Breakfast: Nutrisystem Entrée, Powerfuel

Morning Snack: Powerfuel, Smartcarb

Lunch: Nutrisystem Entrée, Powerfuel

Snack: Powerfuel, Smartcard

Dinner: Nutrisystem Entrée

Dessert: Nutrisystem Entrée

Plus the four daily servings of vegetables, of course.

So what I often like to do is move my morning snack to breakfast and eat two Powerfuels and a Smartcarb, and then later in the afternoon, I like to have my NS breakfast with a mug of tea, especially if it's a sweet of some sort. Definitely gets my sweet tooth later in the day, when earlier in the day I prefer savory anyway.

I've always liked the Nutrisystem biscottis- I'm sad that the two dessert kinds were phased out. This was my first time trying the new breakfast version, and I'm quite happy with it!


Biscotti Bites (Breakfast):

 

Definitely a generous portion, and I found them to be crisp and delicious. I adjusted my auto delivery to get more of these next month as they definitely make a great snack with tea. I would love if they had several flavours to choose from though!

Yum!

And down another two pounds this week! It's nice to feel like I'm right on track. It feels like the weight is coming off more quickly this time around, but I think I am just less impatient. I KNOW this plan works. It's going to happen. It's just a question of when.

My son loves to bake, and since yesterday was apparently Banana Bread Day, he wanted to bake me something sweet. We searched the internet but most of the recipes we found were just too high in calories. We decided to give one of the Leaf recipes a try, Blueberry Cheesecake Donuts,  although we modified it a little. I wasn't really interested in the glaze, we prefer coconut oil to butter, and we also made them a little smaller so now they qualify for a SmartCarb serving.

To be a SmartCarb, an item must have at least 1g of fiber and be 80-120 calories. These muffins are 107 calories each and have 1g fiber, so they are perfect and delicious!

Sorry, no photo- these weren't all that photogenic although they were really good!

So here is what we actually did:

Blueberry Coconut Muffins (Smartcarb):

1 cup flour
1 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp baking soda
1 egg
3 tbsp. your favourite sugar substitute
1/4 cup skim milk
1/4 cup nonfat Greek yogurt
2 tbsp. coconut oil
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 cup frozen blueberries (unsweetened)

Mix it all together, bake at 350 degrees for 20 minutes, and it produces 9 servings.

Onwards & Downwards!

It's so nice to step on that scale and see new numbers! I've been considering not weight for a month, but I do like the positive reinforcement on a Monday of seeing the number go down. As I mentioned last week, that's not always going to be a thing, though. But, I'll celebrate the victories! I lost 2lbs this week, with one "cheat" meal of homemade tacos with my family.

Like I've said before, I don't really want to think in terms of cheats. I just want to live my life. I don't want to rule out simple pleasures, and I'm someone who thinks of excellent food as a simple pleasure. If that means I will lose slightly more slowly, so be it. I am much more focused on the person I will be during my journey rather than the number on the scale.

And today was a throwback day to one of my favourite lunches of the past! Nutrisystem no longer makes the fettuccine alfredo, but the creamy beef alfredo is perfect for the same recipe! I'll repost it under this tag to make it easier to find. I would definitely recommend this entrée!

Beef Stroganoff Updated (Lunch):

1 Nutrisystem Creamy Beef Alfredo
beef broth, low/no sodium
mushrooms, onions
1 tbsp. FF sour cream

Preheat a saucepan to medium and pour a little broth in the bottom so you don't need oil or spray. Add chopped mushroom and onions, and sautee them until they start to soften. In the meantime, add beef broth to the fill line in the cup and use a knife to break up the powder chunks. Microwave it for about thirty seconds- just until the noodles start to soften but it's not hot (I didn't want to put dry pasta straight into my saucepan!). Then pour the entrée into the saucepan and turn up heat to medium-high. Continue stirring until the sauce thickens. Add 1 tbsp. sour cream about 5 minutes before serving and stir to make the sauce creamy.

If you have an extra Powerfuel, you may want to add 2oz of extra lean ground beef as well, but it's just as delicious without.

Count this as one Nutrisystem lunch entrée and vegetables, plus an extra.

New Entrees!

Well, they are new to me, at any rate! I received these in a free snack pack I won from NuMi- if you don't know what that is, stay tuned as I'll be writing up some more informational posts soon for people who are new to Nutrisystem.

Normally I don't choose savory snacks as I am more of a sweets kinda girl, but these were actually really good.

White Cheddar Popcorn (Snacks):

There was a generous serving that filled my salad bowl, and it has a light cheesy flavour. I am not a big fan of the overwhelming cheddar popcorns, so this was a great snack to my mind. Something for in front of the TV or to take to the movie theatre.


Sweet & Salty Snack Mix (Snacks):

This was rather a small portion, about 1/4 cup, but it was really tasty. I would eat it on days where I wasn't all that hungry but still wanted to make sure I got all my food in. I actually really loved the honey crusted nuts in it, they were sweet and delicious. I am not sure I'd order this over cookies, but it was definitely a nice change.

Every Little Bit Counts

So, I weighed in today and I'm down 0.4lbs. That perplexes me a little, since I've been letter perfect. I am actually wondering if my scale needs recalibrating. It's more than ten years ago- I was actually using the same scale in my previous NS journey. Definitely something to look into, if only for peace of mind.

On the other hand, there are lots of reasons that weight loss can stall. I will be up front that because of my health I am a very sedentary person, and that while I used to drink a lot of water, I don't as much any more. I am definitely not consuming 64oz per day.

My Fitbit tracks me burning about 2,400 calories per day, so at 1,400 and below I should be losing 2 pounds per week. I wasn't expecting a stall at this point in my journey with so much to lose. While I don't mind taking things slowly this time- I don't want to miss out on special occasions or living my life because of the number on the scale- I will admit that it hurts just a little bit when I've been bang on, not to see results.

But here are some pics that show why weight loss can be in little bursts and not steady. I know if I just keep doing what I'm doing, the weight will come off.

So maybe my cells are waiting for me to indulge! Hate to disappoint them, but I don't have anything planned for the next few weeks. ! don't really celebrate Hallmark holidays so I won't be going out for Valentine's Day. I'm just going to keep plugging away, one pound at a time.

How did you do this week? Feeling motivated or a little down?

Satisfying Salads

Well, this is the wisdom of Homer Simpson- what do YOU think?

Nutrisystem's new monthly auto-deliveries only include 20 entrees, which basically means you have to flex two days a week. Personally, while I think this option should be available as a plan, I think that for people starting out it can be a bit overwhelming when I suspect one of the main reasons for choosing this program is convenience and not having to think about food. All a person can do at this point if they don't want to flex is to fill in the gaps with a la carte orders, or else request their auto delivery to arrive sooner.

Because there's such an emphasis on flexing now, I'm going to try and post more flex recipes here, to make it easy to figure out what to eat on those days when you don't have a Nutrisystem entrée available. I'm going to write out some posts to make it easy to stay on plan and track your meals.

But first, I wanted to share this delicious dinner salad with you! My local grocery store makes some amazing salads in their prepared food section and they were always so good, but so high calorie. So I set out to see if I could make a NS suitable substitute and I did!

That delicious salad at the grocery store had lettuce, cherry tomatoes, red onion, grilled chicken, bacon, shredded cheddar cheese, and a hard boiled egg topped with creamy Ranch dressing. Guess what? The one in the picture is not the one from the store!

A NS flex dinner for women includes one SmartCarb and two PowerFuels (men get three PowerFuels). And don't forget those veggie servings- load up on the unlimited ones!

A PowerFuel is 80-100 calories with at least 5g of protein. So let's see what we can do with that, shall we?

Chicken BLT Salad (flex meals):

4 cups of your favourite unlimited salad mix
1/2 red bell pepper, diced
1/2 cucumber, diced
1/4 cup red onion, diced
3 baby bella mushrooms, chopped
1/2 tomato, diced (or cherry tomatoes if you prefer)

1 hard boiled egg
1/2 fat free string cheese, chopped small (or 30 calories of shredded cheese)

1 slice turkey bacon (I used Butterball low sodium turkey bacon, 35 calories per slice)
2 oz grilled chicken

Throw it all together in a bowl and top with 2 tbsp. Skinny Girl creamy Ranch dressing. It's delicious, and even frees up a SmartCarb serving for elsewhere in your day, if you prefer. Or if you really want to go all out for decadence, get some baked tortilla chips that fit the SmartCarb requirements (80-120 calories and at least 1g of fiber) and crunch them up and toss them in the salad, too.

Don't forget, men get an additional PowerFuel if using this for dinner (or you can eat it as is for lunch), so if you're a guy feel free to add extra chicken, bacon, or cheese to meet the PowerFuel requirements.

The Skinny Girl dressing counts as one of your extras, but is definitely worth it.

So, did I make friends with my salad today?