Good morning, and happy Wednesday! The weekend is in sight, y’all, and that alone is deserving of a happy dance.
It’s been a while since I did a WIAW post, so I figured it’d be a good time to discuss what I’m noshing on now that I’ve re-joined Weight Watchers. First and foremost, thanks are due to Jenn, the lovely mamacita who hosts this shindig over at Peas & Crayons!
As for foodstuffs, the WW strategy is all about volume eating. From what I can tell, the WW Points values are based on Volumetrics: an approach that focuses on feeling full by eating a high volume of foods that have low caloric density. Basically, it focuses on low-fat, low-calorie foods with a premium on lean protein and lots of produce. So, that’s what I’ve been inhaling in almost Conehead-esque style.
Breakfasts have involved my usual toast with coffee — I’m on a hazelnut coffee kick these days, so I’ve been brewing that stuff up like a champ.
After hitting the gym, I’ve been having either scrambled egg whites with sauteed spinach or a fruit and kale smoothie:
Snacks: Since volume eating focuses so heavily on produce, my snacks are composed mainly of fruits and veggies — namely bananas, apples, grapefruit, Thai cole slaw (shredded cabbage with GF Thai peanut sauce), and celery with a Greek yogurt dill dip. Beyond produce, I’ve also snacked on popcorn, low-fat string cheese, and puffed corn cakes topped with hummus, pea shoots, and organic turkey. (These concoctions were unexpectedly delicious. *Drools*)
Oh, and let’s not forget about tea, since I drink ridiculous amounts of the stuff. Green tea, Rooibos chai, herbal infusions, the list goes on…basically, it’s a really good thing I have an electric kettle in my office. I also might have an entire cabinet shelf at home dedicated completely to my tea stockpile. I will neither confirm nor deny this allegation.
Lunches have been brought to me by the good folks at Imagine Soups: I’ve been combining 1 cup of a vegetable-based soup (thus far, Garden Broccoli and Carrot Almond are my favorites) with sauteed spinach, onions, and a half cup of cooked lentils to bulk it up a bit. It’s delicious and filling, and it’s been perfect for the cold days we’ve we had earlier in the week.
Dinners have run a wide gamut, but I confess that I didn’t get a picture of a single thing. We tend to cook during the week and eat out on the weekends, so I ate offerings such as this recipe for chickpea and herb salad from Epicurious, turkey-veggie chili (a recycled picture is below), a chicken salad from Chipotle topped with Trader Joe’s Reduced Guilt Guacamole (side note: this stuff is AMAZING), and Greek salad with grilled chicken from one of our favorite restaurants.
Desserts have also focused on low-calorie foods, such as these chocolate chip meringues from Gina at Skinnytaste.com and dehydrated fruit from Trader Joe’s. Confession: my chocolate chip clouds didn’t turn out to be nearly as cute and photogenic as the ones pictured in the link above. They actually look, well, fugly. So, instead of me posting a picture here, humor me and let’s pretend that they look as adorable as the originals. Ok? Deal? Awesome!
Also, thank you guys for the comments on yesterday’s post. Y’all have no idea how relieved I am to know that I’m not the only person who sees weird, weird shizz happen at the gym.
I actually have one more story to add to that list: after I graduated college, I briefly lived in Philly before moving to DC. I was quite desperately under-employed at the time, so when I wasn’t job hunting my tail off, I was usually at the gym. Of course, my apartment had it’s one Weird Gym Dude, and he liked to try to talk to me whenever he could (despite being old enough to be my dad). This was how I looked whenever he tried to start up a conversation, because these attempts gave me that icky “Ew, you’re trying to hit on me” feeling, as opposed to the “Oh, you’re a harmless, normal person who just wants to be friendly” feeling:
One day I was on the bike, and I happened to be multi-tasking by reviewing my college Arabic textbook. (Gotta keep those language skills fresh!) Homeslice walked up to me — wearing a weighted vest, no less, which he’d recently taken to donning while he nearly gave himself a coronary on the treadmill — and said, with as much suaveness as he could muster, “Miss, are you a native speaker of Arabic?”
Now by this point, I had no patience for this guy. This was, like, attempt # 2,594 to strike up conversation with me, and I was in a particularly bad mood that day. I’d been having problems with my boyfriend. I was feeling particularly discouraged by the job hunt. I was tired. I was cranky. I was not in the mood to deal with Señor Kevlar Vest.
“No,” I said. “If I was, would I be reading an Introduction to Arabic book?”
“Well,” he replied, “I only ask because you’re very exotic looking. You have a foreign, exotic beauty about you.”
I was flabbergasted by this (first because it’s lecherous and gross, but second because I’m SO not exotic — I’m Irish and Welsh, so I’m basically the most milquetoast person ever), so I said nothing and just gave him a look which I hope conveyed the “WTF, dude?” that was running through my mind.
And with that, he walked away and began his daily ritual of trying to force his heart to explode while running at full speed with his weighted vest. I got a job in DC and moved out of that apartment not long after, so I didn’t see much of him after that — but to say the least, he’s the reason I implemented a policy of never removing my headphones at the gym.
Aaaaaanyways, with all that being said, I hope everyone is having a good week — happy Wednesday!
Have you ever had weird conversations with weird people at the gym (or anywhere, for that matter?) What did you do?
Filed under: Cooking, WAIW Tagged: Arabic, Gluten-Free, gym, produce, soup, tea, volume eating, Weight loss, Weight Watchers, weird people, WIAW
