I am now about half way through the first Fad of the Month, salads for lunch.  I’ve been about 90% compliant with the plan.  It hasn’t been too difficult to stick to as long as I do a little pre-planning.  I usually make the next day’s salad in the evening, either right before or while I’m making dinner so that it’s ready and waiting for me in the morning.  If I had to make lunch in the morning, I’d never get it done.  It’s simply out of the question.  Some days I can’t even manage breakfast before I leave the house.  So far I haven’t neglected to feed the cat before I leave. Here’s hoping I never do!  <Knocks on head in lieu of wooden surface.>

I have a serious shortage of available decent salads from the local restaurants near my office and the ones that are decent are quite pricey, so with a few rare exceptions it’s been necessary to plan ahead and bring my own from home.  On Monday, I deliberately did not bring a salad with me because I was planning on going to the local burger joint which makes this awesome salad which they call the “Gourmet Mix Salad.”  It is made with spring mix of lettuce, with walnuts, chopped Macintosh apples, gorgonzola cheese and raspberry vinaigrette.  The only thing is, I’m not terribly fond of Spring Mix (which I’ve reconfirmed the hard way this week) so when I order this salad, I get it on a bed of fresh spinach.  It’s really delicious and I haven’t had it in quite a while.  I walked up to the counter and asked Kamal, the proprietor, if they had any spinach today, and of course, they did not.  Lesson learned: Always have a back up plan.

With no alternative plan in place, I had to pick something else from the menu.  The good news is I ordered a club sandwich which surely must be a more healthy choice then the Bacon Cheeseburger I would otherwise have ordered.  The bad news is I didn’t have a salad for lunch that  day.

There are a couple salads I have had recipes for even before starting the Fad of the Month that came in handy in the beginning.  One is chopped lettuce (of course), sliced apples and/or pears with walnuts, dried cranberry’s (the orange flavored Craisens are awesome) and Parmesan cheese.  A separate recipe for a really excellent citrus dressing pairs nicely with this.  It has orange, lemon and lime juices with olive oil and white balsamic vinegar.  The recipe also calls for grapefruit juice, but I’m not a fan and while it’s not a problem for me, there are many medications that come with warnings against consuming grapefruit while taking them, so I leave it out and make up for it with extra orange juice.

Another one I really like is made with lettuce, chopped green onion, chopped bell pepper, a little chopped cilantro, sliced almonds, and a little Parmesan cheese.  Dressing is a simple mix of a few tablespoons of orange juice and a tablespoon of olive oil.

I do enjoy the taste of a good salad with nice, fresh, natural ingredients, but whether it’s my imagination or actual fact, I never really sustain myself for an entire day on just a salad if it doesn’t have some meat in it.  Yes, you get some protein from the cheeses and the nuts but it’s just not enough to satisfy me, so every salad I make that doesn’t already have a meat product in the recipe gets a couple of ounces of chopped up, pre-cooked chicken.  You can buy 6 oz packages in the meat department for a three or four dollars and it makes salads quick and easy and a bit more satisfying.  I like the honey mustard glazed variety but you can also find it in a southwest seasoning or plain.  Now I imagine you’re thinking, ‘Wow, those do sound kind of good but how many times in a row can you eat them?’ and you’d be right.  But, on the third or fourth day of the month, I was standing in the break area in my office, pouring the last of my Wish-Bone Light Ranch (formerly “Just 2 Good”) on the salad of the day and thinking how I needed to find some more recipes (and buy more dressing) when I noticed on the label, directly above the nutritional facts, a badge that read, “Find more inspiration at: www.wish-bone.com.  I told myself, ‘Self.  You need more inspiration!’ So I took my salad back to my office and pulled up the website!  Folks, there is an awesome selection of potential salad recipes on this website and I’ve tried quite a few of them!  Some of them were certainly better than others, but I’ll tell you, I would never have come up with some of the ideas and I’d probably still be hurting for salad originality now if I hadn’t given it a shot.  Let’s take a look:

Honey Mustard Shrimp Salad:

I had this one earlier this week.  Really delicious, and so simple.  Broil or grill ¼ pound of shrimp per serving and “some” zucchini and/or squash seasoned with salt and pepper if desired and sprayed with Wish-bone’s Honey Mustard Buzz Salad Spritzer Dressing.  This dressing is only 1.5 calories per spray and is full of flavor!  And because it’s sprayed or spritzed over the salad it’s more evenly distributed and you end up using less than standard bottled and poured dressings! While the shrimp and squash are broiling (turn it once) prepare your salad greens and mix with a little green onion and cherry tomatoes.  (I’m personally not fond of tomatoes in my salads so I left them out but I can imagine if you’re a tomato-er then you’ll like it.)  Because I prepare my lunches the night before I put the warm stuff in a separate container and just slightly heated it (I also prefer my salads to be cold) in the microwave before eating it.  I combined the cold and warm stuff as I ate so the lettuce didn’t get warm or wilty.  The same dressing is used on the salad and the whole thing was roughly 170 calories.

Raspberry Shrimp & Grapes over Greens Salad:

This salad was surprising and delicious.  I simply steamed about a ¼ pound of shrimp, no seasoning, and allowed it to cool.  While I did that, I washed and quartered a handful of green grapes and thinly sliced some red onion.  I mixed it all in a bowl drizzling some Wish-Bone Raspberry Hazelnut Vinaigrette Dressing over it.  The combination of the grapes and raspberry flavors was really nice and the salad combined to make a very satisfying meal.  The recipe says that one serving is 240 calories but it also calls for only 1/8^th of a cup of dressing and I’m sure I had more than that.  Still, as an entire meal a few extra dressing calories really wouldn’t do any harm and the salad was very enjoyable.

Asian Beef Salad:

This salad was actually better than I expected and while making it I got inspired for that nights dinner as well.  I broiled and sliced the steak which had been marinated for a half hour or so in olive oil, Worcestershire sauce, salt, pepper, garlic powder and Montreal Seasonings, spicy steak seasoning, sliced a carrot and cucumber and washed some bean sprouts and spinach.  I used slivered almonds instead of cashews because I had them already and I’m not terribly fond of cashews.  I’m also not fond of sesame or ginger so I used the Honey Mustard Blast Spritzer instead.  This recipe says 370 calories per serving.  I imagine I was pretty close to that with my substitutions.  By the way, the dinner this inspired was a version of chow mein using whole wheat spaghetti and Worcestershire sauce (I didn’t have any soy) with steak, left over pork loin, carrot, green onion, garlic and bean sprouts.  I would have preferred some celery as well but didn’t have any.  I don’t guess this was really tremendously helpful in the desire to lose weight but it tasted good and it used up ingredients that would otherwise probably have gone bad, so at least I wasn’t wasteful.

Grilled Chicken with Pear & Walnuts Salad:

This simple salad was really tasty and made use of some ingredients that were already on hand.  Simple greens, pre-cooked chicken and half a Granny Smith Apple.  I topped it with walnuts (though I didn’t toast them) and some Wish-Bone Light Ranch.  At 40 calories per two tablespoon serving this dressing tastes as close to the original as you could hope for without taking on the extra calories.  The entire thing was 320 calories per serving and very satisfying!

Mini Pizza Salad:

The truth is this one was a little disappointing for my tastes.  I really enjoyed the bread the night before when I made a second piece to go with dinner.  The next day after spending twelve hours in a zip lock bag the bread was no longer crisp and didn’t seem as flavorful to me.  But more importantly, I do not like tomatoes in my salads and with the simplicity of this salad I didn’t feel I could leave them out.  Heavy on onion and light on much of anything else, this salad left me hungry and unapproachable.  The worst part is that the remaining pita bread began molding within a couple days and I had to throw it away having only used two pieces.  A waste of money!

Harvest Salad with Pork:

As you may have gathered by now, I enjoy the flavor of honey mustard and this one was right up my alley.  I purchased a one pound pork loin that was prepackaged in a honey mustard glaze and roasted that in the oven.  While it was cooking I prepared the salad greens, Granny Smith Apple and I used green onion and orange flavored Craisens.  The pork loin made for an excellent dinner and salad for the next day and I had enough left over to augment the aforementioned chow mein!  Delicious!  Using the Honey Mustard Blast Spritzer again, this one came up to about 290 calories.

Baked Goat Cheese Salad:

I questioned this salad but was willing to try it.  Based on price I opted for part-skim low-moisture Mozzarella cheese instead of goat cheese.  They’re comparable in calories so there was no impact on the nutritional value of the salad.  The cheese was easier to make then I thought and it didn’t melt and ooze like I was sure it would.  The salad itself was simple but tasty and the whole thing clocked in at 320 calories.

After working my way through the selection of salads above, I realized, all it takes is a little information and a little imagination.  Salads don’t have to be an exact science and they don’t have to come from a grubby, commercial salad bar.  You can make your salads at home and you can make them healthy and satisfying.  I made a variation of a salad I sometimes get from Applebee’s by using traditional salad greens some pre-cooked chicken (the southwest seasoning probably would’ve been better but I had the honey mustard), eight or nine black olives sliced, a couple green onions sliced, some chopped cilantro and a little shredded Mexican blend cheese.  I brought a long two tablespoons of Simply Yours fat free sour cream (40 calories) and about a third cup of Pace medium picante sauce.  I also brought a small zip lock bag with an ounce or two of tortilla chips.  Compared to the salads above this one was probably not as beneficial, but I figured the whole thing up to be fewer than 600 calories.  I could certainly have done worse!

The important thing to remember is, vegetables are so low in calories they barely even count, yet they’re a good source of fiber as well vitamins and minerals.  So, go hog wild with the veggies!  The place we get into trouble is with the dressings.  But with a little research and attention to detail you can find some good salad dressings for not a lot of calories.

By the way, I am not being compensated by Wish-Bone, Applebee’s, Simply Yours, Pace or any of their parent companies.  These are just my own experiences with these products.  Now that being said, if Google AdSense happens to crawl this post and decide to put some ads for any of these companies on the sides, please check them out and see what you might find for yourselves!

There was a time, when I was younger, when I was fond of the alcoholic beverage.  Well, OK.  Let me be fair. I’m still fond of the alcoholic beverage, but there was a time when I was younger when I was excessively fond of the alcoholic beverage and would look for, and forward to, any opportunity to partake.

Maybe it was because it felt like a rebellion, or like a secret “naughty” action. As far as I knew it was against my religion (it’s not) and there would be no end to the lecture and grief from my mother.  I never touched the stuff in high school and barely touched it when I was in college (all one semester of it.)  My first taste of alcohol was when I was 18 years old and I took exactly one sip out of my of-age friend’s wine cooler.  Woo hoo!  Party time!  On occasion I had a drink or two with this friend, always at home and never something I purchased.  (I’ve always thought there was a bit of gray area about whether it’s illegal for people under 21 to drink alcohol, or if it’s just illegal for them to purchase it.)  The most I ever drank at that time was the day I wrecked my sister’s car and was sure I was going to pay dearly.  I was panicked and freaked out and hiding at this friend’s house till I was sure my sister would be asleep so I wouldn’t have to face her.  I had a couple of coca colas with some peppermint schnapps. (Just to be clear, the drinking didn’t start until after the wreck.)

This was followed by a long dry spell where I never even considered trying to purchase alcohol until I was 20 years old.  I was managing a retail store in the mall in Oklahoma City and had my very first apartment.  I was at the grocery store one day and as I was filling my cart I saw that the wine coolers were on sale and I was craving some.  I put a couple four packs in my cart and decided on a plan.  I’d act calm and collected and if the cashier asked for my ID I’d just tell them, “Oh shoot! I left it in the car.  You know, that’s OK.  I’ll just leave those here.”  I’ve always looked older than I am and the cashier didn’t bat an eye lash when ringing up my groceries and selling me the forbidden nectar.  After this it was easy.  It was usually the same cashier and she’d ring me up and put my wine coolers through and move on with the day.  So imagine my surprise when, on my 21^st birthday, I put my wine coolers on the belt and she asked me for my ID.  Same cashier who had several times sold it to me when I was under age.

I didn’t really start whole-heartedly drinking until I moved to California.  My first full-time job in California, my office was in the Financial District of San Francisco, with lots of drinking establishments in the area and lots of co-workers who knew each of them.  Many evenings I went for drinks after work with one friend or another and more often then not, I got downright stupid.  I think it’s probably a good thing that I can’t clearly remember many of the conversations that took place on those evenings but the ones I do remember, I’d like to forget.

These days, my interest in the alcoholic beverage has certainly lessened.  I enjoy a nice glass of wine with dinner and the occasional cocktail in a more social setting.  This week-end was a party to celebrate Michelle’s 40^th Birthday, which is technically tomorrow.   Michelle is my closest friend in California and I wasn’t going to miss the party but I had reservations because I’m not especially comfortable with most of her family and a lot of the friends that I knew would be there.  One of the friends, a woman named Christina, moved to Las Vegas several years ago and I believe I had very limited interaction with her before she moved away.  I wasn’t even sure, from the name who she was, though she turned out to be the person I was thinking of.  She spoke to me, however, as if we’d been old friends.  She said she asks about me on a regular basis, that she had pictures of me from a New Year’s party at Michelle’s sister’s house and that we were good ole buddies.

The liquor was pretty free flowing though I didn’t really have a tremendous interest in it.  I had two margaritas before 10:00 and that was it for the evening.  (It was nearly 1:00 in the morning before I drove home.)  Christina on the other hand, had quite a bit to drink and around midnight she turned into the chatty, clingy “emotional/sensitive” drunk that I can only hope I never was.  Suddenly she approached me:

“Why don’tchu marry Michelle?” she asked me as she was leaning on my shoulder.

“Why would I do that?” I asked, already knowing this conversation was going to be uncomfortable.

“Becuz you luv her,” was her slurred response.

I sort of shrugged and said, “Yeah, I suppose I love her.  But so what? I’m not in love with her.”

“Yesh you ore,” she replied emphatically.

“I am?  How do you know?” I asked smiling.

“Becuz.  I know luv win I see it,” she said wobbly.

“You do,” I said smiling.  This was not so much a question as a statement of doubt.

She replied, “Yesh.  I’been ‘n luv lots of times.”  How am I supposed to take this seriously?

“Well, maybe that should tell you something,” I replied.  And at the same moment that she delivered her next line I said, “Besides, I’m gay.”

“Wut, that I shouldn’t shack up with every guy I fall for?”  She hadn’t heard what I said.

“Well, that.  But no.  Michelle and I have been close for ten years and we haven’t gotten together by now, ‘cause we’re not in love.  Besides, I’m gay,” I repeated.

“Wull, that doesn’t mean anything cuz—“  it sank in.  “Wut?”

“I’m gay,” I said for the third time.

“Ore yew shur?” she asked, because, you know, ‘I’m gay’ is something we run around telling people for the hell of it, like we just want to try it on for size or something.

“Yes, I’m sure,” I told her.

“Now you have to hold my hand.” She said as she thrust her hand out at me.

“I do?” I asked as I took her hand.  This was a big mistake as we were locked in a death-grip hand shake for at least five minutes.  “But I wanted you to be my bruther-in-law.”  There’s no in-law with Christina.  She’s not a relative.  “I wanted you to be part of my faaamily.”

“I’m sorry,” I lied.

“Well…  You’re still faaamily.  I still luv you.”   Drunk love is the best! “You’re still my home skillit.”

“I am?  You gonna use me to, like, cook breakfast in?”  I really wanted this conversation to end.

“Yeah-uh.  I’m gonna cook potatooooes, and ehggs, and pan cakes.”  Kill me now!  “I still luv yew.”

“Do you?” I asked sarcastically.

“Yeah-uh!”

“Would you love me more if I told you the only other person in this room who knows it is Michelle?”

“Wut?”  I repeated myself.  “Yesh I do luv you more, ‘cuz that mean you respec me enough to trus I won’t tell anybody.”  That’s not what it meant.

Yes, there was a time when—Wait!  Did I just turn into Mary Alice Young?  “Yes, there’s a certain time of day…”  Never mind.

There was a time when I was excessively fond of the alcoholic beverage, but that time has passed.  Dear God, I hope I was never the crunchy,
sappy, leany, over lovey type of drunk.  More importantly, I’m never gonna be that guy again!

Yeesh!

Here we are at the end of another week in the Fad of the Month experiment and things have not gone quite the way I had hoped.  This months Fad is salad for lunch and with two exceptions I have held to that.  The great thing about not  being “on a diet” is that you don’t have to feel any guilt when you’re not perfect.  The truth is there’s no need to feel guilt anyway.  When you make a mistake (or a conscious decision to diverge from the intended plan) it would be better to  simply acknowledge what you’ve done, dust yourself off and move on.

I mentioned in a previous post that I had been trying to eat sensible meals when not eating lunch and that I’d been making fruit smoothies for breakfast most days.  And most of the time, I did just that.  While this started out as a good plan there was a flaw in my execution.  I had purchased a bunch of bananas for my smoothies, but you see, bananas continue to ripen until they turn black and so in an effort to be conscious of my spending habits, I decided to use the bananas I had that were not going to last long enough, to make banana bread.  The fact that I had to purchase a pint of buttermilk which I would never use for any other purpose in addition to a bottle of vanilla extract, also not something that will be used regularly and baking soda which I also have no use for otherwise was inconsequential.  The fact that the bananas that would have gone to waste couldn’t possibly have cost as much as those three items was never factored in.  The thought had crossed my mind to make banana bread and I was sold.  The banana bread, while home-made and therefore not filled with processed ingredients and therefore not as lacking as it could have been in nutritional value was, nonetheless, there to serve as a temptation for me.  On the other hand, with the presence (and consumption) of the banana bread I managed to forget (for a time) about the four boxes of Girl Scout Cookies in my cupboard.  With the final two pieces of banana bread given to Michelle on Wednesday night, I no longer had that hanging over me.  On my drive home from work yesterday, however, I suddenly remembered the Girl Scout Cookies and in a flash I had a craving for them.  I told myself, “Not tonight. You have to weigh-in tomorrow. You can have some cookies tomorrow night.”

So as I sat in my recliner watching The Biggest Loser and sipping a glass of Chardonnay I remembered again that the cookies were there and I lost the desire to resist (what is it about watching The Biggest Loser that makes me crave unhealthy foods?) and so I went to the kitchen, opened that box of Tagalongs and pulled out five.  Only five and the rest of the package went into the refrigerator.  Now people, understand something here.  In years past, I would have sat down with that box of tagalongs and eaten all 15 of them in one sitting.  Possibly without stopping for air or actually taking the time to truly enjoy the flavor.  In years past, I would have scarfed down that box of Tagalongs and given serious consideration opening another box.  Last night, I ate five.  This is a triumph in my mind.  I made the conscious decision to eat only five of my favorite cookies, knowing fully what I was doing, having read the box and knowing that a serving was two cookies with 140 calories and that by eating five cookies I added 350 additional calories to my intake for the day.

I only lost two tenths of a pound this week.  Not what I expected or hoped for but nothing to get upset about either.  You see the way I look at it, if I hadn’t been eating salads for lunch, I would likely have been eating something far less nutritionally valuable and the numbers on my scale would be likely to be far worse than what they were.

So, stepping onto the scale this morning I hit a nice square 300 (isn’t that more round) pounds.  But that’s OK.  It’s a new week.  I acknowledge what I’ve done.  I’m dusting myself off.  I’m moving on.