Races Like a Girl

I’m a morning person, which is why I got up bright and early on a Saturday to tackle the freelance work that looms: an outline for a brochure on retirement income options. But I’m sitting here staring at a jumble of source material and my eyes and brain are swimming. So I’ll “warm up” with a blog post. It’s not procrastination. Just, um, oiling the gears.

We’ve been on a diet for the past six or so weeks that has us eating frequent meals, in small portion sizes, of nutrient-dense foods. It’s worked too — I’ve lost about 12 pounds. I’ve got 12 more to go. Halfway home! Of course, since next weekend is my birthday, there will be a slight pause in progress. But at least we’re making a smaller cake and using the “reduced fat” recipe (applesauce substituted for oil).

The diet is heavy on whole grains and legumes. For the first week, we ate brown rice and black beans, seemingly every 20 minutes. I got very sick of brown rice and black beans. So, I’ve branched out and have discovered the following interesting grains and beans:

• Spelt
• Steel cut oats
• Lentils
• White beans
• Soy beans
• Barley
• Quinoa

You can make some good meals by mixing and matching these ingredients. I’ll post some recipes that I’ve found later on, but here’s a really good quinoa recipe Jonathan found on Cool Running.

I’m also going to sing the praises of Trader Joe’s. They sell, among other things, spelt (which I’d never heard of) in a nice little box with some things thrown in to make it interesting. And most of what they sell in the grains dept. comes with a recipe or two already. Plus they’ve got some great whole grain muffins that weigh about five pounds apiece and fill you up for hours.

I could go on, but I won’t — but check out Trader Joe’s Fan’s blog for more of the madness.

Filed under: eating, resources |