One Week Down!

Week one under my belt. Down 7 pounds! Now, I have to say that I don't think I have ever lost 7 pounds in one week, so I am a very happy camper about that. I am also happy that my frozen food FINALLY came and so far, it's really pretty good. I now get three meals and three snacks. In the Turbo Charge week, week 1, it's only two snacks. And I now get one extra protein at breakfast. That helps too. But, as hard as the Turbo Charge week was for me, (only about 800-900 calories a day), it did prove to focus me on a few things that I think are very important in this journey.

Up Your Vegetables: Like a lot of these programs, on Nutrisystem you get four or more servings of non-starchy vegetables. You can have them in an unlimited quantity if you want. At first, I was struggling to get all those vegetables. I'm a one serving a day kind of gal. So I ate carrots and celery and radishes the first day and the first serving of them was good. Then I went the salad route, although salad with just vinegar or lemon juice is self-restricting too, if you get my drift. So then I got creative. First of all, the packaged food (non-frozen) that you get the first week is really pretty bad. There is some sort of processed tomato sauce that they put on 99% of the dishes in all these packaged foods that tastes really artificial, like some sort of non-toxic red glue that I guess serves to keep the five noodles from falling off the edge of your plate. And the whole meal is about one cup of food. For those of you that don't measure, a cup of food is the size of a baseball. Not a softball. A baseball.  At least it's not a golf ball. But there you go. I roasted a bunch of vegetables with cooking spray and seasoned them and tossed them into my Rotini with (microscopic) Meatballs. Quite an improvement.

Herbs and Spices: I use a lot of herbs and spices in my own cooking. I grow most of my own herbs.I doctored everything up with herbs and spices. It makes a huge difference, whether in my own cooked vegetables or in the Nutrisystem foods, they help a lot. And now a special word about.....

SALT: I get it that packaged food uses a lot of sodium as a preservative. But did you ever wonder if there so much sodium in that food, why does it taste like it never met a salt shaker? The food needs salt. The food needs pepper too, but the food needs salt!!! And when you're drinking 19 gallons of water a day, I don't think most of us need to worry about retaining water.

Salsa: I also grow chili peppers and this year, I have been having a bumper crop. Between my peppers, my tomatoes and my first mediocre crop of tomatillos, I have been making some lip smacking salsa. And if you don't make salsa, go buy it. There are about 100 different kinds on the grocery store shelves. It can take any food from crappy to happy. Or at least burn your mouth out so you can't taste that awful tomato glue.

Soup: I learned this from Weight Watchers. Make a big pot of vegetable soup. It's "free". It's delicious. Ignore the fact that it's still 90 degrees outside. Winter will come, I promise. Just let them eat soup.

So, there it is. Add vegetables to everything to both bulk it up and add flavor. Use herbs and spices, including salt, and salsa and make a big pot of vegetable soup. Today I made mushroom. Yes, thank God, mushrooms are considered vegetables. And they are soooo good.

Here's this week's score for Nutrisystem:
Weight Loss: 10
Food: 6
Customer Service: 8
Shipping: 3? (Happy to have gotten my frozen food, but reserving judgement until my next shipment.)

Next time I'll post some of my recipes for vegetables and soup.

P.S. Just a side note: I sold my first handbag on my Etsy Shop. If you'd like to have a look, here's the link:SewSallee