I weighed myself this morning and was shocked to see I was down to 163.8 lbs! A little later as I was getting dressed for work, I buckled my belt, and something felt different. I looked down and saw I was in the 4th hole instead of the 3rd hole. I am getting skinnier!
And the thing is, I am not really even trying that hard. I swear that eating low fat healthy foods is best diet for losing weight.
I hesitate to even call it a diet as it is really just eating healthy. I don’t do anything like counting calories, or weighing stuff, or marking off points. I eat a lot of Healthy Choice and Lean Cuisine meals, because they are low fat, healthy, and they are relatively cheap when they are on sale! I just bought a bunch of Lean Cuisines on sale for $1.88 each, and I have gotten them for as cheap as $1.50, or even a $1.25.
I just eat mostly like normal, but I use butter substitutes, and I avoid stuff with lots of fat. I really don’t eat that much less. It gets to be almost fun trying to see how low of fat that you can make certain recipes, or finding the lowest fast foods in stores.
I am not even really trying to lose weight at this point, but maintain my weight while burning fat. And the fat is disappearing!
Of course exercise is a vital part of the equation! I eat low fat healthy foods (most of the time), and I exercise, and the weight just falls offs!
So if you are looking for the best diet for losing weight, limit yourself to food where the perecentage of calories from fat is 20% or less of the total calories. But then, don’t eat a pound of sugary junk and say it is fat free! Just eat healthy low fat food, and exercise!
My supply of Lean Cuisines and Healthy Choices are get pretty low! So I have been watching the sales flyers. Finally, the local grocery store had all the Lean Cuisines on sale fir $1.88. Not the best price I have seen, but pretty good. I grabbed a cart, and headed for the frozen food section. I went straight for the Dinnertime Selects. They are normally the most expensive, and at $1.88 each, that was a savings of $1.41. I grabbed all of the Dinnertime Select Lean Cuisines except the Chicken Portabellos which are absoluty disgusting! I managed to snag 24 different Lean Cuisines. I may try to get back in a day or two and see if I can snag some more. Lean Cuisine makes a very limited selection of the Dinnertime Selects. I like Healthy Choice because they make a whole bunch of healthy low fat meals in that size!
What the heck is my ideal weight? I weighed myself this morning, and weighed in at 165.2 lbs. WHAT? I haven’t been this light for a long time!!! I worked out hard yesterday. I did an hour aikido in the morning, then a 10 mile bike ride in the afternoon, and an 8 mile run last night. I didn’t feel like I ate particullarly healthy yesterday either. I ate a Steak & Egg bagel thing in the morning. I love these, but rarely eat them anymore (maybe one every 6 months). I ate a couple grilled chicken breast sandwiches (with a light coating on real mayo). I remember eating spaghetti last night. I noticed afterward the store-bought marinara sauce wasn’t fat free. I gotta hunt down the fat-free stuff. I had small piece of apple pie (bought it at a bake sale raising money for woman with cancer), and some fat free ice-cream. I am sure I ate other stuff yesterday. I had to have!
Anyway, I weighed 165.2 lbs this morning! I haven’t weighed this low since college. I am not sure what exactly I want my weight to be. I have been trying to lower my body fat percentage. I don’t want to be a bean pole skinny person! Maybe I will eat more today to get up closer to the 170s.
Of course we do have a week long camping trip coming up soon. I will probably be eating a lot of junk during that trip. So maybe it is good that my weight is down now? 
I made some escargot last night. I made four different versions. I wasn’t happy with any of them! Two of them were regular fat versions, and two were low fat versions. The first two used garlic butter. One was from an Emeril Laggase cookbook, and the other I found on the internet listed as a traditional. They were similar, but slightly different. The first low fat version used Molly McButter and chicken broth in place of the butter. The next version used buttery spray, and was run through a blender. I had intended to put it into a sprayer, but the parsley, garlic and shallot was still too chunky. So sprinkled the buttery spray version over the snails. I didn’t have snail plates, so I used small cups that I normally use for Au Jus, or for prep work.
The two regular recipes weren’t all that good. They weren’t bad, but I have had much better! The Molly McButter had too much butter taste, and was kind of salty. The buttery spray version was just plain bad!!! Yuck! I spit it out.
Well, back to the drawing board. I need to search for more escagot recipes I think I will find a regular recipe that I like first, then try to make a low fat version. But then I might play too. I have an idea of using a marinara sauce. I made some mussels with a maranara sauce a while back. They were good, but messy. I try to use the marainara from that, but with the snails. I think that might be good.
I like escargot. I rarely have it though. The last time I had it was in a little restaurant across town. It was just okay. But the time before that I had it ona Carnival cruise ship, and it was the best escargot I had ever eaten. It was so good, that I considered passing on the rest of dinner, and just ordering more escargot. I didn’t. I did talk my brother into trying it, and he thought it was great to.
I was at the local grocery store looking in the canned fish section and saw cans of snails. Wow! It hit me that I could make escargot at home. I didn’t buy any at that time. But I started looking through my library of cookbooks looking for escargot recipes. I didn’t find anything in the many low-fat cook books. I kept looking. I was surprised to find escargot recipes in only two of my many cookbooks! Cookbooks that I thought for sure would have escargot, didn’t!
I looked around online and found some recipes. It seems like almost every recipe I found had tons of butter. Like a stick or two of it! Well that’s not low fat. But I have been formulating ideas of using Molly McButter or spray butter. I have a small spray I can use.
Snails in a can don’t come with shells. You need to buy the shells separatly, but they can be reused. Of course the grocery store doesn’t sell the shells. But I found them online.
I also need escargot dishes. I know I have had escargot not in shells. I was looking around on ebay and I found some escargot dishes with 6 little holes to hold the snails. I think I might be able to use these to cook the escargot without the shells. So I bought a pair of them.
I bought a can of the snails last night at the grocery store. So when I get the dishes, I will play with some ideas I have. What I may do is cook half a batch using regular garlic butter (non-low-fat), and half a batch with my low fat ideas. Then I can compare them.