Salads

Fifty Pounds, boys and girls. We have both lost FIFTY POUNDS! I am pretty much in shock. And really psyched!

Tim and Victor

When we walked into LA Fitness 38 weeks ago, it was about signing up for Silver Sneakers – a senior fitness program included with our health insurance. Neither of us knew our way around a gym, and we ended up signing up for personal training – three days a week. I don’t think either of us really thought much would come of it, but… we did it, anyway.

The first few months were brutal. We’d crawl out of the gym and suffer for hours after. I was living on aspirin. I hurt in places I didn’t even know existed. And then, one day, I wasn’t exhausted for hours, after. I didn’t need aspirin to ease the pain. Everything we were doing was getting more difficult – but, oddly, easier.

And, obviously, our diet changed – but not as in we went on a diet – because we haven’t. We’ve changed our eating habits and we’re doing smaller portions, but we’re eating bread and pasta, drinking whole milk and eating full-fat yogurt.

No gluten-free/keto/paleo/whatever/bullshit-billion-dollar-a-year-phony-diet-scheme. We’re eating real food – with no foods off-limits. We can and will eat whatever pleases us. We’re just aware of what it is and adjust, accordingly. We’re not eating a lot of crap. The biggest change we did was to knock off the ooey-gooey desserts every night, but we are satisfying the after dinner sweet tooth with fresh fruit – or, the occasional freshly-popped buttered popcorn. Yeah… real butter.

And losing weight.

It’s funny, but I don’t miss eating them as much as I miss making them… I’m looking forward to the Easter Bake-A-Thon and a bit of baking creativity! Fortunately, I am still getting my baking fix by making bread all of the time, and while I’m looking forward to baking several fun things, I’m more looking forward to tasting little pieces. My days of gorging on desserts is over.

Fifty pounds… We celebrated with salads…

We have become salad kings – after being soup kings during the winter. There are lots of containers of really good things in the ‘fridge at any given moment. It’s the alchemy that creates the final plate.

Salads

There are usually two salads – a bean-type and a grain-type – in the ‘fridge along with accompaniments like roasted beets, boiled eggs, or steamed broccoli. Lentil sprouts just became a staple, and I’ll be making more of them this weekend. Greens and cheeses and, for the dinner salads, something marinated and grilled.

Back in the good old days of Demo Cooking, Ruth and I made five-ingredient formula salads – a green, a crunchy, a dried fruit, a cheese, and a dressing – that were constantly changed and always different – yet remarkably easy to make and we were always being hailed as the geniuses we were.

I’m pretty much doing the same thing, here… It’s just a matter of having a few things ready in the ‘fridge.

And as the weather continues its upward climb, we will continue to fill those containers.

In the meantime, we both have some new weight goals still to be met –  and we need to continue this well past our training obligation – but, dammit, we have lost fifty pounds.

I could not be more proud of Victor and of myself.

We did it.