I keep hearing it every time I walk into the kitchen. Da-dum. Da-dum. (You know the frightening music when Jaws was about to attack.)
The hair on my arm stands on end and I know it is going to bite me in the butt. Da-dum. Da-dum. I am so scared. I don’t think I am going to survive this.
Besides a great white trying to kill me there is only one other thing I could be talking about… a diet. Da-dum. Arghhhh! The horror!!!
The worst part is that I am not the one on the diet. It is someone else in this household. (HIPPA regulations keep me from saying who it is and he is a little grumpy and I don’t want to poke the hungry shark.)
This person’s doctor wants him to drop a couple of pounds and actually put him on a diet for a couple of weeks!!! The good news is that he really isn’t overweight by most conventional standards. The goal was only five pounds. Da-dum.
The bad part is that his doctor put him on one of those regulated, deprive yourself of all carbs, sugar, and fun. Da-dum. It isn’t a day at the “beach.” Part of me thinks I would be safer jumping into the water with a great white shark than living in a house with a man who is on a diet.
My eyes have been opened to a couple of things. First, I like cooking carbs. Not just like, I love cooking carbs. If my carbs and someone I love were in the ocean and a shark swam up. I may just pull the carbs out of the water first. Da-dum.
Next, I realize that I really do need to think about my husband’s food options a little bit more. There are a lot of things I can’t eat because of my Crohn’s but I should still be preparing them for him. (Yes, he could make his own food but having him in the kitchen with me is like having two sharks fighting over on chubby surfer.) Da-dum.
Finally, figuring out my menus and the amount of vegetables to buy has proved to be the biggest challenge. Da-dum. It has been hard to gauge things like the servings of a pound of spinach when I am buying some at the store.
So here are a couple of lifesavers I have found:
1 pound of Arugula = 10 cups raw
1 avocado (about 1/2 pound) = 1 ¼ cup chopped
1 bell pepper (medium) = 1 cup chopped
1 eggplant (about 1 pound) = 1 ¾ cup cooked
1 pound fresh mushrooms = 6 cups chopped
1 pound spinach = 10 cups raw, 1 cup cooked!
1 pound zucchini = 3 cups sliced
Now this is just the tip of the iceberg (not iceberg lettuce, of course, because most of the calories come from natural sugars.) This is just a small list but hopefully it will help make meal preparation a little bit easier in the future. I know for me that it is going to help make the next week a little “beachier.”
Simple Saturday Vegetable Sauté
Ingredients
1 pound spinach, torn
1 pound shitake mushrooms, sliced
2 red peppers, diced
1 clove of garlic, cut in half
salt and pepper
1 tsp olive oil
Directions
In a large sauté pan, swirl olive oil over medium heat. Add mushrooms and cook about 3-4 minutes. Don’t fuss with them too much. You want them to get a little bit brown and release any of their liquid.
Add peppers and garlic. Sauté another 3 minutes.
Add spinach and cook until wilted. Remove garlic clove halves and give it a light twirl of salt and pepper.
I have felt a lot of guilt this past week. I feel like I am responsible for any of the weight my husband has gained over the past 15 years. I know he will not be staying on this restrictive of a diet but there are a few choices we will be changing in the future.
The music has been getting softer but I still don’t feel it is safe to go back into the water!
