The start of "The 1200 Challenge": Meals under 300 calories

Hello!  I'm back!  I've been on the road (or "on the lam") both in the US and internationally and the travel has definitely taken its toll on my waistline and zapped motivation to eat healthy.  So today I gave myself a challenge.  I know that if I eat 1200 calories a day, I will lose weight.  It's simple math with my basal metabolic rate.  But unfortunately the things I find delicious tend to be a lot more than 1200 calories total!  (Movie theater nachos are almost 1400 calories!)  So for today, I decided to try to make my meals be under 300 calories-- but still be satisfying, substantial portion and delicious.  The challenge was also to use what I had on hand in the refrigerator and the pantry instead of hitting the grocery store.

Here are my results of "The 1200 Challenge" (and by the way, no one will ever accuse me of being a food stylist!):

Breakfast: 245 calories
An omelet made of Egg beaters and a Laughing Cow Queso Fresco Chipotle wedge with dried dill, served open-faced on a rye sandwich thin and slices of rotisserie chicken deli meat.  Overall it's high in sodium and would have been better if I added some veggies, but I wanted something hearty to start the day and here it is...

I'm not a big fan of sandwich thins - they don't have a lot of flavor, in my opinion.  So when I am craving bread, I do like the rye sandwich thins.  They definitely taste better than the regular wheat ones.  Could I have skipped the sandwich thin altogether?  Absolutely!  I also could have skipped the chicken and/or the cheese.  The heartiest component was the omelet and it was delicious and satisfying.

Lunch:  273 Calories
Again, not a food stylist - but it makes for a colorful picture!  This is my version of a loaded baked potato.  I adore potatoes and so I try not to have them in the house.  But I had guests over for the weekend and made Ina Garten's (Barefoot Contessa) recipe for Vegetable Tian and have some leftover potatoes.  I baked a Yukon gold potato and topped it with an entire package (150 calories) of cauliflower in cheese sauce.  No butter, no sour cream, no bacon bits - but it made a very hearty entree.  1/2 a cup of sliced baby cucumbers with Caesar dressing spray and 1/2 a cup of strawberries rounded out my meal.

I went for a 5.8 mile walk after work.  I live in Florida where we have lovely birds and marine life.  I was very fortunate to see two dolphins on my walk.  It's important to stop and take in that the world is a beautiful place.  It is really easy to allow stress and the tedium of day to day life to form blinders around us.  Taking time to stop and watch dolphins was a great way for me to center myself in my place in the universe.

While I walked, my thoughts turned to food -- I thought I had a tuna steak defrosted in the refrigerator.  I thought of a tuna steak on a bed of greens with a side of spinach.  Protein and vegetables.  I had had starchy carbs at both breakfast and lunch, so I wanted to stay away from starches at dinner.  But when I came home, there was no tuna steak defrosting in the fridge!  Perhaps my cats had grilled it themselves as soon as I took off for my walk.  Could there be a roaming tuna steak bandit?

I suddenly was ridiculously hungry.  I decided a snack was in order to calm my appetite before I re-planned my dinner.

Snack:  122 calories
Grapefruit with 1 tsp. sugar.  I usually do not eat sugar on my grapefruit, but this baby was TART!  It gave me an excuse to use my serrated grapefruit spoon!

With my appetite not as ravenous, I opened the refrigerator to start planning dinner.  I was dismayed that a lovely avocado I had purchased had gone bad on my counter.  That's a way to save calories- I guess! 

Dinner: 187 calories
Chicken Chiffonade Salad with Creamy Garlic Yogurt Dressing

I love summer salads.  Last Sunday, I had friends over for dinner and I put my own spin on Lauren at Healthy Food for Living's Red Berry Salad.  Well Lauren's delicious salad recipe continued to inspire me.  I took 2 cups of a mix of spring greens and spinach as my salad base, added 1/4 c. red onion, 1/2 c. each of green pepper, celery and zucchini and 1 c. of strawberries.  I then took 6 slices (1 serving) of chicken deli meat, rolled up the slices and cut it chiffonade style.  I whipped out my Cuisinart Smartstick Hand Blender that I bought on sale at Crate and Barrel.  I love the Smartstick!  Especially with its chopper bowl attachment.  It's like a mini food processor without all the fuss of dragging out my big food processor.  I took 1 clove of garlic, dried parsley, 1/2 tsp. country style dijon mustard, splash of champagne vinegar and 1/8 c. Greek yogurt and took it for a spin in the Smartstick chopper bowl.  It made a very fragrant creamy dressing, BUT too much garlic!  Very raw, very biting - but a little goes a long way.  The spicy, creamy dressing with the spinach, chicken and strawberry made a delicious complex bite of flavors.  I cannot believe that this entire huge salad was 187 calories!  Definitely less garlic in the dressing next time!

I did have an (unpictured) additional snack with dinner - 3 jumbo olives and a serving of bread and butter pickles.  Hello salt and sugar!  This snack #2 was 95 calories.  I can't believe that a couple olives and a couple lousy pickle slices were over 1/2 the calories of my humongous salad!

My challenge was to eat 1200 calories or less today, but to also eat well, hearty, nutritious and delicious!  While today's menu had more sodium and processed food than your average nutritionist would probably like, I feel like I did pretty well.  My total calories for today was 922 calories for 3 meals and 2 snacks.  If I had chopped 2 hard boiled eggs on the dinner salad, I would have increased my protein and still been under 1200 calories for the day.

Tomorrow, I'm trying a local German restaurant for dinner - the typical order of weiner schnitzel with no side dishes is 750 calories!  I suspect tomorrow will be healthy breakfast, healthy lunch and a not so healthy dinner!