I lost 60 pounds with Noom

Fruit!

Sensible breakfast

Portion size matters

Treats are part of the plan

Salad!

Budget for dessert!

In week 26 of Noom I hit my goal of burning 60 pounds of excess weight. Noom is an integrated weight loss app that incorporates daily articles, weigh-ins, food logging, daily steps goals, exercise logging, and social support with a group of Noomers who started around the same time, a group coach, and a personal goal specialist.

Most people on the program have a goal of losing one to two pounds a week. I went all-in with the program and have burned off 60 pounds. What drew me to Noom was that it was grounded in science and focused on long term sustainability. You are not on a diet you are focusing on modifying your diet to maintain a modest calorie deficit. Many lessons focus on hunger and the factors that contribute to the sense of fullness and all of the emotions and triggers around eating. Importantly, there is nothing that is off the diet, though you may decide that there are foods that "aren't worth the calories" for you. It's about choices and building better habits.

Adjust my shopping. More fruit, veggies, whole grains
For most of my life, 200 pounds was my hard upper limit that I would make sure never to cross. Then various factors conspired and I took my eye off the ball for a few years and blew right through that limit. For a while, I struggled to stay even, but every couple of years more weight would come on and I would settle into a new normal. When I hit 235 it was like a switch flipped and I was ready to commit to doing what it took, and I found Noom which was just the right approach for me.

I've logged over five hundred meals in a row, walked 9K steps most days, plus one other active activity: weights, yoga, biking, gardening.... I am feeling fit. Working towards a goal of doing three handstand push-ups.

I've developed a new relationship with food and hunger.

I am more aware of the triggers within me, and in my environment, and developed tools to respond to them more mindfully and healthfully.

It has helped to focus on limits while avoiding the sense of deprivation. Nothing is "off the menu", though there are some things I've decided just aren't worth the calories.

Noom: I Lost Fifty Pounds with Noom

Salad from my first day on Noom

I'm in week 21 of Noom. Noom is an integrated weight loss app that incorporates daily articles, weigh-ins, food logging, daily steps goals, exercise logging, and social support with a group of Noomers who started around the same time, a group coach, and a personal goal specialist.

Most people on the program have a goal of losing one to two pounds a week. I went all-in with the program and have burned off 54 pounds. What drew me to Noom was that it was grounded in science and focused on long term sustainability. You are not on a diet you are focusing on modifying your diet to maintain a modest calorie deficit. Many lessons focus on hunger and the factors that contribute to the sense of fullness and all of the emotions and triggers around eating. Importantly, there is nothing that is off the diet, though you may decide that there are foods that "aren't worth the calories" for you. It's about choices and building better habits.

Adjust my shopping. More fruit, veggies, whole grains

For most of my life, 200 pounds was my hard upper limit that I would make sure never to cross. Then various factors conspired and I took my eye off the ball for a few years and blew right through that limit. For a while, I struggled to stay even, but every couple of years more weight would come on and I would settle into a new normal. When I hit 235 it was like a switch flipped and I was ready to commit to doing what it took, and I found Noom which was just the right approach for me.

50 pounds. Weight I was carrying all day, every day.

I've logged hundreds of meals in a row, walked 9K steps most days, plus one other active activity: weights, yoga, biking, gardening....

I've developed a new relationship with food and hunger.

I am more aware of the triggers within me, and in my environment, and developed tools to respond to them more mindfully and healthfully.

It has helped to focus on limits while avoiding the sense of deprivation. Nothing is "off the menu", though there are some things I've decided just aren't worth the calories.

Foods that I am still eating, but more mindful about portions: pizza, bacon, chocolate, my rich chocolate pudding, chocolate chip cookies, whole milk, cheese, donuts, cheesecake, crackers, chips, pasta, bread, rice, ....

Foods that are making a much larger part of my diet: FRUIT, carrots, potatoes, salads, soup, salsa, whole grains, avocado.

Blueberry Salmon Avocado green salad

An ample salad for a crowd to get a taste. This is a scaled up and tossed version of a composed salad I did last year.

First allow me to review my Master Salad Schema:

• Fresh greens
• Vegetable(s)
• A fruit
• A meat
• A nut, toasted
• A soft to medium cheese
• Grated Hard cheese(s)
• A small amount of dressing
• Fresh Ground Coriander

Depending on what is in season and what is on hand I vary the details and try to fill out the other choices to balance. In this case I used:

• One head each of red leaf, green leaf, romaine lettuce
• Two carrots, scrubbed, chopped, soaked in white balsamic vinegar
• Fresh blueberries, and sliced avocado
• Smoked Salmon (skinned, flaked, no bones)
• Toasted pecans coarsely chopped
• Fresh lemon curdled cheese
• Grated Parmesan and Hirten Hard cheeses
• A couple tablespoons of dressing (rice wine vinegar, a splash of apple cider vinegar, a little water, orange juice, 4 drops of orange essence, micro-planned ginger, roasting salt, hazelnut oil, walnut oil, olive oil, a little sesame oil)
• Fresh Ground Coriander

Toss everything but the hard cheese and coriander with the dressing. Then put in presentation bowl and top with grated cheese and coriander. 

Apple Bacon German Pancake

Another take on one of my favorite breakfast foods, the german pancake, but this time with bacon!

Fruit juice gelatin from scratch

There's always room for jello, or in this case, fruit juice gelatin.

Bloom  2 packets of gelatin (I use Knox) in 1/2 cup cold water.
Heat 3-4 cups juice to near boiling.
Add bloomed gelatin and 1-2 Tbs lemon juice.
Cool to near room temperature (could put over ice or cool water to speed it along).
Add fruit.
Refrigerate until set.

I use 3 cups of juice for a firm gelatin. More juice would result in a softer set.

Summer fruit salad

Summertime and the living is easy...

With all this amazing fruit what could be better than a nice fruit salad. Here in Portland, when I don't make it by one of our many farmer's markets, I like to get my fruit at the Kruger's Farm Market on Hawthorn.

I like to get one of each kind of fruit that looks delightful. Wash, pare, mix with a little lemon juice.
Chill.
Chill the bowl too.
Serve.

Strawberry shortcake

A friend gave me a copy of Alton Browns cookbook: Good Eats, The Early Years. I have been working my way through it. And since I had some strawberries on hand that needed to be eaten, what better than to try my hand at strawberry shortcake.

Quick Braised Asparagus with Bacon and Strawberries

With asparagus in season and and an abundance of strawberries and a wife that demanded bacon with her birthday dinner I was inspired to try combining them all into what proved to be a quite lovely dish.

• Wash and trim fresh asparagus. 
• Put in a pan with 1 Tbs each of bacon drippings, butter, olive oil, white balsamic vinegar, water, and sugar. 
• Cover bring to boil over high heat and braise for 3 minutes. 
• Add chopped cooked frozen bacon.
• Cook uncovered for a couple minutes. 
• Add fresh strawberries, washed, hulled, and quartered. 
• Cover for a minute or two until the strawberries get up to temperature, but you don't really want to cook them. 

Serve hot and enjoy!

Low Sugar Strawberry Apricot Jam

One part apricots, one part strawberries, one part sugar. Process in food processor. Bring to boil. Cook down until silky, thick, and not so bubbly. Then into a hot water bath. 

Freezing Apricot Pies

Over the winter and spring we like to have "fresh" peach and apricot pies. We do this by making up the fillings and freezing them in pie pans until they set. Then bag them in gallon freezer zip-lock bags.

Peach caramel sauce

What to do with the leftover peach juice syrup from home canned peaches?

Too good to toss. 

To thin to use directly in most cases. 

Often not wanted in the dish I was making that I needed the drained peaches for. 

The solution: reduce it until it caramelizes then (slowly) add some cream and get a lovely peach caramel sauce.

Apple Sausage Thick German Pancakes

Yet another variation on the Thick German Pancake this morning.

I had a bag of apples that I got to make a first attempt at Apple Cabbage Stew for the Skyrim party (more on this in a later post). So I got to thinking about making a traditional Apple German Pancake. But then I remembered having some breakfast sausage links in the freezer. And then I remembered how much I like apples and sausage together.

To wit, Apple Sausage Thick German Pancakes!

Apple Butter Thick German Pancake

When a Thin German Pancake just won't cut it, it is time to break out the thick german pancake.

The original recipe called for apples browned in butter and brown sugar.  I often make them with peaches. We don't have any apples at the moment, but do have the memories of applies ensconced as apple butter. So, with a healthy dose of "What could happen?" opened the apple butter and this is what happened ....

Strawberry Smoothie

 I have been making a lot of smoothies lately. They seem to make a nice afternoon pick-me-up. It all started when we were getting an every-other-weekly box of fruit from Organics to You in the late summer and through the fall. We have since stopped the delivery just because I don't like to feel forced to eat so much fruit just because it keeps showing up. Anyway, we kept the smoothie habit.

Recently I made a strawberry smoothie.

Persimmon Apple Crisp

I adapted a recipe from Chow for apple crisp to make a persimmon apple crisp that went over very well at a little gathering we had yesterday. I wanted to make this both gluten free and tree-nut free, so I went with oat flour rather than wheat flour in the topping.

Millions of peaches

Peaches are here! Maybe not millions of peaches, but that was the song we kept singing.

We picked up two 26-pound boxes of peaches at Justy's Produce. They were not quite ripe when we picked them up last Tuesday (6 days ago). But today they seemed just about perfect. So we let the canning begin. We used the same basic approach we did a couple years ago, except this time we tried to fill the jars a little fully of peach slices.

Sharon blanched the peaches for 1 minute then dunked them in ice water to loosen the skins. I'd then peel the skin off and slice the peach. If it was ripe, and produced a nice slice it would go into one bowl. Otherwise it would go in the "jam bowl". Sharon would usually process three peaches into the ice water then attend to other canning stuff while I caught up.

Once I got enough for a jar full of peach slices, Sharon would pull a jar from the hot water bath and fill it with peach slices, then pour in a light sugar syrup (4 cups water, 2 cups sugar). The reusable canning lid and rubber ring would then come out of the little pot of simmering water and top the jar. Once ringed, back in the hot water bath it would go. 

Once I got 4 cups of "jam peaches" they would go into the food processor with 2 cups of sugar an a little lemon juice. 

We wanted a stove with at least five burners specifically for canning.

 The water bath with jars of peach slices.

Here is two batches of jam just starting to simmer.

It requires pretty constant attention until it cooks down to a happy consistency.
Then into little jars and another hot water bath.

And the fruit of a day's canning.

For lunch, peach slices and chocolate ice cream!

Apricot Salsa

Apricot salsa inspired by a recipe from the web. In my take I mixed:

• 2/3 cup diced fresh apricots
• 1/2 cup diced onion
• 1 tsp minced ginger
• 1/8 tsp Duke's powder II
• 1/2 a roasted red pepper
• 2 roma tomatoes from a can, chopped
• 1/4 cup fresh apricot-pineapple butter

I made up half of it fresh and cooked the other half. 

We'll do a tasting soon and I'll update this.
Fortunately Sharon had just made some nice Apricot-Pineapple Jam.

Update: the results of the tasting are in:

• The uncooked salsa tasted very strongly of onion. Certainly had a "fresh" taste. Might be good for some application where you really want a "pop" of flavor, but be careful not to use too much. 
• The cooked salsa was mild and flavorful. Not too sweet. Sharon thought it didn't taste enough of fruit. 
• As a baseline we tasted some Trader Joe's Peach Salsa. Definitely had more "heat" from chillies. Also a little sweeter. 

Next Time: 

Looking at the ingredients for the TJ's Peach Salsa we might consider adding some: tomato paste, salt, spices, and/or sugar. 

Strawberry-Blueberry Crepes

Experimented with some crepes tonight.

For the filling I warmed some fresh strawberries in a little sugar with a Tbs each of sour cream, plain yogurt and port. I didn't quite have enough fruit, so I added some fresh blueberries.

For the batter I used

• 1/4 Cup each: whole wheat pastry flour, white whole wheat flour, 10-grain flour
• 2 tsp sugar
• 1/8 tsp salt
• 3/4 cup milk
• 1 Tbs port
• 1 Tbs melted butter
• 2 eggs

Mix dry then wet ingredients with a whisk (or a food processor). 

Two Salads

We made two salads for a party: one an apple salad and the other a green salad.

The apple salad had, well apples, diced prunes, raisins, chopped walnuts, and a little diced celery in a dressing made from greek yogurt and a cran-raspberry drink.

The green salad had lettuce, fresh radishes, cucumber, tomato, celery, and some amazing avocados that the host provided. At the party we used prepared dressing, but the next day we made another greek yogurt dressing, but this one was made with sweet pickle relish, a squirt of deli mustard, and a squirt of catsup, and pepper.

They were both very tasty and a different approach than I tend to use with an all-in-one fruit and greens salad.

Cole Slaw: First attempt in recent memory

We had some cabbage, a knife and the Joy of Cooking. What to do?
Make Cole Slaw!

We used the technique of soaking the sliced cabbage (or rather 1/4 cabbage in our case) in ice water for an hour while we shopped for interesting things to add.

We made a dressing of greek yogurt, juice of 1/2 lemon and 1/2 lime.

After drying the soaked cabbage we added some cranberries, some not-too-sweet raspberries, chopped toasted pecans, and an apple cored and chopped.

Turns out the raspberries were rather sour so the sour dressing was too much sour. At the table, we sprinkled a little Splenda over the top which helped a lot. The apples, cabbage, nuts, and cranberries were all playing very well together.