Weight Loss Wednesday: Week 2 (Plus a Recipe!)

First of all, allow me to apologize for this week’s picture—it’s the same one as last week. I did take a new one this morning, but unfortunately I left it at home and therefore can’t upload it right now. Tonight I’ll upload it and edit this post to include the new image, but I’m sorry to say there’s not much of a difference.

After a first week which exceeded my expectations, this week has turned out to be a bit of a disappointment on the scale. Not, of course, that the number on the scale is all that, but I’m not ashamed to admit that I was hoping for the initial burst of super-fast weight loss to continue through this week. It didn’t, and neither has my belly shrunk by any appreciable amount. The tape measure did tighten by perhaps three-eighths of an inch, but I’m going to call that within the margin of error and ignore it for now.

The MediFast folks indicate that for the first couple weeks on the program, exercise should be kept to a minimum to give your body time to adjust to the dramatic reduction in calorie intake. After that, they suggest getting on some kind of regular routine, which is the next step for me. I was never opposed to the occasional good workout before, but aside from a bit of the old kung fu I have never worked out with any regularity…until now. I’m thinking I will start with about 10 minutes of cardio three times a week (Mon, Wed, Fri) and augment with some relatively mild strength training on Tuesdays and Thursdays. I’ll be the first to admit that I know jack shit about workouts aside from reading 7,000 conflicting articles on the internet over the years; nobody seems to agree on anything except the fact that exercise is good: Running is great! Running is awful! Pilates is fabulous! Pilates is stupid! Strength training is all you need! Cardio is all you need! Shut up you need both!

Suggestions from anybody who actually knows what they’re talking about (any personal trainers out there?) are welcome, but forgive me if I take them all with a grain of salt.

Last night I had my first planned “cheat”—being the local mayoral election, I couldn’t resist going out and celebrating with a few beers. Ah, politics and beer, what’s better? Perhaps more than anything, though, I just needed to get out of the house. The past couple weekends have been tough. Going from being out three or four nights a week to being home seven nights a week is a more difficult transition than I anticipated, mainly due to the weekend boredom. Weekdays are fine, in fact I’m saving a ton of money by not going out for happy hour on Truck Stop Tuesdays, but the weekends are a killer. For someone who doesn’t regularly go out on the weekends I can’t imagine it would be much of an issue, fortunately. And I’ll get over it.

One last thing I want to share before I go. The smoker I picked up a couple weeks ago that I mentioned last week is still performing astoundingly well, and I wanted to share a recipe I came up with for anybody who happens to have one (or any kind of smoker, for that matter). This is the best recipe I’ve come up with since starting the diet, and it is a nice, relatively low-fat, low-cal, low-carb meal that tastes fantastic and serves as the lean protein and part of the veggie dish for the daily MediFast “Lean and Green” meal.

Smoked Pork No-Bean Chili (serves 2)
First of all, you need smoked pork. This is the easy part, I just do it the night before and have smoked pork medallions as my lean protein, then weigh out the leftovers the next day to make the chili. To make the smoked pork, you need:

• 2 pounds of pork tenderloin

Complex, right? Usually when you get a tenderloin like this it will actually be two different pieces of meat (see pic), so you’ll need to separate them. Each piece should have a smooth, round side and a rough side. Lay the loins rough side down on your smoker rack and season them with salt and pepper, then insert your meat thermometer (you have a meat thermometer, right?) into the thickest part of the meat. Set the thermometer to scream at you when the meat hits 155 degrees Fahrenheit, and prep your smoker with whatever wood chips you like (I use a blend of oak and hickory). Add the meat, lid the smoker halfway, and place it on a burner set to medium (assuming you’re using the stovetop smoker, obviously).

Preheat your oven to 425 while you wait for the wood to begin smoldering. Once you can see wisps of smoke coming out of the smoker, lid it tightly, throw it on the lowest rack of your oven and wait for the thermometer to go off. When it does, pull the smoker out of the oven and let it rest (leave the lid on!) for at least ten minutes, I prefer fifteen, then slice and enjoy. If the meat isn’t so tender and juicy that you want to carve your eyes out with a spoon, something has gone wrong!

Once the pork is done, you are ready to make chili with it. To do so, you will need:

• 10 oz of our smoked pork, diced
• 1 good sized palm full (maybe 1/4 cup?) powdered chiles (I like a blend of mild New Mexico, hot New Mexico, California, Pasilla, and Cayenne, but use whatever—preferably not pre-blended prepackaged crap from the megamart, but whatever you have works in a pinch).
• 1T or more ground cumin. If you can toast and grind it yourself, all the better.
• 1/2 a medium onion, diced
• 1/2 a green bell pepper, diced
• 4 cloves garlic, minced
• 1 jalapeno, seeded and diced (leave the membranes for more heat)
• 1 can diced tomatoes
• 1T olive oil
• A little chicken broth (I always have a carton handy in the fridge, myself)
• salt and pepper to taste

Heat up your favorite chili pot over medium-high heat, and add your oil. This isn’t much oil, so be sure to spread it around so the whole cooking surface gets some. Add the onion, bell pepper, and garlic, with just a small bit of salt to help coax out some moisture. Sweat for three to five minutes, being careful not to brown anything, then add the jalapenos, powdered chiles and cumin. Ideally we want to coat everything in the pan with the chiles, cumin, and oil, but the relatively small amount of oil may not be enough to adequately lubricate our spices. Don’t worry about it, just stir it in as best you can and continue to cook for another three to five minutes, stirring to make sure the spices don’t scorch. When your house smells like a chili shack, add just a hit of chicken broth—maybe a half or three-quarters cup, just enough to get some liquid in the pan—stir, and throw in the pork and tomatoes. Allow to heat through, season with salt and pepper as needed, and voila! If anybody tries this recipe, let me know what you think.

Now, for the update:

Date: 03-28-2007 (Days on program: 7)
Weight: 213 (Total lost: 14 pounds)
BMI: 32.4 (Category: Obese)
Belly: 44″ (Started: 45″)