My Progress

Wednesday, April 21, 2010

Day 5 - Pistachio Crusted Tilapia

I have been a day behind for a bit.  Today I bought a scale as I referred to in yesterday's post, which was written today!  I had another of Jill's Orange Cream popsicles (83 Cal. soooo good!) for a snack and some diet cherry Jell-O (essentially 0 cal, maybe 1?) because I didn't wake up until 5 PM (slept all day and all night).

I decided to make something with the frozen fish we bought a few days ago at Giant Tiger.  Their mascot really should be a Giant Canary instead of a Giant Tiger.  CHEEEEEP!  The basa, tilapia and sole were really inexpensive.  I can't recall offhand but something like $1 per fillet.

Pistachio Crusted Tilapia
Logan Rating
Serves 4  - 364 calories per serving

Ingredients
1 cup shelled pistachios
1 tsp oregano
1 tsp thyme
1/2 tsp garlic powder
4 tilapia fillets
salt and ground black pepper
2 Tbsp honey mustard (recipe I used below)
1 1/2 Tbsp olive oil, divided

Directions
In a food processor, combine pistachios, oregano, thyme and garlic powder.  Process until finely chopped and transfer to a shallow dish.  Season both sides of tilapia fillets with salt and pepper.  Brush honey mustard over both sides of tilapia and then transfer to pistachio mixture.  Press misture into both sides of fish.
Heat 1 Tbsp of olive oil in a large skillet over medium heat.  Add tilapia and cook 2 to 3 minutes per side, until fork-tender.

Honey Mustard Sauce
3 Tbsp prepared mustard
3 Tbsp honey
1 Tbsp lemon juice
3/4 cup mayonaisse

Not my best outing.  I wasn't that impressed with the recipe.  I don't have a food processor (something I have to rectify immediately), so I used the blender and it was a disaster.  It pushed the pistachios to the outside and refused to chop them, so I tried to stop and fork the stuff away from the sides and when that didn't work, I dumped it all into the strainer (I started with the finest size) and it wouldn't go through and by the time I had progressed through all four various sized of strainers/collanders in our house, I have pistachio/oregano/thyme/garlic powder over most of the surface of the shelf, sink and floor.  Eventually I triumped over the useless strainers only by reverting to my inner cave man (Hmph!  Grog beat stupid strainer into submission!  Take that!) and putting the powder part back in the blender and  blended until the sides were sloped and then dropped in the unchopped pistachio pieces back in the top where they promptly flew back at me, bounced off the bottom of the cupboards and hit me in the eye.
Now Grog the Mighty Hunter, half blind and in pain, beating the blender into submission, is forced to hold the little clear plastic center thingy over the hole while carefully pouring the rest of the nuts in through the hole and the slope of powdered nuts and spice ensures that the nuts keep dropping back into the blades and eventually they are all chopped up.  Time for a food processor (or a better blender) for Grog!

Everything else went fairly smoothly, other than Grog bashing his toe repeatedly on the wall corner, stove, fridge and table in successsion until Grog's mother insists he wear her extra pair of crocs to keep the Mighty Hunter unimpaired (Grog think he look fairly ridiki..  ridiklus...ridecel....stooopid in crocs), and was able to finish off the fish.

Not great.  I served it with 2 cups of Imperial Stir Fry each (100 Cal.) with butter on top (and important 70 Cal. for 2 tsp that rates a Mmmmmm!) washed down with Grapefruit Punch (1 can of Fresca with a pouch of Tangerine Grapefruit Crystal Lite and 2 cups of water - 2.5 Cal ) .  Mom thought it tasted unfinished, like it needed tartar sauce or something.  For me, I liked the background taste of the honey mustard, but next time I would process the spices to reduce them to a powdered state and crush up the pistachios in a bread bag with a rolling pin (Grog likes to bash) that way you would get more pistachio flavor and bigger nut chunks in the breading.  I tasted some mahi-mahi once with a pistachio coating at Ric's Grill and liked the taste of it, and that's primarily why I tried this recipe today and found it wanting, definitely not worth the 364 calories.  The punch was the best part of the meal unfortunately.  I would not recommend this until I have fixed it, but thought I would post it anyway.  It wasn't gross, it just wasn't up to par for me.

So my grand total for today is 620 calories (as I slept through 2 meals) and I'm down 18 pounds!

Day 4 - Whoo Hooo! Burgertime!

I bought a scale yesterday.  Weighed myself and was 367.  I know I have lost weight since we started (folks were commenting that my face looked slimmer, apparently you lose it first there) but Mom's scale only went to 300 pounds, and in the interest of not blowing up the only scale she had, I never stood on it.  So I estimated my starting weight at 380, based on how much I typically lose in the first week of a diet (usually 10-15 pounds).
We went to Wal-Mart and bought a Taylor "The Biggest Loser" Scale (kinda fits, doncha think?) for $40.  This afternoon after I woke up after a 17 hour sleep (I am an imsomniac and often don't sleep for days and was awake most of the weekend and put the dinner party on with about 2 hours sleep, so Mom didn't wake me until I woke up on my own today) I was down to 362.  Yay!  Whoo Hoo!  Terribly exciting and all that.


Yesterday I had Orange Cream Ensure (Mmmmmmmmmmm! and only 250 Cal.) for breakfast after swimming laps at the pool, 1 can of regular Canada Dry Ginger Ale (140 Cal.) to settle my stomach as I wasn't feeling well before I lay down, Butter Pecan Ensure (250 Cal.) for lunch, Jell-O (0 Cal.) for a snack and for supper we decided on a Hamburger Patty.  Mom is still craving red meat (for the iron her blood needs to regenerate I suppose) after giving blood at the Red Cross a week ago and so I was going to make fish but we decided on the red meat for the iron and so I whipped up some more meatloaf, but crustless, mildless and eggless this time (175 calories).  It had a tendency to break apart as cooking so I would recommend cooking it with an egg in to hold its shape, however that means adding another 50 calories, so it is entirely up to you.  I fried them up in a non-stick frying pan without any oil, but you could throw them on the BBQ but I would only do this if you add the egg as it would have a tendency to fall through the grating!

Hamburger Patty
Serves 4 (I refroze the other two in the fridge) - 187 Calories (175 without the egg)
1 1/2 pounds lean ground beef
1 egg
1/2 cup bread crumbs or soda crackers
1/2 cup onion
1/2 cup chopped onion
1 Tbsp minced garlic 
1 stalk diced celery
1 Tbsp prepared mustard
1 1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp ground black pepper
3 Tbsp minced parsley
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp ground allspice
1/4 tsp ground cloves
Add all ingredients together in a bowl, mix together with hands until spices and onion, etc. are evenly distributed.  Shape into four large 1/3 pound patties.  Cook in frying pan or BBQ on medium-low heat until cooked through, about 15 minutes.  Serve with salad or veggies.

After supper I had a Orange Cream Ensure Popsicle (83 Cal.).  Kudos to Jill Alana for suggesting this!  It was so good!  You just take the Orange Cream Ensure and pour it into your popsicle mold (mine made 3 from one bottle so 83 calories each) and it was so delicious.  I shared some of mine with mom, but not much because it was so nummy.  I also made up some Grapefruit-Tangerine Crystal Light (5 Cal. for a singles packet) and froze it in popsicle molds.  It was pretty bland so next time I'm going to half the amount of water in it.  I was munchy while fixing the table leg that fell off during the dinner party (made things a bit exciting!) and I munched on some regular corn tortillas chips (about 200 Cal. - we haven't quite got rid of everything non-fattening out of the house yet, still some stuff left over)
All in all my caloric intake yesterday was 1098 calories.  I wish I had left off the stupid chips, LOL!  I would have been a hundred under instead of 98 over.  Still, not bad.  1100 calories and I was quite satisfied.

Just a note, one of my friends mentioned "Keeping it off is not nearly as hard as getting it off!  NEVER reward yourself with food! Yeah the steak sound good, but you're setting yourself up for failure. Stop revolving around food!! Reward yourself with stuff (new sneakers, a massage or tickets to a ball game, anything but food)! Part of winning is changing your perspectives... especially about food"  I agree with what she is saying, you can't reward yourself and survive.  Think how many times we go out to eat to celebrate or reward ourselves with a Blizzard or other treat, or how often we console ourselves with a pint of Chunky Monkey (input your favorite ice cream here!).  I agree that we have to put that aside and do other things.

But I don't want to give up good food.  And I have no desire to exist the rest of my life eating rabbit food or diet food.  What I am attempting to do with this blog and with my life, for that matter, is to outline a course of action in which I can and am losing weight, then maintain the weight, all with great tasting food.  Some things I have to give up, bread being one of my main offenders, and someday in the future I will be able to add some of it back (in moderation), but I am convinced like my mom's friend that just ate two bites of whatever he wanted, if I can control portion size and content, why can't I eat steak when I want to?

Let me know what you think.  I would welcome the criticism, good or bad!

Tuesday, April 20, 2010

Day3 - Tourtiere Meatloaf with Mushroom Sauce

Today is my Splurge Day!  I'm going to totally blow my diet today by design.  Every month I have one Guinea Pig dinner party where I create something I've been wanting to try and feed it to the six poor willing guinea pigs that we invite to try out my creations.  I can't remember what weight watchers used to call it, but they gave you a forgiveness or mulligan day and this is it for the month for me.

My mom has this recipe for meatloaf that is baked in a bread crust and I've always loved it.  It used to be a joke around our house, my wife would ask what I wanted for supper and Mom's meatloaf was the automatic reply.  But I've wondered for awhile what it might be like if I added some of the spices from Quebec's famous Tourtiere meat pie.  So I did some research and almost every recipe called for cinnamon, allspice and ground cloves.  And I decided to add garlic, parsley and celery to the recipe.  And one fellow who used to make the pies commercially said to use the egg wash on the bottom of the pie to create a barrier so the juices don't make the bottom crust soggy.  And we basted the outside with same eggwash to make it crispier.  And we added and egg and some Sprite to the crust to make it more fluffy.  And I started from scratch with the sauce and rebuilt it...  LOL, I guess the original recipe has been completely reinvented!

My guinea pigs loved it!  Mom said it was the first time she didn't have to add sauce or ketchup to it.  One small oops was that I creased the pastry on top to make a flower stem (having way too much fun with the pastry!) and poked through all the way in the middle to make a steam vent, and during baking the pastry pulled apart all along the stem line as you see in the picture.  I wouldn't make a vent next time.  Even so, everyone said it was the best meatloaf they'd ever had.  So, without further ado, here is the reimagined Mom's Meatloaf!

Tourtiere Meatloaf
Logan Rating
Serves 10-12 - 240 calories per serving (without mushroom sauce)
Ingredients
1 1/2 pounds lean ground beef
2/3 can evaporated milk
1/2 cup finely crushed soda crackers (about 11)
1 egg
1/2 cup chopped onion
1 Tbsp minced garlic 
1 stalk diced celery
1 Tbsp prepared mustard
1 1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp ground black pepper
3 Tbsp minced parsley
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp ground allspice
1/4 tsp ground cloves

Crust
1 3/4 cups flour
1 Tbsp baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup shortening
1/2 cup evaporated milk
1 egg
Sprite (I used Sprite Zero)

Egg Wash
1 egg
1 Tbsp milk

Directions
Preheat oven to 425 F.  Mix first set of ingredients together until well blended.  Shape into a 9 inch long.  Set aside on a piece of wax paper.
Mix flour, baking powder and salt together.  Cut in shortening into flour mixture as for pastry (until the shortening are the pea-sized).  Add the milk; crack egg into 1/3 cup measuring cup, fill remaining space with Sprite and add to flour and mix.  Roll out onto floured surface and knead 20 times.  roll into 12 inch square.  Brush dough with egg wash to keep meat juices from making dough soggy.
Put meat log in center of pastry and fold over the pastry covering the meat and seal the side and ends.
Place on baking pan sealed side down.  Brush top crust with the remaining egg wash.
Bake at  425 F for 10 minutes, then reduce heat for 325 F for 70 minutes or until crust is nicely browned.  Remove from oven, slice and serve with optional mushroom sauce.



Mushroom Sauce
Ingredients
2 Tbsp olive oil
1/2 tsp Basil
1/2 cup chopped onion
1 clove mince garlic
1 can sliced mushrooms, drained well
1 Tbsp butter
1 Tbsp flour
1/2 cup beef broth
1 cup milk (I used the rest of the can of evaporated milk as part of the cup)
1 can mushroom soup
1/4 tsp salt
1/4 tsp ground black pepper

Directions
Add 2 Tbsp olive oil to pan on medium heat.  Add Basil, onion, garlic and mushrooms and saute until all water from the mushrooms has evaporated and mushrooms turn golden brown.  Remove the mushroom/onion mixture from the pan.
Add butter and flour and stir until mixture is browned.  Add beef broth and mix until thickened.  Add mushroom mix back in.
Add milk, the rest of the evaporated milk from the crust (about 1/8 cup will be left) and mushroom soup and stir until the sauce is thickened to desired consistency.
Remove from heat (or it will curdle when you salt it) and add salt and pepper.  Serve over meatloaf.

We served it with potatoes, corn and garden salad and Tolleys brought apple and coconut pie for dessert. (Mmmmmm Diane's Coconut pie isn't the typical coconut cream stuff, it was like macaroons, real coconut!  Mmmmmmm!)  I'm not even counting calories for Monday.  No point, LOL!!

Sunday, April 18, 2010

Day 2... or so...

We started this whole thing 9 days ago but it took a couple of days to eat the leftovers in the fridge and get rid of a few things and then I had my trip south and so I am starting the count from the day I started the blog.  I've got to go out tomorrow and buy me a scale that can handle my 350+ pounds.  Most home scales top out at 325 and sort of quit working or explode when I step on them!  So I've got to find one rated for 375 or 400 pounds so I can keep track.  Until then I'm listing my self as around 370 because I was about 360 a year ago when they measured me at the clinic.

Not much to report.  I wasn't feeling well, as I didn't sleep until about 4 in the morning after not sleeping since Friday at 2 PM, so according to Mom I didn't wake up when she shook me to get up and I slept until 3 PM.  So I had a green drink for late lunch, a banana (110 Cal)for a snack, Some diet Lemon Jell-O (2 Cal?) for a snack, a vanilla Ensure (250 Cal) for supper, and an apple (75 Cal) for a snack... oh, and a handful of black grapes (120 Cal), for a total caloric intake of 557 calories without counting the green drink.  When we were down south staying at my aunt's, she and my uncle make up what they call a "green drink" and they throw an oranges (with the peel on), a banana, maybe some more fruit, a cup of water, maybe some yogurt, some celery, a couple of baby carrots, some baby spinach, baby bok choy, some dark green lettuce like romaine, or spring mix (sometimes called European mix) that has stuff like arugula in it, a stalk of celery and a broccoli flowerette.  You blend it up into a liquid state and just drink a large glass of it instead of having an Ensure.  We have a crappy blender so one of these days I have to replace it with something that works better but if you can afford it I would recommend a Vita-Mix blender, they are fantastic, we had one (my wife still does) but they can blend anything.  I actually made potato soup in it one day; the blades spin so fast that you can boil water within 5 minutes.  But it does great at blending all the veggies and makes the fiber more accessible, problem is its about $550.  Ouch!  But if you can afford it, I would say its worth it, you can grind wheat for flour, make low-fat ice cream (it's just fruit, ice and a little tiny bit of milk), smoothies, cook soup in it, it's amazing!  Anyway we added all that stuff but Mom added a small head of broccoli instead of one flowerette and it was way too thick, like a smoothie, and tasted off.  I'm not sure what else she put in there so I'm guessing on amounts but it adds up to about 302 calories and it made about 3 or 4 tall glasses worth.  So I'm going to err on the conservative side and just put 250 calories, same as the drink replacements even though they are probably around 110 calories or so unless you add protein powder (which we have and I'm not sure she didn't add).

Saturday, April 17, 2010

In The Beginning

A bit of background: I love to cook.  And I'm good at it!  No false modesty here.  I have friends over and they rave about my cooking.  My wife and I owned a catering company together that we did on the side for years and we got serious about it a couple years ago, but I didn't cook much at home, as she seemed to be angry with me every time I cooked, so I figured it was her "thing" and I didn't cook for years because I didn't want to compete with her (other than to make mac & cheese for the kids, or when we cooked for a wedding).  She asked me 2 years ago what I wanted to do when we retired, and I told her I'd always wanted to open my own restaurant.  She was angry with me, said she was tired of catering and she didn't want to open a restaurant.  I was stunned.  I said, "You asked me what I wanted to do, not what you wanted to do."  It's always been a dream of mine.  When I was in Grade 3, we were given the assignment to come up with a business that we wanted to create, complete with drawings and I made what I thought was the ultimate restaurant (according to a 9 year old) with kiosks with pizza, burgers, ice cream, fish and chips along the side with I think a bowling alley at the end (my memory is failing a bit here) and seating in the middle.  Back in 1977 in elementary school, I created the ubiquitous mall food court before it's time!  But... I have recently realized that starting a business without going into the business first to learn the business is a bit insane.  I was in the oilfield for 15 years in the wireline business.  Six years ago I was employed by a company to start up a new division and with a new product and build it from scratch.  We spent about 1.5 million to build the equipment and made over 3 million our first year in business.  But I knew what I was doing.  That was my specialty and I knew what I needed, who to buy from, who to hire, how to market it, etc.  If I was to start up a restaurant right now, it would be like some roughneck on the rigs who had helped rig up a couple of times thinking he could start up his own wireline company because "it doesn't look that hard!"  No wonder most mom and pop start-ups in the restaurant business fail.  They have no clue what they are doing.  And I'm getting off topic, but you get the idea, my whole life has been about food.

So I cook because I love it.  Mostly comfort food and things I've always wanted to try (like creme brulee, sauerbraten, chicken parmigiana, and chateaubriand).  My problem is like most North Americans, I come from a pioneer background in which our ancestors worked by "the sweat of their brow" and from "sun-up to sun-down".  They cut down trees, dug the stumps out by hand, plowed the ground walking behind the horse and plow, hoed, harvested, threshed, and gathered their food the hard way: by hand.  The Amish today follow a similar lifestyle and have less than 4% obesity rate, yet consume a high carb diet in the neighborhood of 4000 - 5000 calories a day.  I come from a Mormon background and our recipes that we cook go back generations, we largely (no pun intended) eat like our ancestors still, but instead of a physical 16 hour work-day, we go to the office in cars, take the elevator, sit at a desk, go home and sit in front of the TV or the computer and don't even have to get up to change the channels or get the phone.  No wonder over 60% of us are obese.  Especially me.

So what to do?  I've tried various diets ranging from Atkin's to Weight Watchers.  I always started off by losing 20 pounds in the first couple weeks and then stalled and after a month or so, I quit.  Then the weight comes right back.  I'm deathly afraid of the consequences of my weight gain.  My father died of complications due to diabetes at the age of 66.  My uncle died much younger, and had lost his eyesight, both legs and all of his fingers except for his thumbs by the time diabetes took him.  If I don't do something, I'm a dead man.  But the word diet is just die with a T added.  The bigger problem is not so much the losing of the weight, but keeping it off is a whole 'nother ballgame (I'm sure you all have your favorite yo-yoing celebrity you're thinking of... Kirstie Alley, Oprah, Britney Spears, the list is endless... and I'm not mocking Kirstie or Oprah.  Let's face it, anyone in MY weight category who can either laugh about it or can parlay her binging into millions has my respect).  I don't want to be living on nothing but celery the rest of my life, I have to find something that works for me, it's a lifestyle that I'm looking for.  Something that will allow me to get down near my wedding weight of 190 pounds.  And keep it there!  And still be able to enjoy the food that I love.  It's going to be tricky.

Mom has a friend who was bigger than I am and he recently lost 300 pounds and she asked him how he did it.  His nutritionist let him eat whatever he wanted but he could only eat two bites.  I don't have the will power for that one.  I'm one of those people who sits down with a box of whatever intending to eat a couple and all of a sudden the entire box is gone, and I'm goggling at the box asking myself where it all went.  How many calories per serving, times HOW many serving were in there?!  Forget it!  I don't even want to know the answer to that, pretty sure I just used up two days allotment of calories right there.  The only way I could do the "2 Bite" Diet is with those two foot long wooden spoons that used to hang on my parent's wall when I was a kid (What was up with those things, anyways?  What purpose did they ever serve, except to suggest the people that live here are gluttons?).

I had a buddy who lost 50 pounds in about 3 months and I asked how he pulled it off and he said he just cut out all pop and drank water instead.  I said, "That's it?"  Then he said, "Well, I quit eating after 7 PM and between the two things that did it."  I tried that for awhile and nothing seemed to happen.

Two weeks ago, my mom went in to talk to the internist who had a ultra-sound done.  Apparently she had some fat on her liver and he told her it wasn't too serious but she needed to lose some weight (How many times have all of us heard that?).  So she asked him what was the best diet to lose weight (probably with me in mind).  He said they are all the same.  The secret is just to eat less calories than your body needs to burn each day to maintain your weight.  Not really ground breaking.  I think we've all heard that a thousand times before.  He suggested that she drink Ensure 3 times a day as that gives you 750 calories for the day (3 x 250 Cal).  Then to supplement that twice a day with diet Jell-O as that has has almost no calories (a whole box has <10 Cal) and has some protein to make you feel full; and she could add a tiny dob from one of those whip cream in a can to give her just a little fat to slow down the digestion so that she would feel full longer.  Just stay under 1000 calories when you need, in our cases 1560 Cal for Mom and 3580 Cal for me to maintain our weights.  So IF I can stay at or under a 1000 calories, I should be burning off 2500 calories a day off my belly.  At least that's how they calculated out using the Harris-Benedict formula I found.

She asked him about exercise, wasn't that important?  "No",  he said, "It's always a good idea to excercise, but a lot of the time, you exercise and you burn some calories and then you are just hungrier and eat even more than you would have."

Now I'm paraphrasing information I'm getting third-hand.  I'm not a health care professional, a nutritionist or an expert in anyway and I'm not advocating anything that I'm trying necessarily.  I'm just sharing what I'm currently trying in the hopes it keeps me going (I have always worked better with a deadline looming) and perhaps in the hopes that it helps someone else out there, because I know just how frustrating and hopeless this whole dieting thing can be.

So we went out and bought a week's worth of Ensure and some diet Jell-O.  So that's the current plan.  Let me just say that Ensure is pretty good.  The Vanilla flavor is OK, Strawberry is a little better, and the Wild Berry and Chocolate are really good.  Mom picked up the first batch on sale at Superstore for $7.98 for a six pack ($1.33 each).  We should have bought a boat-load at that price but we didn't know they were on sale and we wanted to try the various flavors out.  So we bought the next bunch at $11.98 ($2.00 each) and checked out various stores and they all seem to be running the same price all over.  BUT, we encountered two other flavors at Wal-Mart.  Same price at $11.98, but in addition to Vanilla, Strawberry, Berry and Chocolate, they had Butter Pecan and Orange Cream.  Butter Pecan is easily as good as the Chocolate but Orange Cream is TO DIE FOR!  Are guys allowed to use that phrase?  Remember when you were a kid on a hot summer day and you took your allowance and wandered down the corner store in the sweltering heat and bought an Orange Creamsicle?  My mouth is drooling just thinking about it and that's what the Orange Cream tastes like.  Or if you've ever tried that Orange Cream pop that Stewart's puts out.  Same thing, just terribly nummy.  It's more like dessert than dieting.  Mmmmmmmm!

We also bought some Boost which is the same price as the Ensure ($11.98/6 or $2.00 ea.) and it tastes very much the same but only seems to come in Vanilla, Chocolate and Strawberry.

While we were at Wal-Mart we bought their house brand Exact meal replacements and took them on our trip down to see my kids.  They are GROSS!  Not completely inedible, but close.  They only cost $8.00 for a six pack ($1.33 ea.) but I would rather go hungry.  We are planning on trying Superstore's PC brand next to see if they are worth drinking but haven't yet.

While returning Thursday night, I was craving some solid food, so we stopped at a Subway's and bought a 12" Sweet Chicken Teriyaki Sub (we split it - 6" each) with all the veggie fixings except hot peppers and I got one of those pamphlets and was surprised just how stingy with the calories those things can be.  No wonder Jared could lose weight.  The Sweet Chicken Sub wasn't the lowest calorie-wise, but still came in at a respectable 350 calories for a 6", only 100 calories more than an Ensure.  So my daily for that day was only 850 Cal.  Cool!

So to bring this blog up to speed, yesterday I missed breakfast (definite no-no, but I was sleeping in from the trip), had an Ensure for lunch, an apple and a banana for snacks(74 and 110 Cal respectively) and made a whole-wheat tortilla wrap with one slice of turkey breast, spinach, romaine, sliced cucumber and pickles, a dab of miracle whip and a sprinkle of grated cheese.  I figure its about the same size, roughly the same content as the Subway sub, so around 350 Cal.  Total for yesterday: 784 calories.

Today I had an Ensure for breakfast, another turkey wrap for lunch and have been busy and skipped both snacks.  So I think I'm going to reward myself for being good all week by having a steak.  I bought some little 6 oz. Top Sirloin medallions, rubbed them with Montreal Steak spice last night, marinaded them overnight in Kraft Zesty Italian dressing (throw them in a Glad freezer bag and pour the dressing in and then shake and throw them in the drawer overnight).  The steaks themselves are 335 calories each and if I add a bit for the marinade/rub, I should be around 400 Cal? with a bit of salad.  So I should be about 1000 calories on the nose for the day.  Don't give me too much grief, I'm a guy and I'm still trying to figure this calorie counting stuff out!