Diet

Dieting and Losing Weight

HCG recipe, spicy crab salad Weight loss programs or diets, whatever you like to call them, can be extreme at times and difficult to keep up, especially if you are not really strong willed and determined.

Now the hardest thing about losing weight as we all know is giving up on foods we enjoy and probably the lifestyle that goes with it.

Of course there are people who are overweight because they have the completely wrong diet, live on fast food and sugary drinks, well, I’d like to think I can help you here, but first you must help yourself.

I personally have tried WeightWatchers©, although I didn’t join the club, what I did was follow the principle and made it as enjoyable as possible. However, the first thing I started on was just buying the ready made meals, but let’s be honest, they are awful! The only good point about that was knowing the calories and points with each meal, so you knew your daily consumption. But then I started adding extra vegetables as I was still hungry, and it did work and I did lose quite a bit of weight. But the meals were so awful. Then I discovered and bought a series of WeightWatchers© mini series recipe books which I adhered to and which I must admit had some great recipes, and the key to this was portion control, for example proteins and carbohydrates are what matter, oh and sugar of course, veggies you can usually eat more or less as much as you like, but by controlling the amount of meat and carbohydrate you eat daily, the pounds will fall off. Most recipes allowed 60 grams of pasta, rice or potato per person and depending on the meat 75-125 grams per person.

Another diet I tried, not because I wanted to, but I had this great gig for a few months where I was developing recipes, cooking and photographing them for a Dr. for his weight loss program. This was called the HCG Weight Loss Program. I had a lot of fun doing this and I lost quite a bit of weight too, but this was an extreme diet and the HCG part stands for Human Chorionic Gonadotropin, a hormone produced by women during pregnancy to help the baby grow, and uses hCG drops, shots, or pills to suppress appetite and cause weight loss.

Of course I didn’t go that extreme, but even without the use of this hormone the calorie count for a day was 500 calories and no carbohydrates or sugar. The diet also only allows certain fruit and vegetables that had low sugar or carbohydrate content. So during this period and on weekdays only I was probably doing a couple of recipes a day, trying them with my wife and I would say that I would also have a glass or two of wine in the evening, so I wasn’t strictly on 500 calories a day, but by removing carbs I slimmed down quite a bit.

I will mix these recipes up a bit, but they all work, taste great and with a bit of exercise you too can have a stress free diet. I found this good especially as I enjoy cooking and to me that was the most important part.

Good luck and enjoy!

HCG Beef and Savoy Cabbage Hash

This is a great Monday recipe that can be made using leftover cabbage from your Sunday roast, sort of like a bubble and squeak, although this is a serious low cal, no carb dish…

HCG Ceviche

Ceviche is a dish from Peru so it is believed that consists of fresh raw fish cured in citrus juices, such as lemon or lime, and spiced with ají or chili peppers, chopped onions, salt, and cilantro or coriander…

HCG Chicken Cinnamon Curry Soup

Talk about comfort food folks! This HCG friendly soup is a crowd pleaser for sure. With only 8 simple ingredients and 3 basic cooking steps…

HCG Cucumber Noodles with Spicy Prawns

This salad came to me as I had some prawns or large shrimp and all the ingredients for a good salad. I then had an idea as I had received from someone a spiralizer…

HCG Curried Chicken Salad

I started to think, how about adding a few Indian recipes in here, they are always tasty, just leave out the yogurt or cream and this really worked with this Curried Chicken Salad so much so that it is a salad favourite in our house…

HCG French Onion Soup

I love French Onion Soup, it’s probably my favourite,, but when dieting it is really not on the menu because of the cheese. Anyway, this recipe is completely low fat, sadly no cheese, well, strictly speaking …

HCG Shrimp Jambalaya

Jambalaya is a dish from Louisiana originating from Spanish, African and French influence, consisting mainly of meat and or seafood and vegetables mixed with rice…

HCG Spicy Chicken and Green Beans

This recipe is very simple and tasty, but if you feel inclined and are not too worried about keeping the calories to a minimum as this is under 300 add some other vegetables…

HCG Spicy Prawn Salad

This HCG spicy prawn salad, was actually a top hit in the family because it was light but also very tasty and satisfying. I adapt this for not diet days and we eat it with some rice, which is also really good…