Simply Filling - Week 1

No surprise I've been away for a while. I tend to hide a little when I'm struggling the most. It's not fun or easy to be the cheerleader while your team is losing, ya know. So after much soul searching and a really amazing vacation to Las Vegas, where I was pretty much training to become a competitive eater, I decided to begin the Simply Filling program and mix it up for real!

At first, it seemed a little overwhelming. I mean, it's a one page list of no count items. ONE PAGE! How the heck are those foods going to satisfy? How am I going to be satisfied? And holy crap, I don't have to measure, weigh, or track any of these foods? I'm going to spiral out of control... crash and burn... blow up like a tick because I can binge again!!! eekkk

It got even more scary when I had a question regarding oats and the "chat" person wasn't exactly sure of the answer either! Seriously, her response was "Well, what does the information on the flier say?" Yeah, that was helpful. So, I'm going to share with you some of my week. I want to put a disclaimer though. I am not a WW representative. I am not trained in the Simply Filling plan. Some of my information is guess work, but it is working for me... at least for now. 

Also, I am not trying to convince everyone to switch to Simply Filling, but I do know a lot of people are struggling with Freestyle and I've heard murmurs of people just giving up. This might be an option you would like to try if you feel like nothing else is working. Just a thought. 

So here's my week in a glimpse...

I weigh in on Sunday morning and I had gained 4lbs. I was ok with that number. I owned it, and I had a plan!! I had researched the Simply Filling program. I had played with the tracker a little. I had looked up some recipes. I had contacted the chat people a few time with questions... and realized that not many of them knew much more about the program than I did. 

I sat at the meeting and I was going over my shopping list in my head. Immediately following the meeting, Chef Hubby and I headed to Stop n Shop and grabbed the necessities. Lots of chicken (9lbs actually... lmao!!), fruits, veggies, shrimp, Dannon Light & Fit Greek NonFat greek yogurts, in the flavors that were allowed, Cheerios because it was the only cereal I could have that fit the less than 1g sugar and more than 3g protein, lots and lots of eggs and skim milk. 

When I got home I prepped my shrimp, hard boiled 24 eggs, split, pounded and grilled ALL of the chicken (well, I did an asian marinated for 2.5lbs, for a cookout and then grilled that), and made an amazing Pineapple Salsa that I created, and started my crock pot steel cut oats. 

Pineapple Salsa 

1/2 fresh pineapple finely diced

1 small jalapeño de-seeded and finely diced

1 sweet bell pepper finely chopped

2 roma tomatoes de-seeded and finely chopped

juice from 2 limes 

1-2tsp kosher salt

Toss together and let sit at least 30mins.

Crock Pot Steel Cut Oats 

1.5 cups steel cut oats

2-3 cups fruit (strawberries, blueberries, apples... whatever)

3 cups water

1/2 tsp cinnamon (I used apple pie spice)

2 tbsp splenda (optional)

Throw it all in the crockpot and set at low for 8hrs. 

Here is the thing... if you put this recipe into the recipe builder, it isn't Simply Filling because the oats aren't cooked. BUT... oats are SF if they are soaked and "bulk up". This cooks for 8 hrs. This stuff is filling. Trust me!! When I made it for Freestyle it was 4sp for 1/6 of the entire thing. You do NOT need to eat more than that to fill you up. I will say, I like to eat it heated with a dollop of yogurt on it though. It tastes like a dessert.

Here is when I have to say, follow what works for you. I understand them not wanting you to bake with the oats and call it SF. Cookies would be a trigger food and you would be setting yourself up for a binge. So try to remember that this is still a weight loss technique. If it seems too good to be true, it probably is.

Some other options I had for breakfast was a serving of Cheerios with skim milk, some fruit, 2 hard boiled eggs and a coffee, or 3 eggs scrambled with salt, pepper, dill, and fat free cheddar cheese with Dannon L&F greek yogurt and fruit with coffee. By the middle of the week, I even decided to try the Silk Soy Light milk... it wasn't bad. Actually, it has the mouth feel of milk, but the taste is a little different. It was the first glass of "milk" I've had in years!

Lunches consisted of shrimp or chicken with my pineapple salsa and some quinoa or brown rice. I like the texture of the Uncle Ben's boil in a bag brown rice, but when I make it on my own it always comes out soggy. YUCK.

Dinner was various forms of chicken and shrimp. Tuesday was Taco Tuesday and that meant I was in search of a reduced fat corn tortilla. Funny thing... couldn't find anything labelled reduced fat corn tortilla. So, after searching the entire section and comparing the numbers to what was listed as a reduced fat tortilla, I found one that beat the stats! I have no idea if this is what they meant but after looking around on SP groups and on Connect, I found I wasn't the only one using this brand. So, my tacos were fat free refried beans, black beans, chicken with taco seasoning, brown rice, salsa verde, fat free cheddar cheese and fat free sour cream on corn tortillas. I had 2 and I was FULL!!

Another one of my favorite dinners is Curried Chicken and Chickpeas. This was over quinoa and is once again filling. I always started with about a serving of the food and then if I needed more, I'd take a little extra. Typically, I didn't need more and actually found that because I wasn't eating as much sugar, I wasn't snacking throughout the day either. 

I went to Panera Breads yesterday with some friends. I will be honest, I was a little anxious, but they had a Strawberry Poppyseed with Chicken Salad. According to the tracker, the salad is 5sp, and of that, the dressing is 2sp. Since it is topped with Pecans, I asked for no pecans and figure it's a Simply Filling option... and that's WITH the dressing!! The dressing was a fat free poppyseed dressing. The salad was amazing and all kinds of people were walking by checking it out. It was loaded with strawberries, blueberries, mandarin oranges, and pineapple chunks. It hit the spot and was guilt-free.

It wasn't until 2 days ago that I realized ANY lean, trimmed protein is on plan! Woohoo... So I bought lean pork loin and will be grabbing petite sirloin steaks for tomorrow. I'm also working on making a completely guilt-free lasagna as I type. This plan is not feeling as restrictive as I thought. Actually, I was even able to have a drink twice this week AND grabbed a GF kiddie cone at Acushnet Creamery. I still have 6 weeklies left. Doing the happy dance.

I'm not sure, but I hope that it takes some of the fear out of this program. I needed a change and wasn't really sure what else to do. If you are in the same boat, do some research of your own and see if you might like it. Otherwise, remember... maintaining is fine. Struggling is normal. As long as we don't give up, we are still winning!!!