Category Archives: grilled chicken club salad

Day 8: Finally, a perfect day

And by perfect day, I mean I stayed on plan all day.

We were going to go to the diner, but we were running late, so I opted to throw together a quick omelet and microwaved bacon.

My lunch was a luxury: Rick made me some chicken kabobs (minus skewers) for me to take during the week. He is the most supportive husband a woman could ask for, especially since he actually likes bbw’s (big beautiful women). He knows I want to lose weight, and he does all he can to support me, even going out of his way to think up the plan to make chicken/veggies for my weekday lunch.

So, I reheated the chicken, didn’t have a tortilla as I had planned (too stale), and that was that for lunch.

Snack was almonds.

Dinner was at Albert’s for trivia night. I had the chicken club salad (grilled chicken), and Jim gave me one of his french fries.

Dessert was at home later: an Adkins bar.

Whew. It felt good to be back on track.

Day 321: Monday trivia and a cheat cupcake

Total weight loss: 39 1/2 pounds

We started our week at the diner. We’ve pledged to only go 2 times a week, and I think Monday morning is the perfect day to start.

I had the omelet and bacon.

For lunch, I heated 2 beddar cheddars at work. In the late afternoon, I ate some almonds.

Dinner was at Albert’s for trivia. I have to say, their chicken club salad is one of the best salads in town. In fact, my trivia team and I agree that ALL their food is really really good. The salad is chock full of ingredients: arugula, cheese, cucumbers, lettuce, tomatoes, really good “real” bacon bits hot off the grill, and of course, the grilled chicken. I gave away my tomatoes and cukes and it still took me about 45 minutes to eat the salad. I’ll take a picture of it next week.

I drink about 4 glasses of water while I’m at trivia. For one thing, although the food is delicious and well cooked, the pop leaves something to be desires. Flat and tasteless. So, since I’m always trying to drink plenty of water, I opt for that in most restaurants in the evening, especially if I start the day at a diner and have pop for breakfast. I really am trying to cut down, even if I only drink diet cola. I just know it isn’t healthy, even tho low carb.

There were 2 birthdays being celebrated last night. I was offered 2 cupcakes, and I caved on the second offer. I ate it. It’s over. ‘Nuff said.

Day 306: 8 hours at a restaurant and stayed on track

Total weight loss: 41 pounds (yes, I gained a 1/2 pound back!)

It’s difficult to believe but I spent more than 7 hours at a restaurant yesterday. It was the day of my league’s trivial finals, which took place at a restaurant/bar called Sneaky’s and lasted a full day.

I skipped breakfast, because I was running around in the morning, trying to get the house cleaned. I like to start off the weekend with a clean house, since there isn’t much time to clean during the week.

My friend/trivia partner Jo and I both ordered grilled chicken salads when we arrived at the league bar at 11. My salad was HUGE and kept me full until about 5 pm. At that point, we were in the midst of WINNING the league finals, so I didn’t want to distract myself by ordering more food. Unfortunately, we came in second, but the four of us won the 2nd place award of $700! I’m having a red-letter week!

I was hungry after the game, but I wanted to relax and chill on the deck (literally, since this is Michigan in November). I had a vodka and diet drink (Sparkling ICE Black Raspberry – which is quite tasty mixed with vodka). When we went in the house around 9ish, I heated up 2 bowls of taco soup. That was convenient! I’ll definitely be making some every weekend to have on hand as a quick and filling low carb meal.

I’ve learned that keeping delicious quick meals and leftovers on hand is really important for a lazy, non-cooking Ketokate!

Day 303: Home-made chicken salad

Total weight loss: 41 1/2 pounds

We went to the diner for breakfast, again. I had the usual grilled onion and cheese omelet with bacon.

For lunch at work, I went back to an old stand by. I love Mexican food, and I concocted a simple yummy and quick lunch. Two low carb tortillas (3g each), a handful of shredded cheese in each. This time, I also added 3 dollops of cream cheese, just for the heck of it. I microwaved them (open) for about 1 minute and a half, then added a few sliced jalapeno peppers to each and ate with a sour cream garnish. For some reason, I don’t like the peppers as well when cooked inside the tortilla, so I add them last. Quick, a bit spicy, and low carb. Yum.

I worked late and I was famished, but I didn’t feel like cooking. We passed fast food places and restaurants on the way home, but nothing appealed to me. I really didn’t want a sit-down restaurant meal, but I didn’t want a processed fast food meal, either. As we passed Big Boy, I was tempted to order a buffalo chicken salad to go, then realized that I had all the ingredients at home, and the only cooking required was the chicken tenders. I decided to give it a go.

I thawed a few chicken tenders in hot water, then sauteed them in oil until cooked, then sliced it into smaller pieces. I had one of those big plastic bowls of mixed greens that Costco sells, so I tossed some of that into a bowl, topped with chopped onions and chicken, drizzled buffalo hot sauce on top, then ate the salad with a side of blue cheese dressing. Oh, and I had no crumbled blue cheese, so I used feta instead. It was as delicious – or more – than the restaurant version!


It seems to get easier and easier to come up with quick keto-friendly dishes. I guess when you do something for nearly a year (!), you learn lots of tricks. There is no need to pay $8 or more for the carryout version when this recipe is so easy.

Day 294: Perfect keto day

Total weight loss: 41 1/2 pounds

Monday morning and I started out with an egg/sausage/cheese breakfast bowl lovingly made by my hubby.

Lunch was leftover keto-friendly lasagna.

After work, we went over to the sold house – again – to do ONE MORE load of last minute “junk” from the garage. Rick swept the garage floor, and he just needs to go back tomorrow morning to get about 4 boxes and some leaf bags (filled with leaves). I’ll be soooo sooo glad when we finally close on this house.

 

Dinner was at Albert’s on the Alley, since it’s trivia night. I didn’t get the delicious french fries. sigh. I didn’t eat any of Jo’s pizza. I did get the healthy keto-friendly grilled chicken salad with blue cheese dressing. The salad was just packed with yummy layers of ingredients. It took me more than 1/2 hour to eat it and it hit the spot. I ate one steak fry, courtesy of my trivia pal and coworker, Jim.

Before bed, I read a little and had two 72% chocolate pieces. Daylight saving time plus lots of activity has made us both pretty tired. I’m usually up until 1 am, but last night, we both hit the hay at 9! I was starting to get hungry again, so I think I dodged a bullet by just going to bed.

Day 287: Monday – back to the old grind and trivia night

Total weight loss: 41 pounds

Well, we did it again. We went to the diner for breakfast. It was another nice relaxing outing before starting the workweek, but we do have to stop. It’s a bit extravagant on our budget.

Breakfast – cheese/onion omelet and 4 pieces of bacon

Lunch – once again, breakfast kept me full well into the afternoon. I was sure to drink lots of water, and I had an almond snack around 2.

I left work by 3:30 in order to get more done on the move before trivia started at 6. We unloaded some of Brandon’s things from the truck, but after that, neither of us felt like going over to the house. Instead, I made a list of grocery items for Rick to pick up and I worked on my computer backups and server issues while he grocery shopped.

I’m trying to plan ahead and make some interesting keto recipes. I want to bring back the sense of excitement that I had when I first started the plan. I saw one idea for making a fake lasagna using spaghetti squash. The recipe called for marinara sauce and it was a little steep in the carb grams for keto. Rick checked out tomato sauces and diced tomatoes. He found diced that were net carb zero! and sauce that had 4g of net carbs (1/4 cup, I believe). The plan is for Rick to make a marinara sauce during the day, and I’ll make the squash and layer up some lasagna after work. Fingers crossed that this turns into something edible!

Back to the journal. For lunch, I brought leftover steak and cauliflower mashed. Ended up that I had about 4 bites of each left in the bowl, so I didn’t eat much. I drank another 2 glasses of water.

I didn’t eat again until trivia at Albert’s, where I ordered my traditional grilled chicken club salad with blue cheese. I haven’t been to trivia for a couple of weeks, and I sure missed this salad. My coworker and trivia team member, Jim, ordered a basket of steak fries. Sigh. I LOVE Albert’s steak fries. I decided to ignore the basket and eat my salad, then see if I was still tempted after eating. By the time I finished, his basket was empty. WHEW!

However, there was also a bucket of Halloween candy on the table. At the very end of the game, temptation overcame me and I ate 2 mini peanut butter cups. I’ll sadly check out the carb count now. . . . .

11 grams

Well, I may not have been knocked out of keto (if I’m even back in, after eating the churros on Sunday). I’ll have to use a keto strip later to find out where I stand.

That was it for the day. Oh wait. I lied. I ate an Adkins coconut bar while watching The Good Wife.

I do have to comment on something I’ve noticed this week: my pants are getting baggy! (and I only recently achieved going down to this size). And my rings are loose. How annoying, NOT!  KETO IS GREAT!

Day 161: Totally on track and some disappointing no carb bread

Total weight loss: 25 1/2 pounds

Monday morning started out with low carb yogurt. For lunch I made a bacon, spinach, and tomato on  zero carb bread. The bread is really disappointing. I think I liked it just as well in a bowl last week.

I ate some almonds for a snack, since I knew I wouldn’t be eating dinner til around 7:30 at trivia.

At Albert’s, I ate the grilled chicken club salad with blue cheese. The dinner was delicious. The trivia score was not so great.

For dessert, I had a zero carb cookie. I’ll probably order these again, because they’re a nice conservative treat. I probably should investigate the ingredients, because who knows what I’m eating that makes them taste okay at zero carbs.

Day 147: Back in the blogging habit

Total weight loss: 29 1/2

Yesterday was Monday. I started my workday with a banana creme low-carb yogurt. I just didn’t feel like staying and working through my lunch (which I had planned to do), so Rick picked me up and we had coneys (no bun) at the local diner. I ate 4 of his french fries. I know, I’m getting a bit frisky with this tiny carb exposure, but they satisfied the little craving I had.

Dinner was at Monday night trivia. I had the huge and delicious grilled chicken club salad with blue cheese dressing. I was really hungry and I ate the whole thing!

I ended the day with an evening snack of two squares of 70% cocoa bar topped with peanut butter.

Day 112: Trivia night salad

Total weight loss: 20 pounds.(I HATE writing that!)
Next weigh-in: Saturday, May 5th

Monday morning began with a yogurt. By lunch, it was just one of those Monday’s…I didn’t bring a lunch, I was working hard, and I just needed something substantial to eat. I chose the lovely Baconzilla from the Checker’s a block away.

You know you’re eating somewhere too much when the clerk knows exactly what you are about to order. Oh well. It’s close, it’s keto-friendly, and it’s delish.

I was hungry at dinner time (surprise!) and didn’t want to order a lot at trivia, so I ate 3 rolls of ham with cream cheese and onion inside. These are not your fancy pinwheels. These are just pieces of ham rolled up and stuck in my mouth. Well, I did cut them in half, so I had 6 rolled “sandwiches.”

At trivia, I ordered the huge chicken club salad with a carryout container, since I knew I was only hungry enough for half.

Dessert at home was 70% chocolate with peanut butter. I also had 2 parmesan cheese chips with dip, just to have a taste.

Day 100: Grilled chicken club salad

Total weight loss: 26.5 pounds. Next weigh-in: Saturday, April 21st

 Yesterday was day two of my back to work week. I didn’t feel much like breakfast, so I ate a low carb yogurt.
I had a late lunch of two Beddar Cheddar sausages.
After visiting my dad at the hospital, Rick and I went out for drinks on the patio at Albert’s on the Alley. I had their super-delicious and nutritious grilled chicken club salad with blue cheese dressing. I must say one of the perks of a low carb diet is being able to eat blue cheese dressing. Every other diet I’ve been on it was forbidden. By the way, I could only eat half the salad.
For dessert, Rick made chocolate mousse.