Thanks lapka! I have two daughters (9 & 6). The younger one is more interested than the older at the helping in the kitchen. Good idea to try to get them involved. How do the veggies come out in this? My concern with the steam is "mushy" veggies, which the kids (and gf) don't like.

OP,

I have twin 4.5 year olds, and they love "helping" in the kitchen, probably because they don't hate me yet.

Regarding vegetables, steaming with your protein is fine, but if you have a steamer basket, doing them separately allows for a bit more control. Most veggies (zucchini, broccoli, and the like) take ~ 5 minutes or so. Just set a timer and keep an eye on it, and pull it from the basket when the timer goes off (it'll keep cooking if you leave it in the pan, even if you take it off the heat).

You can also roast stuff in the oven (~400-425 with a bit of olive oil, salt, and pepper is essentially the nuts for almost anything).

Thanks, M. Approximate roasting time?

Depends on the veggie. 15 minutes is fine for something like (thinnish) asparagus; brussel sprouts, broccoli, and cauliflower need longer depending on how big you cut them (25 to 30 minutes is a reasonable starting point). Just check it earlier than you think you need to, stir it around and see how it looks/taste a piece. You don't need a ton of olive oil, either; I have found a teaspoon or so is more than enough for a pound of asparagus, for example.

You can also slice squash lengthwise, brush with olive oil, salt, and pepper, and grill it (since you mentioned you're comfortable grilling).

Mont,

You have twin 4 year olds, COME ON MAN.

Fair, but they correct me so often and refer to themselves as 4.5 enough that it's stuck.

Other than that, I have no excuse.

Bonus dad points if you keep this up until they're 5.5.

2/14 food log (had to snag dinner out because I had a girl scout cookie booth with the littles):



On the road today through Friday, gotta try to keep it on the rails.

If they don't like mushy, then I would say tomatoes and aubergins are completely out of question here. With everything else cabbage takes the longest: at least 30 min, then carrots and potatoes, then broccoly, then zucchiny...

I do rather seldom cook precicely like receipe. And the key is to try in the process after about 10 min.

I don't know how your daughters think about soup. I loved it as a child, but only when made everything from scratch, including broth. It is a lot longer procedure. You won't make it as everyday dinner. But the advantage is that if you do it, than you can make a huge pot for few days and also freeze some for later, so that you don't have the same dinner for to many days in a row. And it is definitely a perfect healthy meal.

Thanks lapka!

2/15 log. First day over target since 2/4, but going 30 calories over when I'm on the road, I'm not going to beat myself up over. Had a fantastic meal out, orange glazed cedar plank salmon on yukon gold mashed with wilted spinach. Tremendous. Could have skipped the corn muffin, but they were homemade jalapeno corn muffins and were delicious. Would have had 3 if not watching calories. Drinks were bluegrass mules, Jack Daniels Honey, lime and ginger beer. Also delicious, and hey, the tab was being picked up. I regret nothing!

Not a fun day yesterday. Someone hacked my Amazon account and ordered some things, so I had to deal with that. My GF is selling some furniture on CL, and I worked up a meeting for someone who wanted to look at it, which necessitated me having my brother go over to meet as well so she isn't alone with CL rando, and the person flakes, and my ex-boss who wrecked my career due to his ego showed up randomly at my work location.

Had planned to do the gym, but ended up bailing with a couple good friends to get out of here for dinner, which then took 3 hours, due to another series of ridiculous events.

The good: I skipped breakfast, and resisted a strong urge to have about 8 drinks in the evening.

The bad: I wanted to try to be good at lunch, but only options we had were lasagna, the squash/zucchini/mushroom veggies, breadsticks and caesar salad. I of course could have skipped the tiramisu, but it was a tiny piece (about a 1.5" cube), and it was really good. Dinner was grilled chicken with artichoke hearts and mushrooms in a champagne cream sauce with a small side of linguine. It was quite good.

Overall, this road trip was a B IMO. Much better than my normal road trips, but lots of room for improvement.

2/16 log:

What is your career? How did your ex-boss wreck it?

Not bad. Tiramisu is +EV imo.

I don't wanna get into all of the mess here, but basically he cost me a promotion and made my life hell out of personal butt hurt.

I'm sorry black, I feel your pain. Did you change companies?

I did not. I am in a very specialized field and the group I work for is really the only one that needs my expertise. The huge majority of the people in my field agree that I am the number one expert l in this specific field but I have nowhere to move up and be recognized or rewarded for that expertise.

He also deliberately moved the office before he left to make it a more difficult commute for me and it is brutal and borderline unlivable. He made up lies about me, created a personal time policy for just me, and took away my title without justification one week after I moved out of my house away from my wife and kids.

There is a lot more also. It just is made much worse by the fact that I don't have anywhere else to go.

Would be interested in cliffs on this.

I'll put some together.

2/17 log: Had to do fast food on the road, but feel not bad with my choices given the option. Slider way less calories as the side than fries would be.



2/18 log: Pretty good other than the strawberries, which were a homemade gift from my brother's ex-gf to me and my gf and kiddos.

2/19 log:

long day moving my girlfriend in, but kept it pretty on track. 1924 average calories for a week that includes 3 days on the road and a move-in weekend.

Week before, 1746 avg, first week 1882 avg.

Headed to Vegas Thursday-Tuesday, so will be trying to keep it together there and not go tooooo far off the rails.

2/20 log: Had the day off, took gf and kids to see the Lego Batman Movie at a theater that serves food and drink. Big lunch, but prepped by only having a banana and coffee for breakfast, and kept it under the daily goal again.



Doing the gym tomorrow, had to take kids to school and pick them up today and had a lunch appointment, makes it basically impossible.

2/21: Another day with good and bad. I had a law school buddy take me to lunch for sending him a referral and we did BBQ. Did skip all sides (and this place has a great homemade mac n cheese) and have been skipping bread with BBQ for years. No regrets on that. Slightly disappointed that I couldn't pass up the mini-bundt cake, but hey, free cake!

Am very happy though that I knew BBQ lunch was coming, so I accounted for that with breakfast and dinner and still came in under my calorie target.

Have another lunch out today, but steered it to a new salad/sandwich place so I can end my streak of >1k cal lunches at 2. http://www.vinaigretteonline.com/austin_menu

Gym after work today, hoping to get gf to go with. Then Vegas tomorrow....

How is your weight looking?

194.8 this morning.

Wow, almost 10lbs! That's great. I think I'm going to lose all bets this month, but I'm gaining some great tone and steadily losing inches.

The largest part of my job entails putting on continuing legal education seminars. This one was about 45 minutes from where he lives. I came out from my class and he was sitting chit-chatting at our registration table with some of our faculty. I hadn't seen him since his retirement a year ago. I was debating whether to give him the intentional cold shoulder or put on a fake front, but I got a legal question hijack and they kept me busy for 20 minutes, and the group at the reg table eventually went to the restaurant/bar. I was able to just walk past their table at the restaurant/bar since he had his back to the direction I was coming from, so never made eye contact or said a word.