Ten foods to lose weight by

One of the things that's helped me lose almost thirty pounds (and counting!) since starting my diet back at the beginning of January is having a small arsenal of "go-to" foods that I can eat when the urge to snack strikes. Some of them are what Weight Watchers would refer to as Zero Point foods - i.e., foods that don't count against my daily allowance of points for meals - but others are simply items that are low in fat or carbohydrates. Since I love food and would inevitably self-sabotage any attempt to stick to a diet based on austerity just on basic principle, it's important that whatever foods I do resort to as an alternative to, say, a box of Cheez-Its are sufficiently delicious in their own right.

After about two months of successful dieting, these are my Top 10 alternative snacks, in no particular order:

1. Giardineira. I'm a big fan of pickled anything, so when I'm hungry one of my favorite things to eat even when I'm not trying to lose weight is a nice helping of pickled garden vegetables. There's a Lebanese company called Chtaura that makes giardineira with baby eggplant and turnips as well as the standard accompaniment of cauliflower, carrots, and other veggies - whenever I see their stuff at the local supermarket, I snap it up.

1a. (Regular) Pickles. See #1. Sometimes a nice big crunchy kosher dill is just what the doctor ordered.

2. Pop Chips. These potato puff things are surprisingly low in all of the bad stuff, and the serving size is actually large enough that it doesn't feel like a cruel joke to eat them (unlike other salty snacks). Also, these just happen to go splendidly with...

3. Trader Joe's Red Pepper Spread. I love this stuff like crack. 'Nuff said!

4. Hummus. Any store-bought kind will do, although I will also make my own when I feel like breaking out the food processor. Instead of pita bread or chips, I like to dip them in...

5. Raw carrots. Not "baby carrots," mind you, but the real deal. I don't even peel them, for the full Bugs Bunny experience.

6. Raw celery. This is the salty yang to the sweet carrot's yin. Also good with hummus.

7. Sugar Snap Peas. A bowl of fresh sugar snap peas, raw and with a light sprinkling of salt is the perfect snack. Raw green beans are an acceptable substitute as well.

8. Clementines. Why are these things not in season all year round? By far these are my favorite "snack" fruit, and are the perfect 3pm pick-me-up at the office.

9. Cabot 75% Reduced Fat Cheddar. I've said it here before, and I'll say it again - I am very particular about my cheeses, especially cheddar, but somehow the Cabot Creamery managed to make a low-fat cheese which does not suck, which means I can have a reasonable amount of it and not feel I've train-wrecked my diet.

10. Hormel Turkey Pepperoni. Okay, despite all the rabbit food above I still do occasionally consume meat from time to time, and with a service size of 17 slices this stuff goes a long way at snacktime.

Honorary Mention: Smartfood, a.k.a. The Only Thing In The Library Vending Machine I Can Still Eat With A Clear Conscience.

So there you have it. This list definitely beats unflavored rice cakes, that's for sure!

The Incredible Shrinking Man (and other tales)

Though my Make It Happen 2012 blog posts have been a little fewer and further between, rest assured that I am holding the course:

1. As of this morning I have lost 28.8 pounds since starting with Weight Watchers Online at the beginning of January, which means I've officially reached my 10% milestone! At this point I only have 46 pounds to go in order to reach my goal of 199 pounds- I'm more than 1/3 of the way there now...

2. I've gotten serious about the business end of my writing, with the result that every weekend I have either posted a new story online for sale or offered a promotion for an existing work.

Right now I have my novel Confessions of a Gourmand, or How to Cook Dragon, my Red Sox horror novella Bambino, and my sci-fi librarian short story Bibliophile all available for sale, with a couple of new offerings waiting in the wings.

3. Speaking of promotions, Bibliophile is a free download on Smashwords from now until February 21st- just use coupon code WC33L during checkout!

4. Also, I've decided to relaunch the Confessions of a Gourmand blog and post new updates as Van d'Allamitri travels the world and tries to sell his novel (and I attempt to do the same in the real world). I'm hoping to include not just additional fantasy food dispatches but also have Van solicit and answer reader questions about his own life as well as life in the Three Continents.

5. The Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award contest announces its Round Two authors this Thursday (February 23rd). I'm eager to see if my fantasy novel The Librarian's Tale made it to the second round!

So that's it for now- more random bullet points of awesomeness soon, I promise.

20 pounds!

'Nuff said.

Make It Happen: Day 22

As of this morning, I've managed to lose 18.3 pounds since starting my diet earlier this month. This was Week Three using Weight Watchers, and I have to say that my appetite has decreased significantly compared to the first two weeks of dieting. I mentioned this before, but it's almost disconcerting not to be hungry all the time, or to finish a meal and (amazingly enough) feel full, so much so that I was convinced that I was not going to have lot any weight this week when I got on the Wii Balance Board. But lo and behold, the plan appears to be working. I'm looking forward to crossing the 20-pound mark, and perhaps reaching my 10% goal of 27 pounds in the next couple of weeks. As impatient as I am to lose all this weight, I'm mindful of the fact that the goal is not just to shed the pounds but actually keep them off this time.

Slowly but surely, I'll get there...

Make It Happen 2012: Day 11

Thoughts on losing weight:

1. I seem to lose weight in my feet first- who knew I had so much foot fat?

2. 10 days on my diet and I haven't had so much as a spark of heartburn.

3. Losing even a token amount of weight (at this point 10+ pounds) means my sleep apnea problems go away as well.

4. Shit, I'm going to need smaller pants... ASAP!

5. I know that the point of a successful diet is not to feel hungry all the time, but whenever I do manage to feel sated on my daily allotment of points bestowed unto me by the Weight Watchers Gods, I immediately become worried that I'm doing it wrong and I won't have lost any weight by the next weekly weigh-in. Does anyone else experience this when dieting as well?

6. The Cabot Creamery seems to have entered into some kind of pact with the Devil to make their 75% Reduced Fat Cheddar taste like real cheese. You guys are a lifesaver!

7. If I can get my weight under 250 pounds, I'm so doing this.