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tawouk · 7 years

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When I am keeping to my established diet, here are the main food options I usually go for which I have found to be quite easy/doable in terms of maintaining a no sugar, no/low carb diet, which was daunting at first:

- Chicken salad: in the form of tawouk fattouch which is a common offering at Arab restaurants, and the one by my workplace has it on lunch special and the portion is huge, so for about $8 it’s a massive carton of fattouch (a Levantine salad) and a big piece of grilled chicken breast on the side. Fattouch normally comes with fried pita chips on top but I ask for it without. The amount of food is easily enough for two meals so I’ll have half for lunch and half for dinner, or leave half for the next day’s lunch and have something else for dinner. I get this quite a lot. Generally chicken and salad are big staples, whatever form that may take... most restaurants usually have a grilled boneless chicken item on the menu so that’s a great option, just get it with salad instead of fries. My “cheat” version of this is a buffalo chicken caesar salad which one restaurant around here does exceptionally well and also in a huge portion that I can cut into two meals, so I’ll “treat” myself with that every now and then; the buffalo chicken is breaded so it’s somewhat carby but I will get it without croutons, and not have any other carbs that day.

- Chili: I love this because it’s a hearty, filling, yummy food I really enjoy, without high fat or carbs, especially if it’s not too heavy on beans (which are carby but like, not the same as eating bread or rice or pasta, and are a good protein source). I make a big pot of it at home sometimes but also sometimes pick up a cup for a few bucks at a halal restaurant that’s between my home and workplace and theirs almost feels like a veggie chili, it’s not heavy on meat at all even though it’s labeled as a pastrami chili. It’s nice to have that because my own chili recipe is quite basic as I don’t have the patience to put a million vegetables in it; it’s just beans, beef, tomato, chilis, spices (no onions bc I hate onions but I’ll use onion powder).

- Chipotle burrito bowl: the greatest thing!! It’s convenient too because there’s a Chipotle near my house so it’s easy to swing by. I don’t eat meat from there bc it’s not halal but it’s fine because the (tofu) sofritas is soooo good; whatever your protein is though the burrito bowls are an awesome way to have your protein + veggies and other burrito fillings without a carby tortilla (I don’t get any rice or corn on it either).

- Spinach salad: that I make at home, it’s tons of fresh baby spinach, diced tomato, sliced cucumber, diced avocado, lemon juice and salt. Normally I’d add olive oil to a salad but the avocado is already fatty and dresses the salad to an extent that I don’t miss the olive oil there. Sometimes I’ll add feta and occasionally pecans, which I love but they’re expensive lol.

- Chicken: that I make at home, with boneless skinless thighs, chopped up carrots, a ton of peeled sliced garlic, maybe sometimes a little bit of chopped potato, and a Moroccan-influenced spice combination; it’s my mom’s recipe and she adds diced onions and peppers too but I hate onions and peppers. I love the flavor that this certain spice combo gives and this is really easy and quick to make.

- Steak: the halal supermarket by my workplace sells these packs of 6 long thin steaks for like $4, which is a great bargain for me even if they are really not real steaks at all but just these long thin pieces of meat - I’ll buy a pack and split it into 3 portions of 2 pieces each and freeze them for quick meals. They’re so thin that I just season them and fry them in a touch of olive oil for 1 minute on each side on high heat, and then have that with some salad or guac (that I make) or carrots that I slice and grill in a bit of olive oil and spices under the oven broiler.

- Stew: sometimes I’ll make Arab stews at home, namely a lima bean/tomato sauce/garlic/cilantro/ground beef stew or green bean/tomato sauce/garlic/ ground beef stew or carrot/pea/garlic/tomato sauce/ground beef stew, and make brown rice along with it and have it with just a bit of the rice or no rice at all. The pea/carrot one eats especially well with no rice, kind of like a soup. We really love making lamb karahi (Indian style curry) as well but not so often, as it has a high oil content (even though we cut that down from the original recipe), takes a while to make and it’s the one thing we exceptionally make with white basmati rice instead of brown, because you really need to enjoy that dish properly (and frankly it’s spicy enough that you really need the rice to balance it out).

- Ablama: a variation on the traditional Arab stuffed zucchini, this is basically zucchini stuffed with a filling of ground beef/pine nuts/spices and cooked in a tomato sauce or yogurt sauce, served with rice; however I skip the stuffing part and just slice the zucchini in half, grill it then top it with the filling, add the tomato sauce (I don’t like it in yogurt) and bake; so simple. I’ll have it with just a little bit of brown rice.

- Pasta: I make a quick and easy sauce which is basically a pasta sauce jar + cans of diced tomato and tomato sauce + ground beef + garlic + herbs/spices + diced sundried tomatoes if we have some in the house. No dairy or oil or butter at all, not even to fry the meat. Generally whether it’s for pasta or stew or chili or whatever we buy lean ground beef without much fat in it; you can still easily fry it in a nonstick pan without any oil. Wholegrain pasta with it - which I do not mind at all; it was very easy for me to get used to over white pasta, moreso than brown rice over white rice. Sometimes I’ll forego the pasta altogether and just have that sauce like a soup, maybe with some cheese on top, so kind of like an Italian chili.

- Kibbe: the love of my life, is an Arab dish which is basically a meat filling in a meat/cracked wheat shell; so it’s kind of carby but I’ll have it in moderation and it will be the only carbs of the day. It comes in different forms but commonly in egg-sized “footballs” which the deli at the Arab supermarket by my workplace sells at like 80 cents apiece so I’ll grab a few of them and some salad from there for dinner sometimes.

- Soup: so many non-carby soups you can go for! the restaurant by my workplace has the BEST lentil soup and a great chicken vegetable soup as well. The latter is a great healthy option to go for while the former is a bit carby what with the lentils, but I just love it so much. It’s enough all on its own as a light lunch for me. I love tomato soup as well so my “cheat” thing will be a bowl of that from Panera; it’s sooo good but more fatty bc of the cream and probably has a considerable sugar content too.

- If I do have bread: we only buy wholegrain bread, occasionally I’ll have a toasted piece of that with avocado spread (avocado/lemon/salt/pepper/crushed garlic) or peanut butter, which is the most amazing (non-carb/no sugar/good fat!) creation. Having it on celery instead of bread is also a great no-carb snack to go for. I avoid jams/jellies completely because of the sugar.

- Eggs: My kind of “cheat” thing that I occasionally make is poached egg + sliced avocado + sliced tomato fried in olive oil, all piled on a piece of toast. Not the most unhealthy combo ever but I consider it a cheat thing because it is a relatively high fat content, especially with the fried tomato (which I lovvvve). This is also a much healthier version of the way I used to make it years ago, where the egg and bread were also fried...... frankly terrible. Eggs in general are so great though and you can easily forego any kind of bread and have a great omelet with healthy ingredients, even throw some cheese in there, the fat content is fine as long as you’re avoiding carbs. Or poach the egg if you want to avoid frying and have it with fresh sliced avocado and tomato or whatever else you like.

- Fish: don’t eat as much of this as I should, but baked salmon or a shrimp stir-fry with veggies are a good way to go; tuna is also a quick fix I sometimes go for, without drowning it in mayo.

- Coffee: a bit of a struggle, because I lovvvve coffee and need it to be somewhat sweet, not overly but I can’t drink black/bitter coffee at all. What’s nice is that there is a regional Michigan coffee chain called Biggby that has sugar free flavoring options (so you could get a coffee with sugar free vanilla instead of sugar, or a sugar free mocha) and that’s what I opt for; a café au lait is a good option because being half coffee half milk it’s not so bitter. However the struggle for me, even with sugar free options available, is wanting coffee in the morning but resisting it to stick to my intermittent fast till noon. My night owl lifestyle has always worked out fine even if I have to be up early as long as I have coffee; sticking to the fast has made me actually need to start sleeping earlier lol. Which I guess is healthier anyway...

- Chocolate: No sugar and avoiding desserts is hard, even while I don’t have the hugest sweet tooth in general, sometimes it can be hard to resist. I do sometimes of course cheat, but try to keep it balanced. When I’m not cheating, for a leetle bit of indulgence, I have always loved dark chocolate anyway so a bit of that doesn’t hurt while I’m not having any other significant sources of sugar. Not all dark chocolate is created equal though, so I studied all the kinds at Target to find the one with the lowest sugar content without being too bitter. The winner is Ghirardelli Intense Dark 86% Midnight Reverie, a 90g bar of 8 large squares with 10g of sugar to the bar = 1.25g of sugar per square. That’s my go-to now and I usually have one square a night.

- Other snacks: peanuts!!! A great no sugar/no carb snack and I really love peanuts; it’s easy to go overboard on them so I bought like a box of the small individually packaged ones, the kind of thing you’d put in a kid’s school lunch, and that’s in my office desk drawer so I’ll have a pack as a snack occasionally. The small packs ensure sticking to a controlled portion, vs having a can of peanuts that you just dive into. Chips or cheez-its (which I adore) are not the worst thing on earth either in moderation, like those small 50 cent bags; there’s no sugar and a small serving isn’t the hugest carb intake so that’s something to occasionally indulge on. Plain tortilla chips with salsa also is better than like doritos or whatever - portion control is just the key.

#diet #diet blog #no sugar #no carb #low carb #I feel like I'm gonna hit post on this then recall a bunch of stuff I want to add but a n y w a y !

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