But What Do You Eat?

That's the thing people ask me most. They ask how we're losing the weight. If they seem interested in my answer, I ask them if they want a copy of the Mediterranean Food Pyramid. And the next question is almost always ...

"But what do you eat?"

So here's what I eat.

Weekday Breakfast: 110 calorie whole wheat Bagel Thin with reduced fat Skippy peanut butter and a can of Cherry Coke Zero.

Weekday Lunch: 1-2 cups raw veggies with a tablespoon or so of ranch dressing, two harboiled eggs (white only) and a cup of skim milk.

Weekday Dinner: Varies quite a bit. Sometimes chicken and veg sauteed in olive oil. Sometimes fake crab in a salad. In the beginning it was a LOT of taco salads made with chicken or ground turkey.

Snacks: Raw veg and dip made with light sour cream and Hidden Valley Ranch "Fiesta" variety, baked Scoops with salsa (read labels; watch salt content if you buy a jar), grapes (OMG, we ate hundreds of pounds of red seedless grapes this summer) or fruit.

On weekends, it's not quite so regimented. The biggest difference early on was that we simply went out to eat so much less. We ate out once a week, twice at the most. Once for dinner and once for breakfast, perhaps.

And we shared a meal or took half of whatever we ordered home. Plus, you can look up the nutrition information for most "chain" restaurants online so you can PLAN BEFORE YOU GET THERE!

Restaurants with healthy options:

• Applebee's 500 calorie meals and Weight Watchers meals
• Panera Bread shows calorie counts on the posted menus!
• IHOP offers fake eggs, turkey bacon and the menu includes a nice selection of healthy choices, with calorie counts identified.
• Subway. Duh.
• Taco Bell's "Fresco" choices can be OK in a pinch.
• Fudrucker's has a turkey burger and a salmon burger ... beware of condiments and white bread.
• Mexican restaurants often have a fajita-esque thing on the menu ... Jim and I split one order and skip the guac, cheese and sour cream.