The ugly

When I picked it, it probably looked the most beautiful of all the photos, it wasn’t burned like mine so it had that beautiful half spaghetti squash and it was just all gorgeous. I was like “Yeah! That’s the one I want to make!”

So I go to the grocery store with my little list of ingredients printout. This one needed already-prepared pasta sauce. Now it can be hard to find a spaghetti sauce that doesn’t have added sugar. I lucked out and the first one I grabbed was a natural one and it had no added sugar.

But as I got down to the portion of meatballs and instead of ingredients, it said 1 lb prepared meatballs which is linked to a secondary recipe on her blog for the meatballs. So I got my phone and got the recipe. Keep in mind the recipe was advertised as being low carb and everything but the meatballs recipe I was linked to wasn’t low carb.

It has some grain in it. It called for gluten-free cereal. It stopped me in my tracks and thought what do I do? I have 2 choices, leave it out entirely or replace it. Myself, I decided I will just replace it versus leaving it out because I know ratio of ingredients make a difference to their final consistency.

If you were going to replace grain in a dish with a low carb alternative, what would you choose?

Let me guess….probably…almond flour, or coconut flour right?

So I chose to replace it with almond flour and it ended up higher in calories than it would’ve been because of this. Again, this is something I would not have realized would happen when I made this adjustment. And I would have gone on my merry way and maybe eaten 1.5 servings of this or something and gone overboard again.

Another ingredient this recipe called out for is Worcestershire sauce and I saw it had both molasses and sugar which is a no-no in Phase 3, so I was again at a crossroads with yet another decision to make, for literally just this one recipe and I was like, oh man, what do I do?? Once I actually figured it out, one serving will only have ¼ g of sugar worth of sauce in the recipe so I’m not going to worry about a quarter of a gram. However, once again, these frequent decision-makings are emotionally draining and exhausting.

I ran into those problems, I worked through them, I got home and I made the recipe. Then I did the macro breakdown for this one. This dish is 575 calories and 43 carbs.

As you can see, the carbs are actually pretty high for just 1 meal as well! On what was supposed to be a “low carb” meal. The serving size of spaghetti squash was too vague (1/2 a spaghetti squash- which would be VERY different in size) and it was just way too much of that ingredient.

So all that work, all those decisions to make which really threw me off emotionally and drained my energy, all to end up making a dish that wasn’t even that ideal for me to be eating in Phase 3.

Finally, I personally felt that there was too much spaghetti squash even from a taste perspective and not enough sauce.

This last dish is from the Phase 3 Meal Plan. The Spaghetti Squash & Lean Beef Meatballs

• 336 calories
• 29 carbs
• 22 net carbs
• 8g fat
• 36g protein

This dish without the cheese is 336 calories and 29 carbs, 22 net carbs. This has much lower calories and net carbs. Low carb diets are typically 50g-100g if you’re living in a low carb diet for a while. That’s the way we designed the meal plan so it’s totally reasonable. This is actually one of the few meals in the meal plan that is a slightly higher total carb meal than most of the dishes, and I compensated on those day’s meal plan by making sure the other dishes that days were comparatively lower carb so that the total for the day was still a “low carb day.”

One thing I’ve done with the meal plan is we don’t include cheese and nuts until Week 3 and at that point its small amount of them. The reason for this is because

by and large people find that they do much better in stabilizing on Phase 3 when they wait to introduce the cheese and nuts.

Whether it’s an intolerance to it or the fact that its calorie dense- you can eat a lot of nuts and cheese and it’s a lot of calories and even eating a small amount and you will still eat a considerable amount of calories, it’s just how it is and it’s SO easy to overconsume.

This dish is listed for Day 5 of the very first week of P3! And again you’ll have it without the cheese for that Phase 3. BUT, when you want to make this dish again because it’s really, really delicious, you can make this meal again and now you’re going to add ¼ cup mozzarella cheese, when you do that, now with the cheese the full dish is 405 calories and 1 extra carb. Even though the calories have now gone up a little bit 405 calories for a full meal is a completely reasonable amount and still far less than these 2 dishes here.

Notice the amount of found that’s in one serving!

I’m eatin’ dat.

It’s GENEROUS even though the carbs are less. It’s generous because of the ratio we designed this recipe to have. It’s got some fat, some carbs, and a good amount of protein.

That’s what I want to show you there. The whole Phase 3 meal plan is designed like this.

It’s specifically tailored to fit within a reasonable amount of carbs but not carb-free.

We’re not having grains or sugar but we are getting some carbs that are coming from lower-carb vegetables and whole fruits. For me, with all the low-carb diets I’ve done and the reading I’ve done, I think our brains have been just impregnated with this thought of everything needs to be as low carb as possible and I need to look for foods that are 5 net carbs or less and anything above that seems high carb. But it’s not. All it has is one cup of spaghetti squash so it’s totally reasonable.

For instance, we tend to think of dairy as low carb, but if you have enough of it, which is easy to do, the carbs in the dairy add up. And this isn’t necessarily bad, it’s just what we’ve been programmed to believe it low carb or not low carb, but I have come to learn over time that it’s not just WHAT food but also how MUCH of a food we eat. If you eat just 1 cup of spaghetti squash, this is going to be nice low carb choice still.

You guys know that this meal plan was designed SPECIFICALLY for you to be used on Phase 3 so you can stabilize your weight. It’s such an important time. You don’t want to ruin all that hard work you’ve just put in. The weight loss has been a big deal and you’re happy about that. You feel so much better in your jeans or you’re down a few sizes and that’s exciting.

Now you want to solidify that.

No one wants to keep eating 500 calories and living on celery and fennel.

#notalongtermplan

Some people mention continue eating Phase 2 foods but just increase them. That is certainly an option!

I will say though that this is not usually necessary if you don’t want to do that.

With the Phase 3 meal plan, everything is designed. The recipes are designed to have variety when it came to the types of meat, I used a lot of different vegetables and fruits, and different types of cuisine so you don’t get bored. You will definitely enjoy them. They are so delicious and they are really easy to modify.

The Phase 3 meal plan is designed to have:

• Variety when it came to the types of meat
• Different vegetables and fruits
• Different types of cuisine

MODIFICATIONS to make it a maintenance recipe.

Just like Phase 2 is a special time period, Phase 3 is also a special time period. So for all the recipes in the first 2 weeks where the total calories of those meals are a little lower to help  your body readjust, and don’t contain the cheese and nuts, I’ve listed modifications to those recipes so that you can eat those in phase 4 and add a little more calories, taste, texture and dairy or nuts if you so choose.

So you’ll see ways to add fat, protein, or carbs in a reasonable amount to that recipe if you so choose for when you make it again.

So there ya go! The friendly little duel with pinterest. 😉

So I’m curious now, when you pick recipes online, how do you guys make your choice? Are you like me and go with whatever looks prettiest and says paleo or low carb on it?

I had NO idea there could be such differences in recipes like this!