Cooking on Medifast

Yesterday I talked about how to make the Medifast packaged meals palatable, but today I'm going over how I'm eating my Lean and Green Meals when I generally hate all leafy green vegetables.

 First, my proteins:

• Boneless, Skinless Chicken Breast
• 99% Fat Free Ground Turkey Breast
• Shrimp
• Egg beaters 

And my vegetables:

• White mushrooms
• Romaine Lettuce
• Jicama 

That's the extent of everything so far. A pretty pathetic list. I plan to add more protein options as we continue... especially more fish. I also hope to add some wild game in the future as well. Vegetable options are my weak spot. I love mushrooms, which is good since they are on the approved list, but other stuff is not as likely to get eaten.

My strategy is to keep adding a little bit of romaine until I'm able to tolerate a salad, and then hope to branch out a little bit. I've got some pretty severe tast/texture issues with nearly all green vegetables, but I'm hoping I can train myself to get past those visceral responses and actually taste the food.

Now, what about the actual cooking? Here's what I've been doing:

Chicken: pan sauteed, baked, broiled, sliced into a stir fry. I use a touch of olive oil and then marinate the chicken in something: Taco or Fajita seasoning, Mrs. Dash, Dale's Seasoning, Lemon Pepper, BBQ rub, Sriacha, Ginger,  Shawarma seasoning. Keeping the flavor profile varied is a good thing, but my basic default is chicken in a touch of oil with soy sauce, Worcestershire, and a big blast of sriacha. I haven't gotten sick of this yet and it pairs really well with the mushrooms.

Turkey: seasoned and formed into patties, with a touch of steak sauce and some laughing cow, I can wrap this in a romaine leaf and eat it like a pseudo-burger. As a burger it leaves a LOT to be desired. It's not beef, it's not fatty, it doesn't taste like a burger, it's not dripping with cheese and bacon, it's not on a huge soft bun. Don't eat this thinking 'burger'. For hat it is it isn't bad. However, my standard for turkey is to ccok it with either taco or spaghetti seasonings and mix it with my mushrooms. It's pretty awesome this way.

Egg Beaters: For a change of pace, I will cut half my primary protein out and add a cup of egg beaters. I cook them 'hard' and hit them with a ton of pepper and some garlic salt and they're a good 'now and then'. I also use egg beaters as a pre-workout extra protein.

Shrimp: lightly sauteed in olive oil and spices, or peeled and thrown into a stir-fry. Shrimp are awesome and you get a ton of them for your 7 oz.

Mushrooms: throw them in a pan with a dash of Worcestershire and some Mrs. Dash, and some water. Get them soft and some flavor cooked in, then mix them right in with your protein.

Jicama: I've only had this once and it was a fail. I sliced it into long french-fry shaped chunks and threw it into a stir-fry. It was slimy on the outside, a mild crunch on the inside. It was pretty awful, but it tasted like sriacha so I was able to stomach it. I ended up falling back on an OCD method of eating, which was to eat nothing but jicama until it was all gone, then mushrooms, then shrimp. I hadn't realized I was doing it until I got to the shrimp. I'll try another preparation of this and try to get it crisper, so there isn't that floppy slime texture and see if I like it. If not, then it can go... it's not like there's a ton of jicama options out there in restaurants for me to choose as a healthy alternative.

Romaine: so far, I've only eaten this as a lettuce wrap. I expect that will be my primary method for a while, and once I'm happier with that I'll try it as a taco salad or something.