• 

• 

• 

Hey, hey! It’s our LAST day testing out The Mediterranean Diet Weight Loss Solution: The 28 Day Kick-Start Plan for Lasting Weight Loss by Julene Stassou, MS, RD! It has definitely been a busy week–so much cooking!–but I’ve enjoyed taking this diet book out for a spin and sharing with you my experiences every step of the way. Now that I’ve really had a taste of what it’s like to follow a Mediterranean-style diet for weight loss, I’ll be sure to post my best tips and insights to help you get the best results!

For now, let’s take a look at Day Seven’s food log and see how the week ended!

Breakfast: Nonfat Greek yogurt with 1 tablespoon honey, 1 egg, grapes, and my usual coffee with half and half

Lunch: Leftover Sun-dried Tomato and Artichoke Pizza and a small pear

Snack: Whole grain toast with 1 tablespoon peanut butter

Dinner: Keftedes (Greek Meatballs) with Greek Salad (and a small portion of that Pasta Puttanesca!)

Today’s meal plan was a great ending to an overall great week. Breakfast was simple, but tasty and satisfying. I really love honey drizzled on plain Greek yogurt and it’s hard to beat Greek yogurt as a quick and easy source of protein! Lunch made use of yesterday’s leftover pizza, so no complaints there. Still delicious the next day!

Now I have to admit, I sort of winged today’s snack. Though it’s consistent with her other snack recommendations, she didn’t specifically have PB toast on the list. Nonetheless, it definitely hit the spot!

Dinner was wonderful. The keftedes, which are Greek-style meatballs, came together fairly quickly and since they were baked in the oven, I didn’t have to stand over a splattering pan of hot grease. I have to say, I’ve done this with other meatball recipes and you really can’t beat baking! The meatballs cook evenly without burning and you never have to worry about someone getting burned. And, if you line the pan with foil, clean up is a snap, too!

Though I was worried about the ground turkey making for dry meatballs, these actually turned out so well. All the aromatics and fresh herbs added wonderful flavor and there wasn’t a hockey puck in sight. I particularly enjoyed the fresh mint–a flavor that, when combined with the fresh oregano and parsley, really made these seem Greek.

Now, according to my meal plan, I was to serve up these keftedes alongside a Greek Salad–which I did. However, there was one recipe I hadn’t managed to make yet and simply couldn’t pass up: Penne Puttanesca. So! I decided to whip up this relatively quick and easy pasta dish for the family.

If you’re not familiar with Pasta Puttanesca, it’s a tomato-based sauce that’s loaded with all sorts of deliciousness. Olives, capers, anchovy paste(!), fresh herbs, red pepper flakes–so many layers of spicy and briny flavors that really live up to the recipe’s name! Now, I did opt to keep the heat to a minimum, since I planned to serve this to the kiddos, but you could really spice it up to your heart’s content! Either way, this pasta dish is a traditional Italian dish worth trying.

So here’s the nutrition breakdown for Day Seven. Calories came in 1277, 43% from carbohydrate, 35% from fat, and 22% from protein with 18 grams of fiber. Today’s calorie count was a bit lower than usual, but I didn’t particularly notice. Even including the small serving of Pasta Puttanesca with my dinner, I still ended up with less than 1300 calories for my daily total. Day Seven was yet again proof that it is possible to eat well and lose weight!

Speaking of weight loss, tomorrow I’ll be sharing my own personal results after following this diet plan for one week. Based on my mid-week weigh-in, I suspect I’ll have something to show for the last seven days! I’ll also give an overall run-down of the week, do a little number crunching, and give you my final thoughts on The Mediterranean Diet Weight Loss Solution.

Thanks for reading and have a fabulous week!