How to Have Your Pizza And Diet Too

Sometimes you just have to shrug and say go for it!

Paraphrasing Ferris Beuhler aside, that's what I wanted for dinner.

I'm watching my weight, and have been since I was 19 years old.  Lately I noticed that the formerly baggy cargo shorts weren't quite so roomy any longer and needed to act. 

The result was two months and two weeks later, 10 pounds lighter, and the shorts fit better.   I still need to get more pairs since Cargo Shorts are almost formal wear in South Florida for 10 months out of the year.

Almost.  Not quite.

So after making this pizza and thinking that the calorie count was obscene I decided to sit down and count calories.   It turned out that my mental estimates and my spreadsheet were fairly close.

Yep, I've been counting calories long enough to qualify as being mental.   When I was skating 2000 miles plus a year it was irrelevant since I had some days burned more calories than I took in. 

A second slab of Chocolate Cake? SURE!

I haven't been on the skates for a while, South Florida may be good for casual skating but for distance Philadelphia was heaven with its trail from the Liberty Bell in Old City to Valley Forge and out to Reading PA.

So it was time to shave a few calories off the diet.  By the time I was through I cut my maintenance diet of 3000 calories a day to 2000-2200 a day and managed to lose that 10 pounds in 10 weeks.

When Saturday came along I just shrugged and said I Want Pizza.  It was either the local Humpy's Pizza or I was going to make one.

Making one won out and it really isn't tough.  There's a Pizza Dough Recipe that I have been using for more than 10 years that Pat gave me.  Make the dough in the bread machine or in a mixer with a dough hook.  Allow to rest for 30 mins, roll out, rise for 30 minutes while "decorated" with ingredients.  Cook at 525 for 9 minutes (plus or minus).    My oven doesn't really know what a stable temperature is so I have to guess but the results are above.

That calorie count?  I'm a big guy so 1/4 of that full cookie sheet was dinner.  I used the spreadsheet and counted the calories out to be 3384 for the pie, so that means Dinner on Saturday was 846.  Dough was 1400 Calories alone.  Three Cheeses - Mozzarella, Feta and Parmesan.

Ok, so Sunday either I didn't really do well with the diet but there's always Monday!

Oh and there's none leftover.  It was too good since I had the other two slices on Sunday.  The other half was all cheese no onions or mushrooms.  Subtract 20 calories per meal for that half and it is gone too.

Just in case you were curious... Oh and it was amazing the second day too.  Just use a skillet heated medium.  Put it cheese side down until the cheese melts.  That grease will let you flip the slice then fry it until crispy on the bottom.

Yum.

The reality is that if you want a really GOOD pizza you either have to find a really GOOD restaurant or do what I did.  Make one from scratch.   It isn't that hard to do, and I will fill you in with one very important secret:  Always.  I mean ALWAYS use fresh basil.  Trust me on this one.  You will thank me later.  Just snip the leaves into the sauce and go heavy with it.  Basil does not add many calories (it wasn't even listed on the package) and it's a wall of flavor that you will love.