Maximizing vegetable, fiber in general, and fluid intake for satiety

After more than 10 years of trial and error, I am at least sleeping on Seroquel. It also seems to be good as a MS. Finally, it helps prevent my migraines in addition to BOTOX injections.

Tried: Lithium, Risperdal, Zyprexa, Geodon, Tegretol, Depakote, Lamotrigine. Something or other went wrong.

Seroquel makes me very hungry, though. Before I try newer AP's that are sedatives (Saphris?), I want to see if I can at least avoid weight gain (I am ideally wishing to lose weight and am now around 220lbs being a 5'5'' woman..) on Seroquel.

So I started adding vegetables and mushrooms to bulk up and want to keep doing that. Of course, eating soup and drinking very decaf black tea (one decaf bag makes two cups for me) helps, but I want to go further by adding extra vegetables to soups. The inspiration was all of those "riced", "spaghetti", "spiraled" veggies I see at the grocery store.

What I have done thus far - built a habit of sauteeing at least two veggie or mushroom ingredients for making an omelette.

Say, crimini mushrooms and white parts of leeks, or celery, or summer squash.

So I do that before whisking eggs and milk.

Then after I pour the eggs and milk mixture over the sauteed veggies/mushroom pieces, I dice green herbs, say Italian parsley, and sprinkle all over the omelette. Then top it with shredded cheese.

So I have this habit now and that is an improvement compared to eggs, milk and shredded cheese only omelettes I used to make.

Rotating the sauteed part makes it interesting.

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Another thing I make is a tomato-based skillet dish with protein. the convenient part is that it is a one skillet dish.

I saute ground meat with onions, if it is a meat dish, then add cherry tomatoes sliced lengthwise (my local Mexican store carries tri-color cherry tomatoes - orange, yellow, and red. yum) and saute until tomato skins pop and liquid emits into the dish. Then sprinkle with green onions, saute more and it is done.

Alternatively, fish fillets cut into small pieces, or grilling cheese - instead of ground beef. But always with tomatoes and always with green herbs. If not green onions, then dill.

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My goal is to develop routines so that I do not have to think much about what to make. Basically, a routine in which ingredients can be varied.

So now I want to try grating zucchini into my veggie and bean soups, as an extra ingredient that would be invisible (?) and would add soluble fiber and liquid, to see what happens.

Today I discovered that there is a researcher, Dr Rolls, who developed an approach based on the principles that seemed intuitive to me. She wrote books, but I do not want to buy anything yet - want to experiment on my own. Her approach is called VOLUMETRICS.

If anybody is doing that or has read her books, I hope we can talk. I have read reviews of her approach on WebMD and other reputable sites and she is praised for being a realist.

My wife is doing this to some degree. She is a pescatarian. As an aside, I have 2 kids who eat any meat and love beef, another who won't eat beef but eats pork, I don't eat any mammal meat, my wife is the pescatarian and we have another kid who is vegan. Meal planning is a nightmare.

One of her favorites is squash and zukes lightly sauteed then simmered briefly in primavera sauce and served over noodles I went on a month long vegan diet with her last year and my favorite dish was coconut curry veggies and tofu served over rice. I usually used zukes and squash but once tried sweet potato cubes for an interesting variation. The hardest part about that diet was prep. Besides being vegan, it was all unprocessed (except I used low fat canned coconut milk). So sauces were made from scratch; that usually took the longest. I love spaghetti squash and often substitute it for pasta (no one else in my family does; my wife eats it as a side dish). Roasted butternut squash with pecans, honey, cinnamon and butter in the cavity is not the lightest fare but man is it good...

Mmm.... thanks for an inspring message. Zukes - never heard that! Lovely. I knew cukes for Persian cucumbers, but not Zukes. Can you give me your wife's primavera recipe? I am now on disability and actually love to cook from scratch (when I am working, i do not have that luxury).

Will also try your butternut recipe. Safeway (grocery store) used to carry frozen winter squash puree which I nuked and ate with maple syrup OR with olive oil, salt, and pepper. But regrettably they do not carry it anymore.