CHEAT BIG

If you are gonna cheat. CHEAT BIG!!

Here is what I ate today for lunch.

The french fries weren't quite that big and there was lettuce on the burger.  Truth be told, I really felt raunchy and I did get a head ache. First time I have had anything like this in a week. I don't feel like doing this again. Please Lord, let me remember what this feels like afterwards, so I am not tempted again. Amen!!

My stomach feels bloated and I feel uncomfortable. I have gas. It's true!! I can't wait to get this out of my system and the get the good veggies and fruits flowing again.

What is more appealing than the picture of fat??

Good question. What is more appealing than fat?  This next picture of a great meal.  When I came home for dinner tonight I had no idea what I wanted to cook. But I was starving and knew it had to be full of flavor to satisfy that hunger.

Inspired by one ingredient this meal came together nicely.

The hunter, gatherer was in the garden and he had discovered the first zucchini was ready for picking. I was hoping that he could find three because that would make a nice big batch of what I had decided to make. What I find so impressive (insert me all puffed up and proud) is that I could build a meal idea based on this ingredient.

Can you see the beautiful zucchini?  I took a leek...I mean, I sauteed a leek in a little bit of EVOO, added the zucchini and a clove of minced garlic. I drained a can of petite diced tomato's, I added about half of the can over the leek and zucchini mixture, added a little salt and pepper and just stirred it slightly as I cooked most of the moisture out of the pan. I then topped it with a bit of fresh grated parmi. I did go light on salt as the parmi adds quite a bit of salty flavor to the dish.  For the second dish I made a basic garlic Alfredo sauce and added a little bag of shrimp with the tail on. Leaving the tails on adds so much flavor.  I cooked a spaghetti squash in the microwave while  I was making the sauces.

Third little element for this dinner was also inspired by that zucchini. Up until the very last second before I cooked it, I was thinking fried zucchini was the way to go. I changed my mind, but still thought something crispy would complete this meal nicely.

 Friend okra!!!  Did I really just type friend okra?  LOL, oops a typo, but I will go with it. In a very shallow pan of EVOO I lightly battered the okra by first dredging it in a little bit of flour and cornmeal (seasoned with Johnny's seasoning salt)  then dipped it in an egg and milk wash, then dipped it again in the corneal mixture. I lightly fried it the the EVOO, turning it twice, just look at the pretty crispy batter on these okra!

BTW, I was stuffed after I finished eating every single bite of this dinner. It was all so delicious. I felt so guilt free eating that spaghetti squash.

I have lost a 1/2 a pound each day. Yeah me and my friend okra!!

Minus 2.5 pounds of fat. Imagine if I were to start working out!!!

I have lost 2.5 pounds of fat. I have averaged about a half a pound a day. I have not added any physical activity yet, it seems I can't even spell excercise. That one always did trip me up.  Anyways I hope that tomorrow when I get on the scale I still see a half a pound weight loss.

Today I ate:

two slices of white bread with egg salad filling.
coffee with cream
a bout a cup and a half of my homemade Greek salad, tomato, pepper, garlic, cucumber, olives, feta and an olive oil and rice wine vinegar.
A  medium strawberry cheesecake blizzard
and the dinner I posted about on my last blog.

Tomorrow will tell, but I am really excited that I am losing this much this quickly and I feel like I am eating plenty!!

Vegetable Shortage Crisis!!

Tonight's menu: Steelhead Salmon, creamy mashed potato's, fresh carrots from the garden and a green salad that I unashamedly doused with bleu cheese dressing. I did have seconds on all. It was so delicious. I couldn't help myself!! 


I am loving this diet. I am finding that I have to be a little bit creative.  I am not used to cooking this way. I didn't know that we would practically be out of vegetables just 4 days after I went shopping.  I know that it isn't good to buy them to many days in advance anyways. So tomorrow it is back to the store. I was thinking some good veggie stock to help me make my soups would be great. I think tomorrow I will try a potato and leak soup. 

Midweek and I need more carrots, butter, milk, veggie stock, fruits for munching, green peppers and maybe a few other veggies. Still left some cremini mushrooms, a spaghetti squash, 2 leeks and a bunch of kale.

See my next post for my weight loss!!

Empty

Last night was really hard!! I was so hungry when I went to bed. I had to get up and eat some rice, then I had to eat some peanut butter whole grain toast. I just kept getting hungry. I can't sleep when I am hungry. I don't know if my stomach will adapt or not, but I hope so. 

So this is what I ate yesterday, 1/2 grapefruit, 2 sunny side up eggs, 1 piece of whole grain toast and several cups of coffee. The nibbles that I made on a tiny carrot and a few 8-10 delicious cherries. 

For lunch I had pan seared cod and some green peas a few more cherries.

For dinner I had the Portabella Mushroom Dish and a wheat thin cracker. 

Now that I  look back on what I ate it makes sense that I was so hungry when I went to bed. DUH!!

My body felt thinner this morning. I also felt like I urinated a lot yesterday. I don't know if it's just because vegetables break down in your system better? I didn't drink a whole lot more water. 

I didn't eat breakfast this morning. 2 cherries before I ran out the door to church.

Lunch really filled me up.  I made tostadas for lunch 2 small corn tortillas, black beans with rice.
I cooked the rice in the rice cooker last night. I separated the rice into 1 cup servings and put them in plastic containers for ease.  I sauteed 2 cloves of minced garlic and a quarter of a red onion in olive oil, added the rice and then the can of black beans that I had rinsed and drained. Added to that salt and cumin and heated it through. I lightly cooked the corn tortillas on the griddle with a little bit of EVOO. (thanks to Rachel Ray we all know that EVOO is) I topped the tostada with pico de gallo. Tomato, onion, cilantro, jalapeno, juice of one lime and salt.

 Layed like this: tortilla

                            sour cream

                            black beans and rice

                            pico de gallo

I was hungry and hour later.  Watermelon never tasted so good. What do vegetarians do when it's winter? 

NOM NOM, YOU'RE A GREAT COOK, MOM!!!!

 

1st Vegetarian Meal

Well this was our first experience at a vegetarian meal.  Several things that I will note for this recipe.

A little on the negative side

1. I don't like goat cheese! (the hunter gatherer did and now he smells like goat cheese)

2. I should have picked a less salty bread.

3. Next time I will buy bigger portabella  mushrooms.

A lot on the positive

1. The olive oil and balsamic vinegar drizzle was amazing.

2. The portabella was amazing.

3. The roasted red pepper was delicious and really added flavor to the dish.

4. We would try this again, with a few changes.

Look closely at the picture and you can see the portabella hanging slightly out from under the massive red pepper.

Recipe

Ingredients

    2 tablespoons olive oil
    1 tablespoon balsamic vinegar
    1/4 teaspoon salt
    1/8 teaspoon black pepper
    4 portobello mushrooms, stems removed (I only used two cause they looked huge, my bad!)

    1 small bunch asparagus, trimmed
    and spears cut in half
    1 large red bell pepper, quartered and seeded
    4 slices Italian bread
    3 ounces goat cheese

    How to make it  29 minutes

    1.    Preheat grill or broiler.
    2.    In small bowl, whisk together olive oil, balsamic vinegar, salt, and pepper. Brush mushrooms, asparagus, and bell pepper with oil mixture.
    3.    Grill or broil vegetables 4 inches from heat, turning over once, until tender, about 10 minutes for asparagus and bell pepper, and about 12 minutes for mushrooms. When cool enough to handle, peel and slice pepper.
    4.    Turn off grill or broiler. Place bread on grill or broiler rack until warm, about 2 minutes.
    5.    Spread goat cheese on bread. Place mushrooms on each slice. Top with bell pepper and asparagus. Serve warm.

Nutritional Information(per serving)

    Calories: 274
    Fat: 15g
    Saturated Fat: 6g
(I sincerely wish that I could give credit where credit is due, but I cannot find the source of this recipe)

Pink Elephants On Parade

WEIGHT a minute!!!  My BMI is 45.5, that means that I am just a measly .5 away from being 50% fat.

That means that I am a walking chub. Barely walking chub at that. I hate the fat that I have become. Not a self loathing fatty. If I were a self loathing fatty I would eat another Big Mac, have a super sized fry with it and order another milk shake.

What gets a person to that BMI?  You can't even ask that without piercing your lips or making a double chin and talking like you can't move your big fat neck. CAUSE: YOU ALMOST CAN'T.

Size 22 top,  2X
18-20 pants that roll down and sometimes,  I lose my underwear in the battle too. In fact at a graduation her a few months ago, I barely caught my underwear before they fell to the floor.
Weight: 233

Sometimes I am even a little SOB!! (short of breath)
 

CRASH-DIET

I have run into several people lately who have lost weight. Both said they had decided to eat a vegetarian diet. I know I can't go strictly vegetarian and we love fish. So I did some research and found out about pesco-vegetarian diets. 

Will I lose weight on a PV (Pesco-vegetarian) diet?

Yes? NO? Yes?  Losing weight on a pesco-vegetarian diet is a lot like any other diet, you can't eat junkfood, you can't eat too much, you have to watch your potion sizes. I am sure that exsercise will help. I did however read somewhere that vegetarians tend to weigh 10-20 pounds less than people who eat meat. I will take the assumption that they are talking about people who are in the normal weight range for their body and not someone who is morbidly obese as I am at this time. Truly there has to be health benefits as well as weight loss benefits in eating this type of diet. Time will tell.

The barrel in the room!

That is me. I am the barrel. At least that is how I feel. Let me describe what you are really seeing here. Skinny legs, no butt and a barrel for a body!!  Where is my head?  Good question.  In the barrel, because that is all I think about right now...looking like a barrel, feeling like a barrel sensing what the barrel must be sensing. YIKES, I am about ready to roll out of control.

What I figure is that I can either stay in the barrel or get out of the barrel. The choice is mine to make. That is why after considering my diet and food habits and choices I have decided to try the pesco-vegetarian diet.

Pescetarianism ( /ˌpɛskɨˈtɛəriən/) (also spelled Pescatarian) is the practice of a diet that includes seafood but not the flesh of other animals. A pescetarian diet shares many of its components with a vegetarian diet and includes vegetables, fruit, nuts, grains, beans, eggs, and dairy, but unlike a vegetarian diet also includes fish and shellfish. The Merriam-Webster dictionary dates the origin of the term "pescetarian" to 1993 and defines it to mean: "one whose diet includes fish but no meat".^[1]





 

Day one, where has all the sausage gone??

...and the journey begins.

 Day 01. The pesco-vegetarian awakens very hungry. ( her husband calls her the pesky vegetarian-he knows that she won't be able to do this without his support!)

The pesco-vegetarian cries out BACON, SAUSAGE wherefore art thou????

She stumbles to the back yard garden pulls a tiny carrot from the ground, stumbles back into the kitchen rinses it off and crunches it, thinking this would be perfect a photograph, if she is going to eat a vegetable, she should show the world how beautiful it is. She recalls another time when she ate a carrot like this one from a platter with other vegetables and wonders, did the cook use vegetable stalk to steam her vegetables? The fresh smell of carrot stem remains on her fingers. There are rainier cherries laying in a bag on the counter, she takes two, each a mouthful of goodness and thinks num, num, I think I might like this kind of diet.

The hunter gatherer brings home a bag of groceries,  a couple of types of crackers that he states fit well within the confines of a pesco-vegetarian diet, coffee and eggs and some mandarin orange flavored seltzers.

Wondering if the couple might well be on there way to high cholesterol  the happy pesco-vegetarians begin their first meal with a half of grape fruit, 2 eggs sunny side up, a whole grain piece of toast and a cup of Kona coffee with a little bit of milk.