Day 9 - January 9, 2011

DAY OF REST...

I finally made it to my "rest day" and the beginning of my new week.  ;-) I can't believe how quickly the time has passed and how few temptations I had during the first week.  I also can't believe I've almost made it through a weekend without splurging. ;-0

My previous routine involved being disciplined with my eating and workout habits from Monday through Thursday, and then blowing the rest of the week with restaurant meals that were supposedly healthier than my older, older habits, and high sodium foods that I made from my own kitchen.  Fridays were always lunch with a co-worker, eating sushi and noodles at one of my favorite Thai restaurants, then heading home to feast on vegan quesadillas, black beans and rice, and tons of guacamole and salsa, washed down with two margaritas. Then the rest of the weekend was overeating at the Whole Foods hot bar or at one of my favorite vegetarian restaurants on Saturday; then ending the weekend with another high caloric Thai meal of Thai Fried Rice and Curry Shrimp from my second favorite Thai restaurant.  By the time I stepped on the scale on Monday, I would discover that most of the weight that I had managed to lose during the week was back on my body.  In the beginning this would make me feel very depressed and frustrated, but after awhile I got used to the numbers going back up because I knew that I could drop the weight again by the middle of the week.  I began to realize that a lot of the weight gain was due to the sodium that I was retaining from my weekend binges.

I've never really seen what could happen if I stuck with my meal plan an entire week and continued this into the next week, and the next week, and the next week.  Well I'm happy to say that last Saturday, I weighed in at 223 pounds and today I weighed in at 214 pounds! That's an 8 pound loss in the past 8 days. ;-) Even though I didn't binge eat this weekend, I did get creative in the kitchen so I could enjoy some great tasting, low fat/caloric foods.  I still had Friday Mexican Night, but I made sure that my lunch was much lighter so that I could use those extra calories for dinner.  Instead of eating a ton of beans and rice, heavy guacamole and salsa, and margaritas with the meal, I opted to have shrimp tacos with a light serving of guacamole, salsa, and vegan sour cream, 3 cups of collard greens for my vegetable, and water.  Now I know you might think that was a weird combination, shrimp tacos and collard greens, but it was great in my tummy! LOL! The entire meal was extremely filling and didn't make me feel as if I were depriving myself.  The next day, I stuck with eating small meals and making sure that I took snacks with me, even though I had a few extra snacks at Whole Foods during grocery shopping.
 

My dinner was a healthy, low calorie Chicken Tortilla soup and cornbread muffin that also satisfied my appetite.  Today, we're having whole wheat pasta Pomodora for dinner with a large garden salad. The food that I've eaten throughout the day has being enjoyable and healthy so I still don't feel deprived.  Even the preparation that I've made for next week's lunches is providing me with healthier, tasty alternatives to food that I've loved all my life.  I found a recipe for fake fried chicken tenders (see recipe below) and prepared that for tomorrow's lunch along with the recipe for the 3 Beer BBQ dip and sauce that I blogged about yesterday.  The recipe was easy, the ingredients were healthy, and the final cooked dish was awesome!

RESTFULLY ACTIVE

Can being active truly be a state of restfulness or is this an oxymoron?  Although we completed our final workout session for the week on Saturday, and scheduled today for another rest day,  I was still pretty active preparing for the next week but in a peaceful manner.  I didn't feel rushed, stressed, or exhausted.  I actually felt, surprisingly energized and happy.  I hope that this feeling continues throughout next week's workouts.  ;-0  I had promised my three dogs that we would take them walking today before the big snow hit and we did it. ;-) In the past, I've made many promises to them to go dog walking and 8 times out of 10, I usually cancel our walks without notice. LOL! There's always something more important to do, or the lack of desire or energy to go outside, or I wait until it's too dark to do it.  Today, a promise was a promise that I really wanted to keep.  Check out a snippet of our walk in the video journal below.

My Word for Today:  Happiness


Kickin' Soy milk Faux-Fried Chicken
(serves 2) - Adapted from Lisa Lillien's recipe.  Lillien is the host of The Hungry Girl, which premiered on January 8th on the Cooking Channel.

Ingredients:

1/2 cup soy milk
1/8 tsp. paprika
12 oz. boneless, skinless chicken breast tenders (about 8 to 10 pieces)
1/3 cup twig-shaped bran cereal
1/3 cup panko bread crumbs
1 tbsp. dry onion soup mix
Salt to taste (optional)

Directions:

1. Combine soy milk and paprika in a large zip lock plastic bag.
2. Mix well.
3. Add chicken tenders, seal bag.
4. Toss to coat completely.
5. Refrigerate for a minimum of 1 hour.
6. Preheat oven to 375 degrees.
7. Process cereal in a food processor until it reaches a fine-crumb consistency.
8. Combine cereal crumbs and remaining ingredients in a large shallow bowl.
9. Drain chicken tenders and discard soy milk.
10. Coat each tender with crumb mixture and arrange on a lightly greased baking sheet.

Note:  I doubled the above recipe for the crumb mixture coating because I ran out of it after rolling four of the tenders in the mixture.  I also baked the tenders for 30 minutes instead of 20 minutes and they were still juicy and tender on the inside.  This dish goes great with the 3 Beer Dip and BBQ sauces that I talked about in the blog for Day 8.  If you try this recipe, let me know what you think. Enjoy!