Monday, January 17, 2005
Well, let's try this again, shall we? After over a year of not dieting, eating healthy or exercising, I'm ready for a fresh start. The last year was especially difficult. Leah's father got really sick early in the year and passed away in our home in June. In July, my entire team at work quit and went to another company, leaving me extremely busy holding down the fort for the last 6 months. But things have settled down for the most part and I am turning 30 next week, so I figured now is as good a time as any to start again. We've done it once and we can do it again.
Here's the basic premise from the first post (4/21/2003):
I just want to keep track of dinner meals that either work or don't work for our new "healthy" diet. Nothing too extreme, but we are trying to eat relatively lowfat, lots of veggies, not too many refined carbs....just healthier in general. It's been working so far (we've both lost about 15 lbs each in the last couple of months), but I sometimes forget some of the great meals we have come up with that actually work.
Monday, January 12, 2004
Well, well, a little thing called nature intervened last week and threw us all off course a bit. Monday night was busy, so we ate out, Tuesday we had a huge snowfall (4 inches!) and took a snow day, Wednesday we were trapped in our house all day without power because of an ice storm (and the ensuing fallen trees), Thursday we still had no power until 6 pm so we went out to dinner and Friday we were just tired, so we had frozen lasagna. This weekend, we made a boring chicken dinner on Saturday and ordered chinese on Sunday. So, nothing special to report. This week will be better, though, I promise.
The reason we were trapped in the house with no power:
How we coped (notice the BACON and EGGS in the frying pan, hardly a healthy meal!):
Monday, January 05, 2004
So, it has started again. It will be kind of a gradual shift, but a shift nonetheless, to healthier eating. Quite frankly, I am ready for it. I'm tried of greasy, heavy foods. I'm ready for veggies and lighter fare. But I also know I still have a bad sweet tooth and I'll start to resent the lack of choices when dining out soon enough. I thinkI'm going to need to allow myself a "cheat day" or something every once in a while, just so I don't go crazy.
Friday
We had kind of a "last-hurrah" dinner: the full fat version of Chicken Tikka Masala and green beans with black mustard seeds (both from a Madhur Jaffrey cookbook). We had raita and jasmine rice with it and I made a pineapple upside-down cake for dessert.
Saturday
We had Avgolemono Soup and Salad with Sautéed Shrimp and Lime Cumin Vinaigrette, with a little crumbled feta and some french bread. Pop said he thought the soup tasted better than last time we had it (less "acidic", he said) but Leah and I thought it tasted exactly the same, which it should because I used the exact same recipe.
Sunday
I made Yam Tacos, Agua Verde style, with flour tortillas (it's better with corn, I decided), but I didn't make any sides except for some sliced avocados and tomatos, sour cream and the avocado cream sauce. I wasn't too hungry, since Leah and I had a late lunch at a noodle house, and I don't think we had anything to make anyways. Oh well, it was enough for all of us, plus leftovers for lunch today.
Tuesday, December 30, 2003
Well, I thought 3 weeks was bad before, now it's been almost 6 months since I posted! I never was good at keeping a journal.....
To catch up a bit:
We each lost 40 lbs or so on our diet and did really good until mid-September, when we went to Las Vegas. Now, we had planned to go off the diet while we were in Vegas, but of course that meant I could tell myself I didn't need to worry about the diet for the week or so before the trip, since I was going to go off anyways and an extra week wouldn't hurt, would it? That also meant that it was that much harder to get back on the diet, which we never did. Something was always coming up, like our Dia de los Muertos (Day of the Dead) party in October, which always has such great food. Then, Thanksgiving was just around the corner, so we might as well wait til after that so we could gorge on turkey and stuffing and all the other good stuff. And of course after Thanksgiving comes "The Holidays", which means parties and sweets and Christmas dinners. So that leaves us with New Year's and our resolution to go back on the diet. I supspect we'll be hogging it up this week for our last hurrah before dieting starts again.
However, seeing as how we did pretty good last time and we have lots and lots of recipes, I think we'll be okay and do pretty good this time around. I kept most of the weight off until the last couple of weeks and I might even be ready to start exercising on the days when I carpool in with my coworker.
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| Scuba class |
Oh yeah, we also get certified for scuba diving in September, but we haven't been diving since then because renting equipment is such a hassle. We haven't bought any because it's really expensive and we still plan to lose a lot more weight. So, the goal is to be down to our "ideal" weights by summertime so we can buy scuba gear that fits and go anytime we feel like it.
Wednesday, July 09, 2003
Well.....almost 3 weeks without a post. And I thought I was finally catching up last time that happened! Life sometimes gets in the way, I guess.
Leah had gallbladder surgery last week, so I took the week off to stay home and take care of her and help out around the house. We made some pretty good meals, so I will try to post them soon, before I forget! Before that, work was just super-busy. We had an intern start and I had to train her and help her with getting started on a project. Meanwhile, I had a ton of stuff to do myself and I had to finish up some things before I took off for a week. And this week has been playing catch up. So there are my excuses in a nutshell.
Thursday, June 19, 2003
So, the other day we were looking back on some of the older posts in the archive here and rediscovered some old recipes we haven't had for a while. That is, after all, the whole point of this blog, to keep track of the good and bad and remember what worked and what didn't. So, we decided to make Chicken Tikka Masala this weekend and we made Yam Tacos on Tuesday.
Tuesday
So, Yam tacos... I know we don't really have yams in this country, everything is technically a sweet potato, but I kind of think of the white/yellow ones as sweet potatoes and the orange ones as yams. So that's the kind I use for this recipe. They are both good, but I just prefer the flavor of the orange ones better. I tried cooking them a different way this time and I think it works better. Before when I made this, I would bake the yams in the oven the night before and let them cool, then peel and chop and heat with the spices. This time, I peeled and chopped them first, then boiled them in some water in the microwave for 10 minutes. It was less messy and the pieces stayed firmer than when you bake, but still fully cooked. I sauteed some onions, cumin and chili powder, then added the yams and heated through. the only problem was that we were out of regular cumin, so I used some from a can that has probably been in the cupboard for a couple of years. Consequently, it had lost most of it's flavor. Still, it turned out okay. I served the yam mixture in corn tortillas with an avocado-creme sauce (mashed avocado mixed with fat-free half & half and tabasco), chopped tomatoes and mexican rice.
Wednesday
We cheaped out and made grilled lemon chicken, canned green beans and Nasi Goreng rice, which is like an Indonesian rice pilaf. It was not great, but it was food. And we didn't have to go to the store for any of it.
Tuesday, June 17, 2003
Ah, leftovers....so nice not to have to cook! We just had our leftover pork loin chops (Pop had his ribs), potato salad and grilled mushrooms for dinner last night. We had a slice of the nectarine tart from the night before, as well.
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