In the next couple of days, the scale should show a number that starts with a 1. Hooray! That will be a relief. Plus, yesterday someone from outside my immediate family commented on my weight loss. Positive feedback - yay! Too bad that conversation involved the daughter saying “no, Daddy doesn’t exercise!”
The fatblogging train rolls on…
Maybe I haven’t plateaued after all, as I’m beginning to suspect yesterday’s 204 was an aberration. The pollen count in Richmond is way high, and Claritin and Benadryl both seem to cause quite a bit of water retention. Posting more regularly also helps keep me on track. Never underestimate the power of shame.
Another weekend approaches quickly. No Busch Gardens this time, but we do plan a visit to a friend for dinner, so Sunday may be a day of fasting to recover from fasting.
Today’s favorite food product:
Made a taco salad last night using the El Pinto sauce, which added some nice green chile kick without being overwhelming. The medium heat was perfect - the hot would have been too much.
Although I managed to shed almost 40 pounds before hitting a plateau, it appears to be Mesa City this week. Of course, the way to get to the downslope on the other side is to get more exercise, but time has been short lately. Time to bust out the bike.
Like the graph to the right? It’s entirely done within Wordpress, using Pasi Matilainen’s Simple Graph plugin. The text block under the graph is automagically generated using the plugin’s database entries and PHP. I used to do something similar using EditGrid, but this solution works better and doesn’t rely on the availability of a third party site.
Last weekend was the first real slip as the Fatblogging train rolls on. It was opening weekend at Busch Gardens, and we took the kids to break in the Fun Card. That meant a trip to Das Festhaus for sausages and sauerkraut, which a hike through the park couldn’t counteract. Then we visited the new Second St. for dinner (steak salad, which was not sinful, and a few bites of the kids’ chocolate cake, which was).
Back on the horse for this week. I still hop to see 19x real soon.
To my readers (both of you) - posting has been light lately, as I’ve been working on a project coding a new site for a friend’s business. This has meant teaching myself Joomla, which I had never used on a live site, as well as a bunch of PHP and CSS hacking. Hopefully I can post a bit later today.
For you fatbloggers, 218.1!
Yesterday was the first day I wanted to eat my stress, so to speak. No luck on the job front, the kids being kids, and so forth and all of a sudden a sleeve of thin mints sounded pretty good. But fatbloggers have to stick together, so I didn’t. Thus only a tenth of a pound, and I’m still on track to end the week at 21x.
Today’s recipe is for a lower-cal recipe for beef fajitas:
12 oz. boneless beef round steak
1/2 c. nonfat italian salad dressing
1/2 c. salsa
2 T. lime or lemon juice
1 t. Worcestershire sauce
4 10 inch flour tortillas, warmed
nonstick cooking spray
1 medium onion, thinly sliced and separated into rings
1 medium sweet pepper, cut into thin strips
3/4 c. chopped tomato
1/4 of a small avocado, peeled and cut into 4 slices
1/4 c. shredded reduced-fat monterey jack or cheddar cheese
1/4 c. salsa
Trim fat from beef. Partially freeze beef; thinly slice across the grain into bite size strips. Place beef strips in a plastic bag set in a deep bowl. For marinade, in a small mixing bowl stir together the salad dressing, the 1/2 cup salsa, the lime or lemon juice and the Worcestershire sauce. Pour over beef in bag. Seal bag and turn beef to coat well. Marinate beef in the refrigerator for 6 to 24 hours, turning the bag occasionally.
Spray large skillet with cooking spray and preheat over medium heat. Add the onion to the skillet and stir-fry for 1-2 minutes. Add the sweet pepper and cook for 1-2 minutes more or until vegetables are crisp-tender. Remove vegetables from skillet.
Add undrained beef strips to skillet; stir-fry for 2-3 minutes. Return vegetables to skillet. Add chopped tomato and cook 1 minute more or until hot.
To serve, immediately spoon the beef-vegetable mixture onto warm tortillas. Top each with an avocado slice, cheese and remaining salsa. Roll tortillas around filling.
4 servings. Each serving provides 341 calories, 13 g total fat, 24 g protein, 32 g carbohydrate and 2 g dietary fiber.
A victory of sorts - the Girl Scout cookie (or on, egad, MySpace) order came home last night, including Thin Mints, Tagalongs, Samoas and All Abouts. Obviously, we ordered these before deciding to make a lifestyle change. The kids have been downing them like crazy, but I abstained for now. But the Thin Mints are calling to me even now…
Another night, another recipe from BH&G’s Family Favorites Made Lighter. This time, a version of Coq au Vin.
4 small chicken breast halves (1 1/2 pounds total)
Nonstick cooking spray
2 c. small whole mushrooms
1 c. thinly sliced carrots
1 c. burgundy (I actually used Two Buck Chuck cab)
16 pearl onions, peeled
1 T. cooked and crumbled bacon
1 T. snipped parsley
2 cloves garlic, minced
3/4 t. dried marjoram
3/4 t. dried thyme
1/2 t. instant chicken bouillon granules
1/8 t. pepper
1 bay leaf
1/4 c. cold water
4 t. all-purpose flour
Remove skin from chicken. Rinse chicken; pat dry. Spray a cold large nonstick skillet or dutch oven with nonstick coating. Preheat over medium heat. Cook chicken in the hot skillet about 15 minutes or until lightly browned, turning to brown evenly.
Add the mushrooms, carrots, burgundy, onions, bacon, parsley, garlic, marjoram, thyme, bouillon, pepper and bay leaf. Bring to boiling; reduce heat. Cover and simmer 25 minutes or until the chicken is tender and no longer pink.
Use a slotted spoon to transfer the chicken and vegetables to dinner plates; cover and keep warm. Discard bay leaf. In a small bowl gradually stir the water into the flour until smooth. Stir into mixture in skillet. Cook until thickened and bubbly. Cook one minute more. Pour sauce of chicken and vegetables.
4 servings. Each serving contains 225 calories, 6 g total fat, 21 g protein, 12 g carbohydrate, 2 g dietary fiber.
Oh, how a mere tenth of a pound can hurt - now, according to the government, I’m officially obese again, not just overweight. That’s actually a problem with the BMI formula, but that is a rant for another day.
And that tenth of a pound? It’s the kids’ fault. First we went to the brand-new Gaskins Rd. Cracker Barrel. Laugh at my unhipness all you will, but it was breakfast-for-dinner night, and Cracker Barrel is such a loud place that it’s a good place for boisterous little people. Then it was off to the PTA ice cream social/book fair, which featured ice cream (duh). The really good, full fat kind, not the stuff I usually eat.
Yesterday was, of course, President’s Day. I celebrated, if one can call it that, by taking both kids to the West End Chuck E. Cheese, since that’s where the little oxen wanted to celebrate last quarter’s perfect report card. That makes me either brave or stupid. I report, you decide. Chuck’s place is a den of temptation, what with the pizza and the robotic tool of fat Blue Bunny ice cream machine, but we made it through OK, if not psychically unscathed.
Helping the cause was a nice recipe for meatloaf, from Better Homes and Gardens’ Family Favorites Made Lighter cookbook:
2 slightly beaten egg whites
1/4 c bread crumbs
1/4 c finely chopped onion
1/4 c finely chopped green pepper
1/4 c skim milk
2 T snipped parsley
1/2 t dried sage
1/4 t salt
1/4 t pepper
12 oz. 90% lean ground beef
1 T catsupIn medium bowl stir together first 9 ingredients. Add ground beef and mix well. Pat mixture into 6×3x1.5 inch loaf. Bake at 350° for 45 minutes. Spread catsup over meatloaf before serving.
4 servings. Each serving includes 183 calories, 8g total fat, 18g protein, 7g carboydrate and 1g dietary fiber.
Made it through another weekend successfully, which has always been the biggest challenge. There’s so much time to fill and so much food available.
I’ve added a sidebar widget for tracking my progress. I started writing some script to grab data from Google Spreadsheets and run it through Plotkit to create a chart, but then remembered that EditGrid includes charting already. So the widget grabs the chart from EditGrid as well as the data that appears underneath. When I update the spreadsheet each morning, the sidebar updates automatically.
