Weekly Weigh In

Well I did my thoughts on the week last night so I'll just post the results now.

Week 5 Progress: -4
Total: -18.6

Total Inches Lost: -23
                   Hips: -5
                 Waist: -3
                 Chest: -3


Lindsay also asked me if I would mind sharing my story at a Wednesday night info session.  I need to make sure the calendar is clear (which I think it is) but I'm gonna do it.  I want people to know they can do this and it just takes a little planning and creativity.

For April there is a monthly No Cheat Challenge.  I'm enrolled.  The loss totals is based on percentage so everyone has an equal chance of winning.  I know one prize is an autographed cook book from the Chef that does a lot of the IP cooking videos.

Here's hoping I win, but even if I'm not the biggest loser in April, I'll still be down and that makes me happy!!

The plan changed but ...

... I made it through the weekend.

I was a little worried about how things would go.  I mean I planned all I could but still things happen.  We ended up eating out more than usual so that was actually to my benefit (salad bar and grilled chicken, baby!!).  I ate with the family the rest of the time.

This was really important because there is an on-going anorexia issue with someone on Johns side of the family.  I wanted to make sure everyone saw that I was eating.  Sometimes it was my own stuff but more often it was a mix of real food that everyone else was eating and the IP food (soup or pancakes).  I needed to make sure they weren't worrying needlessly.  His grandma asked a bit about the program so we chatted about that.  She did say she hoped I would be able to eat with the rest of them next time we come up.  We'll see how I can manage that in a month or so since we won't be back up there until sometime in May.

We did have a really good time though.  We'll see what the results are tomorrow but these are the things I see/notice so far (just thought I'd start a list since I'm bloggin' on a Sunday night :) )

... any pants I owned prior to 2/24 are too big.
... the 2 pairs of jeans I got at Kohl's for half price 2 weeks ago (and they just fit nicely then) are loose
... the belt I bought a month ago needs new holes drilled in it.  I'm on the last one and my britches are still sliding down
... I can run up the stairs with the dog and not be winded.
... I can sit with my legs crossed
... I can run up and down the stairs multiple times before I get winded
... I'm sleeping better
... I haven't needed my heartburn meds for over a month
... I don't see my belly when I sit down
... I all around have more energy
... I can eat spicier food and it doesn't both my stomach (I'm guessing all the carb processing was too much before but this was an unexpected side effect)
... I'm really enjoying the creativity challenge that cooking has become
... I'm really enjoying helping others learn to like veg (had a little gathering at my house last week and we are planning another one sometime in May)

Weekend Survival: Planning ahead

This weekend we are going back to my husband's hometown (Sparta WI - go badgers ...lower case.  gotta shout out, but I'm an Iowa girl, so its without much enthusiasm ;)).  We stay with his grandma and aunt when we visit.  I don't want to offend them, but I'm bringing my own food for the weekend.

I asked John about it and he said they wouldn't be offended.  That's good.  I don't want to cause any trouble, but this is kinda important.

Here's my plan:
I'm bringing a bag or 2 of frozen chopped broccoli.  This will be either soup for lunch (with the IP cream of chicken soup mix) or the side for dinner.

For lunch, I'm pre-making some pasta salad with the IP pasta and sauteed zucchini and yellow squash with some WF Italian sun dried tomato dressing.  We'll be going out for lunch one day but the place we're going should have good options (grilled chicken and veg)  I'll swap and have the protein at lunch and probably soup or pasta salad for dinner.

I think I am also going to pre make crispy cereal pancakes and bring those with some syrup packets.  They should be easy to heat up and it will look like a "normal" meal to every one else.  My usual waffles or smoothie wont work as I'm not packing my waffle iron and blender.  Then I might get some sidelong glances from the rest of the family :)

I'll bring along bars/crisps enough for snacks for the 3 days.

I don't know if I'll bring protein along (chicken or fish).  I might go with the flow on that and just make sure I can eat it (or run to the store and pick up something I can eat).  I'm less worried about that because there are more options, and its more readily available.

I think its a good plan.

The one thing I'm most worried about is I usually bring home-made bread to his grandma.  She loves it and can't make it herself anymore.  I don't want to not bring it, and I know if I told John I thought it would bother me he would say don't do it.  But I also don't want to disappoint.  Maybe that's all on me but still.  Hoping the pancakes and syrup kill the craving so the bread isn't an issue!!

Wish me luck.  This will be a test!

Midweek Dinner: Korean Beef

I love meals that go together in a snap, especially during the work week.  Some days are just very tiring.  On others the hub's schedule gets jerked around, so quick and easy is also fast and flexible.

I've mentioned Six Sisters Stuff  before.  I have never tried a recipe off their site that has been bad.  I first found them on Pinterest.  Then I started following their blog.  Now I follow their Facebook page.  Not everything they do appeals to me but the ones that do (dinners and desserts alike) have all been fabulous.

This Korean Beef recipe is no exception.  Its absolutely fantastic!!

The only swap ... splenda brown sugar.  Yep that's it.  Everything else is legal!!!  I did put the green onions in with everything else instead of sprinkling on top.  I wanted them to cook a little. But otherwise I followed the recipe as written.

I have also noticed that I can do a little more spiciness in my food now.  I made it with 1/2 tsp red pepper flakes but that was plenty of heat for me.

I made rice for the hubs.  For me, instead of rice I grated 2 cups of cauliflower with a cheese grater and toasted it in a dry saute pan over medium heat.

Seriously it was super fast,  sweet and spicy, and very filling.

Great for a weeknight.  great for any night :)

Korean Beef

Ingredients:

1 lb lean ground beef
1/2 cup Splenda brown sugar
1/4 cup soy sauce

1 Tablespoon sesame oil
3 cloves garlic, minced
1/4 teaspoon ground ginger
1/2 - 1 teaspoon crushed red peppers (depending on how spicy you like it)
salt and pepper
1 bunch green onions, diced

Cauliflower Rice

Directions:

Heat a large skillet over medium heat and brown hamburger with garlic in the sesame oil. Drain most of the fat and add brown sugar, soy sauce, ginger, salt and pepper and red peppers. Simmer for a few minutes to blend the flavors. Serve over cauliflower rice and top with green onions.

Weekly Weigh In: Thoughts on the week

So this week wasn't perfect.  I'll find out in a few hours how I did weight loss wise.  I don't think it will be too bad.  But some things happened, especially over the weekend.

I miscounted and had 2 restricted IP foods on Sunday.  I made these delish green beans plus Korean beef from SixSistersStuff (will post later on that - it was ah-mazing) but both dishes had brown sugar (albeit Splenda Brown sugar which is legal) and I'm not sure if that would be a overload on my system.

We also took my youngest (almost 19) and her BF out to lunch after church.  They wanted Olive Garden.  I thought I'd be OK after reading a Hungry Girl OG Survival post.  I think I made wise choices (minestrone soup and salad) and I was really  happy about that.  I did make the bread stick basket stay at the other end of the table though.  Not sure I could have withstood that temptation.  But as I was eating (and picking pasta out of the soup because I forgot it was in there) I wondered about the kidney beans.  Were they OK?  Should I not eat those too?  And have I had my 2 restricted veg for the week ... would the tomatoes be a problem?

Then I thought, well this is the best I could do.  There will be times I have to make some compromises.  I made the best choices I could today.  That's success in my book.   And its certainly not like that happens every day,  Usually its lock step on plan.  So I'm not going beat myself up for not being perfect, but instead be happy that I was pretty darn good and got to enjoy some time with my daughter!

< ... now we wait for weigh in results ...>

Week 4 Progress: -2.8
Total: -14.6

Next week there will be measurements,  I'm excited to see what the "inch loss" will be!!

Green Bean Makeover

This weekend was our church small group meeting  Its always a potluck.  This time around we brought a green bean side dish.

The original recipe is here on Six Sisters Stuff ... love this site!!!

The butter amount worried me a little because that would be an awful lot of oil so I googled butter to oil conversions.  Turns out its not 1:1 ... more like 2:1.  I added a link to the conversion site over on the right under Helpful Links

I doubled it to serve the herd that always shows up at small group and still there was nothing left.

Here's the make over

Ingredients:

2 (12 oz) package frozen green beans (I used Green Giant Valley Fresh Steamers)
12 pieces turkey bacon, cut into 1 inch pieces

1/4 cup grape seed oil 

1/2 cup Splenda brown sugar

garlic salt, to taste

Directions:

In  a large skillet cook turkey bacon until done, but not crisp.  Add oil and brown sugar and cook until the sugar is dissolved.

Cook green beans in the microwave per package directions..  Season with garlic salt to taste then pour bacon sauce over them and toss to coat.

If the brown sugar mixture starts to go hard, you can quickly reheat it before pouring it over your beans.

Weekly Weigh In: Hungry week

Ladies you know about hungry week.  We all have it in one form or another.  Any guys reading this have probably witnessed it.  Its that one week a month where you crave what ever your down fall food is.  For me its carbs and chocolate.  My daughters are definitely sweet cravers.  It feels like you are always hungry no matter what or how much you eat.  You have to have that brownie, that cookie, that luscious cheesecake.  The week where you usually just want to wallow in ice cream and m&ms ... that's what we call hungry week.

This was hungry week.  It was tough.  I wasn't prepared for the the strength of the craving as I made cookies for my husband to take to work on St. Patrick's Day.  I mean, I'd made apple fritters the week before and it didn't bother me a bit.  But this was hungry week and the cookies were chocolate.  And mint ... best combo on the planet!

I did sneak a little lick of the spoon when they were all done.  I did not, as I so wanted to do, eat spoonfuls of cookie dough.  Oh how I wanted to , but I was able to resist at least that much.  But the little fall, the licking of the spoon showed me that kind of food has not lost its grip on me.  Probably never will.  And that's OK.  As long as I can resist most of the time and not beat myself up for the times that I give in, that will be progress.  If I can come to a point where I resist all the time that will be a resounding victory.

But for now the struggle reminds me that I am after all, human.  Things can be hard in life and those difficulties can come out of nowhere.  You just have to get up if you fall, brush the dirt off and keep going.

Week 3 progress: -2.0
Total: -11.8

Weekend Recipe Project: Breakfast is served Part 2

OK so the waffle, muffin experiment worked out well yesterday.  I'm still drooling over those struessel muffins!  Today I want to tackle another all-time fave of mine ... quiche

There is a great quiche recipe in my Weight Watchers Favorite Recipes cook book.  I've remembered it from all those years ago when I joined WW.  Its a crust-less crab quiche.

Also since this is protein it will be breakfast for dinner ... again Yay!!  Love breakfast at any time of day!

I counted the crab, eggs and veg cheese as protein so each serving is about 7 oz.  So this works great for dinner even on a day where you might have to reduce your protein content because you had waffles for breakfast ;)

 But remember, don't eat any restricted foods on a day you make this.  Each serving also contains your milk allotment for the day so no milk in the coffee in the morning.

You could add more veg than the recipe calls for but at first I decided to go basic the first timeout of the chute and just have it with a salad to get my 2 cups.  Then I thought, what's breakfast, even breakfast for dinner, without hash browns ....

I decided to be really adventurous and used jicama (pronounced hic-ama).  Again legal veg but lets make it up just a little bit different than normal (its great raw and has a sweet taste).  I've been told its called a "Mexican potato" so I hoped that the consistency and texture would hold up to grating and hash browning)

I did a quick search to see if any one had posted the original recipe (since my cook book is from the late 80s/early 90s and the inter webs weren't nearly so prevalent then)

Here is a link to a recipe that looks to be pretty close to the original one I used:

Here is the recipe with my changes:
6 ounces imitation crab meat, chopped (I used canned fancy white wild crab meat) 
4 oz Go Veggie veggie cheese shreds (I used mozz shreds because I didn't have the cheddar shreds but either would work) 
1 leek, diced
6 large eggs
3 oz skim milk plus enough water to make a 3/4 c.
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon dry mustard
1/8 teaspoon pepper
1 dash paprika
Directions:

1.  Preheat oven to 400 degrees (375 degrees for glass plate).
2.  Spray a 8" pie plate with non-stick spray.
3.  Combine crab, leeks and cheese.
4.  Press into pie plate.  Use the back of a spoon to press it into the bottom and up the sides.
5.  Beat together remaining ingredients except paprika and pour over the crab.
6.  Sprinkle with paprika.
7.  Bake until set 30-35 minutes.

Serves 3

For the hash browns I just peeled then grated the jicama using my grater and cooked it up in a pan with a little olive oil, and salt and pepper.

The hash browns could have been a little better.  Jicama is a little sweet so it still had that sweet taste too it.  Plus they got done sooner than anticipated so they cooled off a little before the quiche was done.  And I like my hash browns with ketchup so that might have lent itself to my less than enthusiastic reception.  Might try turnips or the now infamous rutabaga next time :)

The quiche turned out great though.  Very filling (good grief you get 1/3 of a pie) and cheesy.

Weekend Recipe Project: Breakfast is Served Part 1

I love brunch!  I love breakfast for dinner!  I just love breakfast.  I wanted to come up with a few things that I could have on the IP protocol to change things up every once in a while.  I mean I love my morning smoothie, but I still don't want to have the same thing every day.

I used this waffle recipe as the jumping off point for today's recipe project.  It is from www.MyIdealProtein.com ( I checked to make sure I could repost the recipe and was told it was OK.)

Ami's Waffle Recipe
Ingredients:
• 1 packet IP Pudding mix (any flavor)
• 1 egg or 2 egg whites, beaten
• 2 oz. of water (Additional water may be used to thin batter for pancakes)
• 1/4 tsp Baking Powder
• small pinch of sea salt
• (optional) add a few drops of flavored Stevia
• (optional) Spices of your choice: cinnamon, vanilla, pumpkin pie spice, etc.
• (optional) Walden Farms topping: Maple Syrup, Chocolate Syrup etc., I Can 't Believe It's Not Butter spray.
Directions:
Beat egg and water until mixed. Add spices, salt and baking power. Finally stir in one IP pudding packet. Mix will be thick. Pour into greased waffle iron or make three small pancakes. Finally top with your favorite WF product. I like vanilla pudding with cinnamon and 4 drops of vanilla crème Stevia. Then top with WF Maple Syrup!

Makes 1 IP serving. If using the whole egg, subtract 1.5-2 ounces of protein from your daily 8oz. or consult your coach.

So I like to add a little vanilla and cinnamon to mine.  And yes any flavor of IP pudding will do.  Here are my chocolate waffles.  I had them with WF Caramel Sauce.  They were extremely decadent :)

But I wondered what else I could do with this "basic dough" so I after I had waffles this morning with WF pancake syrup (its pretty amazing for all its sugar free.  I don't get the aftertaste I've had with other sugar free syrups.  This just tastes like Mrs. Butterworth)

I made muffins

I made 2 batches of the basic dough: one with milk chocolate pudding and one with the vanilla.  Each batch makes 3 of this size muffin and that would be 1 serving

The first row of muffins I tried a "cinnamon struessel".  The dough already had cinnamon in it, so I put one scoop in (using the small Pampered Chef scoop) and sprinkled a little Splenda brown sugar on it.  One more scoop, flatten it down a wee bit, sprinkle some more splenda brown sugar and row 1 was ready to go.

The middle row I made a "marble" muffin.  I used 1 scoop of the vanilla dough and 1 scoop of the chocolate dough and swirled it a little with a wooden skewer.

The last row was straight up chocolate muffins.

Bake 'em at 350° for about 15 minutes and voila

Muffins!!!

I couldn't wait to try them so this was my snack today :)  Happy snack !!  The struessel ones were amazing, by far the best of the bunch although the other two were good (I had 1 of each so I could taste test and report back ;)

So there you go ... breakfast is served.  Tomorrow I am going to remake a great Weight Watchers quiche recipe to be IP friendly with very few actual changes  But it will be breakfast for dinner.  I'm all for that!!

So long for now!

Midweek Dinner: Beyond the ordinary

So I'm on week 3 and I've been eating asparagus twice a week for nearly a month now.  Don't get me wrong.  I LOVE asparagus.  So does my husband.  But roasted asparagus twice a week was getting a little old.  One thing I've learned so far is that old = boring and for me boring = cheat/struggle.  So I wanted to change things up a bit.

I've always wanted to try the bacon wrapped asparagus bundles.  Since turkey bacon is "legal"I used that.

I used this recipe from Just a Pinch.

Pretty simple.  Season ... wrap ... bake ... eat.  It took maybe 5 minutes longer than what I would normally do to roast them for prep time.  Bake time was less (higher temp) so all in all it was no more work than usual but it was a really nice change up to make the midweek a little less mundane.

Remember to lower your main protein by the bacon weight.  The turkey bacon  I get is 1/2 oz per slice so I lowered my main protein to 6 oz. Still plenty for a very satisfying meal.

Weeky Weigh In

Accountability is a good thing.

I know I have accountability with my coach (Lindsay - she's awesome!!) and a couple of friends who are also on IP.  But I still feel like I should write in each week how I did.

Week 2 progress: -3.2
Total: -9.8

I know there will be weeks where this is more of a confessional than a celebration.  It can't always be this easy.  In fact last week I actually sat and stared at someone in the cafeteria eating a big piece of pizza with a luscious bready crust.  Stared!  And I had to really make myself think about other things to stop thinking about the pizza.

That's as hard as it s been so far and I would say on the scale of difficulties in life that ranks pretty low.  I hope and pray that's as hard as it gets.  I'm sure as long as I keep things interesting (like making cauliflower crust pizza after the cafeteria staring episode) I can keep myself from being distracted.

I also was asked by a dear friend what I'm going to do with all this passion and drive I have right now and I would love to help people.

I'm not a chef, I'm not a nutritionist. I don't know a lot of different flavor profiles and I can't MacGyver a four course gourmet dinner on the fly as unexpected guests are pulling into the driveway.

I'm just a simple systems engineer with a few cooking classes under her belt.  But I'll do what I can.  I'll search the internets for interesting recipes.  I'll test drive said recipes to see how good/easy they are.  I'll get together and cook so at least the cooking classes I have taken can maybe help someone else learn about food prep and make it easier for them to eat healthy.

This I can do.

Weekend Recipe Project: Remade Chicken and Dumplings sans Dumplings

Tonight we are having our church small group over for dinner.  We meet every two weeks and its our turn to host.  Its  a potluck and we provide the entree.  I really wanted to make crock pot chicken and dumplings so that's what we are having.  There is also 1 gal who is on IP and 1 who is watching her carbs so I decided it was the perfect time to try and remake my absolute favorite crock pot chicken and dumpling recipe.

The original recipe can be found at  BubbleCrumb.com  (why in my head I always call it crumbly pot I don't know.  But if you ever hear me talk about crumbly pot then you know its bubblecrumb.com  unless there really is a crumbly pot.  Then I'm just screwed :/)

The ingredients list is small which is something else I like about the original recipe.  Here's what you need:

Yep that's it!

This was my first adaptation of a regular recipe but it was pretty easy.  I swapped leeks for onions (although since the onions weren't sauteed and thus wouldn't caramelize I'm thinking they would have been OK.  I didn't have a chance to check that with Lindsay so decided to err on the side of caution and just use leeks.)

The cream of chicken soup was going to be the hard thing to replace but then I found out my first week that IP chicken soup is cream of chicken soup ... and as a bonus its really good ... problem solved:)

I had to play around with the amount of liquid to add to the IP soup mix so that it would have the condensed soup consistency.  Four ounces seemed to do the trick so that's what I went with.  I also used low sodium chicken broth to make the soup instead of water ... extra broth-y goodness can't be wrong now can it :)

The directions are really easy ... layer everything in the crock pot in the order that its listed in the ingredients list.  Cook on high for 4-6 hours.  And voila ...done.  Crock pot chicken and ... gravy.  Yes that's what we'll call it.  Chicken and gravy :)

It turned out pretty good.  The gravy thickened up as it cooled so it was really more soup/stoup than gravy but every one thought it tasted great.  I adjusted the broth down below.  You might need more but it just depends on how big your crock pot is.  You'll need to pour in enough to just cover the chicken

One other thing to note, if you use chicken tenders check it at about the 4 hour mark.  I let it go and the meat so so tender it just fell apart instead of shredding, which also lent itself to the soup feel.

Ingredients:
1.5 lbs skinless boneless chicken breasts
2 T olive or grape seed oil
3 packets Ideal Protein Chicken Soup
16 oz chicken broth (plus additional if needed)
2 leeks diced
1 Tbsp parsley

Directions:
Layer chicken at the bottom of a crock pot.  Drizzle oil over chicken.  Mix up the IP soup mix one packet at a time in a shaker bottle using 4 oz. chicken broth instead of water and pour over chicken.  Pour in remaining broth.  Add more broth as needed to make sure it just covers the chicken.  Scatter diced leeks over the top.  Sprinkle with parsley.

Cook on high for 4-6 hours or on low for 6-8 hours.  After cooking time is done, shred chicken in the crock pot using a fork.  Serve, eat, enjoy!

Serves: 3

Midweek Dinner : Operation Turnip

So I have never eaten a turnip (let me clarify - I have never willingly or knowingly eaten a turnip) in my life.  But its one of the legal unrestricted veg on the IP protocol so I thought I maybe ought to give them a try.

To the Pinterest boards!!

I found several interesting recipes and decided to combine 2 to make a glazed turnip hash.

The original recipes are from Israeli Kitchen and The Daily Balance.

I started with my little turnip guys

I had read that the peel is quite bitter so I made sure to get every last bit, sacrificing a little turnip to make sure no peel remained.  I did a rough chop on them and also diced 2 leeks.

I simmered the turnips for about 5 minutes.  They were getting tender by then so I drained them and heated up oil in a saute pan.  I threw in the turnip chunks and  diced leeks and sauteed.  I added sea salt, pepper, paprika and splenda and tossed it around the pan until my husband got home ... maybe 10-15 minutes overall.

I also broiled tuna steaks.  I am really digging broiled fish.  It is so easy and just so tasty!

All plated up, dinner is ready to go :)

Enjoy!

Turnip Hash
Ingredients:
   4 medium turnips, peeled and chopped
   2 leeks, chopped
   1-2 T olive oil
   1 T splenda
   Sea salt, Black Pepper, Paprika to taste

Directions
   Simmer the chopped turnips for about 5 minutes until fork-tender (if they are soft to start yu can probably skip this step).  Drain.

   Heat olive oil in a saute pan over medium heat.  Add the leeks and turnips and saute for 2-3 minutes.  Sprinkle with sea salt, black pepper and paprika.  Toss to distribute.  Sprinkle with splenda and toss.  Cook for 10-15 minutes, turning occasionally to prevent burning.

Weekly Weigh In

Today was weigh in day.

Lost 6.5 pounds

Fully clothed ... 6.5 LBS!!!

So excited and happy.  Like I said earlier I have felt great.  I got a video link in an email this morning that was making waffles out of the vanilla IP pudding mix.  I only have chocolate pudding.  Chocolate waffles it is!!! Maybe tomorrow.  Maybe for dinner.  I don't know I feel giddy :)

6.5 LBS. !!!!

And Lindsay said I should document my little victories too so .. the belt is in one more notch this week :)  Ha ha ha.

OK, back to work for me.  But I just had to check in with that

Recipe Time

So I thought I should post a recipe since I said I would try to do that.  Sunday seems like a good day for recipe posting since I have more time.

I thought for my first recipe I would post the veggie stir fry I've made a couple of time since I think I have the amounts down now.  I first had this at work for lunch a couple of weeks ago.  We have this line on Thursdays called The Wokery - you get to pick what you want - meat, veg , sauce, and rice type - and they cook it up for you.  Well the rice and sauce were out, so I got a bunch of veg and chicken.  I added soy sauce and pepper at the condiment stations and proceeded to devour the whole thing.  It was amazing (this was my cabbage a-ha moment).  And its true that warm food in your belly really is more satisfying, especially on cold winter afternoons.

So I tried making it at home:

First I cut up the veg

This wasn't as monstrous a task as it looks since half of what is on the cutting board was pre-cut.  I used chopped frozen broccoli, pre-shredded cabbage and a carton of bean sprouts.  I diced 2 medium sized leeks and 2 stalks of celery.

Once all the veg was ready I heated some oil in my wok and started with the leeks, celery and frozen broccoli.  I let that saute for  about 4-5 minutes til the celery was starting to soften. Then I added the sprouts and cabbage and cooked another maybe 5 minutes. While it was cooking I added grated fresh ginger and some fresh ground black pepper.  You can also drizzle with soy sauce, but I found it easier to do that in the bowl just for 1 serving.  It was too hard for me to gauge the amount while the whole batch was in the wok (and yes I learned this from experience and completely botching the first batch I made ...way to much soy sauce.  way too salty even for me).

So cooked as is, its the perfect IP lunch.  Add stir fry chicken, pork or beef for a hearty dinner.

Enjoy!

Ingredients:
   1-2 T EVOO or grape seed oil
   2 medium leeks, diced
   2 stalks celery, diced
   1 c frozen chopped broccoli
   1 carton (pint?) bean sprouts
   1/2 bag shredded cabbage
   Grated fresh ginger, Soy Sauce and Fresh ground black pepper to taste

Directions:
Heat oil in wok or deep saute pan over medium high heat.  Add leeks, celery and broccoli and saute for 4-5 minutes.  Add sprouts and cabbage and continue cooking for 4-5 minutes.  Add ginger, soy sauce (if desired) and black pepper and mix well.  Serve, eat, enjoy.

Buck neked on a Saturday morning ...

...that's how I weigh myself for my own progress checks.  Ummm what did you think I was gonna say?!?  This is a family friendly blog, people ;)

My official IP weigh in is Monday.  I'll put that in a progress bar over on the right afterward.  But I've always checked on Saturday mornings so I did so this morning.  I did a mid week check and was shocked at the drop but figured that would be the loss for the week and was thrilled with it.  Much to my delight and surprise I was down more today.

A total of 6 lbs lost since last Saturday.

O.o

Seriously!?!?

That's what the scale said.  I was shocked and amazed.  Truly I've felt pretty great all week, not like I've been on a "diet".  There was a day or two where my choices weren't as good (filling) and I did feel hungry when I shouldn't have but I dealt with it.   And I've learned a lot this week ...

• I've learned breakfast sets the tone for the whole day.

• I've learned what makes a good breakfast for me (my decadent IP smoothie or an equally decadent IP peanut butter bar) and what doesn't (the peach mango drink while it tastes wonderful, its not filling enough).  . 

• I've learned I like stir-fry cabbage and me a cabbage hater most of my life.  I owe an apology to cabbages the world over.  You are delicious - especially stir fried with fresh ginger :)

• I've learned I like rutabagas - at least rutabaga fries.  Still have yet to try rutabaga hash browns but it will be on the menu soon I can promise you that.

• I've learned there is life after bread.  I can live, I can be happy without bread.  Someday I'll have bread again.  In small quantities, for special occasions.  But for now, I am content.

One thing I do miss is rice.  Not just eating rice but eating sushi.  My husband and I have gotten into the habit over the last 6 months or so of making "date night" sushi night.  We found a great place (for Iowa) for sushi and we love deciding which of the many rolls we want that night.   We had date night last night and went to a movie.  No sushi.  It was sad but he is so encouraging saying we just can't do that for now but someday we'll be able to have our sushi dates again.  I look forward to that day :)

I love that man.  I really do.

He is making this so easy for me.  He isn't eating things he knows would be hard for me to have around the house.  He is up for any crazy veggie dish I want to try out for dinner and gives really honest feedback (like that was TOO much soy sauce the first time I made the veggie stir fry).  But he is an adventurous eater and so that encourages me to be adventurous as well.  And while its nice to have those tried and true quick dinners (like chicken and broccoli) in the repertoire, its fun to have someone to share a food-venture with too.  And when the first words out of his mouth when I told him I wasn't happy with my weight were "What do you need me to do to help you.  I'll do whatever you need" - well that's a support system that is really supportive.  I'll cook adventurous for that attitude any day of the week.

I'll be back Monday with the official weigh in.

So long for now!