Food

I love to cook. That is not a secret. I also love to find healthy recipes that are mouth watering and don't make me feel like I'm just eating raw carrots.

French Toast is amazing, obviously. Wheat bread, tons of cinnamon. Cinnamon is so underused. Much better for you than sugar and tons of health benefits (google it).


English muffins are healthier that biscuits. Poached eggs are the healthiest way to eat eggs and the most delicious.


Seafood enchiladas. Wheat tortillas stuffed with shrimp, scallops, etc... Sauce is whipping cream with diced jalapenos and tomatoes. Green beans as side.


Maple Ground Mustard Chicken. Pan seared chicken with stone ground mustard and maple glaze.





Salmon and Brown rice



Salmon quesadillas. Plain Greek yogurt instead of sour cream.



Burgers are awesome. Make a slider, add a poached egg, fills you up and is amazing. Crispy yellow pepper fries.



Good 'ol veggies and chicken. Season it right and you can't go wrong.



Avocado is awesome on egg sandwiches.



Southwestern veggies on a salad with chicken and a few tortilla chips is way healthier than nachos.

Lemon pepper chicken and steamed brocolli and cauliflower. Tastier than you might think!

Stone Ground mustard chicken and grilled veggies. Great to make ahead and take to work. Way better than lean cuisine and doesn't have all the sodium.

Soul Food

Lately I've been discovering what my "soul food" is. I know that most people think of fried chicken and mac and cheese when they think of soul food, but that's not my definition. In my opinion, soul food is good old fashioned home-cooked goodness that reminds you of home. I think of the food that I grew up eating and that takes me back to my roots. I remember steamed veggies, snapper, seared tuna, red potatoes, shrimp pasta, salmon and Greek salads. This is what soul food means to me. I don't know where I lost my love for soul food along the way, but I am enjoying getting it back. Here are some pics of the soul food I've been cooking lately. I stocked my fridge with all of my favorite soul foods and I have had so much fun cooking back to my roots! Veggies cooked in olive oil, grilled chicken and beans, wheat bagels with low-fat cream cheese (ok, so that's not really cooking, but I have learned that if I have groceries in my house that I love to splurge on, I don't go out and binge on restaurant food near as much!), Grilled cheese, turkey, tomato and avocado sandwiches, chicken sausage with fresh peppers and homemade sweet potato fries! P.S. I've lost 2 more pounds :)

My Taco Shell is Made of Cheese

I saw a friend post a picture of a taco shell made of cheese and I had to try it. It was amazing and lower in carbs than a regular shell. It was really greasy, though. Next time I'll blot it a lot. I just plopped 3 piles of shredded cheese on a silicone baking mat and baked the cheese on 350 degrees for about 7-8 mins, or until the cheese was light brown, flat and bubbly. I grabbed a wooded skewer, slid it under the cheese circle, and let them hang until hardened. For the stuffing I grilled a chicken breast and fresh peppers in olive oil. Fresh avocado and tomato made it just right! I ate half the chicken breast with the 3 mini tacos and put the rest in a salad made of kale and chard for dinner at work. Pretty tasty!! Next time I will use a little less olive oil, the veggies were a little greasy.

Not So Delicious Red Apple

I realized today that I don't like apples. I always buy them and take them to work with me as a snack, but never eat them. I see so many healthy people around me constantly munching on apples and it seems like they're such a good idea. For the longest time I thought they went to waste because of my adversity to healthy snacks. Glad I figured that out. I did two-a-days today. 45 minute bike ride before work and a one mile run on my dinner break. Yesterday (Sunday) I Jerry-rigged that mountain bike I bought a while ago and I think I love that bike now! I fixed it up with cable ties! Hey, if I had a handyman it might not look so ghetto, but that was the best I could do. I think it will work very well for my triathlon in August. Here are some pics I snapped yesterday:

I'm reading the book "Ada's Rules." I'll write more about it later, it deserves it's own post. I do want to give you a teaser, though. The author talks about all these different ways to lose weight and they all work for her. Her motto is to keep doing something different than what you've always done. This is me! I started to get a little too comfortable blogging, so I backed off a little bit and I'm back at it harder than ever! I am so ready for this weight to go away. My friend Lacey tells me I'm being too impatient, but I'm serious! It just won't go away. I'm back to weighing everyday- it helps. I'm down 5 pounds from a week ago :)

I'm out of Creative Titles

Okay, so I'm back to weighing every day. I've got to get rid of all stones in the jar on the right! I have another triathlon in August and I want to cut my time in half! I'm doing two-a-days until further notice. Food:
I have really gotten into the habit of enjoying breakfast. Right now I'm on a big Greek yogurt and granola kick. Above is Vanilla Greek yogurt with raspberry creme Brulee granola, peanut butter toast, coffee and orange juice.

This is my new favorite go-to quick meal. Target has all these awesome yummy microwave steamable veggie packs. I throw some pre-cooked chicken in a skillet, heat it up, and mix it with the veggies--- so good!

This one is a southwestern mix with tomatoes, corn, black beans, tomatoes, etc...

This was cilantro lime rice with corn. I really liked this one. These are awesome healthy, quick meals. I love to cook, so I feel like I'm still kind of cooking! (even though it's totally not!) Right now while I'm on my two-a-days, these meals are perfect because working out this much really does take up a lot of time. I eat half of the steam bag with the chicken for lunch and then eat the rest of the veggies for dinner at work. As a snack, I munch on pistachios or almonds before dinner. This also helps me with a saying my mom used to always recite: Eat breakfast like a:

Eat lunch like a:

And eat dinner like a:

White Shirt

I have had this White shirt forever. It's always been really tight. In fact, it used To come down To where my hands are! I put it on and was shocked at how loose it is! I can now wear it without a tank top or anything under it!

Signs from Somewhere

Do you believe in signs? No? How about divine hints? If you're thinking that I'm about to write some quacked out version of "Heaven is for Real," I'm not. It is safe to keep reading. I do believe in God and I do believe that He interacts with us somehow. Exactly how, I'm not sure and I'm not trying to figure it out. All I know is that I have been given signs from somewhere the past few days and I think I am going to take them as a blessing. Ever since my triathlon I have been in a serious funk. My mom was in town and we got in a huge fight over our celebratory lunch. I threatened to go all "Ya-Ya Sisterhood" on her and divulge the details in my blog, but after mulling over the possible detriment that would cause to our relationship, I decided against it. I'll leave it at this: the past three weeks I have been depressed over our fight, and I am hurt by many of the words that were exchanged. I felt like she doesn't believe I am really trying and that she doesn't think I can do this on my own. I have written before that I will not ever take the easy way out in anything in my life...especially losing weight and getting healthy. Gastric Bypass and Lap Band surgeries work for thousands of Americans every year, but I am not looking for this type of solution. Physical solutions will not ever be able to solve the disparity between my emotions and food. Even though the scale doesn't show a ginormous change, the changes in my head are enough to fill a state. Like, at least the size of Georgia. I actually crave water now, and I am listening to my body when it needs it. I am so observant about food. I am disgusted by the habits of some people when before I might not even notice it because I was perhaps doing the same thing. When I am hungry, my cravings have changed drastically. I honestly get a little sick when I think of pizza now, when before it was always my go to comfort food. Yesterday was the dreariest Sunday ever. I wanted to lounge around and do absolutely nothing all day, despite all the crap I needed to take care of. I decided to order delivery lunch. I pulled out a couple of menus and I surprised myself by ordering a grilled chicken salad! Me, the person who gets annoyed at the thought of people paying restaurant costs for salads! And you know what? It was delicious! So was the wine, might I add. When I go out with friends, I am conscious of what I'm ordering to drink, where before I couldn't care less how many empty calories I consumed in beer or whatever. Saturday night we were drinking bushwhackers and all I could think about was how many calories were in each one!!! Now to the whole signs thing... Friday I was really down and I was actually looking online at some weight loss procedures. As I was getting ready to email a doctor, my friend Samantha sent me link to a blog: http://emilyeatsright.tumblr.com/ It literally brought tears to my eyes. This girl's blog is so inspiring and it made me sick at myself for even considering resorting to surgery. She posted a video of her reaction to reaching the weight loss goal of 100 pounds. That, of course, brought tears to my eyes too. Underneath the video she writes: "This weight was lost the healthy way: exercise, nutrition, and motivation. That doesn’t mean I stopped enjoying life and food. Yesterday I had 3 skittles lol." Friday night I swore that I would not let depression lick me and ruin everything that I've worked so hard for. I got online and registered for another triathlon and vowed to get back on the wagon. The weekend didn't go so great because I had to work Saturday and Sunday was so blah. I haven't been sleeping well at all the past few weeks and a co-worker told me that I always look tired these days. She's right, I've looked like hell because I haven't been sleeping at all it feels like. I can really tell the difference in my energy when I don't exercise. On my lunch break tonight I went for a 20 minute run and it felt so good! When I came in to work today there was a book sitting on my desk:

This book was sent to us in a press release and I think I'm going to read it. It's about another lady who has lost over 100 pounds the right way: eating healthy, exercising and changing her lifestyle. Oh! And she also blogs :) If these two things aren't signs, then they're definitely divine coincidences! I have actually gotten to the point where I enjoy the feeling of being hungry. Not because I like the physical feeling, but because it means that I am actually eating when I'm hungry and not when I just want to put food in my mouth. The pang of hunger is also evidence that I haven't binged recently. When I binge eat I am not hungry for the rest of the day, or night, or even the next morning. It's been so long since I've been consistently hungry at meal time and it feels great. Usually I am snacking so much throughout the day that I'm not even hungry come lunch or dinner. I'm going to wait a few days to weigh, but when I do, I'm going to get back to weighing everyday. It really holds me accountable.