Day 8 - Progress Report Wednesday!

Today is...SARCASTIC WEDNESDAY!

oh wait... I mean... PROGRESS WEDNESDAY!!

Since this journey started on June 1st which happened to be a Wednesday, I will be sharing a weekly progress report and at the end of the month a total progress report for the month!
So this week I lost....drumroll please:

7 POUNDS!  

Woohoo!!

This is probably going to be the most I lose in a week since I just started and you know, weight loss slows down and ultimately you hit a 'set point' that's REALLY tough to pass and stay past, but I'm going to enjoy this because I ate so many darn plants for it!!  My goal is to lose 2 pounds a week not 7 anyways so that's still the goal.  Thank you to those of you that are reading this little blog of mine.  It really encourages me to keep this going.  I love you so very much for your support, you know who you are!!!

BREAKFAST - 315 Calories

Today I awoke with the WORST cramps I have ever had in my life.  I don't know if the diet had any kind of affect on the intensity of my cramps but almighty spaghetti monster were they bad.  I woke up way late for work and had to call them to let them know that I was currently curled up into a ball and wouldn't make it in til the afternoon.  So since I was hungry AND in pain, I decided to eat some Raisin Bran Crunch with Vanilla Almond Milk (Unsweetened).  Then around noon I was nice and drugged up so I made a quick lunch to take with me.

LUNCH - 201 Calories

For lunch I made another protein style sandwich exactly like the one I made a few days ago.  It was perfect for today, though I did eat the rest of the pretzels in order to get rid of them & cure my hunger.

DINNER - 274 Calories

For dinner I made Pan Seared Tilapia with Steamed Baby Bella Mushrooms, Asparagus,  Brocollette and Avocado.  It was really tasty.  I seasoned it with Fresh Cracked Black Pepper and the Onions & Chive flavored Salt that I picked up from the Farmer's Market.  

When you are done eating this meal, it takes about 15 minutes to feel full.  However, during this 'time' I am hungrier than normal so I moved on to dessert...

YEP.  I DID THAT.  But in my defense, I had enough calories left over in my budget for it (although I DID go over my sugar goal for the day).  I think my body is burning calories much faster right now anyways.  One of the worst tortures ever right now are all the birthday club freebie emails I am getting!! Free offers for things like Ice Cream, Shakes, Appetizers, Entrees and so on.  I WANT TO USE THEM ALL BUT I CAN'T!! I CAN'T!! *sobs*

Speaking of birthdays, today is my brother's birthday!!!!! So I will end this with wishing my brother David Vera a VERY happy birthday today.  I am sure his lovely wife made it very special and I am looking forward to sharing my birthday on Sunday with him!!  His awesome wife is throwing a Mario Kart themed shin dig and I know it is going to be so much fun!! I can't wait! :)  Especially for the cheat meals I will inevitably have due to my lack of will power.  Anyway, let's say one more Happy Birthday to my awesome little brother!

Day 6 - 66

Hello my friends!

It's another work week here and I did my usual run to Starbucks and McDonald's for breakast.  If you are wondering why I go through the trouble of going to both, you should know that it isn't much trouble.  As you can see, they are directly across from each other,  4 minutes away from my office:

BREAKFAST - 340 370 Calories

Starbucks didn't have their caffiene yet as they gave me a grande when I ordered a tall.  I was a little disappointed because I knew this meant 30 extra calories for me.  Now I know what you are probably thinking, "But Caresse, you do not have to drink the whole thing.  Why don't you drink the same amount as a tall?"  BECAUSE IT IS WASTEFUL and I have no willpower.  I had the Turkey and Egg White Breakfast bowl again and it was delicious as always.

LUNCH - 204 Calories

For lunch, I made a sandwich...protein style.  So I layed out an outer leaf of lettuce and put in Delifresh Cracked Black Pepper Turkey Breast (56g), 1/2tbsp of Best Foods Light Mayo with Olive Oil, 2 thin slices of a hot house tomato and half of an avocado.  I sprinkled a little salt and pepper on it and presto!  A delicious and quick low calorie lunch.  I had this with Jasmine Blueberry Iced Tea.  I am one of those weirdo people lucky enough to like unsweetened tea.  Because it was so low in calories I had 14 Rold Gold Original Pretzel Thins.  Now, I waited to log lunch til I only had about 5 minutes to get back to work and that's when I realized the pretzels brought my total calories for the day to 666 calories. GASP! OH NO!

  So naturally, I ran to the cupboard and grabbed 4 Mexican Hot Chocolate Almonds and ate them.  PHEW... 688 calories...  CRISIS AVERTED.

DINNER - 220 Calories

It has been five days since I started this journey out of junk food nation (heaven) and into low calorie hell but I will give it this, I come home feeling ok.  Now 'ok' is kind of a big deal at this point because when I was eating whatever I wanted whenever I wanted, come the time I was getting home from work I was ravenous for food.  I was mean to my sweetheart and that is just sad.  It was a feed me or feel the wrath of a hungry and angry scorned woman situation.  But today I got home and took a shower.  Perused pinterest recipes..and ultimately gave up because Pinterest couldn't help me when it came to what was in my fridge.  I finally just went in there and pulled a few things out that I thought would go together which is how I came up with this beautiful dish below.  

I don't know what to call it... Spring Vegetable Medley?  It is 2 leaves of Swiss Chard, 5oz of Baby Bella Mushrooms, 1 Cup of Yellow squash (all chopped), 5 Chive Blossoms and 1/2 cup of Bertolli Italian Sausage, Garlic & Romano Tomato Sauce.  I sauteed 1 minced clove of garlic in water and then threw in the chopped veggies, added a little more water to keep them from burning and shriveling, tossed in the chive flowers and once the veggies were cooked I poured over the tomato sauce.  When the sauce was warm I plated it in a bowl and sprinkled a dash of parmesan and topped it with 2 fresh chive blossoms.  It was DELICIOUS.  And I cannot believe it is only 220 calories.  That is insane.  

If you are wondering why I am eating flowers now, let me correct you, these are imposter flowers.  They taste like straight up onion.  My breath still stinks of onion as I type this.  In fact this would be great to eat before you go out with someone you would like to offend with your breath.  I picked these chive blossoms up at the Farmer's Market on Sunday, so I was excited to finally cook with them.  The reason I gave up on Pinterest was due to the lack of pin diversity for Chive Blossoms.  I just saw a bunch of fried crap recipes.  So, if you have a recipe for these that would fit my current journey, you tell me about it.

I might do a few teeny strawberries and almonds for dessert...we shall see.  I still have 427 calories left out of my 1360 calorie budget so I probably should.  I was thinking of going somewhere to walk but then I remembered that I am this type of person:

So I will stay here, lift my 3 pound weights and play some games before I go to bed.  I bought those new sheets so I am looking forward to cuddling up to my pillows in them.  And then thrashing.  That is how I get my exercise.  We all have our thing.  Here is this little guys thing:

Work for it baby...work for it.  We'll get it.

Til tomorrow! <3

Day 5 - San Diego Sunday

Today I forgot to take pictures of all my food.  Fail. 

That opening header is going to get some snickers about me being a millenial with the constant need to document my meals.  But come on... it is for the challenge!!  lol

I did take pictures of a few things I did today.  So I'll share those.

Breakfast - 418 Calories

For breakfast, my lovely gal pal, Brenda came over and I made her my Ground Turkey Breakfast Anti-Burrito.  It was pretty good except that I forgot to season it this time around (duh!)  I also skipped out on the cheese.  But overall all it was appetizing and satisfying.  I had this with a cup of jasmine tea.

After breakfast we headed over to Sephora for an exclusive VIB Rouge event.

We were each given a very nice makeup brush bag with a decent amount of samples as well.  I should have taken a picture of it... oh well.

Brenda tried a new lip color today by Kat Von Dee and dayum did she rock it!  I mean look at this beautiful young lady!

Gorgeous, right?  WELL SHE IS TAKEN.  So back off.

After Sephora, we went to the container store as I needed to find a container for a sample I wanted to give Bren of this amazing Shampoo and Conditioner called Novex.  Ultimately I forgot to give this to her which I have just realized as I am typing this.  

After our inevitibly pointless visit to the container store we headed over to the Hillcrest Farmers Market and I picked up the following:

Yum.

LUNCH - 215 Calories

For lunch, I had half a cucumber cut into dipping slices and I ate the Spicy Chipotle Sauce from Bitchin' Sauce.  It was so good!  I think I wasn't super hungry because of all the walking.  Which you would think would have the reverse effect...  Anyways, that was that so..moving along.

DINNER - 212 Calories

For dinner I had Solid White Albacore Tuna (1 can) mixed with a tablespoon of Best Foods Light Mayo with Olive Oil, one tablespoon of Vlasic Homestyle Sweet Pickle Relish, 1 Celery Stalk diced all wrapped in an outer piece of raw green leaf lettuce.  It was good, not great.  I can do better.  Then I snacked on some 'Mexican Hot Chocolate' almonds, a tiny bit of Jacks Links Teriyaki Jerky and a peach.  Which brought my total calorie count for the day to 1,128.  

I need to eat a little more than what I am eating.  I totally didn't see that coming.  I thought I would be fighting too many...  but as I am becoming more cautious with what I shove in my face, I am seeing that what is easily and readily available is so bad for me.  So I have trouble finding good stuff that I want to eat plenty of.  I do need to buy more ground turkey.  I don't know how vegetarians do it... or how they stay so thin with all that pasta...and all those grains.  My body has been saying no to sugars, oils and wheats.  Which leaves me veggies...and salads...and I can now sympathize with this cat:

Day 3 - I tried to log in to my laptop with the password 'turkey'... that is not my pasword...not even close.

Yes, I really did try to log in to my laptop with the password 'turkey'.  And yes, that is no where close to my password.

I also have the word 'soup' written on my hand and I don't remember why...

I know one thing very very well about myself and that is that my hunger comes in 4 hour increments.  I want to eat the sea every four hours or everyone dies.  It explains why I usually eat a very heavy breakfast and did a lighter everything else.  Well..most the time.  Obviously I have to lose weight for a reason.  I love food.  So I need to use this knowledge to my advantage and plan to have something low calorie on hand to hold me over.  I was thinking celery but... I think I need to put more research into it.  I am trying to eat smart by avoiding what I consider to be obvious trouble makers, you know... the C.R.A.P. 

Finding stuff to drink that isn't bland and that doesn't steal calories from my food is the challenge for me right now.  I used to drink Coke Zero every single day and am now mostly drinking water and iced coffee.  I have some blueberry tea so I am going to make that into iced tea... That should be good.  Anyways, let us get on with it.

BREAKFAST - 340 Calories

I did it again, because it is low in calories, delicious, fast and satisfying.

LUNCH - 311 Calories

My boss wanted to order lunch so I used Postmates (Use code IEWVP for $10 off your first order!) to order from a place called True Food Kitchen.  I ordered the Inside Out Quinoa Burger.  It came with a kale side salad and sweet potatoes but I threw out the sweet potatoes.  (No one wanted them... I did feel bad but I didn't want to eat them either.)  I ordered the Kale-Aid as well since it was only 58 calories (woot!).  It tastes like earth... Some people hate it and some people just want something that isn't water. (ME)

DINNER - 424 Calories

For dinner I steamed broccolette, baby bella mushrooms and asparagus.  I pan fried (with water) salmon and seasoned everything with salt, pepper, and garlic and added half of an avocado on the side.  This was really tasty, easy and fast to make and very filling.  I will definitely make it again.  I had 3 days of fish because I bought a hunk of it and cut it into small portions... I am done with salmon for a few days.  I bought some ground turkey so that will be next on the menu.

I feel a lot better this evening.  I'm excited to go to the Farmer's Market on Sunday with Miss Bren!  I am hoping to get some great fresh veggies and low sugar fruit.  I went to the market this evening and bought egg whites and chard.  I might make some kind of breakfast bowl for tomorrow...we shall see.

So that's all for tonight.  I'm hoping that by logging this a little earlier I will feel less inclined to eat anything else.  I have ony had 1,075 calories today so I have 424 left if I do get hungry.  But I've got to tell ya, I still feel pretty full from that dinner!  I may take a leaf out of Brendas book and just brush my teeth when I start feeling hungry again.  Then I will drink some water and park my arse in bed. lol

Till tomorrow, my friends!  This evening I will leave you with my favorite song of the day:

Day 2 - I admit...regret...and find a fat tiger.

I AM ALREADY HATING THIS. 

  I miss ice cream...and bread.

Something happened to my Day 2 Entry so I am entering it again... I found a draft in it's place.... I think maybe the mobile window that was open from a draft I started earlier in the day was auto saved over it when I opened it.  So it is most likely my fault :(

So here is what I recall: 

BREAKFAST - 340 Calories

I decided to go back to McD for their yummy low calorie breakfast bowl and opted for a tall iced coffee sweetened with extra soy milk as it is only 90 calories!  This meal holds me over til about 11:30am.  That's when I get hungry, and by 1pm I feel that I could eat a small child if they came too close.  So... I ate this at 12:30pm to be safe:

LUNCH - 332 Calories

 I left my stupid soup in the fridge at work when I left to go home on my lunch break.  Luckily I live five minutes away which makes lunch breaks at home possible.  I checked my fridge for calorie friendly foods and figured kale salad with half an avocado, one slice of smoked salmon and very little balsamic vinaigrette would taste decent.  It really was delicious and was a measly 234 calories.  I didn't think it would completely hold me over til dinner, so I made a carefully measured smoothie.  I used 1 cup of frozen whole strawberries, 1 cup frozen blueberries, 1/4 cup kale and one cup of Brasilia Blueberry Water.   This was a 98 calorie smoothie.  Pretty darn good too.

DINNER - 468 Calories

I had a meeting that lasted until 7:30pm and let me tell you, it took all my willpower not to be drawn into the tractor beam that is fast food restaurants along the way.  I knew I was going to have to look for and cook a meal and I was already pretty damn hungry.  So when I got home I made what I saw first in the fridge.  16oz. Salmon, 8 stalks broccolette and 7 baby bella mushrooms.

Now here comes the hard part...admittance...and what is infinitely worse is that I have to admit it AGAIN thanks to the deleted entry snafu.  So... I got a sweet tooth after dinner and ravenously ate a banana with Nutella.  I will not even tell you how much Nutella.  Ok, it was like 2 tablespoons.  Maybe more.  DON'T LOOK AT ME!! I am so ashamed...in fact I was so upset with myself because I knew I had ZERO intention of putting that in the MyFitnessPal Diary that I threw the remaining jar of Nutella in the trash.  It has NO PLACE IN MY HOME UNTIL NEXT YEAR.  Anyways, I received encouraging messages from my handful of readers that told me they were proud that I told on myself and prouder that I threw it away so... that helped. haha... (Thank you!)

I did have a logged snack of Rold Gold Pretzel Thins that were 120 calories which brought my total calorie count for the day to 1450.  SHHHhhhhhhhhh... It was 1450..  

I had mentioned as well that my brother mentioned that I should try the keto diet he has been on as he has had a lot of success with it, so I downloaded a pdf of a book some chick wrote to check out the recipes.  If anything, it will give me a little more creativity in the kitchen.  He, like me, does not have the time to work out and I will say it again, if anyone comments on this saying that I do have the time because they do I will punch said person right in the nose.  RIGHT in the nose... when I see them.

On that note, I will leave you with an important update from Tony the Tiger:

June 1st, 2016 - The ONE YEAR challenge.

Well, I haven't updated this blog in quite some time... 

Not that anyone noticed.  

But, I have really good news which is what brought me back here!  I have decided to pay myself $100 a month in order to get a ticket on the Disney Cruise to Alaska with my family and friends next year!  So I have one year to lose some weight so that I can gain it all back in 7 days next year! lol...

So I figured I would share the journey so that I am held accountable.  If I stop updating, that means I am probably stuffing my face with horrifyingly delicious food.  But, YOU MUST NOT LET ME!  I love to cook and I love to share the end results.  So that is what I am going to do.  

I have an app that I use called MyFitnessPal and I log the foods I eat every day.  If you want to add me and join this challenge for the heck of it you are more than welcomed to.  My username is 'caressev'.  My goal is to lose 2 lbs a week (although I may lower that to 1.5 lbs a week because I love food too much.)  So I started today and this is how it went.

BREAKFAST - 370 Calories

Ok, don't get too impressed.  

This is the low calorie Turkey Sausage & Egg Whites Breakfast Bowl from McDonald's.  It was only 250 calories and honestly, it tasted pretty great.  I had this along with a Grande Iced Coffee, sweetened with extra soy milk.  This brought my breakfast to the grand total of 370 calories.  Yay!

LUNCH - 374 Calories

 This delicious salad is from VONS people.  I added half an avocado, but let me tell you that this salad is only 260 calories and is SO YUMMY!  The avocado added another 114 calories but it was well worth it.  I had a snack (Rold Gold Pretzel Thins) between dinner, and that was another 120 calories.

DINNER - 445 Calories

So for dinner, I was worried.  I only had a few calories left in my budget and I was HUNGRY.  So I steamed 5 spears of asparagus and 6 baby bella mushrooms and sprinkled a little salt and pepper over them and then I pan seared Salmon with Curry spice, salt and cumin.  I kept adding 1/4 cup of water to keep the salmon from sticking/burning.  It came out really great!

So total today I have had 1309 of my 1400 calorie budget.  I am a little hungry, but I noticed that I get hungry when I am watching tv (mildly bored) and I've learned that chewing on mint gum and drinking water helps me not want to eat anything else.  So... today went pretty well.  I guess tomorrow morning you will find out if I have to edit this entry because I lost my willpower.  It is a constant struggle.  Food usually wins.  

Anyways, thank you for reading, if you did!  I hope to keep this updated this time.  But who knows... if I can LOOK A BUTTERFLY!! RUUNNNN!!!

Turkey Veggie Lavash Wrap, Get your veggie on.

Today's lunch shall be this delicious Lavash Wrap that is very filling and tastes like heaven.  If you like turkey, that is.

Turkey Veggie Lavash Wrap | 356 Calories

Ingredients:

1 Sheet Whole Grain 100% Natural Flat Bread

1 1/2 tbsp Poppyseed Dresseing (I used Panera's)

1/2 tbsp Shallots (Slivered)

1 tbsp Italian Four Cheese Blend (Shredded)

3 or 4 Romaine lettuce leaves

1/4 of an Avocado (Sliced)

2 to 3 thin slices of Vine Ripened Tomato

6-8 Shavingsof cucumber (Use a peeler to shave it off)

3 Slices Oven Roasted Turkey breast

First, layout your lavash wrap on a dry surface.  My cutting board is large enough that I can lay it out on the left and prep on the right.  You are going to layer the ingredients on the top of one end of the sheet, the short side(Scroll below to see an example of how it ends up looking).  First place your lettuce in.  You want to make sure the lettuce is flat.  Next, you will shave the cucumber so that it looks like below:

Layer that cucumber evenly on top of the lettuce.  Then slice 2-3 thin slices of tomato and layer that over the cucumber.  Next, you will want to cut 2 layers of shallot into slivers, like this: 

Sprinkle those over your layers as evenly as possible.  Next you can drizzle in 1 1/2 tbsp Poppyseed dressing.  Try to keep it on top of the veggies.  If you get it on the lavash, the lavash will get soggy!  Next, sprinkle your cheese then top it with your sliced avocado.  The last layer is the turkey.  Your layers should look like this:

Place that turkey on top of your veggie layers.  Now you want the veggie side to be facing you so turn it around if you had it facing away like I did.  Now roll it gently but tightly like so:

Cut that baby in half and voila!  You have a delicious guilt free and filling lunch wrap.  Enjoy!

And perhaps celebrate yo baaaad self:

1 is the Loneliest Number. So let us add the number 400.

I just love that song.

So, I have relocated to San Diego and am adjusting to living alone again.  It's always been a challenge for me to cook for 1 person so I decided to face that challenge and start a line of recipes for 1.  

In addition to this, my dear friend Brenda is an excellent inspiration as she loves food and is very pro health.  She has her own blog called eatwhatiwant.com where you can find a wealth of information to also inspire you.  Yes, it was Brenda that inspired me to make each of these recipes also be less than 400 calories each!  So please join me on this delicious health challenge!

To start, I decided to do a yummy Tilapia Veggie Salad for dinner.

Tilapia Veggie Salad | (385 Calories) 

Ingredients for 1 person: 

3/4 cup Brown Baby Bell Crimini Mushrooms (Diced)

3/4 cup Red Bell Pepper (Diced)

1/2 cup Sweet Onion (Diced)

1/4 of a Hass Avocado (sliced)

4oz Fresh Tilapia Fillet

1 Teaspoon All Purpose Greek Seasoning

1 Tbsp Water

1 Tbsp Italian Four Cheese Blend (shredded)

1 Cup Romaine (Chopped)

After you prep all your veggies, preheat a 10" Skillet over medium high heat.  While your skillet heats up, season your tilapia with the greek seasoning.  You want to evenly distribute 1 teaspoon of seasoning over the tilapia.  When the skillet is hot, toss in your onions with 1 tbsp water.  Stir them so that the water is absorbed by them.  It happens fairly quickly, so keep moving the onions around to avoid burning them.  Now place your tilapia in (seasoned side down).  Keep moving those onions!  Now drop in the bell pepper and mushrooms.  Stir them in but keep them on the side of the tilapia. 

Now you want to season the top side of the fish with your remaining seasoning.  The bottom side should be browned so flip the fish!  Does it look like below?

If not, turn it back over and let it brown (be careful not to burn it!)  If it does look like above, good job!  After about a minute of searing, you want to stir those veggies around again and lower the heat to just above medium.  Cover the skillet.  Wait 5 minutes.

While you are waiting, shred the lettuce into your bowl, add 1 tbsp of rice vinegar.

If you don't trust your timing, listen to this video 6 times.

All done!  Now place your tilapia on top of your salad, cover it with the veggies, avocado slices and sprinkle on your cheese!  

Good job on staying healthy you sexy beast. ;D