The night I vacuumed a plate

Last night was supposed to be an easy, yummy dinner.

We got whole wheat pizza dough from Trader Joes, chopped up some fresh veggies.  We chose onions, mushrooms and green peppers. Then we added sauce and cheese to our liking (I like a little sauce and a lot of cheese, MJ likes a lot of sauce and a little cheese) and baked our own pizzas for 8 minutes.  Really, only 8 minutes.  That's all it needs!

Here is our delicious pizza:

Can you guess which side is mine?

 

And then, right when you're about to eat, after you've already served MJ his slice and you're pulling your perfect, personalized slice off the tray, your plate will go crashing down onto the floor and shatter into a kajillion-billion pieces all over your kitchen. 

The good news: no pizza was harmed in the process.  Nor humans.

I looked down at my feet, surrounded by the zillion-trillion pieces of plate and sighed.  And then I crunched across the kitchen (don't worry mom, I was wearing shoes!), got a new plate, served myself a perfect, personalized slice, and crunched my way over to the table, where I joined MJ for pizza. 

After dinner we did the only thing you can do when faced with a gazillion-million pieces covering your floor: we vacuumed the plate.  I first picked up the bigger pieces and when vacuumed the small, tiny, and microscopic sized pieces.  Then MJ swiffered and vacuumed again to make sure we got it all.  This is also how I know he loves me. 

A word to the wise: do not drop a Corelle plate.  It will shatter.  Into a gagillion-fantillion pieces.

At least the pizza was good.  Rest In Pieces, plate.

Days 57 - 60 (Week 4 Thursday and Friday)

Monday Morning Weigh In:
I lost 3 pounds this week!  I can't believe it.  I've lost 11 pounds in 8 weeks and now I'm only 2.5 pounds away from my goal weight!  I'm really happy with the way I've been losing weight.  Not a lot at one time and I really don't feel like I'm on a diet.  I cheat.  I eat twix bars.  I substitute out things I don't like for things that sound better.  I drink.  But I do everything a lot less than when I wasn't "eating clean."  It feels great to have made this progress.  In fact, today a male friend of mine asked me if I lost weight.  I didn't think my weight loss was noticeable and I really enjoyed getting that compliment from my friend.  

***Now since it's been so many days since I've blogged, I can add that three separate friends have come up to me to tell me it looks like I lost weight.  Feels great to know that my hard work has been noticed.  Thanks friends!

DAY 57

I did not follow a meal plan today.  


For breakfast, I had my "go to" breakfast.  Whole wheat english muffin with peanut butter and bananas.  And I look lots of pretty pictures for your enjoyment.  

Also, MJ made a smoothie for breakfast, so I drank about 1 sip.

For snack 1, I had my "go to" snack.  A slice of whole wheat bread with almond butter.

My new best friend, Mr. Almond Butter

Folded up, ready to go!

I had another snack later, because they were giving out free FREE free chocolate pudding at work.  I looked at the label and recognized everything, so pudding I did eat.


For lunch I had leftovers from when we went out to dinner the night before.  Essentially, I had some rice and veggies left over, so I added my own cooked grilled chicken to make it a meal.  Yum!

For snack 2, I ate some grapes.  No picture, but they were green.


Dinner
Tonight for dinner I decided to make pizza!  I wanted to reward myself with some food that I love and show that anything can be healthier and still taste good!


I open up my good ol' clean eating cookbook and find pizza in the index.  SHOCKINGLY the page numbers are wrong.  Seriously???  Where are the editors to check for these things?!  I flip through until I find the pages and essentially find out that if I don't feel like cooking my own dough (which I certainly do not want to do) then it's just a matter of finding pre-made whole wheat dough and putting whatever topics I like on it.  The cookbook also comes with a website for more pizza ideas.  I'm excited and check out the website they've given me.  And, the link doesn't work.  You go ahead and try it and tell me - www.cleaneatingmag.com/pizzacombos.  No go.  @#%$!$.  Seriously?  Seriously.  Edit this sh!t.  You are editors, after all.  


Apparently my grocery store doesn't have any whole wheat pizza dough.  We compared calories for our other options and picked the next best thing, and then bought a can of diced tomatoes (better than a jar of sauce), mushrooms and peppers for topping, part-skim mozzarella cheese and lots of spices.   Delicious!

Also I had a glass of wine.  Red wine.  

DAY 58

My goal today was to do a meal from week 4 meal plan.  I even went to the grocery store to buy everything last night.  But I woke up late and had 20 minutes to get dressed and get out the door, so if it wasn't already wrapped (i.e. bananas and granola bars) it wasn't coming with me. 

I started my day with a banana and a very large coffee.  My first snack was a Health Valley Double Chococlate Chip Granola Bar.  It was pretty good for a healthy granola bar. 


Lunch

As I said before, I didn't have time to pack a lunch.  I ventured into Mexican place by my office.  But remember, I vowed never to eat a ridiculous taco again. I saw that they had a special "tofu fajita."  Call me crazy, but I tried it.  Crazy!  Essentially they were 2 small tortillas with grilled onions, peppers, tofu and some cheese.  They were..... eh. ok.  Just ok.  I would never order them again but I didn't keel over and die.

When I got home I found out that those muffins I made went bad.  Guess failed didn't pass my "last a long time" test.   

My sister in law, Bethany, had been telling me about these things called VitaMuffins, so I finally looked for them in the grocery store.  I could read all the ingredients so I bought a box of VitaMuffin Deep Chocolate Muffin Tops.  I opened up the box and threw one in the microwave for a few seconds.  It was pure deliciousness.  Enough so that I made Michael Jordan try one when he got home.  Okay half of one - I ate the other half.  With a big glass of skim milk.  Delicious Delicious Delicious!!!

Dinner

For dinner I made another salad - spinach, grilled chicken, pistachios, craisins, blueberries, blue cheese, raspberry walnut dressing.  Yum! 

DAY 59 (Week 4, Thursday/Friday)

Today I really did make an attempt to follow the meal plan.  After all, I'm so close to finishing and bought all the foods to Thursday and Friday!  But, I accidentally switched what I was doing half way though the day, so I created a little Thursday/Friday mutant baby.  Oh well.

Breakfast: 1 hardboiled egg; 1 apple, 1 slice whole-grain bread, 2 tbls natural almond butter (Friday)

I liked having so many things for breakfast.  I ate the egg at home and then spaced out the rest of the breakfast during the morning.  I prefer snacking to having a large meal.

Snack 1: make ahead watermelon freeze (purée 2 cups watermelon chunks with 1/2 tsp fresh lime juice; freeze in a small cup with stick to make freeze pop); 1 cup low fat milk (Thursday)

This sounded way too complicated for a morning snack, and I wasn't about to try to bring a frozen watermelon freeze pop to work.  So I just ate watermelon.  Just plain old water melon.  No need to complicate things.  Skipped the milk.  I don't bring milk to work.

Lunch: 3 oz grilled chicken, 1/2 cup spinach, 1/4 cup each green and red bell pepper, 1 tbsp red wine vinegar, 1/2 tsp fresh ground blakc pepper on 1 whole wheat tortilla; 1 cup low-fat milk (Friday)

I simplified this lunch: threw some chicken, cut up peppers, and lettuce onto a wrap and sprinkled some red wine vinegar on it.  Wrapped it in some tin foil and threw it in my bag.  Super fast because we had left over peppers cut up from our pizza the night before.  This didn't taste like anything really.  Just a different way to eat a boring salad.  Skipped the milk.  I don't bring milk to work.  Still.

Snack 2: 1 cup blackberries, 2 oz goat cheese, 4 multigrain flaxseed crackers (Thursday)

I obviously replaced the blackberries with blueberries.  For the goat cheese and crackers, I bought this flavored goat cheese (olive and... something) that was low cal and spread it one some crackers.  Didn't really love it.  Ok didn't really like it, but I survived the 4 crackers.  I'll probably let that one expire... quickly


Dinner: Meh (Neither)
 
My dinner plans were spoiled because I got held up at work.  While I was stuck at work, I had an apple and another health valley granola bar.  

When I finally got home I was exhausted and decided I was only patient enough to make some eggs.  I whipped up some eggwhites with mushrooms, orange peppers and part-skim mozzarella cheese.  

Then I passed out from exhaustion.

 

DAY 60 (Week 4, Thursday/Friday)

I was a little discouraged today because most of the things I needed to complete the Thursday/Friday mutant child day are gone now.  I made do with what I had and ad-libbed the rest. 

Breakfast was supposed to be: 1 banana with 1.5 tablespoons natural almond butter; 4 hardboiled egg whites (Thursday)


This breakfast failed because we had no bananas or hardboiled eggs left.  I made a "go to" almond butter bread slice and called it a day.

I think we've seen this before...

Snack 1 was supposed to be: 1 pear, 1 oz goat cheese (Friday)
 
This snack failed because I didn't have a pear and didn't want to eat goat cheese without crackers.  So I replaced the pear with an apple and ate a mini twix bar.  A mini one I swear!!

Lunch: 2 cups torn Boston lettuce, 3 ox tuna, 1/4 cup each chopped carrots, celery, cucumber, scallions and basil with 2 tbsp red wine vinegar and 1 tsp evoo; 1/2 cup brown basmati rice

This lunch failed because I didn't have time to make rice.  I ate the rest of it, and it was horrible.  Just tasted like soggy red wine vinegar leaves.  Horrible.  I ate some of the tuna threw it out.  

I had a few cubes of cheese and crackers instead.  And 2 mini milky way bars.  Mini ones, I promise!!!

Snack 2: 2 tbsp hummus, 10 carrot sticks, 4 multigrain flaxseed crackers (Friday)


This snack actually didn't fail, per se, but I did upgrade it.  I ate hummus with snap peas and carrot sticks.  No crackers. 



Dinner: Nope (Neither Thursday or Friday)

MJ and I decided that since we actually had time to sit down together and eat dinner and watch some March Madness, neither of us wanted to cook.  We ordered in some thai food.  I had 2 steamed veggie dumplings, some Chicken Pad Thai and some Chicken Pad See Ew.  Mr. Jordan consumed twice as much as I did.  Good lord, why can't he gain weight???

For dessert I had a nice glass of white wine and split a vitamuffin top with MJ.  Perfect dessert after a not so perfect day.   

Sorry it's been so long between posts.  I promise to do better.

Day 8

I got on the scale today.  I hadn't been weighing myself all week and I think I'm down at least 2 pounds.  I say at least 2 because I didn't really record my starting weight, so I'm trying to remember the last weight that I saw.  I'm please with this success and vow not to weigh myself again until next Monday morning.


Today (and this week really) I'm not following their meal plan because we're traveling and I won't be able to follow their full days until likely this Friday, and it's only Monday.    So I've created my own meal plan...


Breakfast: 2 egg whites, mushrooms, 2 tablespoons low fat cheese
I opted for this breakfast because I wanted to use up the stuff we already had around the house.  I've definitely going to make an effort to use up leftovers from now on - following their food plan to a T will be a waste of food and money.  You don't control me, clean eating editors!  


Snack 1: approximately 1.5 ounces smoked salmon, 2 whole wheat crackers
What better way to use up the remaining smoked salmon that I opened yesterday than to eat the rest of it today?  I cut yesterday's snack in half and left out the avocado.  It was delish and I'm pleased with my selection.


And then we left on our road trip up to see our newly engaged friends.  Estimated time in the car: 12 hours.  
Number of hours away from home: 48
Before we left I packed a huge beach bag full of non-perishable snacks portioned out in the correct "snack" sized bags.  I packed whole wheat crackers, granola, clementines, bananas, apples, whole wheat bread, almond butter, etc. And almond butter cookies (half came with me, half went to the freezer).  I also timed our trip so that I would be eating lunch in the car so I would have something more substantive to eat to prevent me from snacking too much.


Lunch: 2 ounces deli turkey breast, 1 slice tomato, 1/4 avocado on 2 slices of whole wheat bread
Another great use of leftovers - I finished up all the turkey and avocado that we had, and then cut up the rest of the tomato as a bonus snack in the car.  I wrapped each half of the sandwich separately and tried to space out the distance in the car so I had something good and filling waiting for me to eat.


Snack 2: 1 apple, cut up veggies (carrots and peppers) with homemade hummus 
I somehow only snacked on one apple in the car!  6 hours and only 1 apple consumed!  I am thrilled, because I know it's going to be hard to continue eating healthy when we arrive at our friend's house.  


Much to my delight, when we did arrive, my friend made us some homemade hummus and cut up some fresh veggies for us.  This was a nice treat and a great snack to welcome us.  And it was yummy.


Dinner: pizza.
Sigh.  My avoidance of greasy, fattening, unhealthy foods came to a crashing halt tonight.  Our friends insisted on taking us to the best pizza place in town.  When I inquired about healthier options, I was told there really weren't any.  So pizza it is.  Luckily the pizza was thin crust so each piece was smaller than a usual slice of pizza, but probably no healthier.  I'm hoping that I saved enough calories that this dinner didn't totally kill what I've been working for.  But I am trying to live a normal life and normal people eat pizza.  When life hands you lemons, make lemonade.  When life hands you pizza, eat it (in moderation).