Monday Motivation: The Best Sauce

I've been derailed for a good six months now.  That's how old baby is, at least.  Truthfully, it's been longer since pregnancy gave me good excuse to deviate from the weight-loss plan and get into habits of snacking and overeating. I could really use some STRONG motivation.

Yesterday, David and I committed to getting back onto Dr. Furhman's 6 week plan. I've mentioned it before on the blog.  Quick visual here shows what we are aiming for on a daily basis for optimal weight loss.  

My exceptions for nursing are an extra 1/2 cup or so of raw oats and an extra two or so ounces of nuts/seeds for good fats.

One of the things I forget when I'm snacking and allowing myself to eat foods with little nutritional value is how they trigger what Dr. F terms "toxic hunger".  The last couple of weeks I've been feeling very poorly.  My persistent headaches have returned, my jittery feelings at meal time, and just an overall sense of feeling shaky and unsteady between meals.  I knew what those feelings meant. They were the trigger that set me looking for the right path for health two years ago when I needed help.  It's time to get serious about my health again and stop giving in to emotional eating and the wrong cues for hunger. 

So, today, as I cruised through my day following the plan and feeling great because of it, I noticed how GOOD my food was tasting every time I sat to eat it. This was one of the TRUE hunger symptoms I was having contrasted with the toxic hunger I was battling last week.  What a difference!  Dr. F. talks about toxic hunger in this article. I learned of it when reading his book, End of Diabetes. 

All I needed to do was give it a week of experimenting with what I read to know my body was struggling with toxic hunger and was quickly able to remove those symptoms by filling my belly with the nutrient dense foods on the Nutritarian diet.  It took just about the same amount of time this time around for the same results.

So, that lead me to this WONDERFUL remembrance today of just how delicious food is when you are truly hungry!  As I mentioned this to someone, they gave me a quote they heard and I thought it was simply perfect, "Hunger is the best sauce." 

So true!!  And what better motivation than to have your food taste EVEN BETTER than usual?!

Then, I made an incredible (and easy!) sauce for dinner tonight, so I figured that ties right in with that fabulous quote. :D

Here's the link for the recipe.  I hadn't tried this version of vegan cheese sauce yet, but it was tucked away in my recipe binder. It's going to replace the old standby we used before.  I seriously LOVED this sauce.  Maybe it was just the hunger talking, but I was VERY happy there were leftovers for me to enjoy it again this week. :)

Sorry, no pics! Can you BELIEVE that??? 

Personal notes: 
I doubled the recipe (sorta, I didn't measure the potatoes and carrots and ended up with more than would fit in the blender, so after I processed the sauce, we just dipped the leftover potatoes and carrots IN the sauce for taste-testing. ) But everything else I doubled, except the salt.

I did not use the cayenne pepper or the McKay's seasoning in the recipe. I have no idea what that is.

I skipped the olive oil but replaced it with a small handful (maybe a 1/4 cup??) of raw pumpkin seeds in the sauce.

I had to add in quite a bit more water than the recipe called for to get my blender to blend. 

I don't have a Vita-Mix, so that could be the reason I needed more water.  It was still thick and creamy and delicious, though. :) 

We served our sauce over whole wheat pasta noodles (Monday is pasta night), steamed broccoli, green beans and green peas.  All made delicious with this sauce.

I had about a 1/2 cup of pasta tonight and skipped the chocolate Nice Cream that everyone else had for dessert in lieu of two chocolate date balls, which are my one true dessert love. :)