Day Three

My Food:

Breakfast: Breakfast salad with a thin slice of this beautiful Chocolate-Blueberry Cake drizzled with my own blueberry syrup. (just frozen blueberries and water cooked down and thickened with arrowroot powder)

 

Lunch: Spinach salad topped with roasted chickpeas, shredded carrots, a few pecans, and mandarin oranges. I also had a small peach.

Dinner:  Large salad topped with a small bit of our cashew based Italian dressing, large bowl of No-Beef Stew (that I tweaked a lot.  First, I dumped all the ingredients into the crockpot this morning, added some Bragg's to the water with seasonings - and I didn't have rosemary.  I skipped the tomato paste b/c we really don't care for tomato flavor in our stew. I used sweet potato and white potato, pureed in some cooked pinto beans, added a bag of mixed vegetables and half a bag of green beans from the freezer shortly before serving.)

Dessert:  Cookie-dough hummus with apple slices, celery and carrot sticks, about 1 tbs of buffalo chickpea hummus, vegan oat cookie

My Thoughts:

Another good day. I enjoyed a picnic style lunch with friends today, complete with my big ol' salad to crunch on.  It wasn't terribly easy to skip over the pita sandwiches I made for the girlies, but I did it.  (they were stuffed with chopped romaine, shredded carrots, and roasted chickpeas. A couple of them I used the leftover vegan sour cream I made yesterday as a kind of mayo and I think they didn't mind that.)

For dinner I tried another new recipe based on the link above.  I made the changes noted and it turned out very good.  I think next time I may skip the sweet potatoes in the mix, as it did turn out really sweet and I think we were all looking for something different than that.  Still, it was creamy, comforting, and hearty.

And, I gotta say, I was ready for a big bowl of something hearty in my belly.  About 3pm I was battling some very real hunger.  I didn't want to snack and I was chugging away on water but I couldn't deny that I was truly hungry.  It was so close to dinner, I didn't want to eat so I was very ready for a good meal, which started with my plate-sized salad. 

After dinner we went to visit with friends for the evening.  We brought along a bowl of apples, strawberries, celery and carrots, cookie-dough hummus for dipping, corn tortilla chips, salsa, and some buffalo chickpea dip.  I had some fruit with the hummus, a bit of fruit salad, and one of the vegan cookies that a friend made. Oh my, they were delicious! 

So, even though dessert came awhile after my dinner, I still enjoyed some delicious treats and TOTALLY resisted all the other sweets and treats that were there. I walked right on past the potato chips and onion dip. ME! I skipped ONION DIP!!  Oh, if only you knew what a victory that was.

I also stepped on the scale today. I wasn't going to do it. I didn't want to know. But, I did it.  So, now I know. But I want to avoid that thing right now as it's not friendly to me and I need to not have the weight loss as my focus at this time.  I need to pour this nutrition in so I can enjoy how it makes me feel.  The weight can come off when it decides the time is right.

Looking Ahead:

Tomorrow is another busy day with outings, choring, and tackling more on my list as we prepare to leave next week.  So much to do.  This is when the stress threatens to take over and I start making bad choices because I want something to be *easy*.  However, we've got breakfast covered for the kiddos.  I've got a chocolate breakfast salad planned to greet me in the morning, and I'm thinking a nice, cold green smoothie might be in order for lunch on the go tomorrow.  No idea what's for dinner...yet.

One thing I like about making this commitment to the 6-week plan is that I'm doing a better job feeding the children well again.  They were all kinds of happy about having chocolate cake for breakfast. 

And, we're sharing our good eats with the baby now too.  He gobbled up the cake and a yummy bowl of blueberries and applesauce.  I'm pretty sure blueberries are his favorite food right now.  Knowing that he's enjoying real, nutrient rich food right from the start is pretty motivating to keep on keepin' on.