Veggie Muffins

I leave my house at 7 each morning, and I don't get back until about 7:30 at night. I don't have time to start cooking dinner at that hour, and on a diet (and budget!) takeout isn't an option.

Enter the freezer. I know it's not ideal. Every time I watch an episode of Gordon Ramsay's kitchen nightmares and he curses out the chefs for freezing things, I cringe. I freeze everything. I comfort myself by reminding myself that when I cook for company it's always fresh, and for my own tired self a defrosted meal is perfectly fine.

And so, Sunday is my day to cook for the week. I generally make two or three different dishes (in large quantities), eat some for dinner, pack some for lunch, and freeze the rest. That way, my freezer is stocked with a bunch of different dishes, so I don't have the same things every night.

This Sunday was unusual, in that I couldn't go to the store. Instead, I went on a "use up what's in the house" spree.

In the morning I defrosted a bag of frozen broccoli, and a package of raw meatball mix. (Well, in the interest of accuracy, it was turkeyball mix. Much lower fat!) I scavenged in the fridge until I found some sliced portobello mushrooms and a very tired looking red pepper. I also dug up a zucchini, some onions, some carrots and some garlic.

The wheels in my brain started turning, and I came up with these delicious vegetable muffins. I won't say they were perfect, I will definitely be tweaking the recipe, but they were so good as is, I decided to share.

Here's what I used:
2 onions
2 cloves of garlic
1 large zucchini - peeled
1 large carrot -peeled
(about) 2 portobello mushrooms
1 red pepper
1 bag frozen broccoli (16 oz, defrosted.)
4 egg whites
2 whole eggs
Whole wheat bread crumbs
Salt
Pepper
Parsley flakes
Cayenne pepper

(I didn't measure the last 5 ingredients, sorry!)

Here's what I did:

In the food processor I chopped all of the veggies until they were very fine. (A little bit at a time, otherwise they won't get processed properly.) Then I mixed them all together in a big mixing bowl, added the eggs and enough breadcrumbs to get a good texture. I mixed in the spices, and the batter was complete.

Next I sprayed muffin pans and filled the cups to the top with the batter. I baked them at 375 for about 45 minutes, and took them out to enjoy the most delicious treat I've had in a while. And really healthy!

I know, I know, not the best picture. I need to work on food photography, huh?

(In case you were wondering what happened to the chopped turkey, that's coming in another post.)

When Life Gives You Lemons

Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's an old drill. You make lemonade. That's all very nice for a skinny gal with an awesome metabolism. She can scoop as much sugar as she wants into that lemonade, sweetening up the lemons of life.

But it all seems really unfair in their advantage. What about the fat people? What are we supposed to do with life's little lemons? Drink unsweetened lemonade? (Eww.)

I'm not talking in general terms here. I'm talking about the words of caution we constantly hear, about the negative effects that stress has on weight loss.

But what is one to do? Yeah I could pop some pills, see a shrink, do some yoga. But at the end of the day, there's no magic potion to get rid of stress, any more than there's a magic pill for weight loss. Sometimes life throws stress in your direction, and all you can do is work through it, bide your time until the tide turns.

And that leaves me right back where we started.

What is a person to do with the stress? How can I prevent it from holding my weight loss up?

That's just the physiological aspect of stress and weight loss. Don't get me started on stress eating. I know that some folks see it as a disease, something that only the super obese people do, but that's not true and I think we all know it.

My friend is the biggest stress eater I've ever encountered, and she's a size zero at the biggest. I'm not much of a stress eater. Not to say I never get into a rotten mood and pig out on food that I later regret. Sure I do. I also rationalize it, telling myself that I deserve the extra food because of my mood.

Right now, however, I'm more concerned with not letting stress affect my weight loss. And I know it does. Take sleep for example. I have a hard time sleeping lately. All of the studies show that lack of sleep has a detrimental effect on weight loss, but what should I do? I go to bed, I lie awake.

On a good day I take it all in stride. The stress is just an obstacle I face in my journey. We all have them, don't we?

But then I have days like today when I can't handle it anymore. I'm angry. I'm sad. I'm confused. I'm stressed. And the one really positive thing in my life is losing weight. If that goes, what will I have?

Week 2: First Weigh In

Week 2:

Last week: 210

Emotion going into this: extreme nervousness

My emotions right now aren't just about my eating. Life the past couple of weeks has been hell, and the one positive thing about them has been my healthy cooking, healthy eating, and long walks. And as many times as I've berated myself over the last few months about the dangers of letting my success in dieting dictate my self worth, I know I'm going to do that again.

I step on the scale, looking up in a silent prayer. I looked down- easier than it was 74 pounds ago- and breathed a sigh of relief.

This week's weight: 210

Not a loss, but not gain. I'll take it. And I'll hope for a loss next week.

There Goes Another Day

I am a perfectionist.

I state that neither as a good thing, nor a bad thing. I state it simply as a fact of life when you are me. At times, being a perfectionist turns me into my own best friend. I do so many things, and do them right. But there are times when it turns me into my own worst enemy.

Times like yesterday.

I woke up determined to have a perfect dieter's day. I knew I was doomed when I was starving an hour after breakfast. "This shouldn't be happening," I thought to myself. "I'm being good today.

So I did what any good dieter would do. I pulled out some herb tea, and drank it while typing up a blog post. It did work, for about an hour. By noon I was famished again. I couldn't stop thinking about food.

I somehow held out until lunch, but that's when the floodgates opened. I couldn't stop eating.

Here's where the perfectionist thing became a killer. Once I had been "imperfect" I gave up on being good. I know it's stupid, but I'm an all or nothing kind of gal.

And yesterday it was nothing.

Today I am determined to have a good day. I thought about yesterday, about where I went wrong, and I am prepared to rectify yesterday's mistakes. Hopefully today will be a better day than yesterday. That's really all there is to hope for.

Or is it?

I don't think so.

Here's what I hope for. I hope that one day I will overcome my nature enough to say "well, I ate something I should not have this morning, but for the rest of the day I won't go crazy."

I can't be the only one who has this problem. Do you have it do? How do you overcome it?

Calorie Free Craving Fullfillment

I'm sitting at my desk, thinking about food.

That's never a good sign, y'know. Lunchtime (self imposed) isn't for another 3 hours, and breakfast is safely in my rear view mirror. I'm trying so hard not to snack, but the rice cakes in my drawer are beckoning. They're calling out "c'mon, I'm not that many calories!" And yet I know that I don't need food, that the rice cakes won't satisfy my craving.

And so I am going to ignore those rice cakes. Instead, I took out my herb tea. Calorie free, craving filler.

What do you do when you get a craving?

Spinach-Falafel Patties

I've been super into legumes lately. They're cheap, healthy and if cooked right, delicious. Last week I ate the same roasted chickpeas for lunch every day. Today I decided that I should probably experiment with some other lunch ideas.

That's when I had this inspiration. I've had (and loved) falafel balls many times in the past, but don't eat them anymore because they're ridiculously fattening. I've experimented with low-fat versions in the past, but today I decided to try a whole new take.

Simple math: spinach patties+falafel balls+healthy eating= low fat spinach-falafel patties.

Here's how it goes. I took out my handy-dandy food processor (I can't believe the thing used to intimidate me!). I peeled an onion, and dumped it in. I followed that by two cloves of garlic, and blended that until it was well mixed. I then opened, drained and rinsed a can of chickpeas, and added it to the onion mixture, blending until it all formed a paste.

Next, I took a 32 oz bag of (mostly defrosted) frozen spinach and dumped in about a third of it. That made the mixture too thick for the food processor, so I dumped in an egg. After blending that until it was incorporated, I added another third of the bag, followed by another two eggs and a small amount (probably about a tablespoon) of oil.

Once the mixture was fully processed, I dumped it into a bowl and added some whole wheat breadcrumbs until I had a mixture that was thick enough to form into patties. I then added the spices: salt, black pepper, cumin (for the falafel flavor), a dash of coriander and a dash of cayenne pepper.

I then cooked the mixture in two ways:

1) I fried some with a bit of Pam. This way came out nice, but it was labor intensive. (Note- the black color isn't burned, though it looks kinda like it is. It tasted delicious.)

2) I baked them. This method was super easy, so I think it's going to be the way I make them next time. I laid them all out on a tray and stuck them in the oven at 375.

About a half hour later, I flipped them over and stuck them back in the oven. Half hour after that, I took them out.

The result: delicious. The texture was very interesting, but I mean that in a good way. The taste was delicious. I put a little chummos on them, and felt like I was back in Israel in a little falafel joint.

Sweet Potato Chips

There is no special significance to these delicious chips that inspired me to use them as the first recipe on this blog, except for the fact that I made them today, and they are absolutely delicious, not to mention ridiculously easy. Go ahead and make them, even if you are cooking for non-dieting folks. They'll never know you slipped them something relatively healthy.

Start with a couple of nicely round, long cylindrical sweet potatoes. Peel them, then slice 'em up into uniform widths:

Take a cookie sheet, give it a spray of Pam, then take out the following spices:

Now here's a trick that I discovered that makes life simple. I sprinkle a bit of salt, black pepper and cinnamon on the tray before I put the potatoes on it. Then I put the potatoes down, like so:

Spray the tops with Pam, another sprinkle of the spices, then stick 'em in the oven at 400 degrees. About 45 minutes later, turn them over, then put them back in for another 45 minutes to an hour, or until they look like this:

If you are saying to yourself "that's not really diet food," the answer is, it depends. Would I advise eating the entire tray? Good heavens no. But a reasonable portion of these will compliment a protein and vegetable, and make you feel like you had a full meal.

Recipes

This is the first recipe I am posting, so I figured a little explanation is in order.

I am an excellent cook. This isn't me bragging; it is me being completely honest. I think it's a shame for someone of my culinary abilities to be single, when I could be working my way to some man's heart in a tasty path through his stomach.

Aside from that, I feel like blogs are, essentially, narcissistic. Why would I expect people to read the random ramblings of some stranger? I won't deny I want you to read this. And thought I wish I could, I won't hide my motive in writing- I hope that somewhere out there, other people who know what I am going through will understand and encourage me to continue and push through the frustration.

But something should be in it for you too, right? That's where the recipes come in. I have delicious ideas for tasty ways to drop the excess pounds. And I will share them with you. Even if you are imaginary, for now. Because I know that somewhere out there someone will benefit from my ideas, my recipes and my story.

Who Am I?

"Who is this girl," you wonder. Funny, I wonder that too. All the time, in fact.

I'm unsure if I know exactly who I am. I am a girl. A woman really, but I prefer to consider myself a girl. It kind of makes my frustration at my lack of accomplishments in my life a little less.

I'm pretty ordinary. I work in a cubicle somewhere in corporate America. I think the most unusual thing about me is that I love my job. Really, I do.

I wish I could say this is also unusual about me, but it isn't. I'm fat. I have been my whole life. Almost a year and a half ago, I started to diet. Well, that sort of implies that I haven't dieted before that, which is, of course, ridiculous. I am of the female persuasion, for heaven's sakes. Even if I weren't fat I would have spent most of my teenage years on diets. But I was fat, and still am. And so I have been to every nutritionist in the world (or so it feels.) I have been on more diets than most people know existed. Oddly enough, I actually sustained some of them.

But not permanently.

And that is what lead me to the state I was in a year ago. Lonely, wishing for someone to love, and of course, hating my body. I used to grab chunks of fat and imagine taking a knife and slicing it off.

It was a Tuesday when I weighed myself for the first time in years. I gasped: 283 pounds. When you weigh a good deal more than many of the people on The Biggest Loser, you know you are in trouble.

So I thought to myself, if none of the structured diets ever worked for me, maybe it's time to try lack of structure. And so, my new lifestyle was born.

It's been a heck of a ride since then. I've lost 73 pounds (as of this morning), but I have so much left to lose. I've been in a rut lately, both in life, and in dieting. I've been in a writing rut too. I hope to change that, starting now, starting today.

This time, I'm gonna do it. I hope you join me for the ride.