Week 1 of the 6-Week Plan

(written on 5 June)

I'll start right off by saying I haven't been sticking to it flawlessly. I'll own up to eating some brownies and pizza over the weekend... Thankfully, that was as bad as it got. And they were deviations, not the norm. I also shared the brownies with my dogs, so that's good, right?

Overall, I've made some pretty major changes in my diet. A few weeks before this I stopped buying the frozen smart ones entrees (which, you may think is gross, but I really, really like some of them - mostly the pasta dishes). I started making more of an effort to make lunch and bring it with me. Sometimes that worked, other times I ended up in the cafeteria downstairs. This past week I never bought lunch. That was definitely made easier by staying at home one day, and going home early on some other days, because then I would just eat something at home. This week... it's only Tuesday and I don't have a lunch. I was exhausted when I got home last night and figured that the fresh fruit that I had bought yesterday could work as breakfast and lunch and that I'll make something - with leftovers - when I get home today.

I haven't really been too adventurous so far. I've been sticking with what's easy and familiar. I made a stir fry last week with onions, cabbage, zucchini and pineapple. Sometimes I'd eat it plain, other times I'd have it with quinoa pasta.

(written on 6 June)

 Last night I got home around 5 and didn't leave the kitchen until after 8. I only sat down for 5 minutes for eating. Other than that I was cooking. Or cleaning during/after cooking.

I was looking at my sister's blog for meal ideas (the stir fry was already getting old) and had smelled some really good things being heated up in the microwave (I'm very close to the break room here which means I smell everything being heated - for better or worse -- and trust me, sometimes it's been for the much worse.) so I wanted something that I could cook and would have good smells. In this post she mentioned sweet potato quesadillas being a big hit with her family. I looked at the recipe she linked to and didn't love that I'd have to cook the potatoes first (remember, I was surviving off fruit for the first 9/10 hours of my day yesterday and was really hungry) so I googled other recipes for sweet potato quesadillas. I found this one, and ended up kind of combining the two.

On the way home from work I managed a trip to the store that followed my grocery list exactly - always a trick for me when I'm shopping hungry. The one thing I added at the end was a French loaf of whole grain bread for a snack while making dinner.

My version of the sweet potato quesadillas -
(note: I didn't measure everything exactly, so amounts are approximate. when I'm dealing with vegetables, I don't hesitate to add more than it calls for, so I didn't actually measure the onions, peppers or sweet potatoes)

Ingredients:

• 1 1/2 cups finely chopped onions
• 2 garlic cloves, minced
• 1 cup red or green bell peppers, chopped (I used both red and green - I forgot to add the orange that I had also bought.. The more color the better, right?)
• 2 teaspoons dried oregano
• 1 1/2 teaspoons chilli powder
• 1 1/2 teaspoons cumin
• 4 cups peeled and grated sweet potatoes
• salt
• pepper
• cheese - I used a tiny, tiny bit to help the tortillas stick to the sweet potato mix
• 8 flour tortillas (my mix filled 7 - I was generous with the filling. and I used whole wheat tortillas)

Directions:

•  Saute onions, peppers and garlic until onions are transparent (I sprayed the pan with a little Pam so I didn't have to use oil.)
• Stir in oregano, chili powder and cumin
• Add sweet potatoes, cover and cook for 10 minutes stirring frequently so it doesn't stick (I would add a little water occasionally if I hadn't stirred it soon enough and that helped pick up the things that had started sticking to the pan.)
• Add salt and pepper to taste
• In another pan (I don't think I sprayed the second pan at all) I put a tortilla in to barely start to toast one side then I flipped it over, put a tiny (literally, tiny) bit of cheese down, dumped in the filling on half of the tortilla, sprinkled another tiny, tiny bit of cheese on the filling,  folded it and toasted both sides.

I ate mine plain, but you can serve it with salsa, sour cream, guacamole, etc.

Very good.

My dad had one too and said it had a meat-like texture which he liked. So it may be a good way to sneak in vegetables for people who don't necessarily love them...

After making one, I ate it, and then made up the others for leftovers. Then I took this recipe for layered vegetable enchiladas and put the filling together. I didn't layer anything, and just mixed in the beans with the vegetables (again, no measuring for me - be generous with veggies!). I'm planning to use the mix as a burrito filler or something simple like that. I wanted to get a few things ready so I couldn't use exhaustion or lack of time as an excuse for the rest of the week. So I'm feeling pretty good about what I was able to do last night.

That's it for now.

But to sum up, week 1 went pretty well even though it wasn't perfect. And I ended up losing 3.8 lbs. Not too shabby, right?!