a year later and now fatter...

Hello,
blogosphere..... have you missed me?

Well its been a year since I have visited, how was your year?
while you are thinking of all the gloriousness of 2014, let me recap my year.

I got cancer. Brest cancer that is.
had my boobs chopped off and replaced with bigger implants. it wasn't that bad really, it saved me from having chemo or radiation, and I got new boobs in the process.

Still living in the same place, still with my crazy RH and the kids. oh yeah I got laid off too. So now I"m on a continual hustle, until RH gets his act together.

I'm also pushing 200lbs, and am miserable.

So this year, I decided on something different. I decided I'm just going to tackle this food/diet thing like a job, scratch that,  like a project.

I went to see Dr. Menezes (my fine ass doctor, damn! he's cute), I went to see him because of my annual respiratory infection, that of course likes to make an appearance around Christmas time. A Shot in the butt, a breathing treatment,  prednisone and antibiotics later.... I asked him what he would recommend for weight loss. His answer? the south beach diet.

I gotta admit, I hate anything with "diet" in the title; but if this is what my own doctor is recommending then, yeah, why not.

besides after I thought it thru, this is what I came up with.
we are all products of our environment. To say we are all influenced by our experiences growing up. with food in particular, for me it was a form of love.  if you ever hang around any Latinos you know we like to feed you. anyone who comes over, friend or stranger, you know its a bee line to the kitchen where you get bombarded with a little coffee? something to eat? have you eaten today? yes, you have?.... well here's a little of this to hold you over....

My mom was always cooking, we used to grow vegetables in the back yard. She made breakfast, lunch and dinner everyday. And everything was an extended extravaganza of food. nothing was just simple.

breakfast: eggs, grits, toast, cheese, bacon, sausage and biscuits.
lunch: sandwich and soup or sandwich and salad or some meat and vegetables
dinner: Meat, rice,beans,salad, vegetables and dessert.

YES all of that almost everyday

we used to joke that she should just pull up a bed in the Kitchen. Come to think of it, it would have saved her some time.

In any case, what my thought process was that basically what we learn growing up is our first go-to reaction to pretty much everything. so when I go to make dinner everyday I immediately think of, ok, what meat? what starch? what vegetable?

I never think of something simple or healthy, simply because I can't regurgitate those types of recipes from memory.

but what if I retrain my brain. what if I forget all my mental conditioning and absorb something new?

here's where my project came to be. I spent $8 on amazon, buying the south beach diet book and an additional south beach cooking guide.

My mission: to cook every recipe in the south beach book and only eat those foods.
Time: One Year.


Once I get the book, from cover to cover, I will cook every meal in that book and track my progress.

Black bean booyah!

It's going to be FREEZING tomorrow...
Lets make it quick today:

Breakfast ~
Baby carrots & sliced turkey with lite ranch dressing

Lunch ~
Kabobs with tzatziki sauce

Dinner ~
Burgers (lean ground beef mixed with)
Green olives
Raisins
Onions
Garlic powder
Cumin / coriander
Goya seasoning *

Believe me the best tasting combination on earth is olives and raisins together.. Not sure why, but good God it's Devine!!

Also invest in some Goya adobo seasoning, it will save you tons of time!

For the black beans sautee:
1/4 red onion
2 cloves garlic
2 Roma tomatoes (chucky cut)
2 green onions (save a pinch for serving)
1/4 bell pepper
2 springs of cilantro chopped (save pinch for serving)
1 can black beans

In the pan you cook the burgers (after you take the burgers out)
Sautee everything except the beans for about 8 minutes or so.

Dump out can of beans (juice and all) and cook for another 15 minutes.

Serve beans in shallow dish, top with burger, garnish with bit of cilantro and scallions and dolop odd sour cream.

Good to go. Under 300 calories  :-)

Kabob dinner...

It's Sunday and I have declared my independence!

I have a fulltime job, get home by 6 pm, make a bee line to the kitchen where I proceed to spend no less than another hour making a full blown (from scratch) dinner. That's a meat, a starch and a vegetable. Everyday.

I am a cliche. Hispanic, so naturally I know how to cook and clean, and I do them well.... In all honesty I don't think my RH  truly appreciates what that means.

It means you don't live in a pig pen, it means you and your children aren't eating things that came out of a box, it means more work for me.

As I went into full on cleaning mode yesterday, starting spring cleaning early, getting up before 9 am to get organized with my day, knew us have a FULL day.

Cleaning, shopping for groceries, hardware store, storage unit, more cleaning, lunch for the kids, laundry, back to the store, cleaning, go to the bank ... By time I started dinner at 6, I was only partially thru the mountain of laundry. I'm checking on the chicken, getting clothes in the basket to fold and as I walked thru the living room and down the hall way there I saw it.....

All 3 of them, very comfortable watching TV, in their freshly cleaned rooms, just waiting to get fed.

That's when it hit me. They really do think I'm a full maid service. WTF.

something in me just snapped. That's it, I'm changing some things up around here.

I declared the kitchen closed on Sundays. To each his own, let them fend for themselves. Which brings me to dinner today...

I don't know what they are having,.but this maid-elect, is having pork kabobs with veggies.

The best marinade in the world:
Soy sauce
Red vinegar
Olive oil
Garlic powder
Cumin/coriander (those 2 always go together)
Pinch of salt
Drizzle honey

Skewer eggplant, zucchini, onions, mushrooms and pork after you've marinated them for about 20 minutes.

Grill and eat  :-)

Top with the tzatziki sauce when serving!

Breakfast. I wasn't hungry, but one of the things I know that you should do is eat breakfast.

made a fresh easy "salad"

fresh tomatoes
fresh basil
mozzarella (cut into cubes)
some sliced turkey (only about 1/2 cup)
drizzle balsamic & olive oil

and you are good to go....

remember, I only made enough that would fit in my "diet plate" - so all in all I only ate about 4oz of food.... drank a cup of coffee and voila! Breakfast is done.


PS. please note I don't like traditional breakfast food for breakfast, its over rated.


** did a 3 mile walk in the park ** my legs are going to be killing me tomorrow.

LUNCH: 

1/4 fresh red onion
2 1 large roma tomato dice in big pieces
2 cloves garlic diced
few springs of cilantro

** sautee this with a bit of olive oil

1 fresh lime
dash of cayanne pepper


add small hand full of cooked shrimp and squeeze half a lime into it and dash of cayanne.
and after about 6 minutes (shrimp is thawed/cooked) add a big hand full of fresh spinach.

cook for another 2 minutes or so, until spinach is slightly wilted.

when you serve it, squeeze the other half of the lime.

>> lets see what I do for dinner :)

I made Tzatziki.

Peel a cucumber dice it into little cubes. 
take 2 garlic cloves and mix them with a little olive oil (about 1 tbs) and blend in a mini food processor (works best) 

To the cucumber add: 
the garlic / olive oil mix 
1 cup plain yogurt
some fresh Dill (just eyeball that, do it to taste)

make sure you add salt. 

the longer it sits in the fridge the better it taste. :)

** this is good on pretty much any meat. and grilled veggies too. I make it so if I got a craving to munch on something whilst watching TV I'll get a bit of this and some baked pita chips. **

BTW - get yourself the smallest tupperware container you can find, to use for dips. they sell some teeny tiny ones that can only hold about 3oz worth of stuff and this is the way to go.

Portion control... and the slower you eat the fuller you'll get faster!

So, my long awaited Christmas vacay was less than exciting....

It started with the kids bringing home their cooties and sharing them with my rotten half. On the 22 and 23rd the kids had it, by Christmas eve he got it.. the full blown flu. Shivers, sweats, fever -- the works.

This brings me to the nice upper respiratory infection which helped me ring in the new year. All of this to say  that I have not smoked a cigarette since December 27th. I'm hoping I can finally kick the habit.

Next up on my list, is the fact that I have, what my friend calls "my food baby" attached to my front side. That my friends is the huge pouch that is protruding from underneath my shirt, my fat, rolly polly, pudgy, jiggly belly.

I hate to diet. I absolutely hate it, I love to eat. I love food. I love to cook. I am a foodie by nature. So knowing all the things that I know about diets I am making it a point to do this the right way. Not to diet, but to actually change my habits and my palate.

So far, I've traded the smokes for Perrier water with lemon. Its fizzy, calorie free, and if it goes flat it taste just like water.... I find that the fizzy water makes me more thirsty for some reason, so now I find that I'm drinking more water than I have before.  I have sworn off soda. Not that I was a huge proponent of soda to begin with, but when my rotten half (RH from here on out) drinks it like its going out of style, its easy to find yourself drinking the same things...

I went to the farmers market and got the following:
eggplant
bell peppers
red onions
zucchini
tomatoes
fresh spinach
romaine lettuce
flat leaf parsley
carrots
celery
cucumbers
mozzarella
shrimp
garlic
turkey (for sandwiches)
sunflower seeds
plain yogurt
fresh basil
fresh dill

I'm going to make as much as I can using these ingredients and work on changing the way I eat.

To help me out while eating at home, I have picked out my favorite plate (this is odd I know, but this particular piece of dinnerware is dear to my heart) This particular plate is like a very shallow bowl and can only hold about a handful of food at a time. This will help me with portion control.

I'll work on posting the meals that I come up with and hopefully this can help someone else that's on the same journey....

Good Luck!!!!!