Meal Planning & New Recipes

I designated this morning as official meal planning time. I did some searching on Cooking Light to come up with a few new recipes. Also went to Pinterest and plan to actually prepare some of the healthy recipes I have pinned! What a novel idea.

Trying new recipes is something I hope will help me not get bored with the foods that I am eating. I know that portion control will be super important for me to enjoy some of these casseroles and potatoes cooked with real butter. (slurp) And I will have to exercise much restraint in "sprinkling the cheese on top of them before baking. The recipe never seems like it calls for enough cheese on top to me. :)

Here are some of the new things I'm going to try. Looks like a major carb-fest but I will be eating these things with lots of leafy greens. I think I can...I think I can....

Baked Pasta w/ Spinach & Lemon 



Ham & Gruyere Gratin 


Baked Cheese Sticks


BBQ Potatoes  Super excited to try these!

Baked Chicken Tacos 


Here's my tentative meal plan for the rest of the week. Hope this helps me stay on track. I'm headed to the grocery store today. Planning, planning, planning!


Tuesday
cereal
grilled chicken salad
bbq pork on wheat bun, cowboy potatoes

Wednesday
oatmeal
bbq pork pizza/salad
chili

Thursday
egg muffin
chili
baked pasta with spinach/grilled chicken

Friday
toast/pb/banana
leftover pasta
Ham Gruyere Gratin/salad

Saturday
egg muffin
lettuce wraps
grilled chicken, salad, baked cheese sticks

Sunday
cereal
Au Gratin/salad
chicken taquitos/chili (take to Lifeline group)

Monday
oatmeal
lettuce wraps (leftover)
grilled chicken salad

This is the week to return to my beloved tracker. I haven't decided if I am going to post it on my blog or in Facebook page yet, but posting it somewhere everyday will definitely keep me accountable.

That's all for now...

Weigh-In: .6 lb. Loss

202.4

Honestly, I expected to be out of the twos today but, alas, it wasn't to be.

No. What I weigh does not define me. But it is important for my health and well being. At this point, my weight needs to be moving in a downward direction. No need for analysis, no "buts" about it. It is what it is. I've had to learn the hard way that having expectations about weigh-in is a bad idea. I have tried so many different approaches with weighing-in:

-have someone else write it down but I don't look (denial)
-weigh-in every day (obsession)
-get rid of my scale (avoidance)

A weigh-in, if we allow it to, can be one of those dramatic mountain top or valley experiences. But a weigh-in shouldn't be that. It is more of a mundane little moment that we can learn from. We can simply take what it gives us, accept it for what it is...not much. But something.

One weigh in on it's own never really amounted to much. But a whole bunch of them together is what amounts to something. And I've never heard of it being weight gain.

On we go...

Come Awake

This video is pretty poor quality--I didn't know what I was doing.

Anyway...

I always thought I would make a something kind of like this when I got to my "goal weight" but today just seemed like as good a day as any. Warning: there is music.

Banana-Nut Pancakes

My mom and I LOVE the Harvest Grain N' Nut pancakes from I Hop. When I saw this recipe it seemed like it could be a tremendous help in getting me close to a recreation. I was right! A couple of additions and tweaks produced a deliciously similar representation of the popular pancake house version. While they are not low calorie, I feel good about the ingredients and as with anything, moderation is key. Each pancake is approximately 150 calories. Bonus: they are gluten free.

Banana-Oat-Nut Pancakes 

Ingredients

• 3 small bananas (9.5 ounces), mashed
• 2 tablespoons butter, melted
• 1 tablespoon lemon juice (about 1 small lemon, juiced)
• 1 teaspoon honey 
• 2 eggs
• 1 tsp. vanilla
• 1 cup oat flour*
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 3/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1/4 c. chopped pecans

Instructions

1. In a small-ish bowl, stir together the mashed bananas, butter, lemon juice and honey and vanilla. Beat in the eggs.
2. In a medium bowl, whisk together the oat flour, baking soda, salt and cinnamon. Add pecans.
3. Form a well in the center of the dry ingredients and pour in the wet ingredients. With a big spoon, stir just until the dry ingredients are thoroughly moistened. Do not overmix or you’ll get tough pancakes!
4. Let the batter sit for 10 minutes. 
5. Heat a heavy cast iron skillet (or nonstick griddle) over medium-low heat. If necessary, lightly oil the surface with vegetable oil or cooking spray.
6. Once the surface of the pan is hot enough that a drop of water sizzles on it, pour 1/4 cup of batter onto the pan. Batter is thick, so you may have to gently spread out around edges for desired thickness. Let the pancake cook for about 3 to 4 minutes, until bubbles begin to form around the edges of the cake.
7. When the pan is just beginning to set, flip it with a spatula and cook for another 90 seconds or so, until golden brown on both sides. You may need to adjust the heat up or down at this point.
8. Serve the pancakes immediately or keep warm in a 200 degree Fahrenheit oven if you like. I topped with sliced banana, drizzle of honey and a sprinkle of pecans.

Notes

• Adapted from Cookie + Kate recipe
• Yields about 8 pancakes.
• These pancakes are gluten-free, so long as you buy oat flour or old-fashioned oats that have not been contaminated with wheat.
• *To make oat flour out of old-fashioned oats, simply pour one cup of oats into a food processor and process until it is ground well. One cup before and after grinding measures just about the same.
• This whole grain batter is thicker than most, so it’s more difficult to gauge when the pancakes are ready to flip. Set timer for for 3 minutes for the first side, then flip and wait another 90 seconds for the other side to finish. The time will vary depending on your temperature setting, but that’s about the time it should take for pancakes that are fully cooked and golden on each side.

Therapy Thursday

Why are you overweight?
What a loaded question! The obvious answer is that I eat too much food. I am a compulsive over-eater. I actually worship food. (Hard to think of that way but it's true) Food is the thing I turn to when I am...anything. Emotions play a part, messed-up mentality plays a part and lack of self-discipline plays a part. The REAL reason I am overweight is that I have a worship disorder. I put food in the place of God. As the popular book title suggests, I have been made to crave. But nothing in this world can satisfy the craving that I have. Not money, not beauty, not love and certainly not food. For some reason, all to often, I believe the lie that food can.

Why do you want to lose weight?
So I can sleep better, so I can tie my shoes without grunting, so I can feel confident, so I look "normal", so I will have more energy, because it gives me a sense of accomplishment, it makes me feel alive and like the "real me," for my family, so that I can serve the Lord and others with all that I am meant to be, so getting dressed to go somewhere isn't dreadful. I want my body to look and function as the Lord intended it to.

Losing weight is actually only a bi-product of the thing that I really want which is sobriety. For me that means, at first, yielding to self-control by God's grace. What I want most, eventually, is to get to a place of self-control that is not so hard-fought. Self-control that feels almost natural. I know what that feels like and it is so good.  It hasn't always, but at this point sobriety means even more to me than losing weight. Redemption from this addiction just happens to mean weight loss.

Why have you regained weight lost?
Because I'm a rebel, I'm selfish and I just plain quit. I turned away from a perfectly wonderful way of life  because I thought I could come up with a better plan.  I had grown weary. I wanted a break.  I wanted to be free.

What I didn't realize or perhaps forgot is that I was free.