Experimenting and Progress

Last week was a week of really bad eating, I knew something had to change very quickly. I've been stuck on a plateau for almost three weeks and I could tell that I was starting to get discouraged. So, Thursday night I decided to get back on track. Instead of eating another prepackaged freezer meal, I decided to get creative in the kitchen.

After going through my little book of recipes that are WW friendly that I've been printing out from random sites and blogs, I found Chicken Breasts with a Coconut Chile Sauce (link here for the original recipe: Chicken Breasts with a Chile Coconut Cream Sauce). After making a few modifications (left out the scallions and cilantro, because I'm really not a fan) I started in on my adventure. HOLY COW!

 (Sorry, someday I'll learn how to take better food pictures)

This stuff is amazing and the best part is for a chicken breast and 1/2 cup of sauce it's only 4 points. I've been eating this stuff for dinner with 3/4 of a cup of brown rice and I'm still not sick of it (cooking for one is tough, so I have to be sure to find recipes I love since I'll be eating it for the next week).  If you like spicy food, this recipe is amazing. I used fresh hatch green chiles (medium) and even though it was almost too hot, I loved it. They say that adding spicy foods to your diet can help boost your metabolism (thank you capsaicin), so I'll gladly accept the extra heat.

Another new food that I'll be experimenting with is cauliflower. As a vegetable, I hate it. Now that I've discovered riced cauliflower, I feel that we may be able to become friends. Who knew that it could replace pizza crusts?

With some cheese and caramelized onions to top it, this completely satisfied my pizza craving and was SO good.  I bet I could make some tasty cheesy "bread" out of it, too! The asparagus were just baked with a tiny bit of olive oil spray in a hot oven for about 15 minutes, and they were great too.

All of this for 6 points tonight and the best part is- I'm FULL. I love creating dishes that make me feel fulfilled and are things that I would eat even if I wasn't dieting, helps me understand that I will be able to maintain in the future.

I think my next cauliflower experiment will be mashed, apparently they taste just like mashed potatoes!

For dessert tonight, I'm trying yet another new thing: oatmeal banana cookies (original link:oatmeal banana cookies).

Just 2 large bananas and a cup of oats plus whatever mix ins you choose (for me, PB2 and mini chocolate chips!) makes a ton of healthy cookies. Next time I make them, I will flatten them out before baking so that they're a little less like "bites" than "cookies" but they taste great all the same. If you would like them to be more crunchy, I would flatten them out pretty thin as my "bites" are soft and chewy. Considering this is oatmeal and bananas, I could even consider this a sweet breakfast treat if I needed an excuse.

After all of this, I've made it over my plateau and I'm at my lowest weight yet. About 18 lbs down and only 30ish to go! Off to another week of adventures and keeping my food choices clean, maybe this week I'll introduce even more working out...