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Wednesday, December 11, 2013

Kitchen-Aid Mixer and Weekly Weigh-in

It's official: Dann is trying to sabbotage us. My christmas present came in the via UPS yesterday, and rather than hiding it and wrapping it up for Christmas he just handed me the cardboard box right there in the parking lot. Let it be known, that this isn't entirely uncommon on my side of the family. We are notorious for not wrapping things and giving gifts mere hours after we buy them. None of us can keep a secret for long. So what was in this brown box of doom? A Kitchen-Aid Mixer: The end-all-be-all of kitchen appliances. The one thing I have pined over for years; It's also a diet-breaker if I ever saw one. But I'm up to the challenge of finding some diet-friendly recipes to make with it. Or maybe  I'll finally start pursuing my dream of learning to bake a proper loaf of bread. I know Dann will have no objections with that.

The past few weeks I've been getting my recipes from Kalyn's Kitchen and both Dann and I have enjoyed a plethora of her recipes. Kalyn focuses on low-glycemic and South Beach Diet cooking. I've mainly been selecting recipes from her "Phase One" recipes. For me its been a little difficult eating this way. I'm a whore for fruits and vegetables which are few and far between in this phase of the South Beach diet. While not following the diet word by word, I do believe in some of it's priciples. And it's true, the phase one eating plan has helped me cut down my cravings quite a bit. Dann's favorites have been Spicy Sauteed Chickpeas with Beef and Cilantro and Pinto Pean and Ground Beef Stew with Cumin and Cilantro, which we have started calling Hamburger Helper because it tastes like an amped up version of the cheeseburger flavor with  pinto beans instead of the noodles. I thickened the broth a bit to make it that type of consistency for him. I was eating the heck out of Garden Cucumber Salad with Tuna and Sweet Basil last week. Its super easy to make and was deliciously fresh for my vegetable deprived palate. I even enjoyed it with with arugula in place of the basil when Dann mistakenly bought the wrong thing at the store mid-week!

We took a weekend trip up to Kansas City for the MLS Cup. Our favorite team, Sporting Kansas City made it to the Championship game and prevailed! We had a blast, despite the high that hovered around 22 degrees. Going out of town meant the inevitable breaking of the diet, but I tried to make good choices when eating out, but I can't lie; I couldn't pass up a slice of Blueberry White Chocolate Cheesecake from the Cheesecake factory. It was totally worth it. 

I've taken up a 21 day exercise challenge. Many sources say that it takes this amount of time for an action to become habitual. Since I lack the motivation to exercise more than anything, I decided to focus on that for the next 21 days. I am allowing myself 3 'pause' days. The premise  of the challenge is that if you fall off the wagon or use all your pause days before the 21 days are up, you have to start over at Day 1. I have challenged myself to 21 days of cardiovascular exercise. Three days in. . . I'm 1/7th of the way there! Progress,  at any rate, is promising.

So the question remains, have my efforts over the last week paid off? Did the diet-breaking trip up to Kansas City hold me back? Weighing in today at 269.6 lbs. That's 2.8 pounds lighter than last week! 

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