So this morning I got on the scales and much to my delight, I discovered that I am now down 11.4 pounds. Wow. I am proud of myself for the first time in a long, long time. When I look down at the scale, the puffiness between my face and and my feet is visibly smaller. My muffin top is disappearing, and my body is starting have a shape again. This is a wonderful feeling.
So fast forward to lunch. I came home from church and took a look at my food journal. Ok, so I hadn’t filled it out yet, which means I needed to take a look in my refrigerator and figure out what I was going to have. There was a red bell pepper that needed to be eaten soon. Check, we’ll use that. Ok… and, um… some zucchini. Ok, check. We’ll take that too. Aaaaaaand, it’s been two days since I last had a fatty meat, so… ok, I’ll eat one of these burger patties. Excellent choices. Now I need a fruit. Strawberries? They’ve seen their better days. Blueberries? Not really feelin’ it. Cantaloupe, now there’s something I haven’t had in a while. Check that, and meal complete. A couple of excuses I’ve heard from people since starting this diet and telling them about it are A) I don’t have time to eat like that, and B) I can’t live like that forever because I won’t ever get full eating like that.
Well, for my next trick, I will literally obliterate these two reasons from your grab bag of “this is doomed to fail” fallacies.
So I get out my trusty knife and cutting board. I put a skillet on the stove and set it to warm with about a 1/2 teaspoon of coconut oil. In less than ten minutes I chop up the bell pepper and the zucchini. I get out a measuring cup. I know I can have the entire bell pepper and it will count as two vegetables. Excellent, no need to measure that. I toss the entire thing into the skillet and it starts to sizzle. Delicious. The zucchini is a little different. I can have one cup of that. I manage to cram the entire zucchini (all chopped up) into the cup. I throw it into the skillet and stare at it for a second, somewhat overwhelmed at the amount of food I realize I’m preparing. Ok, the burger patty. “Why not just chop it up and throw IT in the skillet too?” I ask myself. “Self,” I say, that’s a good idea. So i chop it up and into the skillet it goes. Wow, now the skillet is nearly full and I am quite sure I won’t be able to eat all of this food. And then I remember the cantaloupe. Oh geez. Ok, I get an 1/8th of the cantaloupe, so I cut it up and put it on a napkin. Oh yes, and I’m also supposed to have a starch with this meal, plus I need to eat 1T of smart balance. Holy cow. I get out a piece of bread, smear 1/2T of smart balance on it and put that on the napkin too. Then I dump the contents of the skillet into a bowl. It doesn’t all fit, so I have to eat a few bites before I can get the rest in. I pour a glass of water for myself, step back, and look at my spread.
I’m overwhelmed.
The aroma is nice. I added salt, thyme and Mrs. Dash to the skillet while the veggies and meat were cooking. The cantaloupe looks delicious, bright and orange. The bread is starting to look a little like something I’m just going to have to force down because already my stomach has this feeling of apprehension about the quantity of food in front of me. Oh, and did I mention that my entire meal — start to finish — took me 20 minutes to prepare?
About 15 minutes later, I’m eating the last bites of my lunch. Completely satisfied, even a little on the uncomfortably full side. And I realize, I am WORTH the time (which is actually not that demanding) and I don’t need processed food to feel “full.” Really, I don’t need to feel full at all. I just need to feel “fueled.” And I do. And I’m skinnier.
I can do this. And so can you.
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I hope you all have a fantastic weekend! See you next week!
