We are having a gorgeous, sunshine-filled warm weekend here in Virginia. Outside you can hear birds singing. Spring is definitely on its way. A quick recap on how things are going so far in my Lenten healthy eating project.
Saturday was a busy day full of errands. I started the day with my crave-able pumpkin pie shake and then ran my children to lessons and went grocery shopping.
Fueling up for the morning with the protein-packed pumpkin pie shake.
We went to two grocery stores. The first was Costco. Our local Costco has extremely delicious pastries, cakes and cookies. Of course, we were not buying those. But we did need bread for the children to eat. I had to convince my 5-year old that potato bread was not something we should eat every day. She didn’t want wheat bread because it has too many “nuts” in it. (I love to eat the hearty breads.) I told her we would find a soft whole wheat bread and we did. It is a small change but it has fewer calories and sugars and more dietary fiber. So far, the children have not minded the switch.
Just to show that my children are not totally restricted . . . letting them enjoy churros while we shopped at Costco.Another switch we are trying….natural peanut butter containing only peanuts and salt (no sugar). This Costco brand is great. You stir it up the first time then keep it in the fridge so the oils don’t separate. Unlike other natural peanut butters, this one doesn’t harden in the fridge and is still spreadable.We were completely surprised at our second grocery stop to find the store was coincidentally having a “veggie party” with stickers, recipes and free tastings.These brussels sprouts sauteed in oil were delicious. The recipe can be found here.Veggie lo mein, combining vegetables with noodles was also a hit. Recipe here.My daughter was ecstatic about the green smoothie. As she explained, “It is full of ingredients that I don’t like but then they get blended together and I like it!”
I came back from grocery shopping ravenous. Fortunately, I had a lot of leftover meals to eat and was also repeating many meals I had made already which saves stress and time in the kitchen.
Repeating the egg white omelet for my lunch.Almonds for an afternoon snack.
I finally was starting to feel a few hunger pangs on Saturday, even after eating. I was feeling a bit tired and in ordinary circumstances would be looking to eat some carbs, like cookies or bread, or some form of sugar and chocolate to keep me going. That wasn’t an option. I had to pep talk myself and also give myself some tough love. My internal dialogue went a bit like this. “You think it’s hard to cook and eat delicious, healthy food? Are you crazy? With all the problems in the world you are going to complain about this? Get a grip! It’s only for a short time. Find something to do.”
So, I went to my distraction technique, spring cleaning. My first target was crying out for cleaning!
My dirty car, encrusted with salt and sand from the recent snowstorms.I scrubbed the car inside and out, vaccuuming, using Tough Stuff on the carpets, pressure washing the floor mats and cleaning the leather seats. Here, the (car safe) pressure washer is great for the exterior. My husband helped to install new windshield wiper blades for me. My son had fun riding his tricycle in the sun.After! My gleaming car.Since the pressure washer was out, I went ahead and power washed the kitchen stool my children climb up on.. . . and the concrete patio too. It develops a sort of algae, fungus, dirt pattern in the winter. I was tired of seeing it from my kitchen window.
For dinner, I had two new recipes to try.
The best recipe so far . . . . sweet potato and black bean turkey chili. On top is “cashew moment” and jalapeno slices. You could easily serve this to company.To save time in the future, I ladled the leftovers into bowls and wrapped them in plastic wrap so all I have to do is microwave them.For my husband, I made the steak salad. I am not sure if I have ever cooked a steak before. One of the great things about the It’s All Good cookbook is that there are excellent cooking instructions. It feels like the chef is right there telling you exactly what to do. I followed the directions for the steak even though it wasn’t something I wanted to eat. My husband said I did pretty good for my first try. He said it was a bit too salty and I didn’t cook it hot enough. I told him I was afraid if I cooked it that hot it would be raw in the center. “That’s the idea,” he explained.Another Mediterranean turkey burger salad for a late-night snack.
Today is one of my 5-2 fasting days. I was looking forward to a day off from cooking but also a little nervous as I have never combined both healthy eating and fasting. I wasn’t sure if I would have enough energy for the day. I woke up a little tired from the Daylight Savings Time change.
The day began with my daughter requesting the green smoothie she had yesterday. We loaded up the blender with all the right ingredients.Apparently I didn’t get the proportions right as my smoothie came out brownish orange! However, it was still delicious (I had a small taste) and my daughter drank the whole thing!A healthy cereal and smoothie breakfast.
It was time for me to weigh in. I was not surprised to see that I had lost a few pounds. While it is tempting to see how low I can go, I just need to lose 3 more pounds to get to my goal weight. I hope to get to that soon so that the rest of my time in Lent will be working on figuring out the right calorie intake to maintain that weight.
I wasn’t quite up to cleaning energy wise so I took on another necessary task for the afternoon . . . working on taxes and other paperwork.
A healthy lunch my daughter requested . . . salmon and olives.My husband joined me in fasting today. Here was our fasting meal. I had a ripe avocado waiting to be used so I found the miso avocado smoothie recipe from the GOOP winter detox and made that as a soup. The salad greens are dressed in lemon juice and black pepper, another low-calorie trick I learned from my cooking adventures this week. I added beans to my husband’s salad for a few more calories.
Hope you had a marvelous weekend as well!
*I have no affiliation with Costco, Wegman’s, GOOP or any other product mentioned in this post.
