Complacency Kills

I was losing 2 to 3 pounds a week pretty steady there for a while, feeling pretty proud of myself. Then I hit a slump; some call it a “plateau”. What ever it is, it sucks. At first I wasn’t worried. I lost .01 pound in a week, but I thought, no worries, I’ll lose next week. But I didn’t. And I didn’t lose the week after that either. I didn’t gain, but I didn’t lose either. I was still exercising, still eating right. So what was the difference? I thought about it for a while and I realized: I stopped blogging and when I stopped blogging I stopped writing down what I ate. I was eating only healthy stuff so I didn’t need to write it down, right? WRONG! A handful of almonds here, a glass of wine there, it adds up! 2 months went by and I hadn’t lost a pound. When I first became determined to loose weight I made this really awesome spreadsheet to keep track of foods I eat with calorie count and it was just sitting there in my computer going to waste.  I had lists of the most common foods I eat with calorie count already there. All I had to do was record which foods I ate and the spreadsheet kept track of calories for me.  When I pulled up the spreadsheet I realized I hadn’t used it since I became a Vegan. Most of the foods listed had meat and/or cheese in them. So I took some time last weekend and updated the whole thing. I wrote all my new favorite vegan recipes with calorie count per serving and I organized the meals by usual breakfast, lunch, dinner and snack. Now all I have to do is call up the sheet (my computer is on most of the time anyway) and keep track as I go. Sometimes I get busy and end up recording it all at night, this is a challenge in that I don’t always remember what I had for breakfast or snack so I try to record as I go. Results: down 2.6 pounds this week! WooHoo. Such a simple solution! Oh I still have a handful of almonds (23 to be exact) and a nice glass of wine now and then, I just make sure I don’t have all my high calorie meals on the days I have those.  I try to keep my daily calorie count to between 1100 and 1400 calories. For me if it’s too rigid I won’t stick to it. So if I have 1400 calories one day I just try and keep it closer to 1100 the next day. So I’m going to try and blog more often again, but even if I don’t blog about it, I’m definitely going to record what I eat. No more complacent crap. NO MORE EXCUSES! 

Yummy Healthy Oatmeal Fig Bars

 

                         

My Beautiful Fig Tree                                               It has tons of figs! As promised here is my recipe for my yummy, healthy oatmeal fig bars: 8 to 10 ripe figs

1 ripe banana (bananas are a good egg subsitute for vegan recipies)

1 1/2 cups oatmeal

1/4 teaspoon baking soda

The remaining amounts are estimates. I just dumped it in and guessed at the amount

1 cup flower

1 teaspoon cinnamon

*1/2 teaspoon cloves

*1/2 teaspoon allspice

3 Tablespoons Agave Nectar

* Use cinnamon and whatever sweet spices you like

Preheat oven to 350

Cut stem top off figs

Place in large saucepan and simmer on low heat until soft and easy to mush (about 30 to 60 minutes)

Add very ripe banana and mash it all up together (banana is a good substitute for eggs in a vegan recipe)

Add remaining ingredients and stir until a thick pasty consistency

I used Pam on my Pampered Chef Bar Pan, but if your pan is well seasoned you might not need the Pam

Pour the mixture into a Bar Pan and spread until even

Place in preheated oven and bake for 20 minutes.

When you take it out it will be gooey in the middle but should be firm enough to hold in your hand on the outside.

Cut into squares, let cool, but eat warm. Refrigerate leftovers but they're tastier warm so I microwaved them for 15 seconds.

Yummy and Healthy Snack or for a healthy quick breakfast!

When these are gone I'll make some more and use these exact amounts. If it needs adjustment I'll post the changes.

Simple Culinary Magic

Watched a little bit of Harry Potter and The Sorcerers Stone today. When it got to the part where they were enjoying their first meal at Hogwarts, Ron Weasly reached for some yummy looking chicken and I just about caved. Chicken was always my favorite meal, almost anyway you fix it. I love chicken. My husband is not Vegan so I have some chicken in my freezer. I kept thinking about all the yummy things I could do with that chicken. Who woulda thought Harry Potter could knock me off course? Well I knew I had to come up with some magic of my own if I was going to make it tonight. Then I remembered something. My wonderful neighbor brought me some zucchini out of her garden the other day. Mmmmm, I really like zucchini too. And there’s almost as many ways to make something yummy with zucchini as there is chicken. I decided I would need a yummy healthy desert too so I went out to my backyard and found some ripe figs. Here’s what I did:

Preheat oven to 450 degrees

Cut zucchini into thin strips.

Place in Pampered Chef Stoneware Baker

Brush with olive oil

Sprinkle with Vegan Grated Parmesan Flavor Cheese Alternative

And Pampered Chef Crushed Peppercorn & Garlic Rub

On the other side of the Baker

Cut stem off 2 figs and slice down the center

Pour a generous amount of Agave Nectar on fig halves

Sprinkle with Pampered Chef Cinnamon Plus Spice Blend

Bake in oven for 20 minutes.

Take that Hogwarts Chefs. I’m still Vegan and I just enjoyed a really yummy healthy meal. I should have taken a picture of it to show you, but I was hungry!