A Curry Recipe

Once upon a time (some time around the 3rd grade I think) I wrote and illustrated a "book" for a school book fair; it was called "The Curry Monster". It told the story of the curry spice sitting on the grocery shelf and turning into a little monster that tortured children into eating it. The inspiration for the story was because my mom liked to make chicken curry and I hated it. Seriously hated it. But by about 6th grade I had grown to like the chicken curry dinners we would have. Tonight's dinner was a curry dish and I wanted to share it. (I also despise eggplant, but I followed the recipe and included it, and more importantly I ate it!)

This recipe is from the Weight Watchers Light & Easy cookbook.

Curried Vegetable-Rice Pilaf

• Vegetable cooking spray
• 2 t. vegetable oil
• 2 C cauliflower flowerets
• 2 C cubed unpeeled eggplant
• 1 C green pepper strips
• 1 C chopped onion (I used onion powder in deference to my husbands preferences)
• 2 cloves garlic, crushed
• 1/2 C water
• 1 C no salt added stewed tomatoes
• 1 1/2 t. curry powder
• 1/4 c. salt
• 15.5 oz can chickpeas, drained
• 2 T golden raisins
• Dash of ground cinnamon
• 2 C hot cooked brown rice (cooked without salt or fat)

1. Coat a large nonstick skillet with cooking spray, and add oil; place over medium heat until hot. Add cauliflower and next 4 ingredients to skillet, and cook 5 minutes or until lightly browned, stirring occasionally. Add 1/2 cup water; cover, and simmer 5 additional minutes or until vegetables are tender.
2.Stir in tomatoes, curry powder, salt, and chickpeas; simmer, uncovered, 10 minutes.
3. Stir raisins and cinnamon into rice in a large bowl; add vegetable mixture, stirring well to combine.

344 Calories; 64.6 g Carbohydrate; 5.6 g Fat; 9.5 g Fiber; 12.6 g Protein; 0 mg Cholesterol; 266 mg Sodium; 123 mg Calcium; 4.4 mg Iron.

The recipe says 4 servings, but it was much more like 6. We both really loved it (despite the curry and eggplant).

Starting fresh

Confession time: One of the biggest frustrations I have with myself is a lack of follow through.  I know that I can accomplish goals, but I easily allow myself to be distracted. This blog and the weight loss journey that it represents are perfect examples. I haven’t shared anything since April 11… today is September 7. That is a long time. The blog hasn’t been quiet because I have lost the weight and I have nothing more to add. It hasn’t been quiet because I am just too busy spending time at the gym or hiking on trails. It’s been quiet because I haven’t been pursuing my weight loss goals in recent months, even though I would rank them high on my priority list.

That’s just the way I am sometimes. Even though I want to accomplish something so badly for myself, I just don’t always have the commitment and follow through needed to make it happen. Now I know that nothing happens immediately, especially large goals. But sometimes I just don’t have the patience for months of hard work and dedication. I joke with myself that my husband is really lucky I’m committed to him, since he (and our dogs) seem to be the things I commit to most successfully.

So here I am again, gonna give it another try. Still hoping that blogging about my goals and struggles will help me stay motivated and on track. The summer has not been that bad to me, up until a couple of stressful weeks at the end of August. For a while there I was hitting the gym pretty regular and incorporating more weight lifting. I loved it and my arms got pretty buff. But then life happened and derailed my gym activities, but my arms are still kinda buff so it’s not all wasted.

Vital Stats:

Weight: 184 (up 4 since April, but I’m pretty sure that it could have been worse.)

Weekly goal: Just -1 pound.

Journal Plan: 3 times a week (sometimes here, sometimes just for me)

On a quest for me

Sorry I missed the birthday/"was the goal reached?" post last week. The birthday weekend was hard on the diet.

Really the whole week was hard on the diet. After committing to get focused back on the SparkPeople meal plan I remembered why I had started to add other recipes and ideas into the mix: Its Boring! From a nutritional, pure fuel for you body stand point its fantastic. But from a food for the soul angle, its bland. And repetitive. And there are some things I just don't eat; eggplant, tofu & mushrooms. They kept showing up too many times as the "meat" of a meal. By the time I took those out of the rotation I'm left with about 12 dinner options, that's alot of bland repetition (especially for my non calorie tracking husband). So where am I know with the diet? Well I'm back to square 1 - the non diet. I am counting calories, still using the SparkPeople tool for that. And I am following some eating rules I've learned along the way. I will be eating breakfast every day, following the structure that SparkPeople showed me. I will be taking my lunch to work (and making it something homemade, even if its just a turkey sandwich - frozen quick diet meals are a cop-out because I don't actually think about what I'm eating, other than "This is low cal"), and including vegetables with dinner, and practicing portion control on all fronts!

I did a little better recently on the exercise front. The birthday weekend included some museum/park walking and lots of manual labor around the house, in addition to some gym time and lots of dog walks. I think it was the exercise that allowed me to hold steady on the weight loss.

Since the birthday I've only continued the exercise and have started with the new food program. The other big thing I'm working on is just "me" things: taking the time to garden, read a book or magazine, try to wrangle up some hobbies. Things that will be good for my well being and hopefully help find motivation to keep  on track with the other areas.

Vital Stats:
Weight: 180.2 (So close!!!)
Inches Lost: 3.5 (Since 1/23)

It's hard to title a weight loss blog after a while... I guess we'll call this one "Couscous"

Well starting today I am back to eating solely off of the sparkpeople.com meal plan. I'm still struggling for that downward momentum, and I had the best continuous movement when I was sticking to the meal plan. I'm hoping to be able to stick to the plan with the cushion of one dinner each week to either be out, or something from one of my healthy cookbooks. Tonight we had chicken with asparagus and couscous (off the meal plan). I grilled the asparagus and then cut it up, stirred it into the couscous and tossed it with this great fig balsamic vinegar (this amazing thing that was given to me with some basil olive oil from a local place called The Olive Bar). It was so good! This couscous thing is pretty new to me, so its fun when I figure out ways to make it interesting.

There's a 5k/10k race at Folsom Lake in May and I'm thinking about registering for that. I figure we can go camping for the weekend right there and maybe get some kayaking in too.

The weather has been getting better here and also starting today I will be walking my dogs in the morning and the evening. They'll appreciate it and it'll be just an added activity for me.

I'm hoping that these two things will help jumpstart me out of the low 180's and moving down.

Vital stats:
Weight 181.0 (basically even from two weeks ago)
Fruits and Veggies on my shopping list: 15 total!
Days left before I'm 30: 372

Smoke Free Update

I was reviewing my statistics on my little stop smoking phone app. Thought I would share the current standings.

83 days smoke free
1078 cigarettes not smoked
$339.71 saved

WooHoo!!!

Great night at the gym tonight. A great ride on the bike, I was pouring sweat and grooving to my pop music!

Had a comfort food dinner that I was planning on and had budgeted my calories for; meatloaf, tater tots and good old steamed broccoli (well it was fresh, but you know what I mean). Sometimes its just good to fill your comfort zone with that familiar something you crave.

I know today is Thursday, but the data I am reporting is from Monday, just think of me as a weight loss version of TEPCO. After last weeks flux (thank you for the word SB!) I am down and making progress towards the big goal again!

Weight: 180.8 (down 2.2 from the flux!!)
Workouts that weren't "workouts": 3 - speed cleaning (a thorough clean at speeds that produce sweat) & earthquake preparedness (6 hours constant movement) & junk day (loading/unloading sheets of plywood and other junk)
Weeks until Birthday goal: 2 1/2

Yuck!

I'll just start with the news: weight: 183....

Up a little. This past week did not turn out to be an easy one. Just one of those weeks where life catches up and I couldn't focus on the weight loss goal.

Refocused for this week. Thats all I can do to move forward in this goal. I still have my short term goal of a birthday weight of 173. Thats now tackling 10 pounds in 4 weeks!