Three Weeks

Well, I've been at my new way of eating now for three weeks with barely a slip, and it's been great. It's really given me a chance to decide what kinds of things I NEED to include in my diet, and which I can decidedly do without, and I am grateful for that.

Just a matter of course, I've been eating a lot of vegetables and fruit and because of that, many of my meals are vegetarian. I'm not a HUGE fan of meat in general. I do like a good cut of steak anytime, but ground beef, any type of pork or poultry I could really manage without just fine. I do really enjoy fish, though.

I'm not going to declare myself a vegetarian or anything, but it seems natural that much of my eating veers toward that, and at the very least pescetarianism. That I could live with.

The one thing that I am looking forward to after the eight weeks is reintroducing bread, rice, and pasta into my diet once in a while. However, from now on I will indeed choose whole grain versions all the time. All the things I've been reading really point to that being crucial — eliminating those refined grains altogether if I can. I'm also aiming to cut out most processed, refined foods as well. It may too early, but I have a feeling that you'll be able to call me a whole food convert sooner than later. At the grocery store again yesterday? Just about entirely the perimeter of the store, with my little cart packed to the gills with fresh vegetables. I was beaming with pride.

I'm now drinking water all the time. Sometimes with lemon or lime, sometimes plain with ice, sometimes as seltzer. It's been an easy transition, even more so than the last time I gave up soda.

Tonight for a late dinner I made myself a stunning meal: A curry that I Frankensteined from this recipe and this recipe. I wanted to avoid using white potatoes obviously, but in my research decided that yams were OK as merely distant relatives of the potato AND a true superfood, so there. (Incidentally, and good for me — I love every single food on that list! Yum!)

Rather than saute the cauliflower and potato on the stove, I decided that roasting them would be a better option. I cut up just over four cups of florets and just under two cups of sweet potato, tossed them in extra virgin olive oil, and roasted them on a pan for thirty minutes in a 400 degree oven. Then, I set them aside while I prepared the curry sauce as directed in the shrimp curry recipe. When time came to add the shrimp and cilantro, I also added the cauliflower/potato mixture and some finely diced hot chile peppers (I like it HOT and SPICY!), let simmer a bit more, and that's it. It was a relatively easy meal to make and it was absolutely delicious. To me, it was almost better than the Indian takeout you can get around here. First, cooking at home allows you to customize and use the freshest ingredients, and second, it is SO much cheaper! I am very excited. Tonight, though, maybe a bit too much, as I ended up eating the entire batch. Oops. Yes, I still need to work on portion control when I am eating something that I really enjoy. I definitely know how to get carried away, but I guess at least it's better, healthier food that I am indulging on. Baby steps.

The best thing is that I didn't even miss having rice as an accompaniment! This dish didn't need it at all and was very filling on its own.

I am still really curious to know what the weight loss tally is so far, but C. did me the favor of hiding the scale. Yep. It was definitely for the better as I was getting a bit obsessed, and this is also a behavior that I want to eliminate.

Things are going pretty darned well. I am very proud of myself, and I feel great.