30 pounds!

Today's weight was 318.4... putting me at a 30-pound loss! Hooray.

I did have a bit more to eat than I have been prescribed, but I think it will be OK. I've been told in the past that if I get really hungry or want to eat more, it should be protein if possible. That's pretty much what I ended up doing today. For lunch, I had about 6oz. of chicken as opposed to the 3.5oz I should have had. I also squeezed in an extra Melba toast (gasp!). I considered eating just a nibble of meat for dinner, but had about 3.5oz. of a little steak plus a wee bit more veggies... roasted cauliflower, by the way. So tasty. And I did my steak in that delish balsamic vinegar I bought recently. I dress it with Lawry's salt and pepper, and minced garlic, then slap it into the sauté pan with no oil for a minute or two on each side to brown it. Then, it goes into the oven right in the pan for five to seven more minutes — I like my steak pretty rare, so this is ideal, and the balsamic caramelizes just enough. Oh my. It's good stuff.

I haven't yet talked about it, but it makes me so mad to hear how people talk about the way you have to eat on this program. On Dr. Oz's show, they literally had a plate of lame iceberg lettuce and some dull looking piece of meat and it looked so unappetizing! So people are all like, "Oh no, I can only eat lettuce!" So OK, maybe I am not as strict a follower of this thing as some people, but for goodness sake, throw some sliced onion or some cherry tomatoes in there and get some good balsamic to drizzle over it! Seriously, it's delicious. My meats are always very satisfying, too. Again, seasoning rules.

One thing I really do stray on is that for my roasted veggies (anything from broccoli to asparagus), I do drizzle just the slightest bit of olive oil on before I slide them into the oven. At first I tried them dry, then with some veggie broth, and I just felt like... mmmm... this is one thing that I will do my own way. I'm probably talking like a teaspoon of oil each time. Still, no oil means no oil, yet I am still getting amazing results so I'm not going to worry about it. Maybe I would lose even more, who knows? But this way I feel happier with what I am eating and not doing anything too horrible to get it that way.

I do want to stress again that I eat well! I would think it helps to be a fairly decent and imaginative cook at home — I do feel bad for someone who doesn't like to cook or doesn't know little tricks to doctor things up a bit, else this diet does seem really bland. That just hasn't been my experience, though. I laugh in the face of that plate of plain iceberg lettuce.

Please.