I learned an important lesson today: eating healthy does not mean going hungry. I was pleasantly full after each meal today and not once did I eat sugar, bread, or meat.
Lunch was thrown together before work:
Spinach salad with avocado and tuna salad, plain yogurt with fruit, and a juice and seltzer beverage. I still wasn’t hungry from breakfast, but I ate anyway since it’s hard to eat at work.
I had plans tonight to make stir fry for the apartment family and whip up a mushroom barley soup for lunches later in the week. To stop myself from eating everything in sight when I walked through the door (cupcakes from a friend, handfuls of cubed cheese, the dog), I munched on this:
My review? Delicious! I love most Larabars, but this flavor is near the top. I was really excited when I saw them in Price Chopper this weekend.
After my snack I started work on dinner.
Stir fry! I didn’t mention this earlier, but I’m avoiding meat, too. Normally I don’t eat much meat at all, but lately I’ve been ordering meals with bacon on them or craving chicken on pizza. It’s weird for me and truthfully I prefer a diet light on meat.
The Boyfriend made (unpictured) sweet and sour chicken to go with the stir fry, but I went with marinated tofu.
We ate our dinner with brown rice and this incredibly yummy peanut sauce:
The sauce was a recipe from this book:
I’ve had this book for a few years, back from the time when I was a vegetarian. It’s extremely resourceful and I recommend it for anyone, from a newbie vegetarian to a cheeseburger lover who needs a reference cookbook on grains. I took the recipe for my mushroom barley soup from here.
The players:
Barley
Mushrooms, carrots, onions, and garlic. I let it all simmer together while we ate dinner.
The photo may be a bit unimpressive, but the smell was incredible. I cannot wait to eat this for lunch tomorrow!
So what is the result from my first day of hitting the “refresh” button on my system? In one day I’ve definitely inspired myself to get back on the meal-planning and veggie-eating wagon. The only bump in the road was about seven minutes ago when I was cleaning up the kitchen. I saw cookies The Roommate made this weekend and moved to grab one before remembering my challenge.
Not being one to deprive myself a treat, I searched for ways to calm my sweet tooth and decided to whip up chocolate banana soft serve. If you read food or fitness blogs you may have seen this wandering around the blogosphere. All you need is a frozen banana and a blender/mixer/food processor.
I used my immersion blender with decent results. A food processor is just better, but my kitchen already looked like this and I didn’t feel like lugging the thing out:
Moving on… I added a spoonful of regular cocoa powder for a chocolate-y touch.
Delish! Jack and I ate dessert in the kitchen together. His tasty treat was the last licks of the peanut butter jar.
I’m off for an episode of Criminal Minds with The Roommies and then bed!
